#either that or i imagine showing them to the priest at my old church | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

claudethecrabdemoness · 2 months

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Ok so I think I found a way to fix Vox LOLLOLOL.

And by fix him, I mean make him much, much worse.

🔌 📺😝🎩⚡️

So I was drabbling in my head w Claude and Vox and they got to deep talking about their previous lives and regrets and all sorts of existential meanderings, when Vox surprised me by saying “I was a Christian, ya know. A good one. Never even missed a Sunday- come late night or hangover or hellwater. *chuckle* Fat lot of good it did me, right?”

And then I was like oh. OHHHH.

He should’ve been a televangelist.

So now this is canon as far as I’m concerned, and can even make perfect use of the little priest getup from his song number. After all, that is essentially what he’s doing with the V’s: amassing a hell-wide cult through the power of his broadcast monopoly. And explains why Claude had never heard of him before- he’s not your average kind of celebrity.

I picture he got his start on local access TV, in the early 40s, just right after Al would’ve had his heyday with radio. He was an East Coast boy, no doubt, and mastered the quick-talking pander of the telecasters at the time. He often ran small broadcasts for local churches- fundraisers, telethons, what have you- and the Christian community ate up his All-American boyish charm. Especially the ladies. He married one who went to his church and really believed his words had the power to change lives, urged him to start his own televised worship, and boy did he thrive. They quickly became a household name, and he basically kick-started the whole televangelist movement into high gear. Like the bastard he is. Soon he gained a country-wide following and had money pouring in from the faithful by the buckets, and of course it all went straight to his head. Hence why it’s a TV now as punishment. That’s when he began exploiting his pulpit, believing himself a prophet, staying with his wife only to maintain their image, buying houses and toys and cars all with parishioner’s money, staying awake for days on cocaine and coming back down with barbiturates, the whole nine yards.

It eventually caught up to him when his followers tried to commit a mass murder/suicide in his name, and a lengthy court appeal didn’t really smooth over their new reputation as a dangerous cult. Which is so unfair. It wasn’t like he told them to go all Old Testament, buuut… it’s not like his message was that far off from it either. Idiots. From then on, he started overworking, overthinking, and overdoing the whole thing right into the ground. His wife left him, he lost a ton of money in legal fees, and he had to hire protection now to keep up with the death threats from angry loved ones of his devotees. All the stress and resentment drove him into religious fanaticism, and his sermons just got more and more ego-driven and manic, asking for larger tithes and claiming it would be help him work the Lord’s magic even faster. He eventually was killed by a hit put out on him by an up and coming newer cult- ironically a spinoff of his original one- proving that he was very much mortal, but his faithful followers still believed he was a messiah of some kind.

And that’s because- in his haze of drugs and self-destruction- he believed he was one too. He was sure that what he was doing was for all the Right Reasons, even if the methods were unorthodox. But hey- even Jesus flipped tables and rebelled against the Romans, so who’s to say his path is any less holy? He was SURE that he’d still be getting a ticket to Heaven, despite some minor setbacks…

So you can imagine his rage when he very much woke up in Hell.

All his hard work, all his devotion, all his MONEY- for what?? Damned to live with a TV instead of his beautiful face and nothing to show for his decades of faith??

What the fUCK??

It was then that he realized God was the biggest scam of all and immediately renounced his faith, spending the first few years of demonhood sinning and drinking as much as possible. He had no idea how to cope with it all, and saw no point to trying, really. What good is having a TV head when you can barely stand the thought of using it- just a constant reminder of the empire you left crumbing behind you.

And that’s when he met Alastor.

Now here was someone else cursed by his favorite medium and a deer form that boasted anything but the predator he saw himself as- only this man was anything but deterred by it. The Radio Demon’s broadcasts may have terrorized everyone else in Hell, but they invigorated something deep inside Vox. Something he hasn’t felt since his first televised sermon… something like worship.

He had to seek him out.

This then ties in perfectly with his one-sided crush/obsession with Al, their doomed stint at friendship, and the impending rejection he receives at the end. AGAIN. First God, now Alastor…? You’d think that second blow would reduce him into an even greater depression than before, but instead, it flips a switch inside him. That’s when Vox decides ENOUGH. He’s done pandering, he’s done negotiating, he’s done elevating anyone else above himself. And why should he?? If anything HE should be the one on that pedestal, HE should be the only one to get credit for all HIS deeds…

HE should be God.

And dammit, if he can’t join the original up in Heaven, why not try to become one down in Hell?

The rest is canon as we know it, but I just really realllllly love the idea of ex-Christian Vox, and all the disillusionment religious trauma can bring. He went straight from communion to capitalism, and I like that in my hell-bound guys. I will def be using this as his canon backstory for my AU with Claude, bc I needed to bring even more conflicted suffering and RSD to this character before I can truly ship them together hahaa.

And…. despite what his real backstory actually is…. this is the only one I subscribe to now. 😈

ALSO:

TELL ME THIS ISN’T HIM!!??!??? HELP. CREEPY HANDSOME IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO FOR THIS CURSED TV MAN I HAVE DECLARED IT SO PLS ADJUST YOUR FANART ACCORDINGLY.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk I’m going to go rot in my hole now thinking of more hcs for this akskshagaga-

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world-cinema-research · 1 year

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Week 2 Movie: The Seventh Seal By Ronnie Bitzer

The movie I watched was The Seventh Seal made by Ingmar Bergman created in 1957. The movie is significant to me because it shows how classical the movie is based on the genre of the film. In the eyes of other people who watched the film it shows great scenes of homage, parodies, and critical analysis of the film.Interesting facts about the Seventh Seal was the actor who played the knight Antonius block also played the priest in the movie "The Exorcist". Another fact about the Seventh seal was that it was filmed for over 35 days for only $150,000. The movie had mixed reviews since it was filmed in Sweden, but when the film started to travel overseas it became a critical success and won a Grand Jury Prize in a film festival.Bergman inspired making the Seventh Seal by visiting old churches as a child and being petrified by the idea of Death, and observing church murals and frescoes. Bergman's idea of the film was highly personal because of how he dealt with his fears,insecurities and his personal demons as a child. The movies similar to The Seventh Seal are Persona , Barry Lyndon and Rashomon because of how in each of these movies it shows the conflict of the main character and how he or she has hardships and has to deal with a fate with Death. The genre of the film "The Seventh Seal" was a drama/fantasy and I believed that is accurate for the film because it told the story about a medieval knight and how he imagined playing a game of chess with his perspective of Death who has come to taken the knights life and how each time they played chess Death has put a challenge in the knights life.

Many critics from the "Rotten tomatoes" say they like the film because of the indulging themes and how compelling the characters are. One critic wrote "Mr Bergman's objective in The Seventh Seal has been to achieve with the camera the simplicity and directness of a medieval muralist in recounting an immemorial mystery drama which touches the great issues of human experience. I agree with what the critic said because we all have issues of human experience and there is a way that we deal with all experiences because that is part of the growing experience we have as humans.Another critic who I didn't agree with what she said about the movie was she said"The magnificent craftsmanship, of course, I admit. But beneath the surface of the high-class, bony morality which has understandably attracted so much admiration there lurks what to me is a dreadful squashy sentimentality." I agree with her about the craftsmanship of the movie, but the movie has to have some sort of sentimental message and in the movie the knight was feeling sentimental to the family and him and the people around him have a choice to either save the family from Death or be with the family when Death comes for them.

When The Seventh Seal was made in 1957 in Sweden the polio vaccine first came out and Denmark had been vaccinating for two years and managed almost to vaccinate their entire population.

From the time the film came out Ingmar Bergman said "The Seventh Seal is one of the few films really close to my heart,". "I wrote this film to conjure up my own fear of dying." I felt this is pertaining to the film because Bergman created the film so viewers can understand Bergman's fear of dying.During the movie Bergman almost risk having his film labeled as a blunt cautionary tale heralding the potential vicinity of a nuclear holocaust. He wanted his movie to feel the atmosphere of peoples fear, their helplessness, rising of questions of their human existence and the frailness of life and the eternal question of god's existence which has been popular in times of trial and trouble. The conclusion of the film supports what Bergman wants to title his film and if he were to title the film similar to a nuclear holocaust then it would spark outrage and his main premise wouldn't make much sense to the viewers.

The look and feel of the film was envisioned of you being placed in Medieval Sweden in the middle of the plague. The general type of story is a knight returns to Sweden after the end of the Crusaders and seeks questions regarding life he meets death and plays chess with him to determine the knights fate. The characters in the movie represent Bergman's psyche while the knight represents our humanness in expressing different types of conflict that can interfere with our loved ones. When playing chess the knight has to face many parts of what he values as himself.

The scene of Antonius Block playing chess with Death stood out to me because that how the story begins and each time Antonius and Death play chess it symbolizes more life and time for the knight to complete any of his wishes. Chess is being used as a metaphor for life if Antonius wins he lives, but if death wins he takes Antonius's life.

The scene stood out to me because it marks what happens at the beginning of the film and what happens at the end of the film.During the part of when Antonius and Jons both went to the church Jons was talking to a painter about what he's drawing and the painter told Jons that he is painting "The Danse Macabre" which translates to "The Parade of the Dead" and is lead by death and in the back is the fool. Towards the end of the movie Antonius realized he lost and death won, when Antonius and his group went to Jons castle they met up with Death and he took them since Antonius's fate has been decided.

The movie is set in the Middle Ages, at a time in Europe when the plague was ravaging across Europe. Religion was lost in ways due to the battle with paganism and disillusionment brought by the Crusaders. It also describes how a knight is to be doomed by the decision made by Death. The film was depicted through Hofstede's model by Indulgence Verses Restraint shown through the bar scene where the drunk villagers were taunting Jof until Jons came by and Jof was saved by him because he restrained the drunk villagers by limiting the fun they were having at Jof's expense.Another part was the Power Distance Index and how it shown in the movie the different types of power it played on the knights and the villagers. Shown in Lewi's model it showed the villagers and knights being linear-reactive.Through Tropeneer's Model it shows how the Swede's have a high individualism and how they work better independantly and how they are self-reliant. How the style of movie alligns with the elements show is seeing Death as a tangible presence and that he manifests himelf as a physical human form instead of being in a different form.How it is shown in the film is there is a silence from God and the horror of Death is coming and that there is no afterlife when you die. The Seventh Seal doesn't deal with Religion rather than a place of both God and Religion is in the human heart and in society.The world im seeing the film that is global is its English-subtitled but still using the Swedish language. If you are in a different contry it can be set to a different theme like it could be in color different languages can be played in the teather and the use of actors from different parts of the world.If I were to put the film and make it through my story I would keep Death and the premise, but the only thing I would change would be to add a school since if I were using Hofstede's model I picked Short Term Orientation Verses Long Term Orientation since having an education is important and my friends can still learn and have fun if we were to die like Antonius did in the film.The style of the film fits into national and international styles was they are using European film making so it can be enjoyable for the viewers. Bergman hired a production designer that created a set that corresponds with Bergman's visions shaped by his early memories.Although it is between realism and expressionism since the movie need to be done in a few days.The film would have to be conventional since the main character is a white male, there is a clear story of what is to be told and it is not too upsetting.Bergman said "I don't give a damn about the money." It was the success that made Bergman enabled to make The Seventh Seal.The Seventh Seal is easy to understand and clear through the dialogue and the plot of the movie.The pieces do fit well together because they talk about love,death, life, good and evil and how it fits for a medieval morality film.There are other movie similiar to The Seventh Seal, but they are movies I haven't seen. They may be similar due to the same plots, same use of background or themes or same director. The differences would be different time period the movies are set in different director and different plot or theme of the movie.

Sources:

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prismatic-bell · 3 years

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So the other day I said a thing about how I felt like a line could be drawn between antis, and the rise of 24-hour news networks. I’ve given that thought some time to bubble to see what, exactly, my brain meant by that statement, and here’s what I’ve got:

When I was a kid (back in Ye Olde 1990s), we had three major news stations in my town: Channel 12, Channel 24, and Channel 35. These corresponded to NBC, ABC, and CBS, but I don’t remember which one was which so don’t ask me. Anyway--you had a half hour of news at 8 or 9 am (depending on which station you watched), an hourlong program at noon in which half the program was stuff like “here are today’s beach closures and some recipes and also if you’re looking for stuff to do with the kids this weekend here are local promotions,” and half an hour at either 5, 5:30, or 6 (again, depending on which channel you watched). One of the three stations also did a half-hour capper at 10pm. So unless you were watching all three stations, and picking the news every single time, the max amount of news you were going to get was like an hour and a half. If you wanted more news than that, you read the newspaper. When my mom was a kid (back in Ye Olde 1960s), this would have seemed like an inordinate amount of news--for her, it was half an hour at 6pm and ten minutes at 10pm and then the station (there was only one station that did the news) played the National Anthem and went off the air until 6am, at which time you might get like . . . the weather and a traffic report.

For anything else, you read the newspaper.

Now with only half an hour to present a whole lot of news, what are you going to do? You are going to stick to the facts. You don’t have a choice. You have a very short time to fit a whole lot of information. “Notre Dame cathedral caught on fire today. French firefighters are working to get the flames under control, and authorities in charge of the cathedral are doing their best to remove relics, paintings, and other holy objects while it’s still possible. French President Mr. Somebody addressed the nation and stated every attempt to save the building, and to rebuild the damage, will be made. In local news . . . “ And that’s it! If you want more information, you’ve got to wait for the newspaper in the morning, and you’re going to have to get a copy of the New York Times or USA Today, because the local paper will only have a blurb, and that blurb will mostly cover what you just heard!

But then the news changed.

By the time I was a teenager, the non-cable news looked like this: All three channels had a morning show that started at 5 or 6 am (depending on your station) and ran until 8 or 9 (depending on your station). The station that ended at 8am then had a half-hour morning news show. The mid-day news at 11 or 12 was still an hour. Channel 35 did a half-hour news segment at 5 and another at 5:30, back to back. The other two stations simply did an hourlong segment. And then one station did half an hour at 10:30, and the other two did hourlong segments at 10pm.

What do you do with that much time? Well, you expand. Yes, you can fit more news, but you can also fit more about the news. “Notre Dame cathedral in Paris went up in flames today. The fire began in the famous historic bell tower, and spread to the roof. At this time, portions of the roof appear to have caved in, and there are concerns about the integrity of the medieval stonework in the cathedral walls. French firefighters have been working since 8am Paris time to get the flames under control, and authorities in charge of the cathedral are doing their best to remove relics, paintings, and other holy objects while it’s still possible. Some firefighters are also helping with this project, as portions of the building have become too unsafe to enter. French President Mr. Somebody addressed the nation late this evening and stated every attempt to save the building, and to rebuild the damage, will be made. Of the cathedral itself, Somebody said, ‘Our Lady has weathered worse troubles than this. Paris as a city, and France as a nation, will overcome.’ In local news . . . ”

Still facts, but a few more facts. At this point the internet as a public thing is just past its infancy, and in theory you could go look up some stuff on, like, AOL, maybe, about what was happening.

(Nina, you were talking about antis . . . ?)

(Yes, I was. Bear with me.)

But at this point you also saw the rise of Fox News and CNN.

Now up to this point, I could trust the news. That is important to know. “Nina, American news is full of propaganda--” Listen, you’re not wrong, but the point is, if Scott Brennan told me Notre Dame cathedral was on fire and priests were trying to remove the holy relics, I could safely assume Notre Dame cathedral was on fire and priests were trying to remove the holy relics. If Channel 24 told me “the blizzard of the century” had occurred the night before, I could look out the window of my snowed-in house and go “yeah, that seems legit.”

I grew up, in other words, in a world in which facts were facts. We didn’t waffle or wring our hands over whether or not Notre Dame was on fire. And this allowed me to take a similar approach to fiction: it is a fact that murder is wrong, and knowing this, I can read a book in which someone commits murder for very good reasons, but still know they did something wrong.

But now you have 24 hours of news to fill.

No matter how you pad it, no matter how many voice clips you play or retrospectives you do, you cannot find enough news in the world to fill 24 hours, seven days a week, 365 days a year. You just can’t.

So they started adding “opinion pieces.”

Notre Dame is on fire--is it worth saving? Notre Dame is on fire--but is it as big a catastrophe as it’s made out to be? Notre Dame is on fire--but France has been steadily calling themselves a secular nation, so is this the punishment of G-d? Notre Dame is on fire--

--wait, what was that?

Yep. You saw it, I saw it, we all saw it. But as the “opinion pieces” slowly took over the regular news and stopped being called “opinion pieces” and started being called “programs,” it became less and less clear what was and wasn’t fact.

Now obviously Notre Dame is on fire. But now we have to ask ourselves: is it worth it to save it or not? Is the financial cost outweighed by the history? Will those answers change depending on how bad the damage becomes? And you, lonely elderly person in your chair whose predominant socialization these days is at church, how does this make you feel about French people? These are questions that once would have been asked of the church caretakers and the French government. Now every single person is being asked to think about them, without being provided all of the context that is available to the church caretakers and the French government. And along the way, you get these nice, nasty little bits of prejudice and slanted thinking and bias sneaked in.

I told you I’d come back to antis. And here we are.

The vast majority of antis are very young. They grew up in a world where those “programs” were the norm. They were not provided with a cultural basis of “these are the facts.” They were provided a basis of “here is what I think about the facts.” They were provided a basis of, as Mr. Banks said in Mary Poppins, “kindly do not cloud the matter with facts.”

There are no facts! Who fucking cares! An anti who’s 15 years old today was eleven years old when we were introduced to “alternative facts”! Is it wrong for a 27-year-old man to pursue a relationship with a 13-year-old girl? Depends on which news channel, and which presenter, you ask!

They literally grew up in a world in which critical thinking was discouraged. Once upon a time, you would have seen on TV that Notre Dame was on fire, and at dinner--or whatever your family did for together time--you might say things like “going to be expensive to fix that, I wonder what they’ll do,” but you wouldn’t have been hit with six presenters telling you exactly why Notre Dame should/shouldn’t be rebuilt. And don’t forget--even if you, personally, do not watch the news (or read it on the internet, which is just as bad, because everybody’s after those elusive advertising clicks, everybody needs the “scoop” two seconds before it happens), you know people who do. You hear their opinions and their hot takes and their retellings all around you. And those opinions and hot takes and retellings will be colored by which “program” that person saw first.

Watch the first thirty seconds of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn2RjahTi3M

Walter Cronkite, a legendary news anchor, giving his opinion on Vietnam. You will notice that he states, very clearly: “it seems very clear to this reporter.” This is Cronkite’s opinion, nothing more, and he makes it clear that he is speaking only for himself.

Now skip to approximately 1:05, and watch him report the Kennedy assassination. You can see he’s emotional, but also keeping it under wraps as best he can because he has An Important Job To Do, and that job is twofold: to deliver the news accurately and concisely, and to keep the American public calm (you can see this when he hurriedly says Johnson is probably taking the oath to become President; a missing VP would be a crisis at this moment). This is a man who’s just found out the most beloved president in modern times is dead. And not just dead--murdered. It’s not like Kennedy had a heart attack, his damn head was blown off. This news is still coming in so quickly that you can see him glancing off the screen to get fresh reports. He’s one of the first to receive this absolute blow--and he’s still holding it together, barely wavering. (When I was a kid, this role would go to Dan Rather. He was no Cronkite, but he tried.)

Where is that kind of rock for today’s teens? Imagine--heaven forbid, in the state our country’s in right now--that tomorrow we get the news Biden was shot.

How would we get that message?

Would it be delivered by an even-keeled, just-the-facts reporter like Cronkite? Or would we get it from a bunch of half-hysterical articles and crisismongering “programs”? And would it be delivered to us straight, like Cronkite did, or would it be buried in three days’ worth of opinions on his “legacy” and policies and What This Means For America?

Now: how are you supposed to build any kind of strong convictions and moral compass on a world like that? Where anything can be true if enough people have an “opinion” on it? Where the facts get immediately buried in a wave of bullshit?

Antis are reacting to a world of “opinions” and “programs” being thrown at them 24/7 by trying to create a world they can control, where there are in fact things that are true, in a world that has actively refused them the opportunity to learn how to parse and process facts. And so what they’ve come up with is this grossly distorted version of facts, because gross distortions of facts are all they know. It’s all they’ve ever seen. They’re perpetuating a system they don’t even realize they’re part of, because they never experienced life before it existed.

They’re not lying when they say they were heavily influenced by fiction because the bounds between fact and fiction have been actively erased. On purpose. And it’s difficult to grok that, if you grew up in a world where you didn’t have to go seek out photographic evidence to be absolutely certain that Notre Dame was, indeed, on fire.

So what we need to be doing, first and foremost, is rebuilding that wall of facts, that line of truth. Otherwise, what we’re going to see is more of this, but getting worse daily.

We set them up for this, and now we’re paying the price for it.

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startanewdream · 3 years

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For @sweeethinny, inspired by her drawing of Lily's dress for the celebration of her 25th wedding anniversary, because I couldn't think of anything else since I saw her beautiful drawing:

~*~*~*~*~*~

“This one looks nice.”

“Nah, it’s too thick. You have tiny fingers.”

“What about that pair then?”

“Too thin. It looks like a keychain.”

“And I’m guessing that one is too fancy?”

“You know me all too well, Lils.”

She shakes her head, more amused than anything after three days into their shopping spree. For a pair of wedding rings.

Everything else went smoothly on their wedding plans. They agreed on the venue upon first visit and the date they wanted was available. They decided on the wedding cake and the decoration and even the template for the invitations—the designer didn’t understand the stag and doe, but didn’t ask many questions either—, including the type of paper. Lily picked her wedding dress on the first store she visited, to her friends’ dismay. James got his suit approved by Sirius on the second try, which was considered a success.

Until they went shopping for their wedding rings and then they realized that there were multiple options of wedding rings and surprisingly none of them seemed to fit.

“We can just craft one,” she mumbles to him while the kind sellswoman runs to present them another set of wedding rings.

“It could be…” James mumbles, unsure, and Lily can’t blame him. She is also starting to think they won’t ever find the perfect ring. Until— “Hey! Those are cool!”

Lily follows the direction of his gaze. James is looking at another shelf, one that wasn’t presented for them and Lily knows exactly why as soon as she notices the rings there.

“We can’t have those, James,” she tells him patiently. “See the silver band around them?”

“Yeah, that’s what I liked! It reminds me of the rings my parents had.”

“They would have. The silver is to represent their 25th wedding anniversary.”

“How come?”

“Oh, you don’t know? Each anniversary of a wedding is associated with some type of gift. The first year is cotton, I think. The most known are 25th and 50th anniversaries. Silver is for 25th, golden is for 50th.”

“But wedding rings are already made of gold.”

Lily shrugs. “I don’t know, it’s just the way it is. It’s cute to think your parents had a wedding ring with a silver band, some couples add the silver to their wedding ring for celebration.”

“Why can’t we have one of those now anyway? I’m planning to stay married with you all my life, and that includes all wedding anniversaries.”

Warmth spreads through her body. Lily blames the easiness in James’ voice; he is not trying to declare his love for her in his sentence, he is speaking as it is obvious they will be together, as if he can’t fathom his life otherwise.

It’s nice to imagine them 10, 25, 50 years in the future, growing old together.

“Let’s save those rings for our 25th wedding anniversary,” she tells him, placing a soft kiss on his lips. “And hopefully find our perfect wedding rings so we can get married in the first place.”

________

The bells ring at the small church at Godric’s Hollow and Lily feels back to 25 years ago, standing nervously at the doors of the church, holding her father’s arm. It had been silly to feel any fear then, because she had been sure about her decision to marry James, young as they were, and it’s even sillier now, but she can’t help the quick beating of her heart.

“You know, you can still give up,” Sirius tells her, smirking, as he offers her arm to her. “I can lend you my motorbike, it’s parked outside.”

“You are 25 years late in your proposition, Padfoot,” she replies, grinning as well, and he winks at her as the doors of the church open.

It’s a Wednesday night and the church is almost empty save for Lily and James’ closest friends and family. She gets a quick glimpse of Harry waving at her from the first row of seats, but then, just like it happened all those years ago, once Lily meets James’ eyes, she can’t see anyone else.

Twenty-five years ago she didn’t doubt she still wanted to be with him and she still doesn’t.

“You look beautiful,” he tells her, his whisper carrying through the church and making their guests chuckle with the obvious adoration in his voice.

James is oblivious to anything else but her; he raises his hand, running it from her cheeks to her shoulder and down to her bare arms before he intertwines their fingers, and when his gaze falls to the slit that shows her leg, he winks at Lily with an expression that seems better fitted to their upcoming second honeymoon.

And then, just like in the first time, she can’t really focus on the ceremony.

“Your wedding rings?” the priest asks, and James glances at their son. Harry rushes to give him a velvet box that seems strangely worn out and dusty.

When James opens the box, Lily sees a pair of shiny new wedding rings, the gold and the silver intertwined in a delicate pattern. There is something strangely familiar about those rings, but not what she expected.

“Those aren’t our original wedding rings,” she notes, surprised. James grins.

“No, these are the ones we first saw in that jewelry store the day we bought our first wedding rings.”

“You went back there to buy them? I thought that store had closed years ago.”

“Oh, it did. I went back to buy them the same day, right after you got home.”

“You did? Why?”

“I told you we would still be married in 25 years. I kept them all those years waiting for this moment.”

“Oh, James…” She pulls him closer, kissing him even though the ceremony is still not over. There are giggles and sighes, but Lily feels only James’ lips and that happiness she associates with him for more than twenty-five years. “All I want is 25 more years with you.”

“And then 25 more?”

“As long as we can have it. Until the end.”

#Jily #This has no point other than being extremely fluffly #Also I had to tell my fiance we couldn't get those silver rings #I told them if he wanted them so much #we could talk in 25 years #we joke now that we only have 20 more years until we can get those rings

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sub-danny · 3 years

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what would our wedding with the sub bois be like? male significant other plz. headcannon or drabbles your choice

Imagining how happy they would all be at their wedding 🥺that's the sweetest!

Zemo:

He would be anxious to get married if we are going with a timeline where before he was married to his wife and ya know, also if you two are on the run so he doesn't go back to jail. He would feel like he can't give you the life you might want as he might not be able to always be around you, plus he doesn't want to lose you. Still, when you convince him you want to get married, it does make him so happy as he is quite a traditionalist and loves the concept of marriage. It would be a small wedding, maybe Bucky and Sam are there. I feel like Zemo would enjoy walking down the aisle in a white suit, with his butler walking along with him. You two would have your own vowels. and Zemo might be a bit soppy saying how much he loves you but truly he means it. I also think Zemo would definitely want to throw a bouquet as well even if there are not many people there (it lands on Bucky much to Sam's amusement) Zemo would get one of his favourite cars which you would drive as the two of you leave to get a flight to a deserted island to spend your honeymoon where you shower your now husband with so much love.

Laszlo:

It would have to be a very private affair given how gay marriage was illegal. So naturally, it would have to be a small wedding but that also suits Laszlo very well, he wouldn't like a big event. I think I have already made Laszlo and male partner wedding headcanon on my main account but I'll bring over points from that. Theodore would be the one who marries you two, being the president at that time he has the rights and it means you two don't have to go through the hassle of finding a priest who would do it. I see Sara, John, the twins, Stevie, Cryus and maybe even the institute kids being there. (Laszlo teaches the kids there that love is love so they are all fine with it and won't go telling to people who would disapprove) I feel like for this you and Laszlo would walk down the aisle together. John is the best man and ring bearer and is behind you two. Laszlo definitely wrote his vowels and it would be quite long but he would get choked up as he recites them because he can't believe he is getting married, that he has found someone who loves him for who he is. He never thought it would happen. You two probably wouldn't go anywhere special for a honeymoon. Either you get Laszlo to stay at home for a few days and not go to the institute or you two might go to the countryside. I feel like Laszlo would go and see his father after as well. Not even to say anything but even though he and his father have a bad relationship, he needs to see him, like 'look at what I've been able to do. Look how happy I am'

Andrea:

Once again because of the time, a very private affair. There might even be fewer people than at Laszlo and Zemo's wedding because in England the two of you only really know the village folk and they might not be as accepting. I want to believe Janet and Ursula would be but then again at the same time Ursula especially might not be (because of jealously) but even if you only get to invite a few of Andrea's musician friends who are okay with it, Andrea still loves your wedding day. He would get really into the planning of it, trying to decide if he wants a white suit or to wear a nice dress, what music he wants to play, learning how to dance so he can dance with you. It would be in a lovely caple when it is empty. His musician friends would play music as he comes down the aisle, smiling happily at you. One of his friends would marry you, it may not be legal but that doesn't matter to the two of you, it's the principle of the concept. He would definitely start to cry tears of happiness. It might be hard to do, but maybe you and Andrea go over to Poland for your honeymoon, as Andrea would love to show you around where he grew up, maybe even meet the family!

Niki:

While gay marriage is still not legalised as of yet, gay partnerships are becoming more widely accepted and more people are slowly starting to come out. Niki probably wouldn't see much of a point in a wedding, especially if it isn't legal but after you tell him all the things you will do to him on the honeymoon, he gives in. When you start planning though he becomes a perfectionist in wanting all the details perfect. You tease him with how invested he becomes. For an F1 driver, he doesn't like that much attention on him during something like a romantic setting (hence why in the film they just get married at a registry) so he wouldn't invite that many people and would make you walk down the aisle with him. Both of you would be wearing some nice blue matching suits and the actual wedding bit, is a bit short as his vowels are very short. Afterwards, he goes around and shakes people's hands, thanks them for coming, even James appears wishing Niki a good marriage. He would be excited for it to end though because he can't wait for the honeymoon, you two swimming, you chasing him up to the bedroom...

Ernst:

I feel like Ernst would want to wait till you two were back on Earth to get married, so all your friends and family could be there. But when it seems like you lot might not be able to get back to Earth, he agrees to have the wedding on the ship. Everyone is so excited about it, trying to help with planning and giving all their idea's which makes Ernst quite anxious. He is not a very open person and he doesn't like people getting that involved in his business especially something like this which is really private to him. He wouldn't be too fussed about any traditions, he just wants a nice simple wedding. They are able to get one of the crew legally registered to marry the two of you, and everyone is cheering as you both arrive and go to the spot, slipping the rings on and saying some simple vowels. There isn't much of a honeymoon so the two of you just stay in your room for a few days and everyone leaves you alone.

Alex:

Once again a smaller thing, it might not even be a proper wedding as I don't see Alex being like really the wedding type, but anything you want to do, he is honestly happy to do. He wants you to be happy. How you two get married means a lot to him though. Especially after his parents splitting up, he wants a marriage that will last and he knows it will be with you. He has never been so sure that you are his life partner. He is so happy when you slip the wedding ring onto him but later when you two are just dancing with each other and have no one else around, he confesses to you that he wished his mother would have been around to see him get married.

Sebastian:

He might drunkenly ask you to marry him and then gawk at you when you bring it up the next day saying that you were going to marry him. He likes a sense of freedom and doesn't like to feel settled down, and is constantly saying he wants to skip to the honeymoon. But when the day actually comes, you are surprised at the effort he puts into it, brushing his hair, getting a suit that isn't old and doesn't have stains, and when you two are standing at the front, holding hands, as he says his vowels you can tell he truly means them. Of course, by the end of the night, he is winning at you about how badly he wants you and so you have to cut it short to take him to your hotel.

David:

Such an anxious boy. He is trying to plan everything so it is perfect for the two of you but he finds it hard to cope with everything he needs to do. Eventually, he has a breakdown and you need to help calm him down and help him plan it. When the day comes around though it is perfect and everyone is telling you how lovely it is and it makes David so happy. He is quite shy about standing in front of everyone but he still insists he wants to do the first dance with you. Slowly as he drinks more and more he becomes more open and enjoys himself and by the end, you might be taking a drunk David home, but your honeymoon might be one of the best things you two have experienced.

Tony:

Tony screams perfectionist. As soon as you propose and he accepts, he is figuring out all the details for the wedding, spending lots of money on it even when you say you want to pay for stuff. He doesn't mean to be so controlling, as he certainly isn't in some circumstances, but he had secretly always wanted a wedding and to finally get it with the man he loves means everything to him and he wants it to be an unforgettable night. So many famous people are there, lots of social media posts about it, the food is the best (and a reason why a lot of people turned up) and honestly Tony can not let you go, he is either kissing you, hugging you or holding your hand and he is always looking over at you and smiling because he is so goddam happy to finally be married to the love of his life.

Alex Garel:

He would want something very simple. He is quite introverted and doesn't even though that many people so there wouldn't be a lot of people there. He likely wouldn't want to get married in a church, maybe in your own home. Still what matters is the actual confession about always loving each other and being there for each other and the exchanging of rings, and you swear at that moment you had never seen him smile so much. You two might not even go anywhere for your honeymoon. Just have him taking a weeks break from working on his robots so you two can spend your time together and it's all just so sweet.

#subdanielbrühl #sub!zemo #sub!laszlo kreizler #sub!andrea marowski #sub!niki lauda #sub!ernst schmidt #sub!alex kerner #sub!sebastian zollner #sub!david kern #sub!tony balerdi #sub!alex garel #daniel bruhl #daniel brühl

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girlwithwolftatoo · 3 years

Text

Consecration-Pascal!Priest character (original work)

Father Pascal is in, lost lambs, I hope you’re ready to receive the... blessings.

WARNING: Mild NSFW (mostly indirect sexual situations), hierophilia (can I get an A-MEN?!), original characters and... religious stuff.

Being raised as a catholic may be a headache, specially if you aren’t fond to the religion and rituals most of your family follows the verbatim. Of course, mass was the main event and sometimes preaching could be interesting, but being about forty minutes every Sunday morning in a church to secure your inmortal soul sometimes felt like a high price you weren’t willing to pay. You were a good person according to usual sermons, you helped your neighbor as much as you were able, respected and loved your parents, accomplished lent every year since you remembered and, if you felt like you’ve done some nasty stuff, you went to confession.

The problem began when the new priest came into your local church, in order to replace old and ill father Colin, which lumbago had forced him to give up and some masses he had to remain on his seat. His replacement was different... much more different than anyone, you included, could have thought.

The first thing that jumped at the sight was his appearence, younger than father Colin but, in a weird way, ageless, like he could be either in his thirties or fourthies; his complextion didn’t seem hardly built, but neither wasn’t very thin, and sometimes you could notice how the mass robes tauten on his chest and shoulders. No living person with eyes could have said he wasn’t appealing, for even his sharp eyes and hooked nose fit perfectly in his always radiant and kind face.

Suddenly, masses became the most precious moment of the week. Every Sunday morning you prepared yourself with your best, clean clothes and rushed your parents to get a good sit in the church. As the bells rang, telling people the mass had started, and father Pascal walked between the seats, followed by the usual altar boys, your eyes followed him using as much discresion as you could, so nobody could notice the heat on your face and the red on your cheeks as you traced every movement of that gorgeous man of God in your mind, to use it as a lucky charm through the week. His preaching was always filled with energy and excitement, the strenght of his passion and youth printed on every word and moves from his hands; yes, he talked with his hands as much as with the voice, making the audience dance at his rythm in such way even the usual sleepy heads would turn their whole attention to the man.

Along with his features, father’s hands had became a problem for your futile concentration skills. If you weren’t following his face gestures, you did the same for his hands, yout eyes darting in the big palms, usually showing at the congregation, the thick fingers clenching in the air, pointing at nowhere to remark his words and, of course, doing the sign of the cross when it was appropiate. Those hands were a dream come true, the epitome of grace and virility, both kind and strong at sight, and the almost tender form he used to hold the communion wafer before sliding it into the parishioner’s mouths... God, it was the best moment of the mass.

“Going to commune?” your parents asked innocently, unaware of the true feelings boling in your chest as you took your place in the line, hands pressed together in praying position as you were taught in catechism sessions, and kneeling towards the altar as soon as you reached it.

How would be to kneel for father Pascal? You, walking towards his magnificent figure, head lowered to show your complete submission, and finally, bending your knees to fall over them on the floor, silent and longing, waiting for his voice to command you.

Father Pascal presented the tiny, white wafer. Every time, you felt like truly blessed, and didn’t have enough words to thank the Lord for bringing this gorgeous servant of His to your church. Your eyes met father’s, and you leaned your head in an attempt to hide yourself. It is known God knows people’s heart and what they hide in it, but what if any of your thoughts was powerful enough to permeate through your skin and showed themselves there were the priest could see them? How would he react if he knew the only reason you started to show interest in religion was him? How would you dared to see his face again when you spent most of the mass time creating fantasies involving him?

The father’s hand placed the wafer at the necessary distance for you to take it. You stretched your neck and caught the thin form into your lips, but doing it so further you noticed, for a fractment of second, how your lower lip hit against father Pascal’s finger. You retracted quickly, fighting to not take a look at his brown, warm eyes, and walking back to your place trying to not looked guilty. You kneeled in the padded plank and closed your eyes, pretending to make your pray, when you were actually getting into a new fantasy.

You saw yourself, kneeling on the floor, and listening the father’s preaching that didn’t meant something to you, your cheast moving up and down hard as your breathing became more superficial. You opened your eyes and found yourself facing at father’s belt a black, broad piece of clothing that adjusted around his waist with a strip hanging in front of his right thigh. One man’s hand was holding a golden globet, the one he used to pour the wine for the mass, and the other one reached the back of your neck, pulling your head back so you could see him from below. “Take it, my lamb” he commanded you, pressing the globet’s border against your wanting lips, and you gave a sip to the red, bitter liquid. He kept sliding the wine into your mouth without giving you a single moment to rest and take a breath, but every small nuisance was nothing, as long as you could rejoice in the priest’s hands and becoming his little, sinful plaything.

“Honey?”

Your mother’s voice dragged you back to reality. People were moving around you, the mass was over, and you just spent the last minutes kneeling in silent like a saint picture. You stood up, ashamed and worried, and your eyes went to the altar one more time. Father Pascal was there, speaking with a few persons and displaying his usual sweet smile. At the moment he moved his head towards you, and your sight met, you saw his smile fade, and a new, disturbing expression on his face. His lips moved, separating from each other, and for a moment you thought he was going to call you out, but then he returned to his normal manners and continued speaking with their interlocutors.

You had to force your feet to move and leave the building. The imprintment of the father’s finger against your lip still felt like fire, and you imagined it was how someone should feel when they were touched by a sacred thing, even if that was an heretic thought, you smiled. You were willing to kiss and receive anything he could hand you, even the keys of hell, even the most sinful piece on Earth, and you would kiss it and worship it in his divine name, the father’s name.

...

Sooooo, I think this can have a sequel perhaps, if you’re interested on it of course. If you have new ideas for this prompt or for another writing, please let me know!

#fanfiction #original fic #hierophilia #priest kink #priest #catholic aesthetic #pedro pascal #original characters #din djarin #maxwell lord #marcus moreno #oberyn martell #sfw

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period-dramallama · 2 years

Text

The Man on A Donkey: the Good

Basically this book is insanely rich in historical detail and sometimes the words are pretty

+ The amount of detail on everything from the chemistry of Tudor painting, to the method of wool weighing, to the best glue to use for wainscoting... holy crap. When it comes to historical detail Wolf Hall is a dinghy and Man on a Donkey is a battleship.

+ The way Prescott describes the grain of wood in wood panelling it’s very imaginative and truly lovely, almost hypnotically so.

+ King Henry bends towards the fireplace “the more exquisitely to toast his rear”

+ One of the carthusians being hung drawn and quartered lived “even till both arms were off” thanks Prescott that’s horrifying I will have nightmares now true horror we love it.

+ Aske watched the executions and realises later his sleeve is bloodstained. Heavy handed foreshadowing but still good.

+ Aske is probably the most interesting character IMHO. Like he goes beyond his archetype. He has moments of weakness. He wonders whether he should yield and sleep with another man’s lady and then the narrative cuts to them just having had sex. Given this is a chronicle his resolve lasted about *checks sundial* an hour, two hours tops.

+ A character exclaims “By Cock!” which is an accurate Tudor expression and doesn’t mean what it sounds like but STILL. “By Cock!” indeed.

+ What the fuck is ‘cocking a snook’? Please. Prescott. A glossary.

+ Margaret refers to her boyfriend Sir John Bulmer as ‘my blossom’ and compares him to a well stuffed sausage.

+ Good scene with Aske on p.389 where he ponders whether or not to rise. “If I move I do wrong. If I do not move, wrong is done.” It’s also atmospheric, he’s eating by the light of a single candle in a dark hall “an island of light”. A good bit of indoor pathetic fallacy.

+ “The drift of a man’s will can persist under many eddies of hesitation, to carry him at the last either with his conscience or against it, as he had once chosen”.

+ The ‘oh shit’ moment when Aske hears the church bells rung backwards as call to arms including Howden (which he told to wait on Marshland) is fantastic. The way Prescott describes the bells: fantastic. Now this is what I was waiting 400 pages for!

+ At Pontefract Castle the archbishop of York is disappointed clearly that for dinner it’s leek pottage again. For some reason I find this quite funny. “To set leek pottage before him was not so much a stupidity as an irreverence” he then looks at cold rabbit pie “with a pained disgust”. He’s such a miserable worm. 10/10. It’s also hilarious the way Lord Darcy enjoys making him shit bricks with fear of the king and then fear of the rebels.

+ At one point Margaret Conyers, a nun, speaks with “surprising common sense”. The narrator or Christabel talking? Either way, funny.

+ Wat “was always pleased at things which displeased his father [Gilbert Dawe]”. My boy. That’s my boy.

+ “A thought sits in a man’s mind like a thorn in his thumb only noticed when pressure is placed on it”

+ A priest is described as having a “clever ugly inscrutable frog’s face”

+ The archbishop of York saying the spiritual lords aren’t to blame for not resisting the king.. the temporal lords are. The hypocrisy is so blatant it is darkly hilarious.

+ The Lancaster herald (we’re never told his real name, he’s just Lancaster Herald) is fun: he persuades the commons to be loyal to the king and they’re like “yeah!! we love the king!!” And then he rides off and he’s 3 miles down the road.. and the commons go straight back to being pro-pilgrimage of grace.

+ I like the manoeuvrings of the aristocrats trying to join the pilgrims without looking enthusiastic about it, and being totally happy for aske to lead it and take the blame if shit hits the fan.

+ Sir Thomas Percy gives a twirl to Aske to show off his outfit to his old friend with the words “behold me and admire”

+ Lots of men kissing their male friends and relations

+ Aske has an excellent exchange with Cromwell where they’re polite and passive aggressive with each other.

Like Cromwell is like “I’ll be straight with you :)” and Aske is like “and I’ll be straight with you :)” and Cromwell is like “tell me everything then :)” and Aske is like “I’ll tell the king everything :)” and Cromwell is like “I’m the king’s servant :)” and Aske is like “I know that :)”

+ Aske saying that after he met with the king he was ready to die for him... bruh. You WILL.

+ Malle being excited taking her bread out of the oven :’)

+ Excellent sense of impending doom as Aske rides back to London March 1537.

+ “It’s justice I want, not mercy”

+ A great scene where the prioress of Marrick (christabel) outsmarts Norfolk because he threatens to send her and Malle to London to stand trial and she’s like “I’ll go there myself of my own free will to clear everything up” because she knows if she did that, Norfolk would look like a bumbling idiot.

+ A chilling moment where Norfolk wonders if he executed enough people to please the king: 74 out of 6000, but on the other hand there’s never been a single execution so big. He knows some of them are innocent: “whom blind justice might have spared” but he thinks it’s worth it because they’ll be a deterrent. It makes him sound like he’s sacrificing to a hungry god.

+ Norfolk weighing up the short term and long term advantages of his next move is just great. It doesn’t sound exciting but it is.

+ Cromwell refuses to buy Gilbert’s interlude on the seven deadly sins because it’s not funny enough and if it’s not entertaining people won’t pay attention.

+ The final scene is incredible. Fantastic. If you’re bored of this book just read the last 3 pages.

#historical fiction

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amymel86 · 3 years

Text

Abstain

Priest!Jon, Rated E...

Long Lake Village cannot boast of much. One small convenience store that doubles as the post office in the mornings, one pub for locals, a small school and one quaint chapel. In truth, to most, Long Lake is one of those places that one drives through on your way to any number of much more exciting destinations.

And Father Jon is more content with that then perhaps he once was as a younger, greener priest now that he’s settled into guiding his modest flock of parishioners.

It’s a spring day when she first arrives. Carried in on the chilly breeze that tempers the sun’s glow. Daffodils are sprouting up in the grove around his church’s weirwood tree. Her dress is a robin’s egg blue, a soft buttercream cardigan is draped across her forearm. Jon remembers thinking she’d better benefit from it if she’d put it on. Perhaps those two little peaks wouldn’t strain through the thin fabric of her dress at her chest and gooseflesh wouldn’t dapple the skin of her arms. Her hair is the colour of temptation. Father Jon tries to ignore it.

She introduces herself, all smiling lips and forget-me-not blue eyes. Moving here to open a B&B, she thinks Long Lake deserves more visitors; tourist, artists, ramblers, hikers, photographers. All these people she plans to draw in. People are missing out on this place’s beauty.

Sansa. Her name is Sansa. It sounds like a song. It sounds like a prayer.

She visits often now, in her floaty dresses and her soaked-in-sin skin. It’s because she’s pretty, he tells himself. Just because she’s pretty.

Pretty, like a meadow of buttercups and corncockles.

Though, meadow flowers have never made him feel like this.

How is he to guide his flock away from life’s sins when he has all manner of them running through his licentious mind when it comes to Miss Stark?

And she sits there, third pew from the front while he gives his sermons. Sweet as sugar, while all he can think is what it might feel like to glide his tongue over the silk-soft skin of her inner thigh. Would she whimper out his name? Bury her fingers in his hair? Raise her hips and beg? Beg him to-

He must not dwell on it. The more he entertains his imaginings, the more tempted he will be to take himself in hand that night. Fisting his cock to thoughts of one of his parishioners is not something that Jon wishes to repent for. He will abstain from this sin. He will abstain from her.

“Father Jon?” She finds him when he’d bid his flock a good day, what little numbers that had shown up, filtering out the chapel door. Her hand is on his arm. His white collar feels extra tight. But when Sansa smiles demurely at him and tucks some of that autumn fire hair behind her ear, Jon can barely feel the Old Gods breathing down the back of his neck. “I... I wondered if-“

She’s chewing on her lip and it’s almost more than he can take. Jon nods encouragingly.

“Would you be available to hear my confession?” She’s all swinging hips and doe eyes. “It’s just... I’ve been terribly lonely since moving here and I-... is there anywhere private that we could talk?”

The Gods are mocking him

***

Two weeks later...

“No,” he curls his hand around her bare ankle, removes her foot from where it had been creeping up, up, up his clothed thigh. Jon licks his lips. Miss Stark is sat on his desk, legs wide to accommodate where he sits between them in his chair, ready to hear today’s confession. This is how it is between them now. She pouts and Jon would like nothing so dear as to kiss that expression clean from her pretty face. But he won’t.

He will abstain.

For as long as he possibly can.

“No touching,” he reminds her, looking up into those beautiful half lidded eyes. “Now, tell me, sweetheart,” he says, unbuckling his belt, “tell me what your sinful thoughts from last night were about.”

“You.”

“What about me?”

“You... you... it was your hand, not mine. Your fingers. And... you were... you had your mouth on my... you were sucking my nipples.”

Jon’s eyes slide down the elegant slope of her neck, along the contours of her collarbone and to her chest. When he speaks, he hardly recognises his own voice. It is low and commanding. He does not miss the way it makes Sansa shiver to hear him that way. “Show them to me,” he tells her, gaze flicking up from her breasts, back to her eyes. She does as he asks and once again Jon is struck with the realisation that Miss Stark has been sent to him by the Gods – as reward, temptation or punishment he does not yet know. He makes an involuntary rumbling noise from his chest and swipes his tongue over his lips as he undoes the fly of his trousers. “Show me what I was doing, with my hand – my fingers – in these thoughts of yours, sweetheart. I want to see.”

Her feet rest on each arm of his desk chair at either side of him, pert little bottom perched where he normally puts pen to paper. She wears no bra, breasts bare, dress unbuttoned to the waist. Her lavender underwear is pale and delicate – and much too in the way. He can see the jerk and stroke of her movements. Knuckles stretching the fabric, undulating in slow circles as she watches him, his own hardness now in his hand. He reaches forward, finger hooking into her panties to pull them aside. He brushes the back of her hand as she works herself over – but it’s just a hand, he shakes so many in just one day. And he’s not touching her. Only watching. Just like she’s watching him as his hand leisurely strokes at his own length.

“Jon,” she whines and the Gods be damned, his name has never sounded as sinful.

“What else?” he asks, feeling a fire low, low, low in his belly. “What else do you imagine me doing?” Her teats are the same shade of pink as the summer roses in the prayer garden. He wants to suckle on them like an un-anointed babe.

Miss Stark’s fingers move faster. They glisten with her arousal. “You...” She reclines, her hips now flush with the worn walnut of his desk, feet off his chair and legs pushed back and wide. Jon follows, tucking himself even further under his desk. “You put your mouth between my legs, Father. You put your tongue everywhere. You lap at me like you can’t get enough of my taste.”

Jon allows a groan to escape and lowers his head. Closer, closer – he wants exactly what it is that Miss Stark describes; to drown in her taste. His own hand moves in time with hers, picking up speed now. Leaning his cheek against the silk-soft inside of her thigh, he’s close enough to inhale her scent – but not touching her there – never touching her there. He will abstain. He will.

He fists his cock faster.

When she breaks with his name wrapped up in a moan, Jon stands abruptly, desk chair wheeling away and crashing into the wall behind him. He grunts, making a mess of her – that place that he will not touch. She’s covered in his sin. And he – he can’t stop looking at it – at her. Slowly, tentatively, Jon glides his still hard length along her, rubbing his stickiness into her tender, intimate flesh. A soft gasp escapes Sansa’s blossom pink lips and he finds her eyes to check – check that this is alright – that they might tell the Old Gods that he no longer serves them anymore. He serves her now.

As if she knows, Sansa nods. “More,” she whispers, cradling his face and bringing him down to claim the devotion of his lips for her own as he slips inside her soft, wet, warmth.

Jon will come to learn, to ask himself to abstain from her, is asking the impossible.

#jonsa #jon x sansa #my jonsa fic

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zodiyack · 4 years

Text

Born To Die

Requested by anon: Can you do a imagine with Tommy Shelby? A song fic maybe Lana Del Rey's Born To Die but fluffy and angsty?

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Swearing, angst, *in Italian voice* mention of mafia stuff, mention of death, death not Reader’s or Tommy’s, fluff

Song: Born To Die by Lana Del Rey

Note: I can’t remember if they say how their mother died, I’m guessing it was when she gave birth to Finn, I dunno, I’m assuming so because...yeah idk. I hope you like it!

Edit: OH SHIT I JUST REALIZED I REMEMBER WHEN HER DEATH IS MENTIONED- I'M BIG DUMB LMAO

Lyrics = Bold + Italic | Memories = Italic | Thoughts = Apostrophe + Italic + Apostrophe

Taglist: @captivatedbycillianmurphy, @stydia-4-ever, @matth1w, @redspaceace, @simonsbluee, @jenepleurepasbaby, @peakysputain

Masterlist | Peaky Blinders Masterlist

Feet don't fail me now, take me to your finish line. Oh my heart it breaks every step that I take, but I'm hoping that the gates, they'll tell me that you're mine.

Walking through the city streets, is it by mistake or design? I feel so alone on a Friday night, can you make me feel like home if I tell you you're mine?

Tommy sighed, watching the woman he loved walk angerly out the door of his office. He informed her of the Changretta’s vendetta and how she would need to leave him to live. He told her that he didn’t care whether or not she wanted to, that it was his decision because he was the one the Italians wanted to kill.

“I can fend for myself!”

“I don’t doubt that, love, but you need to leave.” He looked away, the quivering of her lip too much for him to handle. Tom almost cried, his eyes were watery and his heart was aching, he really didn’t want it to come to this. “Maybe being able to protect yourself will keep you alive if you ever need-”

“Whatever. I’m not leaving. I’ll just go home until you can change your mind or learn that I’m no coward. Perhaps when you do choose the right decision, you could come stay with me. Otherwise, enjoy your time here, Husband.” Venom dripped from the word, hitting him hard as he watched her spin around, grab her coat, and hurriedly stomp out the building.

Y/n smiled slightly, only for a moment, responding to the sorry expression Lizzie gave her as she walked past. The smile soon dropped from her face, showing that it was only for Lizzie to see, that she too was sorry. The woman flinched as the doors slammed, rubbing the sides of her head with a deep sigh.

“Thomas. She’s right, ya know. I’ve seen that girl do some extraordinary shit. Think about it.” With that, Lizzie followed Y/n’s actions, quieter and calmer, but still leaving him to drink his sorrows away while he “thought” about everything.

He downed another shot. What had been? His hundredth shot? His desk was already a mess, his office no better, and his heart still bared the burden of knowing Y/n would either be hurt by him or hurt by the mafia. There was no loophole this time.

The girl he thought of made her way to her old home, drenched in the rain, and utterly tired. Mentally. Emotionally. Slightly Physically. She knew exactly what she was getting into; Shelby business usually always had guns involved. Pol often told her that Tommy really did love her, that he was just stubborn.

Y/n laughed mockingly. Thomas was stubborn, but stubborn could be broken with choices. So that’s what she gave Tommy. Two of the hardest choices she’d ever thrown at him. Y/n grew worried as she neared her home, the feeling in her stomach and heart. ‘What if he doesn’t follow?’

She halted in her steps, turning and looking around. He wasn’t there.

Her walking continued, this time feeling very, very, very, very, alone. Each time she passed a block, knowing she was nearing her house, she felt all hope leave her body. She felt strength, bravery, and faith deteriorate as her heart slowly tore in two.

The door to her house taunted her. It’s readiness to be opened, to have her brain laugh in self-mockery, to tease her about how stupid she was to believe Tommy would actually care.

Or maybe- he’d be behind the door. Raced her to her home to prove her wrong with a pleasant surprise. Her front door was full of tricks, and her heart was pounding with anticipation.

She opened the door, revealing the nothingness of her home. It’s interior dark and Tommy-less. Y/n didn’t know what to do. Her plan to hurt him just a little backfired into hurting her just a lot. The couch was her bed that night. She was alone.

Tommy failed her.

Don't make me sad, don't make me cry, sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough I don't know why. Keep making me laugh, lets go get high, the road is long, we carry on; try to have fun in the meantime.

Come take a walk on the wild side, Let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain, You like your girls insane, So choose your last words, this is the last time, Cause you and I, we were born to die.

Ever since that weekend, she’d been avoiding Tommy. She only stopped by their mansion to see Charlie and the other Shelbys, but other than that, she stayed in her old house. The Y/n Tommy knew was clinging onto the edge, praying he’d change his mind.

Tommy was too damn stubborn for his own good.

“Thomas. You have to apologize-”

“No, Pol. I don’t have to apologize nor admit that she’s right. You know why? Eh? Because she’s not. I will not have the woman I love get murdered in front of my own eyes, or at all. If Y/n is to die, I’d rather it be old age or peacefully in her sleep than by the son of the man who tried to kill her at our own wedding.”

He knew the mafia would make it harder to prevent deaths, which he’d learned from John, and Y/n would be shown no mercy by Luca, so he took his time, for once, to think about his options.

“See? She’s escaped death once, who’s to say she won’t laugh in his face again?” Polly scoffed at her nephew, walking out the door to visit Y/n like she’d been doing for the past few days.

Y/n needed company, and Polly was the perfect person for it. She made Y/n tea and helped her unwind, allowing her to know more of her past than her own family member did. Y/n ranted to Polly, about the things she missed and the things she didn’t. About the things that made her want to lash out and the things that made her want to cry with joy.

“How’s Tommy?” Y/n spoke through sniffles.

“Horrible, still a stubborn bastard. But lets not focus on his actions in the now. Instead, why don’t you think of the things you love...no, loved, about Tommy, more specifically, how he was before the paranoia caught up to him?”

“I mean, can you blame him? His brother was-”

Polly pursed her lips, hinting to Y/n that she was not in the best of moods to be discussing anything of John’s death. Y/n stopped, looking to Pol, waiting for her to continue. “Tell me, what did Tommy do to win you over?”

“He was... kind. And very caring.”

A small boy chased a smaller girl through the woods, their bare feet crunching the leaves under them, cold air nipping at their noses and uncovered parts of their skin.

“Tommy!”

The younger girl cried as she tripped over a branch in the path. Only nine, she was sure she’d fallen in love with the twelve year old boy. He’d been sure of the same thing as well.

“It’s okay, Y/n, I’ve got you!” He raced over, jumping skillfully over the wood and dropping to his knees. His hands reached for her leg, she hissed in pain and brought her leg back towards herself. “No, you have to let me see it if I’m to help.”

“Promise you won’t hurt it more?”

“I promise.” The boy smiled brightly up at the girl before inspecting her leg. When he discovered it was nothing major, he pressed a chaste kiss to her injury, then helped her up and onto his back.

“He knew just how to make me laugh..still does,” she chuckled quietly.

“Thomas! I can’t believe you did that!” The teen girl gasped at her admirer, his story being more amusing than he’d thought. It was a relief. “Polly must’ve been pissed!”

“She was. Told me to stop doing the impressions, that it was disrespectful. But John enjoys it, so Aunt Polly doesn’t have to know everything...” They stopped, Y/n put out her cigarette and pulled Tommy’s from his mouth, putting it out as well. “It’s um..raining.”

“I know.” Y/n smirked at the boy, biting her lip shyly before extending her hand, “May I have this dance?”

“Isn’t it the boy who asks the girl?” She rolled her eyes playfully, Thomas joining her in their laughter, “Fine fine, yes, you may. As long as I lead.”

“Can’t promise you anything, princess.”

Tommy gasped, feigning offence, “Oh you didn’t-”

“Oh but I did.” Her smile made his heartbeat rush, the blush on her face mirrored his, and the dinosaurs in their stomachs evolved into giants. Once butterflies, now giants, their teen crushes never hesitated to bring them closer.

They danced, Y/n’s dress sticking to her skin like Tommy’s dress-shirt. They’d came from the church, Tommy’s story about how he talked to John in the preacher’s voice, and their Sunday Bests were now soaked with the skies tears, which their melody came from.

“Y/n?” She nodded in response. “Lets run away. Together.” He dipped her, and then pulled her back up to see her reaction. A wild, even mischievous, smile rested on her lips before he leaned forward to join their grins in a rough kiss.

“Polly will kill us, you know?”

“Oh I don’t doubt that for a second.” He pulled away from her, twirling her with his hand and basking in her giggles, “So I suppose we should think of what our final words’ll be, huh?”

Lost but now I am found. I can see but once I was blind. I was so confused as a little child, Tried to take what I could get, Scared that I couldn't find; All the answers honey.

She winced, crying out in emotional pain as the priest slapped Tommy. Pol collected her nephew, but no one came for Y/n. She was going to give up, allow the church to take her wherever they planned, but the door opened again. Polly waited by it.

The older woman blinked in surprise as the teen wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. “T-thank you.”

“You’re very welcome dear. Now, come along, we mustn’t stall.”

Ever since that day, she’d been so bothered with the curiosity of what led Polly to help her. Even now, as an adult and married to a Shelby, she was confused. Polly was still helping her, even though she wasn’t on the best terms with Tommy.

“Why?” Pol looked up. “Why’d you help me that day? Did Tommy ask you too?”

Polly thought back, smiling and shaking her head. “No.”

“Then what made you help me?”

“Nothing, Y/n. I just... I just felt the need to help. Thomas had no say in the matter, as he believed your parents were coming. I believe I... I could see his love for you. The way he looked at you, the gleam in his eyes when someone brought you up, the pep in his step whenever he went where you were. Tom was happy, and that was important... especially when their mother passed.”

Y/n nodded, a single, yet still sad, tear rolling down her cheek.

“Tommy? what’s wrong?” The 18 year old boy crawled through her window, eyes red and puffy. He mumbled something of his mother dying after giving birth to the youngest, and the last, Shelby brother.

She felt her eyes well up with tears, knowing his pain and feeling the need to hold him close to her.

And she did. His head rested on her chest as they drifted into a peaceful slumber, waking up with tear-stained cheeks, tired eyes, and matching red hazes across their faces.

She fell asleep with him that night. And the next. And the next. And the next. He continued coming over, crying to her, sometimes with her. Despite them not confessing their feelings for one another yet, they knew full well how in love they both were, after all, they’d kissed before.

1908 was a wild year.

But it was also the year they finally vowed to be together. The sooner three more years had passed, the sooner she’d be with the man she loved. She smiled, stretching as much as she could with a sleeping Tommy on her. The sunlight danced across his sleeping face, allowing her to admire him and all his beauty.

The sleepy smile on his face too. It showed how happy he was.

That, or how much he enjoyed the feeling of her nails combing through his hair.

Either way, they were both happy.

“That’s why I helped.”

Don't make me sad, don't make me cry, Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough I don't know why. Keep making me laugh, Lets go get high. The road is long, we carry on, Try to have fun in the meantime.

Come take a walk on the wild side, Let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain, you like your girls insane, Choose your last words, this is the last time, Cause you and I, we were born to die. We were born to die We were born to die.

Come and take a walk on the wild side, Let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain, You like your girls insane~

Luca blinked, blood in his eyes, as Y/n walked through the door and raised her gun. Thomas’ eyes widened; he was expecting Arthur, not his wife to push past him. And he certainly wasn’t expecting Arthur to just stand there, doing nothing to stop her.

She smirked at the Italian before shooting him, the bullet passing through his head and hitting the barrel behind him. She didn’t so much as flinch as the gunshot rang throughout the building.

Changretta’s body hit the floor with a loud thud, splashing sounds following. Gin poured from the hole in it’s barrel, but no one cared.

They were too focused on Tommy’s wife, who was tucking her gun away.

The woman looked at Tommy, a sigh of relief, possibly from the fact that he was still alive, escaped her mouth. She turned and left without saying anything.

He let out a shaky breath, speaking with pants every now and the,. “Tell your people in Chicago, that Michael Gray will sign the import licence to New York. 300 barrels of English dry gin a month.”

“Leave. All of ya. Tell your boss what you saw here today. Tell him...you don’t fuck with the Peaky Blinders.” Arthur stepped aside once the men had left. “And uh brother? I believe you have your own business to attend to?”

“What?”

Polly flicked Tommy’s ear with a shocked expression. It was not from Y/n killing Luca, though she did feel proud of the girl, but from Tommy’s stubborn dumbassery. “Quit being such a stubborn bastard and go after her, idiot!”

“Right-” He swallowed before nodding and rushing out of the building.

Don't make me sad, don't make me cry, Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough I don't know why. Keep making me laugh, Lets go get high, The road is long, we carry on, Try to have fun in the meantime.

Come take a walk on the wild side, Let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain, You like your girls insane. Choose your last words, this is the last time, Cause you and I, we were born to die.

The slam of the door caused Y/n to stop and turn around.

“What do you wa-” She started, only for her to be grabbed by the back of her neck and pulled into a kiss. Their lips fit together perfectly, dancing before separating for the horribly-timed human need of oxygen.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I should’ve listened to you-” Y/n cut him off, pulling him down by the lapels of his jacket. The rain began to pour, dousing the couple in a familiar melody. She pulled away, grinning widely. “Oh.. it’s raining. Should we head back ins-”

“I know.” She extended her arm to her husband, her action and interruption catching him by surprise. “May I have this dance?”

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fancywasmyname1 · 4 years

Text

Harden My Heart (1) Part One

Warning: Language

IF YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED, LET ME KNOW!

“We’re doing this for your best interest, Caroline.”

I stared at the piece of paper, pulling at the edges. “It’s not only the best thing for you but it’s also going to help our family out as well.”

I stayed silent as I listened to my mother try to plead her and my father’s case. I thought I was coming home for a nice family dinner, but I was instead dropped in the lion’s den, preparing to be ripped to shreds. “He’s a good boy, Caroline.” My father spoke. “He’s going to take very good care of you, better than any other man can.”

“I’d rather slit my wrist and bleed out on the street than go with that man.” I muttered, earning looks of disapproval from my parents.

“Don’t say things like that, Caroline.” I looked up at my mom.

I wanted so badly to tell her off but I knew that she and my dad were under enough stress. They didn’t need me mouthing off to them, even though it would make me feel a little better.

“Now-“ She spoke as she stood up from the couch across from me. “Reggie will be here any minute and you’re still dressed like a slouch.” I looked down at my baggy shirt and gym shorts. “You need to go upstairs, shower, and make yourself look presentable.”

“Presentable?” I questioned.

She let out a huff, her nerves hanging on by a string. “Presentable, Caroline-” Her voice filled with annoyance. “Like every blushing bride-to-be should look.” _________________________________________________

“I’m gonna throw up.”

I stared at myself in the mirror, the Ivory gown staring back at me.

“Just take a couple deep breaths, Caroline.” My eyes drifted to my mom’s reflection, her purple dress hugging her small feature. “It’s just nerves.”

Just nerves.

I had been hearing that phrase for the past two weeks. Meeting a man that I was to marry in less than a week… Just nerves. Planning a wedding for over 300 guest… Just nerves. The day finally being here and my life being signed away forever to a man I don’t even know… Just nerves.

Today was the day that I had been dreading since my parents dropped the nuptial bomb. When you’re a little girl, you dream of your wedding day. You dream of the beautiful dress, the fancy reception, and the man of your dreams standing at the alter waiting for you. You basically have it all planned by the age of 10, but fate has a funny way of fucking it all up. Never in a million years would I have guessed that I would be in the situation I’m in now. I never imagined that I would be standing here, wearing a beautiful wedding dress, waiting to walk down the aisle to a man that I didn’t know or even love for that matter. I would be sharing the biggest and supposedly happiest day of my life with a room full of strangers and maybe a dozen of my own family and friends. When I pictured myself getting married, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I was supposed to be happy. I was supposed to be in love.

“Reggie is gonna die when he sees you, sweetheart.”

Reggie Kray.

There’s not much to say about Reginald Kray, seeing as I barely know the guy. The few times that I had any interaction with him, he seemed cold and uptight. Almost like a stick was shoved up his ass and he had no way of getting it out. He didn’t talk much, which was okay by me. From what I heard from my parents, Reggie was a twin but never spoke of his sibling. It was all a big mystery when it came to Reggie Kray. He walked around with an entourage of guys, all dressed in suits, black suits. There was always one main guy with him at all times, almost like he was afraid to be by himself. The guy was just as uptight and cold as Reggie. He never spoke the couple times that I was around him. He just stood there like he was a fixture of the house. Was it going to be like this when Reggie and I were finally married? Am I getting a two-for-one kind of deal?

“Five minutes before show time!”

I snapped out of my thoughts as the wedding planner barged through the door. I watched as the stylist placed her finishing touches on my mom’s hair, giving her a smile in the mirror. Everyone in the room buzzed around, fixing stray hairs, touching up makeup, and grabbing anything they needed.

“Is the bride ready?”

I stayed silent, watching as everyone scattered around me. I felt like my world was closing in on me. My chest felt tight. My throat felt like it was closing. I wanted to rip this fucking dress off my body and throw myself in the nearest river. I wanted to be anywhere but here!

“She’s rea-“

“Why me?” I cut my mom off. “Why do I have to do this? Why do I have to marry a man I don’t even fucking know?!” I yelled out, tears threatening to spill from my eyes. “There’s a million girls out there that he could have picked. What’s so fucking special about me?”

Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at me. I could see pity in some of their eyes, while others looked at me like I was insane. If they were in my shoes, they would be freaking out too. “Caroline-“ My mom barked. “You need to calm down!”

“No!” I started tugging at my dress. “I want to know why he fucking picked me?!”

The wedding planner began ushering everyone out of the room, leaving my mom and I alone.

“I’m taking this dress off-“ I reached my hands behind my back, searching for the zipper. “I’m leaving.”

My mom suddenly turned into the Flash, swatting my hands away from the back of the dress. “You need to get your shit together, Caroline Taylor!” She seethed. “You have a church full of people waiting for you and you’re throwing a fucking hissy-fit. Do you know how ridiculous you are sounding right now? You know how many girls would kill to be in the spot you’re in right now?”  I stayed silent.

“You wanna know why Reggie Kray picked you?” She spoke. “You need to ask him yourself. You need to speak to that boy like he’s your husband. He’s the one that came to your father and I. He sought you out himself and your father and I agreed that he would be the best match for you.”

“You don’t even know him, mo-“

“You don’t know him either, Caroline!” She pressed. “You’re not even giving him the time of day. You need to get to know him because you’re gonna be with him for a very long time.”

“I can get it annulled or filed for divorce.”

My mom glared at me, “No daughter of mine is gonna get a divorce.” Her voice was serious and low. “You’re going to learn to love that boy, you hear me?”

Before I could answer, the wedding planner popped back in, telling us that it was time to start. I felt like my life was failing. At that moment, I knew that I couldn’t back out. There was no way my mom would let me leave this church without Reggie beside me and the name Kray behind Caroline…

The Bridal Chorus was a song that caused butterflies to erupt in everyone’s stomach. It meant that the event was finally happening and the bride would be ushered down the aisle to her awaiting groom. It was a happy moment for everyone, everyone except me.

As my dad and I started making our way down the pathway, I looked around at all the guest in attendance. I didn’t recognize half the people there, and those I did know, looked at me with so much hope and happiness. I wonder if they could see emptiness and sadness when I looked at them? I took a glance ahead at the alter where Reggie was standing. His three-piece suit hugged his body like a glove, his hair slicked back perfectly. He looked very handsome. As we grew closer, I my eyes connected with his. Heat flooded my core as his eyes burned into my skin, his eyes examining my front top to bottom.

“Who gives this woman to this man?”

The music stopped as the priest’s voice rang throughout the venue.

I felt my dad’s arm tighten around mine, “Her mother and I do.” He spoke proudly.

The priest nodded his head, giving him a small smile. I turned toward my dad, his hands reaching for my lace veil. I wanted to burst into tears as I locked eyes with him. He gave me a reassuring smile as he lifted the veil away from my face, placing a kiss on my cheek.   “I love you.” He whispered.

I remained silent as he pulled away, reaching for my right hand, leading me towards Reggie.

“Take good care of her, son.” My dad spoke as he placed my hand into Reggie’s left. Reggie simply nodded his head before turning back toward the priest, pulling me with him as he ascending back up the small staircase.

His grip on my hand felt firm but not too tight. It almost felt comforting. Once we were in front of the priest, he ran his thumb over my skin in a reassuring manner, before softly releasing my hand. My hand felt like it was on fire, a good kind of fire.

“We are gathered here today to join this holy union between Reginald Kray and Caroline Taylor.”

I started to block out what the priest was saying after that first line. Here I was, standing in front a church full of people, marrying a man I’ve only known for two weeks. I didn’t know his favorite color, sports teams, what he liked, disliked. I just noticed that his eyes are green! I didn’t know what he did for a living, if he had a college degree. I’m not even sure how old he is but yet here I was. If I really wanted to, I could have left. I would have pushed past my mom, told everyone to kiss my ass, and got the fuck out of Dodge. That’s what I would have done if I wanted to leave. That little fighting spirit was still inside me, telling me to kick off the heels and run out of the church but I stayed. I can’t tell you why I stayed but here I was.

“Reggie, Caroline-”The priest spoke. “Please face each other for the reading of the vowels and ring exchange.”

We were soon facing, able to take each other in fully. He was a lot taller than I remembered. Frankly, he was even more attractive close up. The features that I should have noticed the first day I met him were in the spotlight as stared up at him. His chiseled jaw looked like it was carved by Michelangelo himself. His lips were full and the perfect shade of pink. His eyes were green, with little hints of blue and brown floating around. He was fucking perfect.

“Reggie, please repeat after me.” The priest began. “I, Reginald Kray, take thee Caroline Taylor, to be my lawfully wedded wife.”

“I, Reginald Kray, take thee Caroline Taylor, to be my lawfully wedded wife.” His English accent floating through the air like a warm breeze.

“To have and to hold, through sickness and through health, for richer and for poorer, until death do us part.”

“To have and to hold, through sickness and through health, for richer and for poorer, till death do us part-“ He slipped the diamond wedding sent on my left ring finger. “I promise to always protect you no matter what.” He spoke the last part, his eyes boring into mine.

My heart fluttered as I took in the extra vow he threw in. By the audience’s reaction, I wasn’t the only one who was shocked.

“Caroline, please repeat after me.” My eyes stayed connected with Reggie’s as the priest started speaking.

“I, Caroline Taylor, take thee Reginald Kray, to be my lawfully wedded husband.”

“I-“ I stopped short.

Every thought that I had about this wedding came crashing down on me once again. I was a couple words away from being married. A few little words separated me from a life of unknowns.

“I, Caroline Taylor, take thee Reginald Kray, to be my lawfully wedded husband.”

It was as if a sense of relief not only flooded through the priest, but Reggie and the entire church.

“To have and to hold, through sickness and through health, for richer or poorer, until death do us part.”

“To have and to hold, through sickness and through health, for richer or poorer, until death do us part.” I placed the silver band on his finger, his finger wrapping around mine once the ring was placed.

“I now have the pleasure of pronouncing you man and wife, Reggie, you may now kiss your gorgeous bride.”

I watched as he started leaning forward as I felt myself leaning back. Before I could get far enough away, his arm stretched behind my waist, bringing me flush against his hard body. In that moment, we were in our own world. He was looking at me and I was looking at him. Without further hesitation, he crashed his lips onto mine. Shock was the first thing I felt but as the kiss deepened, pleasure and want replaced the feeling.

“Get a room, you two!”

Reggie was the first to break away, leaving me wanting more. When I finally came back to earth and realized that we were still in front of my parents, his parents, and especially the priest, embarrassment coursed through me. I just had a fucking make-out session in front of a priest, my parents, strangers, and God.

Reggie Kray was already turning me into a completely different person...

#Reggie Kray #reggie kray imagine #reggie kray fanfiction #reggie kray x oc #legend 2015 #legend movie #Tom Hardy #tom hardy fanfiction #tom hardy fanfic #tom hardy imagine #tom hardy x oc

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dynamics-of-an-asteroid · 3 years

Note

Dont suppose you have a copy of the interview you could share?

For you, dear anon~

His Dark Materials: Andrew Scott on life after Fleabag and Sherlock

We’ve loved him as both Fleabag’s Hot Priest and Sherlock’s menacing Moriarty. Now, he’s back on our screens in the new series of His Dark Materials. Polly Vernon talks to our TV crush

Andrew Scott is mortified. The actor – formerly Moriarty to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, then the Hot Priest of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, imminently Colonel John Parry in the BBC’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials – arrives at the photographic studio, bang on the appointed hour, in a fawn cashmere cardigan with a fine gold chain around his neck, bemoaning “this terrible, terrible eye infection, which is making me so self-conscious. I’m so sorry. It isn’t that you’ve massively upset me before we’ve even started. It’s so annoying. But anyway…”

Scott, 44, is small, vivid, wiry and garrulously Irish, with a face that is not handsome so much as mesmerising, intense, sharply boned, symmetrical, startlingly expressive. Sequences of emotions so subtle and complicated that I can’t begin to identify or keep up with them ruffle his brow from moment to moment. And, yup, the whole thing is rather disrupted by his left eye. This is no light kiss of conjunctivitis. It’s a swollen, red, perma-weeping situation that engulfs the whole socket. Scott turns his face two thirds on to me, so the infection is largely hidden, which would probably help if we weren’t sitting in a brightly lit hair and make-up room with a massive, inescapable mirror fixed to one wall. “Oh God,” Scott says every time he catches sight of his reflection.

Stress?

“Let’s be honest,” he says. “Let’s not skirt around the issue. It’s being overworked and…” Scott’s eye begins weeping. “Oh my goodness. I am so sorry. Really, really very sorry.”

Wanna wear my sunglasses, I ask, holding them out to him.

“That would be a bit more weird, wouldn’t it? I actually did think about that in the taxi, but I thought that would be some sort of weird and screwed Invisible Man-type thing. I mean, it couldn’t be worse. And then we have to go and get our photograph taken. It’ll be one of those pictures where, you know, those creepy pictures… Of people crying?”

That’s what Photoshop’s for, I say.

“Anyway. Let’s just ignore it.”

I wonder if it’s particularly hard to walk around with an eye infection at a point in time where you’re not merely famous, as Scott is – a star of stage, screen and Bond film, winner of multiple awards, including, as of barely two weeks ago, a Best Actor Olivier for Present Laughter at the Old Vic – but specifically famous for being sexy.

In 2019, Andrew Scott became synonymous with, well, sex. While playing a character technically known as the Priest, whom the general public instantly renamed the Hot Priest, the spiritual support turned transgressive love interest of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s supremely popular Fleabag, Scott became a cypher for the nation’s more exotic desires. A deliciously contentious pin-up. Ground zero on an earnest social media debate about whether the Priest’s relationship with Fleabag should be considered abusive, power imbalanced, “problematic”. And that was just for starters.

The Priest’s sexual iconography extended far beyond the limits of the show, becoming the subject of internet memes and real-life merchandise (visit online retailer Etsy for your £12 Hot Priest mug emblazoned with an illustration of Scott in priest’s robes, alongside the word “kneel”, a reference to a pivotal moment between the show’s lead characters, which takes place in a confession box, the climax of which, assuming you haven’t already seen it, you could probably take a stab at). There was an unprecedented upsurge in young worshippers, and women started bombarding social media “influencer” the Rev Chris Lee of west London with nude photographs. There was much foetid fan fiction.

To be publicly defined by so much sex, as Scott still is, a year and a half after Fleabag concluded, and then to be encumbered by something as visibly unsexy as an eye infection, I can see how that might make a chap self-conscious.

Scott isn’t here to rake up all that old Hot Priest stuff, mind. He’s here to talk about the second series of His Dark Materials, a lush, expensive fantasy drama based on the Philip Pullman books, jewel in the crown of the BBC’s autumn schedule. The series was filmed through 2019 and the beginning of 2020 and had all but wrapped before lockdown. Good timing, as it turned out, because the extensive post-production processes, unlike shooting, could be completed in isolation.

Scott’s Colonel John Parry is an explorer, the missing father of the central character, 14-year-old Will Parry. He’s a man who slipped into a parallel universe some years earlier, acquired a “daemon” – an exterior animal-formed expression of his soul, a female osprey called Sayan Kötör, voiced with public-pleasing symmetry by Phoebe Waller-Bridge – and never found a way back to “our” world and his son. I speak as a fan of the books, which you might describe as a darker, existential response to Harry Potter, although honestly? They’re better than that. The show is great, a deft, rewarding interpretation, and Scott is an exciting prospect as Parry.

Did he jump at the part?

“I did, actually. It was definitely something I was into. We were doing a play and it seemed like a fun thing to do.” Scott is one of those who slips into the third person when speaking about himself in a professional capacity.

Had he read the books?

“Yeah,” he says. “I think they’re extraordinary. The truth, but told on a slant. I love the way Pullman tells children about spirituality or religion in such an extraordinary, intelligent way. He doesn’t speak down to them. He talks to children’s souls.”

Given that Pullman effectively kills off God through the course of the books and Scott’s a lapsed Irish Catholic who has suffered his share of shame on account of the church’s grip on his homeland (more on which shortly), I’d imagine Pullman’s books talked to Scott’s adult soul too.

Presumably, he didn’t have to audition. Presumably, he never has to. Too famous for auditions?

“No,” he says. “Although I’ve always thought auditioning is a pretty good thing to do.”

Why?

“Because you’re able to understand, ‘Oh, this is the vibe here.’ You think, when you’re an actor, you don’t have much choice, but I’ve always felt like auditioning is a good opportunity for you to go, ‘Oh well, I don’t much like you either. I think you’re dreadful!’ ”

I don’t care that you didn’t give me that part?

“Yeah.” Scott becomes playfully, theatrically defiant. “I don’t care!” He flicks aside an imaginary rejection with a churlish hand.

Will John Parry and His Dark Materials be enough to eliminate all residual overtones of Hot Priest sexiness from Scott? Maybe. He is a fine actor, no question, entirely transformed from role to role. I saw him play Paul, a narcissistic, fame-addled touring rock star, at the Royal Court in 2014 in Simon Stephens’ Birdland, back when his deeply sinister Moriarty weighed almost as heavily on Scott’s reputation as the Hot Priest does now. I’d watched him become someone else entirely on stage. “Oh, you saw that?” Scott says, pleased.

I quote, “Am I cancer?” at him, his defining line from the play, as evidence.

“Oh Jesus. Oh f***ing hell. Oh my. I’d forgotten that line. ‘Am I cancer?’ ”

The Hot Priest association hasn’t left him yet, which is why I find myself asking what it’s like to be the very definition of sexiness.

“You get invited to more parties.”

Better parties?

“Yeah.”

Better than during his Moriarty phase?

“Definitely.”

It must be fun to find yourself le dernier cri in sexy, according to the whole nation.

“Yeah, that’s fun,” he says. “I didn’t really like being associated with scary. It’s not what I’m interested in being, in life, being intimidating to people. It’s not part of my nature, whereas being sexy to people…”

That is part of his nature?

“Well, they’re very different things.”

They’re both about having power over people.

“I suppose they are, yes.”

So did Scott, bored of scaring people, say to Phoebe Waller-Bridge, writer and star of Fleabag and a long-term friend (they met in 2009 while starring in Roaring Trade at the Soho Theatre), “Write a role for me that will make everyone think I’m just really, really sexy now”?

“That’s such a good belt. Are they two ‘Gs’?”

“Exactly.”

——————————

Andrew Scott is not the easiest interview. He’s utterly charming. Really, just a delight. In between prostrating himself for the offence of his eye and apologising for not turning up the first time we were scheduled to meet (ten days earlier; a delayed Covid test result meant he couldn’t make it), he ensures I have a good time in his company. He is playful. He makes me laugh. His every utterance is delivered as a grand performance. (“Shhhh! Just… Shhhh!” he implores, placing a finger against his lips while expressing frustrations over the mindless jabber of social media, and he does it so powerfully, he compels me to be quiet, breathlessly to await delivery of his next line.) He finds elegant ways to flatter me. He laughs at my jokes and is terribly taken with my belt.

Yeah. For Gucci.

“Oh. Ha ha! I thought it was the Golden Globes. I love the Golden Globes. Ha ha!”

And of course, he’s Irish. Clichédly, melodiously Irish, which makes everything sound softer and jollier than it might otherwise.

As for the actual business of being interviewed, of answering straight questions with straight answers, finishing off sentences, offering more than a slip-slide of vagaries punctuated by vigorous hand gestures, none of which translates into print? He’d rather not.

He tells me, as he’s told other journalists before, this is because he’s interested in navigating the line between “privacy and secrecy”, then says he’s aware he’s sometimes “got away with secrecy under the guise and respectability of privacy”, as if signalling potential incoming slipperiness, which means I prepare to throw every trick in the book at him.

First up: amateur psychology.

Might Andrew Scott’s gayness be at the heart of his reluctance to speak more freely? Perhaps. This is no scoop. He’s been out for almost as long as he’s been famous. “I mean, as a civilian, I was quite young [when I came out], you know? But then, as a celebrity…”

He tails off, allows me to fill in the blanks. This is another of his evasion tactics. I can’t very well quote Scott on the presumptions I make about things he never quite says.

He had to have another coming out?

“Yes. And I have another one coming up.”

He has another coming out coming up?

“Yeah.”

So that will be, what? Tier 3 gayness?

“Tier 3, yeah.”

Scott grew up in Ireland at a time when it wasn’t legal to be gay, which could certainly seed an enduring reluctance towards carefree openness in a person. He invokes the concept of shame more regularly than the average interviewee. He was born in Dublin in 1976 to Nora, an art teacher, and Jim, who worked at an employment agency. He has one older sister, Sarah, and a younger one, Hannah.

He was shy, so started attending a children’s drama course.

Did that help?

“Yeah. Acting to me is not pretending to be someone else. It’s more like, this is who I actually am. The lie that tells the truth,” he says. I am none the wiser. He was clearly talented. He went from adverts to his first starring role in a film aged 17 (Korea, directed by Cathal Black), won a bursary to art school but took a place at Trinity College Dublin to study drama instead, and ditched that six months in to join Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. He’s been gainfully employed in the field ever since.

How Catholic was his upbringing?

“Well, there were Catholic priests in my life,” he says. “None of whom I wanted to have sex with.”

Does it amuse Scott to know he inspired a mass fetishising of priestly ranks? That in 2019, the Hot Priest would make, “Can you have sex with a Catholic priest?” one of the most googled terms of the year?

“Absolutely f***ing mental,” he says.

Homosexuality wasn’t legalised in Ireland until 1993, when Scott was 16.

“I always think, if I’d had a boyfriend then, which I definitely did not…”

No?

“No.”

He knew he was gay, though?

“No. No, no, no, no!”

Was he suppressing it or not thinking about it?

“I would say suppressing. Definitely suppressing. I don’t believe people just don’t think about it.”

An upbeat, cheesy jazz remix of something or other starts playing outside the room.

“Oooh, this is the soundtrack for this bit of the interview,” says Scott. He wiggles his shoulders to the music.

I switch to strict dominatrix interviewer mode. Focus, I say. You were about to tell me something good.

“Oh, shit, was I? OK. I think what’s really insidious is that people don’t ask you about sex or… People wouldn’t say, ‘Are you gay or are you [straight]?’ And the lack of directness is very damaging. They just didn’t go there.”

Does he think his family, friends, the people closest to him knew then that he was gay?

“No,” he says. “I don’t think they did know. Or maybe they have a suspicion, but they think, I want to be respectful, so I’m not going to ask about that. Then [when you do come out], people say, ‘Oh, I’m glad.’ You know? If you do talk about it. So I suppose what I feel now is, talking about sex or sexuality is important. Really important.”

Having said that, “There’s still getting rid of the shame. In a situation like this, 10 or 15 years ago, I would have been…” He fakes shock, horror. “Oh no! Polly’s just asked me about [he switches to a whisper] that.”

Scott will talk about his sex life only notionally. No specifics. For 15 years, between 2001 and 2016, he was in a relationship with the actor turned screenwriter Stephen Beresford (Scott starred in Beresford’s 2014 film Pride). Ever since, he’s refused to answer questions about his romantic life.

And he’s not going to talk about it now, I presume.

“No.”

What if we talk about it opaquely?

“OK.”

Where does he see himself, domestically, in an ideal world? Married with kids whom he’ll, I dunno, adopt or have via surrogacy?

“I like it. It’s bold. Am I going to adopt or…?”

Get a surrogate?

“I definitely think that’s something I would be open to.”

Great, I say, with blatant sarcasm. Thanks. How specific.

“Ha! I’m sorry. OK. Have I got any children at the moment? No. How can I… [explain]? OK. I was with a friend of mine in Dublin…”

His partner?

“No, no, no. Not my partner. Ah ha. I see what you were…”

Teasing. Yes.

“Ha! Yes. So, I was with a friend in Dublin and we were walking around and he was looking at apartments and I was like, ‘What about this place here?’ You know? And he said, ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Why not?’ and he said, ‘I don’t live a heteronormative life, so I don’t want a heteronormative house.’ ”

What’s a heteronormative house?

“Two up, two down thing. He goes, ‘I can live in a loft or a weird space. I don’t need those things.’ He was so proud of it. He really owned it. I think where a lot of one’s pain comes from is when you go, ‘I should want that.’ And so, to answer your question opaquely, I have kids I adore. I love children, genuinely, and I had a very happy childhood. But I also feel, if I don’t have kids, that’s all right. I think I would’ve attached a lot of shame beforehand, with not living a particularly heteronormative life… Even with being gay, there’s a sort of way of being gay that’s acceptable. And I don’t feel that any more.”

He feels you can be unacceptably gay?

“Exactly. Exactly!”

I ask when shame shifted for him and Scott says it was when Ireland voted overwhelmingly in favour of same-sex marriage in the 2015 referendum, which felt, he says, “like acceptance, genuinely. And I remember going out to this gay bar in Dublin and this girl came up to me, this cool Dublin girl, and she said, ‘What are you doing here? You need to go down to, I don’t know, blah, blah, this bar in some park.’ She was saying, ‘This isn’t the right gay bar for you. This is some shit gig,’ when the fact I’m in a gay bar in Ireland [at all] is a miracle to me, and then some person with a half-shaved head is telling me, ‘No, you need to go somewhere cooler.’ ”

His left eye starts weeping again.

“I’m so happy about that,” he says. “Even though I’m crying.”

I ask Scott if he has a game plan when picking roles, if he plots his course from Sherlock villain to Bond quasi-villain (he played Max Denbigh in Spectre) to sex icon, and, if so, what next? “No. Jesus, no,” he says.

We talk about the totalitarianism of social media, which he isn’t on, and share a mutual despair over it. “I thought it was something one would associate with the right, but actually, now it’s [the left] that is very ‘you’re this’ or ‘you’re that’. I find that quite frightening. It actually makes me feel ferocious.”

Is he not worried about being cancelled, of somehow saying the “wrong” thing, according to Twitter sensitivities, then having a thousand voices mobilised against him, demanding his firing, in the style of JK Rowling?

“I’m not,” he says. “I refuse to be. A very intelligent person I was talking to recently was writing a book and he said, ‘I’m going to get a sensitivity expert to have a look. I don’t want to get cancelled.’ I found that frightening.”

Is he rich? “Rich is the absence of worry about money,” he says. He can’t remember the last time he worried about money.

That must be nice.

“Of course it f***ing is. I think it’s a miracle. I really do. I was working in a French theatre in London for nothing – none of us was working for anything – and I remember the artistic director of the theatre talking about the fact we weren’t earning any money as some sort of virtue. I remember feeling really annoyed about that, like this isn’t good.”

This leads to an inevitable conversation about how the arts are suffering with Covid, including a segue down the Fatima route, the much shared government advert that depicted a young ballerina and suggested she retrain in something called cyber. “Her name’s not even Fatima,” Scott rails. “I think she’s called Desire’e. From New York.”

I mean to ask him about his experience of filming The Pursuit of Love with Lily James and Dominic West, stars of their own recent off-screen micro-scandal in Rome, just in case he lets any scurrilous insight slip, but our time’s up and it’s not as if Scott has much form on offering up scurrilous insight anyway.

Still, I feel grateful to him for meeting me halfway on the other stuff. And so I say goodbye to Andrew Scott, the UK’s foremost gay heterosexual lapsed Catholic faux-priest lust icon with a troublesome eye infection.

#''Tier 3 gayness'' is peak comedy #I'm not sure if I should put this in the tag but y'all can reblog if you need it on yours #long post #andrew scott

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1zashreena1 · 4 years

Text

No Shame

Pairing: M/F, nebulously OC/Priest!Diego Jimenez [Starz Power] AU IMAGINE

Rating: LITERAL FILTH

Warnings: Power imbalance, astronomical blasphemy, Diego's pornographic mouth, old timey woman related bullshit, set some time before 1900 in what will be present day Mexico

A/N: I am an atheist so please keep that in mind as I unintentionally mangle Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. This was prompted by an ask, you know who you are >.>.

Tag a friend! @girlpornparadise @nicke0115 @fleurfatale89 @mandoplease @heresathreebee @chensingmachinee

Photo credit to @girlpornparadise

I just woke up.

I have lost my last shred of sanity.

I must reevaluate all of my life choices.

I need guidance, discipline, a strong hand.

I am lost.

Perhaps mother was right. I will at least give her suggestion a chance. Father never forced us to obey her last wishes, but even if I never become a believer there must be some lesson I can learn from the experience. The only christian church in this new locale is catholic, that alone will be a new experience. I will walk there either early this morning or in the evening after the heat has dissipated. Mexico is a strange and wondrous place, but this heat is not conducive to proper corsets. Or really any underthings, for that matter.

-----------------

The walk to the church is long. You go slowly in the evening heat, unwilling to become any more disgusting with perspiration than you already are. You had forgone petticoats, crinoline, or even bloomers, but found the bounce of your chest too much and so had opted for the cropped corset. You are beginning to understand the local women's choice of garments.

The church is stone, backed up to the cliffside, dark and cool on the inside. It is also echoingly empty. You wander about, touching pews, taking in murals, and dipping the tip of a finger into what you assume must be holy water.

"Are you lost, little girl?"

With a small shriek, you whip around to locate the owner of that rasping voice. It is a priest, It is a damn shame, is what it is. He is tall, broad, strikingly broad, eyes and hair dark, and he has just enough of an accent that you know English is not his native tongue. You gawk at the nearly perfect features; a long, straight nose, high cheekbones, thick brows, a cutting jawline, and sinful lips.

"I- I am sorry. There was no one about so I was simply looking. I did not mean to intrude." You stutter out. It should be a crime of nature to take a man like that to the celibacy of the church.

"Of course you are not intruding. But, if I may, you do seem… lost. And alone." His words are solicitous but his eyes glitter in the low light. Absolutely massive hands emerge from the sleeves of the cassock and you have to remind yourself that it is rude to stare. He stalks over to you, there is no other word for such a predatory gait, and you stumble back a step. He is not as tall as his hulking presence seemed, but he still towers over your frame.

"I am. Lost, that is. I did come here alone, but I live with my father. We only recently moved here." Why are you telling him so much? Is it the collar? Or his hungry expression?

No one has ever looked at you thus, as though you were some delicacy to be savored. It confuses you greatly and you feel quite flustered. It evokes feelings that were stirred the few times you snuck out at night, slinking through the streets of Philadelphia to peer into a foreign world of nightlife and debauchery. You had seen the opium dens, the women walking the streets, people enjoying themselves and each other in ways you so desperately wanted for yourself. Mother always did curse me as a hedonist.

"Would you like to confess? Have you been sinful?" He holds out one wide hand in gesture to the confessional.

"Oh, I am quite certain that would not help." You laugh bitterly. "I am not Catholic, in fact, I am not even a Christian. I imagine I must be brimming to overflow with your 'sins'." The sarcasm of your tone is unmistakable.

He looks you up and down leisurely, you feel very hot very suddenly. "Perhaps not yet." You blink, but he continues, "Come. Sit with me and tell me why you are here then, little girl." Sitting in a pew, he motions to the small gap between himself and the arm. It does not seem like nearly enough space for your wide hips. That large hand pats his own leg gently and you find yourself stepping forward as though hypnotized.

You were right, it is not enough space, you are practically in his lap. He is hot and solid against you, his body has no give and you can't help but compare it to the only other time you felt anything remotely so hard. The wedding night had not been nearly so attractive. Your chest is heaving above the corset as you fail to subdue yourself.

A long arm rests along the back of the pew, you can feel solid muscle under your shoulders. Unsure of what to do with your hands, you fold them in your lap but this only results in a more spectacular display of cleavage. You steel yourself and turn to look at him…

The priest is staring at your breasts.

I thought they could not… am I wrong?

His eyes snap up to your own and you feel faint. They are the deepest, darkest brown you have ever seen. He is stunning and you are enthralled.

"I have never been to a church service, my father despises the institution, but my mother passed away a few years back, and one of her last wishes was for me to explore the church." You confess in a rush only to wince at the choice of wording. Your eyes drop to his chest with your mortification, it is not a wise decision on your part.

The sheer breadth of him is boggling. You can see muscle flexing under the black garment and all you can think about is how it must feel. Your palms itch to touch and you fidget minutely until something makes contact with your skin. Glancing down, you see that he has deposited his rosary in your shaking hands. Slowly, but not hesitantly, he closes your fingers around the smooth wood by engulfing both of your smaller hands in one of his larger extremities.

His skin is like fire and you feel the same crackling energy that fills the air prior to a strike of lightning. Trapped by his presence, you gulp.

"Tell me." He breathes into your hair, "You know nothing of the faith? None of the rituals or traditions? No rules or obligations? Do you even know to which sins you might confess?" It seems that it should be saddening to him, but his purring tone is almost gleeful.

"C-correct. I do not." You stutter. Your eyes remain focused on his single hand overlapping both of yours in your lap. He is so close to your center that it makes you ache. Are there levels of sin? Am I committing a more serious offense right now? A higher sin, if you will? Perhaps you really are hysterical.

"Oh, little girl, what I could teach you of sin would certainly fill you to overflowing."

You shudder violently and break out into goosebumps. The feel of your hardened nipples trapped inside the corset is maddening. Your former husband had never incited such a severe reaction, then again, he did not look like this man.

"Married!" You blurt out in a panic. He freezes but does not back away. "Was. I was married. He, he returned me to my parents when I failed to produce an heir. Like a faulty broodmare. Is, is that a sin?" The babbling string of bitter words reveals far more fear and humiliation than you had planned. "It was an annulment. He was Protestant. I was deemed frigid."

You gawk in shock as that gargantuan hand lifts to trace a single finger along the neckline of the corset peeking out of your blouse. Your pebbled nipples are visible through both soft layers of fabric and he brushes over them fleetingly. Your entire body jerks and you gasp.

"To be barren is not a sin, however the Church does not recognize an annulment after the marriage has been consummated. In the view of Catholicism you are still married. Have you known any other men than your husband? Biblically, of course." He rumbles into your ear as his hand flattens over your collarbone. The span of it encompasses you from shoulder to shoulder. You feel dwarfed and vaguely threatened.

"No… But I have wanted. To, to know. Another." Your breathing fails as the hand slides down your front to press your own fists into your crotch firmly.

"Now that is a sin. You are lustful, are you not?" His hopeful tone rips a whine from you. You somewhat enjoyed relations with your husband, it was vaguely pleasant sometimes despite your general overall distaste for the man, but this feels much more similar to when you touch yourself.

"I," you squirm, consumed with a heretofore unknown feeling of guilt, but he presses down harder on your lap and your legs spasm as they try to spread of their own volition.

"Go on," He orders quietly. "Your lust led you astray, did it not?" The arm around your shoulders has constricted, his other hand snakes inward to stroke over your throat and it's hammering pulse point. You whimper as your belly liquefies and you want … something.

"I, I t-touched." Oh, this is beyond mortifying. Women are not supposed to want, much less touch, and certainly not enjoy as you have. You know what is respectfully acceptable in polite society and you know that the things you have done to yourself fall very neatly and precisely outside of those parameters.

"You touched another man?" You shake your head tightly.

"You touched a woman?" Again, a negative response, and again, a strangely gleeful question.

"You touched yourself." He purrs triumphantly, lips brushing the shell of your ear. The feel of his beard lowers your inhibitions. You had always wondered how a beard would feel on your chin, your neck, between your thighs…

"I cannot judge the severity of the infraction without witnessing the full extent of your wrongdoing." What does that mean? "You must show me, little girl."

Your jaw drops and you turn to him in shock. He is so close that your noses touch and all you can think about are his lips framed so perfectly in that closely cropped graying beard. The hand on your neck creeps downward to flatten your left breast.

"Like this?" He questions softly, brown eyes blazing. Despite his best attempt, he cannot completely engulf your breast in his hand. Rather, he squeezes gently and massages. You are struck speechless, the touches are instigating a new and terrifying response lower in your body. Your breasts have been handled before, but you have never felt anything like this.

"Not, um, not especially. I do not, I did not--" you choke off as he locates your nipple and pinches softly. Your hips buck of their own will and deep inside you can feel tension winding tighter. This has never happened before and you aren't entirely sure that you like it. "I never really touched, there. It, it's l-lower." You did not mean to say that.

He releases your hands only to slip between them and your body. Belatedly, you remember that you wore nothing under your skirt. You try to squeeze your legs together, it does not stop his progression.

"Tell me to stop. Tell me you do not want to do this, and I will add lying to your list of transgressions." His voice is dark, dangerous. You relax into his hold and his fingers press the fabric deep between your thighs. The wetness soaks through, you have never been in such a state. "It seems that in spite of your reluctance, you are quite ready to show me."

"Here?!?" You yelp. The cry echoes along the high ceilings and he chuckles at your outrage.

"Perhaps you would prefer the confessional?" He grins at you with a dazzling array of teeth. It is more threat than anything else.

"I thought, ohh, I thought priests could not. Not. You know." Flapping your hand about seems to convey your message sufficiently.

"My vows are no concern of yours, little girl." He growls into your ear and you squeak helplessly under the assault.

You push to your feet with a hand on his thigh, but it gives you pause. He is solid under your touch, nothing but the bulk of muscle. What does a priest do to attain this level of, of, well, muscle? You glance down and your legs wobble. His interest is prominent. You have never seen anything that large.

"Do not worry about that. Show me how you worry about yourself. It is your soul at risk here, after all." He ushers you to the little booth with his looming presence and a large hand on your lower back. You suppose he must either know what to do about himself or you are wrong about all that the priestly vows entail. How would I know?

The confessional is just big enough to fit you both. You spin around only to find yourself face to chest with him. He smells purely and indefinably male. Your hands come up to steady yourself on his chest and you give in to the temptation to feel. His rippling muscles make your legs give out and you collapse gracelessly onto the bench.

He kneels to the floor in one fluid motion. Those very large hands gather up your skirt but he catches your eye.

"Now you will show me how bad you have been and I will mete out your punishment."

--------------------

Am I truly going to debase myself in this manner? With a priest? In a confessional? I am very certain that this is not what Mother meant. You always were too contrary.

Your hands shake as you reach out to slap the skirt down tight to your knees.

"Wait!" You plead urgently. No man has ever made you pant like this. His huge hands grip your knees through the skirt, he looks up to drown you in those bottomless eyes. "I… how do I, what should I call you? I do not even know your name."

"My name is Diego, but priests are referred to as 'Father', little girl." He smiles widely, it transforms his face into something softer, younger and freer. He does not ask for your name and you do not offer it.

"Now," he murmurs, "Show me how you sin."

A full body shudder shakes your form and you take a deep breath. Your hands release the skirt and you close your eyes in embarrassment. Painfully slowly, he rucks the skirt up to your lap, dragging his hot hands up your thighs as he progresses.

"My, my. You are very bad, are you not? Nothing under your skirt?" He tsks, but his voice is warm with pleasure. His hot breath washes over your center obscenely, "And so very pretty."

Slapping a hand over your mouth does not muffle your whimper. He keeps one hand on your skirt, but reaches up to wrap the other around your forearm. Pulling your hand to yourself, he stares at you meaningfully.

With great trepidation, you bring your fingers to your pulsing point of pleasure. The priest moans quietly, his dark eyes fixed on your most forbidden place. You jolt with the initial contact, then press down firmly. It feels just as good as always, but the addition of a ravenous man watching makes you clench tight far sooner than normal.

"Does it feel good?" He rasps quietly. You nod deliriously.

"Do you enjoy being observed?" His lips curl up at the corners with deviousness.

"I- apparently? Never. I have never, ohh." Your voice is unrecognizable.

"Your husband never looked upon you thus?" He arches a brow. You shake your head in horror.

"N-no! He never touched or, or, oh, put his mouth on me." Your admission is a fearful whisper. "I had heard talk, filthy gossip, of men doing such things but..." You trail off with wide eyes as he licks those sinful lips very deliberately.

"Yes, terrible rumors. That would be rather shameful." Those long fingers creep ever higher and your eyes must be ridiculously large. The pressure in your belly is crushing, you can feel everything tightening by the moment.

"But." You gulp. His eyes gleam with anticipation. "I have. Thought. About it. Being touched so… pervertedly. Is, is that a sin?" Your breathy voice is tremulous with wary hope.

"No, little girl." The dark rumble so close to your most private parts vibrates decadently, the sensation is so strong that your eyes roll back momentarily. "No worse than the sins you are already committing."

"Oh. W-well, in that case, perhaps I should have asked for it specifically." You tease. The look in his eyes is not teasing. You lick your lips and nearly beg, "Will you t-touch me? Please, Father."

His pupils grow wide as you look on in wonder. His hands spasm, his expression crumples as if in pain, and he groans lowly, "I will touch you, bonita. I will touch you until you are sorry for your sins and beg me to stop."

Shaking like a leaf, you hold your breath in anticipation as his hands climb ever higher until they hover above your folds. "Please." You breathe.

One finger strokes along the edge of your lower lips, gliding in more wetness than you knew you could produce. It dips between to part you open, a sob escapes your gritted teeth, then he touches your entrance gently. You watch, bespelled, as he tests for give. I want it, you realize. Then, he finds the correct angle, and sinks the entirety of his long digit inside you.

"Ohhhh!" You wail as your body collapses in on itself, ecstatic paroxysms shaking you apart in waves. Your fingers press down harshly to draw it out.

"Yes, little girl. Let me see. Very good." He coos quietly. Your mind stalls in confusion, but then he moves.

"Oh, oh, what. I do not understand. Please, I. I. What. What are you doing?" You whisper brokenly.

"In order to fully understand the sin, you must fully explore it. Do you want me to teach you?" The question is dripping with wickedness. His expression is frightful, covetous and foreboding.

You nod, then shake your head as the finger retreats, only to nod again as two fingers return.

"It has been some time, has it not? Since a man filled you?" Your discomfiture grows, but it feels too good to stop him.

"Y-yes. He was, your fingers are the s-same size." The confession is wrung out of you. Your mind flashes back to the sight of his bulging interest and you cannot help but wonder just how big he is.

"That would explain why you are so tight. Do not fret, I can offer you a solution to that as well." Teeth gleam in the low light and you shiver. He shuffles closer on his knees and your brow furrows in concern. He smiles warmly, "Go on, continue."

"I do not. Know. Are there other, more things?" You feel foolish, but he clearly knows more than you do about this.

"So much more, little girl. Does a sinful little creature such as yourself like this? Are you enjoying the fingers of a holy man in your most filthy of places?" Said fingers brush deep, he touches places that have never been reached before. His wide shoulders keep your legs spread far to give him room.

"Y-yes? I think? It. It feels, strange. I feel full, but yet I want more. I--" you choke as he thrusts his fingers into you, pulls out, and then sinks deep again. Oh. Ohhhh. This feels better than anything you have experienced yet and tears roll down your cheeks. You beg shamelessly, "Please, oh please. Do not. Do not stop."

The deep bark of laughter is humiliating but it feels too wonderful for you to care. You are tightening again, bearing down around him steadily. He commands you confidently, "Again, little girl. Show me again."

Your inner muscles flutter wildly and then compress decisively. It is different than your self-induced sensations, but just as good. Your head falls back against the wall as your hips roll offensively. You are making noises that sound demonic in their own right, high pitched screeches and sobbing wails.

"You are a quick study. Have a third." Diego growls and you feel stronger pressure as he pushes three fingers into you. It stretches you uncomfortably for a moment and your hands fly down to his wrist.

"Wait." You gasp and squirm. He adjusts his hand to a new angle and the pain subsides to only aching fullness. "What. What are you doing?"

Your jaw hangs open limply as you watch him leaning ever closer to your privates. You remember your own admission clearly He never touched me or put his mouth on me.

The priest continues downward until you can only see the top of his head, covered in thick, lustrous hair. His breath ghosts over the little ball of nerves before you feel something completely foreign. Hot, soft, wet pressure where your fingers had been earlier. His tongue. You realize with a shock. He is licking me!

The first pass is too new, the second is long and slow so you have time to process this terrifyingly delicious sensation. Your back bows, your head cracks backwards against the wall, and you scream. You want more, you want to run, you sink down onto him and jerk away spastically. He is relentless, you are not entirely sure what he is doing besides using his tongue on you, and you do not possess the mental wherewithal to find out. Your hands flit about violently until one lands in his hair.

He groans against the center of your pleasure.

You shriek and hang on tightly as your body seizes up with another climax. Your vision wobbles and you gasp for air.

As things come back into focus he stands over you, untying the sash to part his robes. Your eyes immediately drop to the bulge of his manhood being freed by hands slick with your juices. You recoil in fear at the sight.

He is positively massive. Longer than you thought possible but even thicker around. His own hand barely circles the girth. The tip is dripping steadily and you can smell the sharp tang of his desire.

He reaches forward in a flash of movement and yanks open your blouse and corset deftly. Your chest bounces free and you shrink into the wall at your back

"Now," he eyes you intently, "You are prepared to receive your punishment."

"Will you hurt me?" Your tiny voice gives him pause as he registers your fear. His eyes soften and he reaches out to brush your wild hair back gently. He cups your jaw and leans close to your trembling body.

"What is a punishment that does not hurt just a little?"

Before you can answer his lips are on your own. He fits his mouth to yours, the beard burns wonderfully, and when you gasp he slips his tongue inside to attack your own. He takes and takes, leaving no inch untouched, just as you assume he will do below. His broad body arches over you and he steps between your legs. One hand cups a breast and he uses it to pin your shoulders, the other drops lower to position his length at your entrance. You shake violently, the memory of your wedding night clouds you with apprehension.

The pressure is immense, you sob into his mouth as he pushes into you. It pinches sharply at first when the head breaches, but then eases and the majority of him sinks deeply into you. He pulls back from your mouth to look at your tear stained face.

"Breathe. Relax. You can take this, can you not? You are a good little girl, yes?" The soft rumble brings you back to the present. You are stretched to the limit, but he is not hurting you. Diego stays still long enough for you to soften around him, your tense muscles ease and you understand that it feels good. Very, very, very good. "There. How perfectly you take this. You were made for this, to writhe on my cock. So sinfully tight."

You open your eyes to find him huddled close, both big hands petting over your hair, down your cheeks to cup your breasts. His face is tense, he is holding himself back for you to adjust. It is more thoughtful than your previous proceedings. You reach up to touch his beard in wonder, it is wet with your arousal. Hands wandering, you stroke down his torso until reaching where you are joined together. He hisses above you as you feel the base of him, still unable to fit all of it inside you. Hands climbing, you slide up under his shirt to encounter a wall of muscle under soft skin. The feel of him makes you whine with want.

"Oh, you are indeed ready to atone." He sighs happily. Leaning down, he buries his face in your bosom and you jump with the textures of smooth skin, soft hair, and ticklingly abrasive beard. Wet heat envelopes a nipple and your chin crashes into your collarbone as you try to see what he is doing. He laves your nipple with the flat of his tongue, long and decadent passes that have you gasping and quivering.

"A loving doe, a graceful deer—

may her breasts satisfy you always,

may you ever be intoxicated with her love."

He murmurs what you assume must be a proverb directly into your chest as he uses you wickedly.

Your hands settle on his broad shoulders, he is warm and solid all around you, you are soft and pliant beneath him. Narrow hips hitch and you cry out at the aborted thrust. He is so deep inside you that he must be able to touch your heart. Your heat clenches around his length and you both moan.

But then, Oh good lord, he moves. The long drag of his retreat pulls unknown sensitivity from you and the newfound discovery spills from your lips.

"Oh. Ohhhhh. This is. This is what. I, I never knew-" You babble mindlessly until he snaps back into you. Here you shriek. Words fail you entirely as he takes you more thoroughly and enthusiastically than you have ever been had before.

"Yes, little girl. Take the punishment you deserve, that you require. Take it all." He growls harshly, his hips smack your buttocks and the sound of it is obscenely blasphemous in this building. Your fingers dig into him as the tension builds. You are familiar with this, it feels much the same as it does when you bring yourself to fits, but it continues to mount. Previous experiences had ended at this point so you assumed achieving the same outcome was simply not possible by this method of stimulation. It feels like you might be wrong.

"I can tell that this pleases you. Wicked little thing, greedy on my cock. You want more, yes?" His dark words should make you feel shame, but he sounds inordinately pleased with your proclivities. He bites your neck and you bawl as your body contracts on him blissfully. His elated groan sears you with pride, "Yessss, good girl."

He rips himself away, drawing a soft protest from you at the loss of his body. His eyes are wild, chest heaving as he announces, "Now you may repent, little girl. On your knees."

You thrill at his command. This you have seen just once in your naughty wanderings, a woman on her knees and a man using her mouth as he would her nethers.

You drop to the floor, hands landing on his bare thighs, and gawk at his impressive manhood on full display. He is perfectly formed, long and curved just slightly at the end, thicker around than you could have ever imagined. His cock, you rather enjoy the illicit word, shines with your wetness.

"Open wide and do not bite. You would not want to err further than you already have, yes?" He instructs softly, but his hand on your head is like steel as he urges you forward. You nod nervously and lick your lips, then glance up at him.

His eyes are black, huge and starving, his mouth hangs open as he breathes harshly, and he actually whines at the sight of your tongue. A curl of power glows inside you. Leaning forward, you touch the leaking tip in a fleeting kiss while watching him closely. His expression melts in agony, "Yesss, take it. Ohh, perfect little girl."

The praise emboldens you enough to open wide and lick him as he did you. It is wet, salty and slipperier than his tongue, firm and hot. You taste again and his shaking hands pull you forward. Your jaw relaxes instinctively and he bumps the back of your throat. You cough, but his ragged moan is too sumptuous, you need more. Keeping him held firmly, you press your tongue to the underside to trap him against the roof of your mouth. With chagrin, you feel yourself drooling, but when you go to slurp it back into your mouth it creates suction around his length. He howls above you.

"Ahhh, yes. Yesyesyes. Sí, perfecto. Taste me. Take my cock deep." You pull again and both of his massive hands squeeze your shoulders tightly. What if it is like the other actions? The thrusting? You bob your head experimentally, taking ever more of his length with each round.

"Yes, yes, little girl. That is it. Take. T-take a deep breath!" His instructions are simple enough but you do not understand why until his hands pull your nose deep into the thick thatch of hair at his base. Heat pours into your throat and you understand rather well exceedingly quickly. There is nowhere for his release to go but down, you swallow frantically to avoid choking. It is not enough, the salty liquid cascades down your chin as he pulls back and you struggle to breathe. He collapses back to the door of the confessional, panting harshly.

You cough for a minute, clearing your throat. Your knees ache, the aftertaste is strong, but the absolutely devout way he peers down at you would be worth every sin.

"Am I forgiven, Father?" You murmur demurely.

He hauls you to your feet so quickly that it makes your head spin. His lips are on yours, his tongue delving deep inside as he licks the taste of himself from you. Breaking the kiss, he sets you back on your feet and tweaks your nipples one last time.

"Go home. Go home and get on your knees and remember what you have done, little girl." With that, he opens the door of the confessional and dumps you out into the church proper. The large space is blessedly empty. You relace your corset hurriedly and dart for the door. Stepping outside into the humid night, you turn around for one last look. He is standing there, just outside the booth, clothing mostly righted, staring after you with voracious eyes. As the door closes he dares to wink with no shame.

‐----------------

You run home in the dark, terrified to be caught in your stained skirt and ripped blouse. The winding road that climbs the cliffside to your casita is traversed before you know it and you hesitate outside your own door. The small lamp of the sitting area is visible in the open window, your father is still awake. Creeping in, you hug the edge of the hall and dive into the kitchen.

"Ah, you're back! How was the church, honey?" Your father calls.

"Oh. Stuffy. Pretentious. The usual." You holler casually, already mounting the stairs to the loft where you sleep.

"Well, your mother would be happy you tried. Good night!" He responds with amusement.

"Yes, of course. Good night." Your response is vague and distracted as you round the corner at the top of the stairs and close the door. Finally alone, you collapse to your knees on your pallet and laughingly cry yourself to sleep.

------------------

When you wake the next morning it is already light out. You can hear the crashing waves far below your open window and you sit up slowly. Your languorous stretch is cut short by the ache between your legs. My jaw hurts, too.

Voices outside catch your attention. Slinking to the window, you peer over the sill to receive a surprise. Your father is standing outside under a palm tree speaking to another man. You would know those broad shoulders anywhere.

The priest! Your panic is drowned by confusion, He is wearing regular attire, no cassock. Why is he here? Why is he dressed so? What is he saying to your father? You are rooted to the spot as he mounts his horse, a very fine horse, you note, and then glances up. He spots you failing to hide and has the absolute gall to wink before riding away. No shame.

Tearing down the stairs, you meet your father in the kitchen. Barking cheerfully, you greet him with a chirpy, “Good morning!”

"Good morning, honey. You did not tell me that you met the Don of this town at the church last night. He has been overseeing the repairs to the roof. It seems he donated all the supplies and materials. I have heard the locals say that he expects hard work but is fair." Your father is preoccupied with the process of making coffee, luckily, so he does not see your gawping expression.

"He, he is what?" You ask. What happened last night?

"The Don. He said the new priest should arrive sometime next week. But, there is more." You sink into a chair, hands shaking. Your father continues obliviously, "He invited us to dinner at his hacienda tonight. Apparently, you made quite an impression."

Hands land heavily on your shoulders as your father stands behind you. "I am sorry, honey. I had to disclose your past. He seemed undeterred, Don Diego said you seemed a bit of a, a, handful, but he likes that. Maybe this is your second chance. I worry what will happen to you after I've gone. An unmarried woman alone in this world is often preyed upon."

He has no idea how correct he is. The absolute nerve, how dare he, this is despicable, the, the, cad!

Your father leans down to kiss your head, "He asked my permission to court you. I told him he needed to ask you. I will not decide your life for you. Follow your heart this time, honey."

You liked it. You liked him. You want him again. You will wear the scantiest dress you own to dinner. Repay him in kind with damning torture.

"Oh yes, I remember the exact wording he used to describe you: a hellcat." Your father chuckles fondly.

No shame.

#damnit diego #ok but this time its literal #starz power diego jimenez #maurice compte #zash writes #literally filth #why is this happening to me #fandom hell

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jade-masquerade · 4 years

Text

Simply Stricken

Written for @tlkfanficfest 2020 Round 2 for the prompt “Stiorra/Sigtryggr and their first kiss”

Stiorra sighed, the book in front of her no longer holding her attention. There were only so many dusty old tomes full of endless burh descriptions and donations made to the church and counts of barley yields she could read, and she glanced away from the words that had long since begun to blur together.

Instead, her eyes wandered to the most interesting part of this dull, drab room: Sigtryggr himself.

After Eardwulf had barged through those doors and she’d spent days listening to Brida demanding her head and all sorts of her body parts in turn, Stiorra had admitted in a moment of weakness that she felt safer with him here, and he’d spent as much time in here with her and the books and table games as outside training with swords and shields ever since.

She knew she should have hated him. She knew that she should have been angry and afraid. She knew he was dangerous, that he had killed. But so have Father and his men, whispered that conspiratorial voice she fought often these days. Maybe it was her mother’s strength or her father’s impetuousness, but Stiorra found she couldn’t muster a semblance of fear or ire anymore, at least not when they were here alone like this.

Once she’d been certain he hadn’t intended to harm her, she had asked if she was free to go. He insisted she was if she wished, her chambers evidently not well guarded if Eardwulf deep in his cups had managed to stagger served as proof enough of that. In that moment, though, she’d realized the entire city was full of men like that waiting beyond these walls, with nothing better to occupy their time than drinking and whoring and fighting in the streets. Besides, it was far better here than out there where she imagined Brida sat contemplating a thousand ways for her to die, and if she waited here, Stiorra knew somewhere deep down that her father would come for her. And until then, the stories Sigtryggr told were far more fascinating than listening to children whining or watching Finan and Sihtric playing dice for the thousandth time.

Sigtryggr was an odd sort of Dane, Stiorra had to admit. He strangely seemed to have taken as much of an interest in scrolls and her stories as the sprawling palace and the chests of silver they had gathered from Winchester’s stores. Sometimes he would bring an object—a relic from the chapel, a platter with a verse inscribed upon it, a painting of a saint—from somewhere in the castle, or something to occupy himself, polishing his boots or scabbard, weaving together a hempen rope, the kind of work she’d expect a handmaiden to do, not a warlord, and he would sit and listen to what she had to say, whether it was telling him about the beliefs of the Christian faith, talking about her childhood, or teasing him about if Winchester had turned out to be all he dreamed. He entertained all sorts of her questions in turn, about his homeland and Irland and the sea and all he’d seen along the way, and she couldn’t help but be drawn into his tales of the world beyond the walls of Saltwic and Coccham.

And she wasn’t blind either, regardless of what Brida threatened. It hadn’t escaped her attention that Sigtryggr was rather handsome, with his long hair and his armbands, clad in functional leather rather than a cape embroidered with gold or jewelry that served to do little other than belie exorbitant wealth. He looked so different from the shorn haired Saxons she’d been raised alongside, and perhaps most importantly, also unlike them he clearly washed.

“Are you overcome with admiration?”

She shook her head when she realized she must have been staring. “No. I’m bored.”

He smirked. Then there was that, too, those smiles that would have surely bewitched her in an instant had she been a weaker woman. “So I’ve heard.”

She rolled her eyes. “My father’s stories made all of this seem exciting. And all that’s here is a list of dead men and their vassals and their lands and who cares.”

“Lady Aelswith has assured me that her husband was a great man,” Sigtryggr said.

“Oh, have you been spending a great deal of time with Lady Aelswith now?” She took her turn to smirk now, and then offered mercy at the look of bewilderment he wore. “He was, I suppose. He ruled with fairness and strength and love for his people.”

“But?”

She could not deny he was coming to know her well. “But it wasn’t as if he did these things all himself. He didn’t fight the battles, he didn’t bring in the harvests, he didn’t build the burhs. There’s scarcely even a mention of Lady Aelswith, either.”

“Would there be? She tells me Wessex has no such thing as a queen. Aelflaed tells me different, of course.”

“Does it matter? Being a queen seems utterly boring, too.”

The corners of his mouth quirked up. “Don’t all girls wish to grow up and become queen?”

“No,” she shuddered. “I certainly didn’t. It seems awful, to do nothing but spend your days bowing and curtsying locked up in some palace. And I don’t want children, much less a kingdom.”

“Oh? Have you discussed this with your intended?”

She wrinkled her nose. “My intended?”

“The man to whom you are betrothed. That’s what Saxons like to do, is it not? Find someone who can make them richer, give them power, or grant them lands, and marry their daughters off to them in exchange for their favor.”

“Yes,” she admitted. It all sounded rather crude when he put it that way, and she supposed it was. Her mother had told her once of the man she’d nearly been forced to marry, her father’s cruel uncle who had stolen Bebbanberg, and how her brother, Guthred, arranged the match to solidify an alliance and receive reinforcements of men with no regard for his sister’s well-being or her wishes, and how her father had returned in time to disrupt the completion of the ceremony. Knowing her father, Stiorra suspected she left out some of the gorier details to make it fit for the ears of a child, but the passion of the act had always stuck with her, the reminder of the fierce devotion and the love they shared, and how so few were ever permitted to follow their hearts as they had. “Sometimes.”

“So your betrothed…?” Sigtryggr prompted.

They had spoken at length about family, hers and his alike, but this was the first time their conversation has strayed into this territory. “I don’t have one,” she said. “There’s no husband waiting for me. I’m not sure I even wish to marry, either.”

“Ah, so you have preferred to take lovers instead, Stiorra Uhtredsdottir,” he said, winking.

She felt her face flame. “No, I never even so much as… I’ve never taken a lover.”

Stiorra expected him to laugh, for him to look at her as a child just like everyone else, maybe to tease about her evident prudishness as she’d seen her father’s men rib each other often enough. But he only nodded, though he must have read her embarrassment, for he asked, “Are all Saxons so shy about these matters, too?”

“I’m not a Saxon,” she said for what must have been the thousandth time, but this time she said it with a smile.

“Then your Danish mother did not tell you of the joys that can be found with another?”

“My mother died when I was still too young to talk of such things,” she said. “And the nuns and priests in Saltwic only droned on about purity and maintaining virtue… which makes Lady Aethelflaed herself quite the deviant if half of what they say about her and my father is true.”

She grinned, though such a secret was scarcely one anymore, not for anyone who had seem them together with their own two eyes, and she flushed at the memory of how she had stumbled upon them kissing one time when she had come to bid him a farewell on his visit to Saltwic. Stiorra turned and ran before they noticed her interruption, and while it had been a bit awkward, she owed much to Lady Aethelflaed’s kindness and wished only happiness for her.

“Lord Uhtred and Lady Aethelflaed? The daughter of King Alfred and Lady Aelswith?” Sigtryggr seemed amused at the prospect.

Stiorra nodded. “My father loved her, and she him. But they say before, she loved a Dane once. That he truly fathered her daughter, not Lord Aethelred.”

She had never been bold enough to ask Lady Aethelflaed of it, but hearing of the tale had always excited her, and retelling it now was no different. She couldn’t help but think it romantic, despite its beginning and end and the loss of what could have been.

“A smart woman, then,” Sigtryggr said. “Except if she loved your father, then why do they whisper he waits outside these walls when he could be the ruling Lord of Mercia?”

“Lady Aethelflaed promised to remain chaste to placate the ealdormen and their god too, I suppose.”

He furrowed his brow in confusion. “Their god truly wants piety and obedience rather than free will and happiness?”

“I don’t know what their god wants,” she shook her head. “For me to devote my life to a nunnery? Or am I instead to save myself for some repulsive old man and his bags of gold? Or some cruel lord with the right name and advantageous lands?”

“You do not believe in their god?”

She’d long ago lost faith in the god the Christians worshipped, the one King Alfred had tried to impress upon her to punish her father, but she’d also lost count of how many times she’d asked him, pleaded with the gods of her ancestors, begged anyone who was listening to free her from the boredom of first Coccham and then Saltwic, for someone to come along, anyone, and take her somewhere else, anywhere else, back to Winchester or Northumbria, and bring her adventure. Sometimes the gods had a funny way of showing their will.

“I don’t want to believe in the existence of a god who takes that much interest in my cunt,” she said bluntly.

He laughed, and soon she found herself laughing along with him.

“It’s true,” she insisted. “I don’t care what they say about pagans, if we’re barbaric and wicked. At least our gods are not petty and selfish.”

“Our gods don’t care so much what we do so long as we entertain them,” he said.

“Then they also must be rather bored with this siege,” she said, though she felt anything but now with the way she felt the air shift between them.

Sigtryggr stood up and walked towards her slowly, nearing where she sat upon the table, books discarded at her side that couldn’t hold a candle compared to the way he seemed to study her now. “Then perhaps we should take it upon ourselves to amuse them?”

She was struck by how he was even more handsome this way, stunning, strikingly. He was utterly compelling this close, tall, imposing with his scar streaking past his eye, and strong, her gaze following the muscles from his shoulders down to his forearms. At this distance, he was only himself, not a warlord, not more god than man as some of the others seemed to tell it.

He hadn’t touched her since he’d taken the broken glass from her hand and talked her down from using it to mar her face, but she still remembered the way his skin felt against hers, warm and rough. He was even more hesitant this time as he reached first for her hand, and when she let her fingers thread through his, he brought the other up to stroke her cheek.

It was nothing, really, no more than what perhaps a hundred other men had done to her, claiming they wished to admire her beauty or looking for a shadow of her father in her face or attempting to evoke a memory of her mother, yet the simple touch sent heat flooding through her.

Stiorra wondered what he would do if she was bold enough to do the same to him, and gathering her courage, she decided to find out. She began with tracing over his scar, her fingertip lightly following the curved line, skirting around the edge of his mouth, skimming along his jaw, and then continuing over the hair that brushed his shoulders until her fingers slid against the leather covering his chest and curled around the hammer of Thor he wore.

She found herself drawn to funny things this close: his eyelashes, the bob of his throat, the wisps of a beard gracing his chin, and when she had looked her fill, she brought her eyes up to meet his. She felt as though he saw her—not Lord Uhtred’s daughter, whether that was for good or for bad, not a captive or an enemy, and certainly not a child.

“May I…”

“Yes.” She didn’t entirely know what she was agreeing to, nor did she care; she only knew that she wanted, anticipation thrumming beneath her skin.

The touch of his lips to hers was softer even than the feel of his hand on her cheek. It was strange at first, all of this, the way it felt, how he moved firm but gentle, slow and deliberate, even the fact that they stood in a room where King Alfred’s scribes had written of her father’s victories and the conquests of the Saxons.

It was nice, though, even as she wondered how she’d know, given she had nothing with which to compare it. She felt as though she was fumbling through the motions at first, merely attempting to mirror what he did, but then it smoothed into something even more pleasant, something synchronous as they found a sort of rhythm, and she paused only when she was certain she needed to breathe.

This time she initiated as they resumed, one of her hands winding around his wrist, the other still entwined with his coming up to rest on his chest between them. Their kisses grew quicker, deeper, more desperate until he slowed the pace again.

He lingered there against her, and seconds or minutes or hours could have passed, but Stiorra still was not expecting it when he pulled away, and it was so sudden she didn’t even have a chance to mask her disappointment.

Perhaps he’d stopped for an entirely different reason, though, and before she could stifle them, the words escaped. “Was I awful?”

He grinned at her, his eyes darkened, and when he spoke again, his voice was deep, a low rumble in his chest, and it made her want more. “No. I simply find myself stricken.”

Stiorra nodded in understanding, her breath catching as his free hand slipped from her cheek to her hip. It had been just a kiss, but it didn’t feel like just anything as Stiorra reached up and swiped her finger over where his lips had touched hers. It felt like it could be something, could be everything.

All her life Stiorra had been told of how she resembled her mother—in her looks, her strength, her wit—and she’d been told, too, of the gift of prophecy she’d possessed, of how Gisela could cast her rune sticks and see fate in the way they fell. That had always seemed like a strange business to Stiorra, but in that moment she wondered if she had inherited something else from her mother after all because as she looked back up at Sigtryggr again and returned his soft smile, she suspected she could see a glimpse of hers.

#TLKFFF2020 #The Last Kingdom #Stiorra x Sigtryggr #Stiorra #Sigtryggr #My fic #First Kiss

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astraeagreengrass · 4 years

Text

illicit affairs [the woods 2/4]

No one ever tells you that picking up the pieces takes longer than shattering them

Word Count: 3.657

Warnings: heavy angst, mentions of death and death-related themes, descriptions of a memorial service.

A/N: Thank you to every one that sent me some love on exile! I'm truly grateful for your comments and I hope you like what's coming up on this story. Special thanks to the always wonderful @xbuchananbarnes for helping me out with this. The banner picture was found here. Dividers are from @writeyourmindaway ♡

and you know damn well for you, i would ruin myself a million little times

Working for Nick Fury sometimes made you sick to your stomach.

"That's very old school of you," you said, taking a sip from your coffee. The styrofoam cup was hot to the point of almost burning your fingertips, but having something on your hands kept you from twisting them nervously.

Nick raised an eyebrow - the one you could see, at least - and drank from his own cup.

"Your father always said I had a flair for the dramatic."

"Humph," you muttered as Nick rolled down the steel door of the storage unit. "Do you think he would believe your conspiracy theory?"

He shrugged, black leather duster coat swooshing in the wind.

"Your father was a soldier and a spy," he stated. "One of the best, I must say. He believed in his orders as long as he could question them. So yes, I think he would engage my conspiracy theory, as you put it."

You refrained from comment. That was Nick's way: mention your father enough times to instigate your grief, just enough to loosen your morals. The shame was on you for allowing him - even if his suspicion of an undercover plot inside S.H.I.E.L.D. fascinated your curiosity.

“Can I ask what made you start questioning your own Agency?” you mumbled under your breath as you and Nick made your way to his SUV. The sun was slowly dragging it’s hues across the inky sky, the stars fading as the golden light came to be.

“When Stark hacked the Helicarier’s systems there were some… Inconsistencies,” Nick replied. “Which naturally spiked my curiosity.”

“Naturally,” you smirked.

“I suppose I don’t have to tell you that this is not an official assignment, Agent Y/L/N,” he said.

“No, sir,” you shook your head.

“Good,” he pressed a button and the car doors unlocked. “Besides, I’m sure Captain Rogers’ presence in Washington will… Stimulate the inconsistencies we’re looking for.”

“Shit,” you cursed. “That was today?”

Nick tapped the clock on the car’s navigation panel.

“He’ll be at headquarters at nine. I expect you to be there.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” you said. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind.”

Nick nodded.

“How is your grandmother?” he asked. “Is the treatment working?”

“She’s doing a round of chemo every forty days,” you clicked the seat belt tip in the buckle. “She’s stable, but, you know, it’s cancer. I visit her every weekend, though.”

“Are you sure you can’t convince her to move to the city?”

“Nope,” you shook your head. “She’s never gonna leave the woods, Nick. Can you even imagine my grandmother living in D.C.?”

A discreet smile played in the corner of your boss’ lips.

“I couldn’t imagine you living in D.C., yet here you are.”

You didn’t reply, choosing to sip your coffee instead. Nick turned the radio on as he drove off the storage lot and a playlist of Stevie Wonder’s greatest hits was your soundtrack on the journey back to the city. Daylight was high in the sky when the SUV reached the Triskelion, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s colossal headquarters sitting right in the middle of the Potomac.

It was just past seven, but already the premises were bustling with people. You supposed that’s what happens when a superhero starts his first day on the job - people show up early, wearing their best clothes and flawless makeup.

“What the hell,” Nick muttered. “This is an Intelligence Agency, not a fashion show.”

You stifled a laugh.

“You can’t complain about motivation in the workplace now, boss.”

Nick shot you a dirty look.

“My office. Nine A.M. Don’t be late.”

You mock saluted him then went on to find some breakfast.

Natasha Romanoff’s memorial service was held on a balmy December morning, at a Christian Orthodox church in Brooklyn.

All the time you’ve known her, Natasha had never mentioned religion and you were positive that she would’ve cracked two or three jokes about the priest’s monotonous speaking if she were there. Only she wasn’t, and all she left behind was a handful of grieving acquaintances.

There was no body to keep vigil over or bury. In between the thousand of unsaid words between you and Steve, the subject of Natasha’s death lingered. He tried to explain, as he did to so many other things, and maybe you would’ve understood if you just tried to be better at listening - tried harder to make sense of the incredible mess reality had become. Apparently it’s not easy to retrieve a corpse when the person actually died on an alien planet almost ten years ago.

Natasha’s beautiful face smiled at you from a portrait sitting at the altar. Her hair was longer, cascading down her shoulders in fiery red waves that curled into blonde ends. The shadow of a smile on the corner of her lips couldn’t elude the sadness lingering in her eyes. Even so, she hadn’t aged a day since the last time you saw her, in a time so distant it felt foreign, as if it belonged to someone else’s existence instead of your own.

Remembering 2016 felt like being dunked in ice water. Like the time you jumped into the frozen pond in the woods and opened your eyes underneath the stream, catching the twisted, milky sunlight. Looking back at that life - so peaceful despite all the trouble that surrounded it - was equally as numbing.

It was announced to the general public that the woman known as Black Widow bravely sacrificed her life during what was now being called the Battle of the Earth. Yet, when Steve called two days earlier saying that there would be a private service for Natasha's family members, you wept - not so much because a service meant that she was well and truly gone, but because she thought you were her family.

You met her at S.H.I.E.L.D., of course. Even before you crumbled to dust, you’d constantly wonder how different things would’ve been if you’d never let stupid Jimmy Rodriguéz’s words get to you. If you’d just ignored his taunts instead of hacking S.H.I.E.L.D’s database just to prove him you were smart enough to do it, maybe then an old friend your father never bothered to mention wouldn’t have come to your house in the middle of the night, saying that if you could bypass government-patented digital security, then you should move to D.C. and work for him. You would’ve never left the woods, never traded it for the tangled webs of secrets and deceptions a job as an intelligence programmer proved to be.

Perhaps then you wouldn’t be here, sharing a pew with Steve Rogers - the only man you’d ever loved and probably ever would. Perhaps you would’ve met someone else: a nice, normal, maybe even a tad boring guy, but you wouldn’t care because you wouldn’t be very interesting either - just a nice, normal, maybe even a tad boring girl. And the two of you would be ordinary, kissing goodbye in the morning and hello in the evenings, with the ever present assurance that this was how things were meant to be. Not the tragic tale of love and loss you shared with Steve.

You didn't wait for him to walk you out of the church when the service was over, yet your plan to flee without an awkward farewell misfired at the sight of Nick Fury by the door. He looked exactly like he always did - black leather eyepatch, black leather duster coat, seemingly plucked from your thoughts.

"Y/N," he greeted you, evidently surprised although only someone who's spent as much time around him as you had would catch it in the tone of his voice. "How are you?"

"Good," you replied, way too quickly. "Fine."

Nick nodded, then turned to the blonde woman next to him.

"Carol, this is Agent Y/N Y/L/N," he introduced you. "Y/N, this is Captain Carol Danvers."

"Former agent," you corrected, shaking the hand Carol extended. She had a gentle, but strong grip. Noticing her gaze looking up, you turned around to find Steve approaching.

"Carol, Nick," he acknowledged them, then said to you: "You ready to go?"

You nodded, whispering a quiet "goodbye" before allowing Steve to lead you outside.

"Thanks," you muttered when you reached the open air. Even New York's polluted breeze was more refined than the stifling atmosphere inside the church and you inhaled deeply.

"No problem," he smiled. "I was hoping we could talk. You know, if you had the time."

You had all the time in the world, or so it seemed these days. Almost two months had dragged by since you woke up on the floor of your apartment and every minute seemed to make up for the years you missed. You weren’t working or even living in the old building in Bushwick anymore - Cal and Daniel, the father and son duo that first aided you, were. You were just going through the motions.

No one tells you that picking up the pieces takes longer than shattering them. No one bothers saying that when they break, they scatter, and compiling whatever’s left is a perverted scavenger hunt.

“There’s a coffee shop over there,” Steve pointed to a row of storefront across the church parking lot when you hesitated to give him an answer.

You shook your head, trying to scare off the white noise that always seemed to pester you.

“Sure,” you said, wondering if in your alternate life you’d know how to say no to Steve Rogers.

“So, you've experienced this sort of thing before?” Nick said.

“You get used to it,” Steve replied, looking down at the gravestone. Carved on the marble were the words: Col. Nicholas J. Fury, The path of the righteous man. Ezekiel 25:17.

“We've been data-mining HYDRA's files,” Nick continued. “Looks like a lot of rats didn't go down with the ship. I'm headed to Europe tonight, wanted to ask if you'd come.”

Steve shook his head.

“There's something I gotta do first.”

“How about you, Wilson?” Nick turned to Sam. “Could use a man with your abilities.”

“I'm more of a soldier than a spy,” he replied, resolute.

“Alright then,” Nick sighed and you thought he was honestly disappointed. He shook Steve and Sam’s hand and said: “Anybody asks for me, tell them they can find me right here.”

He turned to walk away but halted when he saw you approach. It was the first - and only - time you saw him wearing anything other than the black duster coat and you were surprised to find him affable, rather than alien.

He pointed to the file in your hands.

“How many favors did you have to call in order to get that?”

“A few,” you smiled. “Turns out I still have some friends in Kiev.”

Nick snickered, a whisper of a laugh so discreet that it faded almost instantly in the breeze.

“And you’re sure you’ll pull on that thread? With Hydra out in the open and Congress breathing down your neck?”

His real question was implicit: was your relationship with Steve Rogers worth the trouble?

“I’m sure,” you said, clutching the thick manila folder that contained information on the Winter Soldier.

Beyond the dark disguise of his sunglasses, you caught Nick’s gaze - and you were sad that things ended this way.

“Be safe, Y/N,” he offered.

Nick Fury was out of the graveyard and your life before you could wish him the same.

"I'm sorry I didn't call for a while," Steve apologized as soon as the young waitress left your table with your orders scribbled on a notepad. "I had to leave town for a few days."

You nodded, picking a napkin from it's holder in the center of the tiny corner table where you and Steve sat.

"It's okay," you said. "I know you have stuff to do."

He was still, after all, Steve Rogers. You never tricked yourself into believing you were his priority, instead accepted in your heart that you would always be second to The Avengers, Peggy Carter, Bucky Barnes and whatever else Steve set his eye on and it was fine. You'd be the second place as long as you could be something.

"I went back to return the stones," he added. "Bruce managed to repair the quantum tunnel, so Sam and I volunteered to go back and put them in place."

Back. As in the past.

"Okay," you repeated, because your recent conversations with Steve constantly left you lost for words, with all the information about time travel and elemental crystals from outer space. "Did everything go alright?"

"Yeah," he clasped his hands in front of him, and his colossal frame made the wooden chair he sat in look even smaller. "I saw Peggy."

You looked up from your staring match with the napkin, astounded.

"Really?" your tone was clipped and Steve noticed. Throughout your relationship, Steve's former flame was the unmentionable, the firing pin in the granade. Even if you had accepted the silver medal, it didn't mean it wasn't agonizingly painful to know you'd never shine bright in Steve's eyes like Peggy's gold standards.

"In 1970, at Camp Lehigh," he rubbed his forehead. "She didn't see me, of course, but I saw her. There were a bunch of pictures on her desk - her kids, her husband, one of myself before the serum..."

"Why are you telling me this?" you interrupted him, napkin now balled up in your fist.

"I don't know," Steve shrugged. There was a light pink blush crawling up his neck. "Shit, I don't know why I thought this would be a good way to start what I need to say to you, but… I guess seeing Peggy live her life made me realize how much of mine has been wasted."

You scoffed.

"How could you possibly have wasted your life, Steve? You're Captain America! You've saved the world more than once."

"When it comes to you I've wasted it," he whispered. "And I'm no longer Captain America."

"What?" you gasped, purposely ignoring the initial part of his sentence.

"I passed the shield on to Sam," he announced. "He'll do a good job."

"Why?" you breathed out.

"It was time," Steve said, plainly as if you were discussing the weather and not the one thing that defined who he was for over a century. "The guy that wanted a fight so badly he became a military experiment isn't here anymore. He's changed, the world has changed. That shield is too heavy for me now."

You shook your head, stunned.

"I can't believe this."

Steve started speaking, but stopped when the waitress arrived with your drinks: cappuccino for you, espresso for him. She took an unnecessarily long time pointing out the sugar and sweetner were, placing a hand on Steve's shoulder, telling him with a giggle to call her if he needed anything. Your coffee suddenly looked unsavory.

"The world needs Captain America," he continued after she was out of your hearing range. "But Captain America doesn’t necessarily needs to be Steve Rogers.”

“I think Sam will do a marvelous job, Steve. I just don’t understand where this decision came from. Is this because of what happened with Thonos?”

“Thanos,” he corrected you. “And no. This has been looming on my mind since before him.”

“Since when?” you questioned. “Because before Thanos you were out in the world being a wanted man. Please don’t tell me this urge for normalcy came to you while you were hiding like a coward.”

Steve sighed.

“Look, I know you’re angry at me and you have every right to be...”

“I know I have every right to be,” you cut him off. “I gave you everything and you left me stranded. Do you have any idea how hard that was? My boyfriend of three years became a criminal and he didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye before he fled.”

You slammed your fist on the table, rattling the china. The foam of your drink sloshed, a tiny bubbly dot spilling from the cup to the platter.

Lately, every single one of your conversations with Steve seemed to end in a fight and you were to blame. As much as you tried to move on, either your biological clock wasn't adjusted yet or your heart couldn't let go of the night he appeared on your doorstep after being absent for so long. It might've been five years in history for him, but for you it was a mere sixty days ago. You couldn't match this caring, attentive Steve to the bearded man in the shadows, indifferent and unconcerned, so you lashed at him. You nitpicked his every word and quibbled over the smallest things and he always took it silently, enraging you even further.

"I'm sorry," you whispered. "I shouldn't have said that. It has nothing to do with the subject."

"It has everything to do with the subject, Y/N," Steve exclaimed, hands flat on the wood, like he was going to reach for yours but gave up at the last moment. "I was so busy trying to make the world a better place that I didn't realize I was ignoring mine until I lost it. Until I lost you."

You rubbed your eyes.

"You can't blame your job for your mistakes, Steve. Or mine, for that matter."

"What were your mistakes, Y/N?" he asked. "You could've fled after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., but you stayed because I asked you to. You could've started a different job, but you took the position with the Avengers because I asked you to..."

"I loved you," you interrupted. "I did all of it because I loved you. And even though sometimes I wonder what would've happened if I'd said no, I don't regret it."

There's something about the air when the truth is laid bare. It shifts just slightly, as though nature itself can feel the weight of the words spoken, so it moves the atoms around to make space for verity. And in the essence of the world, it is immortalized.

"Do you love me still?" Steve murmured.

"You know I do," you smiled softly. "But I am so broken."

Crushed. Turned to dust long before the Mad Titan snapped his fingers. In the mad race to start over, you were so distant from the finishing line.

You were wrong: your recent conversations with Steve didn't end in arguments, they ended with you crying and him consoling you. This time his chair nearly collapsed as he rose, reaching you in just one step. At first he towered over you, arms hanging without touching your body, but when your sobs intensified he kneeled by your side, taking the crumpled napkin from your hands to dry your tears.

"Shhh," he soothed.

"I'm so sorry, Steve," you said, but it came out jumbled and watery from your tears. “I’m sorry.”

Noticing that the few other patrons and the flirty waitress were starting to look, Steve threw a fifty dollar bill on the table and pulled you up, wrapping his arms around your body as he led you outside.

Night was beginning to fall over Brooklyn. Sunsets in the city were all about spotting a few twinkling stars amid the smog, before the lights from the skyscrapers scrammed them away. One would argue that the sky in the woods, a dark blue tapestry with hundreds of twinkling dots, was far prettier, but you always thought it was fascinating to see the cosmos shining in the orange firmament.

The city had its own magic. It used to buzz in your veins when you first moved here, staring out this same sky from a window at the top deck of the Avengers Towers. If only you could feel it again.

“Do you feel better?” Steve whispered into your hair when your breathing began to even out.

You nodded, cleaning your tears with the sleeves of your sweater.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“Yeah,” you croaked. “I need to finish packing.”

“Packing?” he frowned.

“I got a call from my grandparents lawyer when you were gone,” you explained. “Turns out I still have ownership over the house in the woods, so I’m planning to move back home before Christmas break.”

Steve’s arms fell and he stepped away from you. The absence of his touch made you shiver.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yeah,” you sniffed. “Another family lives in my apartment now and I can’t stay with my cousin forever, so…”

“You could stay with me,” he intervened. “You don't have to leave."

"I need to start over, Steve."

"But what about me?" he pleaded.

Steve Rogers never pleaded. He was stubborn and tenacious, the worst person to get in a fight with. You'd learned to cave because he never did, and it was better to swallow your pride than staying days without speaking to your headstrong boyfriend when his job put him in danger constantly. For three years you told yourself that it didn't matter that Steve didn't love you fully - you loved him enough for the two of you. Only enough wasn't acceptable anymore.

You leaned in, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"I love you, Steve," you said. "But just like you're not the guy from the 1940s anymore, I'm no longer the hacker from S.H.I.E.L.D. either."

Steve cupped your face, touching your forehead with his.

"Don't leave me," he begged. "I can't live without you."

You kissed his palm.

"We've made a mess," you replied. "Just let me try and fix it."

You owe me that, you didn't say, but Steve knew. In the misty twilight, he only hoped you could forgive him.

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