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auroras-blend · 3 years

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I Hate It Here

Summary: Vittoria gets used to her new church in Garland City and Leonardo finds he not as welcomed as he once was.

Note: Occurs after chapter 33

“Vittoria, step out of the car,” Papa demanded as he held the car door open for her.

Vittoria shook her head. “I don’t like this church.”

“You haven’t even been inside yet,” Papa reasoned, “Stop embarrassing me and get out.”

“I want Sg.ra Giordano,” she protested, crossing her small arms.

Papa sighed heavily, “We’ll return one day and you can see her, but for now, this is our church.”

“No.”

“What do you think God will think of you if you refuse to go to church on His day?”

Vittoria frowned and a potential offense to God made her step out of the car. She’d never want him to think she didn’t love him. Her little black mary-janes pattered onto the asphalt as she slid off the leather seat. She had resisted the entire time, decreeing that the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin was not her church. Then Papa told her no church belonged to her, but to God and that shut her up. Still, I miss our old one. People were nice to me. I liked our priest.

Papa held her hand as she smoothed out her dark navy blue dress, afraid the wrinkles would offend God and Christ. Papa had dressed her up, pinning her hair into a braided bun and clasping the diamond cross around her neck even though it brought up painful and bitter reminders of Sg.ra Bianchi. Whenever she thought of something sad, she talked to God. She talked to him a lot more now, the only voice she heard at night when she was left alone with her thoughts.

Her eyes drifted up to the imposing building. Like her church back home, it was grand and opulent, a marvel of architecture. It was a sterile white with statues carved into the face of the marble, a true sight as it towered over the buildings around it. Churches should be bigger than other buildings. The domes and spirals were erected so high, it looked like they were trying to reach God and heaven itself. Of course, like the cathedral back at home, the inside was as marvelous.

Rows of polished redwood lined the inside of the church, the number of pews taking up enough space to seat the massive amount of congregants filing inside. The pulpit is so big, but, “Where are the pictures?” she asked.

“The what?”

“The one at home had pictures of Jesus behind it? Where are the pictures-,” she began before a glittering light caught her eye.

Her green eyes widened in awe at the stained glass containing vivid colors, some portraying biblical scenes. Oh, there they are. They cast brightly over the wooden floor, which felt warm and like she was basking in holy light. It’s warmer than the one back in Italy. Vittoria noticed that her hands and legs weren’t cold. Maybe this won’t be so bad.

Papa led her to a pew as she was distracted by the grandness of the church, so distracted that she didn’t notice some women sliding away from him with wary eyes. But Papa noticed. He pulled her closer. “Principessa,” he whispered with a friendly and fatherly smile, “It’ll be in English today, except for the usual Latin.”

He handed her a Bible as she pulled out her favorite red rosary, “Really?”

“Yes, so you better pay attention because I’m going to ask you plenty of questions when I’m done,” he said in good nature.

She smiled back at him. “Sg.ra Lisi said I’m really good at answering questions.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said before gesturing to the dark-haired priest who came out to begin the service.

Vittoria, for some reason, felt her ears were mildly shocked by the English the priest was speaking in. It was her first language, but for some reason, it felt harder to follow along. Usually, at this time on Sundays, she was straining to hear some familiar words and heard herself thinking in Italian, as she desperately tried to program her brain to recognize his English. Eventually, she did and was as transfixed on the priest as her father was.

During the service there were eyes on her and Papa, making her squirm nervously in her seat. One young woman, in particular, had her eyes analyzing her body, as if trying to find something wrong. Papa didn’t notice and she dearly wished she had because the young woman glared at him with repulsion and distrust before she corrected herself with a smile when she saw Vittoria look back at her. As if she was trying to say, you’re not the problem. Vittoria shyly averted her gaze back to the pulpit and priest, trying to ignore the congregants who were as nosy as the ones in Summerfield.

Thankfully, the service seemed to go a lot faster and it ended as quickly as it began. Perhaps because it didn’t take her as much work to follow along and it kept her interest. Well, as much as a service could do for a nine-year-old. Papa helped her out of the pew before offering his hand and a friendly smile to an older woman who huffed and moved past him anyways. This is why I didn’t want to come back. American people are rude. What do they have against single parents?!

Vittoria frowned at her Papa who stepped out of the way and led her from the pews before smiling again as he caught sight of someone whom he must’ve known before. “Ah Mr. Howard,” he grinned, “It’s so nice to see you!”

The man pulled a face and looked ready to turn before he caught sight of Vittoria and decided to put on a facade of politeness. “Mr...Mr. Borghese,” he stuttered before being forced into a hug, “It’s been a while.”

“Too long,” Papa smiled, “And Mr. Borghese? When did you become so formal? You can still call me Leonardo.”

The man shifted on his feet uncomfortably, tugging at his collar that Vittoria could hardly believe was choking his skinny neck. The man was small, well smaller than her Papa, and only reached up to her Papa’s shoulders. He had sandy brown hair and blue eyes that reminded her of Pastor Marks. “Yes...well…” he glanced down, “You have a child.”

Papa smiled down at her and pulled her front and center. She wished he hadn’t. She hated strangers. “I do. Would you like to introduce yourself, sweetheart?”

Sweetheart? Not principessa? “Hi,” she said in a small voice, giving a tiny wave.

The man, or Mr. Howard, gave a strained smile. “Well hello,” he greeted, his demeanor becoming less stressed and friendlier, “What’s your name?”

“My name is Vittoria,” she said shyly.

It didn’t escape her Papa’s attention that prying eyes were on her, the little girl who walked in with the formerly beloved by all, Leonardo Borghese. There was something entirely innocent and non-threatening about him having a daughter. “Well, that’s such a pretty name. And how old are you?”

“I turned nine in December,” she said, wishing she could already leave.

“Wow, so you’re a big girl now, huh?”

“Not as big as Papa. He’s a giant,” she said quietly.

Mr. Howard and her Papa gave low laughs. “Leonardo,” an older woman approached with a thick accent that she couldn't recognize except she knew it wasn’t Italian, “You come back and you don’t introduce the girl?”

Papa smiled at the woman who had previously snubbed him. After all, how could he be terrible if he had a small daughter who loved him? Who looked at him with religious reverence and complete undying trust. Then there were the others who glanced over at the child with wariness, protectiveness, and apprehension. Fearful that she was in a monster’s presence, but she found they didn’t linger too long or approach her at all. Apparently, the young woman from before didn’t care enough to check on her; she’s probably going to gossip about us later.

The longer she and Papa stayed, the more people crowded her and asked her questions. Mainly the elderly who had much more faith in her father than the younger churchgoers. Old women spoke with Papa in Italian and Vittoria adorably responded in the same language, earning her pinches and smothering hugs into their breasts. WHY?! EVERY TIME?!

“It’s so nice to see you settled down,” a white-haired woman cooed, “She’s so sweet.”

They always talk about me. Never to me. “She was such an angel during the service. Some parents here just can’t control their children,” an old man scoffed.

“Well, she’s a good Catholic,” Papa praised.

That made her feel a little better. I try to be. “If you’re interested, St. Agnes’ is a lovely Catholic school for primary-age children. Well, girls. It’s an all-girls school,” a woman with a breathy accent smiled, “My nieces went there.”

“I’d consider all girls,” he smiled, “She hates boys.”

“I don’t hate you,” she said defensively, causing everyone to laugh.

Her face reddened in embarrassment as dread filled her chest. I wanna stay home with him forever. I don’t wanna go to another school. Vittoria liked being close to her Papa, and only with her Papa. I wish he’d hurry up so we can go home and play kingdom together. He promised we could play kingdom!

It was her very favorite game where she was the princess and he was the king. He’d build a castle fort with her, they’d sit for tea, go up on the balcony to wave, and dance. They didn’t do everything, but the game made her feel special. Vittoria tried focusing on planning the agenda and what they’d do for the kingdom game while he kept talking because he’s taking foreverrrrrrr!

***

The trip to the car was long. She felt relieved when they left the church, but all they did was move to talk outside. And she dearly wished they had gone home because they finally asked about the one topic that brought her agonizing pain and memories. Mama. “She passed away,” Papa said, softening his eyes as if he were devastated.

Light gasps sounded and she could feel her nose begin to sting. Vittoria retreated back behind her father. “Well bless you, for doing it all by yourself. I can’t even imagine,” an old woman exclaimed, her hand pressing against her chest.

Mama did it by herself and no one was nice to her. “How are you going to balance work and fatherhood?” one woman asked, “Childcare is a financial nightmare. I remember this one time…”

Oh my gosh, I just wanna go home! Vittoria grew restless and was about to sprint to the car before Papa was finally able to bid them all farewell. Well, not before they pinched her cheeks as a goodbye. Why do strangers think they can touch me? She had gotten used to it after a while in Italy, but it was always odd that everyone was so physical with her. Papa never minds!

The whole ordeal sent her into a distressed state and after her Papa inspected the car and buckled her in, she began to weep. Papa sighed when he sat in the driver's seat. “They touched me,” she cried, “Please don’t make them babysit me, Papa.”

I never want a babysitter again! Her Papa sighed, “Principessa...I’m going to have to go back to work eventually…”

“Then let me come with you,” she begged, “I’ll be quiet and good. I can even help.”

I can decorate his office and sort papers into folders! I can do all types of things. “I’ll even do it for free!” she offered.

People like free things.

“That’s very sweet Vittoria, but I can’t take you to...work with me. We’ll figure something out, okay?”

Papa had already decided she wasn’t going to a real school yet. Vittoria could hardly handle a grocery store; it’d be a nightmare at a school. No, he was hiring tutors again. That worked so well last time. He started the car and he began the drive home while she continued to cry.

“We’ll have lunch when we get back, but after that, you’ll take a pill,” he said in a ‘no arguments’ voice.

“You worked from home before. Why can’t you do it again?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“Things are different now…” he explained without explaining.

“I hate it here,” she pouted, “I hate Garland City and I hate America.”

“Vittoria,” Papa hissed, “Never say that again. I don’t care what you think, but you’ll keep those thoughts to yourself. Do you understand?”

A pout was stuck to her lips but she begrudgingly agreed. I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I hate it here...

#is it a one-shot or is it part of a larger bonus chapter? who knows!#not me #😂#i always really liked the garland city church aesthetic #leonardo borghese #vittoria borghese #i wanted to write this for a long time #also she definitely got in trouble for being disobedient in the first part

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scapegrace74-blog · 4 years

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Saorsa, Chapter 21

A/N Here is the next installment of Saorsa. This is the chapter where I deny readers a description of the wedding, and then turn around and deny them the wedding night. Really, it has no redeeming value whatsoever, except that it advances the plot. I’ll make it up to you next chapter - promise!

Rather than link to all previously posted chapters, I’ll just direct those of you wanting to catch up on your Saorsa-reading to my AO3 page, where the fic is posted in its entirety.

Thank you to each of you liking and reblogging! It does my little fanfic writer’s heart good.

Claire lay in the lord’s bed at Lallybroch, the warmth of her husband radiating against her back. She could tell by his breathing that he was not asleep. He lay perfectly still, a discrete distance separating them.

It occurred to her that Jamie was the second man with whom she’d shared this bed in the past six months, and both were her husband at the time. She was married to a man who had not fathered the baby she carried and whom she knew only marginally better than the man who had. She was an Englishwoman responsible for a minor Scottish estate, a nurse who had saved just one life, but that life was now tied to hers until parted by death.

Jamie had proposed using a far more pragmatic view of their circumstances, and she tried to adopt his approach. She needed help of the exact sort that he could offer. He had no-one, and she needed someone. It was the least romantic reason for marriage that she could imagine, and yet just this afternoon they had stood in the village kirk and nervously recited their vows.

I, Claire Elizabeth Randall (only Jamie’s eyes had flinched), take thee, James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser, to be my lawfully wedded husband.

She’d worn an ivory dress in the old style, loosened slightly to allow for the gentle swelling below her waist, and clutched a posy of cowslip and thistle. Jamie had worn his Fraser plaid, his long auburn curls gathered at his nape, his cobalt eyes fixed on her like she was the pivot point of the universe. She’d suffered a hundred bouts of cold feet since that moment four weeks earlier when Jamie had made his hesitant, key-inspired proposal, but that one look at the altar warmed her to her toes. She was making the right choice.

Still, the wedding had almost not taken place because of a technicality. Jamie was, for all intents and purposes, an undocumented alien. He had no birth certificate, no baptismal records they could reference, nothing to prove that he existed in any official capacity. No-one could doubt he was a Scot, with his heavy burr, fluent Gaelic, and Norse pedigree written on every sharp angle of his face, but in 1943 that was not enough to seek permission to marry.

A frantic call to Ned Gowan, and a solution was proposed. If Jamie presented himself at the Registrar’s Office in Edinburgh, he could claim to have lost his official documentation and apply for an emergency replacement.

They drove south on a Tuesday. Ned agreed to meet them at a tavern to describe his cleverly concocted backstory of a home birth, illiterate parents and a house fire. The trip down the motorway had left Jamie shaken and moody, complaining about the noise and filth of the large industrial city. Claire listened attentively to Ned and thanked him profusely for his help. She was coming to like the cunning little lawyer.

Afterwards, it was too late to attend at the Registry. They ate a simple meal and then Claire arranged for lodging upstairs at the tavern. As she signed the guestbook as Mr. and Mrs. James Fraser, the tavern owner glanced at her gold wedding band (she’d yet to take it off) and swollen belly, then at Jamie’s bare left hand, and grunted.

Just inside the room, Jamie paced and glowered. She tried to ignore him, gathering a basin of water from the common watercloset and shedding her uncomfortable shoes. As she began to let down her hair, his pacing ceased. He looked positively scandalized.

“Just what do ye think ye’re doing?”

“I’m getting ready for bed. You should consider doing the same.”

“We canna sleep in the same bedchamber! Not when we’re nae marrit.” His voice was a low hiss, as though a priest was listening at the door.

“We’ve done so before, when you were ill. And the purpose of this trip is so that we can be married, or had you forgotten? Besides, we’re already registered as Mr. and Mrs. Fraser, and we cannot afford a second room. Just take off your boots, wash up, and try not to hog all the blankets.” She flounced onto the hard mattress, knowing she was antagonizing him, but preferring his ire to his brooding silence.

“Christ. Claire… Mistress Beauchamp…” he broke off, huffing like an angry bull.

“I prefer Sassenach, if you don’t mind,” she interrupted snidely.

“Tis no’ right, Claire, and ye ken it. I willna risk yer reputation…”

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, Jamie, would you listen to yourself?! My reputation is mine to risk as I see fit, thank you very much. This isn’t the eighteenth century, and I don’t need you to protect my honour.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she’d gone too far. His head snapped back as though she’d struck him.

“Aye. Ye’ve made that perfectly clear. I canna be ought but who I am, Claire. I’d rather ye no’ mock me fer it,” he said angrily, his eyes hardening.

“I’m not your property, James Fraser. I took care of myself long before you were around to sermonize and disapprove of me,” she retorted.

“Do ye no’ want to be wed, then?” Just one more step, and they would be hurtling down a route from which there would be no returning.

“That’s not what I meant at all,” Claire conceded, quieter. She reached out a hand, trying to pull him towards her and make some sort of amends. He ignored the gesture, tearing a blanket and a limp pillow from the bed and throwing them to the floor on the farthest side of the room. She considered protesting, but then merely shrugged. It wasn’t as though the bed would be much more comfortable.

“Suit yourself. Goodnight, Jamie.” She dimmed the oil lamp and listened to the angry scuffle of his clothing being rearranged.

Her eyes were just beginning to droop when the darkness spoke. “I dinna like the deceit. Lyin’ about who my parents were, where I’m from, who ye are tae me. It curdles my gut.”

She rose up on an elbow and tried to see him through the moonlight coming through the sooty window. “You don’t have to go through with it. We can call off the wedding and…”

“No,” he interrupted. “No, Sassenach. That’s nae what I want at all. I ken what is needed tae marry ye, an’ I’ll do it. I just wish it werena necessary tae build something true on top of sae much falsity.”

She lay silent for so long, Jamie must have assumed she’d fallen asleep. With a barely uttered “G’night, Sassenach,” he rolled over and did not stir until dawn. She lay awake, watching blue shadows creep across the plaster ceiling.

A similar scene now played out in their marital bed, except this time she was fairly certain Jamie was watching the shadows with her. She could feel tension radiating off him like radio waves. An unexpected brush against her shoulder made her jump. She peered backwards, watching Jamie rise to loom over her in his nightshirt, the whorls of his chest hair peering through the open collar. A shiver ran through her like an approaching storm.

“Ye needn’t be afraid of me, Claire. I wasna planning to suddenly force myself on ye.”

“I never thought you would,” she responded honestly. Of all the musings that kept her awake on her wedding night, having to manage the advances of a suddenly amorous bridegroom did not factor. Jamie had never treated her with anything but the utmost decorum. Even when the priest had invited him to kiss his new bride earlier today, he had done little more than carefully press his dry lips to hers for a breathless second, before pulling back and tucking his chin to his chest, grinning bashfully.

“I ken ye may have… questions,” Jamie continued. “About how we shall get on as husband and wife. And I’ll do what I can tae answer them fer ye. But fer now, fer t’night, wi’ the bairn and all that’s happened tae ye… Did ye want me tae sleep in my room? Leave ye in peace?”

“This is your room now. I want you to sleep here. Everything else, we can work out later.”

“Aye. T’morrow. And all the days after that. G’night then, Sassenach.” He settled back against the pillows.

“Goodnight, Jamie.”

#my writing #outlander

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orthodoxydaily · 3 years

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Saints&Reading: Thu., Mar. 11, 2021

Commemorated on Thursday of the Cheese-fare Week, May 9_ by the new Calendar

Commemorated on February 26_ By the New Calendar

Saint Porphyrios, Archbishop of Gaza (420)

Saint Porphyrios, Archbishop of Gaza, was born in about the year 346 at Thessalonika in Macedonia. His parents were people of substance, and this allowed Saint Porphyrios to receive a fine education. Having the inclination for monastic life, at twelve years of age he left his native region and set off to Egypt, where he asceticised in the Nitreian desert under the guidance of the Monk Makarios the Great (Comm. 19 January). There also he met Blessed Jerome (Comm. 15 June), who was then visiting the Egyptian monasteries; he set off with him to Jerusalem on pilgrimage to the holy places and to reverence the Life-Creating Cross of the Lord (Comm. 14 September), after which he resettled into the Jordanian wilderness for prayer and ascetic deeds. There Saint Porphyrios fell under a serious malady. For healing he decided to go to the holy places of Jerusalem. One time, when fully paralysed he lay half-conscious at the foot of Golgotha, the Lord sent His servant into a salvific sleep-vision. Saint Porphyrios beheld Jesus Christ, descending with the Cross and turning to him with the words: "Take this Wood and preserve it". Awakening, he sensed himself healthy. The words of the Saviour were soon fulfilled: the Patriarch of Jerusalem ordained Saint Porphyrios to the priestly dignity and appointed him curator of the Venerable Wood of the Cross of the Lord. And it was during this time that Saint Porphyrios received his portion of an inheritance from his parents – 4 thousand gold coins. All this he gave away to the needy and for the embellishing of the churches of God.

In 395 the bishop of the city of Gaza (in Palestine) died. The local Christians set out to Caesarea to the Metropolitan John with a request to provide them a new bishop, who would be able to contend against the pagans, which were predominant in their city and were harassing the Christians there. The Lord inspired the Metropolitan to summon the Jerusalem presbyter Porphyrios. With fear and trembling the ascetic accepted the dignity of bishop, and with tears he prostrated himself before the Life-Creating Wood and then set off to fulfill his new obedience.

In Gaza he found all of only three Christian churches, but of the pagan temples and idols – there were a great many. During this time there had occurred a long spell without rain, causing a severe drought. The pagan-priests brought offerings to their idols, but the woes did not cease. Saint Porphyrios imposed a fast for all the Christians; he then made the all-night vigil, followed by going round all the city in a church procession. Immediately the sky covered over with storm clouds, thunder boomed, and abundant rains poured down. Seeing this miracle, many a pagan cried out: "Christ is indeed the One True God!" As a result of this, there came to be united to the Church through Holy Baptism 127 men, 35 women and 14 children, and soon after this, another 110 men. But the pagans just like before still harassed the Christians, passed them over for public office, and burdened them down with taxes. Saint Porphyrios and the Metropolitan of Caesarea John set off to Constantinople, to seek redress from the emperor. Saint John Chrysostom (Comm. 14 September, 27 and 30 January) received them and rendered them active assistance. Saints John and Porphyrios were presented to the empress Eudoxia who at that time was expecting a child. "Intercede for us, – said the bishops to the empress, – and the Lord will send thee a son, who shalt reign during thine lifetime". Eudoxia very much wanted a son, since she had given birth only to daughters. And actually through the prayer of the saints an heir was born to the imperial family... In consequence of this, the emperor in the year 401 issued an edict directing the destruction of the pagan temples in Gaza and the restoration of privileges to Christians. Moreover, the emperor bestowed on the saints the means for the construction of a new church, which was to be built in Gaza on the locale of the chief pagan-temple there. Saint Porphyrios to the very end of his life upheld Christianity in Gaza and guarded well his flock from the vexatious pagans. Through the prayers of the saint there occurred numerous miracles and healings. Over the course of 25 years the archpastor guided veritable flock and reposed at an advanced age, in the year 420.

The Monk Shio (Simeon) of Mgvim (6th c.)

The Monk Shio (Simeon) of Mgvim was born in Syrian Antioch. His parents were Christians and raised their son as the only heir. The youth received a fine education, he studied the Holy Scripture and already in his early years he became accomplished in the ability of expounding the Word of God. Having learnt about an holy ascetic named John, Shio secretly left his parental home and set out to the saint. The Monk John made the youth return to his parents, after foretelling that his parents would become monastics. The prediction was soon fulfilled: Shio distributed his inheritance and accepted tonsure from the Monk John.

The Monk Shio 20 years later, amidst 12 other chosen disciples of Saint John, set off to Iveria (Gruzia or Georgia) to preach the Word of God. With the blessing both of his teacher and of the Gruzinian Katholikos Eulabios, the Monk Shio settled into a cave west of the city of Mtskheta, where he made austere ascetic efforts and was vouchsafed miraculous visions. The solitary life of the ascetic became known of, and soon the place of the saint's efforts was transformed into a monastery, at which a church in the Name of the MostHoly Trinity was established by the monk. Later on other churches were built: in honour of the Mother of God and John the Forerunner. All the churches were consecrated by the Katholikos Makarios. The number of brethren increased, and the monk gave his blessing for them to found the Mgvim monastery, while he himself continued his deeds of salvation in seclusion. The Monk Shio reposed on 9 May, having the evening before communed the Holy Mysteries and given the brethren a final salvific instruction. The remains of the Saint of God were buried in the monastery founded by him. The Monk Shio is known, as the author of 160 precepts for the brethren.

Jude 1:11-25

11Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.12 These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots;13 raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. 14 Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, "Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, 15 to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. 16 These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. 17 But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: 18 how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. 19 These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit. 20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. 22 And on some have compassion, making a distinction; 23 but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. 24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, 25 To God our Savior, Who alone is wise, Be glory and majesty, Dominion and power, Both now and forever. Amen.

Luke 23:1-34, 44-56

1Then the whole multitude of them arose and led Him to Pilate. 2 And they began to accuse Him, saying, "We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, saying that He Himself is Christ, a King." 3 Then Pilate asked Him, saying, "Are You the King of the Jews?" He answered him and said, "It is as you say." 4 So Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowd, "I find no fault in this Man." 5 But they were the more fierce, saying, "He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee to this place." 6 When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked if the Man were a Galilean. 7 And as soon as he knew that He belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent Him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time. 8 Now when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceedingly glad; for he had desired for a long time to see Him, because he had heard many things about Him, and he hoped to see some miracle done by Him. 9 Then he questioned Him with many words, but He answered him nothing. 10 And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused Him. 11 Then Herod, with his men of war, treated Him with contempt and mocked Him, arrayed Him in a gorgeous robe, and sent Him back to Pilate. 12 That very day Pilate and Herod became friends with each other, for previously they had been at enmity with each other. 13 Then Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people, 14 said to them, "You have brought this Man to me, as one who misleads the people. And indeed, having examined Him in your presence, I have found no fault in this Man concerning those things of which you accuse Him; 15 no, neither did Herod, for I sent you back to him; and indeed nothing deserving of death has been done by Him. 16 I will therefore chastise Him and release Him 17 (for it was necessary for him to release one to them at the feast). 18 And they all cried out at once, saying, "Away with this Man, and release to us Barabbas"- 19 who had been thrown into prison for a certain rebellion made in the city, and for murder. 20 Pilate, therefore, wishing to release Jesus, again called out to them. 21 But they shouted, saying, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" 22 Then he said to them the third time, "Why, what evil has He done? I have found no reason for death in Him. I will therefore chastise Him and let Him go." 23 But they were insistent, demanding with loud voices that He be crucified. And the voices of these men and of the chief priests prevailed. 24 So Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they requested. 25 And he released to them the one they requested, who for rebellion and murder had been thrown into prison; but he delivered Jesus to their will. 26 Now as they led Him away, they laid hold of a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian, who was coming from the country, and on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus. 27 And a great multitude of the people followed Him, and women who also mourned and lamented Him. 28 But Jesus, turning to them, said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed!' 30 Then they will begin 'to say to the mountains, Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!" ' 31 For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry? 32 There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. 33 And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. 34 Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." And they divided His garments and cast lots. 44 Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. 45 Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. 46 And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, "Father, 'into Your hands I commit My spirit.' " Having said this, He breathed His last. 47 So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying, "Certainly this was a righteous Man!" 48 And the whole crowd who came together to that sight, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned. 49 But all His acquaintances, and the women who followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things. 50 Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man. 51 He had not consented to their decision and deed. He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God. 52 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 53 Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever lain before. 54 That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near. 55 And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid. 56 Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.

#orthodoxy #orthodox christianity #ancientchristianity #originofchristianity #spirituality #holyscriptures #gospel #sacred texts #wisdom

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yukiwrites · 5 years

Text

Coming Back to You

Thanks for the support as always, anon! I LOVE DIMITRI FIRE EMBLEM!!

Summary: Dimitri and Byleth. King and Queen of the United Kingdom Faerghus. Yet, Byleth was also the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros, so she had other responsibilities to see to -- some that took her away from her home for months at a time. While he waits for his beloved, Dimitri fears being alone.

Commission info HERE and HERE!

_______________________________

As heads of state and the church respectively, Dimitri and Byleth were bound to spend a lot of time together during their work hours. They received the same reports and had to come up with answers from two differing points of view, which often led to heated debates.

Byleth also accumulated the position of Queen, which she used more often than not to insert an idea in her husband's mind so as to win their next argument, but he was onto her... most of the time.

Still, regardless of how packed with political arguments their day had been, the couple would always find some time to be just that: lovers who only wanted to be with one another.

Usually that meant either returning to their quarters at the end of the day or taking a couple of hours off to go on a long ride to the cliff behind the castle -- watching the sun setting and the stars shine their first light at that specific spot held a certain importance to the couple, since it reminded them of the day they proposed to each other, so far up at the Goddess Tower.

They simply sat there over the now beaten grass, used to have them on that spot for so long, in each other's arms. Byleth loved to sit between Dimitri's legs and pull his long cape around them during particularly cold days (which were most of them if Byleth could be honest... Fhirdiad was one of the coldest places she had ever lived in) and rest her head by his collarbone.

Their words would be conveyed through whispers and muffled giggles, as though they were exchanging secrets. Dimitri's breath by his Queen's ear always made her ticklish and slightly embarrassed, so he enjoyed doing that most of all -- witnessing her flinch and squirm just a little bit to move her ear to another spot as though she didn't want him to know that that was her weak spot was so- so very breathtaking. He couldn't help but hold her tighter whenever that happened (with the added effect of keeping her in place so he could keep on teasing her), stealing a kiss or two on her neck.

The time they spent together was the best part of each other's days, no doubt about it.

... Which was the reason why it was so hard for Dimitri to see Byleth go to an expedition to Almyra in the name of the Church. She would be safe there under their friend Claude's protection, they both knew as much.

Dimitri wasn't concerned for her safety -- she could handle herself, after all. What he was worried about was, as surprising at it sounded, himself.

He was scared.

Scared of the sharp pain he felt in his chest the day she left. Scared of the crawling darkness taking ahold of him as easily as it did during the grim time of his life whence he lost his eye. Scared of forgetting the warmth of her touch like he did the faces of the dead.

And, most of all, he was scared of being alone.

Her presence had always been such a constant in his life -- during the war, as well, but especially after they married. Even while she was still there, every single day he couldn't help but feel restless as he read report after report, tapping the tip of the feather pen restlessly somewhere on his desk.

Don't get Dimitri wrong, he was thankful to be able to finally tackle all the work he had ran away from during the war, but by the Goddess did it drain him! The thing he always did to recharge was to simply go back to their quarters and talk to his wife; touch her and embrace her just so they could say how each other's day went.

"You are restless." A deep, familiar voice brought Dimitri back from his incessant tapping, his gaze unfocused on the letters of the report he was supposed to be reading.

The King sighed as he leaned on the backrest, pressing the bridge of his nose. "I might be, Dedue."

"You didn't hear me enter, either." The large man pointed out. "It's already dusk, Your Majesty. You should rest."

"Dusk?" Dimitri looked around himself, the only light illuminating the room the faint candles he had placed there earlier that afternoon -- both of which were already mostly melted. "Ah, I must've let time slip me by. Thank you for reminding me of it, my friend."

Dedue bowed, commenting on how it was his duty to aid Dimitri in whatever he needed. Once again the King sighed, making his friend stiffen as he straightened his back.

"Could you take these," Dimitri shuffled the pile of papers he had signed, handing it to Dedue with one hand, resting his exhausted head on his other one, "to the representatives of the Order of Knights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the College of Magi and-"

"Forgive me for interrupting, but I know where these go, Your Majesty." Dedue replied as he carefully took the papers, holding them with one arm. "Now, I must insist you go rest, Dimitri. Your complexion does not look good."

"Heh," the King snickered, looking up at his friend from his bangs. "Using my name to bribe me into obeying, is that it, Dedue?"

The retainer twisted his lips, looking up to the ceiling. "Perhaps. It is anyone's guess if it will work, however."

Dimitri sagged his back, dragging himself to his feet. "It will, my friend. It will." He rolled his shoulders and neck, feeling stiff all over. "Thank you for taking such good care of me as always."

Dedue simply flashed a small smile, bowing as he watched his Lord and friend finally leave that study. Perhaps it was time to take things into his own hands.

Dimitri's cloak silently dragged itself behind his feet as he crossed the castle towards the Royal Wing. His mind so far away he wouldn't be able to remember what he was thinking about, he opened the door to his quarters without knowing how long it took to reach it.

"My beloved, you will not be able to guess what the College of Magi asked this time-" he instinctively started speaking as he took off his mantle, taking a few more moments than usual to remember that Byleth wasn't there to listen. "Ah..." he let out a disgruntled groan as he let the cloak heavily fall on a nearby chair, his body suddenly a hundredfold more tired than it had been previously. He didn't even feel like changing out of his royal garb to pajamas, falling loudly and face first onto the bed.

He took a deep breath as he did every day since she had left, trying to scoop out any remnant of her scent from the sheets. With time, little by little, her fragrance had disappeared, forcing him to remember how it smelled like as he closed his eyes, scooting to her side of the bed to sleep.

Dimitri would often find himself in the same situation during moments he usually shared with Byleth: be it grooming his horse or taking a walk through the garden, he would start speaking as though Byleth were there, only to have reality crash down on him and scoot back into his shell.

The peak, however, was the day he was talking to a representative of the Church of Seiros who had come from the monastery.

"You are asking for the impossible, my good Sir," Dimitri had said for the thirteenth time that morning as the man demanded more manpower to be directed to the monastery in order to 'protect it' from their neighbors from the former Empire. "We have been allied to House Varley for years now -- not to mention that the Oghma Mountains will not be leaving that spot any time soon." He sighed, clearly tired of that man. "Would you please agree with me on this, Archbishop- ah."

The court and the unreasonable priest fell silent for a beat, allowing the King to wallow in his stumble for a second more than he wanted. Quickly did he clear his throat, shake his head and direct his attention to the man once again.

"Are we clear on this, good Sir? I shall consider this case closed from this point on." The King left no room for argument, forcing the man to simply bow respectfully before leaving. Not allowing himself to rest, Dimitri simply pressed the bridge of his nose. "Whose audience is next?" He asked to those who could hear, though it was Dedue who replied, as always.

"That was the last one for the day, Your Majesty. You must rest now-"

Dimitri clicked his tongue, murmuring, "I must keep myself busy," under his breath as he got up from his throne. "I shall be in my study, then. Surely I have more to do."

Narrowing his eyes, Dedue watched as Dimitri impatiently walked out of the room. "Hold these," he said to the page aiding him, turning on his heel to leave through the opposite exit.

There was nothing to do.

Dimitri had been WAY too productive lately as a way to have the time pass faster. And yet, it hadn't. Byleth was still two weeks away from even finishing her business in Almyra, not counting the strenuous three weeks of travel from there to Fhirdiad.

Roughly one entire month.

Such little time, yet it felt like an eternity.

She had been gone for double that time already, but the wait had come with costs. Dimitri felt like a shadow of who he was before. He needed to recharge his Byleth energy, but she was still so far from returning to his arms, to his embrace... His ears missed hearing her melodious voice SO fervently he had to clutch his chest with both hands in a vain attempt to stop his own heart from hurting.

He rested his head on the desk, skittish.

His mind flooding him with unpleasant thoughts -- of loneliness, of helplessness, of inability to move -- and fond memories alike, he couldn't help but be antsy, unable to sit still.

"Hahh..." he groaned, quickly getting up lest he started grinding the furniture to dust in his anxiousness.

Usually he would head to the training ground to burn some of that unwanted energy, but the image of him and his wife sharing that beautiful sunset over the hill refused to leave his mind. It had been a while since he had gone on a ride, after all. Mayhap ever since Byleth had left.

His feet hurried out of the study, the cape struggling to follow behind as he almost ran towards the stable.

Grooming his horse before taking it out for a ride did wonders to help with his anxiety, but being alone with his thoughts once up on the beast made Dimitri fidgety again.

The rapid galloping under him, however, helped him focus on steering the horse properly rather than giving in to his own mind, though that only meant arriving at the hill much, much earlier than usual. After all, whenever he and Byleth rode through that path, they did so slowly, their pace only fast enough to keep up with their leisure conversation.

Breathing deeply, the King sagged his shoulders as he dismounted the horse, tying its reins over the usual branch on a nearby tree.

Patting on his horse, Dimitri glanced at the spot they usually sat on, his sorrow painted across his woeful expression. He wanted to see her so much.

To intertwine their fingers in a warm hand hold; to feel her soft touch on his face as she got on her toes to ask him to bend down for a kiss; to feel her breath over his hair as they lay on the bed... Ah, to think that missing someone could hurt that deeply!

"Excuse me, sir..." A voice inside his head asked, so clear it made him shoot his head up in surprise. Byleth? He widened his eyes. "Perhaps you could give me a ride back to the castle? My horse is exhausted."

Wait... that voice didn't come from his head.

A rush of emotions made Dimitri feel weak, his breathing uneven. He turned around quickly, finding no one but his wife smiling at him as she dismounted her own horse.

If he had paid attention, he would've noticed how it was clearly exhausted, surely from riding from the gates to the castle and from there to the hill without ten minutes of a pause. Surely because Byleth had rushed home to be with her husband and was about to surprise him on his study only to find it empty -- but she knew him well, so it was only a matter of time until they met.

Ah, but Dimitri wouldn't know that yet. At that moment, he was simply staring as the sunlight glistered through Byleth's emerald hair, shining as though she were the sun itself.

His body moved on his own, claiming her to itself before she disappeared, clearly a product of his imagination. "I-" he whimpered, his voice cracking. "I missed you so much." He squeezed her in his hold, making her lose her breath.

But she didn't care. She was finally home. "I missed you, too, my love." She wrapped both arms around his neck, the fluff of his cloak welcoming her as it always did. Dimitri bent down his tall height to envelop her short one, their bodies fitting perfectly in their embrace. "I have so much to tell you."

"Oh-" Dimitri felt his eyes burn, "so have I, my beloved." He choked a sob, not wanting to part as he dug his face into her neck. She still smelled the same -- he hadn't forgotten it! He hadn't! "Thank you... thank you for coming back to me."

Byleth's eyes itched with tears. "I always will, Dimitri. I always, always will come back to you."

#dimileth #dimitri fire emblem #dimitri #byleth #fire emblem three houses #feth #fe 3h #spoilers #my writings #yuki's commissions

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holyfuckthisfishcandrive · 4 years

Text

Summer storms

So I finally finished the first chapter of this!

Word count: 950

Warnings: It begins with a funeral, so obviously some mention of death, also animal death mention, drug mention, swearing, alcohol mention

For the people of Orehill, Massachusets, summer 2019 started and ended the same way; with a funeral.

Roman watched his brother standing by the front, an arm around his friend Janus Leidner. Comforting him as priest O'Neal went on about how his mother, Laura Leidner, had been a wonderful person and had been taken far before her time.

Mr Leidner wasn't there.

He had been earlier when he had stumbled in, wearing a crumpled suit, stinking of alcohol and screaming at the priest, his son and all the other people gathered in the church. He had banged against the coffin, wailing until they had pulled him off and dragged him outside.

"Grief-stricken" Mum had called him but Roman thought "insane fucking alcoholic" fit the bill better.

On Janus' other side sat Virgil Bundy, the short kid that Patton Berlinger had decided they'd befriend. Roman couldn't understand why. He knew Virgil from his art class and because he was one of Remus' friends. And while Remus, Janus and Virgil didn't hang out at home often he knew that they were weird. Virgil had gone into his emo phase early into middle school and just never went out again. The kid lived in hoodies, had racoon eyebags and - Roman's main reason not to trust him - he hung around with Remus and Janus. As far as Roman was concerned his only redeeming qualities were his ass, his drawing skills and the fact that his voice was probably the deepest, hottest thing Roman had ever heard in his goddamn life. But since Patton was in a happy relationship with Logan and - as far as he knew - not interested in polyamory or hookups Roman was pretty sure that neither of those mattered much to them.

After the funeral, Mum went home, Remus went over to Virgil's with Janus and Roman hitched a ride with Logan Gilmour over to Patton's.

Mum approved of Remus going with Janus but didn't like Roman going over to his friends. She claimed it was disrespectful to go have fun after a funeral. As if Remus was doing anything else.

Roman had no idea how Mum had never noticed the smell of weed Remus came home with almost every evening if he came home at all.

At least when Roman hung out with his friends they didn't do drugs or hung in shady places. The most questionable things they did from time to time were movie marathons and game nights. And neither of these happened often considering that Logan was very concerned with consistent sleep schedules.

"I wonder what they did with Mr Leidner," Logan asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

"Maybe they arrested him," Roman suggested, trying to find some gum in Logan's glove compartment. "He'd deserve it."

"You shouldn't just say that," Logan scolded sternly.

"What? Am I wrong?" Roman gave up his search, remembering that he had taken the last few gums with him last weekend. "You gotta admit, he would deserve to get put behind bars! Like, at least till he's sober."

Logan sighed. "Yeah, I suppose that would be beneficial. Still, it's rude to say it."

"Were friends. Were allowed to gossip," Roman rolled his eyes.

Logan didn't respond, instead pulled into the Berlinger's driveway. Patton's Volkswagen bus was already parked there. They had painted flowers onto it last fall to customise it, enlisting both Logan and Roman for help. Their father - who had previously owned the car - hadn't been too happy about it at first but Patton had done it anyway. They were happy with it, so Roman guessed it was worth it. Plus it had been fun.

Logan and Roman got out and went in through the open back door.

Patton just came down the stairs, wearing a light blue blouse and a flowery skirt instead of the black suit he had been wearing earlier in the church. The wristband was blue, so he was currently male.

"There you are!" he smiled and gave both of them a quick hug. "Mama has a chocolate cake just out of the oven."

"How that? Did she skip the funeral?" Roman joked but he could tell even while he said it that it fell flat.

"Of course not! She put it in before we left with a timer," Patton explained and lead them to the kitchen. "Tea or coffee or hot chocolate?"

"Do you still have that green tea I had last time?" Logan asked.

"Of course! Help yourself. What about you, Roman?"

"Hot chocolate sounds great," Roman shrugged and pulled out three mugs from the cabinet over the sink. "The cake smells great by the way."

They took their plates and drinks up to Patton's room because it was cosier and because his parents weren't home to tell them not to.

After a few hours of pretty much just vibing and making plans for the summer holidays, Logan gave Roman a ride back home and even though he claimed to be driving home then Roman was pretty sure that Logan was driving back to Patton's. He wasn't going to call him out though. He was just thankful that they didn't make out with him around.

Remus wasn't home yet and Mum was making dinner. Ma was nowhere to be seen, so she was probably in her workshop.

-+-

Virgin: Did you make it home without crashing the car?

Snake: Barely

You: I have *some* self-control!

Snake: Lying is my thing

Virgin: Fucking bullshit isn't your style

Virgin: Same hat

Snake: The only reason he didn't make me crash is that I let him pick up a dead squirrel

You: Its skull is whole!

You: Want some pics?

Taglist:

@nonbinary-bitch

#sanders sides #roman sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #janus sanders #virgil sanders #remus sanders #logicality #roman is a bit of an asshole but i love him #he'll get better #my writing

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mo-nighean-rouge · 5 years

Photo

Gone- IV

Jamie Fraser prepares to send Claire and Faith through the stones. A last-minute interference puts them all at stake.

A/N: Thanks to my bonnie beta @abbydebeaupreposts for telling me what needed to go, and what could be done better. This chapter happens to correspond to @gotham-ruaidh‘s writing prompt, “Five Years.”

Part I | Part II | Part III | AO3

Previously:

Jamie placed an open hand at Claire’s belly. “Name him Brian?” he whispered. “After my Da.”

Claire nodded as he lifted her right hand and kissed her ring, followed by each finger, then placed it on the tallest stone. “Until we meet again.”

They faded away before his eyes, just as Claire had nearly done on another bleak morning, years ago.

They were gone.

November 1, 1953 | Oxford, England

Jamie rolled his shoulders against the stiff, artificial material of his new coat. He marveled once more as he took in his surroundings. Claire’s stories about her time had been full of rich descriptions, but his meager imaginings didn’t match the sights he observed now.

Events from the past few months were a blur, save Fergus conspiring with the local men to break him out of prison at Fort William. Fergus. Though Jamie’s heart ached to leave him behind, he had no choice in the matter. The lad had not heard the call of the stones. Thinking about that beastly place turned his wame almost the same way as thinking about Fergus. Jenny and Ian. The bairns that called him uncle.

He thought instead about his son. He would be nearing his fifth birthday and while he had missed so much already, Jamie could not wait to finally join his family in a period of safety.

Even still, the air felt trapped in his lungs as he turned down one narrow street after another, closing in on the most recent address listed for the Randall family. Seeing those words printed together so matter-of-factly had sent chills through him. Much as he knew it was right, he had little idea of what would occur once he walked back into their lives. James Fraser, forced by circumstance to be nothing more than an absentee father. The last thing he’d ever wished to be in his lifetime. But such injustice would end today.

Jamie’s fingertips stroked the latch of the wee gate as he closed it gently behind him. Had the brass tarnished from Claire’s delicate hand caressing it in the same place each day as she went out into the world to answer the call of those who needed her?

He took a deep breath to steel himself as he climbed the last step and lifted the worn door knocker. He rapped it three times, clearly and confidently, as if to prove that it was no trifling matter that brought him to this place.

The door swung open, but no face was immediately visible on the other side.

Jamie looked down to meet crystal clear blue eyes set in a fine-boned face. Brown curls spilled over her shoulders, much longer than he’d last seen them.

He could scarcely see her through his tears. “A nighean,” he muttered over the knot in his throat.

Faith’s small brow crinkled. “May I help you?” she asked in a polished English accent.

Jamie’s heart fell to his stomach. “It’s m—” Jamie began. “Christ, but I should’ve expected ye might not remember.” He tugged the hat from his head and nervously fiddled with its brim.

“Is your mam home?” he asked softly.

“Faith?” called a deep voice of a cadence strangely familiar to Jamie. A figure stepped into the shadows just behind his lass.

“Faith Randall, you know better than to answer the door to strangers.” The man emerged fully into the light, and Jamie took a defensive step forward as if to put himself between this man and his child.

The man responded with a tight smile and placed a hand on Faith’s shoulder, even as she tensed under his hold. “Pardon me, but I do not believe you have any business here.”

“Frank?” called a soft voice from farther back in the house. Claire suddenly appeared from the recesses of the gloomy interior, and it was as if the sun finally came out on this dreary day. Beside her trailed a wee lad – smaller than Jamie had expected.

But naught about her was recognizable. The lavender smudges beneath her thin eyelashes made his heart twinge. But what nearly undid him was the empty look in her eyes as they met his.

Claire squinted. “…Jamie?” she asked, as if trying to recall an acquaintance from a different lifetime.

“Aye,” he choked out, leaning forward to see around Frank. “Sassenach—”

“I don’t know what you’re about, but we don’t use that word in this home,” the other man said with an air of haughty reproach and moved to block Jamie’s view.

The bairn tugged on Claire’s hand, trying to get her attention.

She tilted her head toward him disinterestedly.

Jamie’s breath caught as the boy’s cinnamon curls reflected in the light from inside the house. “Will this be Brian?” he asked, hopeful. This was not any thing like the warm, joyful reunion he’d prayed for, but perhaps if he could stay just long enough to meet his son…

Claire cocked her head to the side, an empty smile forming on her lips. “There is no Brian. This our little Jack.”

Colors and sounds swirled around Jamie as he struggled to understand the bizarre scene in front of him. The only thing familiar was Faith, whose eyes hadn’t left him.

“Da?” she asked.

Did she remember him after all?

He stumbled forward to reach her. He’d pry her from Frank’s grasp if he had to, but he needed to touch something that he knew to be real amid this maddening farce. Faith suddenly broke free and ran toward him.

“Da?!” she beseeched.

Jamie woke to the weight of a clammy hand on his cheek. He shakily covered it with his own. Still tiny. Still there. He sat up in the dark and crushed Faith to him, pressing his lips to her forehead. “Taing dhia. What troubles ye, a leannan?”

“A-are ye sad, Da?” her little voice quivered against his chest.

He took a cursory glance to their right and spotted Claire’s tangled cloud of hair on the dusty floor, Fergus tucked under her arm. Just as they had been when he fell asleep earlier that night. “Nay, lass.” Filmy tears ran in his eyes. “No’ so long as ye’re with me.”

Faith snuffled against him.

Jamie stroked her back, realizing he’d likely frightened her with his greeting and thrashing about. “What’s all this, then?”

“ ’M scairt,” she muttered into his shoulder.

“Aye?” he whispered. “Of what?” But he had a terrible feeling that he knew.

“The man,” she whimpered. “He talked nice but he was sae mean, Da.”

Jamie closed his eyes, reminding himself that everything that had transpired in the past day was over. “Ye’ll no’ ever see him again, a chuisle. I swear to ye.”

Faith’s breathing returned to normal as he cradled her against him. She fell asleep with her hand gripping the collar of his shirt.

He wrapped her tighter in Claire’s tartan shawl and laid her next to Fergus, breathing a quick blessing over the both of them. He laid a hand on Claire’s shoulder.

“Mo ghraidh,” he whispered, brushing the back of his hand across her cheek.

Her eyes fluttered open, her face falling as her gaze focused on him. “Is it time?”

“Nay, but I hoped ye’d have a word with me?”

Claire let him pull her up and place a gentle hand on her hip.

Murtagh startled at his post as he registered them passing through the door. His expression lightened only when he saw that Faith was not with them.

Jamie led his bride away from the hill, noting the way her features relaxed the further they traveled from it. He lifted her knuckle to his lips, then held her hand tightly with both of his.

“Sassenach, I must ask your forgiveness…”

Claire began to tug away, features downcast. “Jamie, just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean I don’t understand it. You don’t have to keep defending yourself—” Her hand went limp in his and she spun around to head back to the bairns.

“Claire!” he caught her by the shoulders, forcing her to meet his eye. “I’m asking ye to stay.”

Her eyes widened. “Y-you’re… You’re sure?” Her hands found his tense shoulders.

“Aye. I… I’m no’ sure I can explain it.” He swallowed deeply, placing one hand on her belly. “But I think we can do it. We’ll hide in the priest hole until we can stow away on one of Jared’s ships. Or, Christ, there’s even a cave in the woods at Lallybroch. I’d sleep in a loch if it means I can keep ye…”

Jamie trailed off as he noticed the ravenous look in his wife’s eyes.

Their time together in the wee hours of the morning before had been gentle, savoring what they believed to be their last touches, and saying an impossible goodbye.

But there was something feral in the way that Claire tugged him down and climbed over him now.

She would have her revenge, and he wasn’t of a mind to stand in her way.

________________________________________

They embraced while laying on their sides, hands clasped. Her J entwined with his C, bound once more.

The sun rose over the fairy hill in the distance, casting an eerie glow around it.

The stones could kiss Claire’s English arse for all she cared, now.

She studied the face of her sweet lad, more relaxed now than it had been only moments before. There were still lines of worry caused by the unclear path that lay ahead, to be sure. But his heart still beat steadily beneath her palm, his hot blood warming her to the core.

Claire’s own pulse flickered rapidly as she recalled the events of the last 24 hours. How she’d hated him, and then grieved his loss all at once.

“I was so worried. For you, for Faith.” She knew her voice warbled, but there was hardly anything she could do about it at this point. Her emotions were likely to take free reign now that her deepest fears were relieved.

“I didn’t know how she would react to him…” She paused. “To Frank. The resemblance isn’t always obvious, Jamie. There are times I can almost forget.”

Claire remembered her hands shaking as she had tried to separate the two in her frantic mind that very morning. Was it Jack or Frank that she was cutting down? Or both?

Ultimately, it hadn’t mattered. Not when it was her baby girl in harm’s way.

“I wasn’t sure whether I could have faced him again,” she whispered into Jamie’s neck. “Knowing everything that I do now about the man he so revered.” She shuddered. “He would have touted that inglorious history to our children…”

Jamie had fallen silent, his throat working as he considered his next words. She palmed his cheek and met his eye. Tell me, she implored.

“Claire, I saw it.” The sharp edge returned to his voice, the only way he could speak of what he’d dreamt. “I dinna ken how or why, but I did. Poor Faith shied away from his touch. And…” Jamie ran the pad of his thumb over the bridge of her nose, then tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “Your bonny eyes held no life. All the joy was sucked out of ye.” He swallowed.

She stroked his chest through the opening of his shirt as she listened.

"I’m no’ sure if it was yer grief or the despair of Frank's house but it was as if ye couldna even see the bairns,” his words rumbled, ragged.

Claire tilted her head. “Bairns? Not just Faith?” she questioned.

Jamie’s face flushed. “I saw a bonnie lad, Sassenach. Red curls and blue eyes, with yer delicate cheekbones.” He pinched the feature in question, as if marveling that she was still there with him.

“Brian,” she whispered, and watched peace fall over his face.

She held tighter to his hand. “We won’t let that happen. We’ll give them so much of our attention they’ll be sick of us.”

Jamie smirked, then leaned in closer to meet her lips. “All dozen o’ them.”

Claire chortled. “Keep dreaming, Fraser.”

“I think…” She paused to consider. “I think that if it hadn’t been for today, maybe it would have been okay.” She shuddered. “Going back there again. Frank would have done his best, and he would have been good at it.”

Claire paused to brush a rogue curl from his eye. “But it’s all different now.” She took a deep breath. “Thank you. For fighting for us. But also for being willing to give it all up.”

Jamie nodded, overcome, then squeezed his eyes closed. “Anything for ye.”

They watched the light rise in the sky, content to enjoy the first of many moments together in their reclaimed life.

“Murtagh will wonder what’s keeping us.”

Claire smirked, running her fingers through his locks. “One look at your hair and he’ll figure it out.”

Jamie’s hands lost themselves in her curls, then brandished the thistles he’d discovered. He gave her one of his classic attempts at a wink, making her heart soar.

*****************************************

They were both admittedly worse for the wear as they made their way back to the doorway of the ramshackle cabin.

Murtagh raised a bushy eyebrow. “Roll down the hill, did ye?”

Jamie gripped Claire’s hand tightly as they approached him as a united front. “Change of plans, a gostidh.”

*****************************************

They’d curled back up with Faith and Fergus for a scant half hour before rising again, just watching their children sleep in peace. Neither quite understood what Jamie had planned to sacrifice for their family, but Claire would make sure to tell them when they were older.

Their party was headed onward to seek refuge with Jamie’s uncle at the abbey. After much deliberation, they deemed it the safest place to bide for the remainder of her pregnancy, or at least until they plotted their next steps.

Jamie was of a mind to sleep during the day and travel under the cover of darkness. Claire glanced toward Fergus in time to watch the boy shake off encroaching slumber. They’d stopped only out of necessity, most often for her to relieve the growing pressure on her bladder or belly.

Murtagh’s horse crept several paces ahead, the Scot scouting the safest path. Lost in her own thoughts, Claire watched his profile disappear into the valley below.

Eager for a bit of lie-in herself, Claire was relieved to see the glow of dawn on the horizon. Jamie would be sure to know of a shady place for them to lay their heads.

She guided Brimstone over the steep decline of the hill, only to nearly slam into Jamie’s abandoned horse.

He stood stricken in horror, staring ahead.

Murtagh was being pulled down from Donas by two Redcoats. As they set his feet on the ground, he met Claire’s eye, his own full of guilt and shame.

She slid down from her own horse and sidled up to Jamie’s back as he tried to make himself impossibly bigger to hide her, lowering Faith to her arms.

Over his shoulder, she studied the English officers in the dim light. There was something oddly familiar about one of them.

To be continued.

#Jamie Fraser #claire beauchamp #faith fraser #murtagh fitzgibbons fraser #fergus fraser #Gone #canon divergence au #Outlander #Outlander fanfic #my fic

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goodproofingwater · 5 years

Text

The Regular | Tommy Shelby x Reader

Word count: 5117 Warnings: just pure dom filth tbh, publicish sex, daddy kink Requested by: two anons requested blurbs and i got (very) carried away

You had been trying to muster the courage to talk to a Shelby for three weeks, making sure that you were in The Garrison when they were, ordering whiskey instead of beer loudly enough for them to hear. So far you had only caught the attention of the preacher's son and his friend, and while both of them were attractive you had your eye on one Shelby in particular.

When Tommy walked into the pub that night he looked as stunning as ever, his piercing blue eyes surveying the room as he decided what the mood for the evening would be, and although he glanced at the small door that he usually disappeared behind, a whisper from his younger brother John caused him to order a bottle whiskey from the main bar instead. A smirk from the younger Shelby remained on his face as he too surveyed the room, meeting your eyes for only a moment before his tongue darted over his lips, and you felt your stomach do a backflip at the action.

Your friends had advised you to wear red this evening, something that would stand out against the others in the pub and it had apparently worked. Others would have said you were overdressed, but when Tommy Shelby turned his back to the bar and ran his eyes over you from head to toe you knew that you had made the right decision.

Your friends were urging you to go over there, but you knew better than to approach someone like him, and so you mirrored his actions, taking in his body from his shining shoes to the hat which he pulled from his head. His long fingers tamed the hair on top of his head, and you licked your lips as he held your eye contact for long enough for you to know you had caught his attention.

Two hours later you had enough liquid courage to approach the bar, the bottle of whiskey you and your friends had brought almost finished and you brushed down your dress as you wandered over, leaning against the bar as you vied for Harry's attention.

“What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” The line didn’t seem so cliche when it was wrapped with such silk, his voice deep and husky and everything you had imagined, and you allow your eyes to flicker to his for only a moment before you turn back to try and catch the barman's attention.

“It’s my local,” Is your answer, and he stands next to you with a cigarette in his hand, his mere presence demanding your attention even if he wasn’t so beautiful.

“You live round ‘ere? On watery lane?” The disbelief in his voice makes your lip quirk in amusement, and you turn to face him for the first time as you push the empty whiskey bottle further toward the back edge of the bar, hoping that Harry will get the idea without you having to wave him down, although by the way Tommy glances at him you’re not sure his attention is actually elsewhere, rather deliberately diverted.

“I do, my ma and I live up the road from that betting shop” You speak, wondering if it was really believable that you wouldn’t know who he was and that he had something to do with the shop.

“Interesting. Would have thought I’d seen ya before.” He takes a long drag, a twitch of his fingers bringing Harry over with a fresh bottle of whiskey for the both of you, and Tommy takes it upon himself to pour your drink for you, more than you would have poured for yourself. “Although I suppose where you live explains why you’re drinking whiskey. We’ve all got good taste round ‘ere”

His eyes fall down to your dress and you can feel other eyes on you, your friends, his brothers, even regular punters wondering if they should be saving this woman from the clutches of the infamous Tommy Shelby.

“Maybe my ma wanted to keep me away from men like you, Mr Shelby...” You tease, addressing only the first statement that slipped from beautiful lips as it was the only one you could think of a positive answer for.

“Maybe your ma was right to...” His tongue licked along the inside of his lips at speed, as if he was tasting the tension between you, the small smile you saw in his eyes confirm that he found it palatable. “This one’s on me ‘arry.” He spoke, motioning to your bottle and you smiled, taking a sip of your whiskey before you clasped the bottle more deliberately than you would have done if you weren’t thinking about how your fingers would wrap around his cock.

“Thank you, Mr Shelby..” You nodded with a smile, walking back to your table and deliberately leaving him hanging, knowing that this was the quickest way to ensure you left a lasting impression with a man who was used to getting his way immediately.

The next week you wear blue, a colour which simultaneously brings out the colour of your eyes and matches his, and the gang are already in the small room when you arrive. An hour later they are still in there, and you worry you have missed your chance when the priest's son comes out with his dad looking suitably drunk and they leave the door open, and although you don’t see it, Tommy manages to catch sight of you from where he sits in the corner.

You sip at your whiskey once more, talking to your friends about the men that they have been courting, your friend Elizabeth being on the verge of a proposal with the beautiful man that she had had the luck of growing up with, their mothers pushing them together throughout their lives and love or lust sparking the moment puberty had hit both of them. You are just about to comment that she has had the best luck when Tommy stands at the bar and glances over at you, his eyes running over you as they had done the week before and a bottle of champagne appears at your table.

“We didn’t order this Harry…” Elizabeth speaks, and he shakes his head, “This is courtesy of Mr Shelby. Says that a girl with such a pretty dress shouldn’t be drinking--” He clears his throat, clearly unhappy about relaying the message, “such terrible whiskey.”

You glance over at him as Elizabeth pours the round and he raises his glass, his eyes devious and full of lust and there is nothing you want more than to jump on him right there. But you bide your time.

Your friends leave one by one, and soon it is just you, Elizabeth and Gemima sitting around the table, and when the two of them go to the bathroom you take the opportunity to remain and give him the chance to come over. You wonder if Tommy Shelby is as predictable as all men or if he breaks the mold. Surely a man like him has woman swooning over him and doesn’t need to make moves of his own, but just as you are reassuring yourself that if he doesn’t come over it’s because of his pride, he walks over to you.

“Did you like the champagne?” He offers, glancing at the empty bottle on the table and you take the opportunity to drink the last of your glass.

“It was delicious, thank you...” You speak, standing and grasping the bottle mainly to settle yourself, the bubbles having gone to your head far more than you had realised until you had stood up. You moved across the bar to place the bottle on it and he chuckled, leaning back where he was a week ago.

“You do realise that Harry will clean that up for you if you leave it there? You don’t have to bring the bottles back,” He takes a drag of his cigarette as amusement washes over normally stoic features.

“I know, I'm just a good girl who likes to help out where I can..” The words good girl spark his interest, and the way he looks at you is now coated with the desire to whisper it to you over and over, but he holds back.

“I think you’ve helped enough.” He stubs out his cigarette and licks his lips, eyes darting to your friends who have sat back down at the table and are deep in conversation. “Want to head back to my place and have a little fun?”

The words hit you harder than you would have expected, but not as hard as his hand on your waist does, the feeling of his long fingers gripping you turning you on more than you would expect and you have to take a breath to steady yourself. He was absolutely dizzying, from the way he smelt to the look in his eyes which told you that if you went home with him you would have the night of your life, and so when you nodded you were glad for the quick movement.

“I’ll let you say goodnight to your friends. Meet me outside in fifteen minutes - I’ll send for a car to take us to my estate.”

Estate. Car. The words were foreign to you and you felt a wave of excitement wash through you as he walked away and you moved back to your table.

Your friends barely believed you when you told them what was happening, Elizabeth acting like she was the reason this was happening as she had helped you choose the dress and Gemima just insanely jealous that you had managed to capture a Peaky’s attention.

You deliberately kept him waiting, walking out of the pub a good 10 minutes after he did and he looked annoyed as you climbed into the back of the car driven by a man called Curley.

“I thought you weren’t going to come.” He spoke without a hint of insecurity in his voice. If you hadn’t arrived he would have simply been frustrated that he was misled.

“My friends took a little longer to let me go than I thought..” You spoke, your breath shaking as you pulled away from Watery Lane and onto a dark countryside road. It was the fresh air that made you realise that you hadn’t fully thought this through, his hand on your knee which made you realise that once you got to his estate you would be fully alone with one of the most powerful and violent men in the world - or at least in Birmingham.

It would have scared most women, would have made them ask to stop and turn around, but the thought of being at the mercy of someone so powerful made your thighs press together, something he noticed clearly enough that his eyes turned to yours where they had previously been staring out of the window.

“Alright, love?” He spoke, his voice deeper and thicker now that it wasn’t surrounded by smoke and noise from punters

“Do you live far?” Is your answer, innocent eyes turning lustful at the thought of the things you could do in a car that you may not get the chance to after this evening, and he shook his head slowly, feeling inside his pocket for his cigarette case but your hand on his thigh stopped him.

“Feeling impatient are we?” He smirked, and you pulled an innocent expression, nodding as you moved closer to him and he wrapped his arm around your shoulders, “Be a good girl and I promise I’ll make it worth your while..”

Your hand moved slowly up his thigh as the car continued along the dark road, and you were glad for the bottle of champagne because you were sure you wouldn’t have the balls to be here without it. You moved to press your lips softly against his jaw, moving sweet kisses from his chin down his neck as your hand ran along his hardening member.

He let out a sigh of contentment as you stroked him, but he moved his hand to stop you in a show of control you had never seen from any other man.

“I said behave.” His tone was harsh and demanding, your thighs pressing together once more and he glanced down at them before he turned to you with a smirk, “You like it when I tell you to behave?”

“I like it when you tell me to do anything, Sir.” The name slips from your lips before you can catch it, and the car turns into a driveway you hadn’t noticed was there as he licks his lips and moves your hand from his crotch.

“Best get past the maids before I tell you exactly what I want you to do for me, aye?” And although you feel a fresh wave of arousal wash through you, it’s the plural on maids which shocks you.

You hadn’t fully comprehended the extent of his wealth until you saw the size of the estate that you were pulling into. Acres upon acres of land spanned around the house which was at the end of a long driveway, and it wasn’t until he chuckled that you realised your mouth had fallen open in awe.

“Don’t need any prompting parting those lips then?” He teased, and you turned to him as you licked your lips, giggling as you shook your head, his hand moving to your face making you throb with arousal and you were glad for the driveway being so long as he pulled you in for the first kiss of the evening. His waiting lips ghosted along yours before they pressed softly against you, and you were surprised he was so gentle until you felt his fingers entwine in your hair and pull you forward, the kiss becoming heated so fast you struggled to keep up. You couldn’t tell if it was because of him, the champagne or the whiskey but you were entirely intoxicated, so much so that when he pulled away as the car slowed down, you moved with him for a moment.

He chuckled as you adjusted yourself, and moved around the car to open the door for you, holding out his hand and helping you down.

“Wow..” Were the only words you could muster as you looked up at his house, and although you didn’t want to make him any more smug than he was you could barely help yourself.

His fingers slipped into yours in an unexpected show of affection and he lead you through the halls to the sitting room, a large room full of leather sofas and mahogany, a room bigger than any you had ever seen in your life. As he poured the both of you a drink and shooed away several maids who came in to help, you glanced around at the tapestries and paintings which hung from the all and wondered how it was possible for one man to have so much that his walls were worth more than your house.

“First time you’ve been in a place like this aye?” He spoke without a hint of patronisation, as if he was genuinely curious when it was so obvious.

“I’m surprised you brought me back here” You spoke, taking the glass of whiskey from him as you kicked off your heels much to his dismay, but he supposed he could ask you to put them back on later.

“Where did you think I would take you?” He smirked, pulling a cigarette from its case and lighting it as you wandered back over to him to clink your glass softly with his own

“I expected you to take me to the betting shop.” You licked your lips, looking from his own to those piercing eyes as you wondered when and if he would kiss you again or if there would be other uses for either of your lips this evening.

“Wanted me to fuck you over the counter? Should have told me, would have saved you the ride home in the morning.” He took a drag of his cigarette as your eyebrows quirked, “Or did you think that I was going to send you on your way tonight?”

A shrug was all it took to elicit a chuckle from him, and he moved across the room only to slip a record in the gramophone before he’s moving back to you. “Oh no, darling. There’s far too much fun to be had to send you home after a few hours.” He hands his cigarette to you as he presses behind you, moving your hair to the side to kiss softly at your neck, his hand pushing up your dress. You know that you should stop him, that you should play a little more hard to get but when his fingers graze against the damp cotton which sits between your legs you know you are done for.

“Y’no I’ve been thinking about this since the first time I saw you in the garrison..” He whispers, his fingers moving up your body and playing with the waistband of your panties, “You didn’t think I noticed the way you looked at me but I did.. Bet you were thinking about me too hm?” He grazes his teeth gently along your neck and you let out a small whimper, his fingers slipping beneath the cotton to graze your clit for only a moment. “So wet already? Do I really have that much of an effect on you?”

You don’t get a chance to answer before he is pulling your face to his own for a searing kiss, his fingers running in circles on your clit as you moan against his mouth until the song stops and he parts from you only to flip over the record and take a seat on the leather sofa closest to the gramophone’s speaker.

The way he looks at you makes you feel like the sexiest woman in the world, and you lick your lips as the music runs through your body, making every inch of you want to submit to him. And so you do.

You down the last of your whiskey, his eyebrow quirking at how well you took it and you move toward him. “Are you going to be a good girl for me now?” Is all he has to say to have you biting your lip and falling to your knees, and he watches you with eyes full of lust and need as you crawl across the floor to him, his tongue darting across his lips as he hardens beneath his pants.

“I’ll try and be good for you, but I can't make any promises... “ You speak as you crawl to him, and when you reach him his thighs are spread for you to settle in, his fingers making quick work of pulling your dress over your head so you sit kneeling in only your bra, panties, stockings and suspenders. Your fingers move to caress him through his pants and you move your lips down to kiss along harsh fabric as you unbutton it, tugging it down just enough that you can pull his hardening erection free from its confines.

“Where did a girl like you learn to work a man like this?” He speaks as he stubs out his cigarette, watching you as you lick your lips and pull down his pants to leave him bare and your eyes meet his own as your face forms an innocent expression.

“I don’t know what you mean, daddy…” As if Sir wasn’t enough, your biggest kink falls from your lips and while you were worried it was going to freak him out it had the absolute opposite effect. Sitting forward, he moved his fingers to your lips, running his thumb along your bottom lip as he licked his own.

“Open up for daddy…” He smirked and you did as you were told, sucking on his thumb momentarily before you moved closer to him and kissed the tip of his shaft, your tongue darting across it to lick up the precum which had beaded on top of the flushed head. His fingers tangled your hair until he held it with his fist, and you moved your mouth down to take as much of him as possible, his shaft deep so deep in your throat that you were able to swallow around him. He let out a moan in satisfaction at the feeling, and although you knew it was going to happen you barely prepared for him moving to stand, careful not to part from your mouth.

“You better stay still, girl” His words are solid and demanding and make you even wetter and you do as you are told, unsure you would be able to do anything else when his demands turned you on so much. He held your head gently, a solid juxtaposition as he began to fuck your mouth, his hips moving against you as you looked up at him with innocent and teary eyes, your fingers moving to touch your dripping clit and he let out a groan at the sight.

“Did I say you could touch yourself?” His eyebrow quirked and you shook your head as best you could, not wanting to remove him from your mouth when you were enjoying just how much he was dominating you. “You do as I say or you don’t get to feel my cock inside of you, understand?”

If this was any other man you would have been willing to bet he would give in, not able to deny a good fuck, but this was Tommy Shelby, a man who had enough restraint that he hadn’t made a move on you for a month.

You pulled back from him and nodded, “I’m sorry daddy, I’ll be a good girl, I promise.” Your innocent eyes were enough to make him second guess his intentions, and instead of sinking deeper into your throat, he held his hand to help you up.

“Bend over that sofa, girl..” he spoke, motioning to the seat he had just stood from, and you moved toward it, resting your knees on the seat and your elbows on the back as he licked his lips and watched you, still in your underwear and suspenders, and he rubbed your ass softly as he stood behind you, slapping it without warning.

A yelp fell from your lips and he looked down at you as your eyes met him for a moment, the lust that had taken over your features confirming that he hadn't taken this too far.

“Think you can touch yourself without permission hm?” He speaks, his hand coming down on your other cheek and you can’t help your ass perking out to him, desperate for more contact. He lets out a soft groan as he seems how eager you are and smacks your ass once more before he pushed your panties to one side, fingers running along your soaking clit.

“God you’re soaked…” he spoke more to himself than anyone else, moving closer to you as he sunk two fingers within you, a hand balling in your hair again to pull it back and you let out a whimper as his fingers curled against your spot. “Are you gonna behave for me now?”

You nodded, licking your lips as his fingers began moving harder inside of you, “I said…” he started, pressing against your spot before he removed his hand to spank your ass once more, “Are you going to behave for me?”

“Y-yes Daddy…” your voice was strangled as you moaned loudly for him, the absence of his fingers making you pout, “I’ll be a good girl for you just please f-fuck me..”

He smirks as he watches you squirm under the hand which is caressing the red skin on your behind, “what did you just say?”

You were normally more together than this, had better control over yourself but being with this man was everything you had wanted for such a long time and to say you were desperate was an understatement.

“P-please?” You whimpered, your voice much quieter than it had been as you looked over your shoulder at him with desperation in your eyes, his own blue hues full of lust before his hand moved from your ass to slip between your legs, pushing aside your panties once more.

“Maybe I should fuck you.. or maybe I should make you wait here for a few hours, have you drip all over the couch while I sit back and watch you squirm,” he was standing close enough now that you could feel his arousal pressing into your ass, and you moved your hips so he was resting between your cheeks and he chuckled.

“God baby girl you really are eager aren’t you? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it… so desperate for daddy’s cock…” he moved his fingers from you, pushing the fabric of your panties aside further to let the head of his shaft run along your clit for a moment.

“Now you’re going to do exactly as I say,” he spoke, his other hand moving into your hair and pulling it hard enough that your head moved back with it, his lips whispering directly against your ear, “your going to stay still while I fuck this tight pussy, I don’t care if you want to fuck back, I don’t care if someone comes in, you’re going to let me pound you until you’re cumming around me so hard you can’t see, understand?”

You whimpered, nodding at both his words and the feeling of the head of his cock moving inside you only to be removed a moment later.

“And if my baby even thinks about doing anything but letting me fuck her till she can’t walk, she’ll pay by being left on the edge, tied up to that chair” he pointed at the armchair which was in full view where you had bent over the sofa and you couldn’t help but wonder if he had planned this, “while my tongue flicks over you for only moments every twenty minutes. If you obey I’ll make you cum harder than you ever have, but if you don’t, I’ll bring you to the edge and leave you there so many times you’ll be crying, begging for me to let you leave so you can ride your own fingers.”

“Oh god…” was your only answer, his filthy worlds, the feeling of velutinous skin running against where you needed him so desperately only served to turn you on more, “yes daddy I swear, ruin this pussy for anyone else…”

He smirked as he pressed a soft kiss on the side of your cheek, fisting your hair once more and watching as he finally slipped inside you. You were wetter and tighter than any woman he had ever felt, and for a moment he was regretting telling you to remain still as feeling you wind your hips against him would have been fantastic. But he was a man of his word.

You let out a loud groan at the feel of him, his shaft hard and smooth and one of the biggest you had felt, and although you felt the need to compliment him he gave you no chance to think, his hips already moving hard against yours. He felt like heaven, one hand pulling your hair back as the other gripped your waist so hard you were sure there would be crescent-shaped indents if not bruises. The sound of skin slapping on skin filled the room, the record punctuating each thrust until the song finished, and you let out a loud moan as a maid stepped into the room only to rush out again at the sight of her master fucking someone where she was intending on cleaning.

“Oh f-fuck Tommy..” you moaned, gripping at leather and wood as he moved even faster at your act of submission,

“That’s it baby, let everyone know how good I’m fucking you.” He grinned as he gave a particularly hard thrust, and then moved the hand from your waist to your shoulder, pulling you up so that your back was flush against his chest, the new position allowing him to hit at your spot with each solid thrust.

“Oh my god…” you moaned, tears falling from your eyes as his fingers circled your clit, the pleasure so overwhelming you could barely handle it and when he let his teeth graze along your neck and down your shoulder you felt like your entire body was on fire. You didn’t have time to warn him, your body convulsing against him as he marked you with a love bite on your shoulder and you whimpered for him over and over. He continued to thrust inside you as you fell forward and rested your head on the back of the couch, and he removed himself to cum in your ass, the substance coating the red skin and bruising he had caused with his rings.

You let out a small whimper as he pulled from you, grabbing a small towel that had been left to try by the fire and wiping you down. He took special care with the sensitive skin, and slipped his fingers beneath you to rub softly at your clit once more, chuckling as you whimpered and moaned more.

“Just fucked you that good and you still want more. What a good girl.” He licked his lips as he helped you turn and sit on the couch, looking up at him with innocent eyes you had worn while he was fucking your throat. “You’re gonna have to wait till daddy is ready to go again, princess..” he bit his lip as he ran his thumb along your bottom lip and you sucked obligingly.

“Let’s get you upstairs and into a bath, and then I’ll lay you down and taste that gorgeous pussy before I ruin it with my cock again…”

“Yes sir..” you nodded, licking your lips and taking his hand as he helped you to stand, slipping his shirt over you to save your dignity from any other maid although you were sure they all knew by now considering how loud you had been. He took your hand once he had pooled your clothes together and lead you through the estate into a bedroom, calling for a maid to run you a bath, the temptation of laying you down on the bed too much for him and if he decided that you were never to leave, in that moment you decided you would be happy to stay.

#tommy shelby #tommy shelby imagines #peaky blinders imagines #thomas shelby #thomas shelby imagines #lauren writes #this could easily have gone on for 2k more but i thought i'd best stop as it started life as blurb requests

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mst3kproject · 5 years

Photo

802: The Leech Woman – Part III

I’ve devoted a review to the terrible characters in The Leech Woman and another to its nasty misogynistic ‘message’, what’s left? As it turns out, plenty. The next layer down in our Leech Woman Tira Misu of badness has several ingredients that just wouldn’t fit with the themes of either of the previous installments.

The script frequently feels a need to explain what’s happening on screen, which is sometimes helpful but equally often kind of insulting, since characters are telling us things we can clearly see for ourselves. A Nando dude has his face pushed into a pot of misty stuff and is then dragged stumbling over to the sacrificial block, and David declares “he’s drugged!” as if we wouldn’t be able to tell. Moments later, the man’s pineal gland is carved out – this does require some narration, since the visuals aren’t self-explanatory, but the “he’s adding the pineal hormone to the Naipi” a moment later really doesn’t need to be there.

The intense use of stock footage is also a form of this. We know that the characters are going to Africa, and we see them hiring a guide and tramping through a jungly-looking set, only to also be shown reams of animal stock footage that has basically nothing to do with the story. The only time it has any bearing on the plot is with the leopard that supposedly follows June. The rest is padding, there to emphasize (as Crow observes) that we are definitely in Africa, as if the audience couldn’t already tell.

A few bits in this part of the movie are shot outside, pretty clearly in California rather than anywhere near Africa. Others are obviously in ‘jungle’ studio sets, and you can really feel how closed-in and artificial these spaces are, especially when contrasted with the wide-open savannahs and broad skies in the stock footage. I guess I can say in the movie’s favour that it looks more jungle-ish than Jungle Moon Men did, but there are places in Canada that look more jungle-ish than that, so it’s not really saying very much.

The most egregious use of stock footage in The Leech Woman is in the Nando village, where we see some shots of people dancing in Real Africa before cutting back to extras in Hollywood Africa. The two sets of footage look nothing alike. The people in the documentary shots are dancing in a practiced, purposeful fashion. The ones in the stuff filmed for The Leech Woman are just kind of flailing and bouncing. The juxtaposition is kind of like splicing shots of trained ballroom dancers in with video of the junior prom and pretending it was all part of the same scene. This extends to the costumes, with the ‘real’ dancers wearing elaborate ceremonial beadwork and the actors in crummy kilts and geographically inappropriate tiger skins. The latter still look nothing like the shower curtain Malla’s wearing when she reappears. The only costume that had effort put into it is that ridiculous tusk headdress the high priest wears.

The Nando themselves are a plot device, rather than a people. They are Privy To Wisdom the White Man Hath Forgotten, but they’re also very much superstitious savages, with their regular human sacrifices and habit of killing anybody who tries to talk to them. None of them have lines and except for Malla and the high priest they are basically indistinguishable from each other – this keeps us from feeling sorry for them when their village gets blown up. The only ones we see up very close are Malla, whom we will soon learn is planning to kill the heroes, and the priest, whose face is hidden. They are dehumanized and, with their job of introducing June to the Cure for Old done, they are dismissed.

That would be pretty standard for a fifties jungle movie, but there’s one rather out-of-place bit that seems to be there just as gratuitous racism. When David goes back for the dynamite, under the pretense of giving Malla a necklace, one of his guards takes a moment to steal some of June’s other jewelry from the luggage. Why? What value does it have to these people who live in the middle of nowhere and don’t appear to trade with the outside world? The event never has any impact on the plot, even though June later uses jewelry to entice her victims… come to think of it, why did she have that stuff with her on a safari anyway? If this isn’t just a throwaway moment of lol, black people are thieves, it seems to just be a little reminder that the Nando cannot be trusted and that we shouldn’t worry about David blowing them up. Doesn’t quite work when he also steals their stuff on the way out, does it?

And of course, the ending sucks. Rather than facing any sort of consequences for her crimes, June simply throws herself out the window, leaving Sally dead in the closet and Neil and the police wondering what the hell just happened. The withered corpse we see under the window is obviously a mannequin, and doesn’t even look like June. And as with far too many movies of this vintage, there is no denouement. We don’t know if Neil ever understands that June and ‘Terri’ were the same person, or why Sally was killed. We don’t see him realize what he’s lost by allowing himself to be dragged around by the dick. The movie just ends. They couldn’t have spent two minutes on that instead of on random animal footage?

After going through all the many ways in which The Leech Woman is a terrible and frequently offensive movie, how it hates men, women, black people, white people, and anybody stupid enough to watch it, I guess it needs to be asked: why do I enjoy it so much? I think partly it is because it’s so non-denominationally misanthropic – it hates everybody, and while it saves special venom for unattractive women, nobody else comes off well, either. Another, as previously mentioned, is how it doesn’t bother to have any ‘good’ characters. The protagonist of the movie, as in the person through whose eyes we watch it and whose arc we follow, is June – and she’s an insane, selfish murderess!

I do tend to like movies that focus on a villain’s journey. There’s Lady Frankenstein, for example, in which Tanya Frankenstein carries the whole movie despite the fact that she’s evil to the core, and in the end is destroyed by her own creature as he realizes that he, like everything else around her, is just a tool she’s using to further her own sense of self-importance. There’s the similarly-titled Countess Dracula, which is what you might get if you imagine a version of The Leech Woman that actually tries to convince you Neil is the hero but still doesn’t have him actually do anything. And there are Hammer’s Frankenstein movies, which are all about Peter Cushing’s Victor Frankenstein with the inconsequential ‘heroes’ simply revolving around him.

Why are these characters so much more interesting than the heroes who are trying to defeat them? I think it has to do with the fact that these villains are proactive – they are taking steps to go out and get what they want. Victor Frankenstein wants to prove his latest theory, June wants to watch men fall at her feet when she smiles at them, and they both believe the means justify the ends. The ‘good guys’ of the movie, on the other hand, are merely reacting to the evil plot they’ve discovered. In light of that, it’s also interesting to ask why it’s so often women who take center stage in this kind of movie: as well as June, I’ve mentioned two examples in the previous paragraph, with Tanya Frankenstein and Countess Elizabeth. This is probably because women in movies of this era are not supposed to be proactive in getting what they want, or even to have wants at all besides to kiss the guy at the end.

This type of movie also suggests that evil, being intrinsically selfish, will ultimately destroy itself. The good characters, where they exist, are victims or completely irrelevant – the closest things The Leech Woman has to ‘good guys’ are Neil and the detective, the former being helplessly in June’s thrall and the latter not even showing up until the movie’s almost over and then having his job done for him by her suicide. Since these characters don’t try to do anything about their situations (Neil doesn’t even realize he’s in one), they’re not at all interesting, and the villains command the movie all the more. This would lead one to think that the ‘message’ of the movie is the same as the one I pulled out of Outlaw, that bad things will just go away if you wait long enough.

In some cases that’s probably true (it’s going to work for the Earth – us humans will kill ourselves off soon and the rest of the biosphere can get back to business), but The Leech Woman also serves to emphasize that letting evil destroy itself will cause far more damage than if somebody tackled the problem before it got that far. If Neil had actually cared that ‘Terri’ was destroying his relationship with Sally and tried to leave her, he might have saved himself a lot of trouble. In fact, what would have happened then? Would June have gone off to find another victim, or would she have become more aggressive in her pursuit of him in particular? Would he have maybe cottoned on to what was happening and come back to save her next boyfriend from suffering a terrible fate? Oh, hey, look – I just wrote a better movie in three sentences, again.

I think that’s about as much Leech Woman as I can take. See you next week – I don’t actually have that many more of these to do, do I? Thank you all for hanging in there with me. We’re on the home stretch now!

#mst3k #reviews #the leech woman #tw: suicide #boy are we in africa!#60s

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troybeecham · 4 years

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The Gospel reading for this morning, the 3rd Sunday of Easter: Luke 24:13-35

“Now on that same day two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”

Reflections on the Gospel:

This account tells us the story of two disciples of Jesus who have left Jerusalem on the same day of the Resurrection of Jesus. Early that morning, some of the women disciples had gone to anoint the body of Jesus, but find him not only alive but transformed and transfigured, having conquered death, hell, and the grave. The women run to tell the disciples that Jesus has been raised from the dead. There seems to be general agreement amongst the men that they are wrong, that the body has been taken...anything other than believing the testimony of the women who had seen the living Lord. Even after seeing Jesus raise the dead on multiple occasions, including Lazarus only a few days ago, they are unable to believe. Many of the disciples had quickly departed for home after the crucifixion, some to Galilee and others to their own villages scattered throughout Israel. To those still abiding in Jerusalem, Jesus appears to them, eats with them, tells them to touch him and see his wounds. Many of the community of the disciples believe after Jesus appears to them there in Jerusalem, but many had already fled in fear of their own lives, or in utter desolation that the one whom they thought was the Messiah was not in fact the One.

These two in this Gospel reading are among the incredulous and dejected, and so have left the company of the disciples before Jesus appears to those still waiting in Jerusalem. They had heard the testimony of the women, but that was not enough for them, and so they are heading home to Emmaus, a village about 7 miles west of Jerusalem.

Now Emmaus is a town of special importance in the history of the people of Israel. Before the Romans had conquered Israel, the Greek armies of Alexander the Great, returning from their victories in Persia, had conquered the Middle East and much of North Africa. Alexander had died, and his generals carved up the empire and set themselves up as kings. Fast forward a hundred and fifty years to the 160’s BC and we find that Israel is ruled by the descendant of one of those generals, who ruled out of Syria: Antiochus IV. Under the rule of these generals and their descendants, all the conquered territories were forcefully hellenized; that is, forced to adopt the Greek language, Greek customs, and Greek religion. In some cases, such as Israel, the conquered peoples were also allowed to maintain their own religion, but only to a point. Now Antiochus had come to believe that he was, in fact, the Son of God much in the same way that the Roman emperors would do in later years. Antiochus took the title “Theos Epiphanes”, meaning “God revealed”. In his madness, he commanded that the religion of the Jews would be forbidden and an idol of himself would be erected in the Temple in Jerusalem, and sacrifices made to him. Surprisingly, after the idol was put in place, which caused riots among the people, there was at least one priest willing to offer sacrifices to the idol. This event set of what later became known as the Maccabean Revolt, lead by a priest named Mattathias Maccabee.

Mattathias was commanded to offer sacrifices to Antiochus and the Greek gods, but he refused. When Antiochus found a priest who would comply, Mattathias killed that priest and an insurrection was born. The great miracle of Hanukkah occurred during this crisis. Here’s where Emmaus comes into this great history of the Jewish people overthrowing their conquerors and restoring their independence, and return to their own a Semitic religion, language, and culture. It all stems from a singular battle.

The Battle of Emmaus took place in 166 BC between the Maccabee forces of Judea, led by Judah Maccabee, and the third expedition of the Seleucid Empire forces under Antiochus IV Epiphanes to Lysias. Against all odds, the Maccabean Revolt is successful. For over a century, the Judeans established an autonomous state, having declared the sons of Mattathias as their new kings, thus establishing the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled until Rome conquered Israel in 37 BC.

Now back to our Gospel reading. If you will recall, only a few days before his crucifixion, less than a week before this account, Jesus had quite spectacularly cleansed the Temple of money changers in an event not unlike that of the Maccabeans. Here’s how this connects with the Maccabean cleansing of the Temple nearly two hundred years before. The role of the priests in the Temple was inherited; priests were all descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses. And the role of High Priest was based on a rota; that is, the role of High Priest was assigned on a rotating schedule amongst all the priestly clans, and was not something that belonged to only one family. In the Maccabean restoration, the role of High Priest eventually became intimately tied with the new aristocracy (and later with the Roman occupation), and the High Priesthood became in inherited role of one family in particular, the family of Annas, whose son-in-law Caiaphas oversaw the unlawful trial of Jesus. Having become an inherited position, that clan began to amass great wealth and influence. Annas was the one who came up with the idea for setting up a money exchange in the Temple, by which his family were extorting great wealth from their own people, along with massive pens of animals for purchase for sacrifice in the Temple (previously, animals for sacrifice were obtained outside the Temple precincts). Jesus, much like the Maccabean restoration of the Temple, is incensed at the corruption of the Temple at the hands of the High Priest clan, thus calling them out as both illegitimate as a High Priests, as profiteers, using the Temple to enrich themselves, and as collaborators in collusion with the Roman occupation. Much like the Battle of Emmaus, Jesus defeated the armies of darkness, oppression, and sin on Golgotha, on the cross.

Is it any surprise that the Judean aristocracy and High Priest clan wanted Jesus dead? Is it any surprise that they were successful in murdering Jesus? Is it any surprise that they resisted anyone calling himself the Son of God, who had the authority to turn them out from their positions of power?

No wonder many of the disciples fled in fear. No wonder many of them lost their faith because Jesus had not started another Maccabean Revolt. No wonder do many of us struggle with belief and with faith, because Jesus has not yet brought about the Kingdom of God as a visible kingdom, overturning the corruption of human governments and liberating the oppressed. We, like these two disciples, still do not understand that God’s ways are not our ways, nor is God’s timetable our timetable. We reasonably desire the permanent end of oppression, corruption, and tyranny. Like these two men, we want it right now! I certainly do!

And this is why faith is a gift from God. Belief alone is insufficient because it relies on our best efforts to squeeze God into simply being the one who immediately satisfies our desires. Only faith can sustain us when our hopes are dashed, our expectations left unfulfilled, and our suffering remains real and painful day to day.

It was only after Jesus agreed to go with the men, and teaches them why he had to suffer and die, why the Resurrection was always the plan, and then celebrates what is the first Holy Eucharist after the Last Supper (in which Jesus establishes and hallows the Holy Eucharist) with them that their hearts are opened to receive the gift of faith. With their hearts and eyes opened, and their souls flooded with grace, Jesus instantly vanished and the men are compelled by joy to return to Jerusalem and tell the disciples that they have seen the Risen Lord!

In much the same way, my own journey of faith has become centered not just on correct belief but upon the objective reality that Jesus is with us in the Holy Eucharist. There are many places and ways to gather with others of shared beliefs or communal stories, where ideas can be shared, or questioned, or rejected until we find some form of agreement.

But there is only one place where Jesus promises to physically, truly, and objectively meet me to heal me, live within me, and fill me with hope, and that is in the most Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Like conquerors or governments throughout human history have done, from the armies of Alexander and of Rome, or the petit powers of hierarchies and class, I am being asked, no commanded to obey: to live, speak, eat, and believe in human powers, which are themselves subject to the “rulers...the authorities... the powers of this dark world and...the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. We all are being commanded by these powers to comply, to obey, to be afraid, to offer sacrifice and worship.

But Jesus is walking with us, and has given us the Holy Spirit as comforter, protector, and guide as we walk our own road to Emmaus, our own walk of disillusionment, despair, and confusion. He walks with us, and will come and abide with us if we ask him, and he will be with us: truly, objectively, fully; in the Blessed Sacrament. He will set us free from the fear of all earthly and spiritual powers, and empower us and free us to worship God, and him only, no matter the cost. He will fill us with himself, and his joy will become ours. We have only to ask.

So let today be the day that you ask him to come and abide in you, that you may know true freedom from the powers of this world, and be filled with his joy.

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

#father troy beecham #christianity #troy beecham episcopal #jesus #father troy beecham episcopal #saints #god #salvation

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frangipanidownunder · 5 years

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Threads: fic

This is for my anon who asked for some season 11 hurt/comfort angst a while ago. And also for @reasonandfaithinharmony who wondered what went through Mulder’s head after he found out that Scully was in remission. The fic is long so it’s under a cut and it does cover a lot of ground, timewise.

When Samantha broke her collarbone, Fox had done what his mother asked and grabbed the pale shawl draped over the high-back chair at her dressing table. In the light it seemed to glisten. It was silky soft between his fingers, sliding through his grasp until he felt the tassel strands. He threaded it back and forth through his closed fist, developing a comfortable rhythm as he walked back to the hallway where his sister was howling. Reluctant to part with it, he wondered why his mother felt the need to wear something so exquisitely beautiful just to ride to the hospital. It was only when she wrapped it around his crying sister’s shoulder to hold up her arm that he realised it was to be a sling. Under the red gaze of his father, he felt so dumb, blinked away the sharp stab of tears.

His gut iced with guilt. He’d helped Samantha up on to the rope swing. He’d teased her about not going high enough. Later, his mother gave him the shawl to hold while they went for x-rays and he scrunched it to his face, inhaling the smell of her perfume to cover the cloying taste of hospital antiseptic in his throat.

***

Scully had woken uncharacteristically late. She’d missed the first coffee of the morning. He’d checked on her a few times but she lay curled on her side with the covers hiding her face. When she did join him, she complained of feeling achy and cold.

“Your face is a little flushed,” he said, buttering her toast.

She pushed the plate away and sipped her coffee. “I’m not really hungry.”

“I’ll grab the groceries. You go back to bed.”

Her gentle snuff told him that she might just do that and he dropped a kiss on her head. She coughed quietly into her hand and he plucked a tissue from the box. She smiled up at him with red-rimmed eyes and pressed it to her nose. He thought of the shawl, something he hadn’t remembered in years, and as he drove down the gravelled path he wondered where it had ended up. He imagined it folded into a box along with his mother’s perfume dispensers and the ornate gold brush and mirror set. Items too personal to either sell or to keep on display. Those boxes were probably in the attic, decorated with cobwebs. He thought he should do something about that. Get up there with Scully one weekend and clear it out. Maybe, he mused as he pulled into the parking lot, the attic was like the mind. Too much clutter wasn’t any way to live.

During the night, Scully’s coughing grew worse. She shivered next to him but her skin was on fire. Her breath was bitter as she struggled to breathe, rolling from side to side to get comfortable. Through chattering teeth, she self-diagnosed flu – the sudden onset, the fever, the muscle and joint pain. He wanted to take her to the emergency room but she shook her head before hacking into her pillow.

“Sleep,” she whispered. “Just let me sleep.”

In the morning, her chest rose and fell with each shallow inhalation and the rattling wheeze had him dismissing her weak protests in favour of driving her to the hospital right then. She sat in the passenger seat barking out coughs as the scenery passed in a blur as ghostly-grey as her skin.

The waiting room at the ER was stuffed with people. Vomiting babies and old men clutching their chests were promptly triaged. The drunk and drug-affected were left to yell and abuse. Middle-aged FBI agents sat on the floor.

“Scully, who do I need to arrest to get you seen?”

Her head sank further into the crook of his shoulder so that her chin dug into his collarbone. He pulled her hair away from her face and she coughed so hard that she couldn’t gulp in enough air between rounds. She slumped across his chest, letting out a soft gurgle.

“Nurse! Someone! My wife needs help.” He laid her across his thighs and thumped his fist against the wall behind him. “Now!”

***

He was allowed to visit Samantha after her surgery but there were no chairs to sit on. His mother was sleeping in the only one. His father had pushed him through the curtains and walked away, muttering about how he couldn’t stand hospitals. Just standing there, behind the curtain, made him feel powerless. There was a busyness to the place, a hum of activity outside, but inside the small patch that was his sister’s cubicle there was a muted stillness. It made his own body thrum with a need to move. Yet he was stuck to the floor, unable to work out what he should do. Talking seemed so fruitless.

“Fox, did you bring me anything to eat?” He looked at his sister, pale against the starched pillow, her arm balanced in a fresh white sling. There was a tray across her lap containing the cold remnants of meat and vegetables. “The food here is disgusting. Mom said you’d bring me some Twinkies.”

He shook his head and held out his hands. “Dad didn’t tell me.” Their mom twitched in her sleep, sending her purse falling to the floor. He picked out her wallet and took some coins. “I’ll go find something.” At least he could feel useful.

When he came back with an armful of candy bars, Samantha was asleep and his mother was straightening the green blanket at the foot of the bed. She looked down at the packets in his hands and tutted.

“She’ll be home tomorrow. But there’ll be no more horseplay, do you understand? Your father is very disappointed. We both expect more from you, Fox.”

***

The doctor glanced over Scully’s chart and hooked it back over the end of her bed. Skinner followed him out of the room and left Mulder in the weighty silence of a room where, once again, Scully’s life hung in the balance. Pneumonia.

His nails dug into the sagging skin on his cheeks as he balanced his elbows on his knees. An all too familiar pose. Time passed in unrecognisable beats meted out with each pulse and bleep and wheeze from the equipment keeping her alive. Somewhere in his fatigued brain he figured she was owed a longer life, given all the air that had been pumped in to her lungs previously. He couldn’t muster up the energy to even snort out an ironic laugh. What he wouldn’t give for a roll of her eyes and an impatient, ‘it doesn’t work that way, Mulder.’

She told him once, with a flirty tap to his tie, that she was immortal. His willingness to believe in anything had long since departed. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to grab at that younger man, that over-confident fool who trusted no-one and everyone at the same time. All that he succeeded in doing was grasping hold of unwanted memories.

***

His rage when he saw her, uncovered on that gurney, eyes taped shut, was white-hot. It burnt through his veins so that he couldn’t process rational thought. Later, after the humiliation of being physically removed from the room, that rage pulsed through his blood dosing out a regular reminder of what he had to do. If she died, if Scully fucking died, because of his quest, he would go out all guns blazing, taking anyone and everyone with him.

He remembered that feeling being so powerful that he found it suffocating. It was a weight in his chest, pushing outwards and inwards with enough pressure to make him feel that exploding or imploding were equal possibilities. He could have ended Cancer Man’s life with single shot, but he’d prickled at Mulder’s gossamer conscience with his ‘you can kill me now but you’ll never know the truth.’ He could have turned that gun on himself.

He could have stayed in his apartment and delivered terminal intensity. Instead, he sat at Scully’s bedside and waited in the strange silence of her room. Sometime during the night, a nurse brought him a blanket. A heavy knitted one with a satin edge that he rubbed between his finger and thumb until morning.

The apartment was as wrecked as his soul. He sunk to the floor and wept like he hadn’t since the Christmas of Samantha’s disappearance, when her absence that day was louder than her presence had been.

He’d given up. He’d poured out his soul to Scully as she lay in there. He’d denied it for too long. Melissa at least had the grace to accept the obvious. She was dying. Scully was dying.

But that was too late, wasn’t it? Now, it was the safest thing to do. To admit to someone how you felt when they were never going to respond. Just like telling Samantha he loved her and missed her when she’d gone. Just like his father saying he still loved him as he was walking out the door.

When the phone rang, his heart flipped in his chest then plumbed to the depths of his guts. Even though clinically she might have been considered dead, until that moment, Scully was still that naïve, sceptical, eager young woman who’d crept into his heart and refused to move. Hearing the dreaded words meant she’d be locked there, forever young. In the microseconds it took for him to decide to answer the call, he’d mentally flicked through all the times he wished he’d just taken her in his arms and kissed her instead of debating with her, dismissing her or ditching her; he’d wished a thousand times over that he’d sent her away after that first case; he’d ploughed through the different hair styles, suits, smiles she’d worn. He’d wished he’d never met her.

“I’m here,” he said. But he wasn’t. He was already thinking of who he could take down with him. He was checking out. He was dying.

***

The thing about hospitals is that they hold in life and they let it out. Births, life-saving surgeries, miracle recoveries, code blues, morphine overdoses under the guise of keeping a patient comfortable, priests offering consolation through the last rites. They hold in grief and they let it out. Mulder was suspended in that dichotomy too. Holding in hope and letting it out in fearful fits of rage. There was no change in Scully’s condition. As grey dawn seeped through the grey window blinds, no change seemed good; as midnight crept past with the bleep and rush of the machines breathing for her, no change was untenable.

Sometime during the third night a nurse covered him in a heavy warm blanket. The days were getting shorter, colder outside, he supposed. But time has a way of contracting around you, when your heart is being slowly crushed. He twisted on the seat and the blanket slipped. He brought it up under his chin, tried to find a position that didn’t cramp his back and neck, ran the ribboned edge between his fingers as he watched Scully’s face, looking for nuanced differences in her lips, her eyes, her cheeks. Her arms were untucked and it hit him that she might be cold too. He pulled himself out of the seat, let his blanket fall to the floor and called for the nurse. While he waited, he knelt next to her, holding her hand. The weight of it all, the constant dread, the lack of sleep, the helplessness, pushed his head down, and his hot tears flowed as his lips settled on the back of her hand.

Skinner ordered him home. Drove him there.

“I’ll go back, you sleep. I’ll call you if there’s any change. If you don’t hear from me, I’ll pick you up at four.” He laid a hand on Mulder’s shoulder. “Eat something too.”

Mulder had long since come to recognise this as Skinner being caring. He showed his heart by being practical. He and Scully were quite similar in some ways. Scully would have done the same, the food, the rest, all the things the doctor orders. But he was not the one who’s sick. There was no way he was going to lie in their bed, their comfortable but empty bed, and sleep while his wife is on a hospital gurney.

He climbed to the attic, rubbing the back of his neck as the dust motes danced in the slant of sunlight from the small, square window. On his ascent he was of a mind to tidy, throw away the mess, clean up his life. But sitting among the crates and piles and oddities he was in a mind to preserve. It was like the hospital, he thought. Holding in and letting go.

It took him a while to understand he was looking for his mother’s shawl. The human brain is undoubtedly a complex organ, but the human mind is unfathomable. Scully was suspended in some otherworld, so sick her body had shut down, but he was looking for his long-dead mother’s shawl. If he were to analyse his own psyche he would probably conclude that the item was a shield, a way to wrap something nostalgic and comfortable around his body to block out the fear of losing Scully. His fingernails were black with grit and dust, his muscles bunched in his shoulders sending a throbbing pulse down his spine. He opened crates and shoe boxes and plastic tubs. He found books and files and greetings cards and photos. He chuckled and he wept. But he didn’t find the shawl.

There were boxes high on a shelf. He moved the step ladder, disturbed a mouse that scurried into a shadowy corner. He checked his cell again. Nothing. The waiting was always the worst. Time, such a feature of his life, stretched out to fill dark places. When she had the seizure last year, he didn’t have to wait too long for her to wake, but there had been too many other hours wasted in that suspended, desperate place. He pulled down the first box and it tumbled out of his grip, landing with a dusty crash on the floor. The first item that spilled loose were medical records and X-rays. And just like that, he was back at her bedside, kneeling on that cold hospital floor, sobbing silently around her hand.

***

Her face was beyond pale, red-ringed eyes sunken into her head, cracked, dry lips. She looked like one of the creatures they’d spent years chasing only to have them disappear into the shadows. She could have been a phantom, a ghoul, a spirit. But she wasn’t. She was flesh and bones, stricken with a deadly disease and she was disappearing in front of his eyes. He was supposed to be dead. He was the one who had disappeared into the shadows, had slipped into her room to see her, to talk to her. To talk, once again, when it was too late. His habit of opening his heart when all was lost had struck again. He wept against her hand as though his tears could enter her body like a lifeforce. His teeth scraped her skin and it tasted papery, flaking against his lips. Peeling her life away.

He didn’t know how long he’d been there, pressing her hand to his mouth, sobbing. But he knew his futile tears, hot rage and self-hatred needed to be channelled. Her death would invade his body like the cancer had hers, it would live in his veins and destroy him but it would also give him power to act. To end the blind quest he’d been on.

As it turned out, all that incandescent anger seeped from his pores when he heard the news of her remission. The chip worked. He sat at her bedside as she told him how the doctors were mystified.

“I can’t believe it,” he said.

She wrapped a thin arm around his neck and pulled his head to the crook of her neck. Her bony frame dug into his face but he didn’t care. He felt instantly lighter, muscles unclenching, nerves flittering back to life. The numb edges of his being sharpened like her chi had flowed into his veins. They fused at that moment. She clung to him, clawing at his back as she sobbed. He clutched her body to his wondrous at the joint beating of their hearts. A miracle.

And it didn’t truly sink in for days. He walked around light-headed, repeating the mantra ‘she’s in remission’ over and over. It sounded surreal. His brain knocked against his skull when he repeated the words, causing him a fleeting lapse in consciousness. The very idea of her being healthy and whole felt like sighting a UFO or cryptid; it left you feeling buzzed, body pulsing with energy and yet there was that slight element of doubt. What if it were fake?

For nights, he slept with a tee-shirt of hers that he’d taken home with a bundle of other clothes to wash for her. He hadn’t washed it, instead slipping it under his pillow to inhale the scent of her, a reminder of her return to him.

***

The files and X-rays didn’t fit back into the box the way they had before. He struggled to slot the boxes back onto the shelf. He pushed and slid and rearranged but all he succeeded in doing was unsettling more thick and tangled cobwebs so they covered his hair and made him cough.

He slumped to the floor and stretched his legs before him. He’d recovered nothing of value, nothing that he was looking for. He had simply accumulated a mountain of stuff to throw away. But he knew he wouldn’t. Holding on. That’s what he was impelled to do. He set his head against the wall desperate to sleep but resisting it for fear of slipping back into the miasma of memories that shadowed his mind. He reached his arm sideways, hairs sticking to the brickwork. He tapped against a box that was pushed against the wall. The lid slipped off and he walked his fingers up the cardboard and inside. Photo frames, something cold and metallic, intricately patterned, a trinket box maybe? A soft, cool padding at the very bottom, sleek to touch. He wrapped it around his hand. The shawl. He knew it before he saw it. It slithered out of the box and he pulled it to his lap, letting its heavy weight fall through his hands as his weeping echoed through the attic.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, startled him. Skinner.

Scully was sleeping again by the time he got there, but she’d woken briefly earlier.

“She knew who I was,” Skinner said, patting Mulder on the shoulder as he sank into the chair next to her bed. “She’s going to be okay, Mulder.”

Her hand fitted into his palm perfectly, made to measure. He nodded up at Skinner, watched him leave, listened to the sounds of the room. He watched the rise of her chest, stronger now. The way her mouth flickered at the edges, her eyes fluttered under her lids. She was dreaming. He hoped fervently that it was a happy dream, a safe dream.

The shawl rested on his lap and he looked down at it, silvery strands glittering in the soft light. He thought of his mother, his father, his sister. The way grief was woven through his life, like the threads in the shawl. But every now and again, there were brighter moments, the silvery strands that made life worthwhile.

Scully shifted, her head turning to face him. She opened her eyes, blinked slowly. She sniffed quietly as he moved forward, noses bumping. Her voice was stuck in her dried-out throat so he got her some water, held the paper cup to her lips, lifted her head from the pillow. She sipped and it looked like it hurt.

“I’ll get the nurse, Scully,” he said but she gripped his hand and pulled him back down. The shawl fell to the floor. She saw it, brows crinkling. He shifted the chair closer to her, scooping up the shawl and burying it in the gap between the bar of the bed and her body.

“It was my mother’s,” he said and she closed her eyes. Her arm moved slightly so that he was sure she could feel its softness. She strained to open her eyes again, move her mouth to respond. He laid two fingers over her lips and shushed her. A tear slipped from her eye, her fingers stroked the shawl, letting the fringing slip between them.

“Sleep now, Scully,” he said. “I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

#txf fanfic #my fanfiction #threads #season 11 angst #anon prompt answered #msr

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carnivalofhorror · 5 years

Text

KATE MCCANN: 48 QUESTIONS:

Translated by MCCANN: PJ FILES.

Asked, on May 03, 2007, at 22:00, when she entered the apartment what she saw and did, where he looked, and what she touched [handled], she did not respond.

If she looked inside the cupboard of the couple's bedroom, she said No in response.

Shown two photographs of the cupboard of her bedroom, and asked for a description of the contents, she did not respond.

Asked for what reason the curtain behind the sofa in front of the side window, the photograph of which was shown to her, is moved [disordered] she did not respond. She did not respond to the question if someone [anyone] had passed [had gone; had walked] behind that sofa.

Asked how much time it took for the search that she made in the apartment after the detection of the disappearance of her daughter MADELEINE, she did not respond.

Asked why she said from the outset that MADELEINE was kidnapped [abducted], she did not respond.

On the assumption that Madeleine had been kidnapped [abducted], why she left the twins alone at home to go to the Tapas to give [raise] the alarm, yet [while] the supposed kidnapper [abductor] could still be in the apartment, she did not respond.

Why she had not asked the twins at that time what had happened to their sister, or why she had not asked them later, she did not respond.

Questioned when she gave the alarm in the Tapas what she said specifically, what words she used, she did not respond.

Asked about what happened after giving the alarm at Tapas, she did not respond. Asked if she had any mobile phone, with her at that moment, she did not respond.

Asked why she went to warn [inform] her friends instead of shouting from the balcony, she did not respond.

Asked who contacted the authorities, she did not respond. Asked who participated in the searches, she did not respond.

Asked who participated in the searches, she did not respond.

Asked if anyone outside the group knew, in the following moments [at the time], of the disappearance of MADELEINE, she did not respond.

Asked if any female neighbour offered her assistance after the alarm of the disappearance, she did not respond.

Asked what the expression "we let her down" means, she did not respond.

Asked if JANE told her about having seen a man with a child, on that night, she did not respond.

Asked how the authorities were contacted and that police force was alerted, she did not respond.

Asked, during the searches already with the police presence [after the police arrived], in what places she went [and] looked for MADELEINE, how and in what way [manner], she did not respond.

Asked why the twins did not wake up during this search, or when they went to the floor above, she did not respond.

Asked whom she telephoned after the facts, she did not respond.

Asked if she called "Sky News" she did not respond.

Asked about the danger of calling the news media alerting them of the abduction, because it could influence the kidnapper, she did not respond.

Asked if they requested the presence of a priest, she did not respond.

Asked what was the manner of divulging the face of MADELEINE, if photographs or other, she did not respond.

Asked if it is true that during the search she sat on her bed in her bedroom without moving, she did not respond.

Asked what was her behaviour during that night, she did not respond.

And asked if she had managed [been able to] to sleep, she did not respond.

Asked if before the trip to Portugal she made a comment of [about] a bad feeling [presentiment] or bad omens, she did not respond.

Asked about the behaviour of MADELEINE she did not respond.

Asked if she suffered from any infirmity [illness] or took medication, she did not respond.

Asked what was MADELEINE's relationship with the siblings, she did not respond.

Asked what was MADELEINE's relationship with the siblings, friends and school colleagues, she did not respond.

Asked about her professional life, and in how many hospitals and in which she had worked, she did not respond.

Being a doctor, and asked about her speciality, she did not respond.

Asked about if she worked in shifts, in emergencies [the emergency section of a hospital] or other services she did not respond.

If she worked every day, she did not respond.

Asked if at a particular time she stopped working and why, she did not respond.

Asked whether or not it is true that the twins have difficulty sleeping, that they are restless and that that causes her uneasiness, she did not respond.

Asked whether or not it is true that at certain times she felt desperate [driven to despair; angered; exasperated] by the attitude of the children and that that left her much disquiet [unease], she did not respond.

Asked whether or not it is true that in England she was thinking to deliver MADELEINE into the custody [guardianship] of a family member, she did not respond.

Asked if at home (England) she gave medication to the children and what kind of medication, she did not respond.

In this 'auto' [official document recording an official action] there were shown several films of canine inspections, forensic in character, where can be seen the marking by them of indications of human cadaver smell and blood traces also human, and solely human, as well as the comments of the expert responsible for that inspection activity.

The viewing ended and after signs of cadaver odour in her bedroom next to the cupboard and behind the sofa against the window of the living room, she said that she can not explain anything more than that already mentioned.

Also signalled, now by the dog of the detection of human blood behind the sofa mentioned above, she said that she can not explain anything more than that already mentioned.

Signalled the cadaver odour in the car that they rented about one month after the disappearance, registration 59-DA-27, she said that she can not explain anything more than that already mentioned.

Signalled the presence of human blood in the trunk of the same vehicle, she said that she can not explain anything more than that already mentioned.

Confronted with the result of the collection of DNA from MADELEINE, which analysis was carried out by a British laboratory, from behind the sofa and trunk of the vehicle, situations previously described, she said that she can not explain anything more than that already mentioned.

Asked if she had any responsibility or involvement in the disappearance of her daughter MADELEINE, she did not respond.

Asked if she is aware that her failure to respond to the questions put in the cause of the investigation, which seeks to know what happened to her daughter, she replied that

yes, if the investigation so thinks.

Asked if she has anything to add,

she responded negatively.

#tcc #true crime #true crime community #tcr #tcrc #madeleine mccann #kate mccann #unsolved

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findmyrupertfriend · 6 years

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Strange Angel - “The Sage”

(This is a recap/review of the fourth episode of Strange Angel. There are spoilers, so proceed with caution! Catch up on the rest here.)

In Episode 4, Jack becomes a celebrity of sorts, as an “expert witness”. A bomb in an inspector’s car shakes the community, and Jack testifies in court that an officer linked to the Mayor had the same bomb materials in his basement. (I’m not sure if all of this will be important later in the story, but I mention it just in case.) It’s clear this engagement strokes Jack’s ego, and he’s proud to announce himself to the press as the “head of Caltech’s first-ever rocketry research project.”

While Jack testifies, the rest of the team meets with Professor Mesulam. Jack didn’t want to hold up the proposal presentation, but the professor has questions, specifically on Jack’s portion of the proposal. It does not pass muster.

Susan plays the piano slowly, but it’s a jazzy little tune. Her wrist is sore again, which we previously observed while she worked for her asshole stepfather. But lucky Susan, because Virgil has arrived with her sister in tow, to stay at Jack and Susan’s for the weekend. A church retreat awaits Virgil, and he doesn’t want to leave Patty alone, because...she won’t stay alone. Lovely Patty already has a penchant for boys, much to Virgil’s distaste. It seems Virgil has a distaste for everything, which he remarked upon arrival.

Virgil: “That’s a heck of a parking job.”

Susan: “We don’t get to pick our neighbors.”

Virgil: “No, our daughters, either.”

A new car is in the driveway between the two houses, and it’s parked crooked. Susan walks over to the Donovan’s house and finds loud, lively music, and Mrs. Maggie Donovan (Elena Satine). Maggie is very social and engaging, dressed chicly...somewhat different from Ernest. Susan looks around the house as Maggie chats, and we learn that Maggie works costumes at RKO Pictures. Maggie is full of questions, but an uncomfortable Susan excuses herself.

At home later that night, Jack is in full-scale “me-me-me” mode, talking about all the court proceedings. Susan fills Jack in about Maggie and describes her as “friendly, charming, and dressed as Katharine Hepburn.”

Susan: “It doesn’t fit. A woman like that being married to a man like Ernest.”

But Jack isn’t interested in hearing more about Maggie. He’s on a high, thinking about Caltech opportunities...and wants his version of sexy time. Susan hesitates, and Jack gently confronts her, saying she has kept him at a distance since they attended Ernest’s gathering. He thinks she is punishing him, but Susan brings up children. Susan agrees children would be too much of a distraction right now and wants to wait until things are “more certain.”

That doesn’t deter Jack! He still wants his needs met. (What about Susan’s needs to not feel like she’s just being used and left unsatisfied, Jack? Guess you don’t think about her needs.) Susan, on the other hand, plays the religion card. Jack is clearly not happy.

Jack: “You’re gonna take the words of a priest over the needs of your husband?”

The next morning, Jack steps outside and admires his picture in the paper as Ernest leaves for work. But not before he gets a kiss from Maggie. (Note their expressions here. They don’t look too happy. Shouldn’t they be happy? Maggie just arrived home, and they haven’t seen each other in how long...and why were they apart in the first place?)

Ernest is dressed in a dirty coverall uniform, and Jack decides he needs to needle him.

Jack: (derisively) “Nice costume. You might want to check your calendar though. Halloween’s tomorrow night.”

Ernest: (pausing) “Ha.”

Jack tries to ask about Ernest’s wife, but Ernest ignores him and drives off. I can’t say I blame him…

Jack returns to his lab and proudly drops his paper onto Richard’s desk. Oh, don’t worry, Jack. Everyone saw the picture, and the team is not happy that Jack steals all the credit for their work as “head of Caltech’s first-ever rocketry research project.” Of course, Jack lies and says he was misquoted. FAKE NEWS, everyone!

Richard also brings up Mesulam’s concerns, but Jack disagrees that his absence was an issue. He sees the publicity from his work as an “expert” on the trial as a boost to their profile at Caltech. As they argue, Alice (an assistant to Professor Mesulam) drops off invitations to a black-tie dinner and talk at The Athenaeum. She gives Jack a lingering look, mentioning she saw him in the paper. Jack is making an impression on people, that’s for sure.

Ruth visits Jack at home, bringing a tuxedo Jack’s father once wore. Susan hems the pant legs while Patty quips, “I think he looks like Chaplin in The Tramp.”

There’s some odd passive aggressiveness between Ruth and Susan during this scene, but Susan pays no mind. I think she’s a bit turned on seeing Jack so very handsome in his tux (and he does look HOT) and describes him as looking like “the man of my dreams.” (This is actually a very sweet scene.) They share a quick kiss before Ruth interrupts them.

Jack picks up Richard for the dinner and sees children running around in Halloween costumes. Richard is running a little late because he was listening to the Welles broadcast of “The War of the Worlds.” They meet Samson and Chiang at The Athenaeum, and Jack tells them, “Hey, act like you belong. Cause tonight, you finally do.” Jack proudly displays his invitation to the doorman.

The team is greeted by Professor Cleveland (David Wells) and Professor Crompton (Phil Abrams), who instructs them to be on their best behavior. Everyone is confused because apparently, Professor Mesulam has not filled them in on why they are there.

It’s time to play politics, and Jack is becoming quite skilled. Professor Mesulam wants to use the rocketry team to entice Breitner, a highly sought after German scientist who is present, to join the university. Jack doesn’t mind being used, but in return, he wants their proposal approved.

As the men retire to the dining room for the talk to begin, Jack is tapped on the shoulder and asked for his Caltech credentials. Professor Mesulam explains Jack is his guest and attempts to squash the problem with the Provost (Stewart Skelton) and Professor Tillman. They are upset that Jack misrepresented his relationship with Caltech in the press. When Jack interrupts the conversation, Professor Mesulam becomes concerned.

Mesulam: “Jack, please, a moment. It won’t help to make a scene.”

Jack: “I wasn’t going to. Not with the proposal under consideration.”

Jack slowly and deliberately approaches the Provost and Professor Tillman and looks them squarely in the eye.

Jack: (to the Caltech professors) “I may not be welcome at the party, but that doesn’t mean I can’t toe the party line.”

With quiet restraint, Jack nods and walks away. However, his restraint is gone by the time he bursts through the door, leaving The Athenaeum. Richard runs after him, and Jack thinks Richard is ready to leave with him. There’s an awkward discussion once Jack realizes Richard is not coming with him.

Jack smokes a cigarette in the parking lot and overhears people listening to the Welles broadcast. He imagines a flying spaceship with legs landing on The Athenaeum, the members running out in terror. Jack gives an evil smile before the spaceship shoots laser beams at the building.

After Jack leaves The Athenaeum, he heads on over to a bar. The bartender mistakes Jack for someone in a costume since he is wearing a tux. Jack is momentarily confused, but then looks up to see his reflection in the mirror, wearing a devil mask.

While Jack drinks, Ernest and Maggie set up their house, discussing lamps and pictures. Maggie complains briefly about a picture that “doesn’t belong.” It’s a picture of Aleister Crowley. I’ve been wondering how Maggie fits into Thelema and if she’s an avid follower as well.

Their unpacking is interrupted when Jack calls Ernest. Jack hesitates to speak but finally does. Ernest isn’t interested in talking, but Jack persists.

Jack: “Well, I guess the man of will breaks all boundaries except for the ones put there by his wife, huh?”

Ernest tells Jack to stay put. He’s headed out the door, and Maggie asks where he is going. Ernest explains he is grabbing a beer with Jack.

Ernest: “Yeah, he sounded upset about something. Should I have told him no?”

Maggie: “You don't need my permission, remember. You just have to tell me the truth.”

Ernest: “And that is the truth. And when I get back, you and I shall set up the bedroom.”

That twinkle in Ernest’s eye and smile on his face tells me Maggie will be waiting up in anticipation.

At the bar, Jack cries on Ernest’s shoulder and confesses he was right: they (Caltech) will not accept him. Ernest is bored by Jack’s pity party and wants to leave, saying he could have gone crying to Susan.

Jack: “You know what she said to me before I left? That I looked like the man of her dreams. What am I now?”

Ernest: “Drunk.”

Jack: “Yeah? Well, maybe you’re not drunk enough. Huh?”

It’s kinda surprising - Jack wants to let off steam and party on “the devil’s night”, but Ernest wants to go back home.

Jack: “Because your wife won’t let you?”

Ernest: “It’s more complicated than that.”

Jack: “Oh, yeah? What's so complicated about it?”

Ernest looks more and more uncomfortable. We’re used to Ernest pushing Jack, and Jack retreating. Now Jack pushes and goads Ernest into reacting.

Jack: “The guy who moved in across from me wouldn’t have cared. He didn’t even have a wife, at least not one that wore the pants. Literally.”

Ernest gives Jack a sharp look, and you can see his temperature rising. Is Jack attempting to emasculate Ernest, and is it bothering Ernest? I think so. Jack puts an arm around Ernest and draws him in closer.

Jack: “Hey, you know something? You promised me Magick...but you’re just as fucking hamstrung as the rest of us.”

Ernest: “You want to go out?”

Ernest has had it. He’s giving in. He downs the rest of his beer in one gulp. He gives Jack a knowing look. Ernest is going to show Jack a thing or two...

Jack gets drunk while Richard and the rest of the team meet Breitner. Things get off to a rocky start when Richard lets loose that they haven’t built anything yet, but the Provost steps in.

Provost: “The boy is being modest. The fact is, the rocketry team just had their prototype approved.”

And just like that - BOOM! Their proposal is approved so the university can save face. Richard is learning that Jack isn’t the only one who lies and that it can ultimately get them what they want.

Susan plays cards at home with the perpetually bored Patty. Someone knocks on the door, calling out “trick or treat.” When Susan answers the door, a group of young men start pelting the house with eggs. But Maggie is ready with a water hose.

Maggie: “You little shits! You didn’t even give her a chance to pay you off.”

Maggie sprays the punks, water hose in one hand and martini glass in the other. (I am really liking Ernest’s wife!)

Maggie: “You see, this is why I stand guard with a hose. It’s cheaper than candy and more effective. (pause) Here, get out of harm’s way.”

Hmmm...Susan could take that literally, I suppose. Maggie cleans off the Parsons’ house for them. As Susan and Maggie chat, ironies abound. Maggie confides that she likes Ernest being friends with Jack because he’s “more upstanding” than the rest of Ernest’s friends. (I think the roles are reversed tonight! It is Halloween after all…) Maggie lets the cat out of the bag that Ernest is out drinking with Jack, and Susan is confused.

Susan: “But he...he can’t be with my Jack. Jack’s got an important event at the university.”

Maggie: “Oh. Well...I wouldn’t worry. If anybody was lying, it would be my Ernest. Of course, he doesn’t call it lying. He calls it living his own truth.”

Maggie finishes washing off the house, and Susan is silent, most likely wondering what Jack could be doing with Ernest.

Maggie: “If anyone tries any more tricks, they’ll pay the price.”

When Susan goes back inside, she finds the back door open and sees Patty outside kissing one of the creeps who egged her house. Patty smiles, and Susan yells at her. The creep runs off, and Patty comes sauntering down the driveway to an angry Susan. It’s implied that Patty set up the whole shenanigans.

Ernest takes Jack to a place where semi-naked women dance on a stage. The women are wearing pasties and elaborate skirts they peel off, faces painted in Dia de los Muertos makeup on Halloween night.

Richard arrives at the Parsons’, and they are both confused as to Jack’s whereabouts. Richard explains that Jack was turned away, and Susan expresses empathy. Before Richard leaves, he informs Susan of the good news about the prototype.

Of course, Jack doesn’t know this and continues on with his debauchery. Jack makes a weak attempt at saying he has a happy marriage, while Ernest points out why Jack called him.

Ernest: “So are you going to step up, or are you gonna show yourself out like you did earlier tonight?”

Jack just looks deflated, and Ernest decides to stop pushing back.

Ernest: “Go home to your wife, Jack.”

Jack thinks for a moment but tells Ernest to hold on. He puts on a mask.

Jack: “Susan ran away. Not me.”

A woman (Shirley portrayed by Katie Booth) leads Jack behind a curtain of women, and Ernest follows behind them. Behind the curtain, there are several people engaged in various sex acts.

Ernest: (to Jack) “See you on the other side.”

Shirley continues leading Jack to a secluded space, covered in drapes, while Ernest goes off to his own space with another woman (Alicia portrayed by Ezmie Garcia). Ernest is excited and ready for his own blow job, but he gets very distracted when he sees Jack getting his blow job through a slit in the curtains. Alicia notices Ernest’s distraction.

Alicia: “So you like to watch. Dios mio, someone’s at attention. Who got you all worked up? Was it Shirley? Or your friend?”

Ernest snaps his head to look at Alicia.

Alicia: “It’s okay. We get your type of guys in here all the time.”

Ernest: (quietly) “What type of guy?”

Alicia is scared and calls for help from the establishment. Ernest begins screaming about what type of guy she thinks he is, and a full-on fight ensues when men show up to escort him out. Jack looks on in bewilderment. He went from feeling pretty good from a blow job to freaked out by Ernest’s behavior.

At home, Susan questions Patty about the boy she was kissing. Patty calls Susan a spy, and they exchange barbs.

Patty: “No wonder Jack stayed out so late. He wouldn’t have had any fun here, that’s for sure.”

Susan: “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just a bratty little girl.”

But Patty gets the last word in when she likens Susan’s behavior to their father. Oh, that one hurt.

Ernest drops Jack off home. They are both pretty quiet and barely look at one another.

Ernest: “No one else has to know about tonight.”

After Jack gets out of the car, Ernest just drives away. Jack walks towards the house and hears a loud noise from his garage. Again, he imagines the alien spaceship hovering above, and he opens his arms wide. He tilts his head back, and the spaceship strikes him this time.

Jack takes a shower and gets into bed. Susan tells Jack that Richard stopped by, and the proposal is approved. When Jack asks if Richard said anything else, Susan lies and says no. Susan says she is proud of him.

While Jack is calmed and content, Ernest is in a frenzy. He goes to the house where they have gatherings and speaks to Alfred.

Ernest: “I’m impetuous. I’m impulsive. I’m impossible. Just when it seemed like he was starting to understand what we could do for him, wham! He acts like it’s all some mistake, blaming it on the goddamned booze.”

Alfred: “You didn’t wake me up to tell me about a failed recruitment. You’re here for you. Now, remember, stay as still as possible and talk only about yourself.”

Alfred is behind a camera, waiting to take Ernest’s picture...showing his true self.

Ernest: “I’m angry. I lost control. I am...I am...I don’t know what I am.”

Ernest grimaces, forcing out his last sentence. He’s literally beside himself when Alfred takes the picture. Alfred helps Ernest get to the root cause of his discomfort, and encourages him to embrace it.

Alfred: “I don’t believe in putting a label on desire. Thelema teaches us to look beyond such restrictive categorization.”

Alfred opens a cabinet with a wall full of small black and white photos.

Alfred: “I believe you have found far more in Mr. Parsons than an acolyte.”

Alfred tacks Ernest’s latest picture up next to his others. They are all different.

Alfred: “I believe you’ve found your liberation.”

The look on Ernest face borders...revelation.

I think there is some disjointedness in how the Parsons go from engaging Ernest to not engaging, to engaging again. It just doesn’t flow quite right to me, but I hope this gets corrected soon. However, I will say this episode was most intriguing, and not just because of the sex. I’m starting to see the shift in Jack and Ernest’s personalities and relationship that Rupert mentioned at the ATX TV Festival. Maggie arrives on the scene, and suddenly Ernest becomes less free, more domesticated...and he doesn’t seem to like it, although he tries to fake it. Conversely, Jack strays from his marriage, and his career is really taking off.

Alfred appears to reveal what I was thinking...Ernest is attracted to Jack. I would have thought Ernest was more open to his desires, but it appears he is not. Maybe Alfred’s words of wisdom will give Ernest courage to act upon those desires? All I know is Jack, Susan, and now Ernest need to get it on, hopefully with each other!

#strange angel #the sage #season 1 #strange angel recap review #by: laura #ernest donovan #hello maggie donovan #ernest and jack and susan might get it on soon #looking forward to it #it's heating up

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rannadylin · 6 years

Text

Soul and Shield: Chapter 6

Previously: Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5

Violet is reunited with her father, mother, and uncle Patli, her mentor in the church of Eothas here in Citlatl. Five years have brought many changes, but one thing has not changed at all...

This is the sequel to Clan and Court, in which Watcher Violet, Priest of Eothas, welcomed her enormous clan to Caed Nua just in time to go investigate things in Dyrford. If you haven’t read that yet, start there and meet a few of her siblings who are recurring characters in this sequel. Bonuses in the sequel include: Aloth! Lenneth! (but not as a Watcher) More of Vi’s siblings, including Garivald being the mayor of their city! And plenty of mysteries to solve, Leaden Key to interfere, relationships to navigate, and oh yes, they still have that betrothal contract to deal with, technically.

Chapter 6: The Vigil

Word Count: 1.6K

Rating: PG for discussion of impending death...

Read it here or on AO3

Chimalli Itzli, patriarch of the clan and Administrator of the tlatoani’s Advisory Council, showed up to breakfast the next morning just as Violet and Edér walked into the dining room with trays of her questionable muffins.

“Papa!” Violet exclaimed, setting down her tray and going to hug him. “How are you doing?” she whispered in his ear. “You looked so haggard last night.”

“Well enough, dear, given the circumstances,” he whispered back. “You look to be flourishing yourself.” He leaned back to look her over with a gentle smile.

“Oh, well,” she ducked her head and smoothed the fur at her wrists, “yes, I suppose. Caed Nua is in good order. And I --” she glanced at Edér, but he was busy teasing Audie about something, while tossing muffins to Violet’s youngest siblings, as the girls giggled shyly and Yaretzi pestered a very uncomfortable looking Aloth with questions. “Well,” Violet shrugged. “I’m happy. But I’ve missed you all.”

“It’s good you’re back,” he said, patting her hands before taking a seat at the table. “Your mother will be so relieved to see you safe and sound.”

“I’m relieved we weren’t too late for that,” Violet admitted, finding her own seat between Edér and Audie. “How is she?”

“The pain is constant, but she bears it well,” Chimalli began, as Xipil brought him a muffin and a glass of juice. “Thank you, my boy. Oh my, what an interesting shape.”

“My doing,” Violet sighed. “Someday I’ll get it right.”

Edér smirked, reaching for his second muffin already. “Tastes fine, though, long as you don’t look too close.”

Chimalli took a cautious bite, then nodded. “So it does. You know, Eréndira has been doing much of our baking lately. Or had been; she’s married now, of course. Lives nearby, though. You might ask her about it.”

“Yes. Well,” Violet said. “About mother?”

“Ah, yes,” her father continued. “Your uncle has kept up her strength with prayers and some concoction he brings every day for her to drink. Gives her a few hours of lucidity to enjoy what time she has left with us. She still does her best to keep the whole family running, even while confined to bed,” he chuckled, “but it can’t be much longer now. The effort tires her quicker every day, so she sleeps most of the time.”

“Oh, papa,” Violet said, her ears sinking with the weight of the family’s burden. “I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, dear,” he said, lowering his head with a slight smile and eyes nearly drifting shut. “It is what it is. The years have caught up with us. She has lived a full life and will send her soul on in peace, when the time comes. And in the meantime, it has been a blessing to have these last weeks with her, saying our goodbyes.” Then at the last, his voice caught, and he lowered his gaze further, his hands clasped over his plate.

Violet ventured quietly, when her father did not speak further, “Is she….May we see her now? Would she be awake?”

“Best to wait until Patli brings her draught for the day,” Chimalli said. “That will make everything easier.”

So they ate as if it were merely an ordinary breakfast, despite the undercurrent of urgency as they listened for Uncle Patli’s knock at the door. Chimalli cast many a curious glance at Violet’s tall companions, whose names had been given last night before the patriarch retired again to his wife’s bedside, but whose reasons for accompanying Violet home had been largely unadressed in that brief time. Violet grew tense, wondering if she should announce here and now, in front of everyone, that she was courting Edér, or if that conversation was best had with her father later in private. Everyone else at the table already knew, after all -- well, not the children. But they and Chimalli might have heard it already from those of the clan who had visited Caed Nua but not stayed along with the twins and Audie and Anselm, so --

Her father, however, hurried through his meal and excused himself to again take up the vigil at his wife’s bedside until Patli should arrive. Edér found Violet’s hand under the table, gave it a squeeze, winked at her ever so slightly. She sighed out the tension and nodded. Later it was, then.

Nearly an hour later, when they had barely finished washing up the breakfast dishes, a knock at the door signaled Patli’s arrival. Zoe and Yaretzi raced each other, clamoring to answer it. By the time Violet caught up, they had the old priest surrounded, patiently answering their questions and slipping sweets into their waiting palms. When the children ran away satisfied, Patli looked up and beamed to see Violet across the foyer.

“Well,” he nodded, opening his arms. “So it’s true. My little candle. Home from your pilgrimage.”

Violet smiled and stepped forward to embrace him. “Hello, Uncle. Yes, and I’ve so much to tell you.”

“Good,” he answered. “I’d have to send you out again if you didn’t, I suppose.” He leaned back to look at her. “First, however, let’s see to your mother. You’ll come find me at the temple while you’re in town, and we’ll talk.”

Violet nodded. As Patli turned to the staircase leading up to the second floor, Violet glanced down the hall to see Audie and the twins hurrying from the kitchen to join them. Together they followed their uncle up to their parents’ room.

It was quiet in the bedchamber, quieter even than the rest of the house, whose somber, expectant hush was broken only by the restless energy of the youngest siblings and their excitement at having the others home from Caed Nua. Chimalli sat in an armchair drawn up to the bedside, his head bowed over hands clasped, elbows balanced on his knees. His wife Izél lay propped up on pillows. Five years had certainly taken their toll on her, even before the sickness: her hair and fur had gone all grey, when Violet recalled elegant strands of silver alternating with gold the last time she saw her mother. The skin of her face had taken on a greener tone than Violet recalled, as well, and drew tight against her cheekbones. But her voice, when Patli approached her side and woke her with a quiet word of greeting and a hand on her shoulder, was as rich and warm as ever, though it too conformed to the hush of the room. “Ah, brother. One more dawn, then?”

“Sister,” Patli murmured, stepping back from her line of sight just as Xipil, the last to enter, closed the door behind the group. “Look who’s come to see you.”

Izél followed his nod to the cluster of her children. She smiled to see Audie, Xipil, Yolotli, all home after several months away. But her eyes grew wide as soon as she saw Violet. “Oh!”

“Mama,” Violet said, drawing closer. “It’s so good to see you.”

Izél stirred in her nest of pillows, reaching out. “Oh, baby. It’s really you? It’s been so long.”

Violet went to her and bent to embrace her. “Too long. The years pass so quickly.”

“That’s how you know you’re grown up,” Izél said, her voice warming with humor. “When you’re counting not the days left till you can do something but the years that sneak past you when you’re occupied with living.” She raised a hand to pat Violet’s cheek as she leaned back from the hug to sit on the edge of the bed. “And my, how grown up you are now, daughter of mine. I have heard stories of your adventures, you know.”

“Oh. Good,” Violet laughed, as the rest of the siblings gathered closer, drawing up chairs or perching on the bed as well. “Then I don’t need to go over all of that again.”

Patli returned to the bedside then, holding out a glass filled with a blueish liquid. “Ah, now let the day begin,” Izél smiled, taking his potion and draining it down in three quick gulps. She sighed with relief as she handed the empty glass back to him. Indeed, some color already was returning to her face as she said, “Now, my girl. You’re not getting out of this so easily. I want a full accounting. I’ve had bits and pieces from the rest of the clan after they visited you, but secondhand stories are more fun for seeing how wrong everyone gets the details than for the truth of the events. Tell me everything.” She glanced around at the others. “And that goes for the rest of you too.”

So they sat and told her about their months at Caed Nua, from the adventures in Dyrford to the more mundane anecdotes that followed the rest of the clan’s return to Citlatl. Then Violet told a little of her years alone on pilgrimage and the surprises and challenges of the Dyrwood and Awakening to find herself a Watcher, though she omitted much. Some of her travels, learning from priests of Eothas throughout Eora and carrying home their greetings, were for her uncle’s ears. And some of the things she had learned -- from Iovara, from Thaos -- were best told cautiously if at all. Violet was still, years later, working out what to make of those secrets herself.

They filled their mother’s waking hours with their stories, till Izél began to tire again, her eyelids fluttering and muscles tightening in pain as the potion wore off. Between stories, Patli interposed gently, “That’s enough for now. Time to rest, my dear.”

They all bid her farewell as lightly as one can when knowing at the back of one’s mind that it might be the last such farewell, then filed out of the room. The last to leave, as Violet followed her uncle out she just caught Izél’s sleepy whisper to Chimalli: “It’s good that she’s speaking to Anselm again. I should so like to see that wedding before I die.”

#pillars of eternity #pillars of eternity fanfiction #PoE fanfic #eder #aloth #watcher violet #itzli clan #soul and shield #csi: citlatl #ixamitl plains #orlans #from the desk of ranna

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fictionalabyss · 6 years

Text

Where am I?

Pairing : Winchesters, Reader. Cas and Chuck in there too a bit. Mentions of others. No real pairing here yet. It’s an unfinished series. Word count : 1,651 A/N : I wrote this totally for me. Bits and pieces of me are in here. It’s one of those shower ideas I have.

Part 1 in Your fathers daughter.

You were enjoying the spray of the hot water. You were already washed and everything, and just enjoy the rest of the hot water while it lasted. Everyone was asleep, and that was the best time to just enjoy a shower. No kid needing to pee every 5 minutes, and the hot water tank was full again by then because dishes, and everyone else’s showers were already done.

You let out a sigh and tilted your head back. Suddenly there was no water hitting you. Furrowing your brows you opened your eyes, and saw a high ceiling. “What the-” You mumbled. This wasn’t your bathroom. The white tiled wall was gone and replaced with open space. Looking around, you noticed you were in a library. And there were two men sitting at a near by table. One, short hair with his back to you. The other, longer hair and facing you, but he was occupied with his laptop. “Uhm..” You said a bit louder, crossing your legs to hide yourself, and covering as much of your breasts as you could with your arms.

The longer haired one looked up, and his eyes went wide. “Uh… Dean?”

The other looked up at the man in front of him, then turned to you. “Oh shit. It’s not Christmas is it?” He teased with a smirk. Then he seemed to realize you were a stranger and his expression changed. “How’d you get in here.” His voice was hard.

“Uhm.. Can uh. Can someone grab me a towel?” You looked down, and there was a puddle forming at your feet. They just stared at you for a bit. “Please? Kinda naked here.”

“Oh, right. Hang on.” The long haired guy stood up and moved past you out of the room. The other man, Dean, just seemed to stare at you while you chewed your bottom lip and waited for a towel. “Here.” He gave you a shy smile as he held out a towel, and turned away so you cold wrap yourself.

“Uhm. Where am I?” You asked as you got the towel wrapped snugly around you. “And how the hell did I get here?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Dean watched you, now that you were covered.

“I’m Sam. This is my brother Dean.” He gave you a smile. “You have no idea how you got here?” You shook your head. “What do you remember?”

“I remember being in the shower, obviously.” You motioned to your wet self and started moving around the room. You figured maybe looking at the books could help keep the panic from settling in completely. “I closed my eyes, leaned my head back to enjoy the hot water, only suddenly the water was gone, and when I opened my eyes, I saw that.” You pointed to the ceiling. “How the hell will I explain this to my family…”

“Do you remember anything strange before this happened? Sounds, smells, people..”

You looked over at him. “I’m a stay at home mom and the only female in the house. Strange smells are a constant.” You gave him a small smile.

“You’re pretty calm for a mom ripped away from her family.” Dean said with narrowed eyes.

“Is panicking and losing my shit going to help at all? I mean, I’m obviously not in Kansas anymore.” You furrowed your brows at the title of one of the books. What kind of books were these?

“Actually. Lebanon.”

You turned to Sam. “What? Where?”

“Lebanon. Kansas.”

You started at him, then his brother. “Kansas? I’m in the fucking States?”

“That is where Kansas has always been..” Dean said sarcastically.

“Son of a bitch.” You groaned. “There goes my healthcare.” They stared at you confused. “I’m not American. And since I was in the shower, I don’t even have ID on me, let alone my passport. Fuck.”

“Uhm, how about I get you some clothes? Since we don’t know what happened, we don’t know how long you’ll be here.” Sam pointed out. “Uh, sweats and a shirt okay?”

You nodded, and he wandered off. When he came back, he put some clothes down on the table. “We don’t exactly have women’s clothes lying around..”

You turned and gave him a smile. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Dude, those are my sweats, what the hell Sam?”

“Dean, I’m well over a foot taller then her. She’ll fit better in yours.”

Dean rolled his eyes and mumbled a fine. “That better be your shirt.” It was Sam’s turn to roll his eyes.

Through their whole interaction, you grabbed the button up plaid shirt and did it up before reaching for the sweats. “Thanks.” You said softly.

Dean picked up his phone. “Cas? Hey we got a problem. Time to haul ass back to the bat cave.”

You looked at them worried. “If anyone can help, it’s Cas.” Sam gave you a reassuring smile. “Come on, lets find you a room just in case this takes a while.”

It was two days before Cas showed up. You heard the loud sound of the door and looked up from the book you were reading. An odd man in a trench coat came in, muttering apologies for taking so long. Something about this thing he had to take care of before he could start the drive.

When he stopped, and focused his attention on you, Dean introduced you to him. “Nice to meet you, I’m told maybe you can help figure out how I got here, and maybe help me back home since I don’t have any ID or passport.”

“You’re not from here.”

“Nope. Obviously not.”

“No, you’re not from here... Dean, we need to speak.” He turned and walked out.

Dean looked at you confused but followed. Sam not far behind him. “What’s going on Cas?”

“What has she been doing since she got here?”

Sam shrugged. “Not much. Reading, cooking. She only left the bunker when we had to go buy her some clothes so she wouldn’t be naked.”

“Mm.” Dean moaned. “She makes a mean breakfast. And a bad ass apple pie.” He smiled.

“She is not human.” Cas said matter of fact.

“WHAT?!” Dean looked at him like he was crazy. “Then what is she? We’ve tested her for everything Cas. Holy water, silverware.. the usual stuff. She reacted to nothing.”

“I don’t know. It’s hidden from me. She was previously in another universe, I know that. I will find what I can and return.”

After Cas had left, things had been weird with Sam and Dean. They were a bit distant. You didn’t know what he said to them, but some conversations stopped when you walked into the room. It only made you miss home more. You missed your kid, your boyfriend. You wondered how they were handling it without you. Who was getting your kid ready for school? Who was there to pick him up afterwards. Was he taking time off work to do it? You couldn’t afford that. Maybe his mom was helping out. Your mom must be out of her mind.

You plopped down in to the chair across from Dean with a sigh. Three days since Cas left. “Can someone please just tell me what’s going on? Whatever Cas said to you?” They looked at each other and changed the subject.

A few more days of your misery and Sam finally caved. “You’re from another universe. You don’t exist in this one. We can’t just drop you across the border. We need to figure out how you got here, who brought you here, and why.”

“I’d say Balthazar but, he’s dead. I mean, he sent us to an Alternate Universe once.” Dean shrugged.

“The demon from Charmed?” You looked at them weird.

“What? No? What?” Dean looked confused.

You chuckled. “Never mind. Maybe it’s not a thing here.” Dean still looked so confused. “It’s a show about witches. Sisters. Always 3 of them at one time, even though there’s 4. One of them married a demon named Balthazar.. Belthazor?” You shrugged.

“Man I hate witches.” Dean grumbled.

The boys opened up again, and you got pretty close in a short time. Two weeks. Two weeks too god damn long to be away from your family. But then Cas appeared in front of you, with a another man. As soon as his eyes were on you he smiled, like he hadn’t seen you in years.

“Dean! Sam!” Cas called out to them.

“Hey Chuck, you got answers for us?”

He nodded. “It’s good to see you again little one.” He smiled at you.

“Do I.. know you?” You looked at him confused.

“I know you.” He smiled. “You were too young to know me. I’ve been looking for you.”

“Why?”

“You are your fathers daughter. That’s why.”

You scoffed. “My dead beat dad? I-”

He shook his head. “Your real father.” His hand came out and touched your forehead. You felt a warm glow take over and suddenly you heard Sam and Dean gasp. You could faintly see golden wings off to yours sides before they faded away. “You have your fathers wings.” He smiled at you.

“Wha-”

“Gabriel, my mischievous little Arch Angel, fathered you and hid you. Balthazar helped him. Were you told the story of your birth from your mother?”

You nodded. “Yeah I.. I was-”

“A miracle.” You both said and he smiled.

“We both almost died. Emergency c-section. My mother woke up to a priest next to her and panicked. I had to be..”

“Stolen from the hospital. By your maternal grandfather.” You nodded. “The priest was Balthazar. Your mothers true child did die. Gabriel hid you from us, and your powers, and gave you to your grandfather when he came for you. But we need you now. It’s time to come home. It’s time to be who you were meant to be.”

*If you like, please consider supporting my work, or requesting a commission.*

Tagging : Supernatural - @roxyspearing @tardis-full-of-fallen-angels @mrs-celestial-dragneel-redfox23 @internationalmusicteacher @extreme-supernatural-lover @super100012 @legend-o-zelda @myloveforyouxx @kickasscas67

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