#once matthew said this was henrys first time with someone he had real feelings for... i was Changed

[yrsonpurpose]

“C’mere,” he says, surging up to kiss Alex, and he’s putting his whole body into it now, sliding his hands down to palm at Alex’s ass as he kisses him. Alex feels a sound tear itself from his throat, and he’s following Henry’s lead blindly now, kissing him deep into the mattress, riding a continuous wave of Henry’s body.

#rwrb #rwrbedit #red white and royal blue #firstprince #alex x henry #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #userninz #userveronika #usersteen #usernuria #chrissiewatts #usermaloune #mine* #have we done this angle/rotation yet? probably by this point #but what is one more among friends #anyway i was in the middle of another set & got *waves hands* distracted #i sometimes wonder if the teeth were intentional but bc its literally canon i think who even cares #its henry chasing alex in the last gif for me #once matthew said this was henrys first time with someone he had real feelings for... i was Changed #like you could probably work that out by yourself but KNOWING it for sure hm. makes the campfire and lake sequence a lot heavier #'casual' okay. you're a lying liar who lies.

[write-r-die]

Prisoner - Part 19

So I think I’ve finally figured out how this story will end! We’ve still got a little ways to go first though, and shit’s about to get really real.

Masterlist 

By Tomorrow - Highland romance

gif by @henrycavillisagreekgod​

Thomasin usually had trouble falling asleep naked. It just felt improper. She made a fuss about being unclothed the second night she and Henry shared a bed.

“It all feels very . . . dirty,” she’d said, slipping out of his arms. She pulled her shift on over her head before crawling back in beside him.

“We’re married, Tom,” Henry had said. “Nothing we do together is dirty.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What about when you . . . kissed me . . . when . . .”

Henry grinned, flashing his sharp teeth. “That’s the most natural thing in the world,” he said. 

“I don’t see how.”

“You said you’ve seen dogs’ and horses’ parts before, yes?”

“Yes,” she replied cautiously.

“Have you seen them mate?”

She grimaced. “Of course not.” Only stable masters and kennel masters did that sort of thing -- certainly not a lady. “It’s very . . . unappealing. What has that got to do with anything?”

“Dogs and horses kiss their females, too.” Henry expected her to throw a fit over that statement, but she just looked thoughtful.

“And do the females kiss the males?”

Henry narrowed his eyes at her. “Possibly.”

Thomasin recalled that conversation on the night she apologized to Henry. Simply asking for his forgiveness wasn’t enough. She had to show him how important he was to her, and if she couldn’t do it with words, well . . .

Kissing her husband’s part wasn’t overly pleasant in and of itself. Her mouth grew dry, her jaw sore. But Henry’s reaction was well worth it. She liked the growling sounds he made, how he groaned her name, the way his fingers tangled into her hair.  

He was so outrageously handsome. With his face contorted and rapturous agony, he looked more beautiful than ever – head bent back, mouth open wide, eyebrows drawn together. 

Yes. She was certainly forgiven.

Tonight Thomasin slept soundly, naked as sin. 

Henry had repaid her favor, of course, and then made playful love to her. It was exhausting in a wonderful way. Poor Henry fell asleep halfway through telling Thomasin how wonderfully she’d pleased him once they’d both come down from their climaxes. 

Now Thomasin was draped inelegantly over Henry’s chest to the point where she was practically sleeping on top of him. The blankets were tangled in their bare legs, which were themselves entwined. She was snoring, of course. 

Jamie, who had been sent to wake his master, would think that were funny if he weren’t invading his master’s privacy – and if he wasn’t there to tell Henry what had happened.

The teenager steeled himself and cleared his throat. “Sir? Sir, there is news. You’re needed urgently.”

Henry sighed in his sleep and turned his head slightly, but he did not wake.

Jamie made a face and took a deep breath before putting pressure on his master’s shoulder, trying to shake him awake as respectfully as possible.

Henry sat up, instinctively grabbing the knife from under his pillow as he shoved Thomasin off of his chest and pushed her slightly behind him to protect her from whatever invader had dared enter their chambers.

Jamie held up his hands. “Sir –”

“Jamie?” Henry sighed in relief, sagging back down on the bed. “You nearly scared the life out of me.” He set his knife down on the table beside his bed. He started to gather his wife in his arms again as if he were about to go to sleep again. 

“Sir –”

He’d barley laid back down when he popped up again, his original agitation returning.  “What are you doing here?!” he snapped, yanking the blankets up over his wife. She lay on her stomach; only her bare back was visible to the squire, but it was downright scandalous to Henry’s thinking. He was the only one who got to see his wife like this. That was the whole point of being married.

“Forgive me, my lord,” Jamie stuttered. “I – I didn’t know –”

“What were you expecting to find in a married man’s bed in the middle of the night?!” Henry snapped. “Wait for me in the other room.” He carefully extricated himself from his snoring wife and slipped out of bed. He pulled on a pair of leather trousers and kissed Thomasin’s head before grabbing a loose brown tunic off the ground and slipping into the antechamber. 

Jamie was wringing his hands and grinding his teeth. He looked like he may jump out of his skin. “I didn’t see anything,” he said awkwardly. Henry pulled on his shirt. “Only my lady’s arms I apologize for barging in like that, but I did not know how –”

Henry shut his eyes, shoving down his frustration. “Jamie, what news is so important it could not wait until morning?”

“Your brother and his men are here,” Jamie rushed out.

Henry stood up straighter. “Simon?”

He knew immediately that something was wrong. Simon wouldn’t wake his newly-married brother in the middle of the night just to announce his arrival. He’d be wringing information about the match from Charlie and Roger after asking about Mercia and Elaine. Then, in the morning, he would find Henry and demand he tell him the story of their journey to London with no details spared.

The squire nodded. “He’s badly wounded.”

Henry felt like someone just closed their fist around his heart and tried to yank it free from his chest. “How?”

He swallowed hard. “They were attacked.”

Henry angrily prompted him, “By whom?” 

He nodded at the bedroom door. “My lady’s brother.”

***

“Henry!” Charlie called as his brother threw open the doors to the dining hall.

“Charlie, what’s going on?”

The hall was in chaos. Wounded men were laid out over dining tables, healers attending them while servants held candles in their shaking hands to illuminate each healer’s work. There were a good handful of barons and knights, too – William’s favorite warriors. The king himself was probably on the way.

Henry hardly noticed the others. He was focused on the place where Elaine, Charlie, Roger, and Simon’s squire were clustered around a rectangular table. Henry crossed the room in a few strides, not quite running but not walking either. The others made room for him at the table.

Simon was stripped down to the waist. Henry had trouble making sense of what he saw.  His brother was bruised and burned all along his left side. Almost all of his fingers were broken, mostly just bent out of place by the looks of it, but a bone had pierced through the skin. 

“What’s happened?”

Simon groaned; Henry’s nostrils flared in concern while Roger’s face contorted in empathetic pain. 

“He can’t feel anything,” Elaine said without looking up. “I gave him an elixir with poppy.” It was the first time she’d acknowledged any of them since they first entered the hall. “He’s just making noise.”

There was no emotional in her voice. Her brow was creased in concentration. She was wholly focused on her work; there was no room for fear or concern to slip in.

“Why wouldn’t he stop for treatment on the road?” Roger wondered aloud.

“We did, milord,” Simon’s squire replied. “We had to leave most of the surviving men behind in an abbey because they were too weak to travel.”

“So is he,” said Charlie. 

“He was emphatic that he had to get back to London,” the squire, Matthew, explained. “Back to his family.”

“You didn’t even stop to cut off his finger!” Charlie said, jutting his chin toward the exposed bone in Simon’s left hand.

“Must it be cut off?” Roger asked. “Elaine, can you save it?”

She shook her head. “No. And I’m not strong enough to remove it myself.

Kal had somehow wedged himself into the circle beside Elaine to sniff Simon’s bandages. He turned his attention to Simon’s broken finger now and growled quietly. He did the same thing when Henry’s father first fell ill. He’d smelled the sickness blooming in his blood. Smelled death. 

And now he smelled the infection growing in Simon’s hand.

“I’ll do it,” Roger said after a moment. He looked back and forth between Henry and Charlie. “You can’t be expected to . . .” To chop of your half-dead brother’s finger.

“How was he injured?” Henry interrupted. 

“I cannot say for sure,” Matthew said, shaking his head. “The keep was under siege and on fire. Milord kept fighting until he was trapped in one of the bed chambers. He – he was forced to leap through a window to escape. He landed hard on his left side.”

Henry’s mind flashed back to the first night he met Thomasin. He stood by the window of her chamber to keep her from leaping out to escape . . . Was it the same window through which Simon flung himself? Did he look down and decide that the chance of living, even broken and disfigured, was better than death by fire?

Henry’s stomach lurched when he pictured the moment. His knees buckled. He would’ve fallen to the ground if Jamie, a silent observer until now, hadn’t pushed a stool into his path. Instead he sat down hard.

“And his foe?” Charlie prompted Simon’s squire.

Matthew shook his head again. “I don’t know, sir.”

“How many survived?” Roger asked. 

“No more than thirty, sir,” said Matthew. “We left the others at the abbey near the keep where they could heal properly. No one escaped without injury.”

“And Hammond? Is he still alive?” Charlie asked. 

“He was not there.”

Henry felt nauseous. He watched in a daze as Kal pattered back through the crack between the room’s heavy doors and disappeared into the hall.

***

Thomasin grumbled when she felt Kal press his cold nose into her bare shoulder. The damn bear still couldn’t accept that he was exiled from his master’s bed chamber. It had been ages since he last tried to nose his way under the covers or squeeze between Tom and Henry.

She didn’t open her eyes when she groaned. “Go away, bear.” He nudged her again and she rolled away from him. “Henry,” she prompted, feeling along the bed for him. “Deal with your beast.” 

No reply.

The room was barely visible when she opened her eyes. The fire in the hearth had burnt down to the embers, leaving the chamber in darkness. Henry had probably gone for more wood; that’s why Kal felt bold enough to try to get in bed.

Thomasin lay down and shut her eyes again. Fine. Let the dog take the bed; Henry could survive a night on the floor. What did it matter to her?

Kal barked once, a sound so foreign and jarring that Thomasin gasped. She stared at him in disbelief until he whined. The look he gave her was heartbreaking. 

“Oh, all right.” She threw back the sheets and climbed out of bed. She fumbled in the darkness for her slippers as she considered what to wear. It was probably late enough that she could simply put on her robe – surely no one would be around – and it was nearly impossible to get dressed without assistance. She secured her robe around her and threw on a cloak for good measure. 

Kal pawed at the door to the hall. 

“All right, all right,” Thomasin said again. She opened the door and then held her cloak shut as she nudged it shut again. Kal anxiously paced in a circle. “What is it?” Kal gruffed and turned down the hall; Thomasin was clearly meant to follow.

The dog trotted along – too fast to be walking and too slow to be running – and Thomasin had to hurry her steps to keep up. Twice she nearly fell on the stairs trying to follow his shadowed form in the darkness. “Slow down!” she hissed.

Kal did not listen. He led her out of the stairs into the dimly-lit corridor of the castle’s main floor. He led her down a long corridor and turned sharply to the left, toward the dining hall. “Kal, what are we doing?”

A man cried out in pain from within the hall. It took a moment to comprehend what was going on. Then her stomach clenched. 

She stumbled forward, her muscles still too stiff to run and her mind racing. Is Henry hurt? He can’t be hurt. I still haven’t – we – I haven’t had him for nearly enough time.

***

Henry and Charlie watched helplessly as Elaine worked on their brother. Roger assisted her in setting the bones in his left forearm by helping to secure rectangular cuts of wood to either side of his arm to keep it straight while it healed.

The men had never seen such a thing before. In their experience, arms healed in whatever shape they liked, assuming the arm was savable. If the bone broke through the skin it was removed, assuming the host didn’t die of infection first.

Now Elaine carefully tied a piece of string around Simon’s middle finger below where the bone poked out and tightened it until the flesh above the string turned bright red as the blood flow stopped. “We’ll  have to remove that finger before we deal with the others.” 

Kal trotted into the room, followed closely by Thomasin. The dog gad gone back to wake her.

“Henry?” Thomasin croaked. Her half-closed eyes lazily moved from him to the rest of the room. She was too tired to process things quickly; it was a long moment before her eyes opened wide, horror crossing her face as understanding came over her. “What’s happened?” She moved to Henry’s side, slipping her hand into his and intertwining their fingers. She’d gone to bed with her hair braided in a long rope down her back; half of it had worked itself free and was now in desperate need of combing. “Henry, what’s wrong?”

Henry’s throat was clogged with emotion; he couldn’t speak. Instead, he unwound his hand from hers and pulled her into a tight embrace. “Simon,” he managed to say once they split apart. He took her hand again.

“His keep was attacked,” Charlie said coolly. His arms were crossed over his chest as always, and he kept his gaze fixed on Thomasin, waiting to see her reaction. He’d chosen his words deliberately.

She met his eyes. Not for the first time, she thought how dull they were in comparison to Henry’s. Simon’s, too, though she’d only met him once – and at night.

Oh, Lord – Simon!

That thought had her turning her head to look down at the unconscious warrior laid out on the table. 

His face, strangely, was untouched. Thomasin wondered if the other two Cavills looked anything like their brothers – the three youngest looked nothing alike – and then she wondered why Simon had come all the way to London, and then why so many people were in the hall and why there weren’t more wounded soldiers being attended to and were the other soldiers uninjured and that was why they weren’t being attended and how long it took them to come all this way . . .

The gears in her mind ground together as they fought through her sleepy haze to make sense of what was happening. 

“It was Hammond?” she asked, half a statement.

Simon’s squire’s eyes appeared to be locked on her breasts when in fact they were studying the pendant around her neck. Simon and a few of the others had wagered on whether Thomasin and Henry would end up betrothed.

Charlie whacked the boy on the back of the head to snap him out of it. “Speak.”

“Yes,” he said, blinking hard. “Yes, they came in – we don’t know how – but they trapped many of us inside and . . .” The boy could still feel the blistering heat on his face. He wasn’t in the castle itself when Hammond’s men put it to the torch, but he tried to run inside to rescue his comrades and friends.

Simon was in the stables when the blaze started. He pulled Matthew away from the flames when he tried to run into the castle, shouting something that the poor squire couldn’t hear. And then Simon ran inside himself to help the wounded.

Kal suddenly started barking and raced toward the doors to the hall as if to block an attack.

“Doggy, go away!” a little voice commanded from the corridor.  “I looking for Mamma!”

Elaine made a little choking sound when she heard her daughter’s voice. Her calm and focus vanished in an instant. She looked terrified – puffy shadows beneath her eyes, shaking hands, unbrushed hair. “She can’t –” she choked on the words.

Roger took a step toward the door but Henry shot to his feet and moved past him, still clutching Thomasin’s hand in his.

They knew Mercia upset when they saw her face. Her eyes were wide and her chin had just begun to quiver. “What wrong?” she asked. “Where Mamma?”

“Mamma is working right now,” Thomasin said.

“You lying,” the child pouted. She tried to go around Henry into the room but he caught her around the waist and lifted her up.

“We’re not lying,” Henry said. “Your Mamma is working. Some people are very sick and they need her help.”

“No. She with Simon,” Mercia pouted. “Charlie come to get Mamma and he say Simon back.” Tears pooled in her eyes as her face went red. “Simon sick? Simon hurt?”

Henry didn’t reply. The look on his face was answer enough.

“No! No! No!” the infant wailed, punching and kicking and wriggling to escape Henry’s hold. “Simon!” 

They rounded a corner into a new hall before he finally set her on her feet. He knelt before her, holding her little hands in his to keep her still. “Mercia. Mercia, listen to me.”

“No! I see Simon right now!”

“You will do no such thing,” Thomasin said sharply. Mercia was stunned into silence. Henry was, too. He turned his head to stare up at his wife in shock. “Simon is very ill,” she continued. “Do you think he would be happy to watch you crying over him?”

The little girl took a long time to shake her head. She’d stopped crying at Thomasin’s outburst. Now she was stupefied. 

“No,” Thomasin agreed. “That would make him very sad.” She crouched before the little girl and Henry stood. “You’ll have to be very brave for him. Can you do that?”

Mercia nodded, her chin quivering and her eyes full of tears.

“Come here,” Thomasin said gently, opening her arms.

Mercia embraced her. “I want Mamma,” she sobbed against Thomasin’s shoulder. “I want Simon.” 

“I know,” Thomasin murmured.

“He gotta tell Mamma he love us.”

Henry lost the battle against his tears. He turned away, covering his eyes with his hand as he smothered his sobs. He couldn’t lose his brother. Not now. And poor Mercia couldn’t lose him either. Her little heart would shatter.

And seeing Thomasin with the child, how kind she was . . . It put thoughts in his head. Before, he’d been happy to wait for a child until God saw fit to grant them one, but seeing Thomasin like this made him ache for a family. If his wife could open her heart to a baby then maybe it would make it easier to open her heart to him.

“Simon loves you,” Thomasin said, rubbing her hand across Mercia’s back. “You know that.”

“But he not say it,” Mercia sniffled.

“He will,” Henry vowed. “Just as soon as he wakes. But first he needs to rest. Do you think you can wait until he feels better?”

The child nodded, rubbing her chubby fists against her swollen eyes. 

“Good girl,” Henry said. “Do you think you can be strong for your mother, too?”

“Yeah.” She nodded emphatically despite her clear exhaustion.

Thomasin smiled gently. “Why don’t I spend the night with you in your rooms? We can stay awake and tell stories.” Mercia nodded. Thomasin smiled, rising to her feet. “Good.” She began to lead the girl away.

“Wait!” Mercia let go of Thomasin’s hand and dashed back to Henry. She held up her doll to him. “Batty make Simon feel better.” Henry took the raggedy thing from her tiny hand and nodded. “And if he wake up, you can tell I love him.”

Thomasin wanted to weep. Henry nodded somberly at the girl and looked back at his wife with so much tenderness in those endless blue eyes. More than she could possibly bear.

I love you. Henry. I love you, I love you, I love you, her heart shouted.

Say it! Say it, damn you! Say it! commanded her mind.

“Henry.” His name was like a prayer on her lips. “I . . .”

Say it! Just say it!

He smiled ruefully, as if he knew the words that were clogging her throat. She would tell him, sooner or later. He was sure of it. “Thomasin.”

Thoughts of fatherhood flew from his head as soon as he turned away. From her. His heartbreak and fear subsided, too, as a searing feeling of pure hatred spread through him.

He loved Thomasin. He wanted to make her happy. But her brother’s actions could not go unanswered. Not just for what he did to Simon, but to Tom, too. He really couldn’t say whether or not Thomasin loved her brother. But it didn’t matter either way.

He steeled himself as he entered the hall once more, and turned his thoughts to vengeance.

second gif by @demivampirew​

#henry cavill #the cavillry #RPF #medieval #romance #au #the man from uncle #Sherlock Holmes #enola holmes #the tudors #Charles Brandon #duke of suffolk #Immortals #Theseus #the cold light of day #whatever works #blood creek #evan shaw #will shaw #superman #dc #DC Universe #zack snyder #justice league #snyder cut #snyderverse #clark kent #kal-el #Sand Castle #Syverson

[melanielocke]

An experiment with a Fairchild

Alastair goes to the Fairchild's house to visit Charles, but finds only Henry home, who is working on something.

CW for toxic relationship

Taglist: @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @justanormaldemon @styxdrawings @ipromiseiwillwrite

I don't think this really adds up with the timeline since I'm not sure Henry was actually in London at the time but I don't care. It's somewhere during early Chain of Gold.

Alastair knocked on the door of the house in Grosvenor Square. The consul was currently in Idris and would not be home, and Alastair was fairly certain Matthew was someplace else with his band of bandits or whatever they called themselves nowadays. Charles’ father he wasn’t so sure about, but Alastair imagined he would have gone with her. He sincerely hoped Charles would be home. He’d missed Charles and hoped they could talk about his engagement. Alastair could make him understand, how unhappy it made him. They would work something out, Alastair was sure of it. It would be like Paris again, just the two of them. He could be happy, as long as he had Charles’ love.

The door opened, but it wasn’t Charles standing in the doorway, nor any of the servants. Instead, sitting in a bath chair, was Charles’ father. Henry Branwell, known for inventing the portal, although Alastair didn’t think he got the recognition he deserved. He didn’t know much about Henry beyond that, Charles was far closer to his mother than his father and Alastair didn’t think Charles really understood his father’s work.

‘Good afternoon,’ Henry said. ‘I’m not sure we’ve met? I’m Henry Fairchild.’

Alastair didn’t realize Henry used his wife’s name. He knew Charles’ mother had chosen to give him her last name instead of Henry’s because of her position as consul, which was an unusual decision, but he’d never heard of a husband taking his wife’s name.

Charles often claimed his parents hadn’t married out of love either, that his mother had married his father because she needed the support of a husband to advance her career. Therefore, it was fine he was marrying for political reasons and would never love his wife. But Henry Fairchild must love his wife very much, to have taken her name.

‘I’m Alastair Carstairs,’ Alastair said. ‘I’m here to see Charles, is he home?’

‘Right, you must be Charles’ friend. No, I don’t think he’s at home right now.’

‘Oh that’s too bad,’ Alastair said, attempting to hide the disappointment in his voice. ‘Do you know where he is?’

Perhaps he was at his club, Alastair thought. He’d been there once before with Charles, who’d wanted to introduce him to the club. Alastair had not yet managed to win much approval there, but he was determined to keep trying. Many high standing shadowhunter men were members of the same gentleman’s club Charles went to, and Alastair wanted so badly to fit in there. Even if deep down, he knew he never would, not really. Even with his hair dyed blonde, his skin was still too dark to pass for a white English man. At most they would accept an act he put on. Still, Alastair tried the best he could to be what they wanted and win their approval, especially Charles’.

‘No, I’m not sure. But I expect he’ll be home soon. Why don’t you come in and wait there. I am working on something fascinating.’

Alastair hesitated, but he guessed it couldn’t hurt to come in. If at any point Matthew arrived, he could always make his way out. He didn’t hate Matthew, not really. He thought Matthew was immature, and sometimes Alastair was jealous that it was so easy for Matthew to be himself, but that was all, and Alastair deeply regretted his behavior at school.

However, Alastair thought it was best for all parties involved if he stayed away from Matthew, who was clearly still mad with him. Who could blame him, honestly? Charles knew, of course, about the bad blood between them, but had chosen to believe Matthew had been a brat at school and did not blame Alastair for his behavior. While that was true to some extent, Alastair had been far worse. However, if he was to be accepted, he should not show such weakness, and the best course of action was to stay away. Perhaps coming here was a bad decision.

Henry retreated into his lab, and while Alastair waited with some tea provided by a servant, he felt very awkward. What were his duties here? He would have expected someone inviting him in to stay with him, although a conversation with Charles’ father would have been just as awkward. Where was Charles? Was he coming?

In the end, Alastair did decide to take a look in the lab.

‘Ah, there you are,’ Henry said. ‘You were taking your time with that tea. Do you prefer it colder?’

Truth to be told, Alastair didn’t like the way the English made their tea at all, but he reserved his complaints about the awful food and drinks of this country for when he was having tea with his mother and Risa.

‘It was quite hot,’ was all Alastair said.

‘After some deliberation I’ve decided to give the Phosphor another chance,’ Henry said. ‘It was unfortunately, a failed invention, but I still believe I could make it work.’

‘What is it supposed to be?’ Alastair asked.

Henry fell into a lecture of his work, how he’d wanted to invent a light source five times brighter than witchlights. So far the Phosphor had mostly resulted in fires, and Henry had abandoned the project in favor of the portal. Alastair noticed how passionate Henry seemed when he talked about his interests. He could be passionate too, but Charles said that was not a good thing. It was important that he appeared rational at all times, not clouded by emotion.

‘Nor did I like working with something so highly flammable while Charles and Matthew were small,’ Henry said. ‘It would be too dangerous with small and vulnerable children depending on me. But they’re growing up so fast. Charles will be married soon and move out with his wife.’

Alastair wasn’t so sure what Charles intended to do. He’d assured him the engagement was temporary, that he would not marry miss Bridgestock. But she was under the impression the marriage would take place. Then who was Charles lying to?

‘So now is the right time to give it another try?’ Alastair concluded.

‘Precisely. However, something is not right with my calculations, and I cannot figure it out. Do you have an interest in science yourself, Mr. Carstairs?’

Alastair had once, although not to the extent Henry did. He was good at math, at least, and fascinated by the theory.

‘A little,’ he said. ‘But I’m mainly interested in politics.’

Alastair glanced over the calculations Henry had written down. They were complex, but Alastair was good at math and at least this part of the inventing process he could follow along.

‘There’s a mistake here,’ Alastair said. ‘Maybe that’s why it’s not working.’

Henry moved over to look at the calculations, and Alastair pointed out the errors, working with Henry to fix the errors. Would it work now?

‘Are you sure you’re not interested in becoming a scientist or an inventor?’ Henry asked. ‘You’re quite clever. I think it is limiting, to think of shadowhunters only as warriors. Some are, and that’s fine, but there are more ways to make the world better than just killing demons. The experiments Christopher and I do all serve the purpose of improving life for shadowhunters, yet so few understand.’

Henry sounded resigned, had he accepted the way he was viewed? Alastair found it difficult to imagine. He knew what it was to be mocked, and he never wanted to experience that again. He didn’t think he could bear it, but perhaps Henry was simply stronger than he was.

‘That’s their loss,’ Alastair said. ‘There are many ways to improve the world beyond fighting. I’m not an inventor, but I hope I can improve the Clave by getting into politics someday.’

Alastair wasn’t completely sure it was what he wanted anymore. Even if he did succeed, he knew people would gossip. He could never be the perfect politician shadowhunters expected, not without a wife, and Alastair was determined that no matter how much he pretended to be something he was not, he would never pretend to love someone he could never have such feelings for. He admired Henry, for not caring what people thought of him. He wished he could be like that, be himself, and be appreciated, if not by society then by a smaller group of people who loved him. But Alastair didn’t think that was possible, because no one could love the real him, could they? After pretending for so long, he didn’t even know who the real Alastair was anymore.

‘Ah, like Lottie,’ Henry said. ‘I so admire what she does. I could never make people listen like she does. And Charles wants to be just like her. Truth to be told, he’s a far better assistant to her than I could ever hope to be.’

‘Charles is good at what he does,’ Alastair said.

Alastair hoped some day he would be too. He read all the books Charles recommended, he worked tirelessly on formulating his own ideas. But whenever he presented his ideas to Charles, he was met with laughter. As if his ideas were just a joke to him, as if he were far too young and silly to understand. It made him feel awful. Alastair usually tried to downplay it then, pretend he hadn’t been absolutely serious about these ideas. Because clearly if Charles didn’t take him seriously, his ideas weren’t as good as they’d seemed at first and he needed to do better. He’d convinced his mother that he could help their family’s social standing by succeeding in politics rather than marrying, but how could he if not even Charles thought his ideas were worth anything?

‘I must admit I don’t understand his work nearly as well as you must,’ Henry said. ‘I’m glad he has a friend like you. I have worried about him. Always so focused on work, he doesn’t have many friends and I worry he’s lonely. I think he finds it difficult to make friends. But you and he, you are good friends are you not?’

‘We are,’ Alastair said, suddenly terrified Henry would suspect he and Charles were not quite friends, but lovers instead.

He wasn’t quite sure what Henry meant about Charles not having many friends. Charles attended his club along with many shadowhunter men, and he seemed friendly with many of them. Of course, even then he mainly talked about politics and tried to build alliances to further his career. Alastair wasn’t sure Charles really cared about any of them, perhaps he was the only one Charles had former a true connection with. If anything, it made him feel more special to be the only one trusted and appreciated by him.

‘He’s lucky to have you,’ Henry said.

‘Father, what are you doing here with Alastair?’

Charles was standing in the doorway. He looked weary, and Alastair wanted to go to him, but he didn’t dare, not when Henry Fairchild was still here to witness them. Although strangely, he suspected if there were shadowhunters who did not condemn men like him and Charles, it would be Henry.

‘Ah, there you are, Charles. Your friend has been waiting for you.’

Charles sighed. ‘Please do not bother my friends with your experiments. I am sorry for this, Alastair. I was caught up at the Institute, you know how it is.’

Alastair was a bit shocked by the way Charles spoke to Henry. Compared to his father, Henry seemed kind, if only a bit absent minded. He knew Charles did not understand his father well, but it was quite rude to speak to him in such a manner. His mother certainly wouldn’t tolerate it if he spoke to her like this.

Henry didn’t say anything else, and Alastair left the lab with Charles to go upstairs, to his bedroom. As Alastair understood it, Henry rarely left his lab and there was little danger of him interrupting him.

‘Are you very tired?’ Alastair asked.

‘Just work,’ Charles said. ‘It’s becoming a bit much lately, but that’s alright. This is my chance to show my best qualities, after all. Exhaustion is a small price to pay. And I have you with me now, and that more than makes up for it. I could use some relaxation.’

And Alastair obliged, as he always did. Even if part of him was still upset with Charles, he knew that if he wanted to earn his lover’s affection and loyalty, he would have to be there for him when Charles needed him and give him what he wanted. At least now he could experience what if felt like to be loved, and Alastair knew love was supposed to hurt. It was better than nothing, better than being alone. Still, he wished he could be more like Charles’ father, doing what was right for him and being who he was regardless of what anyone else thought. But Alastair had lost himself a long time ago, the only time when he felt even remotely like himself was when he was in Charles’ arms. And even then, he still did not feel quite right and couldn’t figure out what was missing. He did not know who he was anymore.

#Alastair Carstairs #Henry Branwell #Henry Fairchild #Charles Fairchild #the last hours #fanfiction #fic

[ti-bae-rius]

Following on from @imherongraystairstrash’s amazing Thomas and Kit fic (which is here: https://imherongraystairstrash.tumblr.com/post/654901507028828161/i-know-you-write-about-relationships-in-tlh-and) here’s my addition to this lil fanfic universe, in which Thomas and Christopher discuss love and what love means.

Some period-specific discussion around sexual and romantic orientation but pretty darn positive!

Christopher dropped his carpet bag down on the bed in the room opposite Thomas’s with a sigh.

“Mam went to visit Uncle Henry, and he said that we should be able to go back to the house tomorrow by tea time. Mam and Dad have taken Alex to Aunt Tessa and Uncle Will’s. I haven’t a clue where Anna went. Mam asked if she’d somewhere to go and Anna said ‘I’ll find someone’ and Mam said ‘you mean somewhere?’ and Anna said ‘If you like’ and that caused an almighty row, so I’ve come here.”

Thomas glanced up from where he’d been filling the basin for Christopher, and grinned at him in the looking glass hanging above it.

“What a palaver.”

“Not half. And then Mam made me get rid of all the clothes I was wearing when the experiment went awry, so that’s another shirt gone to buggery. Anna’s inherited wardrobe is waning by the second.”

“I can’t imagine Anna would be seen dead in your old clobber, Kit.”

“Not anymore, but she used nab it all. I’m sure she thought I didn’t notice, but I did.”

“You never asked her about it?” Thomas asked. A knock at the door made him pause before he got an answer, accepting the plate offered by one of the maids. He handed Christopher the tea cake, pooling with melting butter, and stretched out on the rug as his cousin ate.

“Well none of it mattered a jot to me. They were just clothes. They meant something to Anna.” He set down his tea cake in indignation. “Oh, and I was pretending to sleep in the carriage here, but I heard Mam and Dad talking about Anna. Apparently the Clave are kicking up a fuss again about her, saying she could be muddling foolish shadowhunter girls. But Anna in spats and a waistcoat is still Anna. I hardly think a pair of trousers is going to baffle ladies out of their heads, and if they think girls are so easily duped, then it’s not the girls who are the foolish ones.”

Christopher understood Anna so well, Thomas thought, watching as - now serene after his outburst - Christopher happily tucked into his tea cake, fingers slick with runny butter. He understood Anna, so he’d understand Thomas. At least, Thomas thought, he hoped that was the case.

“I’ve something I want to tell you,” Thomas said, and his voice trembled a little with the nerves as he said it. He picked up his teacup but the saucer clattered against the base as his hands shook.

“Mind, you’ll drop that,” Christopher said, and Thomas put the cup back down. “Well whatever it is, it sounds frightfully serious.”

“It’s not all that serious,” Thomas insisted. “I don’t suppose it is anyway. Unless you find it serious. You might do.” He forced a breath between clenched teeth and reminded himself why he wanted to tell Kit. Because he’d understand. Because he was Anna’s brother. Because he was Thomas’s best friend.

“I...don’t fancy women. I fancy...other boys. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

Christopher’s violet eyes widened behind his spectacles, brows shooting up towards his hairline.

“Are you surprised?” Thomas hazarded nervously.

“Hugely.”

“You didn’t guess then?”

“About you...I didn’t give it a fig. I mean, I’m surprised you told me first. No one ever tells me anything first.”

“Well, you’re my best friend.”

If possible, Christopher’s eyes widened further, huge saucer-like circles of shock.

“I’m your best friend?”

Thomas almost laughed. “Of course you are. ‘Course, Kit. Besides, you can’t possibly be more surprised by that than...than the other part.”

“Well that is interesting news,” Christopher nodded. “Certainly interesting. Lots of recent scientific papers have been published on the subject. I tried to show Anna but she asked if they had any advice for seducing women, and then when I said it wasn’t a how-to guide she said it sounded dull.”

“Well I’m not to be experimented on,” Thomas said, and Christopher glanced across, wounded.

“Of course not. I didn’t mean...It’s just how I explain things I...” He patted Thomas’s shoulder helplessly. “It’s all alright with me, old boy. Any of it. Because I’m your...best friend.” He said these last two words with such earnest, such pleasure, that it set Thomas’s heart alight.

“You won’t tell the rest of the lads, will you?” he asked nervously and Christopher shook his head so firmly his spectacles shifted down his nose.

“Of course I shan’t,” he said, pushing them back up with a finger. “I’ll probably forget by supper tomorrow.”

They both knew that wasn’t true, but Thomas ruffled Kit’s hair in thanks anyway, muttering some gruff comment about that being about right. Nevertheless, he could see Christopher grinning.

“Thomas? Are you up?”

Setting down his book, Thomas padded over and opened his bedroom door, admitting a Christopher who was squinting without his spectacles. Thomas pulled him into the room and closed the door behind them. The candle he was reading by was starting to burn low, so he activated his witchlight lantern and set it on the bedside table. Christopher peered at the book and then back at Thomas.

“Couldn’t you sleep either?”

“You look like a mole when you don’t have your eyeglasses on,” Thomas replied instead, evading the question. His heart still felt as if it was leaping out of his chest, like he’d been infected with demon poison. He felt lighter and heavier all at once. His secret didn’t feel quite so suffocating now he’d told Kit, but speaking it had made it somehow more real. There was no hiding from it now.

“I had a question for you,” Christopher went on, tucking his knees up into his nightgown. Thomas, in a pair of striped pyjamas his mother had bought him, didn’t know how his cousin didn’t freeze to death.

“Which was?” Thomas prompted.

“When did you know that you liked other lads, not girls?”

Thomas tried to swallow the shock of the question. When did he know? How did he know? Didn’t everyone just somehow know? “I suppose...I’ve always felt it. But it became impossible to ignore when I was about 11 or so.”

Christopher seemed to heave a sigh of relief, though Thomas was half-inclined to believe he’d imagined it. Was his cousin wondering whether he was out of the woods to fall victim to Thomas’s own proclivities?

“I suppose it’s the same as you knowing you fancied girls.”

Christopher didn’t say anything for a while, and Thomas presumed that was all, when Christopher suddenly spoke again into the silence, voice dropped to a hush.

“Well, you see, that’s sort of it. I’m not sure I do know that. I don’t really know that I’m fond of...anyone in that way, girls or boys.” Though the light was low, Thomas could sense Christopher wrinkling his nose the way he did when he was puzzled. “I suppose that makes me awfully peculiar,” he said quietly.

“Not peculiar, at least not any more so than me,” Thomas told him. “Besides, you’re only 14. Perhaps you’re just a late bloomer. You’re ever so studious, you’re probably just too busy for courting. You have plenty of time to court girls.”

“I just...” Christopher cut himself off with a sigh. “I’m fond of lots of people. I’m fond of you, and Jamie and Matthew. I’m fond of my family - even Alex and his relentless grizzling. I’m fond of lots of people. But...I don’t think I can really imagine wanting to kiss anyone - and I definitely can’t imagine wanting to do anything in a marriage bed.”

“Well,” Thomas began, not really sure where his answer was going to lead him. “Like I say, you have plenty of time. But, even if you didn’t ever want something like that, you’d still be Christopher. It wouldn’t change anything for us, all of us who know you.”

“You don’t think that would be a tremendously odd life? Never being in love?”

“I’m not sure I’m the one to comment on what’s odd or not, especially not in matters of love,” Thomas pointed out, smiling. “But...I don’t see why it should be. Like you said, you’re fond of so many people, and they’re all so fond of you. It wouldn’t be as if your life was without love. By the angel, you’d be lucky to even escape it for a day with so much family around you who dote on you. Just because you wouldn’t want to take a wife...that shouldn’t mean you would have a life without love. Not when we all love you so.”

“And even if you were in love with some lad, we’d still be friends, wouldn’t we?”

“‘Course we would, Kit. You’ve seen what Aunt Tessa and my mother are like; Shadowhunters stay friends for life, especially when they’re family. We’ll always be best friends.”

“Well then, I don’t suppose the rest of it matters,” Christopher said, and Thomas’s heart wriggled free of the iron grip of anxiety, just a little, because Kit still loved him. And, Thomas agreed, the rest of it didn’t matter.

#thomas lightwood #christopher lightwood #tlh #the last hours #tsc #the shadowhunter chronicles #anna lightwood #fanfic #fanfiction

[fuckingthefictional]

All I want- Part 2

Pairing: Michael Gray x Reader

Read last chapter here—> Chapter 1

A/N: thank you guys so much for the overwhelming support on the last chapter! I’m honestly in shock- you guys are all absolutely amazing. This will become a series- yes there’s another chapter in the works. Sorry if this chapter is a lil short I’ve been busy- either way enjoy!

Also let me know if you want to be added to the taglist! Xx

What Y/N hadn’t expected from this job was the temporary move to the states.

Tommy had mentioned that he and his wife had some unfinished business that was likely to take around a year to complete.

Y/N was to travel along side himself and Grace- Since Grace was due to give birth while they were over seas.

There was only one request that Y/N made- which Ada fully backed. That they stayed in London until after Matthew’s first birthday.

Y/N wanted to spend the day with Ada and James (as well as Karl and Matthew of course), where they could spend the day together before the Y/L/N’s departure to America.

Tommy has agreed (albeit reluctantly), and a day later on a crisp, sunny morning, Y/N and Grace watched as Tommy and James hauled the many trunks into the back of the car.

It wasn’t long before they arrived at the docks, where a large ship was waiting. Tommy wasted no time getting tickets and rooms sorted, leaving Y/N and Grace sat one of the many lounges that the ship offered.

Matthew was sound asleep in his mother’s arms, his golden hair and rosy cheeks made him look just like Henry whenever he slept.

God- Y/N loved her baby boy, he was just the most adorable person on the planet. Her love for him was just immeasurable. She’d protect him with her life if it came down to it.

“I used to wonder how someone could love another person that much,” A soft Irish voice, broke Y/N’s train of thought, looking over to the owner of the voice she saw Grace staring intently, a hand tenderly cupping her growing belly- a caring smile on her face, “But I think I finally understand now.”

Y/N nodded, absentmindedly rocking the slumbering child in her arms, “I used to wonder that too,” and once again looked down at Matthew in complete and utter awe, “but when Matthew was born, I realised that there nothing more precious and special than the connection between a mother and her baby.”

“Is it wrong to be scared?” Grace looked almost guilty, as she fiddled with the ring on her finger.

Y/N reached out for the older woman with her spare hand, which the latter took thankfully.

“If you don’t mind me saying Miss, but the fact that you’re scared just shows how much you love your child.” Y/N breathed in, “it shows how much you care and how far you are willing to go in order to provide and love your baby.”

Grace’s eyes were gleaming with unshed tears, “Thank you,” she said shakily, “For casting reason on my fears and worries.”

“That’s no problem at all miss, I know what it’s like to have those fears.”

“Please,” she smiled, “call me Grace.”

New York City was different, magnificent of course, but still different.

It was hard to believe all that had happened in the span of about 2 years.

Henry Leaving.

Discovering her pregnancy.

Moving from Sheffield to London.

Giving Birth.

Become employed by Tommy.

And now this- living in the states, in the city where dreams came true.

Or so Tommy claimed. Maybe that was just the ambition in him though, the determination to succeed.

What Tommy’s dream was though- Y/N had no idea. Grace had said that he was looking for new business opportunities and had left it there.

Y/N had decided to just leave her questions at the door, she was lucky to have been employed by Tommy in the first place. She wasn’t going to throw away her shot by asking too many questions.

-

Charles Shelby- also affectionately known as Charlie was born 3 months after their arrival in New York.

Grace was overjoyed at the birth of her son and although Tommy didn’t show it, Y/N could tell that he was too.

In the weeks after Charlie’s birth, the young mother found herself interacting more with Grace as they talked an cared for the newborn.

In this time Matthew also became accustomed to the newest addition. It wouldn’t be an easy transition but his acceptance was a start.

Before too long the pair of boys would be giggling and playing together in harmony. Like nothing has ever changed.

Y/N finally began to work properly for the Tommy anc Grace, instead of biding her time until their child arrived.

Now she was a proper nanny, who cared for both boys and provided both of them with love and sustenance (when his parents weren’t able to in Charlie’s case)

They also had their fun together, trips out to Central Park, where Matthew would attempt to toddle across the grass (which usually was him trying to keep his balance while stood up, working his legs as he did so- before more often than not falling flat on his bottom moments later), they’d feed the ducks at the pond and would visit the zoo.

Y/N finally felt useful. Like she had a real purpose.

-

Wails pierced the nursery as they echoed off the walls. Y/N woke up groggily, wiping the sleep from her eyes and placing her feet on the cold floorboards below her.

Matthew much to Y/N’s glee, was still sound asleep. He was like his father in so many more ways than he knew- because Henry could also sleep through the loudest storm or shouts.

Charlie was squirming in his crib, his tiny face scrunched up with an utterly horrendous smell coming from his bottom. Y/N gagged as the putrid smell reached her nostrils.

That was one thing that came with being a nanny- soiled nappies were common place and she was the one who had to change them.

Y/N lifted Charlie’s body up out of his crib, and carried him to the dresser fitted with a mat on top.

As she set on changing him, Y/N began to wonder about Henry. This was commonplace for her, especially in the middle of the night.

She’d be a liar if she said that the wound wasn’t still raw and painful. Y/N truly missed him, but she was so so angry- at all the changes he had missed. The fact that he just left with no warning- that he had missed out on so much in Matthew’s life.

Y/N missed the days when she was young and naive, when she thought the perfect guy would come and seek her out.

It wasn’t long after Henry packed his bags that Y/N realised that happy ever afters don’t come so easily. Pain and heartbreak didn’t discriminate between the sinners and saints- it had the ability to take and take and take whenever it wanted.

The young mother carried on her train of thought as she sat down on the rocking chair in the corner, Charlie snuggled against her.

As she began to rock the chair back and forth she reminisced the many times she had done this with Henry’s younger brother, when he was a baby.

In fact it was in the same memory that Henry has complimented her way with children, telling her that she would be a good mum when the time came and that she was a natural.

“Twinkle twinkle little star how I wonder what you are-“

“You’re so pretty.”

Y/N stopped rocking the chair back and forth- caught off guard by the compliment. Did Henry really just say that she was pretty?

“You’re lying Henry Johnson.” She smirked softly, as she raised an eyebrow teasingly.

“‘M serious Y/N/N- you look so beautiful, especially with a baby in your arms. It makes me want one of my own.”

The comment had caught her off guard- and Y/N could feel a blush creep up her neck and rise to her cheeks rapidly, “M-Maybe one day love- When we’re older.”

“Any child would be lucky to have you as their mum- you’re such a blessing and you’re so good with children, they love you.”

“You know just what to say to butter me up Henry.”

He smiled sweetly, a glint of cheekiness in his eyes, “Y/N/N, it’s not buttering you up when it’s the truth.”

“You’ll be the death of me Henry Johnson.”

TAGLIST:

@soleil-dor @redperson58 @xshinytrashcanx @peakyxtommy @staygold-bebold @peakascum

#peaky blinders #peaky blinder headcanon #peakyfookinblinder #peaky blinders x reader #peaky blinders imagine #peakyblinder #peakyblinders #all i want #michaelgrayxreader #michael gray x reader #micheal gray #michael gray

[celias-archieve]

Hold My Hand /Wessa, Herondales (CoI fic)

chapter 1 / chapter 2

@brotherlipsmackariahs @themostawesomehuman @idontgetit-whydoihavetosaymyname @friendlyneighbourhoodreader @zafirafox4636

It had been just a day, when James’s mother died. He killed his own mother, even thought he was possesed by his grandfather. He kept having a nightmare when he or rather Belial killed his mother. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at his father or his sister. Or anyone else from his friends and family.

Sophie and Gideon arrived with Eugenia and Thomas as soon as they heard what happened, along with Gabriel and Cecily and Anna and Christopher. Charlotte and Henry couldn’t come, as they stayed in Idris, but still promised they will come as soon as possible.

James had shut down completely. He didn’t talk to anyone. Not even to Matthew, Christopher or Thomas. No matter how much they tried to talk to him. He didn’t sleep at all, just stared at the ceiling, thinking about what he did. Or rather what he allowed Belial to do. Because he was too weak.

His mother saved him, but she did not manage to survive.

He had heard when Sophie, Gideon, Eugenia and Thomas arrived. It was an hour after everything happened. He only saw them briefly. He saw his father crying, not bothering to hide his tears.

Uncle Jem was there too. He was the first one who arrived, before Gideon, Sophie, Eugenia and Thomas. James was sure, if the Silent Brothers could cry, Jem would have.

James did however, saw a grief on Jem’s face.

After that, he returned to his bedroom, and locked himself in bedroom.

There was a light knock, so faint, that James nearly didn’t hear it.

James hesitated, before standing up, and unlocking the doors.

On the other side of doors stood Lucie, dressed in white gown, with red runes of mourning.

James clenched his fists.

“Papa told me to get you, if you wish to come with us... We are leaving for an hour.” Lucie murmured, as she glanced up at him.

Her blue eyes were rimmed with red, from endless crying for hours.

James flinched. How could she even look at him? At monster who killed his own mother?

Lucie stepped inside his bedroom, without saying anything, and sat down on his bed, while James sat down in his chair.

“No one is blaming you.” She said softly, after a few minutes of silence.

James still said nothing, but only flinch. “You should all blame me.”

Lucie frowned, reminding James painfully of their mother. But before she could say anything else, someone walked inside the bedroom.

They both looked up, and saw it was Will. He too, was dressed in white gear, and had red runes of mourning.

James had never saw his father so heartbroken. He wasn’t heartbroken like this, not even when his parents died, years ago.

Will had a dark bags under his eyes, his eyes were bloodshot from crying, he looked ghostly pale.

Will sat down silently on bed, next to Lucie. He wrapped one arm around her shoulders, who leaned and put her head on her father’s shoulder.

James watched them silently for few moments, before looking away.

“Jamie,” Will said softly, and James glanced back at his father. Will gestured at him to sit next to him.

James hesitated for a moment, before he stood up, and sat next to his father.

“It is not your fault.” He said simply. “Your mother wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”

James said nothing for minute, only clenched his jaw.

He finally spoke up, “Yes it is my fault. How can you even look at me, after what I did?”

“It was not your fault,” Will repeated, and shook his head. His blue eyes, were sad. “It was only Belial’s fault. Not yours.” Will took James’s hand and squezzed it, in comfort.

James sighed heavily, putting his head on his father’s shoulder, and started crying again.

“She knows it is not your fault.” Will whispered. “If it meant that she has to die, so she’d save you, she would have done it over and over again. Like I would have.”

An hour later, James was ready for funeral.

Thomas, Matthew and Christopher were there too, with James, in his bedroom. All of them ready for funeral.

After they talked, Will and Lucie left him to get ready. Will went to find Cecily, Gabriel, Sophie and Gideon. While Lucie went with Cordelia and Anna somewhere.

James glanced down at his bare wrist. The bracelet, Grace gave him was no longer there.

Belial took it off, once James was possesed.

Without bracelet... He felt odd.

All feelings he felt for Grace, were no longer there. As if they were not real, never were there in first place.

But feelings James truly had, were feelings for Cordelia Carstairs. She was his fianceé, and had to know of his feelings, of everything with bracelet and Grace.

He would tell her of his feelings, but not now. He couldn’t do it at the moment.

“James!”

James jumped startled, before turning around.

Christopher, Matthew and Thomas were all eyeing him worriedly.

“Are you alright, Jamie?” Thomas asked, with small frown.

James only shook his head, as he sat down on his bed. “This really seems.... Like nightmare. All I am thinking, this is some nightmare. And if I look for mum in institute, she’ll appear. But I know that’s just my wish.” James whispered, his golden eyes filling with tears.

Matthew sat down next to James, and reached out squeezing his shoulder. “It’s alright, Jamie. It’ll get easier eventually.” He said softly.

James only took a shaky breath, and nodded.

“We should leave.” Christopher said.

Thomas and Matthew nodded in agreement.

Matthew stood up, but James was still sitting down. “James, if you don’t wish to go, you don’t —“

“No, no. I am going.” James said firmly, and stood up, leaving his bedroom, with Thomas, Christopher and Matthew following him.

They walked in silence, towards the drawing room, where everyone else was waiting for them.

When James reached the drawing room, he opened the doors quitely. In the drawing room was his father, his sister, and the rest of their family and close friends.

James’s gaze fell on his father, who was sitting on one of the armchairs, and talking with Sophie and Gideon.

It was strange seeing Will without Tessa sitting next to him. James couldn’t help but wonder, would it get easier eventually, like Matthew said? He couldn’t even imagine his father’s pain. Was it same like James’s and Lucie’s?

No, perhaps not. First he lost his parabatai —even thought Jem was still alive, but he was still a silent brother. And then Will lost his wife, years later.

Perhaps, maybe it was harder for his father. Because part of him died a few hours ago. Not just him, but part of Jem too.

Will stopped talking with Sophie and Gideon, and looked up at his son, his face was unreadable.

Will stood up, and everyone glanced at him, “We should leave.” He said, not taking his eyes of his son.

James looked around all the familiar faces in drawing room. Some were dressed in white gowns, some in white gear.

He felt like he is drowning, he couldn’t breathe properly. His vision became blurry, and was filled with black dots. James took a several steps back.

“James? Jamie!” Matthew reached out for James, but James ran away. Even as his father along with Matthew called out for him.

He returned back to his bedroom, gasping for air. He closed the doors, and slid to floor, leaning against them.

“James. Breathe, Jamie.” It was a familiar warm voice, James loved more than anything.

The air suddenly changed, he shivered when he felt slightly cold shift in air. He looked up, and saw it was a ghost. A very familiar one.

It was his mother. Her brown curls floating around her like a waterfall.

James’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“Mum,” James whispered. “I am so sorry, I—“

“It is not your fault, Jamie. I did it to save you. And I would have done it again.”

“I am so sorry for everything what happened,” James whispered, and began crying. “I can’t forgive myself for what I did —“

“James, it wasn’t your fault. Don’t blame yourself. It’s all Belial’s fault.” Tessa said softly.

“You — You don’t blame me for what happened?” James breathed heavily.

“My sweet boy, I would never blame you. I love you so much, both you and Lucie. And your father, and Uncle Jem uncoditionally.” Tessa said, with small smile. And then she vanished, before James could say anything else.

At that moment James felt slightly better, with everything what his mother told him.

Even if she was just a ghost, when she told him that.

And eventually with time, James learned not to blame himself. Despite how hard it was at the beginning, at one point it got easier eventually for himself and his sister, with loss, much like Matthew said it would be.

It was a harder for his father, but Lucie and James were always there for him, whenever he needed it.

#james herondale #will x tessa #will herondale #tessa herondale #tessa gray #wessa #james x cordelia #lucie herondale #tlh fic #thomas lightwood #christopher lightwood #matthew fairchild #my fanfic #my writing

[welllpthisishappening]

Of Babies and Hockey Mascots

It had been a very long time since the mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers had made Matthew Jones want to scream in fear. He was, after all, a grown man. But being a grown man also meant seeing other adults in his life have kids. And Roland had always been very popular in Philadelphia.

------

This was/is and continues to be exceptionally self-indulgent next gen Blue Line hockey fic. Because life is life and good things happen in this universe. Also because I write them that way. So, here’s like almost 4K of Matt Jones, his girlfriend, his parents and both Roland and Henry ragging on Matt Jones for being terrified of Gritty. And the Rangers play hockey tomorrow. So.

This one goes out directly to @shireness-says for being an absolute, goddamn delight at all times. Also, also @optomisticgirl for constantly letting me bounce ideas off her, @stealing-vengence because I didn’t have these words to send last night and @distant-rose just for, like, existing. 

This is the video mentioned in the story.

------

“Babe.”

Matt didn’t answer. 

“Babe.”

Nothing. If he didn’t answer, then Claire would definitely go back to sleep and it was stupid and petulant and—“Babe,” she said, that one sounding less like an endearment and more like the audible and understandable sound of middle-of-the-night frustration. She jabbed him in the ribs. 

Matt groaned. 

“Answer your phone, Matthew.”

He hissed in a breath, burying his face into the pillow like that would make the phone stop, but that was a pipe dream and Claire’s nails absolutely left marks on his skin when she scratched down his side. 

“I got it, I got it, I—“ 

The phone fell on the floor. 

“Oh my God,” Claire grumbled. 

None of Matt’s muscles appreciated when he leaned over the side of the bed, fingers scrambling for a phone that was somehow still ringing and sounded as if it were getting louder with each passing second and—

“Someone better be dead,” he growled, barely moving his thumb away from the screen after he swiped before lifting it to his ear. 

He hadn’t checked who was calling. 

That was definitely his first mistake.

Well, second. Maybe third, actually. 

He’d gotten hit pretty hard after that turnover in the zone and he should have just started shutting his phone off at night. Like several dozen years earlier. So those probably took precedence. 

And the tongue click on the other end made it blatantly obvious who it was anyway. 

“No one is dead,” Dad said. “That’s kind of the whole point of this call, actually.”

Matt blinked. Once, twice, three times, probably to match up with the number of mistakes and—he would absolutely blame whatever time it actually was for how long it took him to realize what was going on. 

“Oh, shit.”

Dad sighed. And it sounded like Mom laughed. 

It must have been nearly three in the morning. 

“Got there, huh?” Dad asked. “That was a good pass in the third, by the way. Almost made up for the turnover and—“

“—You do not get to critique my turnovers right now. It is the middle of the night and that was just like…your greatest weakness and—“

“—And not really the point,” Mom called, what sounded like the couch creaking in the background and they must have been in the living room. Waiting. Or something that sounded a little more familial and far less menacing. 

“It’s not really the point,” Dad admitted, voice turning a little repentant. “But it was a really good pass, the legend of the wrists continues—“

Mom sounded like she was growling. 

There was a quiet scuffle on the other end of the phone, Claire’s laugh working its way under Matt’s skin when she pressed her head into the curve of his shoulder, reaching a hand up to brush away far-too-long curls because they were in the middle of a playoff run and he desperately needed to go back to sleep, but—

“It’s a boy,” Mom announced, and of all the very sore muscles that made up Matt’s current bodily structure, he hadn’t ever really expected his cheeks to ache quite that much. 

Or so suddenly. 

Smiling like an idiot would do that though. 

“Oh, shit.”

“Mattie, you can’t keep saying that over and over. It’s just—it’s not the world’s best reaction.”

“I know, I know, I just—a boy, for real?”

“You knew that,” Claire mumbled, nosing at his collarbone and he could feel her smile too. His stomach felt like it had thrown into his throat. 

“Yeah, I know I did, I just—“

“—Used up all those well-thought out responses in post, huh?” Mom asked, and maybe they were all just smiling like idiots. That made him feel a little better. 

It had been a really good pass. 

“Something like that,” Matt muttered. He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging lightly as if that would wake him up, but the prospect of Roland and Lizzie’s kid had already done a pretty good job of that and Claire only gasped softly when he pulled her up with him. “Is everything—I mean, everything went ok, right? No one’s—“

“Everyone’s fine, kid,” Dad said, clearly on speaker now and that was probably for the best. “Except maybe Liam who—“

“—According to El, snapped at several different orderlies, demanded hourly updates from the nurse and—“

“—Wait, wait,” Matt interrupted. “Hourly? This was a multiple hours thing? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

Nothing.

Huh. That was annoying. 

“Well,” he prompted, “the resounding echo of your own silence is pretty deafening. Who else was there? Why didn’t Rol call?”

“Presumably because he’s staring at his kid like they’re the greatest thing in the entire world,” Dad said reasonably. 

Matt slumped against the pillows. “I’m going to blame the turnover. For, you know—being a dick.”

“Matthew!’

“Mom, you don’t get to ground me anymore, I just—“

“—Henry was there,” Dad finished. “He’d been planning on coming back here, but something about fate or whatever and he got delayed in Atlanta, so he rerouted to Philly and from what Gina said, he was the only rational one and Rol kept walking in and out of the room. Rumor has it there was quite a lot of pinching the bridge of his nose.”

“He does that when he gets nervous.”

“I can’t imagine why he’d feel that way in this scenario.”

���But everything’s ok, right? I mean—with Lizzie and Rol, the nose thing aside and—“

“That’s very normal,” Mom mumbled, another telltale tongue click from Dad and Claire kissed Matt’s shoulder that time. “Some would say even calm compared to other reactions.”

“This is not an answer to my question, just sly jabs at Dad for being a freak and—“

“—I will absolutely ground you, Matthew,” Dad cut in, a distinct lack of any actual frustration. “Also, today is not the season-opener. So, I can’t see how the two situations are even remotely comparable.”

Matt hummed. 

Claire might have mumbled something that sounded a hell of a lot like this family is crazy, which—well, fair. 

“And,” Mom continued, “I wasn’t really being sly about it. I thought that was a pretty obvious commentary on Dad’s nerves.”

“A name, Mom. Does the kid have a name?”

She hissed in a breath. 

And Matt waited. Or, tried. Doing his best to temper his impatience because he was only a little annoyed Henry had been there when he hadn’t and that was absolutely insane. 

Seriously, it was all that turnover’s fault. 

He hoped Roland hadn’t seen that. 

He’d never hear the end of it. 

“Mom. Do I have to guess? I’m not going to be able to guess, I—“

“Noah Miller Locksley,” she finished, and Matt nearly dropped the phone again. 

He swallowed. More than once, tongue darting between suddenly dry lips because he’d started breathing through his mouth at some point, the way his eyes falling shut having nothing to do with how utterly and completely exhausted he was. 

“Oh shit,” Claire whispered. “That’s good.”

Matt made another noise — something he was only vaguely hopeful sounded like an agreement. “Did Aunt Gina cry?”

“She absolutely wept according to several reliable sources,” Dad answered. 

“Were those all just Henry?”

“And El. Who told me this while crying rather hard.”

“God, that’s so stupid.”

“In the realm of exceptionally stupid, yeah.”

“Idiot,” Claire mumbled, and it might have just been a trick of the minimal light in their room, but Matt would have sworn her eyes had gone a bit glossy too. He blinked several times. 

So as not to also be accused of idiocy.

And Matt’s phone buzzed in his hand. 

“There it is,” Mom muttered fondly, Matt’s hand shaking when he glanced down at the screen and a group text that was very active for the middle of the night. 

Roland Locksley, 2:47 a.m. :: image attached ::

Noah Miller Locksley. Ten fingers, ten toes. Seven pounds, eight ounces. Far more hair than expected, which we assume means he’s some kind of super baby. 

Do not send us hockey sticks, I will punch you all in the face. 

Matt scoffed, a quick sniffle and tears on his cheeks that he hadn’t really planned on, but seemed pretty inevitable for the parents of a kid who had absolutely fought over who got to use him on their side of the aisle at their wedding. 

Claire kissed his cheek. 

He didn’t read the rest of the messages — Peggy sending at least ten in a row and Chris’ didn’t look like much more than the same gif of Roland celebrating a playoff goal four seasons before, Leo’s all just several lines of exclamation points — tugging the phone back up to his ear and his own parents were definitely smiling. 

Beaming, probably. 

“I’m going to buy that kid so much team-branded merch,” Matt said. “All blue. Only blue.”

Dad chuckled. “I’m sure Roland will genuinely appreciate that.”

“How many hats do you think one hospital goes through with its baby population every day?”

“This is why you answer the questions and don’t ask them, kid.”

“That’s a serious question.”

“Make sure you ask Lizzie that later.”

“Don’t ask Lizzie that later,” Mom countered, and the couch made another noise. “And it really was a good pass in the third.”

“Ah ha! I thought you said that wasn’t the point of the conversation!”

“I mean—not a huge point, but definitely a sidebar and,” her voice dropped low like there wasn’t another person sitting directly next to her, “Dad nearly destroyed the chair when he jumped out of it. So.”

“So?”

“So,” Mom echoed. “Something paternal.”

“Yuh huh.”

“Go back to sleep, Mattie.”

“Sure thing, Mom.”

She one-hundred percent narrowed her eyes at the air in front of her, several dozen blocks away, but Matt still wasn’t all that worried about getting grounded and the small flutter of feeling in the pit of his stomach didn’t disappear when he woke up the next morning. 

He only checked one of his text messages. 

Dad, 8:15 a.m. The chair would have deserved to get wrecked in celebration of that pass. I’m proud of you, kid.

Matt, 8:17 a.m. Something, something, you’ve got a pretty solid head start on best dad. 

Don’t tell Henry I said that. 

Dad, 8:18 a.m. The something really made the message. I will not tell Henry. 

And it all probably would have been fine — more photos of Noah while he was sleeping and being held and the group text had several thoughts on Roland’s technique when Lizzie sent a video of him rocking their kid back and forth in the middle of the hospital room. But then that same video got several gazillion retweets and likes and Matt had to go to film and skate and he didn’t really forget, but—

“Christ, Jones, is your phone going to explode?”

Matt shook his hair away from his eyes, tossing his practice jersey into the hamper a few feet away and it was a legitimate question. The stupid thing was buzzing and ringing at the same time, wobbling precariously on the top shelf of his locker, like it was getting ready to take flight.

He really needed to start checking who was calling before he answered the phone. Because Henry was already talking. 

On video. 

“Matt, Matt, Matt, listen, I need you to not check the group text and—“

“—Wait, what? Why do you sound like you’re out of breath?”

“Are you in the locker room?”

“I am in the middle of a series. I have skate and I need to go to PT and—“

“—Go in the hallway.”

“What?”

“The hallway,” Henry repeated, sounding as if he were issuing declarations or possibly grounding his own kids and Matt was twenty-nine. He needed to stop thinking about getting grounded so much. “Now.”

Matt widened his eyes, but Henry’s expression didn’t change, clearly tucked in the corner of a hospital with particularly aggressive overhead lighting. 

“Fine, fine,” he grumbled. It only took a few moments, not bothering to grab his sandals when he hadn’t even had time to take his socks off yet, slumping down the wall almost as soon as the sounds from the locker room dimmed behind him. “You look like you’re about to tell me that they’re taking away my assist from last night.”

“That was a ridiculous pass.”

“Ridiculous here, meaning—“

“Good, obviously,” Henry sighed, an obviously exhausted hand running over his face. 

“You sleep at all, old man? Where are your kids?”

“At my apartment? With my wife? What kind of question is that?”

“You’re really stressing me out.”

“Did you look at the group text yet?”

Matt shook his head slowly, some of that pleasant fluttering and general good that had made it easier to skate on such sore muscles disappearing. “I get the feeling I should have, though.”

“No, that’s—Matt, that’s the point. I—ok—“

The footsteps that moved down the hallway in a hospital with particularly aggressive overhead lighting in Philadelphia, weren’t all that loud — presumably because he hadn’t gotten much sleep what with having a baby to take care of, but then Matt also felt kind of bad about referring to Noah solely as a baby less than twenty-four hours after he’d been born and Roland looked torn between hysterics and…mostly hysterics. 

“Are you kidding me, Matthew?” he balked, sliding down next to Henry slowly enough that it took several moments for him to find his way into the phone frame. 

Matt arched an eyebrow. 

Henry sighed. 

“Seriously, why wasn’t this something I knew about?”

“Should you be out here? Shouldn’t you be like—I don’t know, documenting Noah’s every move or making sure Lizzie is—”

“—Lizzie told him to come out here for reasons we’ll get to that are not my fault,” Henry finished. 

Matt’s eyebrows could not get higher. 

And Roland rolled his eyes. “Ok, well, thanks for that vote of father-like confidence—“

“I’m not your father, Locksley, that sentence didn’t even make sense.”

“You want to acknowledge how cute my kid is…or?”

“Obviously,” Matt snapped, a weird counterbalance to the way the ends of his mouth tugged up. “He’s a super cute kid. I’m going to buy you twenty hockey sticks that are all legit, pro size.”

“I’m already kind of annoyed with you, so that’s not helping.”

“What could you possibly have to be annoyed with? Aren’t you just, I don’t know, buoyed by emotion and those father-like feelings?”

“Good use of the word buoyed,” Henry mumbled, Matt’s eyes flickering his direction. He still looked a little nervous. 

“What’s going on? I feel like I’m missing something.”

“Nah uh,” Roland objected, “you’re the one holding out on us, Matthew. It’s—how do you even play here?”

Matt tilted his head. The fluttering was gone completely, replaced by something that felt like entirely unwelcome dread and he nearly yanked several pieces of hair out of his head when he ran his fingers through it. 

Henry grimaced. 

“This is not my fault.”

“So you’ve mentioned.”

“I never told.”

“Yuh huh.”

“But, uh—ok, are you by yourself? Because…just maybe look at the group text and see what this stupid team did.”

Roland had to put his hand over his mouth. Presumably so he wouldn’t disturb the other babies. With his laughter. 

Matt wondered how long they were required to wear hats.

And it only took a few scrolls back for Roland to find it, brandishing his screen towards Henry’s — the whole phone call almost understandable because Chris had posted the video and he didn’t know, no one really knew, it was a stupid, childlike fear that he’d absolute, positively, shaken as a grown man with a very serious girlfriend he was really considering proposing to at some point and—

“Oh, fuck,” Matt gasped, pushing his arm out like that would stop the video from playing or the goddamn Flyers mascot from moving around so much in said video. 

Roland snickered. 

Matt squeezed his eyes shut, whatever filler music the Flyers had used in the video sounding impossibly loud. As if it were heightened by his fear 

Of goddamn Gritty. 

He was decorating a locker — streamers and balloons, every move making his stupid eyes rattle around because the eyes hadn’t changed in years and Matt still hated him with every fiber of his being. As if there were totally normal. 

The video didn’t end. 

It seemed to last forever, Gritty glancing back at the camera every few seconds — presumably just to remind Matt that his eyes defied the laws of gravity — but then the locker was decorated and the sign said Welcome Baby, Locksley and Matt could not remember the last time he took a deep breath. 

Roland had given up on trying to hide his laugh. 

“Why did that happen?” Matt hissed, rolling his shoulders like that would make him look more adult or less terrified of another grown adult in a costume. “You’re not even on this team anymore. You are—“

“—A beloved alum, it seems,” Roland alum. “Oh Captain, my captain and all that.”

“Isn’t he dead in that poem?”

“Honestly?”

Matt glanced at Henry, the color in his cheeks nothing do with embarrassment and more with Gritty. “This has taken a pretty morbid turn, don’t you think?”

“Why is the mascot decorating a locker that isn’t yours, Rol?” Matt demanded. 

“I’m very popular on this team. Still, or whatever. Plus, you know—the kid is exceptionally cute.”

“God, that’s not fair.”

“Say the kid is cute, Matthew.”

“Obviously I think the kid is cute. God, you are so annoying.”

“Tired,” Henry amended. “He’s tired.”

Roland nodded. “That too. And maybe a little delirious on like—I don’t know, joy? Is that lame?”

“Yes,” Matt nodded “But nice too. Dad said Gina cried.”

“Wept. Seriously. Shoulders shaking, sniffles. It was not dignified at all. Made the whole thing.”

“You’re a giant freak, you know that?”

“Lizzie’s going to call you later, she’s got—“

More footsteps. Those ones with a distinct squeak that came from those very specific shoes nurses wore and the woman smiled when she noticed both Henry and Roland. 

On the floor. 

“Mrs. Locksley is awake again,” the nurse said, “and, uh—well, she’d like to know why you didn’t wake her up if you were going to—“ Roland’s eyes widened. And Matt laughed that time. 

“She wants to know why they’re ragging me about the video without her, isn’t she?” he asked. 

The nurse nodded. 

“Maybe I should just ask her to marry me again,” Roland mused. “That’s romantic, right?”

“I mean the kid was a pretty good sign that you were into your own wife, honestly.”

“True, true, c’mon. I bet she’s got scathing opinions.”

She did. For several straight minutes, a gurgling Noah resting across her chest and that didn’t do much to stop Lizzie’s right hand from flying through the air while she talked. 

Matt chewed on his lower lip. 

“What I can’t understand,” Roland mused, slumped in one of the few chairs the hospital room seemed to offer, “is why we didn’t know you were so terrified of the mascot? You play here all the time.”

“Never came up.”

“Matt.”

“What? When would I have told you that? And would that not have ended with you trying to get me to run into the stupid thing every time was at Wells Fargo?”

“Eh, yeah, that’s probably true.”

“It’s one-hundred percent true,” Henry said. 

“And how did you know, exactly?”

“Oh, I’ve known forever. Matt was—I don’t know, little, little. Like a baby and Killian was on the road in Philly and he lost his mind when Gritty came on TV. Just one of those fundamental fears, I guess.”

“Is that a thing?”

“See,” Matt challenged, “we shouldn’t be talking about that stupid monster because then you’re going to mess your kid up after less than a day.”

Lizzie glared at him. “You’re a jerk.”

“I’m only going to buy you Rangers gear.”

“Please, you’re going to take it from the team store.”

“Eh, column A, column B.”

“Still stealing,” Roland muttered, head lolling back. 

“Whatever. Go to sleep. I’ve got to go back to the locker room and acknowledge PT and—“

“—A will yell at you if you blow that off,” Lizzie interrupted, her own eyelashes fluttering and Henry was already moving towards the door. “Just, you know, on principle.”

“I know, that’s why I’m trying to end this conversation with you.”

“Charmer.”

“Mmhm, hey you want to know a secret?”

Lizzie cracked open one eye. Noah was definitely already asleep. And still as cute as ever. “Did you cry?”

“How’d you know that?”

“Please,” she scoffed. “I know everything about you.”

“You did not know about Gritty.”

“I knew there was a reason you hated being on the ice for too long during warmups here. And it wasn’t that hard to put two and two together. Who do you think told Henry the message was in the group chat?”

“You were reading the group chat?”

“It was a genuinely insane pass last night. You guys going to win tomorrow?”

“An attempt will certainly be made.”

Lizzie laughed, soft and obviously exhausted, a heaviness to her that hadn’t been there before, but wasn’t altogether bad. Almost like she was more…something. Good. Protective. Maybe even understanding. 

“I will probably fall asleep during the game,” she warned. 

“Ah, well, you did just have a kid, so…”

“Exactly.”

A voice called for him from the other end of the hall, one side of Lizzie’s mouth ticking up when she slumped further into the hospital bed. “Score the kid a goal, huh?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He did. In the third period. A quick stick and impossibly fast wrists, no mascot in New York to terrorize infants and Matt grinned when Claire found him outside the locker room later that night, a bag with a Rangers onesie clutched in her hand.  

#cs ff #blue line one shots #that cs ff tag is generous honestly #but emma and killian both are in this #still #most of these are like...original characters and adult henry #if you read this i think you're very nice

[spiltscribbles]

11 for pynch please and thank you! 💙

~Notes: TYSM sweets!!! I hope you enjoy this! A reblog is worth a thousand stars

.-

From this List  |  Send Me A Prompt

.-

Ronan wakes up unceremoniously on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon to the sound of muffled footsteps and clacking pans in the kitchen below.

No, not an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, not exactly. Not when Adam’s here, in the barns, with Ronan. It’s the first time in months that he’s been here for longer than a night or two at a time, and Ronan can hardly believe that the fall semester is finally over and he gets to actually stay here with no real time limit that makes everything feel like it’s entirely too fleeting.

Ronan feels his heart swell at the thought of finally having him here till at least mid January. Of them spending their second Christmas together as a couple, of getting to exchange champaign soaked kisses on New Year’s Ee, of just getting to exist in the domesticity of it all. 

He shuffles closer to the warmth of Adam’s conspicuously vacant side of the bed, plunges his head in the pillow that still smells like him— like lemons and sunlight and something distinctly Adam’s own, tries his best not to get lost in the memories of what they’d done only a few hours prior. Ronan lies there for a moment more, waits for Adam to exit the bathroom or come back from studying in the den (where Ronan had left him before taking a lazy midday nap). But the noise from downstairs is really getting at him. He knows full and well if he allows Opal to act like a complete heathen, with  this much noise now, that she’ll just take it and run. 

So with a long suffering sigh, Ronan rises from the warm duvet, slips on a pair of sweats and black tank before marching downstairs, a tongue lashing poised to pounce just as soon as he catches Opal making a muck of things…. The only problem is that once Ronan gets to the kitchen, it’s not Opal’s ratty old skullcap  and impish smile that greets him. 

Ronan is face to face with a child, a little boy to be exact. He’s got a mop of sandy blonde curls that nearly covers his deep set, blue eyes, and a dusting of freckles dotting the tops of his cheeks and nose. The child’s nothing more than skin and bones, at least fifteen pounds underweight. He’s trembling in what must be some sort of fear, the spout of a teapot in one hand and the rest of it in another. 

Though if Ronan’s being honest, he can’t really spare a single fuck over   that— his eyes are laser focussed on the too big, painfully familiar sweatshirt that he’s wearing— wearing is the wrong word, it’s more like he’s being swallowed up by it. It’s crimson colored and has got the word Harvard splayed out in large letters.

Ronan knows that sweater, had watched his boyfriend slink it back on only a bit ago before kissing Ronan and retreating back to look over his books and shit in the den.

Wholly fuck.

Ronan is definitely insane. He knows this. Ronan is insane which is literally the only reason why he’s even about to utter this name, but he needs to just get it out of the way. Speak it, confuse the kid, and then figure out what in actual hell is going on.

Ronan is fucking insane, which is why he’s opening his lips and actually speaking the name out loud.

“Adam.”

The kid shrinks back, eyes winced and shoulders clenched. 

“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it! I, I was just trying to get a glass of water and it slipped.”

It’s like Ronan feels it when his gut shrivels up and his chest plunges down to his stomach. He literally can’t process a thing.

“I’m sorry,” is all the kid says. No not kid… Adam. No, that’s still not right because if this was his Adam he would’ve just tossed it in the trash and probably buy Ronan a knew one— even if Ronan curses at him that he doesn’t need it. This Adam, this kid— he looks terrified— like he’d be punished for it. 

“Adam… Do you know who I am?”

The kids bottom lip starts to tremble, and their’s a distinct sheen  to his big eyes. 

Ronan feels helpless. 

“I’m so sorry, please don’t tell my dad, I didn’t mean it.”

Ronan doesn’t give himself the time to curse a thousand more deaths— painful and twisted— towards Robert Parrish, instead he just shakes off the steaming hot fury, and kneels down in front of the kid— of Adam.

Jesus fucking Christ what is his life.

“Hey, it’s fine, you’re okay.”

Ronan reaches out to cup his shoulder reassuringly, but Adam just shutters back, terrified. 

Okay fine, Ronan spares himself one curse.

“Where, where am I? Who are you?”

Ronan reminds himself that if this is truly a kid Adam that it’s far before they ever met. Of course he doesn’t know who the fuck Ronan is. It’s not Ronan’s fault, and Adam— his Adam— Will be back soon. His Adam had loved him, that just doesn’t go away. This is only temporary. 

God please let this only be temporary, Ronan can’t imagine it not. Can’t imagine finally having him and then forced to let go, to lose him in a new, cruel way. More inventive than the death of his parents, because this would mean that Ronan doesn’t have the right to mourn him, only what they had. He would have to watch Adam grow up and become a man and Ronan would be absolutely nothing to him.

A voice whispers in Ronan’s ear that he’s being a fucking selfish prick, that maybe this is a blessing, a second chance for Adam. A chance where he doesn’t have to grow up with fucking Robert and Claudia Parrish. That he could be safe and tended to and appreciated like he deserved by some new parents. He never has to know what it feels like to be taken over by some dream forest or discover one of your best friends is dead and another is destined to die a second time before actually coming to life. A chance that he could meet someone better than Ronan, someone on his level.

God damn it.

Ronan crinkles his fingers to a fist and keeps it to his side, looks straight into the kids eyes.

“I’m Ronan, I’m a friend.”

The kid frowns now, brows pinched and chin jut out. 

God, he is Adam isn’t he.

“A friend? The Parrishs don’t have any friends.”

“Sure you do, not your parents, but you do Adam. You’ve got friends.”

The kid’s eyes scan Ronan’s face, studying him for a tell. Ronan has no idea why he feels so unnerved.

“Did Mis Maguire tell then? Did they take me away from my parents like my ma said they would?”

Ronan doesn’t lie, so he just averts his gaze, gnaws on his bottom lip.

“Are they okay?”

“They’re fine kid.”

He purses his lips, spindly arms crossed against his chest.

“I’m scared. I don’t know you.”

“I know,” Ronan tries not sounding so utterly helpless. “But I’m going to take care of you, okay?”

“Okay…”

.-

“He smells like Adam,” Opal announces, blunt.

“I am Adam?” The kid replies from where he’s curled into a tiny little ball on the couch, eyeing Opal like she’s a completely new species— thank god she’s still got on her boots, Ronan can’t imagine the kid’s reaction to seeing a set of hooves on her.

By the time Ronan got him to change into some of Matthew’s old clothes, and had called Blue— demanding her to come over and bring whatever fucking voodoo books she and the witches of Fox Way study, Opal had come in from a day of exploring around the barns— mud splattered and preening, curious as all get out once she spotted him. 

“You’re too small,” she tells him, making Adam’s face go a furious red. 

“You’re barely taller than me!”

“Adam’s nearly as tall as Kerah,” Opal sniffs, head tilted imperiously.

“Who is Kerah!” 

Before Ronan is forced to get between that brawl, the doorbell mercifully rings.

“Ronan, I’ve missed you,” Gansey— as glimmering as always— greets while walking in, a stack of pizzas in one hand and the other used to give Ronan a one armed hug.

“We were having a movie night,” Blue informs him. “Considering it’s Adam’s first day back we thought you two were gonna spend at least a week catching up on lost time… Though that is unless your stamina isn’t up to par?”

Ronan bares his teeth at her and Blue just cackles ebulliently. 

“Speaking of which, where is our darling Henrietta prince?” Henry asks, setting down the soda on the coffee table and looking around the room confusedly. “Thought at the very least you two would be attached at the hips.”

“When I show you pricks, you can’t make a fucking deal out of it in front of him, got it.”

“Oo,” Henry beams. “Mysterious~”

“What did you do,” Gansey asks worriedly. 

“Fucking nothing— or something. I don’t know, just don’t make him frazzled.”

They chorus their agreement, and Ronan takes a deep breath before leading them into the other room, met by Adam and Opal arguing over something about Adam being too skinny— both pint-sized and loud as all hell. 

“Lynch what the actual fuck—“ Blue marvels, causing both Adam and Opal to swivel their gazes around to the foursome.

Adam’s face goes flushed at the sight of Blue, and Ronan kind of hates everything. 

“I brought more friends.”

Adam stays quiet, just nods at Ronan and focusses on how he can knot his fingers together. 

Gansey’s the first one to step up, crouching in front of him. Ronan would like to say it’s all because of his intellectual curiosity, but knows full and well that the slightly broken look to his features is the same sort that Ronan’s been sporting for the past hour.

“Adam?” he asks, adjusting his wireframe glasses with a nervous sort of tension. 

The kid nods.

“Seriously Lynch the fuck did you do?” Henry skewers him with a look, but Ronan can’t help but feel like he deserves it.

“Nothing! I’m telling you! One moment he’s leaving our bed to go study and the next, boom. I wake up and he’s, he’s—“

“I’m sorry, is the first thing Adam says in front of everyone, voice small and self deprecating. “If I’m being too much trouble, I can go home now. It’s okay.”

“Hey!” Ronan very nearly barks. “Don’t be ridiculous kid, I told you I’m gonna take care of you, right?”

Adam doesn’t answer, but Blue swats at his arm, glaring. “Chill, won’t you.”

“Figure this out!” Ronan counters, desperate. “Won’t you.”

aggrieved, Blue just rolls her eyes heavenwards   before taking a seat besides Adam.

“Hey hon,” she starts nice and slow. “You’re not any trouble at all. But can we just ask you a couple questions?”

Adam gives her a one armed shrug. “Sure thing.”

“God he’s so adorable,” Henry gushes. Ronan feels totally justified when he elbow checks him in the stomach, hard.

“Okay,” Blue smiles kindly. “So what’s the last thing you remember?” 

Adam starts shaking again, hands clenched tight.

“M—My dad, he was mad.” One of his hands inch towards his forearm, and Ronan hates the thought that there’s a mark there— a bruise. “B—But I don’t remember much of it, when he’s like that it’s helpful to think of other stuff, like school and the cookies Ms Edna down the street makes sometimes… It helps me not feel anything totally.”

Ronan feels fucking sick.

He wants to drive into Henrietta proper and beat that bastard to a pulp all over again. He wants to not stop either.

“Is that the last thing you remember?” Blue asks, voice equal parts sad and quiet. 

“I think I fell asleep, and then someone must’ve brung me here,” Adam says. “Was I s’pose to come?”

“Yes, positively Adam. You’re meant to be here,” Gansey tells him immediately.

Ronan wants to ensure Adam that he won’t ever have to go back to that place, but if this really is just a temporary blimp in the cosmos, that would be a lie. And Ronan could never lie to any version of Adam.

He thinks that Gansey and Blue feel much of the same way if the fraught look in their eyes is anything to go by.

“Gansey, Henry, why don’t you take Adam out to the back. Show him the cows and chickens and sheep.” Blue suggests in an obvious ploy to get to talk to Ronan alone. 

“I’ll show them the way,” Opal says, chest puffed out and marching ahead like a general leading her troops.

Ronan doesn’t miss the way Adam rolls his eyes at her.

“So what! The fuck is going on!” Ronan asks once they’re gone.

“I’m not sure,” Blue tells him, biting down on her lip and reaching for the large, dusty looking book she had brought. “He was fine after we separated when we got back from that eclectic shop in DC, right?”

“He was perfect.” Ronan sits besides her, tries to feel like his world isn’t tilting off orbit and speaks out loud the fear that’s been squirming in the back of his mind. “What if this is part of that circular time shit you witches are always talking about? Like Cabeswater and all that?”

Blue shakes her head, doubtless, and Ronan’s suddenly, acutely thankful that she’s here with him, figuring it out. Blue’s always a grounding presence, she cuts out all the crap and figures out the black and white of the situation, they’ve always been alike with that practice. “He’s still deaf in the left ear, I could tell by how much he was toying with it. And he’s still got that cut on his upper lip from—“ She doesn’t have to finish the sentence, they’re still all too raw from it, unable to think of those hellish hours even now. “So, ah, yeah. He hasn’t like switched places with his younger self, it’s more like he’s been transformed back to that state. Did he ever tell you how old he was?”

“Seven and a half,” Ronan answers mechanical. 

“Jesus, a small ass seven year old.”

Ronan doesn’t respond, and Blue swallows down the thickness in her throat.

“Okay, so he’s most likely only got the memories up to that age also.”

“Then what!” Ronan almost screams.

“I don’t know!” Blue actually does shout, and he can finally take in the wetness to her eyes and how she’s shaking so much that one of the sleeves of her sweater has slipped off to expose one brown shoulder. She’s just as scared and confused  as him, all of them are.

Ronan bows his head, a silent apology, and Blue nods her own, excepting it.

“You sure nothing weird happened?” Blue asks, and Ronan rattles his brain for any innocuous thing that might’ve caused this.

“No, no, we got home, fooled around a bit and then….”

“Okay, before that then.” Blue presses. “Nothing strange when we were in DC?”

“No,” Ronan repeats emphatically. “We stayed away from all that weird mojo killing shit like you said.”

“Are you sure!” Blue asks again, shrewd.

“Yes! We were just looking at the normal, drugstore shit they kept in the back.”

“What normal shit?” Blue wrinkles her nose at him, scathing. 

“I dunno,” Ronan toots. “Those cheep ass plastic stars you can stick on your ceiling, the ones that glow up. I told him how Niall had dreamt me and my brother up some that were literal consolations.”

“And what did Adam say to that?” Blue asks critically.

“I don’t fucking remember what he exactly said!” Ronan harrumphs, helpless.

“Ronan, please for the love of God, if you ever want our Adam back, stop being such an ass and figure it out!” Blue scolds, looking like she might literally fume— as if she were a Disney cartoon or some shit.

Suitably scolded, Ronan sifts through his memories of the morning. Of Adam’s radiant smile, and husky laugh, and the way the sunlight turned his pale brown hair tawny in the light of day. Ronan remembers feeling so inn love with him, and so utterly sad when Adam had just shrugged, blasé, when saying that Robert’s never done anything like that for him. That he’s never had any real childhood.

Ronan and Blue figure it out at the same exact moment.

“Oh fuck.” They chorus.

“Do you think that was enough?” 

“Probably!” Blue scrambles up, calls for Gansey to give her a ride back to Fox Way. “I told you guys that it wasn’t a place to screw around in!”

“How was I suppose to know!” Ronan shouts back.

Gansey races in, wearing one of Opal’s pink bows in his hair and eyes frantic.

“I’m gonna ask my mom and Calla if they have the shop owners number, maybe they’ll know what to do.”

“Um, yes, spot on. But darling what did you two figure out.”

“No time,” Ronan and Blue say in unison, both of them practically shoving him out the door.

“I’ll call if we figure anything out.

“Fucking hurry,” Ronan shouts after her.

.-

It’s been at least a quarter of an hour since Blue and Gansey had raced out, probably half way to Henrietta with how Gansey drives, and Ronan feels like their’s an itching squirming beneath his skin. He can’t sit down or do anything but compulsively check his phone, heart lodged in his throat and the memory of Adam’s— his Adam’s— thin lipped half grin directed at Ronan. Soft and splendid and glittering. 

Ronan has no idea how to keep that memory forever in his mind’s eye if it turns out he’ll never get to see that warmth directed at him again. Knows in his heart that he’ll never want to feel that same sort of devotion for anyone else, that he can’t ever feel anything akin to what he felt for Adam.

Speaking of which….

Ronan hear’s the backdoor open with a clack, and gets up to find the kid— sweaty and smiling in a way he knows in his heart he’s never smiled while in the trailer park.

“Hey kid.”

“Hi,” he blinks up at him, suddenly a bit reticent. “Opal and Henry are still in her tree house having a tea party, but I got thirsty for something real.”

Ronan quirks up his lip humorously. 

“The fridge’s water is filtered, let me get you a glass pipsqueak.”

Adam’s face glows ten fold just as Ronan hands it to him with a pack of cookies, (oatmeal and raisin the weirdos favorite.)

“Thank you Mr.”

Ronan can feel the blood drain out his face with how weird that is to hear.

“Ronan, just call me Ronan.”

Adam just shrugs with a nod, inhaling a third cookie, ravenous. Ronan offers to make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich too, reckons that he can at least start to get some meat on his frame. 

Adam nods giddily, probably accustomed not to be passing up food when it’s offered.

“So is this place all yours?” Adam asks, owlish. 

“My family’s, yeah,” Ronan tells him, pretends not to see the wistful look in his eyes. This place must be a fortress to him, who’s only ever known the doublewide. 

“It’s really great.”

“Thanks,” Ronan snorts, caps the jelly before tossing it back in the fridge and cuts up a banana next to the sandwich. 

“Where’s your family then?”

Yeah, Ronan supposes he should’ve seen that one coming.

“Ah, my parents aren’t around anymore,” he swallows down the thickness in his throat, concentrates on pouring a glass of milk.

“I’m sorry,” Adam says, nibbling on a fourth cookie.

“Don’t ruin your appetite kid,” Ronan reproves with no heat, sets the meal in front of him.

“So it’s just you in this huge castle?” Adam asks, feet kicking up and down in the air.

“Yeah, pretty much. My brothers are in the city, so it’s just me and Opal and…. Ah, my boyfriend.” Ronan isn’t sure why he says that, but is glad he did.

Adam is regarding him curiously now, big eyes peering up at Ronan while he takes a swig of the milk, and fingers tapping an unbalanced staccato on the counter top.

“Cool,” Adam says and Ronan feels a ridiculous amount of relief by. “I’m gonna live in a castle someday too.”

“Oh yeah?” Ronan smiles at him, elastic and charmed.

“Mmhmm, my dad’s gonna be so proud. Ma too.”

Ronan frowns now, heart sinking. 

“You don’t have to make them proud Adam, you’re great.”

Adam reddens, and Ronan slowly realizes that he’s probably never heard that from anyone before. So he repeats it. 

“You’re great kid.”

“Thanks,” Adam mumbles before stuffing another banana slice in his mouth, effectively cutting the conversation short. Already a pro at diversion. 

Ronan feels his phone buzz, sees a message from Blue.

Maggot: We figured it out

Maggot: Headed ur way rn with a cure

Ronan thanks God, Jesus, and the Wholly Ghost above.

.-

Adam races towards blue once she and Gansey walk in, and she kisses the top of his forehead, a ginger hand carding through his hair.

Ronan is not petty.

She sends him to get the final ingredients of the freaky spell, drink concoction that Calla had brewed, (a piece of his Adam’s clothing for the kid to wear while he’s asleep, and fucking Olive Oil of all things). And when Ronan gets back, Blue is preening and the kid isn’t looking straight at Ronan. 

They give him the drink to swallow and tell him to change before he’s off to sleep. 

Adam rubs his eyes with a yawn. 

“I don’t wanna go back to the doublewide,” he tells Ronan while they all tuck him into bed. 

“You won’t go back,” Ronan says with conviction, ruffled his  disheveled locks before picking him up and placing him in the center of Declan’s old bed— it felt to skeevy to put him in the one they ordinarily share as partners. 

It’s Henry who blankets him in and Gansey reads him an old fairytale from Aurora’s favorite storybook till he’s fast asleep. 

“He looks like such an angel,” Henry croons. 

“I know,” Blue beams.

“Get the fuck out before you wake him up too early!” Ronan gripes.

They all decide to just stay the night at the Barns, to ensure everything’s alright with Adam in the morning. 

“You know Lynch,” Blue preens like the cat that’s gotten into the cream. “You put a number on that kid.”

“Shut up,” Ronan huffs, passes over her cup of tea before pouring his own.

“It was so cute!” Blue insists. “When you were upstairs getting that old T-shirt, you should’ve heard him talk about you. Even admitted to me he had a little crush, asked if your boyfriend was just as pretty as you.”

Ronan’s heart does a stupid, hiccup, and he feels his skin burn red. Fuck his pale Irish ass.

“What did you tell’m?”

“I mean the truth, that your boyfriend is leagues ahead of you, but hey the kid wasn’t convinced.”

Ronan tosses her the bird, tries to tempt down the ridiculously gleeful grin that threatens to tear his face in half.

He must look like such a lune.

.-

Ronan wakes up the next day with the sensation of someone stepping on his diaphragm.

“Oh shit,” Adam— still sleep drunk and groggy, says apologetically. His tuffs of hair spread out every which way and delicious mouth set in a pout.

But it’s him.

It’s his Adam, beautiful and whole and there.

Ronan leaps off from where he was lying outside Declan’s door and crashes into him, squeezing Adam as close as physically possible— them pressed chest to chest and Ronan plunging his nose into the hallow of Adam’s long neck, taking him in completely.

“Ronan?” Adam asks deliriously.

“God fucking damn it Parrish, don’t ever leave again.”

“Where did I go?” Adam asks, confused, is surprised when Opal, from out of no where, pops up and takes him by the hand adoringly.

“You smell like Adam,” she grins.

“Erm, I am Adam?” 

#PYNCH #Adam Parrish #Ronan Lynch #The Raven Cycle #Spilled Ink #churlaloo #SPILT INK

[scotianostra]

On July 29th 1567 King James VI was crowned at Stirling.

Picking up from last wednesday's post when Mary was forced to abdicate, the powers that be wasted no time in getting the formalities over and crowning the 13 month old son of Lord Darnley. ��The last time James saw his mother, Mary was in 1567, when he was barely a year old.

Because of his young age a regent was appointed to act as head of state.  In fact, during his minority a succession of regents were chosen to rule in his stead.  

The first regent was Mary’s half brother, James Stuart, Earl of Moray,  Upon the Earl’s death in  1570, Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox, who was James grandfather, became the second regent.  His regency didn’t last very long, as he died in 1571.  The third regent was James’s guardian, John Erskine, the first Earl of Mar whose regency also didn’t last long, he died in 1572.  The fourth and last of the regents was the very powerful James Douglas, Earl of Morton.

In spite of his mother’s Catholic faith, James was brought up in the Protestant religion. He was educated by men who had empathy for the Presbyterian church. His marriage to Anne of Denmark (a protestant country) no doubt pleased his Protestant subjects.

James VI is said to have had a terrible childhood, much like his forebears, including his great-grandfather. He had been used and abused by his tutors who were just looking to someone to manipulate and to mold into their little puppet. He was then told that his mother was the most horrible person in the world to the point that he did not know what the truth was anymore. When he was a teenager he became very independent and learned to hide his feelings very well but he also started working for his mother’s release, although some historians dispute this.

He was vocal in his opposition for his mother's trial and subsequent execution and I even read that James was "Desperate for his mother's life". He even destroyed the casket letters in 1584, which although may confirm that they may have had actual proof against Mary, was definitely a move so that his mother can rest in peace after her death and that her memory and legacy will stop being trashed and disgraced because of the letters.

Who knows what really went through his mind. Did he really care about her? Or was he was just looking to release her because he was worried that her execution and her bad reputation would also affect him and his chances to get the throne? There is some reason to believe this last one because Fontenay, the French Ambassador, noted that whenever James talked about his mother, he never “inquired anything of the queen or of her health, or her treatment, her servants, her living, and eating, her recreation, or anything similar.” And how could he when he never knew her and the people who raised him kept telling him ugly stuff about her? To those that were closest to the young King, his mother was the devil incarnate. 

Whichever was, Elizabeth I was never going to release Mary Queen of Scots anytime soon and she must have made this very clear because the following year in 1585, when James was 19, he agreed with her decision to keep his mother in prison and even called Elizabeth “Madame Mother”. Imagine how this  made Mary feel,her only son, the only hope she had to get free, calling her jailer ‘mother’. It was at this point that she started looking for other means to be released. Ultimately we know they all failed.

I didn't really want this to turn into another post about Mary, but she is so involved in the history of it all she will inevitably turn up time and time again. Anyway more on Young james.......

King James was tutored by George Buchanan and Peter Young.  He was a dedicated student and by the age of 8 he was fluent in French, Latin, Greek, and English. This stern upbringing would inspire him to appreciate the arts and sciences and encourage the learning of them all throughout his reign, the King once remarked, that he could speak Latin before he could speak his native Scots. Because of his linguistic capabilities, King James typically did not need a translator when conducting business with other heads of state. King James grew into a powerful king with a powerful pen--he had peace at home and abroad, something few of his ancestors could dream of. His motto was His motto was "Beati Pacifici,"--Blessed are the peacemakers, not to mixed up with -Blessed are the cheesemakers, which of course came from The Life of Brian! ;)

King James' great aspiration to be the first King of both Scotland and England was realized in 1603 upon the death of Queen Elizabeth. When he ascended to the English throne that year he had already been king of Scotland for 36 years. He was now known as King James VI of Scotland & I of England. This came with its own dangers, and of course one of the most famous plots in history, still remembered every November in is known as Guy Fawkes Night.

As a Scotsman ruling over the English, the King endured much racism and slander--especially from the once powerful English Lords and Ladies who he replaced with his Scottish countrymen. Unfortunately, many of today's historians look to the writings of hostile sources such as Sir Anthony Weldon and Francis Osborne as accurate descriptions of the king, nowadays we would say, Haters gonna hate! 

The king wrote of his enemies: "They quarrel me (not for any evil or vice in me) but because I was a king, which they thought the highest evil, and because they were ashamed to profess this quarrel they were busy to look narrowly in all my actions, and I warrant you a moat in my eye, yes a false report was matter enough for them to work upon."

The thing with King James is he believed in the doctrine of the divine right of kings and the monarch's duty to reign according to God's law and the public good. This would be handed down to his son Charles I and then to Charles II leading to the loss of many lives during their reigns in The English Civil War,The Bishops Wars and of course The Killing Time.

As a lover of the theatre, King James became patron to the troop of one of his most famous subjects--William Shakespeare, the playwright. Shakespeare's troop came to be known as the King's Men. Shakespeare and the King held a special relationship as they both loved literature. It is said Shakespeare wrote his famous play, "Macbeth" specifically for King James.  The "Scottish Play" as it is known in theatrical circles may well be one of Shakespeare's most famous plays, but when you look at the real history of Macbeth, the play was basically The Braveheart of it's day!

Afew other facts surrounding James and his legacy, the US  Jamestowne is home to the ruins of the first permanent English speaking settlement in the country, and named in his honour. 

To this day the translation of the bible he ordered is known as the Authorized King James Bible. He appointed 54 men to the committee who were not only the best linguists and scholars in the kingdom, but in the world. Much of their work on the King James Bible formed the basis for our linguistic studies of today.

King James had a life filled with accomplishments but  he was a man acquainted with grief. He was a sickly man who had physical handicaps in his legs and allegedly a tongue that was too large for his mouth! As a result of his unsteady gait, the king had numerous falls, accidents and injuries. He suffered from crippling arthritis, abdominal colic, gout, inability to sleep, weak/spasmic limbs, nausea, frequent diarrhea, and kidney pain. Some believe that he may have had congenital diseases of the nervous system. Sometimes the pain was so great that the king became delirious.

To add to his ill-health, the James it is thought  suffered from depression from the death by his eldest son, Prince Henry in 1612 and his Queen in 1619. James VI was no stranger to pain and sorrow.

I didn't set out to put a long post like this together sometimes they just happen, King James VI & I died on March 27th , 1625 at Theobalds Park in Herts, England. He was 58 years old when he died and had been King of Scotland for most of those years, as well monarch of England for 22, he was buried at Westminster Abbey. 

Unlike many Scottish monarchs, King James died in his bed at peace with his subjects and foreign countries. He also passed royal power on, intact, to an adult son which was also quite unusual.

#Scotland #scottisih #The Stewarts #cooking #monarchy #History

[dominushq]

Hello everyone! Below the cut will be a sample application to act as a sort-of guide for all of you. Please take note that this is only a guide and that we, in no way, shape, or form, expect everyone’s application to look like this. This is only provided as an example! 

Congratulations, HENRY! You have been accepted for the role of MARCUS with the character JOHN MARCUS ELLIS. Please head over to the checklist page for any final reminders and send in your blog within twenty-four hours. Congratulations on your acceptance and we can’t wait to have you with us!

OOC.

Name/Alias: henry Pronouns: they/them or he/him Age: nineteen Timezone: gmt+1 Activity Level: i’m one of the two admins of the roleplay, so i’ll probably be around a lot! the exchange program will probably be an issue, though i promise to still try and pull my own weight. weekends will probably see me more active more often than not. for a numerical rating, i’d say 7/10. Triggers: removed for privacy. Anything else? removed for privacy.

IC.

Name: John Marcus Ellis

— JOHN: The name of an Evangelist, the Beloved Disciple, the only one who stood with Mary the Theotokos at the foot of the cross as Christ hung crucified—your father named you John in great anticipation of the works of faith he hoped you’ll come to exemplify and you’ve somewhat followed much of the example your namesake set. Even now, the words of the Gospel of John is still seared onto your brain, a piece that you memorised once when you were bored that your mind never quite let go of. 

— MARCUS: How convenient that your name in Sodalitas has already been, in some respects, your name. The Stoic Roman Emperor had never held your regard but you can somewhat see the respect people had or him. When the society gave you that name, you began using it in your daily life as well, seeing no point in keeping John when all the people you knew called you Ellis or Marcus already. Sometimes, when you’re with your parents at Lambeth, the sound of your own first name feels like a stranger’s now.

— ELLIS: Your last name has never really been that notable until your father became the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was noble, to be sure, but it was a minor noble family, one that accorded no mention in history books. In fact, it had been your mother’s family that was the more notable when you were younger, the Grosvenor family one of the few who share the privilege of being close to the Queen and her family. With the passage of time, the star of your father’s rise began to shine brighter and it is his name that draws attention now. When you introduce yourself, it only takes a second for them to realise that you’re that child of the Archbishop, and you realise that there’s a possibility that you will remain forever in the shadow of your father. 

Age: Nineteen Faceclaim: Niels Trispel Gender ID: Nonbinary Pronouns: They/them Field of Study: Theology and Religion College: St. John’s College

Biography.

trigger warnings: stillbirth

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ( John 1:1)

These words spill out of your lips, over and over again, as if you’re a broken record. Your father asks you to continue and you try to recite the next verse from memory alone, the Bible in front of you only ever to be consulted if strictly necessary. This could almost be a vigil, except you’re far too young to know what the words really mean, and so it ends up meaning nothing, the words just remaining words instead of whatever phenomenon your father had hoped to conjure up. It’s not that you’re stupid—you could, if you concentrate hard enough, conceptualise of a word given Being (and, even now, you know it’s with a capital B)—but the concept of divinity itself is foreign to you, even as your father exemplifies it with his very being and your mother takes great care to ensure that you’re brought up in the faith.

You know he’s an important man and that you are, in some ways, blessed for having such a man for a father but his title means nothing to you—at least not for now. It will in the future, but the future’s a long way away still. For now, you are a child.

( But were you ever really a child? )

This is an account of the heavens and the earth. ( Genesis 2:4 )

This is how your life starts: you are born to The Right Reverend Thomas Weatherby Ellis and a schoolteacher named Lady Margaret Anne Grosvenor. You are their only child, after complications from a birth after yours resulted into a stillbirth and the inviability of your mother’s womb to ever bear fruit again. The years of your childhood pass by without consequence, and you are hard-pressed to remember the details that surround your early life. If you concentrate hard enough, you can think of the feel of leather under your cheek as you dozed off while studying, the way you thought that gilding at the edges of the Bible would rub off on your fingertip and the disappointment when it didn’t, and the way expectation always seemed right around the corner, a familiar and dark thing that has been your nurturer more than either of your parents.

Beyond these, however, there is nothing much else—not for the reasons of tragedy or great harm, but because you’ve always been mature for your age: an adult in a kid’s body was what they called you, and you’ve realised through the passage of the years that you were never really a child in the conventional way other children were. In a way, you’re more mature than any of your other peers. (In another, this repression has made you capable of a childishness that shocks even you, resulting in a fearful wanting that only children are capable of—a wanting that you deny exists but continues to do so nonetheless.) 

You do not remember much of your childhood because it blends from this day and the next and so on, an almost stunning replica of your life right now that it feels as if you have stood unchanging since the dawn of time. However hard you try, you can’t ever remember a time when you haven’t always been like this, as if the void has always been inside of you, swallowing any vestiges of real emotion, sapping you of the vitality that you keenly feel is so present in other people but not you, never you.

( Have you always been wanting? )

Pray, then, like this: our Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. ( Matthew 6:9 )

There is a great bustling in your life one day, a great rupture in the routine schedule of your day-to-day living. People tell you your father is a great man—no, a good man, a holy man—and they say this as if it should mean something to you. They hail your family as a paragon of virtue and they think that the knowledge you have is proof of your father’s upstanding virtue. His titles change and you move into a new place called Lambeth, a veritable palace in comparison to your former residence, which you are quick to forget. (Some days you forget even its name, until it hits you suddenly: Bishopthorpe.)  It’s a stretch to say you’ve flourished in your new residence, but the library at Lambeth does become your home, for whatever it’s worth, and your mother often found you passed out in between stacks of books.

You stay for only a couple of years or so at most before you get shipped out to boarding school. It’s a tradition, after all, and that is what your family has stood for ever since time immemorial. The decision is not without its detractors—for how, some say, can a man who profess to follow the example of Jesus Christ justify the use of so much money?—but then you test as a Queen’s Scholar and the news of the extravagance of your tuition fees is swept away by news of your precociousness. They begin whispering that you will be like your father some day, a scholar in the service of Christ, knowledge pursued and discovered for the greater glory of God.

You don’t know what to think about that.

( And so it goes, and so it goes, and so it goes— )

Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, practices divination or conjury, interprets omens, practices sorcery, casts spells, consults a medium or familiar spirit, or inquires of the dead. ( Deuteronomy 18:10-11)

Your father tells you the history of your family one night when you are home after Michaelmas term.

It is a long and proud history, he says, one in which he and your mother took part in, and which you will take part in one day soon. Oxford’s secrets will be laid bare before you, as well as the secrets of the universe and the meaning of life, but—perhaps most importantly—you will come to know the most important people who will undoubtedly make changes in the history of your nation, if not the world. The preparations have already been made, he tells you. A boy should have come up in Eton to befriend you and tell you all about it, but he’s just making sure.

The last statement confuses you. You have no friends. It’s the first fact anyone at your school knows about you. You’re the student that always keeps to themself with their books, distinguished academically but not much else. Your father frowns when you tell him this and tells you a name, while in the same breath asking if nobody has truly come to you before he said all this.

You recognise the name as a boy who you’ve ignored all throughout the year. You realise that your father probably won’t like it if you tell him you’ve ignored who was supposed to be your... mentor, you supposed (for lack of better term), so you tell him nothing and just shrug, saying you’ll follow it up when you get back for HT.

You never do. In fact, you don’t acknowledge the boy as someone who exists at all, and he does the same to you. You take your A-Levels and get into Oxford to read Theology and Religion and you expect nothing to come out of the heritage you inherited from both of your parents—but then comes the invitation and the initiation. You don’t refuse but neither do you really accept it: you just went along with everything, an almost fatalistic and nihilistic apathy tinging your actions. They give you the name Marcus not knowing that it already is your middle name, purely because of your reputation as an academic, never mind the fact that you don’t really follow the philosophical code championed by Marcus Aurelius. You say nothing about it: you don’t think they’re the sort of crowd to care much for historical accuracy, anyway.

Your membership is one that is at the sidelines. You are an audience member to the theatricality of the whole thing, knowing as you do that every words is blasphemy and realising that your father and mother (holy folk, people called them) have committed idolatry several times over—and that now you will follow in their footsteps: singing hymns to a pantheon that’s now defunct, toasting to spirits that aren’t even there, and committing cruelties that would make the hunting sessions some of your father’s friends go to look tame.

You take part in it, but you don’t believe in it. You believe in nothing, really, and perhaps that’s been your most fatal flaw. You’ve been oversaturated with holiness, with sacredness, with belief—so much that you must have gotten sick of it over time without your knowing, and now you’re condemned to a life half-lived as punishment for a sin you didn’t even know you committed.

It has always been like this, and it always will be like this. 

( So it has been, and so it shall be, forever and ever. )

Interview.

What is your name and what was your relationship like with the deceased? 

the silence that greeted the first question is almost deafening in its suddenness, but marcus has grown used to long silences from long reading sessions in the library with nothing but books to keep them company. they regarded the officer in front of them and blinked slowly, owlishly, almost boorishly. “my name’s john marcus ellis,” they say finally, “but people either call me marcus or ellis.” there was a short pause, as if they were waiting for an acknowledgement of their statement from the officer, but there was no answer forthcoming and they were left to continue their thread of conversation. in the silence that filled the empy space, marcus became all too aware of the soft ticking of their wristwatch—a quick look at the device and they realised that they were going to be late in handing in their old testament paper. “i suppose people will call hardwicke and i friends,” they said at long last, their tone a smidge distracted by their realisation, “but we’re not that close really.” although perhaps some would also say shared membership in a secret society was close enough. then again, marcus didn’t really care what other people thought. “i knew him since we were kids, and he was an associate of mine in eton as well as in oxford, but there’s nothing else to tell you beyond that.”

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself before we start?

they knew, almost detachedly, that they could say a lot of things as an answer to this question, but their mind came up blank. usually, marcus introduced themself simply with their name and, if some odd people still needed clarification, announced their link to their father. it would almost be a proud claiming of a heritage, but the words just fell flat with their deliverance, and it sounded more like a shameful thing rather than a point of pride to be the child of the archbishop of canterbury.

somehow, they realised that such a performance would not be welcome now, and so they struggled to fill the silence. “there’s nothing much to tell,” they say. “i’m just a student at oxford. i don’t really know how i can help you in this investigation of yours, honestly.”

Do you possess a reason we should know about for having murdered the deceased?

"of course not,” they said quickly, and it was true. edward hardwicke never posed a threat to them and whatever political machination that caligula and agrippina tried to wrought upon their group didn’t really interest marcus. they were apathetic in most things, the politics of their secret society simply being but one of the many things that just existed for them but nothing more than that. “hardwicke and i were at the very least amicable.” and this, too, was true, for edward did treat them civilly enough, a behaviour which they mirrored right back until the fateful night that they didn’t.

then again, that was what the authorities would kill to know, wouldn’t they? logically speaking, a profile of a killer must have already been written up by them somehow, and they could just imagine the profile they have right now: esoteric, highly intelligent, familiar with religious symbols, and possessing a connection to edward hardwicke—traits which marcus knew they fulfilled to the letter. 

how amusing to know that the law could be so wrong yet so right at the same time. “i don’t know what to tell you,” they said. “i’ve said all that i can say: i have no reason to kill hardwicke, and that’s it.” this, too, was true; but having no reason didn’t stop them from plunging that knife into his chest anyway.

Did the victim have any enemies? Was anybody threatening the victim?

marcus shrugged, an easy motion of the shoulders that didn’t really come easily to them as much as they like to think it did. “maybe?” they said. “hardwicke’s very well-known in oxford. they’re very active socially and i think they’re in all the political clubs.” a false lead would work well in their favour now, especially when such a lead was likely in the eyes of the authorities. “he can be a bit abrasive and forceful, but i don’t know anyone specifically whom he offended.” they could, of course, drop caligula’s name—and a small part of them did want to, merely to see what repercussions it could hold—but a threat to caligula was a threat to the society, which will ultimately result in a threat against marcus themself. as much as they were curious to see how that potential chain of events might unfold, they had to be smart too.

Can you give us any information that might help the investigation?

"i don’t know,” they said, their voice feigning sheepishness. “as i said, i don’t really know how i can help you, because i really know nothing about the whole thing.” this has been, they realised, the most impassioned they’d been in quite a while. it was a pity, then, that this was in the end just another fabrication, a simulation designed to keep what needs to be secret secret. “in fact, the last time i saw him, it was in a lecture last term about the poetic elements present in the prophetic books. he told me we should catch up during the summer, but i never had time to take him up on his offer.” a pause. “it’s a pity, really.”

Where were you on Sunday morning?

removed to keep the mystery alive.

Extras.

I have a Pinterest board here.

A playlist here.

And a mockblog here.

Their character tag can also be found here. 

And a general tag for Dominus as a whole can be found here.

#lsrp #lsrpg #skeleton rp #new rp #rpg #sample #accepted

[galbinuscarnation]

The Last of the Real Ones

Chapter 2

“Pass the salt please,” Lucie held her hand out before her brother, as they sat at a cafe table at a restaurant outside her workplace.James flicked his fingers at her and she huffed. “Jamie, I didn’t mean your arse!”

James snorted and finally passed the salt to his little sister, who was glaring at him while aggressively salting her salad. “Lucie, I think you’ve gotten lettuce on your salt.”

“James I am literally this close to throttling your insufferable neck,” Lucie threatened, her blue eyes squinting dangerously.

“I don’t see what the problem is, wouldn’t you rather I be ‘enjoying the sunshine’, which i remind you, doesn’t exist in London.” James ran a hand across his bangs, and narrowed his eyes at his sister’s reconsidering look.

“When was the last time you got a cut again?” she inquired suddenly.

“Dunno, less than a month ago?” James shrugged. “It’s fine, it’s not in my eyes or anything.”

“But it’s getting there,” Lucie pressed, before chewing on her lettuce. James shook his head and took a sip of tea. “Maybe if you call Matthew…”

“He’s probably busy.” James interrupted, staring at his tea. Lucie frowned, but nodded.

“It wouldn’t hurt to call him.” Lucie told James. James stared at Lucie’s peluntant expression and put down his tea.

“What aren’t you telling me Lucie?” He asked.

Lucie shook her head and bit her lip. “It’s nothing, I mean, compared to what we’ve heard.”

“About Branwell’s accident?” James elaborated.

“Yes,” Lucie took a deep breath. “I was kind of hoping…. You would befriend Matthew.”

If James had still been drinking he probably would’ve sputtered out his tea, instead he choked on the air and coughed. Lucie passed her chilled water towards him, and he took a gulp before getting his bearings. “What?!”

“I know you’re socially awkward Jamie, but spare me.” Lucie chuckled nervously, “When I met Matthew he was a delight. I passed by his salon numerous times and was so curious that I had to take a look. He’s so relatable, he loves books.” James nodded, his sister would always warm up to fellow book lovers. “I made sure to become a regular, whether I felt like having a do to look more professional, or even to simply chat. When...when mum told me that you had come back home I felt so guilty. Here I was, flourishing in my field, spending my free time with friends and pampering myself in salons while my brother was suffering in silence.”

“Lucie,” James began, rubbing his temples. Lucie was heading towards dangerous territory, memories James himself was trying to repress and move on from. “It’s wasn’t that bad… to be honest I shouldn’t have been that low, or worrying the family.”

“You were heartbroken,” Lucie shook her head, and reached over to grasped her brother’s hand. “No one could blame you.” James snatched his hand away, building up his wall in front of her again. “I won’t bring her up-”

“Then don’t.” James warned, as he stared at his cooling tea for a moment. He could already sense his fingers wanting to reach out and hold someone else’s hand, the delicate, enchanting hands of his fiance.

“Listen. The state you were in, I found an excuse. Here was a friendly guy that could trim my brother’s hair, and with his charisma maybe open a door into the real world,” She explained. “I shouldn’t have relied on Matthew so much…”

“No one could have known what would happen.” James stared at Lucie, who was now picking at her food. “Don’t hold yourself accountable for something out of your hands. Also, you should stop trying to meddle with people relationships, you can’t force it.” Lucie was able to distract his mind again, with the warmth of a kind smile he remembered was directed at him at that salon.

“I was hoping to come up with excuses to bring you to the salon again...” Lucie admitted. “Then maybe you would have formed it on your own.”

“Really?” James raised his eyebrows at the unbelievability of what she was suggesting. “You called me ‘socially awkward’ yourself. You thought I could be friends with someone as attractive as that?”

Lucie blinked at him, and James could feel the blood rushing to his face at her scrutiny. “Jamie, did you just refer to Matthew as ‘attractive’?”

“Well…” James eyes darted away, and he adjusted his glasses to mask his blush. “Yes, aesthetically I can admit when another man is attractive.”

“Oh if that’s all it is then.” Lucie sipped her water through her straw, giving her brother a knowing look. James sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Seriously Lucie, you, who advocate for equality and smashing gender norms and the patriarchy, should know it’s completely natural to find anyone attractive.” James tried to save face, but could immediately read in his sister’s face that she wasn’t buying it.

“While all of that is true, I know you.” Lucie clasped her hand on the table. “And normally I would be cheering you on, go! Acknowledge anyone you want to acknowledge, no one but you can stop you!”

“Okay you are losing me,” James interjected, growing irritated.

“Okay, so I, Lucie, know that her brother, James, doesn’t just throw out there that people are attractive, ever. So, considering your recent…” She winced when James scowled. “....history, it may just be a yearning in your heart for something, anything.”

“You are not even making sense!” James argued. How could even say that, suggesting that he was only desperately trying to patch his heart with Matthew, a man he hardly knew and only met once… who treated him so kindly and without any other motive other than simply to do his job of cutting hair?

“Okay okay!” Lucie put her hands up defensively. “I’m not a psychologist, I’m a writer. I observe people but I may not have the best interpretation of the situation. I admit it.”

“Clearly,” James let out a breath of relief, Lucie was rationalizing it herself in her strange way.

“So.... my lunch is almost up.” Lucie mentioned. James clicked his tongue and gestured for a waiter to come pack up Lucie’s lunch.

“Seriously, maybe we should stop these lunches. You only had a couple of bites...”

“But our parents want you out of the house at least once a day,” Lucie sighed and thanked the waiter when he food was brought back in a box. James took out his card and Lucie put her hand over the check.

“What are you doing? I’m the one working,” she insisted. James gave her an exasperated look.

“And skipping precious time for actually eating.” James shook his head. “Besides, may as well use my allowance for something…like you said, Mum and Dad want me to do something with my days.”

“James, there’s always an opening for interns, I could put a good word-” Lucie started but James shook his head vehemently.

“Don’t want to hear it.” He handed the check to the waiter. Lucie stood up and gave her older brother a hug.

“Think about what I said, despite how misguided or self indulgent it may seem.” Lucie kissed the top of his messy head and James pretended to look disgusted. She slapped him playfully, and he let out a laugh.

“Go!” He waved his sister away, as she weaved through the crowded street clutching her lunch. James knocked back his cold tea, just in time for the waiter to return and give him a pointed look. James shrugged and collected his things, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

He walked through the streets, where he passed Lucie’s office where the latest headlines were being broadcasted on the windows. He stared for a moment, as the household name Branwell caught his eye. It was news he had already known, but it still unbelievable that he had met the second son of the world renowned inventor Henry Branwell. James couldn’t imagine how he would feel if something had happened to his own father, and he couldn’t help but wonder how Matthew was handling everything, to have his family’s business in the spotlight for the world to hear. Despite only meeting him once, James wouldn’t wish this on anyone, especially someone as bright and kind as Matthew.

“...condition is stable and currently on the mend, says the family of the brain behind Branwell Bionics, Henry Branwell. What could this mean for the future of the company, experts theorize-”

James sighed and turned away from the building, striding down the street and making his way through the crowd. His feet were used to this route by know, having grown accustomed to this routine of sharing meals with his sister to appease his parents. His hand clutched his bag closer as the crowd grew denser, the hard covers of his books poking his sides through the material. Suddenly the path he was taking was so clogged that he couldn’t even move. James glared at the crowd in front of him and with a huff pushed against the mass roughly.

“Oy! What’s the hold up?” He tumbled as some people moved aside while others seemed to be leaning to look at something beyond the wall of people. There was chatter and some people with their phones out. James caught a flash of mint green and realized where he was. He had forgotten that the salon was on this side of the street, and it had never been so crowded, so he casually breezed by it on his way home various other times. Today however, the variety of screens were pointed at the door, waiting, for what, James had a hunch. A month ago if someone had told him that one of the sons of Branwell was a hairdresser, James would have snorted and taken it as a joke. Not, that the situation was in any way funny, no it was more complex than that.

James saw the news on the telly about how the man who invented a great many of the devices that the disabled community now used was rushed to the hospital because of an accident. He thought nothing of it until Lucie had called and explained that he was Matthew’s father. James didn’t understand at first, since the business card had Matthew Fairchild written on it, not Branwell.

“It was a precaution, to protect them when they were children,” Lucie explained. “It’s his mother’s maiden name.”

It was a precaution that James’ own parents considered, but despite his father’s accomplishments, Herondale wasn’t nearly as commonplace or famous as the name of the company that was branded on millions of accessible products globally. What was also extraordinary was that the Fairchild’s are a family of politicians, and the fact that one of the women in the family was quietly married to Branwell stunned James. Maybe he should have paid more attention to the elections recently, because after some research he was easily able to find information on many of the local achievements of a Charles Buford Fairchild, who was currently the treasurer of London.

So, with both families so high profile it was short of a miracle that no one had heard of a hairdresser named Matthew Fairchild, owner and best stylist of the salon on Great Marlborough street. That was, until today, as James continued to push through what he could now identify as a throng of paparazzi, curious tourists, and fans. Only James could find himself in such a predicament, but was now stuck in the middle of a crowd on the sidewalk with no way around because he could hardly move.

The crowd shifted and cameras flashed as a limousine pulled right up the curb with an escort. The police immediately emerged from their vehicle to control the crowd and make a walkway. Then, a hefty man came out of the passenger seat to open the door at the rear of the limo. When a flash of ginger peeked from the door the crowd erupted in noise as cameras flashed. James used this distraction to try and wiggle his way to the other side, but there was an officer keeping an eye out as a man in a suit stepped out of the car. He was poised and professional, giving a polite wave to the crowd, and matched his internet images to a tee.

James took his eyes away from Charles Buford Fairchild when he spotted an opening in front of the door to the salon as the crowd inched towards the street. Before he could decide to make a break for it himself, someone roughly thumped against his back, sending him face first into the cement directly in the path that the young politician was supposed to be on.

There was a collective gasp at his sudden appearance as James fumbled the reach for his glasses. A shadow loomed over him and he looked up as he adjusted his glasses to face Charles Buford. The man was staring down at him with an arched eyebrow, and the bodyguard was behind him glowering down at James. Charles seemed to be deliberating something before extending his hand.

“James Herondale is it?”

James stared opened mouth at him but accepted the hand and stood up. “Erm…”

“Charlie,” a voice greeted, and James was surprised to see someone he scarcely saw anymore emerge from the salon. Anna Lightwood, a older cousin of his, stepped out casually with a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and slim fit dress pants. She surveyed the situation with a look of distaste but her eyes landed briefly on James in recognition.The crowd gasp again at her arrival and continued to photograph and record and clog the streets. James had half a mind to simply leave now, but could see the expectant gazes that some people had on him made him freeze with nerves.

“Anna,” Charles Buford inclined his head, letting go of James clammy hands. “Would you mind fetching-"

“He isn’t here.” Anna informed him. Charles’ face tightened but he schooled whatever reaction he wanted to have in front of the audience.

“Any idea to his whereabouts? He mentioned he would be here.” He said with strained politeness. James tightened his grip on his strap, glancing between Anna and Charles, and overwhelmed with a sense that he was out of the loop.

“Haven’t the faintest, he took off after your very public announcement of heading this way.” Anna gestured pointedly at the murmuring crowd. “Took off?” Charles inhaled sharply and then sighed. “Fine. I’ll see him later, but I was only hoping to offer my brother a ride to our father.” He turned to go and nodded at James. “Grace sends her regards.” James took a step back as if he had struck him. He didn’t even notice Anna placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder and ushering him back to the salon as the crowd followed the departing limousine. James tumbled into the establishment with Anna’s guidance, and he leaned against the wall with a head in his hands. He gasped for breath and Anna’s hands where firm on his shoulders as he choked on a sob.

“Oh James... “ Anna sighed mournfully, “How long have you been keeping this in?”

“I’m...fine…” James rasped, shutting his eyes and gritting his teeth to prevent himself from making more humiliating noises. Wiith Lucie’s questions from earlier, and Charles’ jarring words, everything that James was repressing overcame him in the last place he wanted to have a breakdown.

“Don’t take Charlie seriously, he’s a bloody insensitive twat, pissed with Matthew and took it out on you.” Anna reassured him with her crash remarks. James let out a faint chuckle and coughed some more, wiping his watering eyes.

“Thanks,” James mumbled and sighed. “Not exactly the reunion I was hoping for.”

“By the way I’m back in London,” Anna teased, letting him go. “In fact, I was here at the tail end of your haircut here, but was in the back with Barbara.”

“Really? I wasn’t paying attention,” James shook his head slowly, and his bangs shadowed his glasses. His head was being to hurt from literally swallowing away his sorrows, but he kept face in front of Anna despite everything.

“Were you on your way for another trim?” Anna inquired, leaning against the wall next to James.

“Not at all, I was passing by. Lucie works up the road.” James glanced outside the door, where the crowd was dispersing. He belatedly noticed the sign reading “closed” on the door. “You aren’t even open?”

“You recall I travel cross the country for conferences,not cut people’s hair for a living.” Anna reminded him. Anna was a renowned psychologist and activist, and was often invited to conferences as a speaker.

“Right, I meant, you’re here but they’re closed right?” James amended.

“Actually Matthew had been keeping the shop open, it was Charlie’s fault I had to shoo the walk ins OUT the door.” Anna ran a hand through her perfectly quaffed hair, and the motion made it seem even more stylish than before.

“...and Matthew?” James asked quietly.

“He went off, to Hyde Park to feed the ducks.” Anna told him offhandedly, pushing herself off the wall.

“You know where he is?” James barked out a laugh even though he shouldn’t have been so surprised, it was Anna after all.

“Yes, he could use some company,” Anna produced a pack of cigarettes and offered one to James, who shook his head, before striding towards the door. She peeked out, to make sure the crowd was gone and gave James a knowing stare. “It not like you’ve got anything better planned?”

James wondered if Anna was asking a favor for herself, to not have to chase after him, or for Matthew. James would like to think it was the latter, but he could feel uncertainty creeping through his thoughts.

“You sure he needs my company? I’ve been informed I’m rather dower these days.” James admitted.

“Good, then Matthew can latch onto that instead of wallowing and brighten up both of your afternoons.” Anna decided. “He’ll be at the pond.”

“And you?” James brushed his bangs aside with his hand and adjusted his frames to hide the redness of his eyes.

“I’m going to have a word with Charlotte about her son's behavior.” Anna gave James a confident smirk, and gestured for James to go ahead of her. James smiled back at her, and stepped out of the salon, glancing in the direction of the park and contemplating breaking whatever unspoken promise he had just made. “I’m locking up here, so let Matthew know the shop is taken care of.”

Oh, so now the security of another person’s business was in James’ hand, and James turned to ask Anna why on earth she had a key to the place but she was gone. He groaned and rubbed his aching forehead. Thousands of people went to Hyde Park, how on earth was he supposed to even find Matthew? Even if he went, was there any guarantee that Matthew would still be feeding the ducks? The ducks, James thought, and chuckled. His father would have been scandalized to discover that James had gone to feed wretched ducks today.

James was simply tempted to do it for just that reason, but his thoughts wandered back to Matthew. Matthew, whose brother so rudely dropped Grace’s name, even though it had been a couple of months since their marriage was abruptly cancelled. James put a hand over his eyes as if covering the world could make his body evaporate into the dark corners, a wisp of a shadow among the crowd. It was curse, James thought, to be someone like him, unnoticeable and with nothing in his life to show his potential. A long list of failures trailed behind him as he walked briskly down the sidewalk. He was nothing like Matthew, who was an accomplished hairdresser, charming personality, even accommodating a novice like himself with getting a simple trim.

James put it upon himself to walk the whole way to the park, forgetting how exhausting it would be to do so. He finally made it to the entrance and slumped onto a bench, tilting his head back and staring up at the cloudy sky. After a rest, he set out to find Matthew in the massive area of nature. It would take hours, but he felt compelled to seek him out despite the effort. It was worth putting in the effort for Matthew.

#heronchild #Matthew Fairchild #james herondale #the last hours #the shadowhunter chronicles #Heronchild Hairdresser

[cristinablackthornkingson]

Shadowhunters Short Story #23.

“Christopher, what on earth are you doing?” Anna asks, a hint of worry in her tone, as she walks into the drawing room to find Christopher mixing two brightly colored liquids together.

 Ever since Christopher could walk and talk, he’d been highly interested in science and inventing. When he was a toddler and Cecily and Gabriel took he and Anna to the library, Christopher was always looking for something to do with science, or mathematics, he had always been wonderful at mathematics. When Anna was born, Cecily and Gabriel decided that they would teach her and any other children they had, at home themselves, the basics at least, until they were old enough to go to Shadowhunter Academy. One day when Anna was 8 and Christopher was 5, while Gabriel worked on reading with Anna, Cecily began to teach her son the basics of mathematics. She left Christopher to solve a few questions, when she came back 5 minutes later, he had them completed the questions and they were all correct. He didn’t solve the mathematics problems in the traditional way, and  Cecily couldn’t really understand his method, but he solved the questions easily, and that was all that mattered. It was then Cecily and Gabriel realized they had a little Genius on their hands.

Christopher had always been very quiet and withdrawn, in a world of his own, unlike his big sister, who was a whirlwind of energy and noise. Christopher had also always been very scatter brained, and bad at focusing on anything but his science and inventions. Even now at 13, he was often thinking about science and mathematics and zoned out of conversations, stopped talking in the middle of a sentence, he often forgot if he’d made a sandwich or some other snack, and leave it lying around for weeks, their maid Clara,found this extremely frustrating and though she understood Christopher never meant any harm, she often found it hard not to loose her temper with him when reminding him to please not leave food lying around. The one rule Cecily and Gabriel had for their son and his science and inventions, was that he only perform experiments and such in the basement, where he was less likely to destroy anything. That is why Anna is so surprised and also worried, to see her brother mixing two odd looking liquids together, in the drawing room filled with flammable objects and many valuable things that could easily be broken.

“Experimenting.” Christopher calmly says, continuing to mix the liquids. 

“You know you are not suppose to do that anywhere but the basement Christopher, if you damage anything in here, mama and papa will be furious.” Anna gently says, not wanting her brother to think she was going to get him in trouble with their parents, that is exactly what she is trying to avoid right now. Anna was never usually so gentle with anyone, but her brother was different. When he came along when Anna was 3, at first she was very jealous, she wasn’t use to sharing her parents attention, and she especially wasn’t use to sharing her Uncle Will’s attention. She absolutely adored her Uncle Will, she saw him as one of the greatest men in the world. She adored reading books with him and playing hide and seek in The Institute with he and Aunt Tessa, there were so many great hiding spaces in The Institute, once she had been playing hide and seek with Jamie and Lucie and they didn’t find her for almost an hour, she was still proud of that to this day. Shortly after Christopher was born though, and Anna got to know him and bond with him, she fell totally in love with him and became fiercely protective of him, and she still felt that way toward him today. She was extremely protective of her cousins Jamie and Thomas too, and Jamie’s parabatia Matthew Fairchild. They were all sweet boys who Anna adored, she knew Jamie often got teased for his unusual eyes, Christopher was often made fun of for his aloofness, without him even realizing, Thomas was often bullied for being shy and quiet, as well as for being the son of a former mundane maid, and Matthew was often mocked and made fun of, for his joyful, care-free, over-dramatic personality, he wasn’t like most boys his age, and teenagers were so cruel to those who were different. Anna herself had often been the brunt of many jokes, for dressing in men’s clothes more than she dressed in women’s clothes, and for being so open and honest about her attraction to women, not men, so she felt a fierce need to protect her brother and cousins from going through the pain and ridicule of bullying.

“Mama and papa are not here.” Christopher states.

“Be that as it may, you still cannot experiment in here, or anywhere but the basement, in case something blows up or the likes, and you ruin something or hurt someone or your self.” Anna gently explains. 

“Oh, yes I forgot about that, Aunt Lottie asks Uncle Henry to only work in his crypt, for the same reason.” Christopher says, sitting up and setting the beakers down. 

“Exactly, it’s not just you.” Anna softly says. 

“Anna, do you suppose mama and papa would let me set up a laboratory in the basement?” Christopher asks in a tone full of excitement, his lavender eyes lighting up with hope. 

“Perhaps, I cannot see why not.” Anna says, smiling at her little brother. 

“Would you help me make into a proper laboratory?” Christopher brightly asks. 

“I would love to Christopher. Did mama and papa say where they were going?” Anna asks. 

“They did... but.. I cannot recall where they said they were going.” Christopher says, furrowing his eyebrows together in confusion.

“Ah, well, that’s alright, come along, let me help you clean up here, then perhaps we could do some training together?” Anna hopefully asks her brother. Christopher didn’t train very much, at least not with Anna, but they once had been the only sparring partners the other had, and Anna  missed spending time with her brother.

“Alright. Anna, why do you think you are attracted to women and not men?” Christopher asks in tone full of curiously. Anna tensed immediately, she did not like discussing this topic, many people did not understand that she did not choose to be attracted to women, that it was simply how she was born. A lot of people were cruel to her about it, and told her Raziel did not love her, that she shamed Raziel, and that she was unclean and unworthy, and damned.  

“There is no real reason, Christopher, this is simply how I was born, I did not choose to be this way, but I would not change if I could, liking women is a part of who I am.” Anna calmly explains. 

“Do you suppose Uncle Henry and I could carry out experiments on you to find out why you like women? I know you say there is no real reason, but perhaps we could find one, and then everyone would understand you!” Christopher exclaims. Anna didn’t know whether to be touched or annoyed. She knew Christopher meant no harm at all, but it still hurt that he didn’t seem to think she was normal.

“No Christopher, you cannot, and please do not ask again.” Anna gently says. 

*That evening* 

“Anna, Christopher, before you leave, there is something your mother and I would like to tell you.” Gabriel calmly says, as Clara clears away the plates after a wonderful dinner. 

“What is it, papa?” Anna asks, sitting back in her chair and looking at her parents questioningly. 

“Have you decided to let me have a laboratory in the basement?” Christopher excitedly asks. Cecily smiles softly and says 

“No cariad, we have not made a decision on that just yet.” 

“Then what is it?” Christopher asks, turning from excited to confused. 

Cecily smiles broadly at her children and lets out a breathy laugh. 

“I’m pregnant!” Cecily exclaims, her tone full of excitement. She and Gabriel never planned on having a third child, especially now Christopher was 13 and Anna was 16, they had taken all the precautions to prevent another pregnancy, but non the less, during the last month, Cecily began to feel ill in the mornings, tire easily, and suffer from back and stomach pain. She almost immediately realized they were the same symptoms she had when carrying Anna and Christopher. She did not believe she was pregnant though, but after weeks of the same symptoms, she told Gabriel and together they went to The Silent City, where Brother Zachariah confirmed that Cecily was almost 2 months pregnant. She and Gabriel were shocked to say the least, but they were also delighted and asked to know the sex. Brother Zachariah told them they were expecting a healthy baby boy. Cecily and Gabriel sincerely hoped Anna and Christopher would be as happy as they are. 

“Oh mama! This is wonderful!” Anna exclaims, leaning over to embrace her mother. 

“I’m glad you’re happy my love.” Cecily softly says. 

“Christopher, how do you feel?” Gabriel gently asks his son. 

“Huh?” Christopher asks, turning to look at his father. Christopher had obviously been in a world of his own again and did not hear his parents announcement. 

“Your mother and I are going to have a baby, how do you feel about that?” Gabriel asks in an amused tone. Some found Christopher’s lack of concentration frustrating, but Gabriel found it very amusing, and was glad his son had passion. 

“Will I have to change any dirty diapers?” Christopher cautiously asks. 

“No Chris, you won’t.” Gabriel says, trying to hold back a laugh. 

“I think it will be nice then, babies are like puppies in a way, they are cute and dependent on us, and can be very funny, I like puppies, so I think I shall like my little brother or sister.” Christopher says, a smile playing on his thin lips. 

“Well you will be getting a little brother.” Cecily softly says, running her hand down her still-flat stomach. 

“Do you have any idea what you will call him?” Anna asks. She had not been expecting to hear that she was going to be a big sister again, but she was delighted, she could not wait to meet her baby brother and cuddle him and keep him safe. 

“No, we’re not sure yet, but we are considering Benedict after your father’s father.” Cecily quietly says, laying her hand on top of Gabriel’s, who had gone very quiet at the mention of his late father. Although Benedict had not been a good person, he was still Gabriel’s father, the man who raised him and made him into the man he is, who he was when he fell in love with Cecily. It had never been easy remembering his father and how he died, but having a beautiful family of his own, made things a lot easier. 

Over the next 9 months, things were extremely busy in the Lightwood household, Cecily and Gabriel agreed to allow Christopher to turn the basement into a proper laboratory, and they had never seen him so happy, and he was making amazing progress with some of his inventions, especially for a 13 year old.  Gideon and William helped Gabriel to revamp the nursery and get it ready for the new baby, since it has not been used in about 10 years. Cecily was extremely grateful and thankful for another smooth pregnancy, she had no complications and felt well throughout the whole pregnancy. She had regular check ups from Brother Zachariah and she and Gabriel had once again hired a Clave Midwife to deliver the baby. When Cecily was 7 months pregnant, they decided to name their son Alexander William Lightwood. They had thought about naming him Alexander Benedict Lightwood, but William had done so much more for both of them and Christopher and Anna, Benedict was simply a bad person, whereas Will was under the impression he was under a curse, and pushed everyone out for their own sake, though the moment he realized the curse was not real, he began to let others in, and to help others and love others, their son deserved to be named after a strong, wonderful, loving man like William, and not a weak, selfish person like Benedict. 

One day when Cecily was 9 months pregnant and having tea with Tessa, Sophie and Charlotte, she went into labor very unexpectedly, despite the fact that she was a week overdue. Her three friends stayed by her side through the whole labor, while Brother Zachariah stood quietly in the corner, witnessing the birth of little Alexander, as he had Anna and Christopher before him. Cecily’s labor was long and painful, but it was all so worth it when Alexander was placed in her arms, a head full of thick black hair, his little eyes squeezed tightly shut, his tiny mouth open in a wail, that stopped the second he came in contact with his mother. He was absolutely perfect, just like his sister and brother. 

It had been a few hours now since Alexander’s birth, and Cecily had gotten a chance to wash, change, sleep and feed and bond with Alexander in those few hours. Gabriel took every opportunity he got to snuggle his beautiful new son, and pour all his love into him, being a father was his greatest joy and his daughter and sons were his greatest achievement. 

Anna had been the first to meet her little brother, and she adored him, she was so calm and relaxed when she held him, Cecily and Gabriel knew she would continue to be a wonderful big sister.

Now it was time for Christopher to meet his little brother, and time for Matthew, James and Thomas to meet their cousin. Christopher and the other boys and not been here when Anna had come in to meet Alexander, they had all gone for a walk since they had been stuffed up in the Lightwood’s kitchen all day, waiting for the baby’s arrival. 

“Before we go in, I think it best we set some ground rules.” Thomas firmly says, standing in front of his friends, knowing that if he didn’t keep on eye them, chaos would ensue, and that would be very unfair to Uncle Gabriel and Aunt Cecily. 

“Whatever do you mean Tom? We just want to meet the baby, well I do anyway, I always wanted a little brother or sister, maybe then Charlie would not boss me around so much and I would certainly not boss my little brother or sister around!” Matthew says, his green eyes bright with joy. 

“I mean we must establish what is and what is not appropriate behavior. James, I beg of you, please do not take your book in and have your nose stuck in it the entire time, it will not kill you to socialize for five minutes, especially with your own Aunt and Uncle! Christopher, if you hold your brother, please concentrate on holding him and do not drop him, and do not ask about experimenting on him. Matthew, no flirting, with anyone, not us, not Uncle Gabriel, not Aunt Cecily, not Anna, no one!” Thomas calmly yet firmly says. He did not know if Matthew was a bit like Anna and liked both men and women, but he suspected it. He did not care one bit of course, and would not say anything to anyone, but he knew what Matthew was like. Often Matthew flirted with he and James as a joke and sometimes even Christopher, who was always delighted to accept a compliment, not realizing Matthew was flirting. Matthew would flirt with anything that walked, Thomas did not doubt he would flirt with an Iron Sister or Silent Brother. 

“You are no fun Tom, just like Charlie.” Matthew says in a teasing tone. Everyone else found Matthew’s elder brother boring, but Thomas admired him for working so hard and never letting anything distract him. 

“Yes well, when I am in charge of you lot, sometimes I cannot be.” Thomas replies. Though his friends could be childish and hard to handle sometimes, he adored them nonetheless, they were all harmless and innocent and liked Thomas for who he was, they never made fun of him for his mother’s past or his father’s for that matter. They loved him, and he loved them. 

Of course, his friends did not abide by the rules he set for them before they met little Alexander. Thankfully Christopher did not drop his brother, but sadly he did talk about experimenting on him, though Aunt Cecily and Uncle Gabriel handled it very well. James had in fact took his book in and kept his nose stuck in it for the majority of the visit. Uncle Gabriel did persuade him to hold Alexander for a few minutes, but the entire time, James read his book aloud to the baby. Matthew of course flirted with pretty much everyone in the room, but Aunt Cecily and Uncle Gabriel found it hilarious, they adored Matthew and clearly had no issues with him seeming to have a preference for both sexes.  

Though the visit did not go as planned, Thomas would not change it for anything, nor would he change anything about his friends, they were perfect. 

#anna lightwood #Cecily Herondale #christopher lightwood #gabriel lightwood #alexander lightwood #thomas lightwood #Matthew Fairchild #william herondale #shadowhunters #the last hours #cassandra clare

[the-tendo-blog]

the curious case of cooper Barnes

HD week day 6: appreciating the shit out of the cast

I want to say this is based on a true story but I honestly have no idea

Anyways cooper here is underrated as hell so here’s this shitty and surprisingly raunchy fic about his anime backstory 

"What the fuck, Sean?" Jace asked with confusion.

"No, think about it! Cooper never tells us about his past, so it's totally realistic if he's actually an escaped lab experiment!" Sean replied. "Just look at him!"

Jace looked over at their coworker. We wasn't really doing anything of note, just drinking some soda, and once he finished it he crushed the can with his hand and took a bite out of it, chewing on the metal like gum.

"...okay, I know he's done weird stuff like that, but that doesn't mean he's an escaped lab experiment." The blond said, giving His friend a weird look. Cooper flipped them off and walked away.

"No, listen to me dude, he's done way more than that." Sean said, leaning in close and his voice suddenly a whisper. "Meet me at my house after work. I have something to show you."

Extremely skeptical, jace agreed to do so.

Once he arrived, Sean turned around in his computer room seat like some kind of bad guy in a movie, grinning just like one too.

"Ok, what did you want to show me?" Jace asked, crossing his arms.

Sean tilted his head. "Do you think you're ready?"

"What does that even mean?"

"The things I've found definitely are not for the faint of heart."

"Please, it's cooper barnes. How bad can it be?"

"Worse than you think."

Jace sighed and walked over to the computer. Sean followed him, scooting along on his chair.

the screen had an article titled 'Henry danger: a new nickelodeon gay subtext classic?'

Jace had a confused yet inexplicably surprised look on his face. "Sean, what the hell is this?"

"I know, just look." The young man at the computer said as he scrolled down to a specific line and ran the mouse over it. "Read that."

Jace looked at the small paragraph.

Cooper barnes, shown here, is no stranger to gay things. He starred in a homoerotic film about football players.

"Wait... he starred in WHAT?" Jace shouted in surprise.

"Gay porn, Jace! Cooper did gay porn!" Sean shouted back. Thank god the computer room had thick walls.

"You're joking, right? This article is a joke?"

"Not at all."

"ok, but how do you know that's true? You can't just use one article." Jace replied, clear skepticism in his voice.

"Okay, yeah, but it's not like it's a clickhole article or anything." Sean said, "i do have more evidence, though."

"Oh yeah? What?"

Sean quickly searched up 'cooper barnes gay porn' and got a surprising amount of results, all of them having cooper's name in the title.

"...dude! No way that's real." Jace lied, he believed Sean now, but didn't want to admit it so quickly.

"Do I need to show you pictures, jace?" sean replied, irritated.

"No! No! Absolutely not!" Jace responded. "I don't want to see that shit!"

"Good choice." His friend replied. "I really wish I could unsee that shit."

"Oh god."

"Anyways, cooper also has a lot of other weird suit going on for him." Sean said as he closed the tab and got ready to type something else up.

"And what exactly would that be?"

"When I first found out about the gay porn, I decided to do more research to see if I could find anything else." Sean began. "You'd expect him to have a Wikipedia page like us, right?"

"Yeah..." jace replied, sickened yet curious.

"I looked for it, because surely they'd mention gay porn on his page, right?"

"Yeah..."

"I looked, and he doesn't. Not outside of the Henry danger wiki."

"Bullshit! I know he has one!" Jace suddenly shouted.

"Yeah, in polish!" Sean shouted back.

"Wait, what?"

Sean showed him, And sure enough, there it was.

"This is so weird..."

"And you should go through his IMDB later, it's got a lot of weird shit."

"I believe that."

"Also, i think matthew zhang found out about this first, but cooper also confessed to killing someone in an interview recently." Sean changed the subject a bit.

"Wait, what the hell?" Jace responded, not sure if he should believe him.

"Seriously, let me show you the article he sent me."

Sean pasted a link in the search bar, scrolled for a while, and pointed his mouse at a passage.

"It's the first question of an interview." He replied.

Jace read over the passage which cooper told a suspiciously detailed story of a first date where he took a girl out to make out and do other things in his car before some dude high on meth or something tried to attack them, so cooper tried to fight them and his date ended up killing them, and they dumped the body in a river and left to get food and wash up.

"...oh my god, dude."

"I feel like it actually happened, but he tried to pass it off as a joke." Sean explained. Jace nodded in agreement.

The two boys were about to discuss further, but it was interrupted by Sean's phone ringing.

They looked at the screen. Matthew zhang was calling. Sean picked up the phone and answered, then put it on speaker.

"You're on speaker right now, Matt. Tell us what you found."

"The Pornhub podcast said they're going to have cooper barnes on their show, we need to follow them over and witness him expose himself as an ex-gay porn star." He said through the phone. "I'm headed to your house right now. We're following his car to the place."

Sean hung up and dragged Jace outside, where Matthew pulled up in a surprisingly expensive looking car.

"Hey guys! I had to call an uber!"

"What kind of uber driver has a whip that expensive?" Sean shouted back.

"No time to explain, get in the car both of you!"

Sean and Jace ran in, shut the door and drove off.

"Okay, who's driving us?" Jace responded as they took off.

"Me, asshole." A voice said. Sean looked over at the driver as he followed cooper's car.

Once both hit a red light, the driver turned around to look at them. Jace's jaw dropped.

"POST MALONE?"

"Yeah, stop freaking out. I'm just as invested in this as you are, you know." Post replied, returning to following cooper's car.

"What? Since when do you watch henry danger?"

"I don't. My friend told me about it."

Jace and Sean looked at each other and shrugged.

"By the way, can nobody mention the murder? I don't want whatever KGB shit cooper used to cover his tracks hunting us down because we know too much." Matthew zhang asked them before grabbing the aux cord and turning on some lil toenail music, which resulted in everyone telling him to 'turn that shit off'

After a lot of arguing and conspiracy theories, they finally arrived significantly earlier than cooper did to pornhub studios for the podcast.

"Okay, how do we sneak in? Post is the only one who looks old enough to even be there." Jace asked, still trying to process what was happening.

"I have an idea." Post Malone replied and took two black suits and sunglasses out of the trunk.

"Blond kid and your friend there,"

"Our names are jace and Sean!"

"Jay and sam, get changed in the car, you'll be my secret service agents." Post instructed.

Jace shrugged and crawled back into the car to do so.

"What about me?" Matthew zhang asked.

"You're going to cling to my stomach and we're going to put a shirt over you so I look like some fatass." Post said.

Matt cringed a little, but it was worth the risk to find out the truth about cooper barnes.

Once Jace and Sean were in their disguises, they both climbed out and noticed cooper had arrived.

"Follow that cryptid!" Sean whisper-shouted.

"Dammit, sam." Post Malone replied.

Sean sighed and they followed post inside, a considerable distance behind cooper.

Getting into the building undetected was hard, they had a few close calls as cooper kept looking around warily, in his shitty varsity jacket with the pornhub logo with his last name and the number 69 on the back. None of them could take him seriously wearing that.

But overall, they managed to get in and follow the target undetected.

Once cooper found the podcast room, he entered and shut the door Behind him, allowing the four cryptid hunters to come out from hiding behind the corner.

"You can come out now, matt." Post Malone said, lifting up the second shirt that Matthew zhang fell out of.

"Thank god! It was starting to smell fucking terrible!" Matt cried in relief.

"Hey! It's not my fault they made me use cherry scented lube!" Someone said nearby.

"Nobody was talking to you, asshole." Jace replied.

"Oh..." the person replied and walked off sulking.

After that exchange, everyone put their ear up to the door, trying to hear anything they could, searching for the perfect time to strike.

So far, the podcast was quite strange. Cooper had a lengthy talk about politics with who post Malone insisted was the person running the company's twitter account, and asa Akira, which Jace swore he knew about her only by seeing the pornhub twitter account's shitposts.

Everyone gave him the benefit of the doubt.

"So when do we kick the door down and expose cooper like in a cop movie?" Matt asked everyone.

Jace and Sean simply shrugged. Sean had no idea, and Jace was still not entirely sure if this was happening, if his best friend was actually an ex gay porn star and possible serial killer, or if this was all some weird drug trip or a fever dream.

"Just wait for my countdown." Post replied, listening closer.

"One..." the rapper began. The three child actors got behind him

"Two..."

Jace's heart raced. What if there were bodyguards? What if there were assasins hiding in that room to kill them?

"Three!"

The door was kicked open with a surprising amount of force.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!"

Asa Akira, cooper barnes, and aria, the person behind the pornhub twitter account, all froze and looked at them like deer in headlights.

"you can't hide anymore, cooper! We know everything!" Matt shouted.

"Who are you guys?" Asa Akira said, confused.

"My coworkers... and post Malone...?" Cooper said, tilting his head.

"They look a little young to be in gay porn, did you-"

"Oh, god no! Im not a fucking pedophile, I'm on nickelodeon now!"

"You never said that."

"No seriously! It's called henry danger, I play-"

"We actually don't care, we just wanted to make sure you weren't a child molester or something."

"That's fair."

Cooper turned to look at them, not realizing jace was with the three.

"Okay, first up. Matt, we already knew you were a meme loving fuck so this was probably hilarious to you when you found out about my past." The brunet began.

"Yeah, I'm not going to make fun of you for it though." Matthew zhang replied, awkwardly looking around the room.

"Sean, are you cool with this?" Cooper asked.

Sean nodded. "Yeah, I'm not some asshole who shames people because they did sex work in the past. You do what you have to do, ya know?"

"Thanks bro I almost had to suck dan Schneider's toes for my role as captain man" cooper said once more.

"Wait, what?"

"Nothing."

"Anyways, post Malone, why are you involved with this? Since when did you watch Henry danger?" Cooper asked and tilted his head.

"I don't, Matthew zhang told me and I honestly thought it was hilarious." Post Malone replied. "Also, there's one more person here."

"Whomst?"

"Jace normie."

At least he got my first name right... Jace thought as he ran out to see cooper, feeling extremely mixed emotions.

"Jace! Hi..." cooper started, visibly terrified.

"Cooper seriously, why the fuck didn't you tell me?" Jace suddenly screamed. "I'm having an existential crisis over this!"

"Dude, you were like 14 when I met you, you wouldn't have been able to handle that. I was going to tell you once you turned 18, I'm not tryna fuck tho don't freak out."

"Okay good otherwise I'd be really scared."

The two yelled at each other about morals for a while until jace came to his senses.

"Man fuck this lmao, wanna go get food?"

"Hell Yeah I do"

And so the entire cryptid hunting team, aria, asa akira, And the cryptid himself all went out to get some food, and life was good.

#hdweek #henry danger #there is no effort in this #Jace norman #cooper barnes #sean ryan fox

[alotta-lovin]

4 or 49 for the dialogue prompt? You've been doing a lot of writing recently and I'm loving it tbh! Its really great 💞

Ahh thank you– im glad you like my writing oh my god ;; i love writing honestly but i always get discouraged and scared no one will read it if that makes sense, But im really glad you like it!! And i think ill Mesh 4 and 49 since they both are very much a thing in Lady In Yellow n’ Bat Outta Hell! Hope you don’t mind ♥

[4.“I should have told you a long time ago.”]||[49.“I don’t want to screw this up.”]

Context Summary : At this point Faith has been friendly and close with Henry. could even be considered dating; When Faith moved back Reggie was taken back by the very drastic change in how she acted and looked, hell even her mentality. He tried asking her out after he pulled her to the side the day she came back to school and she was heading towards the lunch room; though he was shot down as she finally remembered who he was. She didn’t want to deal with that again or that heart break since she did love him back then, and deep down still does. Fast forward a bit and the following below is where we are now.

[Word Count :  4,773]

It was Music Festival day, it was spring break and it was warming up. Faith was very clearly excited as her band mates; Russell, Matthew and Christopher were coming into town today and she was a little ancy since Chris had to go and say there was a surprise coming for her too. She was waiting around back behind the stage as she waited on her Friends and as others put it her Boyfriend were about to show up as well.

A van and a very nice car had pulled up and she pulled away from the wall and lifted her sunglasses up and quickly got overwhelmed with excitement as Russell and Matt stepped out of the van. Instantly she ran towards them and Jumped into Russell’s arms before pulling Matt into the hug as well, “I’ve missed you guys so much!!! i’m so happy you’re here and we get to play a gig and a big gig and that you guys get to meet everyone” She was cut off by Chris stepping out of the nice car and speaking up “What’s this? i don’t get a hug?” he spoke in a very clearly sarcastic tone as if he was offended. after she was set down by Russ she Ran over and nearly tackled Chris to the ground and hugged him tight “Oh shut up dumbass, i was planning on it! i thought you were in the back of the van– When did you get a car?” she was once again set down as she pointed towards the yellow SS Chevrolet chevelle. stepping away from Chris, she walked around to the passenger side and admired it. very clearly falling in love with the car as she spoke up “this is the SS 70′s model isn’t it? maybe 69?” looking up at Chris then over to Russell and Matt as they both had walked over at this point. “See? I told you she’d know what car it was. you owe me 20 bucks Matt” Chris chuckled holding his hand out and that resulted in Matt rolling his eyes and taking his wallet out and handing him a 20, “There you prick–” he refuted back after handing him the money. “Pffft– you guys are like little kids.. But Chris seriously, where the hell did you get the money to buy yourself a handsome car like this?” she spoke up and was being actually very curious about it.

“Oh– it’s not mine. It’s yours.”

“… Excuse me?”

“This handsome Fellow is yours. if i bought a car it would be red or something–” he took the keys and tossed them to her as her eyes clearly lit up and seemingly stars danced around in her eyes. her band-mates smiling as a her big grin plastered itself across her face, “There’s that smile we missed” Russell spoke up and gestured back towards the field that sat in front of the stage “Weren’t there people you wanted to introduce us to?” Russell asked as the other two looked at her. snapping back to it she nodded and ran back around the car and started walking towards the trans-am that was parked at the other side of the field. lifting her hand up she waved towards the group that stood around the car. her friend Karizma was the first to run over and meet her half way. and her boyfriend Vic followed behind her as he didn’t feel like running.

Karizma and Vic introduced themselves to her band-mates as Faith had ran over to the trans-am and hugged the person everyone referred to as her boyfriend since she spent most of her time with this guy, holding hands and all that junk. this boy was named Henry. though they hadn’t said they were dating to anyone they didn’t deny it either. And Reggie stood there leaning against his car. Rolling his eyes a bit as he looked away and kept his arms cross as he wasn’t very happy that Henry got to her first when Reggie had been talking about how he would show he had changed and wasn’t the same guy he was when she left.. but Henry got to her first.

She let go of Henry as he stepped up to her bandmates who towered over him, Russell clearly giving him a glare and Chris was doing the same though Matt was the one to actually start the conversation between the four of them. Faith stepped towards Reggie and stood next to him leaning against his Car. “Will you come say hi?… at least introduce yourself? They are important people to me and i know i don’t say it much to you myself but you are important to me too-” she was quickly cut off by Reggie as he spoke up, “I’ll introduce myself but that’s it.” clearly he was upset about something and she pulled away from the car and turned her head a bit as she seemed to narrow her eyes at him “What’s your damage Reggie?” “Nothin’ you need to be worrying about.” he turned his head to face her as he kept his arms crossed against his chest as he didn’t move an inch from his car. “You know what, fuck it. I’ll see you after the show Reginald.” she walked away and waved as she stuffed her hand into her back pocket putting her new keys there as she walked past her band-mates and her friends back towards the van to start unloading things.

Russell looked at her then back at Reggie, who at this point he had pulled away from his car and his hands where resting at his side as he was very clearly watching her walk away. he stepped away from the group conversation and walked over to Reggie. “I’m Russell.. the lead guitarist– and basically Rebel’s big brother.. You good dude?” he leaned against Reggie’s trans-am and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and put one between his lips as he offered one to Reggie. Reggie had turned and looked at him and took the cigarette from him and pulled out his own lighter. after it was lit and he let out a huff of smoke as he finally spoke up “I’m Reggie… Everyone calls me Belch though.. and she’s clearly pissed considering she used my full real name..” “What did you do to tick her off so bad?” Russell pulled the cigarette away from his lips looking at him at this point as he knew when she used people’s full name she was pissed if she normally referred to them by a nickname. “I—… i’ve been distant with her. ever since she has been “dating” Henry… and-” “You really love her don’t you?” Russell cut Reggie off and Reggie’s eyes widened a bit as he sincerely hoped that Henry didn’t hear that. though he wouldn’t say it out-loud with Henry around as he has expressed how much he knows he fucked up back then and wishes he could show her how he has changed to Karizma and Vic. Nodding he looked down at the ground as Russel looked up and back towards the van where Faith was unloading the things she needed to. “You know she wrote a few songs about you back in NYC?.. though she couldn’t remember your name they are about you now that i’m thinking about it..”

Reggie’s head had lifted at this point and he looked at Russell clearly surprised as he almost choked on the smoke he inhaled “are you serious?” “I’m not one to lie about anything. so yes im very fuckin’ serious. though they are about the pain she was feeling at the time and what she remembered it makes sense now.” he shrugged and took a long drag looking at him. “God dammit… i really fucked her over..” “Yeah you did– she didn’t date anyone in NYC. she was constantly saying “There’s a guy back in the town i used to live in… it feels wrong to be with anyone else when he was with so many others while with me..” she’s a loyal person Reggie. though she may not admit it and even if she is dating someone else now. you were the first person she loved like that. keep that in mind.” Russell pushed off the car and started walking as he put his cig out by stepping on it as he called for Matt and Chris “Dumb-asses lets go help Rebel unload. she’s been doin’ it by herself for so damn long you know damn well she can’t drag those drums out by herself.”

Vic walked over to Reggie as his was clearly shocked by something. Karizma following close behind Vic they both stood on either side of Reggie and spoke up. “Belch you good?” Vic asked, “Uh…yeah.. i will be..” Reggie responded as he put his cigarette out after tossing it.

Vic and Karizma had wandered off to get some food and spend some time alone, Faith and her band were setting up on stage. so it was Henry and Reggie left alone standing by the Trans-am. though people were talking around them and there was noise happening it was one of the most awkward silences for Reggie between himself and a person he used to consider his best-friend.

The losers had shown up and Faith was sitting on the edge of the stage and so were her band-mates so they could talk to them as Henry let out a groan “I get that they are her friends and all but seriously? they’re here too?”. Reggie furrowed his brow and looked at Henry a bit confused as he seemed buddy-buddy with them she she was around him. “Uh— they’re here to support her that’s why?” “Yeah i’m not a dumbass but we both know damn well that trash-mouth is looking at her in the way he does cause he’s a fuckin’ perv.” Henry looked over at Reggie who was still a bit taken back whenever Henry would change so quickly compared to when he was around Faith. She was wearing a Guns n’ Roses t-shirt that was pretty big on her and worn down, cut into a muscle shirt and hung off her shoulder, showing a bit of her Yellow bralette and its strap, the Guns n’ Roses t-shirt was tucked into her high-waisted cut off shorts that were fraying at the bottom of them and some yellow pf flyers. so she was showing a lot of skin and honestly didn’t care clearly.

“I mean– she can dress how she wants? if she’s happy with how she looks and if she feels good wearing it why do you have’ta be a dick about it? people are gonna look. most girls around here don’t dress like that dude.” Reggie refuted a bit as he looked straight ahead. Henry scoffed a bit and shrugged “You have a point but i get to see that off her later~” he laughed a bit as he said that last part. Reggie went a little wide eyed before furrowing his brow clearly ticked off by it. Luckily just in time Vic and Karizma had come back and quickly noticing something was wrong. Vic dragged Reggie away to let him cool off so there wasn’t a fight breaking out before the gig and Karizma keeping Henry by the trans-am

[Fast forward to after the gig was over]

Stepping off the stage Faith sat down on the steps of the back of the stage and let out a loud huff as she was surprised she didn’t collapse due to how bad her stage fright was but listened to what Matt told her, that she just needed to breath and pretend she was in a room with one person she cares about. that really helped. She was quickly picked up by Chris who spun her around while hugging her “YOU DID SO FUCKING GOOD REBEL!” he yelled as he then set her down. “Hey you guys good with loading the van up on your own? i need to go talk to someone..” they all nodded and started to take their set down off the stage as she walked across the field once more and towards Reggie who was the only one at his Trans-am and his hand was on his cheek.

Furrowed brow she looked at him worried as she looked around,

“Where did the others go?”

“Vic and Karizma took Henry home towards the end of your set..”

“Why?…”

“No reason..”

“Bull-fucking-shit don’t lie to me Reginald. “

“Him and I got into a fight is all. why do you have to fuckin’ know everything?”

“Oh i don’t know cause you two fucking fight like cats and dogs if you aren’t picking on someone else? and speaking of “having to fucking knowing everything” why the hell are you holding your cheek? Did he deck you that hard or did you fall?”

“None of your business…”

“Yes it fucking is. You’re coming home with me to get you a fucking ice pack for that and treat whatever the hell else fucking Bowers did. you stay right fucking here or so fucking help me i’ll hit you 10x harder than he did if you leave.” she demanded and clearly she was angry. she ran back across the field and gave her keys to Chris so that he could drive her car back home after they were done loading since they were staying in her house. coming back she snapped her fingers and pointed at the car. “Get in dumb-ass.” said as she walked around to the passenger side and slid into the car.

[Skip forward a bit, back at Faith’s house.]

She unlocked her front door and dragged Belch inside and made him sit down in the living room on the couch as she walked into the kitchen and got a ice pack, walking back she handed it to him as she sat down next to him on the couch after putting on some music so it wasn’t quiet.

After a moment of music filled silence between the two she looked over at him “Why did you two fight this time?…” asking a bit quietly he kept his eyes averted from her as she would grumble a bit as he didn’t respond. Sitting up straight she placed her on his jaw and turned his head to look at her “It’s rude to not respond to someone’s question.”

“Yeah i get it…. it’s just… there’s something i should’ve told you a long time ago Faith…”

“Okay now you’re scaring me Reggie… what’s wrong?” she pulled her hand away from his face and let her hand rest against the couch as she looked at him with worry. he let out a shaky sigh as he spoke up “Just don’t hit me after this” he said a bit quietly as her eyes widened a bit surprised by this statement as she was about to speak up she was then cut off by Reggie’s lips pressing against hers as the ice pack was away from his face and sitting on the couch and his hand was now against her cheek. her eyes went completely wide as she felt something completely different than when she kissed Henry, let along anyone else or even years ago when she kissed Reggie for the first time.

She grabbed his wrist after finally registering what was happening at the moment and placed her other hand on his chest and pushed him away as she pulled his hand away from her face “Reggie what the hell?! are you kidding right now are you really fucking kidding me right now?!”

“I should’ve told you a long time ago but i was a fuckin’ chicken-shit about it alright? I did what i could to change. so that i was able to be someone to be loyal to you. and just you. i get it i fucked up last time–” he trailed off a bit as she was surprised to hear any of this coming from him. Reggie, One of the people in the Bowers gang that pick on people and is a bit of a dick. The guy who drove around Derry like a bat outta of hell.

“Goddammit Reggie… are you fucking kidding me right now… Why do you have to do this to me…” Standing up she rubbed her face and shook her head quickly and pointed towards the door. “Go. Take the ice pack and go… I’ll talk to you soon. just please go right now…”

“Faith I didn’t want to ruin anything if you had anything going with Henry–”

“But you just kissed me. YOU KISSED ME. AND NOW I’M CONFUSED. JUST PLEASE GO. I’LL TALK TO YOU SOON.”

Reggie picked the ice pack up and walked towards the door, stepping back a bit as Russell, Matthew and Christopher walked in, he let them pile in and walk into the living room before he left and slammed the door behind him. Russell looked outside the window and watched him speed out of her dirt driveway he then looked back as she crossed her arms and seemed to shut in on herself as he spoke up “What happened here…?”

About a week later and back at school Faith pulled up in her car, Kenickie. parking it she pulled her keys out of the ignition and grabbed her bag from the passenger side. Stepping out of the car she locked it and put her bag over her shoulder as she waved to a few people then looked over at Reggie. Henry standing near him as they hung around the Trans-am, Vic and Karizma chilling on the other side of it she quickly made a b-line for the school and went inside as she couldn’t really be around Henry or Reggie let alone both at the same time. walking to her locker she quickly put in the combo and was quickly greeted by a yellow rose falling out. very confused as she had only given Karizma her locker combo. picking it up she put her bag in her locker. she turned and saw Stanley and Bill walking up to her, “Hey guys did you see who unlocked my locker?..” she asked a bit surprised as she was still confused

“No i didn't–” Stan turned and looked at Bill as he spoke up “K-Ka–Karizma w-wa-was the o-on-one who d-di-did it” he shrugged as he answered her question. Faith nodded and grabbed her books out of her locker and put the rose back inside. closing it she headed to class even if she wasn’t going to be able to focus on the lesson.

After the bell rang to let them go to lunch she was quickly out the door and back at her locker as she grabbed the rose and basically threw her books in before slamming it shut and running towards the doors of the school. after basically jumping off the front steps she walked quickly over to Henry and turned him around “Did you get Karizma to open my locker so you could put this in there?” she held up the yellow rose and he looked confused before anger clearly plastered itself across his face as he walked away. “Henry!” watching him walk towards Reggie and Henry grabbing the back of his shirt and turning him around as he punched him pretty hard. hard enough to knock him on his ass.

Her eyes widened as she quickly walked over and put her hands on his chest pushing him away as she stood between the two of them, Vic and Karizma had just stepped out and were watching the whole thing as Faith looked at Henry as if telling him to back off “What the fuck are you doing Henry?!”

“HE WAS THE ONE THAT GAVE YOU THE DAMN ROSE. I SAW IT ON HIS FUCKING DASHBOARD THIS MORNING.” yelling rather loudly, Henry was visibly shaking as he clenched his fists. “Henry, Go over there. go fucking cool off.” Vic had walked over at this point and turned Henry around and walked him away from Faith and Reggie at this point. Karizma slightly acting as a boundary between the three of them; Faith turned around and helped Reggie up as she placed her hand on his cheek and rubbed it a bit though he flinched he stayed there, leaning into her hand. she spoke up as she pulled her hand away; “Did you really get Karizma to open my locker to give me this…?”

“Well yeah… i wasn’t lying to you that day during spring break-” Reggie was interrupted by Faith refuting back with “Reggie… I don’t want to screw this up– so just be quiet.. I’ll talk to you later alright?” her tone softened and trailed off as she walked around her friend and towards Henry, keeping the rose in her left, and with her right she intertwined her fingers with his and started walking away.

Karizma turned around to look at Reggie after seeing Faith walk around her and towards Henry and walk away hand in hand with him. Glancing back at Victor as if asking him to join her she stepped to Reggie and rubbed his back as his shoulders had sunk down at this point and he just looked down at the ground after watching Faith walk away.

“I’m sorry Dude…. Just— She said she would call you right? Later?.. just– talk to her during that call okay? I’ll see you after school. Avoid Henry– he will probably punch you again ” though trailing off a few times as she spoke to him she meant what she was saying even if she would look at her own boyfriend for confirmation. She wanted the two of them together, Knowing and seeing how much he had changed. she really wanted them to get together.

The following week seemingly trudged along with, awkward silences around each other, avoided eye contact and little to no conversation between Faith and Reggie. not only was it awkward for them it was painfully awkward for Victor, Karizma and those just around them… But between Reggie, Henry and Faith there was a thick tension. mostly between Reggie and Henry. it was easy to tell if it was that awkward between so many people and just people around them at the time if Karizma couldn’t stand being around it. after long moments of silence being heavily greeted with the thick blanket of tension it was quickly broken with “Let’s go talk to Trashmouth!” from her lips and dragging Victor along with her. “You don’t ever like talking to him-” “ LETS GO SAY HI TO TRASHMOUTH”.

These moments continued for the rest of the week and the week after, Often Faith if stuck with Henry and Reggie alone she would try to get away but was quickly grabbed and had her hand held rather tightly by Henry. almost to the point she was losing feeling in her hand before she’d pull her hand away as hard and quickly as she could and stating she was going home or somewhere else just to get away. as Henry seemed to become more aggressive with her if she was going to walk away when with both himself and Reggie, or if Reggie was just simply mentioned that he would be stopping by or hanging out with them.

Due to these aggressive interactions and conversations between Faith and Henry, she started to spend less time with him… But more time with Reggie. though it was awkward for the most part it wasn’t too bad after a bit. She preferred the awkward moments more than the aggressive ones she was stuck in while around Henry. and that’s saying a lot if Faith preferred the awkwardness, she typically couldn’t stand awkward moments in the slightest. though after listening to music and talking about that mostly it made it less awkward and more pure. it was easier to withstand than being around Henry at all.

Though Henry had changed after spending time with her for a few months and wasn’t bullying people as much as he once was he seemed to be reverting back to how he used to be after Karizma accidentally let it slip during one of their conversations that Faith was spending the day with Reggie, though Faith had told Henry that day that she was just going to stay home. “Maybe she’s avoiding you because well… her hand was bruised from you holding it too tight and where you grabbed her arm as well was bruised… her and her Dad moved back because her mother was… physically aggressive towards her. that and the Job transfer as well.. she doesn’t deal with aggression like that well.. so maybe she would prefer to be in a awkward environment than a aggressive one..” Karizma would explain before she’d walk away and try to find Victor.

about two weeks later Faith was pulled to the side by Henry. rubbing the back of his neck he groaned and looked at her “I think we should break up.” her tense posture loosened after hearing what he said as she nodded and accepted rather quickly what was happening, “You’re spending more time with Blech then you are with me, plus you won’t put out. every time I tried you would tell me “it’s not the right time” or “it doesn’t seem right”… Hell you smile a smile with him that I have never seen before when you were with me… I’m not an idiot, I know you like him.” he put his hands into his pockets as he looked at her as if waiting for tears or some yelling but there was none of that. she was actually pretty calm about it, she didn’t see a point in yelling in the hallway let alone at all. if he wanted to break up then he wanted to break up. she couldn’t change that even if she wanted to.

“I understand that Henry… and you’re not wrong. I didn’t realize i had feelings for Reggie.. but I do. but that doesn’t mean the feelings I had for you were any less true… but I get it– Do you want your stuff back from my place-”

“Know what fuck it, keep the stuff I don’t give a shit.” he refuted back with a aggressive tone while cutting her off. she unfolded her arms and furrowed her brow, throwing her arms up as she started to walk away she turned to face him as she did so “Know what Henry? You can talk to me again when you want to act like an Adult. until then don’t talk to me. don’t start shit with me or about me, cause i’ve had it. I’m not gonna deal with it.”

Around mid may Faith and Reggie had officially gotten together. Henry seemed to fully revert back to his very violent bullying towards younger kids, on occasion towards those apart of the Loser’s Club. though the one thing that seemed to kick him in the gut is when Victor told him he wouldn’t be walking to school with him since Henry wasn’t getting rides anymore. “Why the hell not?”, “Because… i’m already getting a ride from Faith…and later i’ll be hanging out with Bill and his friends…” Victor trailed off and adjusted his bag “Why are you hanging out with Loser’s like them-” “Because they are actually pretty cool Henry. they’re fun to be around..I’ll see you later Henry.” Victor walked away and was picked up a few blocks later. later on that day Faith felt a tap on her shoulder and a hand in front of her face as if asking to be shook. “Truce?…” Looking up she was surprised to see it was Henry. though a little skeptical she leaned away and spoke up “You gonna act like a big kid now?” “Maybe…” “Maybe isn’t a answer Henry.” as she was going to turn back around to her food she jolted hearing him say “Fine! i get it i was a dick. but can we please call a truce? i’d like to at least be friends..”

Turning to face him she smiled a bit and shook his hand nodding “Fine, Truce… are you hungry? I have some extra stuff I packed if you want it- “ she was quickly cut off by him blurting out “Yes!” and reaching over her to grab the extra sandwich she made and grabbing a chair from another table and sitting on it. Even if it was a bit awkward but it was nice to be acting like friends again.

#Alotta-asks #Asks #Prompt Asks #Lady In Yellow n' Bat Outta Hell #Lady In Yellow n' Bat Outta Hell Canons #Lady In Yellow n' Bat Outta Hell Mention #IT Self Insert #IT 2017 #IT 2017 Mention #Belch #Blech Huggins #Belch Huggins Mention #Vic Criss Mention #Henry #Henry Bowers #Henry Bowers Mention #Stanley Uris #Stanley Uris Mention #Bill Denbrough #Bill Denbrough Mention #Losers Club Mention #self insert #self shipping #alotta-writing #Richie Tozier

[nethwan]

Tied

Chapter 3 - Confusion

Characters/Pairing: APH Netherlands & APH Taiwan (Human AU)

Summary: Is it possible to fake love and be happy?

Note: English isn’t my first language, so if you see a mistake, let me know it.

Also on ff.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12663486/3/Tied

Sunday, they went to Emma and Antonio’s house. The place was pretty and it had a little but beautiful garden. Henri was there too. All they spent a nice morning talking cheerfully, well, everybody but Lars, Mei thought that it was typical of him. Also, she could notice that it looked like he disliked Antonio, because he talked to him in a very cutting way. But she didn’t say anything; Lars was living the same situation with her brothers. And that felt like another irony of life.

“Would you like to go shopping with me one day?” Emma asked her before they left.

“Sure” Mei said.

Lars was happy that they were good friends, and he wished that Mei was kind with him too.

Since that party, his friends didn’t stop talking about her; they thought she was funny and smart, and completely different from his ex-girlfriends. Besides, she was such a talented writer; they started reading every single of her articles. As if he didn’t know it. He had already read them. Yes, she was talented, and smart and funny; he knew it. And it was the worst because he wanted to forget that kiss.

Lars had never felt as insecure as he started feeling. He compared himself with the other men he knew. Well, he wasn’t funny as Mathias, or kind as Matthew, or charismatic as Henri, or even cheerful as Antonio. He was just a serious bitter man, whose only attractive was his money; he knew some of his ex-girlfriends were interested just on that.

Never in his life had he felt that pathetic. He wasn’t good at relationships. He liked his past girlfriends enough to want to see them every day, he gave them presents, they went to expensive places and social events, they talk about… well, not very important matters, and suddenly, everything changed and they broke up, sometimes because they were tired of his aloofness, or because they realized it wasn’t love. But what was love in the first place? He didn’t believe in that, it seemed a fantasy for teenagers.

Honestly, he felt attracted to those women because they were beautiful and confident; they were the ones who asked him out. And kiss them wasn’t bad, but he actually never knew he could feel something like what he felt when he kissed Mei. Lars didn’t want to underestimate them, but somehow, he thought Mei was different: she wasn’t impressed for what he had, she was honest, too honest in his opinion, and even though her family had money, she had a job.

How to impress a woman like that? His tricks didn’t work on her, these were the exactly things Mei refused to accept. He wanted to kiss her again, and hug her, know everything about her, talk about stupid and serious matters and make her laugh. All kind of things he wouldn’t do in a normal situation. He observed the ring he had already bought. She would be his wife, but not because she loved him.

“Mr Janssen, Miss Wang is here” his secretary said happily.

“Thank you”

Mei went into his office; it was a very nice surprise for him. But she looked concerned.

“What’s wrong?” he asked worried.

“We need to talk… about… hmm… the proposal” she said quietly.

“Right now? Don’t you prefer another place? I’ll go home in a minute”

“Yes, if you want, I don’t care, we just need to talk about this”

She waited for him and then, they went to his apartment, the only safe place they actually had.

“Now, tell me”

“Well, I think you should propose soon and in private. I don’t want to do this in public, you know?”

“I have no problem with that. But I haven’t bought the ring” he lied. “What if I give it to you tomorrow or it’s so soon?”

“No, tomorrow is fine. Thank you”

The next day, they met again. She thought it was a very beautiful ring, he was happy to know it. And they announced their engagement. Their parents were surprised and they were ready to become related. But this time, they couldn’t decide the next step. Mei and Lars did it in their own way, avoiding that ridiculous spectacle.

Her friends were excited when she told them the news. Some days before meet him, they didn’t stop talking about him, she was tired of hear about that handsome lawyer who was such a prince. She wanted to tell them that actually he was more like the dragon in this story. And at the same time, when she was alone, she caressed her lips remembering that kiss.

Feliks and Monique gasped when they saw the ring, then someone asked:

“Are you pregnant?”

“Of course no!”

“It’s a joke, dear. You have been together for like… six months? You two are really in love!” Feliks said laughing.

“But, we respect your decision, and like we told you, he seems very responsible and mature” Lien added.

“Seriously, we are happy for you” Monique said hugging her.

Lars’ friends were happy too. Mathias gave some money to Matthew who smiled triumphant.

“Sorry, but I thought you’ll be the last to get married” Mathias said

Lars just looked at them, and shook his head. To be honest, he wasn’t mad, it was funny to be friends with those two, and also he thought he wouldn’t be the first of them in getting married.

Anyways their parents organized a party to celebrate the future husband and wife. He asked her to arrive together. When he saw her at the other side of the street, he had a strange feeling and his heart beat fast. Then, he saw her talking with a guy. That man hugged her and she looked so happy to see him. Lars was disgusted, he approached and put his arm on her shoulders, she looked at him surprised.

“Lars, I was about to go to your office” she said.

“I finished work earlier”

“It’s great. Well, Mark, this is my boyfriend Lars. And Lars, this is Mark” she said with a fake smile.

“Nice to meet you, but in fact, I am her fiancé” he told him.

“Nice to meet you too. And congratulations”

Then a young woman approached and said hi. She talked with them for a while. Mark took the woman’s hand.

“I’m glad to see you again; we have to go. Our little Thomas is waiting for us. Bye”.

When they left, Mei moved away from Lars. She didn’t talk to him until they arrived to her parents’ house. She ignored him, almost all evening. He took her by the arm, but before she could complain about his rude attitude. He just said:

“Who was he?”

“A friend”

“He seemed… nice”

“Yes, he is. Not like certain person” she said bitterly.

Then some people, especially their friends, asked them to kiss. They looked at each other; this will be their first kiss in public. He looked at her in the lips; he didn’t think twice and kissed her as if he was afraid of losing her, he needed her. Mei didn’t know what to think. When they separated, he couldn’t look to her in the eyes.

“I am sorry” he murmured and left.  

He felt so stupid, acting just because of his jealousy. He looked for cigarettes, but he remembered he was trying to stop smoking. He was embarrassed and angry with himself. He wanted to kiss her but not in that way. Not if she didn’t want. After several minutes, she found him.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere” she said concerned.

She took his hand, and both walked in silence. Then she stopped and said:

“Lars? Are you alright?”

“Yes, I am”

But no, he was so confused, the only thing he wanted to do was to escape with her, being just the two of them, and find out why that woman made him feel that way. He couldn’t, and he felt sad.

What he didn’t know was that Mark and Mei were friends since college; they just went on a date once, and they realized they like each other just as friends. In fact, he had always been in love with Tiffany, and she loved him back, and now, they were happily married and had a child. Mei was really glad for them.

Mei wanted to tell him that, but she thought she didn’t have to explain anything. Lars wasn’t her boyfriend, and even if he was. She didn’t know he was so possessive; she wasn’t one of his properties. He had to understand it. And that kiss… it felt real.

After that, Lars decided to apologize, but he didn’t know how. She wouldn’t accept a present. So, he asked her friends for help with the excuse that he wanted to make her a surprise for their engagement. They thought that was very lovely. He had to listen from very spicy ideas (they told him they were just joking) to something cheesy he would never do.

Lien told him that Mei wanted to go to a baseball game because it was her favorite sport; the other told him that it’d be the least romantic present. And that was perfect. Then, he told Mei that a friend gave him the tickets because if he told her that he bought them, she would refuse.

He went to her house to pick her up, and when she opened the door, he didn’t know what to say, she looked adorable; her hair was styled in two braids, and she was wearing a simple t-shirt, jeans, tennis shoes and the jacket of her favorite team. She used to wear floral dresses, very girly clothes, all kind of shoes, and flowers on her hair. This new look was different, but to him, no one looked more beautiful than her.

Lars didn’t understand baseball’s rules, Mei explained him. She was very excited because her favorite team was winning. Then, he felt strange again, she was happy, and he couldn’t stop looking at her. After that, they took a walk in the park; she commented every detail of the game. She told him that when she was in middle school, she was in a baseball team. Now, she just watched the games. He was happy because she was telling him about her life.

“By the way, I read the article you wrote, I liked it” he said shyly.

“Really?”

“Yes, it was very interesting”

“If you say so. I like fashion, you know, but sometimes I feel like no one takes my job seriously. They think I just write about clothes”

“I am not lying. It’s really good. Just trust in yourself”

She looked at him, and then, none of them talked. They walked in silence. Until, they arrived to her home.

“Thank you. I had fun today” she said.

“Me too”

And for the first time, she smiled at him. He gave her an awkward kiss on the cheek and said goodbye.

Days later, Mei and Emma went shopping as they had planned. Both had always wanted to have a sister, they loved her brothers but having a sister seemed fun. They went to eat something, suddenly, Emma asked her:

“I don’t want to be meddlesome, but everything is going well between you and my brother?”

“He is very quiet but we get along well” she said trying to sound convinced.

“I know this situation isn’t easy, everything is going so fast, but please, you can trust me. I’m your friend, and I care because he is my brother”

“Thank you. I’ll take care of him. Don’t worry”

“I know you will. Lars could seem grumpy but actually he is very kind. He taught me and Henri to ride a bike”

Mei thought that was very sweet. It wasn’t that she really hated him, but they were complete different and with all the things had happened and the marriage, she was confused. Then, she thought about the kisses and she blushed. She couldn’t talk about that with her. She kept it as a secret.

She asked her to make the wedding cake. Emma accepted happily.

It looked like their parents had organized everything. Now, she just had to buy her wedding dress, she wanted something simple. She tried on different dresses while her mother, her future mother-in-law and her friends told her she looked beautiful.

She was afraid. She will get married in a couple of weeks, everything went so fast. She looked at her hand, that ring made her feel so much responsibility and think about him. She wanted to hate him, but she couldn’t.

Meanwhile, he was waiting, counting the days. He would be her husband and they would live together.

#nedtai #aph netherlands #aph taiwan #i tried #it's late #:'v #fanfic

[blackchristiannation]

LISTEN: Whyte House Family Devotions: A Prayer for the Family, the Church, the Nation and the World #317 (Tuesday, April 3, 2018): “Not Just a Man,” by Billy Graham

https://soundcloud.com/danielwhyteiii/whyte-house-family-devotions-prayer-for-the-family-church-nation-world-317-4318

[caption id="attachment_40916" align="alignleft" width="156"] Daniel Whyte III[/caption] My family and I have had morning devotions, or family altar as some people call it, every day ever since my wife, Meriqua, and I were married 30 years ago. We have prayed and read the Bible together as well as other devotional books as a family, and it is the only reason why this family has stayed together, and the only reason why God has blessed our family and used our family in ministry all of these years. We read Ephesians 5 and 6 every morning as it relates to the role of each member of the family and how that we need to put on the whole armor of God to fight against the devil who is seeking to destroy our family and all Christian families, churches, and Christians. So, now after 30 years of doing this in our home, we are opening this up to others who don't have a family to pray with, who don't have a spouse, or who are single by choice, and to encourage all families who are still intact to go back to the family altar and have devotions together every morning. In these devotions, you may hear me deal with a temptation I'm facing in my life, you may hear me rebuke my wife about not doing what she should be doing, or you may hear me get on one of my children's cases about something they're doing. Don't be shocked; this is real life. SING "DOXOLOGY" Praise God from Whom all blessings flow Praise Him, all creatures here below Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost Amen Billy Graham said, “My wife Ruth once said, ‘If our children have the background of a godly, happy home and this unshakeable faith that the Bible is indeed the Word of God, they will have a foundation that the forces of hell cannot shake.’” ------ RECITE: THE NEW NICENE CREED FOR TODAY We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven; he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and was made human. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, bled, died, and was buried. The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures. He was seen alive by Mary Magdalene and the other women, the disciples and over 500 other brethren; He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will never end. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified. He spoke through the prophets. We believe in one holy universal and apostolic church. We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and to life in the world to come. Amen. ------ EPHESIANS 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Steven J. Cole writes in his commentary on this passage, “Fathers may provoke their children to anger by unreasonableness. We've all had the frustrating experience of trying to explain something to someone who is unreasonable and unwilling to listen. You don't come away feeling understood or cared for. You come away angry and upset. Paul is saying, 'Don't use your parental authority in an unreasonable way that frustrates your children.' If they are trying to tell you something, really listen -- especially if they are doing it in a respectful manner. If you ask them to explain something, give them tiime to explain before passing judgment. Granted, there are times when every parent must end the discussion by saying, 'You need to obey me because I said so!' But if that is your normal response, you're probably provoking your child to anger. He or she needs to feel that you understand their situation before you pass judgment.” ------- PRAYER ------- DEVOTIONAL PASSAGE: Psalm 120:5-7 5 Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar! 6 My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. 7 I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war. Regarding this passage, Matthew Henry writes: “It is very grievous to a good man to be cast into and kept in the company of the wicked from whom he hopes to be for ever separated. See here the character of a good man: he is for living peaceably with all men. And let us follow David as he prefigured Christ; in our distress let us cry unto the Lord, and he will hear us. Let us follow after peace and holiness, striving to overcome evil with good.” --------- PRAYER FOR THE ESTATES 1. Clergy (church) 2. Government 3. People (citizens) 4. The press (media) 5. New media/Online journalists PRAYER FOR CHURCH LEADERSHIP - For all pastors, church leaders, denominational leaders, Bible teachers, missionaries, and ministry workers. GOVERNMENT LEADERS 1 Timothy 2:1-2 says, "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty." President Donald Trump and his administration Vice President Mike Pence First Lady Melania Trump Second Lady Karen Pence All White House staff including: Director of Communications for the First Lady Stephanie Grisham All leaders of federal agencies including: Federal Labor Relations Authority Chairwoman Colleen Kiko All state governors including: Missouri Governor Eric Greitens All city mayors including: Baldwin, FL, Mayor James Totman All members of Congress including: Florida Representative Bill Posey All law enforcement officials including: Duval County, FL, Sheriff Mike Williams All military leaders including: Defense Secretary James Mattis / General John W. Raymond, Commander of Air Force Space Command Leaders of nations around the world including: Luxembourg’s Grand Duke Henri and Prime Minister Xavier Bettel For the peace of Jerusalem PRAYER FOR THE PEOPLE / CITIZENS PRAYER FOR THE MEDIA PRAYER FOR CURRENT EVENTS AROUND THE WORLD - For the comfort of the families of 18 people killed in a Boko Haram attack on a village in Nigeria - For peace to prevail in India where widespread caste protests have left 8 dead. - For the comfort of the families of ten people killed in a hotel collapse in India. PRAYER REQUESTS Subodh please save his wife, his children, and his sister and brother Jordan please give his children emotional and spiritual protection from negative people; keep his mother-in-law and sister-in-law from starting up trouble and disrupting his family; please save them both Chaka please help her brother to stop drinking and help her not to be depressed; please help them to get answers as to why their father was killed THOSE WHO HAVE ACCEPTED CHRIST AS SAVIOR Amanuel Ifeanyi Mary THOSE WHO HAVE RECOMMITTED THEIR LIVES TO CHRIST Harry Sharleen Judith DEVOTIONAL READING: “Not Just a Man,” by Billy Graham Colossians 1:17 says, “And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” Napoleon was right when he said, “I know men, and I tell you, Jesus is more than a man. Comparison is impossible between Him and any other human being who ever lived, because He was the Son of God.” Emerson was right when he replied to those who asked him why he did not include Jesus among his Representative Men, “Jesus was not just a man.” Arnold Toynbee was right when he said, “As we stand and gaze with our eyes fixed upon the farther shore, a simple figure rises from the flood and straightway fills the whole horizon of history. There is the Savior.” Why did Jesus Christ leave Heaven’s glory and come down to live among us? Why was He even willing to be unjustly condemned to death? The reason is simple, and yet also profound: to demonstrate God’s love for us. If God didn’t love us, Christ never would have come into the world or died the death of a common criminal. But God does love us—and the proof is Jesus Christ. Don’t be lost in doubt any longer. Instead, by a simple act of faith invite Jesus Christ to come into your life today—and He will. Your life will never be the same. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Now, if you do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior, allow me to show you how you can place your faith and trust in Him for Salvation from sin and Hell. First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God's law. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death…" Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Now that is bad news, but here's the good news. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will. Romans 10:9 & 13 says, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." If you believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and you want to trust Him for your Salvation today, please pray with me this simple prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and today I choose to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I trust Jesus Christ as my Savior and I choose to follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen. If you just trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and you prayed that prayer and meant it from your heart, I declare to you that based upon the Word of God, you are now saved from Hell and you are on your way to Heaven. Welcome to the family of God! I want to congratulate you on doing the most important thing in life and that is receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. For more information to help you grow in your newfound faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read "What To Do After You Enter Through the Door". Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." Until next time, May the Lord Bless You!

Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books including the Essence Magazine, Dallas Morning News, and Amazon.com national bestseller, Letters to Young Black Men. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry. He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University's Rawlings School of Divinity (formerly Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary). He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree. He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica since 1987. God has blessed their union with seven children.

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