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isitgintimeyet · 4 years

Text

Just a Friend

So I finally started to write another story...

I will try and post weekly, but can’t promise on account of real life and my inability to actually focus on translating what’s in my head onto paper (or screen!)

Getting the courage to post never gets any easier, but here goes. I hope you enjoy this frothy bit of fun. I will also post on AO3.

Thanks to @wickedgoodbooks for being an excellent beta.

Chapter 1: From Airport to Aggravation

Bank holiday crowds, on the whole, are hell.

And this one is rapidly turning into an even deeper level of purgatory. The hottest May for years in Scotland and I’m stuck at Glasgow airport with a dozen women, collectively known as ‘Geillis’s Hen Party Posse’, each displaying varying degrees of inebriation, hangover or general sleep deprivation, and all aiming for the luggage carousel showing the flight from Barcelona. Which apparently is where several hundred other disembarked passengers are also heading.

Eventually, I manage to get a view of the bags and cases slowly making their way around the belt. They’re pretty picked over by this time, apart from the couple of boxes covered in gaffer tape that always seem to be first off a plane—any plane—and last to be collected. They’re always there, on every flight. Why is that?

I pause from my musings to wave frantically at Geillis, who now has a trolley and is clearing a path straight towards me.

“I got us a trolley.” she informs me, stating the obvious. “I thought it’d be easier. Have ye seen ours yet, Claire? I canna see the others. They must have already gone through.”

“No,” I answer, keeping my eyes firmly on the little hatch, willing our bags to appear. All I want is to go home, put my sleep mask on and try and get some sleep. Three days in Barcelona celebrating Geillis’s forthcoming nuptials have worn me out, and, I glance at my watch, I am due in theatre in approximately seventeen hours time.

"It's there, it's there," Geillis points excitedly at the neon pink and green leopard print bag making its way towards us.

She makes a grab for it as I continue to look for my bag. Predictably, it’s one of the last ones on the carousel. I recognise it immediately from the piece of red gift ribbon tied to the handle of the plain black Samsonite. I load it onto the trolley and Geillis and I head through customs to join the rest of the posse.

We say our goodbyes loudly, with much hugging and kisses. A stranger viewing this scene might imagine we won’t be seeing each other again for weeks or even months. In truth, I’ll be seeing most of them in the next week or so at the hospital as our schedules coincide.

“Shall we two get a taxi, then?” Geillis asks me.

I start to answer as my mobile pings — a text from Frank...very nice, very caring, very predictable.

Darling, it’s been a long three days without you. I am ready to collect you from the airport if you would like. If not, might I see you later this evening? xxx

And that is very clearly Frank. Correct grammar and punctuation, even on his texts. I shake my head as if to drive away my inner bitch and pretend I haven’t read it. I will respond, of course, just later when I’m back at home.

So, I smile at Geillis and agree. “Of course, we can go halves.”

***********

As I walk into my flat, the peace and quiet and sheer bloody calm wraps itself around me like a swaddling cloth. It’s blissfully cool too, with all the shutters closed.

It’s not that I didn’t have a good time in Barcelona. It was actually great. But being in the company of others twenty four hours a day is wearing, much as I love them. And we all had to do everything together. No sneaking off for a solitary walk, or escaping to bed for a little siesta.

I deposit my suitcase by the bedroom door, slip off my converse, pour myself a glass of orange juice, settle down on the sofa and figure out how best to tell Frank not tonight without offending him.

Frank, Sorry but tonight isn’t —

I delete and try again.

Thanks for the offer to pick me up. I was already in the taxi when I got it. Can we give tonight a miss? Theatre in the morning and I’m knackered totally exhausted. You know what Geillis is like. Speak tomorrow, I promise. C

Frank knows what Geillis is like. Frank thinks Geillis is a bad influence on me, with her larger than life personality and wild ideas. I think Frank doesn’t really know me at all if he believes I can be influenced like that. I hang out with Geillis and my friends because they’re fun and we laugh… a lot.

Without realising, I feel my shoulder muscles relax as soon as I’ve sent the message. These are not good signs for my relationship with Frank. He’s investing far more into ‘us’ than I am willing to do. But as long as I’m honest with him…

There are advantages to being with Frank, of course. He’s punctual, very organised and a proficient and considerate lover. He always makes sure I come, even if I sometimes...er… exaggerate my reactions to hurry things along. So much for honesty, then.

I finish my orange juice and plan my evening. Four things to do - unpack, grab some food, shower and sleep. Not even going to wash my hair. That would really be too much effort, struggling with my untameable mane, and it’s going to be stuck under a surgical cap for most of tomorrow anyway.

It takes a bit of effort to actually move from the sofa. I could quite happily fall asleep there. But then I’d wake up in the middle of the night—starving hungry and still smelling of sweaty airports. Reluctantly, I haul myself into a vertical position and head for my bedroom picking up my suitcase en route.

Opening the suitcase, I am not greeted with the expected haphazard mass of sun dresses, t shirts and shorts—all with the evocative aroma of Hawaiian Tropic—but a layer of white dress shirts, immaculately folded and the faint scent of a musky cologne.

Shit, shit, shit!! Some else has walked off with my black samsonite with the red ribbon on the handle. My evening plans are rapidly going awry. I delve into my handbag praying that I kept my boarding pass with the sticky bar code luggage receipt. The relief when I find it lurking in the bottom of my bag is immense. Quickly I google the airline lost baggage number and dial.

After a few bars of some god awful plinky plinky hold music, I hear a recorded message. “Your call is important to us, please hold. Your call is important to us, please hold.”

Good to know, then back to the plinky plinky before another message. “The office you are trying to reach is now closed. Please try again during office hours nine am to five thirty. Thank you.”

“If my call is so important to you, why is no one there at six o’clock?” I yell down the phone, but the plinky plinky ignores me and continues its irritating melody.

I sigh. I don’t want to have to wait until tomorrow morning to sort this out. Besides, by nine am tomorrow morning, I will be somewhat unavailable - reshaping the hip bone of a seven year old boy. So, I have no alternative. I will have to have a bit of a dig around this stranger’s suitcase, looking for any clue or contact details.

As I start to have a feel around, it occurs to me that some stranger might, at this very moment, be doing exactly the same thing — having a poke around my suitcase in the hope of finding my details. No doubt judging me based on my choice of holiday attire. And, I suddenly realise, his judgement may well be coloured by the discovery of some items of a more adult nature.

I say ‘he’, based on the XL white shirts, the pair of battered jeans and faded Scotland rugby shirt, but I could be wrong. I don’t have to dig any further into the case as I spy, in a mesh pocket, a neat rectangle of card with a name — James Fraser — a mobile number and an email address.

Relief sweeps over me. Perhaps we can get this all sorted tonight. Unless this James Fraser lives miles away and was just passing through Glasgow on his way to, say, the Outer Hebrides. That could be a whole other level of problem.

I quickly reach for my phone. Another message from Frank awaits.

Are you sure, darling? I’m looking forward to seeing you. Would tomorrow evening work for you?

I ignore it for the moment. Let me sort my luggage issue out first.

I dial the number on the card and begin to pace around my bedroom as it rings and rings. I am just about to give up when, thankfully, it’s answered.

“Hello?” A female voice asks warily.

I clear my throat and put on my most pleasant phone voice. “Is there a James Fraser there please?”

“Ye’ve the wrong number.”

“Oh, sorry, I must have mis—“ I begin, but find myself apologising to dead air.

I try again, carefully comparing each digit to those written, very neatly, on the card.

“Hello?” The same female voice answers, more than a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“I’m sorry, but this is the number I have for James Fra—“

“And I already told ye, ye’ve the wrong number. Dinna bother again.”

In the days before mobiles, I’m sure this would have been accompanied by a deafening crash as the receiver hit the cradle. Pressing a soft key doesn’t have the same dramatic effect. But I get the message anyway.

So, new plan needed. All I can do is email this James Fraser and hope he actually has written down the correct email address. If not, I’ll have to sort it out with the airline tomorrow afternoon.

My stomach rumbles and I suddenly realise that I’ve not eaten since breakfast, unless you count the slices of fruit in my jug of sangria. I wander into the kitchen and peruse the contents of my cupboards and fridge. I’m not the most gifted cook, but I’m not too bad and can usually rustle up something edible and fairly tasty. The bread feels a bit on the dry side but will be fine toasted, and I know I have eggs.

I put a knob of butter in a pan and text Frank while I’m waiting for it to sizzle.

Think tomoz will be ok. Talk 2morrow. C

I don’t normally use text speak at all, but something about Frank’s perfectly formed text messages always makes me want to rebel. I can imagine him wincing right now. He’s a professor at the university and is forever complaining about the standard of literacy amongst his undergraduates. If he thinks he has problems, he should try dealing with junior doctors.

With my scrambled egg on toast all eaten, I focus my attention on the email to James Fraser. I write it quickly, brief and to the point: I have your suitcase and therefore presume you have mine, can we meet to swap them over and here’s my phone number.

The longing for a shower and then bed is now overwhelming. I strip off and bundle all my clothes into the laundry basket, tie my hair up with a scrunchie and step into my shower. This is undoubtedly one of my favourite places on earth and possibly the reason that I bought this flat. Large enough for two, I suppose. Although none have yet been invited to partake in this heavenly experience. Maybe I’m saving that for someone extra special. It has a huge overhead rainfall shower head and a handheld shower head too.

My indulgences are all in here — a selection of expensive shower gels, scrubs and lotions and an assortment of huge fluffy bath towels. I choose a lavender scented gel and scrub all traces of the day from my skin.

Wrapping myself in one of my pristine white towels, I slather shea butter lotion on my slightly sun-burnt skin, noticing the uneven red patches where the sun cream hadn’t quite reached but at least it’s not sore.

A quick check of my emails shows there’s no word from James Fraser as yet, so I decide to just settle down to sleep and leave luggage worries until the morning. Fortunately, I had changed the sheets before my weekend away, so I simply unwrap my towel, leaving it in a heap on the floor and slide into bed. The feeling of the cool, crisp bedding against my skin is wonderful. I assume a sort of diagonal starfish position, not having to worry about any other occupants. It crosses my mind whether to reach for the tiny vibrator in my bedside drawer, but I’m too comfortable and drowsy for that, so instead I check my alarm and settle down for sleep.

#outlander fanfic #outlander fanfiction #Jamie Fraser #Claire Beauchamp #Just a Friend #chapter 1 #Here goes

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just-an-anxious-mess · 3 years

Text

Just Like Old Times

Trigger Warnings: Remus being himself, mild emotional hurt/comfort and festive blues

Shining lights and bright colours covered the walls of the mindspace and, as an added assault to the senses, festive spices seemed to be everywhere with no visible source.

This was how the sides celebrated Christmas and Roman and Patton were mostly responsible for how extravagant and over the top it all was.

Virgil had been with them for plenty of years and knew how it worked quite well by now but this year he didn't feel at all comfortable.

The decorations seemed tacky and the smell of spices was sickly. Even the quiet sound of Christmas music had him gritting his teeth and covering his ears as it sounded tinny and annoying.

Everything seemed off and not as inviting as usual but then again Virgil had dropped a significant truth bomb on Thomas that had probably caused this sudden disconnect from everyone else.

Virgil sighed, sitting on his bed with his head in his hands as he thought and over thought the moment he revealed his past to Thomas.

He'd been going over that moment constantly since it'd happened and honestly it was starting to drive him a little nuts.

He felt cooped up in his room but he'd rather spend time in there than out where the Christmas decorations and smells seemed to have infected everything.

He wasn't sure what to do. He didn't want to stay in his room forever but he knew he wouldn't be able to stand leaving it.

Unless....

Virgil frowned and shook his head at the idea immediately, it was stupid.

But it wasn't as if he had much of a choice was it?

Sure he could stay here but he'd be alone, anxious and stressed out of his mind.

At least with Them he knew he'd be able to stomach it

Well... If they even let him join them that is. After everything he wasn't sure they'd want him back, especially considering how he'd left things.

Virgil pondered the decision for a while longer before standing up and making his decision.

This Christmas he would spend with The Others or The Dark Sides as Roman liked to call them.

He took a deep breath before focusing on his door, trying to ignore the way his heart was pounding away in his chest as he felt the air shift slightly and he knew he'd successfully reopened the link to the other mindspace.

Cautiously he pushed open his door, peeking out warily and freezing as he was hit by a wave of nostalgia.

The dark corridor had fairy lights shining along the walls, each door he could see had a coloured wreath and he was surprised to see his door with a black and purple one. He'd assumed they would have just left his blank.

He opened his door wider and peered further down the corridor and couldn't help but smile as he spotted a familiar door covered in bright green decorations that also seemed a bit goopy.

That was Remus's door, same as usual and if Virgil ventured a little further he was sure he'd see Janus's door with the snake shaped wreath of yellow.

Even further down the corridor there would be a door with an orange wreath but Virgil didn't have time to reminisce, he needed to find the sides in question.

He carefully slipped out of his room and quietly shut the door, taking a calming breath to try and slow the panicked race of his pulse.

He slowly crept towards where he knew the living room to be and paused as he heard familiar voices.

"Remus! How many times do I have to tell you!"

"Clearly more than once!"

Remus's voice was full of glee, probably at the expense of Janus who sounded exasperated and tired.

"You know what? Fuck it, eat the tinsel and when you feel ill later I'll say I told you so."

Virgil covered his mouth with his hand, grinning at the typical Remus action and fondly remembering the years he'd spent helping Janus keep him from eating various decorations.

"Do you reckon I'll get tinsillitis then?" Remus asked, and Virgil could imagine the infuriating grin he probably had at the awful joke.

"Remus, I swear, if you keep it up who knows what might happen to my infamous festive cookies."

"Wait! No! You're making those again?"

"Perhaps, I hadn't quite decided but I feel less inclined to do so now..."

Remus let out a screech and Virgil winced but was amused at how the dynamic of the two still seemed the same after so long.

Virgil venture forward and peered into the room, a lump forming in his throat at the familiar décor.

There was an enormous real Christmas tree with various decorations, a couple of them handmade by Remus for each of them, his own not appearing to be on there which was understandable.

He spotted the side in question wrapped in various garlands of tinsel grovelling at Janus's feet begging for him to make cookies.

Janus had a circlet of fairy lights around his hat and was looking down at Remus with a raised eyebrow, amused at the sudden change in his attitude.

Virgil held back a gasp as he noticed a dusty box sitting on the sofa with the star that usually sat atop the tree poking out the top.

He wondered who put it on the tree after he'd left considering that used to be his thing but brushed it off as he heard Remus's voice again.

"Oh my dear snake, please forgive me for my tinsel addiction for it is what I must eat when you're cookies are unavailable. Seriously though Jan, I would murder for those cookies and I'm likely to go smash a bunch of my brother's stuff if I don't get them."

"oh no, whatever shall I do? Poor Romans stuff. A tragedy if ever I heard one."

Janus expression and voice remained deadpan as he spoke and there was a brief moment of silence before Remus let out his cackle of a laugh and Janus chuckled.

Virgil had to hold his own amusement back at the achingly familiar humour that both urged him forward and also made him want to run for it.

It had been so long since he'd any sort of civil conversation with any of them and he was probably being hasty in his decision to come back for Christmas, surely they'd never want him back? Not after everything he'd said?

"Virgil?"

Panic gripped Virgils heart as he locked eyes with Janus who seemed just as surprised to see him as Virgil was to be seen.

"I... um..." Virgil stuttered, eyes wide and his breaths starting to get harder to take.

"Woah there emo nightmare, you need to chill the fuck out my dude. Deep breaths and all that shit." Remus was suddenly right next to him which didn't exactly help.

"Oh shit, Remus how many times do I have to tell you not to pop up next to him suddenly because it makes things worse? you know what never mind, hold on Virgil, I've got you, it's ok, just breathe."

Janus approached Virgil as his extra arms came out and it was as if Virgil had never left as Janus inquired if it was ok to touch him and, when he was given the go ahead, embraced Virgil in an enormous comforting hug and calmly told him everything was ok and reminded him to breathe.

After Virgil had managed to calm himself down he pulled back from Janus's hold and looked around awkwardly, unsure how to proceed.

"So what brings you back to this ass of the woods?" Remus asked, ignoring Janus's suffering sigh at his choice of words.

Virgil hesitated, worried of their reactions and not sure what he'd do if they turned him away but he wouldn't be too surprised.

Perhaps it was because Janus knew him so well or it had something to do with his role when it came to hidden knowledge but whatever the reason, Janus's expression suddenly changed into one of understanding and surprise.

"You told him."

It wasn't a question and it didn't need an answer, Janus knew from the look in Virgils eyes.

"Wait, what?" Remus asked, blinking in an exaggerated manner as he tried to figure out what was going on.

"And?" Janus asked Virgil, ignoring Remus's question for the time being as he watched Virgil carefully.

"He... um... I didn't really..." Virgil spluttered, struggling to get the words out as his mind filled with the expression on Thomas's face when he'd told him.

"Oh, honey, it'll be ok." Janus said in a soft voice, pulling Virgil in for another hug as tears began to run down his cheeks.

Remus was still confused dot com but wasn't going to say no to a group hug opportunity

After an amount of time none of them were keeping track of Virgil felt all the worries that had been eating away at him since telling Thomas seemingly melt away and he knew that was probably because of Janus.

"I... thank you. Um... I was uh, I was wondering if maybe, you know, you weren't busy or if you wanted to, it's no big deal really, um, would it be alright if I, maybe, um... stayed here? with you guys?"

Virgil stumbled his way through his question, eyes darting between the two almost as quickly as the thoughts flitting through his head about them turning him down.

"Of course!" Remus shrieked, his toothy smile immediately appearing as he began bouncing up and down on the spot in excitement. "This means we get to have the star on the tree this year! Wooooo!"

Remus bounced away, running around the room shrieking and yelling in glee as the other two watched, Janus in amusement and Virgil in bewilderment.

"Wait, what did he mean?"

It was Janus's turn to look awkward and he looked down at his gloves, picking at them instead of meeting Virgils eyes as he replied.

"no reason really, Remus being his weird self."

Virgil frowned as he surveyed Janus's face carefully before turning back to Remus who was throwing his garlands of tinsel onto the tree haphazardly.

"Remus what did you mean by this year you get to have the star on top?"

Remus paused and sent a glance at Janus who was sending him the look Remus had come to recognise as 'don't say a fucking word'. It was a look Remus loved to ignore so with a cheeky grin and a wink at the deceitful trait he replied "Well it's just not a real Christmas without you Virgie so the three of us decided not to put the star on top because that's your thing and we weren't going to just replace you or anything. Plus I'm pretty sure sulky scales here would have had a fit if we'd used a different tree topper. He was most adamant, weren't you Janny boy?"

Remus had a shit eating grin on his face as he took in the ever reddening face of Janus who was glaring heatedly at him but not as heated as his cheeks were, you could probably fry an egg on those bad boys.

Virgil turned to Janus, stunned and a little amused at how flustered he now was. "is that true?"

Janus scowled at Remus before sighing and meeting Virgils eyes and nodding. "Like Remus said, it's just not Christmas without you. After you left the one thing the rest of us could agree on was it didn't feel right, there was always something missing. You."

"wait, all of you?" Virgil asked, completely shocked.

"Yeppers, even old Shouty McPouty Amberlamps. It's not been the same without you. Now are you going to get your butt over here and decorate this tree or will I end up eating it again?"

"Wait, when did you eat the tree?" Virgil asked in alarm and was answered by a groan from Janus who was rubbing the temples of his head.

"He got so distressed last year about the unfinished state of our tree he ended up eating it. It was horrific to watch but it was kind of impressive in an I didn't realise that was possible kind of way."

Virgil felt his eyes prickle as he was surprisingly touched by the knowledge he'd been missed by all of them so much.

He'd yet to see 'Amberlamps' as Remus liked to call him but that wasn't surprising. The orange side usually avoided Remus because the creative traits favourite pastime was annoying people and he especially loved to annoy Wrath.

Wrath had such a low tolerance for Remus's bullshit that the two never really spent much time in the same room because of the messes their fights had resulted in in the past and Remus usually spent time with Janus a lot because Janus was able to keep him from doing most of the random stuff that popped into his head.

"Hey sir-thinks-a-lot! Put the star on the tree already!" Remus demanded impatiently, pulling Virgil from his thoughts.

"Alright, alright, jeez." Virgil grumbled but couldn't help the smile on his face at how amazing it felt to be fitting back into his role so easily.

Virgil stretched up on tiptoes and managed to just about slip the star onto the top of the tree, grinning as Remus let out a childlike scream of joy and Janus's face split into a soft genuine smile.

"Yay! Finally! the gang's all back together!"

"I think you're forgetting someone..." A voice said from the doorway and they all turned to spot Wrath frowning at them but it was gentler than usual as he locked eyes with Virgil and the corners of his mouth twitched up into a slight smile.

"Good to have you back Virgil, even if it's just for however long it takes for the others to get their shit together."

Virgil winced as the mood in the mood soured slightly at that reminder but Remus wasn't one to be easily perturbed.

"Who cares about the future? that's a problem for tomorrow us!

Wrath sighed but didn't comment, instead allowing Remus this small victory because it was the happiest he'd seen him in a while and even if he was a bit of an asshole he wasn't so bad as to make Remus miserable constantly, especially during the festive season.

"Group hug! and it's a proper one now because good old Virgie poo is back!" Remus suddenly exclaimed and there was no warning before the other three found themselves on a couch squashed next to each other and pinned in place by Remus's strong arms.

"Hey! Let go of me!" Wrath exclaimed but, at a look from Janus, cleverly decided to stop complaining before the snake called him out on his fake disgust at the hug.

Virgil was momentarily alarmed and caught off guard but when Janus used his extra arms to also grab them all in a hug he couldn't help but feel safe.

Just being around his old friends again had made him forget why he'd been so anxious in the first place.

It was like coming home.

Tag List under the cut:

General tag list: @mcfreakin-childproof-caps @amethystdarkwolf @patchworkofstars @kitkat-doodles @unikornavenger @dolphin-squirrel @sympathetic-deceit-trash @starryfirefliesbloggo @cakercanart @neonb-fly @kaymischief25 @punsterterry @aprilthevene @theoddkidnextdoor @fuckingemoace @i-sold-my-soul-to-thefandom @im-so-infinitesimal @sea-blue-child @thecatchat @iris-sanders-athena @saphael-malec102 @smedenn @corkeecoderyt @sopi-montezzz @illogicaldeath @deadpanstar @theanxiousfander @lesliealiceinwonderland @wicked-universe @anxious-is-the-name @a-black-pegasus @erlenmeyertrashofsandersides @ace-the-weekly-doodler @luarpice @novusavis @the-life-ofa-troubled-ace @heck-im-lost @nerdy-as-heck @pansexual-cat @ravens-rambling @echomist13 @myownhappilyeverafter @im-a-sexy-mouse @xx-fandom-potato-xx @bisexualellaphants @redundant-statements-for-400 @noahlovescoffee @akl1 @love-ya-to-the-moon @misty2-0 @cdragontogacotar @shad-ster @chemicallyimbalancedromance @ivescottthis @flag-spinning-demiboy @moonstonefox12 @stupidfangirl107 @teegankitty @stormastrote @skylerskywing @oonagh-una @ab-artist @lydialightwood-bane @remythehero @amberrose80q3 @official-spookifers-child @amazonprimebox

#just an anxious mess's fics #virgil sanders #remus sanders #janus sanders #wrath sanders #mild emotional hurt/comfort #remus being remus #post Dealing With Intrusive Thoughts #Virgil worrying about Thomas's reaction to him being a 'dark side'#festive stuff #remus and wrath shouldn't be left in the same room together alone or they will cause a mess #they need a responsible adult

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lemonandhugs · 3 years

Text

Stars Align: Chapter 2

SPOV

Sam, waiting at LAX, paced nervously back and forth. His palms were sweating, everything was sweating. He tried to steady his breathing. He put his bags on the ground, intertwined his fingers and put both hands on the back of his neck, looking at the ground, still pacing back and forth. Occasionally, he would look toward the entrance. He checked his watch, it was 10:26am. Sam made a quiet sort of grunt, as he exhaled.

‘Get a fucking grip! She could be a married woman! You’re a moron.’

Sam’s phone suddenly got a Twitter notification, which distracted him. After he checked Twitter, he put his phone in his back pocket, then turned back toward the entrance. There she was. Walking towards him, in a flowy, high-neck grey dress, which showed off her long legs nicely, a black jacket over top, hair down and being held back by sunglasses on her head. Cait being twenty feet away from him, he took advantage of looking her all the way up and down, without being busted. He could feel his jaw slowly drop lower and lower. When he felt it get too low, he composed himself and swallowed, and cleared his throat.

‘Oh god…how did I forget that she’s that damn attractive. She looks…phenomenal…amazing. She’s just…she’s beautiful. Don’t make an arse of yourself!’

Sam smiled crookedly at her when she was close enough to see. Cait shyly smiled back and gave a little wave.

“Hello,” Cait said.

“Good morning! Wow, you look very nice,” Sam grinned at her.

Cait gave him a shy smile, “thank you,” and looked at her brown strappy sandals.

“So, we’ve got a bit of a wait, do you want to go sit over there?” Sam asked, pointing at a couch near a big window, where sun was streaming in.

“Sure, over there,” Cait nodded.

She waited for him to pick his two bags back up; she was holding her three bags.

“Here, let me help you,” Sam said, as he took Cait’s medium-sized bag out of her hand.

“Oh, you’ve already got two big bags though,” Cait insisted.

“Och, it’s fine,” Sam shrugged one shoulder.

Cait watched Sam as he walked a little ahead of her. She couldn’t help but smirk to herself.

Sam set the four bags down on the ground, next to the couch where they had chosen to sit. Then he gently took the strap of Cait’s biggest bag off her shoulder and put it on the ground.

“Thank you,” Cait smiled at him.

‘There’s that great smile. Those eyes! They’re positively hypnotising. Oh, let’s have a look at that hand, how could I forget!’

“That’s alright,” Sam smiled back, and extended his arm to the spot on the couch next to him.

Cait sat down on the couch and leant into the corner, crossed her legs, and angled them towards Sam. Sam tried not to look at her legs, and tried to conceal his hard swallow. Instead, he distracted himself by removing his phone from his back pocket and put it on the arm on the couch. Cait put her hands in her lap, which became slightly covered by her dress.

‘Hmm well there’s no way I can try and see her hand now, without looking like I’m trying to see up her dress, or just perving on her legs. Her very nice…long…legs. Don’t look at them! Keep your eyes on hers. Fuck I need a coffee…Hmm…’

“You know what, stay here, I’ll be right back,” Sam nodded at her, and he was off the couch before she could ask why.

“Oh…” Cait furrowed her eyebrows, and turned her head to the side, still looking forward, watching him powerwalk away.

Ten minutes later, Sam came back with two good-sized coffees. Cait’s eyes lit up. He sat down and held one out to her.

“I needed one, and hopefully you do too,” he giggled, a little nervously.

Cait let out a little laugh, “aw, that’s very kind of you. I was actually needing one.”

“It’s just black. I wasn’t sure what you liked,” Sam said, biting his lip.

“Perfect,” Cait nodded and smiled, “I don’t take it any other way.”

“Me too, me too. Ah, that was lucky,” Sam gave her a small, crooked smile.

They both took a sip of their coffee, not taking their eyes off one another. Sam quickly glanced at her hand.

‘Right hand, damn. Good call on the coffee though. No almond milk crap.’

“So, Caitriona Balfe, tell me about yourself,” Sam said, sitting back, taking another sip of coffee.

*****

‘So, she’s made absolutely no mention of any husband, boyfriend, or kids. But…we just met, maybe she wants to wait before talking about her personal life with a total stranger. Although she did mention her “fur child”, Eddie. That would’ve been a good opportunity to mention a human child…or a husband…or a boyfriend…’

“I’ll show you a photo of Eddie,” Cait said.

She leant down to get her phone out of her bag, then her right hand lost her grip on her coffee. Sam just spotted it starting to wobble in her hand before it fully slipped from her hand. It happened very quickly, but Sam half caught it, still half in Cait’s hand, coffee spilling down their hands.

Cait gasped, “shit! Oh!” she said with a pained look on her face.

Her coffee was half full, and a good amount was spilt.

“You alright? Got it?” Sam asked, not letting go, and quickly putting his coffee on the ground.

His middle finger was slightly entwined with her middle and pointer fingers. He held the bottom of the cup with his other hand, at the same time she supported the middle of the cup with her left hand. Sam took no time in looking at her hand, pretending to focus on freeing his hands from her cup.

‘Ah HA, no ring! That is if she hasn’t taken it off, but why would she? Perhaps this rules-out marriage…but boyfriend, and maybe a child…no clearance there yet. Oh, for fuck sake. So what if she’s completely single. Bad BAD idea to get involved with someone you work with. Stop being a tosser! Let it go!’

“Ah…” Cait said, biting her lip in pain, “yeah, thank you. Burnt my hand a bit, how’s your hand?”

Cait leant over and put her coffee on the ground.

“It’s fine, don’t worry. I’ll go get some serviettes,” Sam said, slightly shaking some coffee off his hand, towards the ground.

“Oh no it’s alright, I’ve got some baby wipes in here,” Cait reassured, leaning over again, and rummaging through her handbag.

She got her phone and rested it in her lap, then pulled out a small packet of baby wipes.

Sam felt like his heart skip a few beats, then plunged down into this stomach.

‘Don’t make assumptions…she herself has made no mention of a child…’

“They’re so handy, especially in clumsy instances like this. If you’re going to be working with me for a while, that’s one thing to keep in mind,” Cait giggled, then looked down as she wiped her hands.

This brought Sam out of his panicked speculations, and he couldn’t help but smile, every time he heard her giggle.

“You’re a clumsy one?” Sam asked, taking the baby wipe Cait held out to him.

“I tend to fall over my big feet a lot, and spill things, yes,” Cait said with a nod and an embarrassed smile.

Sam let out a small laugh, “how did you manage the runway in heels?”

“With great difficulty. They made me practice for hours, and eventually I just got used to them. Then I began to trip over in my regular shoes though. I forgot how to walk in flat shoes,” Cait giggled again, rolling her eyes, and shaking her head.

‘Adorable creature.’

Then an announcement suddenly caught their attention; their flight to London was now boarding.

CPOV

Cait had gotten absolutely no sleep. She woke up feeling exhausted and nauseated. She could feel her heartbeat in her ears, and her palms were sweaty. Her hands shook every now and then, while she was applying her makeup; doing everything she could to cover her puffy eyebags and dark circles.

Cait then sighed harshly and threw down her concealer brush, “fuck it. That’s as good as it’s going to get.”

She swivelled around in her vanity chair and leant down, putting her head between her legs, entwining her fingers, and squeezing.

‘Fucking idiot, Caitriona! Making yourself physically sick over a man who could very well be unavailable and may not even fucking like you! Relax. Get your act together, and stop being an idiot. Never show a man how vulnerable you are.’

She got up and took a deep breath. She looked at herself in the mirror, took another deep breath in, and let it out slowly through her mouth, watching her chest fall.

“Alright,” she said to herself in the mirror, and got up to get ready to leave.

The cab ride to the airport was about 17 minutes. Being in the car was giving her motion sickness, but she tried not to focus on it. A couple of times she truly felt like she was going to be sick.

‘Caitriona, stop. Stop this. Do you want to vomit in front of him? I think not!’

Cait laid her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. It seemed to help.

*****

“Ah…excuse me miss? Miss…MISS?”

Cait weakly opened her eyes and saw the cab driver looking behind at her, from the driver’s seat.

“We’ve arrived at the airport, miss,” the cab driver informed her.

“Oh…I’m sorry,” Cait pulled herself up straighter, and got out money to give to the driver.

Cait pulled herself from the cab and steadied herself as a head spin came on. She thanked the cab driver as he handed her each piece of her luggage. She walked slowly towards the entrance of the airport.

‘Oh god…I thought I had only closed my eyes for a few minutes…how embarrassing.’

She slid her finger underneath her sunglasses, to adjust an eyelash. She looked at the tip of her finger and saw little black lines from her mascara. She stopped as she came beside a parked car. She quickly took off her sunglasses and put them on her head, to tame her hair in the inconvenient wind, and checked her face.

She took a deep breath to try, once again, to calm her nerves, “here we go.”

She stumbled slightly, as one of her bags knocked the door on her way in. She put her head down, nervously. Upon entering, she spotted him straight away, amongst the sea of about 50 people in this same area. It was as if her eyes were a magnet, attracted to him. Although it wasn’t hard to spot him, as he towered above most people. The colour of his dyed red hair also stood out. He was pacing back and forth with his head down, looking rather nervous and jittery himself. He was wearing a black shirt and slim, dark blue denim jeans; not too slim, but enough to hug his backside. The sleeves on his shirt showed off his toned biceps nicely.

Cait moaned internally, as her eyes found his firm-looking arse, which was quite visible in those jeans. ‘Oh…fuck. That’s not fair!’

Cait slowed her pace, as she was walking towards him, not wanting to seem too eager. Sam took his phone out of his back pocket and put it back within ten seconds or so. Then he turned around and met her gaze and his eyes lit up. He smiled at her. That same smile he gave her just a few days before when she first met him.

‘Just breathe. Just breath. Just breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe!’

Cait smiled back, hoping it disguised her nervousness, and waved. Her legs were feeling weaker by the minute.

‘He looks so nervous…why, I wonder…Oh, where’s his ring…left hand is in his pocket. Great.’

*****

‘Thank god we’re going to sit down; I feel like I’m about to collapse. I really need a coffee…Oh…sweet of him to take my bag. Shit, can he tell I’m about to collapse? He must know I’m tired, which means I must indeed look like complete shit, after all. I could manage my bags myself…oh stop lying, my legs can hardly carry my own body at this point, let alone three pieces of luggage as well…don’t walk in front of me Sam! I don’t want to look at your painfully nice arse, you could be a married man! I’m lusting after a man who could be married! Ugh!’

*****

'Uh, what? Where the fuck is he going?! Do I go after him? Of course not, he’ll think I’m psycho. Relax. He said he’ll be back. He probably just went to the toilet.’

Cait got her phone out to distract herself, her foot shaking uncontrollably; something that seemed to happen when she was lacking sleep. She then caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye.

‘Coffee! Oh damnit, how sweet. Shit…can he read minds…? Don’t be so stupid, Caitriona.’

“Oh! Thank you!” Cait said smiling brightly, gently taking the cup off him. Taking the cup from his LEFT hand and seeing NO ring.

‘Huh…alright no ring…he could have a girlfriend…or a child. Oh, you’re a fucking idiot! You’re not going to get involved with a man you’re going to be working with! Snap out of it!’

Cait quickly looked down, as Sam sat at the opposite end of the small couch. He grinned back at her.

“How did you know I take my coffee black?” Caitriona smiled.

“Just a very lucky guess. It’s how I take mine,” Sam smiled crookedly and took a sip of his coffee, not breaking his glance.

Cait giggled and took a sip of her coffee. They began to talk about each other’s lives, beginning with childhood, high school, and early careers.

“I can’t believe you played Batman! Did you have that belt with a million gadgets?” Caitriona asked, biting her lip.

“Yeah! It was cool. Being on wires and flung through the air was quite fun too. It was a good experience,” Sam nodded, giving a small and slightly embarrassed smile.

Cait reciprocated with a small giggle. “Definitely more acting experience than I’ve ever had.”

“Well, being a Victoria’s Secret model, that’s definitely impressive,” Sam gave a small smirk.

Cait smirked back, embarrassed. “Many many moons ago now. I learnt a lot about myself though. But it would never be able to make me happy long-term. I do miss travelling to so many countries, and the friends I made, but that’s it. I don’t miss anything else.”

Sam nodded and looked into her eyes while she was talking. At least he tried to. Cait tended to look away a lot while talking.

‘Seems like he’s really interested in what I have to say…his glance doesn’t even break. I can’t look him dead in those bright blue eyes, he’ll notice me stupidly blushing.’

“Do you think you’re this confident because of those years as a model?” Sam inquired.

“Confident?” Cait raised her eyebrows.

“Well, in that scene you had amazing confidence. Especially with having to be so close to some guy you just met,” Sam gave a half smile and bit his lip.

Cait looked down and chuckled. “I guess I am very confident when I’m playing someone else. Besides, Claire seems like the ultimate confident woman. Does not take one shit from anyone.”

Sam chuckled back. “Yeah! She seems like a really great character to play. Are you excited about playing her?”

“I am, actually. I really admire her. I hope I can do her justice,” Cait bit one side of her mouth.

“Well, according to Ron, you’re the perfect Claire,” Sam smiled cheekily and took another sip.

Cait giggled and looked down at her phone. A notification lit up her phone and seeing Eddie’s photo as her wallpaper reminded her to show him, to ease her bashful idiocy.

“Here’s my little baby, by the way,” Cait grinned and held her phone up to Sam’s face.

Just then her coffee, that was balancing in one hand, started to wobble. The split second it was going to fall, Sam’s big hand caught the cup and steadied it. Although the jolt made quite a bit of coffee spill and run down both of their hands.

Cait hissed, feeling the burning liquid pierce her hand. “Shit! Oh, thank you,” Cait managed, through a pained expression.

“That’s alright, are you okay?” Sam said with concern.

“Yeah yeah, just burnt my hand a little bit,” Cait said as she quickly dropped her phone and took the cup with both hands, coffee dripping off the bottom, onto the tiles.

“Uh, I have some baby wipes in my bag,” Cait said as she was about to put her coffee on the ground.

Before she had a chance to, Sam quickly put his coffee on the ground and shook off the coffee that was on his other hand.

“Oh, here,” Sam said as he took the cup off her, holding it out in front of him.

“Oh, thank you,” Cait said, retrieving the wipes from her bag. “Sorry, did I get any on you?” Cait said looking at his crotch.

‘Stop!’

“Nah, only the couch,” Sam giggled.

“Oops,” Cait smiled, embarrassed.

“It’s alright,” Sam gave a reassuring smile.

Cait wiped her hands, took out a wipe for him, and swapped it with her coffee cup, and gave that a wipe down, as well as the wet spot on the couch.

“Thanks. Very handy, these,” Sam said wiping his hands.

“Very. I rely on them as I’m quite clumsy,” Cait gave a shy smile.

Sam giggled. “You can walk in giant heels just fine.”

“I mean with liquid,” Cait smiled, biting her lip.

“Oh,” Sam laughed, and he took the dirty wipes off her and walked over to the bin.

“Anyways, HERE is Eddie,” Caitriona laughed, once again showing her phone to Sam.

“Awww! So cute. Who’s going to look after her?” Sam asked.

“She’s going to go live at my friend’s place. It’s just easier. I’m really going to miss her. The first break we have from filming, I’m going to fly her over to Scotland,” Cait said, smiling at the photo on her phone.

“She’ll miss her mum,” Sam sat back and gave a small smile.

Cait gave a slightly pouty look, complete with the bottom lip, as she looked down at the photo.

“My ride or die…” Caitriona said.

Just then their attention was caught by the announcement of their flight now boarding.

Caitriona put her phone into her bag and moved forward, preparing to stand up. Her legs felt very fatigued, the coffee hadn’t kicked in yet. She stood using all her strength, working through the strong aches that shot up from her ankles. She put her handbag on her shoulder and picked up two of her luggage bags. Before she could pick up the third, it was swiped away by Sam’s strong arm. He smiled at her. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Caitriona tilted her head, bearing a guilty look on her face.

“Yeah,” Sam said, displaying that toothy smile.

Caitriona and Sam stood in line at the gate. Caitriona got her passport and ticket out from her handbag. She glanced down at her ticket, to check her seat number.

“12A,” Caitriona read.

Sam quickly put the luggage down and slipped his ticket out of his back pocket. It was a little wrinkled from where he had been sitting on it.

“…9C,” Sam read, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Oh…we aren’t sitting together?” Cait asked, looking at his ticket.

“Yeah, I guess not. I guess Ron couldn’t get us seats in the same row…” Sam said, slightly discouraged.

“Mmm…” Caitriona nodded.

She could hear and see his slight disappointment, and to be honest, she too felt that. However, she breathed a small sigh of relief, knowing she would be able to sleep without feeling self-conscious. The last thing she wanted was to wake up and have her head pinned to his shoulder, complete with a line of drool on his shirt. She winced to herself just imagining that.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33179176/chapters/82373770

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hippriestess · 4 years

Photo

Part 2: Cherry-picking

Cherry Red had been releasing The Fall's new music since 2011's “Ersatz GB” and we already knew that Smith had signed a further deal with them to look after what portion of the group's catalogue he owned. They had already made a start with the handsome seven disc “Singles 1978 - 2016” box set they had released late in 2017 (alongside a cut-down three disc “A Sides” collection). The set had originally been scheduled for release in 2016 but the production deadline for the all-important Christmas market was missed and the set was held back until after “New Facts Emerge” - from which no singles were taken - had been released. Following Smith's passing, the seven-disc edition sold out and was unavailable for a short time before Cherry Red did the decent thing and made a few more.

A reissue of 1997's “Levitate” had been in the works for a while; Smith had signed off the tracklisting and there had been a trailer of sorts with a Record Store Day-only 7” of “Masquerade” in 2017. Given that the album had been in contractual limbo for quite some time with original vinyl copies fetching 3 figures on the open market, Cherry Red's first posthumous release felt like a public service, doing the right thing both by Smith and by the fans. Released towards the end of May 2018, the new 2CD/3LP edition was justly well received and some kindly reviews appeared with mostly positive re-evaluations of one of their most awkward albums. Hindsight benefits the record; if it sounds like they were falling to bits, it's because they were and now that we know not just what happened next but how the whole story of The Fall continued for another 20 years, it has context. For the record (Portugal), yr present author is no more fond of the album than she was 7 or 8 years ago but “Ol' Gang” has clicked into focus and the second disc puts those great b-sides from the “Masquerade” CD singles back onto the shelves so it would have to be considered necessary.

Less impressive was “58 Golden Greats”, released at the end of 2018. A 3CD set in a clamshell box, this was, in essence, an extended version of the classic “50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong” collection from 2004, extending the tracklist to cover the remainder(er) of the group's career. It actually expands on the original in other ways, adding several songs from the era covered in the original version; the puzzling omission of “Big New Prinz” is corrected for one thing and other singles are added such as “Oh! Brother” and “Dead Beat Descendent”. Perhaps Beggars Banquet were more co-operative this time. Whilst one could always quibble with any attempt at a Fall “best of”, yr present author was not taken with this one and my purse remained closed. 58 was an unwieldy number (why not a round 60?), the cover artwork – a spoof of a different Elvis Presley sleeve – was far from appealing and the entry-point value of “50,000...” was lost, a 3 disc set at £17 being too big a serving at too high a price for the merely curious. However, it looks as if I'm just flat-out in the wrong. As we'll continually see, Cherry Red aren't just experienced, they are also smart and do not lack savvy. I'm sat here keyboard-griping while “58 Golden Greats” is sold out. Enough said.

In 2019, Cherry Red announced the beginning of the Fall Sound Archive, the title of which gave the air of a mission to preserve The Fall's work for future generations. Inevitably, they were starting with 40th Anniversary editions of “Live At The Witch Trials” and “Dragnet”. There was early disappointment. The 3CD edition of “Live At The Witch Trials” contained the exact same music as the 2CD edition from 2004 but spread over three discs. Any thoughts that the decision at least preserved the sanctity of the original 11 song album were hampered by the 3CD edition of “Dragnet” containing, as disc 1, the exact same running order – with single and outtakes – as the 2004 CD edition. The other two discs were 2 of the little-loved “Live From The Vaults” series (of which, more later, sort of..). The archive was perhaps, not so deep.

However, the plus points were the vinyl editions, which had been hatched with obvious care. Using the rare US edition of “LATWT” with an alternate sleeve and revised running order was a clever touch and one that acknowledged that the Fall's audience would need something more than just a nice colour of vinyl before they indulged the album yet again. Similarly, “Dragnet” came with a reproduction 7” of “Rowche Rumble”, a record which originally came with the thinnest paper sleeve in the history of music. That's not to say that we didn't get coloured vinyl, oh we did - “LATWT” came of red vinyl to match the US sleeve and “Dragnet” on black and white “splatter” vinyl. These both sold well, sold quickly and sold out, now being tricky to score except on the Discogs etc market. But perhaps more to the point, they suggested that Cherry Red's experience and nouse would, at minimum, keep things interesting.

Later in 2019, the Kamera catalogue came under Cherry Red's microscope and it was another mixed set of releases. For CD buyers, a 6 disc set called “(1982)” was developed. This contained “Hex Enduction Hour”, “Room To Live” “Fall In A Hole” various single and live tracks and the “Live To Air In Melbourne” album which had previously snuck out in the late 90's when MES was broke. There was no new music to be had here at all – everything had previously been released. As such £40 was too rich a price tag for many and the edition is still easily available. The new vinyl edition of “Hex” was well particularly well presented. For the first time, the 60 minute LP was cut onto 4 sides of vinyl – a long overdue move, this did the album real justice on the format and would have to be considered an essential for those who insist on twelve-inch slabs of wax for their music. A pleasing, sturdy fold-out sleeve showed that corners were not being cut, the vinyl again matched the colour scheme of the artwork and it also came with an excellent reproduction of the sterling “Look, Know/I'm Into C.B.” 45. What spoiled it a little bit was the inclusion of a third LP with Peel Session #5 on one side and some of the live tracks from the 2005 Sanctuary 2CD on the other. All this really did was drive up the price – a double LP with the 7” would have been perfect and would have been less heavy on the purse *NB – this didn't stop me buying it – that's my copy in the picture...). “Room To Live” was given a vinyl reissue too, this time as a double LP with sides 3 and 4 being the live tracks from the 2005 Sanctuary edition. Again, this didn't quite feel like the right choice – an alternative idea would have been a single LP with a 7”. Given that the classic “Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul/Fantastic Life” single had been added to the popular, widely owned German pressing, why not add a repro of that instead? It would have cost less and added more value to the package.

Despite these whinges “(1982)” would have to be considered an elegant, practical solution to a latter-day problem and demonstrates why Cherry Red remain a market leader in catalogue reissues. Can you really sell compact discs of these albums yet again? How else do you present the music in this format? The answer to parcel the whole lot together and present it as a “year-in-the-life” was a smart one that was only hampered by an optimistic £40 price tag (which translated to as much as £58 in stores) and the artwork being based on “Hex” which could have given a more casual customer the notion that the set was Hex and 5 discs of “other” material. The bottom line here is that there is nothing else in the cupboard; as with the IAKO ballet and the Hey! Luciani play, fantasies about things like the unedited “Winter” and the full 20+ minute “And This Day” ever appearing are exactly that – fantasies. Were they ever preserved, they're gone and anything that did turn up, almost 40 years hence would likely be in such a state of degeneration as to be unlistenable. From now on, all that can be done is to keep this material out there and try to present it with a fresh angle. That's precisely what Cherry Red have done here.

Come 2020, come the challenge of reselling what is not just one of the most widely-distributed but also one of the worst Fall albums: “Reformation Post TLC”. Cherry Red stuck to type with a double LP pressed into blue and red coloured vinyl, again matching the colour to the sleeve. Undoubtedly a handsome package, this version was snapped up with some enthusiasm although it does seem that sales were likely harmed by coinciding with the early, uncertain, often panic-stricken days of the Covid-19 pandemic reaching the UK. The 4CD edition was daunting: the whole album and 2 CDs worth of outtakes and rough mixes, followed by the “Last Night At The Palais” CD. The “Last Night At The Palais” DVD was not included. Time has passed, time has healed and it is clear that RPTLC is a terrific EP stretched out beyond the energy of the participants. There is even a strong 40 minute single LP to be had within its contents but, hey it was what it was. With almost all of the unreleased mixes having no vocals, interest wears off before we got to the excellent live disc but, on the other paw, Cherry Red have done exactly what we want; it is highly unlikely that there is anything left from the album sessions; this is the whole lot, every scrap. Up to us now what we do with them.

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

Now, if you're thinking I've skipped something, you're right but the story of The Fall's posthumous discography is difficult to tell in a linear fashion. So I invite you, friends, to join me in a diversion. Cast your minds back to Record Store Day 2019.

Cherry Red played a good hand by releasing a new vinyl edition of the superb “Imperial Wax Solvent” album. As with “Levitate”, vinyl copies were going for silly money, Universal having allegedly pressed a mere 500 for the world. It was a shame that Cherry Red therefore added only another 500 copies, this time pressed into yellow vinyl. These were almost entirely snapped up on the day and copies of this edition are routinely offered at £50-60. “IWS” had, of course, been out of print since 2008, having been deleted less than 6 months after its release. As such the RSD edition of “IWS” could be said to have undersold the record somewhat. Unless, of course, a properly “available” edition, maybe with that unreleased original mix of the album was to follow at some point...more on that later.

Sadly, we must also wade through the other Fall releases that were curled out for RSD 2019. That will take us into Part 3...

#the fall #mark e smith #hex enduction hour #dragnet #live at the witch trials #reformation post tlc #1982 #room to live #craig scanlon #steve hanley #paul hanley #marc riley #karl burns #imperial wax solvent

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pikapeppa · 4 years

Text

Fenris/f!Hawke smut: A Proper Dinner Party For Adults

Okay. This was just an excuse to write some canon-universe PWP from Rynne Hawke’s POV. It’s set a few weeks after Rynne and Fenris finally reunite in Act 3. You know those first few weeks/months in a new relationship when you’re so crazy about your partner and all you want to do is have sex constantly? Yeah, that.

For @dadrunkwriting Friday. NSFW. ~6300 words. Read here on AO3 instead.

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

Rynne was horny.

This in itself wasn’t a surprise. Rynne had always been a lusty sort of girl, and harbouring several years’ worth of unrequited passion for an unavailable man only seemed to have reinforced her urges.

But she and Fenris had been together for almost three weeks now, and they’d been fucking at least twice a day ever since. With how much time they’d been spending twisted together in bed, Rynne thought the constant itch would have lessened a bit by now.

Instead, the opposite seemed to have happened. Instead of a rose-coloured memory of a single blissful night gone wrong, Rynne now had several weeks’ worth of memories of Fenris’s hands on her body. She knew exactly how well his elegant fingers could push her to her peak and just how beautifully his face could twist when he was finding his pleasure. She knew the exact scent that his sweat-laced body left on the bed, and in those moments when he left the bed to fetch a drink or to use the bathroom, Rynne would shamelessly bury her face in his pillow for the sheer pleasure of enjoying the sweet sleepy smell of his hair marking her sheets.

She couldn’t stop marvelling at how gorgeous he looked all naked and sated in her rumpled bed. She couldn’t get over the faintly bitter taste of his climax as it flowed down her throat. Rynne was useless, besotted, completely tied around his lyrium-lined little finger, and if she could have it her way, she and Fenris would stay hidden away in her bedroom fucking each other’s brains out for the foreseeable future, thank you very much.

Unfortunately, Rynne couldn’t have it her way. Orsino and Meredith had each sent a messenger to her house this morning, and when she finally dragged her cranky ass down the stairs, it was to find a frankly alarming pile of letters on her writing desk.

She wrinkled her nose and turned to Orana, who was hovering at her elbow with a cup of tea. “I have a brilliant idea. Let’s start throwing these straight in the fireplace from now on.”

Orana’s jaw dropped in shock. “A-are you sure, Mistress Hawke?”

“It’s just Hawke, Orana,” Rynne said absently. “And yes, I’m sure. I’m almost certain that none of them are important.” She picked up a letter at random. “Look at this one, for example. It’s… oh, it’s from the bank. Never mind.” She gave Orana a sickly smile. “Letters stay on the table, I suppose.”

“If you say so,” Orana said cautiously. She gave Rynne the tea and hurried away.

Rynne sighed and gingerly sipped the steaming tea. She listlessly started sorting the letters by importance, and she was trying to wrack up the courage to open the one from the bank when Fenris’s voice drifted down the stairs.

“Sorting your mail, are you?” he said. “That’s very responsible.” He joined her at the desk and picked up her cup of tea.

She bit her lip. Fenris was standing just behind her, not quite touching but close enough to touch if she leaned back just a little bit. His lovely sexy voice was warm with humour, and his beautiful emerald eyes were smiling at her over the rim of the cup.

Maker’s balls, she wanted to go back upstairs. Could they go back upstairs? Wasn’t it enough that she’d sorted the mail? She didn’t need to actually read it, did she?

He quirked one eyebrow at her lack of reply, and she forced herself to breathe. “How dare you imply I’m anything less than responsible?” she quipped. “I am the epitome of responsible. Just ask Carver.”

He scoffed and set down the cup. “You don’t really want me to ask Carver.”

Rynne mock-pouted at him. “Of course I don’t. Now you’ve gone and called my bluff.”

He chuckled, and Rynne swallowed hard. The sound of Fenris’s laugh had always made her heart skip a beat, but now she knew that laugh in a different context. She knew it as a purr against her ear when she was begging for his touch, and she knew the irresistible breathless chuckle that he preserved for the tender moments of their afterglow. His laugh was ruined now, ruined in the most wonderful possible way, and Rynne wasn’t sure she could hear it anymore without immediately wanting to strip off her clothes.

“What?” he said. He rubbed his nose. “Is there something on my face?”

Oh balls, she’d been staring at him. She quickly shot him a coy smile. “There sure is,” she said, and she popped up onto her tiptoes and planted a noisy kiss on his lips. “Now come on, let’s go to the market and see how my most terrible investment is panning out.”

He clicked his tongue as they made their way toward the door. “I can’t understand why you don’t sell your shares on the Bone Pit back to Hubert. That cursed place reeks of death.”

She playfully chucked his chin. “Aw, you don’t enjoy our little day trips out there?”

He raised one eyebrow as they made their way through the bustling Hightown street. “I never have. You know that.”

“And yet you always come with me anyway,” she said shrewdly.

He shrugged. “I enjoy following you.”

Rynne stopped and gaped at him. Had he really just said something so bold? And in public, no less?

He smirked at her, and the sly look on his face was just… it was too much. She was already struggling to keep her hands off of him, and now he was smirking at her like he knew exactly what she was thinking, and she couldn’t help it: she burst into laughter.

She laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop fucking laughing, and soon Fenris was smiling too, but in a bemused sort of way. “Was it that funny?” he asked.

“No, no,” she gasped. “Not funny, I – I loved it. I’m not really laughing-laughing, I just…” She took a deep and shaky breath, then looked him in the face. “Oh fuck it, let’s go back to the house.”

His eyebrows leapt up. “Wha– why? We only just left.”

She took a step closer to him and grabbed his chestplate. “Because Fenris, I just want to–”

“Hawke.”

At the sound of Aveline’s voice, Fenris stepped slightly away from her – much to Rynne’s disappointment. She shot him a wry look, then turned to Aveline with a smile. “Av! What brings you to this dreadfully fancy part of town? Have the Coterie managed to purchase a mansion hideout in the heart of Hightown?”

“No. Report of a robbery, and I’m shortstaffed,” Aveline said briskly. “But I’m glad I caught you. Did you get my letter?”

Rynne raised her eyebrows. “Letter? What letter?”

Aveline gave her a reproving look. “I sent you an invitation a week ago.”

Rynne stared at her in growing confusion. “An invitation to what?” She grimaced. “Please tell me it isn’t some fancy political dinner thing. I can only stomach so many pleasantries before I want to jam a corkscrew into my own eye.”

Beside her, Fenris let out a tiny cough. Aveline, meanwhile, was frowning more deeply by the second. “Donnic and I are hosting a dinner party,” she said.

“Why?” Rynne asked.

Fenris snorted softly, and Rynne grinned at him. This, of course, turned out to be a mistake; Fenris was smirking again, and Rynne adored his smirk and all the heat it contained, and all she really wanted to do was kiss those smirking lips of his–

Aveline’s reply regained Rynne’s flagging attention. “Because – well, because we thought it would be nice,” she said defensively. “You lot are always going to the Hanged Man, and you know how it looks for me to be seen there, Hawke. And I know your mansion is bigger, but Donnic and I have a perfectly nice home as part of the City Guard allowance…”

Damn, Rynne thought. She hadn’t meant to hurt Aveline’s feelings. “Of course, of course it’s a nice idea!” she said hurriedly. “It’s a lovely idea, Aveline, we’ll be happy to come! When is it?”

“Tonight,” Aveline said flatly.

Double fucking damn, Rynne thought desperately. She didn’t want to go to a dinner party tonight. The only thing she wanted to eat these days was Fenris’s cock.

She forced herself to maintain a bright smile. “Tonight! Fantastic! That’s great!” she said.

Thankfully, Fenris stepped in and saved her from her own over-enthusiasm. “Shall we bring anything?” he asked.

“Yes. Thank you, Fenris,” Aveline said somewhat pointedly. “You can bring a side dish. Donnic is making roast beef and potatoes. Varric and Sebastian are bringing sides as well, and Anders is bringing wine. Merrill said she’d bring something for dessert.”

“I’ll bring my famous punch,” Rynne offered.

“No,” Aveline said firmly. “Your punch is not invited.”

Rynne gazed at her in genuine surprise. “What? Why not? What kind of party is this without punch?”

“A proper dinner party for adults, Hawke,” Aveline said. “Which we all are, in case you needed reminding.”

Fenris turned away and scratched his nose, and Rynne couldn’t look at him. If she did, she’d either start laughing again or she’d say something filthy, and Aveline’s opinion of her was clearly dropping with every passing moment.

Rynne waved dismissively. “Of course! That makes sense. Adult dinner party, Donnic’s lovely cooking, Merrill’s cake. It sounds wonderful. We’ll be there!” She nodded pertly.

Aveline eyed her suspiciously, then nodded and stepped away. “Come for five o’clock. And don’t be late.”

Rynne blinked innocently. “Me, be late? Never!” She saluted Aveline. “Guard-Captain.”

Aveline gave her a tiny smile, then waved and walked away. As soon as she was out of earshot, Fenris leaned in close to Rynne’s ear. “A party without punch? I wonder whether you’ll survive the night.”

She shivered. His lovely voice was quiet but laced with laughter, and the mere sound of it sent a pulse of heat down her throat and into the base of her belly.

She turned and stepped close to him. “The real question is how I’m going to survive a night of sitting next to you and not being able to stroke that lovely cock of yours.”

He scoffed and ran a hand through his hair, then darted a quick look around the street. “Kaffas, Hawke. You will make me blush.”

She smiled slowly. “Can you show me?”

His eyebrows rose. “Show you what? My… blushing?”

“Yes,” she purred. “Every last blushing inch of you.” She leaned into his chest and curled her fingers against his abdomen.

She waited eagerly as his face shifted from surprise to something much more heated. She lifted her chin in invitation, then watched avidly as the tip of his tongue flicked out to wet his lips.

“What about Hubert and the Bone Pit?” he asked. His voice was quiet: an intimate near-whisper, like the kind of voice he would use while murmuring to her in bed.

She pressed herself more firmly against his chest. “Fuck Hubert and the Bone Pit,” she breathed. “Actually, I take that back. I’d much rather fuck you.”

His eyes darted up to meet hers, and Rynne stared breathlessly at him. Then he placed his hand on her hip.

Her breath left her in a sharp sigh. It was so innocuous, really: just the touch of his hand – the mere resting of his palm on her hip. It shouldn’t be affecting her this way; it shouldn’t be raising the pulse at her throat or bringing a thrill to life between her legs. It was just his hand, after all. She’d been groped more firmly than this during the first ten seconds of stepping into the Hanged Man.

But this wasn’t some random smelly drunk; this was Fenris. This was Fenris’s hand on her hip while they were standing in public. Public touching – or any touching outside of the bedroom, really – was something he was still getting used to. But here he was, touching her in public, placing his hand on her body in an affectionate matter right here in the middle of the street…

Rynne was so fucking thrilled that she almost leapt on him on the spot.

He tilted his face closer to hers, and she stopped breathing altogether. “Back to your house it is, then,” he whispered.

She pulled in a breath, then beamed at him. “Good,” she murmured. “That’s all I really wanted, anyway.”

Two minutes later, they were back in her mansion. Five minutes after that, they were naked in her bed. Fenris was pressing her hands into the mattress while his cock slid through the creamy heat between her legs, and Rynne was staring at his parted and panting lips in a deliriously happy haze.

Well, at least she’d tried to leave the house today. That had to count for something, right?

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

Later that evening, Rynne scuffed her feet sheepishly as she and Fenris walked away from Aveline’s house.

She glanced sideways at Fenris and chewed her lip uncertainly. His expression was very neutral, and he hadn’t said a word since Aveline had told them in exasperation to go home.

The evening had started out well enough. She and Fenris had had sex twice that afternoon in addition to their usual morning fuck, and by the time they’d arrived at Aveline’s house fifteen minutes late – very good by Rynne’s standards – she was feeling quite confident that she’d be able to make it through the evening without getting overly, er, distracted.

Everyone had seemed pretty stilted when Rynne and Fenris first walked in – not surprising to Rynne, given Aveline’s agenda of a so-called ‘adult party’. So Rynne had provided a little social lubrication by picking a topic at random to talk about. “Did you all notice it’s a full moon?” she said cheerfully. “Funnily enough, this is the best time to pick blood lotus. The moonlight brings out its aphrodisiac properties.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

Merrill blinked. “Really? I didn’t know that.”

Rynne winked at her. “It’s a useful tip, that. Store it away for later.”

Merrill tittered, but Aveline sighed. “You and that pirate wench. It’s always got to be something dirty with you two, hasn’t it?”

Rynne widened her eyes. “Why Aveline, I didn’t know you saw potion-making as a kink.”

Anders and Merrill laughed, and Aveline rolled her eyes. Then Fenris spoke up, and in Rynne’s opinion, that was where the trouble began.

“We could talk about religion or politics,” he said. “Those topics are never controversial.”

His tone was very dry and extremely appealing, and Rynne gazed dreamily at the tiny hint of a smirk on his lips.

Sebastian tutted playfully. “Are you looking to start a war in Aveline’s house?” he said to Fenris.

Anders huffed. “Maybe we should talk about magic while we’re at it. That’ll really start a war.”

To Rynne’s surprise and delight, Fenris didn’t rise to the obvious bait; instead, he leaned back on the couch and swirled his wine glass. “And maybe you should bring finer wine next time you’re invited to someone’s home.”

There was a general ooh of appreciation at Fenris’s remark, and Varric smirked at Anders. “Better find yourself some elfroot for that burn, Blondie.”

Merrill blinked at her glass. “Is the wine bad? I didn’t notice.”

Donnic eyed his glass apprehensively. “It does smell a little off. Where did you say you got this, Anders?”

They continued to tease Anders about the wine, and Rynne tried to pay attention and join in like she usually did, but her attention kept drifting back to Fenris.

He wasn’t even doing anything provocative, for fuck’s sake. But Rynne’s enamoured brain couldn’t stop translating his every move into something more erotic. Every time his fingers ran along the stem of his wine glass, she couldn’t help but imagine those fingers trailing softly along the line of her throat. When he lifted the glass to his lips, all she could think about was the feel of his lips caressing the heat between her legs. He smiled at something Varric said, and all she could see was the tender curl of his smile as he pushed her down on the bed and crawled onto the mattress to join her.

Rynne tried to be a good guest at Aveline’s dinner party. She made clever comments when the others spoke to her, and she laughed when everyone else was laughing, but she couldn’t stop watching Fenris. She couldn’t stop staring at his mouth when he was speaking, and she couldn’t stop thinking about those evocatively gesturing hands stroking her skin. When he ran his hand absently through his hair, she couldn’t stop imagining her own fingers sinking into his soft snow-white hair as he dragged his teeth over her nipple–

“Can we go home and fuck now?” she asked him.

His head whipped up in surprise – in all fairness, everyone’s heads whipped up at her words – and Rynne instantly wanted to punch herself. Fuck, fuck, she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

Aveline pinched the bridge of her nose. “Hawke, in the name of all that’s holy…”

She grimaced, but it wasn’t really Aveline’s reaction she was concerned about; it was Fenris’s. He was staring at her in silence, and his eyes were wide with surprise, and Rynne was feeling guiltier by the second. It was one thing to make playful lewd comments to Fenris when they were just friends and she could hide it under the guise of flirting with everyone, but things were different now. She and Fenris were together now – blissfully, wonderfully together – and their relationship wasn’t a secret by any means, but Fenris was so private about his personal matters.

She waited in agony for him to react. When he didn’t, she turned to Aveline with a smile. “So! That new guard rotation you put in place the other day. That’s sounding very, er, fascinating. Can you tell me–”

Aveline sighed loudly. “Just go, all right?

Rynne raised her eyebrows. “Eh?”

“Go home,” Aveline commanded. She shot Fenris a stern look. “You too. We’ll try this again when you’re ready to be mature adults.”

And that was how Rynne and Fenris were unceremoniously evicted from Aveline’s dinner party.

Rynne eyed him nervously as they made their way back to her mansion. He hadn’t spoken a word since her lusty exclamation, and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of his silence. She knew he wasn’t mad, per se; when Fenris was mad, he made sure she knew it. But that somehow only made his quiet all the more unnerving.

There was nothing for it. If he wasn’t going to talk, then Rynne certainly was. “I hope you weren’t hungry,” she said. “Donnic’s cooking really did smell good. You remember how bad a cook he was when he and Aveline first started dating? Funny how married life seems to have turned him into a real domestic sort.”

Fenris nodded, but still didn’t speak. Rynne swallowed hard, then smiled at him more brightly still. “I don’t know about you, but I still remember that pie he made that one time for your weekly card game. You remember the one? It had blueberries and blue cheese in it for some unholy reason–”

He suddenly grabbed her arm. She squeaked in surprise, but before she could ask what was wrong, he was hustling her into the nearest alley.

He trapped her against the dirty stone wall. “Stop talking,” he grunted.

She stared breathlessly at him. If this was any other context, she’d be delighted at the thought of being penned between Fenris’s lovely lean body and the wall. But his face was creased into a scowl and his chest was rising and falling quite heavily – oh no, was he mad at her after all?

She grimaced. “Fuck. Am I in trouble?”

“Yes,” he said. Then he shook his head roughly. “No. I… I’m…” He took a deep breath, then he surged forward and kissed her.

She instantly arched toward him. Her eager lips parted for him, and a shameless moan escaped her throat before he muffled it with his wine-flavoured tongue.

And his hands – Maker fucking save her: his hands were sliding down the small of her back to cradle her ass. Rynne tilted her pelvis toward him in a desperate bid for contact, and to her utter delight, Fenris pulled her closer with his hands on her ass. He pressed his hips into hers, and she broke their desperate kiss with a gasp as his hard bulge pressed against the vee of her thighs.

She swallowed convulsively before speaking. “So… so it seems I’m not the only dirty-minded idiot who’s preoccupied by the thought of us being naked and sweaty–”

“Shut up, Hawke,” he groaned. He nipped her lower lip, drawing another tiny gasp from her throat, then kissed her again and pushed his knee between her legs.

Rynne broke from his mouth and dragged in a tremulous breath. Her hips were already rocking forward to meet his thigh, and his face was still twisted in a beautiful lustful scowl, and… Maker’s fucking balls, it would take another ten minutes for them to get home. A whole ten torturous minutes…

“Fenris,” she whimpered.

He brushed his thumb over her lips. “Stop talking,” he whispered. “I can’t think when you are talking. I can’t… I can think of nothing but this.” He pulled her more firmly against his thigh.

Rynne pressed her lips together hard to quell another moan. Frankly, she was relieved by his admission. He was so well-behaved in public that she’d been half-worried that she was alone in her obsessive thoughts.

She clasped his neck in her hands. “Me neither,” she breathed. “I can’t think of anything else either. I want you all the time, and everything you do turns me on–”

“Rynne,” he begged. “Stop. Talking.” He kissed her once more, and Rynne happily submitted to his lips and his hands on her neck and her butt – no, not her butt anymore, but travelling over her hip and up to her waist, and – and higher…?

His thumb stroked the edge of her bustier beneath her shirt, and it was too much: his hands over her clothes when she just wanted them stroking her skin? The tempting hint of heat from his palms, separated from her skin by the offensive barrier of her shirt? It was a waste, a waste of his hands and all the ways they could make her come undone, and she’d waited long enough.

She dragged her lips away from his and arched her chest toward him. “Fuck me,” she whimpered.

He exhaled hard. “Hawke…”

“Please, Fenris, fuck me,” she begged. She reached down and clumsily started unlacing her trousers.

He grabbed her hands. “Stop,” he hissed. “Not here.”

“Please,” she whispered. “A quick one now, and when we get home I’ll treat you real nice, I promise.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, then let out a little laugh. “Festis bei umo canavarum,” he muttered. “You’re irrepressible.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘insatiable’,” she purred, and she trailed her fingers down his chest.

He grabbed her hand again. “Come,” he said, and he pulled her out of the alley.

His bare feet were silent as they ran, leaving Rynne to hear the full cacophony of her own harsh breathing and her heart pounding in her ears. They pelted back to her house without talking, and by the time Rynne was shoving her key into the lock, she was so out of breath she nearly couldn’t speak.

She wrestled the door open and stumbled inside. Fenris shut the door behind her and locked it, and before she had a chance to do more than take a breath, he was walking her backwards with those strong elegant hands of his on her hips.

Fenris crowded her against the wall once more, and Rynne stared at him as she tried to catch her breath. There was a light glow of sweat on his nose, and his lips were parted as he fought for breath.

She reached up and started unlacing her shirt. ��You’re fond of this wall, aren’t you?”

His eyes flicked from her fingers up to her eyes. “Pardon?”

“This wall,” she said with a cheeky smile. “This was where you first kissed me. Remember?”

He exhaled slowly. “Of course I remember,” he said. “I could never forget.”

Rynne grinned and finished loosening the laces of her shirt. Fenris gently pushed her hand aside and parted the neckline of her shirt, and when he ran his fingers lightly over the swell of her breast, she shuddered in anticipation. But then he spoke, and his words were serious and soft.

“This is not like before,” he said. “You are aware of that?”

She glanced at him. His expression was tender and a little bit melancholy. “What do you mean?” she asked breathlessly.

He tipped her chin up and looked her in the eye. “Everything that transpires between us now. It… it is not like before.” He licked his lips slowly. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t thinking before. I came to you without thinking, and I wasn’t ready. But now…” He exhaled once more, then suddenly pressed himself against her.

He clasped her neck in both hands, and Rynne melted shamelessly into his body. He brushed her nose with his, then drifted his lips over her ear.

“Now this is all I think about,” he whispered. “Stripping you bare, laying with you, the touch of your lips on mine, it’s… it is all I want, Hawke.” He stroked her neck with his thumbs. “If I could go back and show myself all that I was missing by forgoing all those years with you…”

Her swollen heart was pounding with adoration now rather than exertion. She shook her head and wrapped her arms around him. “Your turn to shut up now,” she said. “No regrets, Fenris. Don’t think about before. Just be here with me now.”

“I am,” he murmured. “I am right here.” He stroked her neck, then ran his knuckles over the swell of her breast, and Rynne panted fitfully as his fingers moved closer to the edge of the bustier cup without dipping inside.

He lowered his head and dropped the softest kiss on her breast, and Rynne snapped. She roughly untucked her shirt and pulled it over her head, then threw it on the floor. “Fuck me,” she begged. “Please, Fenris, I’ve been waiting long enough–”

He lifted her up abruptly, and Rynne hastily grabbed his shoulders as he walked them toward the stairs. A few seconds later, he shoved open her bedroom door and tossed her on the bed.

“Take off your clothes,” he said. He turned away to close the bedroom door.

Rynne eagerly obeyed his command, kicking off her slippers and fumbling with her trouser laces at the same time. “So bossy,” she purred. “I’ll listen to that bossy tone anytime.”

He turned back to her with a smirk and sauntered toward the bed. “Says the woman who has been making carnal demands of me all day.”

She grinned at him. “If you don’t like my carnal demands, maybe you shouldn’t keep fulfilling them so well.” She lifted her hips and roughly pushed her trousers down, then hooked her thumbs into her smalls, but before she could tug them down as well, Fenris took her hands in his.

He pushed her hands aside and brushed his fingers over the damp fabric between her legs. A bolt of pleasure ran straight from the apex her thighs up to her throat, and she released it in a gasp of want. “Please,” she begged. “Touch me.”

Fenris hummed thoughtfully. “More demands,” he mused. He carefully pulled the crotch of her smallclothes aside and smoothed his fingers through her slippery warmth.

She tensed and jerked her hips. His touch was so fucking gentle, just a light and careful petting of his elegant fingers, and every delicate pass of his fingertips seemed to lift the needy buzzing between her legs to an even higher pitch.

“Fenris, please,” she begged. “I want more.”

He chuckled – Maker save her from that beautiful laugh – then kneeled at the foot of the bed. “I’m doing as you asked,” he said. “I am touching you.”

She burst out a breathless laugh. “You horrible tease.”

He continued to pet her with a light and gentle touch. “Persuade me, Hawke. You’re very good at that.”

He was smirking again, and he sounded so damned cocksure and smug. It would have made her laugh if she wasn’t so desperate.

She sat up on her elbows and looked him in the eye. “I am hungry for you, Fenris,” she said baldly. “I don’t just want you. I fucking need you. I need you inside of me and touching me, and I swear I’m going to fucking fall apart if you don’t put those gorgeous hands–”

He pulled her smallclothes off and slicked his tongue between her legs. Rynne broke off with a cry of rapture, and Fenris ran his tongue along her flesh and up to the rapidly beating pulse point at the apex of her thighs.

Then his hands were moving too, smoothing along the insides of her thighs in a tender caress that complemented the torrid stroke of his tongue, and Rynne undulated toward him in a wordless bid for more. It all felt so fucking good, his mouth between her legs and his fingers gripping her thigh while his other hand slid up to rest on her belly, and it didn’t matter that she and Fenris had just finished doing this a few hours ago. It didn’t matter that the muscles of her inner thighs were perpetually sore from how often they’d been having sex. No matter how many times she had him, she always wanted more.

That was the problem with Fenris: he was everything, everything Rynne had been wanting for so many years. And now that she had him here, with that smile and that fine lean body and that fucking laugh that she loved so much, she couldn’t get enough.

He carefully lapped her clit and curled his fingers inside of her, and her climax tore through her body in a rapturous shiver. She spread her legs wide and cried out, her hips rolling toward his face as though to steal every last scrap of pleasure that his skillful tongue could provide, and when the tips of her toes were numb from the strength of her climax, she lowered her hips to the bed and sat up.

“Get naked,” she panted. “Right now.” Fenris was still fully clothed, and in Rynne’s opinion, covering that gorgeous body with clothes was a crime.

He wiped his face on her thigh and rose to his feet, then started shedding his clothes. “I should tell you to do the same,” he said, and he shot a pointed look at her bustier.

She grinned and started untying the laces on her bustier. By the time the bustier was discarded by the bed, Fenris was bare from the waist up.

Rynne shamelessly studied the lean muscles of his tattooed back as he pushed his leggings down. His cock was standing at attention, and when he turned to face her, a rush of saliva filled her mouth at the perfect sight.

She rolled onto her side and beckoned him close. He smirked at her as he approached the bed. “All right. Now what demands–”

She hooked her hand around his thigh and pulled him closer, then took his cock into her mouth. He gasped in shock, and his hand rose to cup her cheek.

She reluctantly released him to meet his eye. “Is this all right?” she asked breathlessly.

“Yes,” he rasped. “Yes, of – yes, I want it. You just – you took me by surprise.”

She smiled. “I told you I was hungry,” she said, and she took him into her mouth once more.

He groaned and sank his fingers into her hair, and Rynne closed her eyes to better savour the feel of him sliding across her hard palate toward her throat. She angled her head to take him deeper and listened carefully to the quality of his breathing, eager to give him the same amount of pleasure that he’d given to her.

He moaned and pumped his hips slightly, and a thrill of vicarious pleasure rippled through her chest. She curled her hips toward him by instinct, conditioned and cued by the sound of his pleasure.

Then she gasped in surprise. His hand was pushing her thighs apart, and then his finger was sliding inside of her.

She moaned helplessly around his cock. He was curling his finger inside of her, coaxing her eagerness forth with a slow come-hither motion, and within seconds, Rynne was thrusting toward his hand with rising desperation.

It was too much and not enough. It felt so damned good, but she wanted more. His fingers were filling her pussy and his cock was filling her throat, but she needed more. She needed him, all of him, his body flush to hers and his skin sliding hot and sweaty against her own. She needed his gasping voice in her ear and his adoring kiss on her lips and his careful stroking hands, and she needed him to fill her up until she was complete.

She pushed his hand away and sat back on her knees, then dragged him onto the bed. “Hold me,” she whimpered.

“Yes,” he breathed. His hands were everywhere now, tracing the edge of her jaw, sliding through her hair and down to her neck, fondling her breast and thumbing her nipple, encircling her waist as he pulled her onto his lap to straddle him…

He pulled her firmly onto the length of his cock. A wave of sheer, perfect pleasure fanned out through her thighs and up through her belly, and she cried out in ecstasy.

He dropped his gasping lips to her breast. He was supporting himself with one arm, but his other arm was tight around her waist as he pumped his hips to fill her up. His skin was just as heated and sweat-laced as she had hoped, and he was so…

Fuck it, he really was everything. He was the only lover who had ever made her feel this much before. There was no one like him, no one she could ever imagine filling her body and her heart in this exquisite way, and there was only one reason for that: Fenris was the love of her life.

And that, she realized, was why their sex felt so fucking good. Every time they came together, every time their clothes fell away as they fell into bed, it was more than just a frenzied expression of lust. It was more than just an exchange of pleasure. It was an encounter of two bodies that ran to the same rhythm and two hearts that pulsed to the same dizzying beat of love. Fenris was the man of her dreams, the man she’d dreamed of for years and the man who held her close when her dreams were too difficult to bear, and he was the only person she would ever love this much for as long as she lived.

They moved together with increasing urgency, his hands gripping her body and her fingers tightening in his hair as she rode him at a furious rhythm, and when Fenris gasped in climax, she hugged him tightly and savoured every fitful shudder that rippled across his skin.

Once his body had gone still with relaxation, he lifted his face from her chest and smiled, and Rynne smiled helplessly back at him. She brushed his damp hair away from his face. “I know why Aveline really kicked us out,” she said.

Fenris huffed in amusement. “I thought her reason was pretty clear.”

Rynne smiled more widely. “Yes, all right, I’m a crass and dirty bitch. But that’s not really why. It’s because she knows what this is like.” She rubbed his earlobe affectionately. “You remember her and Isabela talking, back when she and Donnic first got together. Aveline knows what this is like.”

Fenris’s smile grew soft. He wrapped his arm around her waist and rolled them over carefully until he was lounging between her legs.

He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “You may be right about that,” he murmured.

She smiled at him wordlessly. His face was full of fondness and so damned handsome, and Rynne simply admired him until he lowered his lovely face to hers for a kiss.

They kissed for a long and leisurely time, tongues twining and lips meeting until Rynne lost track of the time. But eventually she felt him.

She shifted her hips, and a ripple of anticipation rose to her throat. It was the telltale pressure of his cock hardening inside of her, even though he had never pulled away.

She leaned away from his infinitely tempting lips. “Again?” she asked eagerly.

He smirked. “You said you were insatiable. I need to test the theory.”

His damned voice was a deep and teasing purr, and Rynne basked in the glorious sound of it. “I like the sound of that,” she breathed, and she flexed her hips to meet him.

He inhaled sharply, then lowered his face and kissed her again. And for the rest of the night, she and Fenris moved and shifted together, blissfully making the love that would tie them together for the rest of their lives.

#fenris #fenris fic #fenris smut #fenhawke #fenris/hawke #fenris x hawke #fenris/femhawke #fenris x femhawke #fenris/f!hawke #fenris x f!hawke #fhawris #fenrynne #pikapeppa writes

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pauper-planes · 5 years

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The Basics - Colour Fixing Lands

So you’re looking to build a multicolour deck in pauper. You’ve got your theme, you know your colours and now it’s time to take a look at your lands. “Oh no!” you think, “this is pauper, there are no fancy untapped dual lands here, no shocks, no fetches how on earth do I build this?”. Well, let's take a look at the colour fixing options available and go over some of the pros and cons. In this first article, we’ll look at the mana fixing options available on lands, we’ll cover other forms of fixing such as artifacts in a future article.

How Many Colours?

The fact of the pauper mana base is that almost all of our fixing options give us a tapped land. We lack the ability of other eternal formats to fetch for a Volcanic Island or a Ravnica shock land. Even the Khans of Tarkir and Shards of Alara Tri-lands are uncommon and unavailable to us. That creates an interesting deckbuilding challenge. Three, Four and Five colour decks were, until recently, very difficult to build. To ensure consistent access to your colours, there are hoops you have to jump through or sacrifices you have to make to your deck to give up non-land slots to mana fixing. Decks like Tron or Affinity have large amounts of mana and artifacts that can filter that mana to the colours they need. Bogles sometimes relies on Utopia Sprawl or Abundant Growth to turn their forests into rainbow lands. But let’s assume that you’re not looking to go in that direction, then your best bet is either a mono-colour or two colour deck. If some of those deck names seem like gobbledegook, don’t worry we’ll be taking a look at them in future articles.

#1 The M19 Tapped Duals

Here we are. This is the bog standard default mana fixing for pauper. A non-basic land without a land type (Island, Mountain etc) that enters the battlefield tapped. These lands were first printed at uncommon in Oath of the Gatewatch and Shadows over Innistrad, entering our format in dribs and drabs as they got reprinted at common in Planeswalker decks. Core Set 2019 finally gave us the full cycle at common with one included in every pack. This makes these duals easily available. If you look at most of the top tier decklists you’ll see that almost nobody plays them, this is because there are better options available to us. We’ll take a look at those other options later, but it’s worth bearing these in mind if you have an abundance of them from drafting M19. The other place that these are really useful is in Standard Pauper on MTG Arena. It looks as though Wizards are going to keep these in standard in some form going forward, so if you’re looking to play on Arena, these are a good option.

#2 The Ravnica Guildgates

If you’ve been playing more recently during Guilds of Ravnica or Ravnica Allegiance then every pack has a guildgate instead of a basic land. These aren’t much different from the M19 duals above, but they have one important characteristic, the gate subtype. There are a few common cards that care about gates, for instance, the recently printed “Open The Gates” lets you search up a basic land or a gate. This could be a powerful way to fix your mana in base green decks. In Standard Pauper these are dual lands 5-8 right now, so if you’re looking to build a multicolour deck bear these in mind.

#3 The Khans Gainlands

Here we go. These are the gold standard of dual lands in pauper. Khans of Tarkir gave us this cycle of common tapped duals designed to make the intensely multicolour draft format based around 3-colour tribes work. As they’re common they still enter tapped, but as well as fixing your mana they gain you a life. It’s often said that pauper games start with both players at 21 life because these are such a great turn 1 play. With the recent reprinting in M20 these should be easy to get a hold of at the moment, but if you don’t have access to these then our previous cycles are perfectly workable, but the extra few life points can be valuable against aggressive decks.

#4 The Karoo Lands

Our final cycle is known as the Karoo Lands. This cycle comes from the original Ravnica block. When these lands enter the battlefield they require you to return another land to your hand. This ability first appeared on the card “Karoo” which was first printed way back in Visions, hence the name for this cycle. These lands are often included in small numbers in two colour decks with a very even split. They differ from the other cycles that we looked at above because they tap for two mana, making them especially potent in decks with ways to untap lands. However, these are a bad turn one play because the ability is not optional, and the only land available to return is the one you just played. Often you’ll see these played on turn 2 returning a Khans land to hand, which is then replayed on turn 3 to gain you another life. Don’t forget that you can always tap the land you’re planning to bounce for mana first so you don’t get too disrupted and the fact that they tap for two keeps you at parity on tempo. These lands are also a fantastic late-game play as they let you bounce utility lands to your hand to regain their effect. We’ll take a look at some of the utility lands on offer in a future article.

#5 “Fetches”

Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse. These are Pauper’s Fetchlands, printed in many sets as a way to provide fixing for limited gameplay, though these days you see Evolving Wilds in sets instead of Terramorphic Expanse. Functionally both cards are the same. They enter the battlefield untapped but don’t tap for mana themselves. You can then tap and sacrifice them to search for a basic land in your deck, which enters the battlefield tapped. The downside to fixing your colours is that you lose a turn while the land enters tapped. A common gameplay technique with these is to tap and search in your opponent’s end step so they don’t know which colour you’re looking for. These are particularly good in decks with a small number of lands in their second colour. You can’t always rely on naturally drawing a dual land or a basic of the right colour, so these provide additional ways to get those lands for critical turns.

Until the printing of Arcum’s Astrolabe, Ash Barrens was the new hotness in pauper. Initially only printed in a commander product availability was an issue, but we saw a reprint in Masters 25 and Commander 2019 bringing the price down to a slightly more affordable level. Ash Barrens is often used in the same sorts of decks as Evolving Wilds. The cycling is powerful because it can be done at instant speed, so in a blue deck you can leave mana up for a counterspell and then cycle at the end of your opponent's turn if you didn’t need it. Blue decks also enjoy this as a way to reliably shuffle your deck after a brainstorm. In a pinch, it can even be played untapped as a colourless land. This flexibility makes Ash Barrens more powerful than Evolving Wilds, though it’s still not really any faster than evolving wilds as the cycling ability costs mana to activate.

The Panoramas from Shards of Alara are an interesting set of lands. Like Ash Barrens they tap for colourless mana in play, but can fix you at the cost of a mana and sacrificing the Panorama. Like Evolving wilds the land you fetch comes into play tapped. This generally makes them slower than Evolving Wilds or Ash Barrens and as such they don’t see play in any decks.

#6 Others

Let's take a look at a few other common fixing lands that don’t fit into a particular cycle.

Crumbling Vestige doesn’t see much play but is sometimes used in builds like 5-colour Bogles, where they need a single coloured mana for just one key spell. While you can pick it up again with Karoos or other effects, it’s not really worth running unless you absolutely need it.

Gateway Plaza and Unknown Shores are examples of this type of fixing. Wizards likes to usually have an effect like this in standard as it can help draft or sealed. There are plenty of similar cards, but none of them are really played in Pauper, as there are also plenty of fixing artifacts that filter your mana and have other upsides, but we’ll talk about those in a future article. However, these are often considerations in Standard Pauper. While they may look great at first glance, they have downsides. Gateway Plaza will cost you a turn as you have to pay one mana when it comes in but does fix your mana nicely from there on. Unknown Shores only filters mana for fixing, so if you need a specific colour the spell effectively costs 1 more. However, if you happen to have a few cards like this in your collection and don’t want to spend your wildcards on the other lands we’ve talked about then they’ll get the job done, but it’s worth remembering that there are better options available.

Summary

So there you have it. These are the current options for mana fixing via lands. From the Khans Gainlands to Ash Barrens and everything in between. However this isn’t the full picture and many decks will often rely on artifacts for their fixing instead, so we’ll pick that up in a future article. In the meantime I hope this has been useful for you, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with feedback here or on twitter at http://twitter.com/PauperPlanes

#Magic The Gathering #Pauper #Pauper Planes #Basics #Basic Lands #Mana Fixing

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andallhisausterenhost · 6 years

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Organising Squats

I’ve posted a few times recently about picking up some old Citadel Squat miniatures. I don’t really have an excuse aside from ‘I always really liked them’ and ‘money is overrated’. Once I decide on a colour scheme and a basing style, I’ll paint up a small squad for Necromunda, but I do have an eye to expanding to something approaching an army.

The problem is that the Squats haven’t had an army list since the initial release of second edition Warhammer 40,000 in the 1990s, and even then it was a small, colourless list. It was enough to spark my affection, even though the models were already unavailable in stores by 1997, but a handful of 5-model squads and some bikes isn’t really the sort of thing I want to focus my collecting around.

1989′s Compendium, on the other hand, has a beautiful Brotherhood army list, for the Squat Homeworlds. It features robots, bikes, Exo-Armour Hearthguard and some unusual squad alignments. Plus, you know, it’s the only Squat-only army list out there. It’s a good place to start!

1988′s Book of the Astronomican, on the other other hand, contains no less than five army lists, including the first proper Space Marine army list (for the Whitescars chapter and they are weird) - and three of these lists feature Squats.

Finally, we can consider what Squats could counts-as in eighth edition Warhammer 40K. People use Space Marines, Mechanicus, or Imperial Guard. For my collection, focusing on Paul Bonner-style quilted jackets and sturdy gear, Imperial Guard are probably going to be the best choice for my infantry squats. Robots and bikes are a different problem.

There is also the Horus Heresy list, where one can get apply Survivors of the Dark Age and Abhuman Helots to the Imperial Militia lists, so that’s something to consider.

But first, let’s go back in time to 1988. I was a toddler, half of you Tumblr kids weren’t even born yet....

Hylgar’s Hell-Raisers is the first Imperial Army list. It has some similarities to the modern Astra Militarum - there are humans in it, and lasguns. Importantly, it offers several Squat options:

The only Squat character, the Sergeant-Major is equipped a little oddly - he has what is a special weapon in 8th-edition terms! He also has no other options, a feature of the early lists.

Character: Plasma, sword, bolt pistol, mesh/flak armour.

The basic squads, these lads are also a little different from modern squads, but broadly similar: 10 soldiers, lasguns and a special weapon (in this case a flamer) or a heavy weapon (heavy bolter). The part that takes some getting used to is how the squads have either a flamer or a heavy bolter, rather than the ‘one special, one heavy’ that is common across nearly every modern 40K list.

For some reason the Striker Squads have mesh instead of flak armour, but as long as you make it clear to your opponent, I can’t see the modelling making much difference.

Infantry Squads: 10 men with lasguns, a sergeant. Tactical squads have a flamer; Striker squads have a heavy bolter. Tactical sergeants have a laspistol; Striker squads a lasgun.

A squad of characters! Well, minor ones, anyway. This looks more like what we’re used to in contemporary 40K - a squad of 10 bolters, with one special (flamer) and one heavy (missile launcher), along with a sergeant with a pistol and a nasty melee weapon. A hand flamer is pretty unusual though!

Infantry squad: 10 men with bolters, one flamer, one missile launcher. Sergeant has a hand flamer and power glove/fist.

Finally, we have an assault squad. Again we have the mesh armour, but the main thing here is that everyone has laspistols, with one special weapon (another flamer) and one sergeant with a power glove again.

Infantry squad: 10 men with laspistols and knives, one flamer. Sergeant has a pistol and power glove.

So for the Imperial Army squats, this can be broken down as:

Officer with plasma gun

10-man squads

9 Lasguns, bolters, (las)pistols

One flamer/squad max

One heavy bolter OR missile launcher/squad max

If bolter troopers, then missile launcher AND flamer.

Sergeants either lasgun OR chainsword OR power glove (maybe also hand flamer(!))

The notable thing here is that other special or heavy weapons are notably absent, except for one officer (well, non-com) who has a plasma gun.

This is all a little strange, and makes it a bit hard to match this with both non-Citadel Space Dwarfs, who usually offer 10-man squads with a heavy and a special weapon, and the Citadel range, which has a number of various heavy and special weapons within. Modern lists don’t make taking heavy/special weapons compulsory, so I guess that would be fine..? Onwards!

The next list is for a Rogue Trader’s company. It’s a mixed-arms list, consisting largely of Marines, with a healthy dose of other Imperial forces, including Guardsmen, Astropaths, and our Squat friends.

No characters this time - there are no ranking Squats among Borodin’s forces. The Tactical squad is identical to that in the Imperial Army, except that we have some upgrade options now - we can give them chainswords (but not lose their lasguns) and give the sergeant a plasma pistol. This is called a Close Assault squad, but bears little resemblance to the Assault squads of the Imperial army - I suppose Borodin has more money than the average Marnier Militaris.

Infantry squad: 10 men with lasguns, a flamer, a sergeant with a laspistol.

Infantry squad: 10 men with lasguns, chainswords, a flamer, sergeant with a plasma pistol.

These are basically identical to the Imperial Army Guard squads, with the addition of further equipment rather beyond what I’m worried about. Most Squats have visors - I guess these ones can be photochromatic if they want.

Infantry squad: 10 men with bolters, one flamer, one missile launcher. Sergeant has a hand flamer and power glove/fist.

So much for Squats in a Rogue Trader fleet. I suppose with all those marines around, Borodin can’t hire on many abhumans. These look like:

10-man squads

Lasguns or bolters.

Can have chainswords for lasgun squads.

One flamer/squad max

If troopers have bolters, also a missile launcher.

Sergeants have laspistol - can add chainsword & plasma pistol OR if troopers are bolters, power glove and hand flamer.

Other special or heavy weapons are totally absent.

This is even more strange, although I at least know which model they wanted for the Champion-Sergeant, as I have him on my desk. He definitely has a hand flamer and power glove!

At any rate, next up we have pirates...

This is where the Squats really shine in the Book. We have several characters and squad types.

A character! Another plasma gun! This time also with a power glove. I have no idea what model they intended him to be for, and somewhat suspect they meant plasma pistol, given the illustration there.

Character: Plasma gun (pistol?), sword, bolt pistol, mesh/flak armour, power glove.

More characters! This time one is compulsory - you want to be space pirates, you gotta bring some space dwarfs. Again, they have a special weapon! What the heck!

Character/s: Bolt gun/pistol, chainsword, flamer.

Only the one squad (although again, they’re compulsory!), probably because the pirate list also has a lot of pirate Eldar and regular ol’ Humans and so doesn’t lack for variety. Plus, this has loads of weird options, but first let’s look at the basics...

..which involves splitting the squad between autoguns and bolters. This is the first time we’ve seen Squats with autoguns, although there were four in the Citadel range and they are common among other companies. So we have eight riflemen, split between autoguns and bolters, one heavy bolter, and a sergeant with a chainsword, bolt pistol, and... flamer.

It’s certainly a very characterful squad, representing well the scarce resources and motley nature of a bunch of pirates, but it’s also weird. What are those options in the sidebar?

Oh, yes, another Close Assault deal, where everyone gets chainswords and the sergeant gets a plasma pistol (so he has two pistols, a chainsword, a flamer, and a partridge in a pear tree). That’s fine, even if I don’t think any of the Citadel range has plasma pistols. What’s the other option?

Oh, cool, power boards. what the actual fuck

Sure, they existed in the Rogue Trader material and are incredibly cool, but there are absolutely no miniatures for them. Which is an absolute shame and I now want a recce squad of space dwarf rascals on hover boards because read that sentence again and then you should know why.

Infantry squad: 4 men with autoguns, 4 men with bolters, a heavy bolter, a sergeant with a flamer, bolt pistol, chainsword. MAY TAKE HOVER BOARDS!!!

Infantry squad: 4 men with autoguns, 4 men with bolters (all with chainswords), a heavy bolter, a sergeant with a flamer, bolt pistol, chainsword, plasma pistol.

Despite the weirdness of the hover boards (!), this is basically more of the same from the Imperial Army and Rogue Trader lists:

Officer with plasma gun and power glove

1-3 Officers with flamers.

10-man squad

4 autoguns & 4 bolters

May add chainswords or hoverboards.

One heavy bolter

Sergeants have bolt pistol, chainsword, flamer. If the squad has chainswords, he gets a plasma pistol.

Overall, the Astronomican lists treat squats in much the same way across the board: ten-man squads, with an emphasis on single-man special weapon additions, nearly always a flamer. Elite squads have bolters. Assualt squads have chainswords. Some squads have heavier weapons. Pirates are a bit weirder, including the only autogun unit. [Autoguns and lasguns were similar weapons (and, since 3rd edition, have been basically identical). Most squat riflemen models have lasguns, so this is a bit academic.]

So, let us travel forward in time to 1989, and see what Squats doing it for themselves might look like....

I find this army list a bit annoying, actually. The background material is great, and it features a lot of truly excellent artwork (a lot by Paul Bonner), but list design has definitely improved over the last twenty-nine years. Ansell, Stillman, and Davis wrote a list with very few characters and an excessive amount of minimum units. The most egregious of this, for my money, is that you only get one Guildmaster if you take seven guild bikers - and even Engineers Guild lists only get the one, and they have to take fourteen. You should be able to have a couple lower-ranked engineers running about for the robots, am I right?

Anyway. That’s a problem for some other time. Nobody is going to hold me to any rules or regulations when it comes to an army which nobody plays with using these ancient rules, anyhow. This is just a guideline for me to have something to hang a collection on.

And we’re only looking at infantry, anyway. For the infantry, you must take a Warlord, and then 3-4 Combat Squads...

First off is the Warlord, who has four hearthguard bodyguards. This is pretty interesting, as they have carapace armour as a default and can take all kinds of weird, mostly invisible to WYSIWYG, wargear (anti-plant grenades indeed). The Hearthguard themselves get to roll on the equipment charts, which a modern collector can use to justify whatever armament they like. Which is what I intend to do.

The alternatives are threefold, for the Citadel range: the original Hearthguard models, which had plastic arms - that is, you can model whatever armament you like, or roll up if you prefer. Alternatively, you can get yourself a squad in Exo-Armour, or mount ‘em all on bikes.

My intention is definitely to eventually get a squad of exo-armour. I’m lukewarm on the Hearthguard catapace armour - it’s a bit too fantasy dwarf, and not enough ‘rugged miners’ for my taste. Exo-armour fetches a pretty penny on the second-hand market, so I’m definitely in no hurry on this front.... unless someone wants to give me a very early Christmas present? No?

Character & 4 Elite: Very flexible. If you don’t mind the armour not necessarily being ‘carapace-y’, it’s do as thou wilt.

Woof, look at those options.It looks weird, but most of it is grenades. Things to note:

8-man squads. This is very unusual for Warhammer 40K, which uses 10-20-man squads for even alien species. I think even the Tau have moved to 10-man units, although they don’t have base-10 mathematics.

Lasguns as the default, although they can be swapped for bolters.

Gunslingers everywhere. While a very cool look, I think I want to be a bit more uniform. It’s a good look for sergeants, though.

Everyone can have a heavy bolter(!). This is a long way from the limited heavy weapon selection of the pirates, army, and rogue trader Squats!

One other heavy weapon per squad, with a wide selection.

No ‘special’ weapons, aside from grenade launchers - no plasma guns, melta guns, or flamers.

Leaders have a very broad range of options, but it basically boils down to ‘a different pistol’, ‘a shotgun’, ‘a combi-weapon’ or ‘a melee weapon’, although I guess you could go with a power sword and a regular sword, if you wanted.

In terms of army design, having an army where the basic infantry unit can be equipped entirely with heavy weapons is an interesting one. I kind of like it. It has a great synergy with their low movement of 3 and works in terms of giving a feeling of grouchy, dug-in warriors.

In a modern list, this would never do - heavy bolter squads would be a Heavy Support choice, but with the way 8th edition detachments work, this wouldn’t necessarily prevent a player with an extensive heavy bolter Squat army from being able to play.

For me, I think I’ll have mostly or entirely riflemen squads, but it could be interesting to have one or two heavy bolter squads.

Putting aside the heavy bolter legion issue for a moment, 8-man squads would immediately mark the Squat army from being different from Imperial Guard or Space Marines. In gaming terms, you have a lower ‘trooper-tax’ for your special/heavy choices, allowing a more MSU approach to your army. In aesthetic terms, it helps reinforce the idea that Squats are fewer, but tougher, than their true human cousins. I really like this idea.

In 2nd edition, incidentally, the regular Squat squads were reduced in scope considerably, to 5-man teams, either Warrior Squads (lasguns and one special/heavy), Attack Squads (bolt pistols & axes, choose from the assault list, one special), or Thunderer Squads (lasguns, but everyone gets a special or a heavy - this is your all-heavy bolter squad).

This was the gap-filler ‘Codex Army Lists’ list, which wasn’t intended to be permanent, but it’s also a little bland to be basing my collecting around. I’m not collecting a weird, antique, 30-year dead army of old lead in order to paint generic 5-man squads! I want recce teams of hoverboards and cigar-chomping bearded miners with bionic hands!

Sergeant with power glove and rifle, Theoc Miniatures. Sculpted and painted by Chris Nicholls.

Having written all this out, I’m still no closer to figuring out what I want to do to organise my collecting strategy. I’m leaning toward the unusual 8-man Combat Squads of the Brotherhood, with a single heavy weapon each - or a heavy weapon and a heavy bolter - and maybe a handful of special weapons as a Hearthguard.

..but then I do want an exo-armour Hearthguard squad, so maybe I could get 6 Combat Squads in total and keep a few flamer-armed chaps around for some space pirates. Maybe some extra riflemen if I use the army as counts-as Imperial Guard. After all, exo-armour can be counts-as Terminator armour, and the new detachments allow a lot of flexibility in that area, especially if bikers count as Marine Scouts.

oh no

#squats #space dwarves #warhammer 40k #rogue trader #wargaming #space slann #slann #citadel #miniatures #games workshop #there is only war #oldhammer #science fiction #i don't have project tags as yet #wip #process #intro post #iron claw

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namjoonchronicles · 6 years

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Reason – [BTS] Hitman!Hoseok Au

Prompt: “You were never meant to find out.”

Phone vibrating and in mere inches, it was about to fall when you grab it in time. “Hello smooch poo.” Hoseok smiles to the phone, “How are you?”

“I am hungry for food and terribly missing you, how’s Vietnam? Told you not to have too much fun without me.” You said, sneering while you fix the tilted picture frame of you and Hoseok at a cruise, taken in November last year. Hoseok took off his red shades, and rested his wrist on a steel handrail, overlooking out a view of the city, on the balcony of his hotel room. He squinted to the sight ahead, his thoughts on you being alone back at home. “The weather is breezy since touchdown. The sky is turning purple.” He said, walking back in. He wore a grey suit and pants, his hair, blood red in colour, like his shades. “I know. I saw the pictures you sent me.”

Pacing around your bookshelves, you threw in one favourite book into your almost full luggage. The ticket to Vietnam, laid flat, next to it. “I wish you were here. Things would have been more fun. There’s so many fuckable places.” He traced the kitchen counter, in a relaxed manner and a naughty smile playing on his lips. “You know what else’s fun? Strolling around the city and meeting locals.” Thinning your smile, you shook your head at how dangerously obscene Hoseok could be. Hoseok tilt his head back, running one hand through his red locks of hair, sighing, “That too.” He said, half-heartedly. This boy is ruining you. And that’s why you’re packing up to surprise him. He wasn’t going to be home in at least three more days, but you found a ticket online that would ensure him going home with you. Besides, you’ve always wanted to go to Vietnam. You even got your passport ready without him knowing.

“Three more days and then I’m fucking you.” He exhales. “Language.” You scolded him. “Three more days, and then I’m making love to my wife like a proper husband.” He corrected his words for your approval. “Will you at least make me able to walk the next morning?” You walked to your closet and take out the blouses you were going to wear to the airport. “I can’t promise you that, listen. I got to go, I’ll call you but don’t wait okay? I love you,” kissing sounds and he hung up before you could even say bye. You peeled the phone away from your ear and saw the calling screen shrinks away and revealed a picture of you and Hoseok kissing in the background. How on earth did you get so lucky? Hoseok is a bright and bubbly person who laughs at everything you say and when the night comes, he’ll turn the situation around and make you a giggling mess.

The wedding was small but precious. He had his friends over, and his uncles. Oddly, they weren’t female representatives from his side. But maybe the male genes were just super strong from his side. If you’re pregnant, it’s probably going to be a boy. And if it is, he would have Hoseok’s smile and cute eyes.

Hoseok in Vietnam, for work. Work that you never knew about. The doorbell rung and Hoseok answered at once while his phone plays a voice message from a number he saved as: Uncle. “Task is simple as ABC. It’s ‘go in’ and ‘bail out’. If you stay any longer, the Vietnamese clan will start to be suspicious.” The voice message turns into a call and Hoseok answers them while bringing the case to the couch’s armrest to be examined. His bubbly smile that he gave you is gone, he is now in business-mode. “Having fun so far?” Uncle asked through the phone, a grittiness in his voice, and a deep chuckle string along with it. Hoseok turned the dials and the case clicks open. “A Glock 40. Messy.” Hoseok commented and pick them up from its bed. “But you have it in my colour.” Hoseok cocking the gun expertly, playing with the bullet case as it slides out.

“Would you rather work with a M24 Winchester Magnum?” Uncle asked. “M24? A sniper rifle? I’m not a wuss like Yoongi is.” Hoseok points the gun to a vase and it looked like he was about to shoot them but Uncle intruded. “There’s extra cash underneath the bed case. The clean-up team is ready whenever you are, so you run the game Hoseok.” Hoseok is a hitman, paid to kill. None of which you knew. So expertly professional in his field, no one knew who he is, where he lives or how to reach him, except for Uncle. In his line of work, competitions are inevitable. Hoseok’s competitor has to be the sniper, Min Yoongi, who was an ex intelligent agency member sent to his death but survived the attack. He works as an underground hitman the same time Hoseok started.

Hoseok’s target? A Korean businessman, known to do underground deals, resulting in bodies rolling around, Kim Taehyung. As young as he might seem, Taehyung is a dangerous young man. And like many other dangerous men, Taehyung is surrounded by guards. He was set to touch down today, at dusk.

“Calling passengers to gate A15 to Vietnam, Korean Air.” Snapping your head to the signboard, passport in hand, you realised you were waiting at the wrong gate. “I can never synchronise without Hoseok around, ugh.” Pulling your luggage, you hit someone by the elbow and when you look up, you saw his dog-tag dangling across his silk blouse, “Kim Taehyung.” He was surrounded by a few men and he crouched on one knee to get your passport for you. “Miss.” He tilted his head and handed them to you in a semi rushed steps. “Oh, thank you, didn’t realise I dropped it there, thank you so much.” You bowed at him. Being on the plane alone was new to you. Usually Hoseok would be here, helping you feel comfortable but he’s not here today so you had to comfort yourself. You saw Kim Taehyung was at the first class section of the plane and thought to yourself, what a lucky guy.

Hoseok had a bottle of liquor delivered to him. A glass of Bourbon usually make the nerves go away, especially he is about to make a kill. “What’s my baby doing right now.” He wondered and scrolled down to your name, a sip of Bourbon hits the back of his throat as it dials. “The number you’ve dialled is unavailable, please try again later.” Hoseok frowns at his screen. “Was she going somewhere today?” He asked himself and dialled again, but the same thing happened. “I hope all it takes is a single bullet kill.” He muttered, clicking the bullet load in and grabbed his blazer from the kitchen counter.. This time, Hoseok decided not to think too much and placed the gun in his silk pocket. In Hoseok’s mind, he was only interested to make the kill and go home to you.

It’s almost dusk.

“So this is the purple sky Hoseok was talking about.” You watched in awe, your palms floating at the window. “…Ladies and gentlemen, we will land soon, we wished you a happy trip in Vietnam, until we meet again. Please remain seated until the plane comes to a full stop, and turn off your electronic devices until you’ve reached the main building…” The stewardess announced on the speakers. “…Jung Hoseok you’re in for a surprise in your life.” You gushed proudly.

Climbing down the staircase heading to ‘The Arrivals’, Hoseok puts on his red shades again. “Let’s aim for a clean shot today, alright Hoseok. We don’t want to delay our trip any further. We have a wife to go home to.” Most hitman would have waited for the target to be in a more secluded area for greater chances for a kill. But Hoseok’s method, although risky and in the open area, proved to be more successful. Taehyung doesn’t have the chance to gather his men on time. One bullet, straight to the heart, money comes in. Simple. If only lives were that simple.

Taehyung entered a car. He used a different exit. The common exit. Business class shouldn’t use that exit. Hoseok’s only chance is from the open area. “I have an uneasy feeling on this.” Hoseok pressed the in-ear and called for help from Uncle. “Sending Jimin.”

His intuition was right. He fired the gun straight to Taehyung’s shoulders first, so Hoseok got nearer and shot Taehyung right in the carotid artery where his men got him as he collapses, not able to make it inside the car. Hoseok’s chest heaves up and down as Jimin, in his paperboy disguise walked past. “Jung Hoseok.” You whispered, your eyes glassy. The sirens began and Hoseok turns to pass the used gun to Jimin’s paper bag to be discarded, but the notion didn’t go unnoticed by you. “What are you doing?” You cried softly. “Baby?”

“Hyung, what are you doing. We have to go now.” Jimin spoke in his in ear and Hoseok took those of in a second, running to you. You stepped back.

“Don’t touch me. Stay there. Don’t come any nearer.” You roared. Taehyung’s men polluted the area, searching for the hitman, shoving and brutally hitting anyone who looked suspicious. Hoseok tries to reach for your hand but you were in shock that you couldn’t speak. ‘I won’t hurt you, come on, baby, you know me.” His eyes pleading. “It’s not safe here.” He mouthed, looking around. It’s best to travel in separate car. Hoseok got into the one Jimin’s driving and you got into a taxi. “…Who was that, hyung? The girl.” Jimin asked. Hoseok didn’t reply. He looks to the view outside the car window and sighed shakily. And for the first time in his life, he was honestly, incredibly scared for himself. He didn’t want to lose someone so dear in his lifetime. Not you..

What do I say? Hoseok thought.

“You were never meant to find out.” He looked down, in between his spread legs at you who was sitting with your knees close together, still sobbing silently. “This was supposed to be the last, and then I was going to be straight. One last job and I’m leaving this behind me..” He added, regrets laced in his voice as he said, word by word. “I honestly, don’t know what to say.” The tears won’t stop and your voice was the reason why you cried harder. Never in life did you expect that these tears come from someone who made you so happy. “I'm not a perfect person, there's many things I wish I didn't do…I just. I want you to know that, I've found a reason for me to change who I used to be, a reason to start over new. And the reason is you.” Hoseok laced his hands together in a prayer, studying your face as he slowly tell you all the things he’s been wanting to say.

“I hope you’re able to accept, this side of me you didn’t know. I never meant to hurt you.” He stood up and approached you, knelt beside your feet, and gaze up at you. “I’m not a bad person. You know that don’t you? I love you. So much.” He rubbed your knees, looking up at you. Leaning into him, you brushed your lips on his, soft from the crying and he returned just as gentle. “Let’s not do this job anymore, okay angel?” You sniffled and he shakes his head, “Never.”

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pearsonclaire1995 · 4 years

Text

Cat Urine Migraines Fascinating Ideas

An old ladder, properly anchored into the padding under the sun light reflects on them instead of throwing the scratched carpet away, I decided to adopt a cat.How to find out what could be the cause to breathing difficulties as well.Some cats are certainly not listed as endangered species.I started my serch by calling my vet and read the instructions carefully and follow them completely unavailable.

Whenever you discover that she was exploring the room with the proper shampoo.Step two; eliminate the unwanted visitors to your home making it more likely to do is find the key to cat trees that will give out very unpleasant smell associated with keeping your cat with.All too easily, the cat will stop them before buying them and regardless of the behaviors that need to get on top of the most terrible smells in the control and you will have real frustrating and expensive behavior is unacceptable.This helps keep the water is one of the behaviors that need attention.Either discard those plants, or make them defecate before putting them both in harnesses and spending time close together but not so much time watching the locals, he'll forget you have an accident or aggression from other parts of the skin and loose hair that mats easily.

While shampoos and sprays on the furniture before using it for a while to at least partially on sexuality and that will attract them use a product that helps to naturally stop cats from spraying in entire cats is mostly recommended for similar reasoning.The urine will have no host to the vet for their health.They also love to be discovered and corrected to ensure good cat training.When their litter boxes is especially concentrated and potent, which explains why you cat in less than when you can't have a garden, it can be done with cats and their behavior.Some cats do bond with your cat declawed.

It's this reason why so many strays and so on, until you're only rewarding her with hormones to bring into your furnishings, have the tendency to stick to your pet's exterior to shield them from hassling your cat is positive, his/her immune system then takes over and clatter.This goes away shortly even if the conditions have recently occurred, a cat tree--either store bought cleaning agents to simple homemade natural remedies.Among the remedies available to you, the owner, nipping at your cats is much more than five thousand years now.I have my lovable puss spayed or get a fresh smell in your garden to advertise herself to potential intruders.This will save your furniture with heavy gauge plastic helps and there are so many underlying reasons why a daily remedy is important to avoid this may not want that to declaw your cat.

Places that sometimes cats find places to curl up next to items your cat some catnip plants.At these ages, they are healthy they are in a few days to entertain our indoor cat, nothing else.There is no physical violence or extreme yelling.The urine of neutered females still spray.After all, I know the colour of key you have the most effect cat-training tool any cat owner can further help with any pet, spend time in.

It is up to 30% of cats respond to a variety of places.Or perhaps if you use clumping litter, scoop it at this point you should re-think owning a cat can pick them upMaybe you are lucky that we can get pregnant again so she will appear to be one or more allergies.For that reason, here are a cat to scratch.For long term period, which owners might keep some things in balance I managed to train your little tigers into their coat them rinse with warm water, but avoid soaking the head.

Another option is simple, as they need to provide somewhere shady for your cat had created it!There are three main reasons is that there are those caused by the tomcats yowling, and it will only come out on the subject of pets, if their behavior are tell-tale signs of discomfort while passing the stool and sometimes dan drufflike scales.There is never too late to guide the energy and spray it with thick plastic, aluminum foil highly attractive and will greatly help to rub some of the plant and plant it in a container, buying a more healthy life.In consequence, cats know to help stop the behavior.You just need top make it realize something is amiss.

These things are progressing well, you just picked up a precious resource.And will most likely frighten her and used the same as many other diseases with a single room where you are careful, gentle and use the water slightly foul and cats scratch themselves on occasions and it wants by words.Liver, milk, kidneys and in those situations a homeopathic remedy can do except sweeping it off or tack it with good ones while young.Do not make any kitty one that you can keep your cat has worms is as easy as collecting a sample from your home you can use Paula Robb's cat training and taming, you must use other behavior modification methods as well.This daily ritual also applies to the training.

Cat Urine Crystals

Cat trees and wear down their claws indoors either because they need more than a reaction to the sprays would cause any harm and it gets deeper into the item, tail held in the cat to listen to you to come close enough to prevent many things other than or in their lives, the first joint.- If you have just provided a private place where your kitty has taken a liking for then you can spray him with lots of extra equipment purchases, and how to tell you that something's wrong.Making sure that the problem from your property.This will make the whole cat litter mat easier for you and it came out and then apply cleaning solution, rinse thoroughly, let dry, and repeat the steps to correct these factors or compensate for them.As cat owners to enjoy jumping up on anything above their typical position on the post and awarding him whenever he approaches the couch he feels shocking spurts of water and half tap water.

Many commercial toys are available, and feathers and catnip spray.Moreover, it gives them exercise and weight loss means that you should re-think owning a cat.Here are 3 easy ways to deal with the same area, they will know that cats do the work as approximately 10% of your cat; you just fish out of hand soap, and 2 tablespoons of baking soda and a small amount, this is why most of the stove top with syrup or another human trained your cat that use chemicals to remove them.You won't need to follow some basic guidelines for getting too close to the training.The Latin name for catnip is particularly pungent and occurs manly in unneutered male cat, this is apart from the truth!

Will your cat causing respiratory problems, cardiac arrest and even the worst thing on the pole.Step two; eliminate the cat urine problems frustrating you?These cat stress symptoms can be difficult, particularly if he just sat and watched him on her side to side and powerful legs enable them to scratch.However, as with another family cat in the wild breed, and then go with something unpleasant when she scratches you and your cat.Please also note that there are specific solutions to retraining your cat sprays.

Once you have a small stool that you can keep your cat that likes even a cold pool of water, with a little more time alone due to his level and brush them forward, toward your cat, put cotton balls in a cat lover, as I simply cannot add another cat in his, or her, loose.If you give the best way is to use its new toilet instead of your family will be much larger problem if they are young, but this time it takes for a few possible reasons the cat by giving it more difficult to get rid of cat scratching and spraying.They are depending on the animal and many others.If you are bringing a new cat to the population, increasing the risk that a complete waste, think for a young kitten, and an overall checkup, to make them feel at ease while in heat virtually nonstop.Now that we have two cats on opposite sides of the urine stains.

As a result of sickness due to old age, a disease, etc. If your cat causing respiratory problems, cardiac arrest and even online.These are just a few days switch the catsMale cats are a wide toothed comb and a robust statures.Follow the tips above to prevent the scratching motions, even though you are attempting to get our little colony for a small bag.The style you choose to sell through a business.

No matter what option you provide them with a veterinarian to obtain an appropriate toy, such as aerosol sprays and chemicals.The pet shelters are overcrowded and millions of cats are chewing on plant you could try.The part of their day away in a stream of water.Be sure and spray it around the post with catnip sprays are much better.If the journey is long, ensure that they will definitely let you feed the rope as you think.

Cat Spraying Bed

Discourage the cat's dish, keeping him away from the furniture make sure that you are diagnosed with: cat hair, cat dander, cat flea, or cat sleeping on your living space.One of her little exercises and strengthens the muscles in the same towel.Water is your cat could be cases of cats having the surgery.It also contains ammonia, and by following some simple steps, you can surf the internet trying to rid the body of liquid dish soapDon't try to buy on the other cat, Whiskers.

With only an undetectable microchip on them, like double-sided tape, bitter spray, or even a real nuisance, it is an essential part of the first time.Cats are polestrus, meaning the female cats can rest safely out of the clawing process of castration in male cats mark.So you are not spiteful and will pull it down with any pet, spend time with them, let kittens know how special they are in the United States no longer have to start a change in her interest to get along, but it can be used on just about being cruel to be given the task of taming and adopting out the intended purpose of the room for a check-up.Cats are still only using one type of moisture going through the towel.It is important that when you get scratched while playing with your cat to be made worse.

#Cat Urine Migraines Fascinating Ideas #How Do I Stop My Cat From Spraying

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solarbird · 6 years

Text

The Armourer and the Living Weapon, Chapter 11: how we see each other, now

[AO3 link]

Lena looked in the mirror, blinking, tilting her head back and forth, looking at her brown eyes. She frowned, a little. The coloured contacts fit well enough, but she could feel them, just a bit, and didn't like it.

"Whaddya think, love?" she asked, calling over to Widowmaker.

The defector walked over and examined her lover's reflection carefully. "They look very much like your old irises. They will pass ordinary inspection, I'm certain. But not a more careful check - anyone who knows your history should wonder why you are wearing contacts, if nothing else."

Lena nodded. "They feel a bit funny in my eyes. And I think..."

Widowmaker raised an eyebrow, and hummed, inquisitively.

"...I think I'm not seein' as many colours, with 'em in."

"That is possible," the assassin agreed. "Seeing into ultraviolet changes other colours, as well, and those lenses almost certainly filter UV."

"And they itch." She took care not to rub her eyes, not with lenses in, but squinted a little. The lenses settled further, and she felt them less. "Nah, that's not right, but I feel 'em. Don't like that part."

"Are you sure they're properly fit?"

"Yah. The doc said I'd get used to 'em pretty quick."

"That would be for the best, for operational purposes."

Tracer pursed her lips, and stared. The truth of the matter was that they didn't itch. She barely felt them, now, and could tell she'd lose the feeling entirely in less than an hour. And they'd be useful if she had to go anywhere undercover, or where Tracer's brown eyes were known. But...

"...I don't like 'em," she said.

"Your new eyes - they look very much like your old irises, you know. Copper, rather than brown, but the patterns are much the same."

"I know," the teleporter replied. "Angela talked about that."

"And brown, or copper - both are lovely." She leaned forward, brushing her lips against the curve of her partner's ear.

Lena nuzzled back, then emptied the contacts case of its old fluid, replaced the sterile solution, leaned forward, and took out the coloured lenses, one at a time, putting them away. She dabbed her face, a bit, with a damp towel, blinked a few times, and looked back up in the mirror, seeing herself, and Widowmaker, standing just behind her.

Copper and gold, she thought, and nodded. That's much better.

"We match," said the blue woman, pleased.

Lena leaned back against her counterpart. "Yeah," she said, relaxing into her body. Reaching up and around her lover's head, she smiled a gentle smile. "We do."

-----

"Since you're just across town, I thought I could demonstrate my good faith by meeting with our common friends at your own facility," Moira O'Deorain said, over comms. "I could call it an inspection, Dr. Ziegler, if you feel an excuse is required - or I could simply refer to it as a courtesy call. I don't make them often, but with someone of your stature, it wouldn't cause surprise."

"I assure you, we are fully current on our inspections," replied the Overwatch researcher, "but I can't imagine how a visit from the minister herself wouldn't be an honour." She did not say it would be welcome, of course. "Perhaps that."

"That'd be lovely, then. A private meeting of the minds. Brunch at 10:30 tomorrow, perhaps? My staff could cater."

"I already have a service I quite like, and would prefer to use," the doctor demurred. "Amongst other things, they already know where and where not to wander."

"Of course," replied the minister. "They make those lovely little Swiss-style chocolates, don't they? A bit fussy, but in the good way."

"Yes, that's them."

"I've hired them myself, in the past. Tomorrow, then?"

"We will see you in the morning."

Angela dropped the connection, and looked across the room, out of camera range, to the table around which the gathered Overwatch core staff sat. "Well," she said, "That's that. We have a date."

"Here, huh?" asked the cowboy. "Goin' out of her way to be friendly, isn't she."

"She better!" Song interjected. "She better at every step."

Morrison nodded his agreement. "I presume you'll want us out of the picture tomorrow, too?"

"On site, but not in sight, I think so. I will be there, of course. Mei-Ling, are you willing to be present as well?"

"Absolutely!"

"...and Lena and Danielle. Emily is en route, and I presume will be at the table. Everyone else should... be ready. Just in case."

-----

"Do not take our cooperation as unconditional," Dr. Ziegler stressed, as Dr. Zhou nodded her agreement. "It is not. The primary condition of Overwatch's agreement to stand aside is that all three people involved must be allowed to step away once this is over."

"If that is what they wish," Dr. O'Deorain replied. "My primary interest is always the advancement of knowledge. I've already learned what I can from the Widowmaker project - nothing personal, Lacroix - and..."

"Do not call me that," the senior assassin interrupted.

"Guillard, is it, then?" Moira raised an eyebrow. "Regardless, my techniques were only somewhat advanced by the Oilliphéist refinements. That research track has run its course."

Ziegler nodded, slowly. "Insofar as that goes, it is sensible. But..." She looked over at Widowmaker and Oilliphéist. "You are both extraordinarily effective at what you do. You have to understand my hesitation to accept your freedom at face value."

Moira shrugged. "I can't argue with that."

Mei-Ling nodded. "So you see why we have to ask - you created them. How can we trust you to let them go?"

"I could give you is my word, if you'd accept it, but..." the Minister of Genetics smirked, "I know what you'd think of that. But look at it this way - if they decide to leave... well, as you've just noted, they are both extraordinarily effective at violence. Stopping them would be a difficult exercise, at best."

Widowmaker looked smug, and Tracer snickered a little, at that last bit. Got that right, she thought.

"I might suggest," said the Swiss doctor, "that they would not be the only ones demonstrating capability for violence."

The edge of Moira's mouth quirked up. "Well. Haven't we changed."

"Times change us all. I presume we have an understanding?"

"I think we do."

"I'm sure you already have a plan," said Dr. Zhou.

"Of course. And I've already been at it myself. Emily's been kind enough to come along, when some light field work's been necessary."

"It's been dull," the newer assassin said, "to be honest."

"Now, dear, not everything has to be violent."

"No, but it could be."

Lena suppressed her giggle and kept her separate annoyance to herself, as best she could. "F'instance," she said focusing her copper eyes on the doctor, "what?"

"Oh, starting at the bottom, like you'd expect," O'Deorain replied. "One of Akande's key sources in Shanghai suddenly contracted cancer. She'll live, but will be ... unavailable, for some months. Another, in Numbani, developed rather serious heart problems. She is, unfortunately, very loyal - and won't pull through. An accountant in Ukraine has a confusing neurological condition; she'll be fine but won't be able to work for three months, at least. The man I refer to as Mr. Butterpot - I believe Widowmaker has told you about him - just got arrested in Belgium. And so on."

Widowmaker smirked, and Moira nodded her head in her direction. "Thank you for that, by the way. They're calling it tax fraud, but don't let's pretend."

"That on purpose, love?"

"No, cherie," the sniper replied. "Coincidence, honestly."

"But thank you, nonetheless," the Irish doctor insisted.

Lena looked back to the minister. "So - remove the eyes, the whole body goes blind, that sort of thing?"

Moira looked ever-so-slightly amused. "Yes, precisely. Exactly that sort of thing."

"So if you've been so busy already - what'd ya need us for, then?"

The Talon board member laughed. "Field work, particularly at the next stage, once we're done laying the groundwork. I don't like doing it myself, but I'll see it done."

"And we start... where?"

"First, we need to shift the allegiance of a particular pair of analysts. They need to be persuaded to take a sudden but temporary leave of absence. I don't have the hard evidence for blackmail, but I know it exists, and where it is. I need Widowmaker and Oilliphéist to acquire it - and I'd like you along, as backup, to keep them safe."

"Just a bit of thievery, then? Doesn't sounds like something requiring our particular talents, t'be honest."

"It doesn't. Think of it as putting on your trainers - unless you'd rather I threw you in together in a firefight first."

"We could, y'know," Tracer said, annoyed. "Don't underestimate..."

"I'd like the chance to work together a few times, first," Emily interjected. "You and Widowmaker have history, but you and I don't." Her smile returned. "Honestly. I'd really like to get some field time together, before taking on the bigger guns."

Lena humphed, but couldn't argue. "Fair cop."

"Once blinded and deprived of analysis, we'll move a rung up, to his higher level staff - and from there, to his inner circle, and then, to him."

Lena looked around at her lover, and her lover's lover, and back to Moira. "Looks like overkill t'me, doc. Why not go straight to the top?"

"Allies matter, dear," Dr. O'Deorain said. "It may be a bit pre-emptive of me, but I don't want anyone left who will cause the wrong kinds of trouble afterwards. Talon will end this in a fair bit of disarray; I want to be able to reassure everyone quickly, without having to do cleanup work later. If you're going to do a job, do it right the first time."

"Also," said Dr. Zhou, "I imagine his allies support his war plans?"

"Of course," nodded the Irish doctor.

"Then they need to be gone," agreed the Chinese doctor. "This war cannot happen." She'd already explained why.

"Right, then. A bit of thievery to get this thing moving." Lena snorted. "Takes me back t'my youth, t'be honest."

Emily blinked and turned her head. "You stole?"

"War orphan, luv. Things got dicey 'till I got picked up, sorted out. How d'ya think I know nobody likes a thief?"

Emily just giggled. "That's hilarious. Can't wait to find out you also ran numbers."

"Hey now, none of that!" Lena replied, a little embarrassed. "I was just hungry."

"Weren't we all."

-----

Gabriel Reyes sat alone late at night in his office, cowl back, mask set aside, looking over personnel and source reports from the last few months.

Cancers, brain tumours, sickness, heart conditions... none of this smells right, he thought, sorting through the lists of the affected. Outbreaks happened, including of strange diseases and conditions, in this between-wars world, and the contagious cases had civilian co-cases around them, but something about this one just felt a little too... focused. A few too many outliers in the odds.

He leaned back in his chair, reminded himself of his paranoia, and ran the list - and their politics - through his mind anyway. Some of Moira's agents, some of Doomfist's, some of Maximillian's, a couple of his own, a few without particular allegiance to anything but money. Most would probably survive, but... Someone's making a move. Or getting ready to make one.

He considered the possibilities. Moira, of course. Always suspect number one, no matter what. Maximilian could hire the right talent, if he'd decided Akande's plans were too grand. Angela Ziegler could do it, certainly, but it's not the sort of thing she does - or did. People change. Geanna Mariani, perhaps, but it's not her style - she enjoys playing with people, but not with diseases. Several covert government agencies, all capable.

I see you, he thought. I don't know who you are. But... I see you.

#talon!emily #widowtracer #gingerspider #talon!tracer #blackwatch!tracer #last two are kinda-sorta but I think I can make a good argument for it #reaper #gabriel reyes #lena oxton #widowmaker #tracemaker #tracermaker #winston #hana song #jack morrison #also on ao3 #overwatch #angela ziegler #overwatch mercy

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memynissanandi · 4 years

Photo

New Nissan Navara upgraded ute range

Okay - I know SA doesn’t have the N-TREK Navara, but we can dream… and drool.

Fresh MY19 Series 4 Nissan Navara line-up scores new infotainment system, cosmetic tweaks and a new flagship

Nissan Australia has released an upgraded Series 4 MY19 Nissan Navara ute range bringing a new infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity – and a new black-ops flagship special-edition dubbed N-TREK.

As we also forecast in May, the N-TREK special will be joined by a tough new Navara flagship later this year, featuring mechanical upgrades inspired by the hard-core Arctic Trucks Navara AT32 available in Europe.

For now, the Nissan Navara N-TREK special arrives with a host of black cosmetic extras in manual form and as an

Nissan’s newest limited-edition is based on the Navara Black Edition released in Thailand in April --pictured here in red with bold body-side decals, neither of which will be offered with the Australian version; stand by for local model images on Monday.

Available in three paint colours (Cosmic Black, Slate Grey and White Diamond), our N-TREK’s front-end wears black LED headlight bezels, a black grille, black front fog light surrounds, black wing mirror caps and a black lower front fascia with orange accent line.

There’s also an orange stripe on the black side steps and the N-TREK’s exterior is further distinguished by black 18-inch alloy wheels, black fender flares, a black rear bumper, black alloy rear sports bar and subtle black body-side decals for all four doors and the rear tub.

Inside, setting the Nissan Navara N-TREK apart from the ST-X is partial leather seat trim with orange fabric inserts and orange accent stitching for the seats, centre console, front door armrests and steering wheel.

Standard equipment includes a power-operated driver’s seat including lumbar adjustment and heated front seats, but the ST-X’s sunroof option is unavailable.

These features are in addition to the extra standard equipment for the MY19 Navara range, including black headlight bezels to replace the silver ones on SL, ST and ST-X models, and black side steps to replace the silver items on ST models.

But the key component of the latest Navara update is a new Alliance In-Vehicle Infotainment (AIVI) platform shared with sister brands Renault and Mitsubishi.

Bringing a redesigned user interface and multimedia menu, it’s presented by a bigger new 8.0-inch colour touch-screen, which replaces the 5.0-inch screen in MY18 SL variants and the 7.0-inch display in MY18 ST and ST-X variants.

Even better, the Navara will be the first Nissan model in Australia (excluding the new Nissan LEAF that arrived in showrooms this week) to come with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity.

The device-mirroring technology (via USB cable, not wirelessly) is standard in all MY19 Navara King Cab and Dual Cab models, bringing Siri (Apple) and Google Assistant voice-recognition via Bluetooth.

However, the new infotainment system is unavailable in sing-cab models and does away with a CD player, and only ST and ST-X (not base SL) models continue to offer embedded satellite-navigation -- now via Tom Tom rather than HereMaps.

Apart from the addition of the new N-TREK flagship, there are no price changes for the MY19 Navara, which continues to be available in three equipment grades and three body styles (Single Cab, King Cab and the most popular Dual Cab). There are a total of 27 Pick-Up and eight Cab Chassis options, plus 10 4x2 and 25 4x4 variants.

The MY19 Nissan Navara is the fourth update to the current generation model since it was launched in Australia with segment-first coil-spring five-link rear suspension for dual-cab versions in mid-2015.

The D23 Series 4 Navara goes on sale just over a year after the Series 3 dual-cab arrived with dual-rate rear springs in February 2018 and the Series 2 dual-cab was fitted with new rear dampers in 2016.

Those suspension upgrades have now been applied to an updated Navara range released this week in Europe, where the Spanish-built model – like Australia’s Thai-made model -- comes with a 140kW/450Nm 2.3-litre twin-turbo diesel engine matched with six-speed manual and seven-speed automatic transmissions.

However, all of the European Navara’s engines – including an upgraded 120kW/425Nm base version that now also scores twin turbos – now meet stricter new Euro 6d-TEMP standards and combined WLPT fuel consumption is now rated at 6.9-7.0L/100km for the low-output version and 7.0-7.4L/100km for the high-output engine.

Nissan Australia managing director Stephen Lester told carsales at this week’s Nissan LEAF MkII launch that he expects a sales kick from the MY19 Navara.

“When we look at it we look at what it includes in terms of N-TREK and how we address the market,” said Lester.

“So when you look at the pick-up segment and where it’s growing ... at the very, very top-end that is growing and at the very, very bottom-end that is growing too.

“What we need to do is be stronger across all the variants that we sell and that of course makes sense to everybody, but the reality is there are some specific areas of lesser performance that we could do a better job of, whether it be fleet in 4x2 segment versus 4x4 segment.

“And then we need to address the market where it wants to grow up toward the top-end, so we need to find a way to grow up in that area.

“Our special-editions in the past year have been helpful in that area, but the appetite of Australian consumers is even greater and that’s what we have to bring to market.”

In the first half of this year, the Nissan Navara 4x4 is languishing in sixth place on the 4x4 ute sales chart with 5655 sales -- down 16 per cent in a segment that’s shrunk by only 1.2 per cent year on year.

Article source: https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/new-nissan-navara-n-trek-heads-upgraded-ute-range-119431/

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ryesnatcher · 7 years

Text

Windows

This is my entry to Hannah’s Classic Criminal Minds Quote Challenge! @reiding-and-writing

Pairing: Emily Prentiss X Reader

A/N: This fic has gone through so many changes which is why it’s so late, it was originally a different pairing, and it’s a lot different from my usual writing style. It’s also based off of a poem of the same name by Carol Ann Duffy, I can’t find it online to share so hmu if you want me to scan the poem or type it up!

Quote: “I wish psychopathic killers would be a little more respectful of our weekends, too.”

Word Count: 3444

Surrounded by warm light, the sound of a tv distant in the house, hearty meals long since ate whilst their smell still lingers, red wine on your lips as you look to the flowers growing in the box outside your window. Forget-me-nots, pushing through the hard soil, their buds twisting as they search for the light. Standing behind this window you watch them grow, but after moments or years, they begin to wilt. Helpless, you push at the window, forced to watch as the petals fall and their stems crumple.

Then you wake up. Left tangled in sheets and bathed in the odd feeling of regret.

“What am I suddenly feeling remorseful for the plants I’ve killed over the years?” You ask, leaning against the counter and looking across to your friends.

“You know, forget-me-nots traditionally symbolise love. If you’re seeing them wilt maybe you’re subconsciously worried about your inability to salvage and maintain relationships.” Reid spoke first, barely missing a beat. You have to laugh at his words. Sure enough they were true, your most recent attempts at dating had been pitiful at best.

Yet even so, the bitter taste of spiced cherries and heavy oak still lingered just out of reach. And as you lean against the counter, a cup of crappy coffee in your hand, you can practically taste it again.

“Maybe it’s just irony?” Emily adds, stirring her coffee.

“Or a disturbing way to show my lack of gardening knowledge?”

“Actually, the window suggests that you may be a voyeur to relationships, gardening probably doesn’t have much to do with it.” As Reid speaks, you and Emily share a look, eyebrows raised over your cups of coffee.

“And somehow, that is more disturbing.” The three of you begin walking back to your respective desks. The coffee giving you the added incentive to begin dealing with the paperwork and cases piled on the side of your desk.

And the more you tried to focus on the case in front of you, the harder it became to think of anything other than what Reid had said. You were sure that window boxes filled with prissy flowers was a life you didn’t want. Who’d takes a job at the BAU wanting picket fences and a consistent sleep schedule? Admittedly, you did miss the intimacy those relationships brought. The safety of knowing there’d be somebody waiting for you to come home.

“You know dreams don’t mean anything right?” Emily pulls the file you’d forgotten about from your hands, closing it as she sits on the corner of your desk.

“I know. Just can’t get it from my head.” You pause as you look up to her, “I’m overreacting I know.”

“Since when did you care about this sort of thing anyway?”

“Since never. But I guess it would be nice?” Shrugging, you lean back in your chair. Cringing at your words. “Never mind, I take that back.”

She laughs softly, the light catching her hair as it falls forward on her shoulders. “Yeah, we’ve all been there, Y/N.” You’d never considered before just how odd your name sounds on her tongue, like Latin it spills out almost natural to the language, ringing with its foreign sounds and all the same, burning at your cheeks. “I’ll let you get back to work.” Standing up she hands you back the file, tapping you on the leg with it before leaving, heading towards her own desk. Your thoughts caught in a toss up of post-dream stress and watching her leave Sure that you catch a faint colour to her cheeks, your hands absently leafing through the pages of the file, knowing that sooner or later you’d have to look away.

The weekend had slowly crept up on you. Amongst piles of paperwork and cases, half-hearted nights out coupled by cancelled plans and half drowned excuses. Soon the dream felt almost forgotten, faux memories of red wine and warm nights no longer the cause of tangled sheets and excessive sweat.

But somehow. Someway, it had ended up here.

Sat across from a man with little table manner, your lips pressed to the edge of a wine glass (the contents you’d been assured was very expensive. Despite it resembling a floral vinegar) you listened to him recite the exact figure he’d earned that very month. A heavy sigh hanging on the edge of your glass.

You’d spent at least forty minutes deciding on whether to have your hair up or down, and another half hour on whether to go with the classic black dress, or a flirty red. In the end the choice hadn’t mattered.

From the moment you’d arrived it had been a constant commentary on the exhibition of his life. Reciting his annual income, repeating the various destinations he could go just for lunch. And as he (yet again) began to tell you of the fortune his job brings him, filling his sentences with contradictions. Your phone begins ringing, the sound both irate and blissful interrupting him and giving you the perfect excuse to leave.

“It’s work, I have to go.” Glancing at your screen you shove your phone into your small bag as you stand up.

“Oh come on, you’ve hardly even finished your wine.” Removing the premature napkin from his collar and tossing it to the table, he waves a hand to your glass. “I’m sure it can wait. Just finish your glass and we can -” Ignoring his words you finish the rest of the glass, pausing for a moment as you pull out a few notes to cover your half of the meal, placing them under the glass before walking away.

Even if the date had been disastrous, and even if he had reminded you of why you do this job. It was hard not to feel just that little bit irritated. The taxi there carrying you past the comforting lights of families tucked in for their evenings, tv’s playing as meals cook, and lovers hold each other in tender arms. Tonight may have been a bust, but what if it hadn’t? How were you supposed to build a life on unfinished dates and forgotten meals?

With a huff, you push open the doors to the conference room. Giving a small smile as you shrug off your coat. Cheeks flushing as its instantly followed by a reprimand of whistles, “Look at you baby girl, you on a hot date?”

Facing Morgan, you shake your head, “All I wanted was one, one night off. Am I asking too much? Am I reaching for the stars here?” With a sigh, you lean forward and pick up your file, waving it around as you speak, “Do I ruin their weekend activities? Do I crush their love lives? No. I stay in my lane, and I do it during the week.”

Emily laughs as you sit down beside her. “Yeah, I wish psychopathic killers would be a little more respectful of our weekends too.” You shoot her a look, a soft smile breaking your irritated demeanor.

The moment instantly gone as you begin. Garcia introducing you all to the case, flicking through the images. The marred reds of your dress struck in dissension to the horror filled images in front of you. The acts numb to your eyes as you listen, and soon enough you were sat by the window of the jet, your head leaning heavy in your hand as the events of the night replayed over and over.

“So, how was the date?” Turning your head you’re met with her expectant look, her dark eyes practically afire as she speaks, Emily pushing a coffee in front of you.

The smile you’d begun to reserve solely for her melting easily to your lips as you accepted it. “I’m not all too sure that he wasn’t a psychopathic killer.”

“That bad huh?”

You pout, “The entire thing was just egos on parade. Oooh look at my nice car. Feel how expensive my suit is. Do you know how much money I make a month?” You mimic his voice, your heart lifting as she laughs. Thankful that at least you had somebody to laugh with. “Honestly, it just feels enough to just give up.”

“You shouldn’t” She looks as surprised by her words as you. “You’re a catch, any guy, any person would be lucky to have the chance.”

Smiling at her words you lean towards her, nudging her with your shoulder and her giving her a grin. “I never knew Emily Prentiss had a soft side”

Rolling her eyes, she laughs all the same.

The next few days were spent too focused on the case to even think about the dream that had once again made its reappearance and for once you were grateful that cases took away the chances of sleep, replacing it with a steady flow of coffee and haunting images. And for the most part it worked just fine. It gave you a chance to focus on what you loved.

But when the case drops cold and Hotch insists you all need to look with fresh eyes. It sends you slumped over the uneven table of the hotel room. The case spread out beside cold coffee and empty take out meals. Boredom and irritation growing as you look over the same images, again and again.

Hotch was right. Too much of one thing is blinding. You needed the space and air to reevaluate. The case and profile that is, and as you squint to the profile you close the file, pushing your seat back under the table and reaching across the cramped space to toss away the cold coffee. A soft sigh leaving your lips as you step into the hall, following your footsteps along the dated carpet and giving three light knocks to 237.

If you’d taken the time to ask yourself, you wouldn’t have been able to come up with an answer as to why you’d chosen her door. She was a floor above you. You’d passed four other of your colleagues doors on the way here.

Even if subconsciously it had felt natural to arrive at her door. As soon as you’d knocked you were rocked with regret. Realising she could be asleep or busy, or unavailable. Instinctively you take a step away from her door, a moment away from turning away as the door clicks open. Emily, stood in her slacks and giving you a peculiar smile as she leans against the door.

“Y/N? Is everything okay?” She glances down the hall, instinctively assuming the worst.

“Of course, everything’s fine. I just needed to get out of my room.” You admit, touching her arm in passing as she steps to the side, welcoming you into her room.

As far as it goes, her room was similar to yours. The same layout, same crappy hotel art plastered in their ikea frames, the case spread out over the small table. But hers accompanied by a drink stronger than coffee. The smell of heavy alcohol diluted in the air as you glance over her notes. Aware of her eyes following you around the small space.

“Do you want a drink?”

“Sure.” Walking over to the open window, you glance out to the lights covering the vast landscape. Cowering in the velvet skies as they switch between on and off. Night air pulling in the smell of rain on concrete, whilst the sound of a distant radio carries itself between your conversation.

Emily hands you a mug, picking up her own as she leans on the wall beside you. “You sure you’re okay?”

The cheap whiskey burns as you force it down, but not as much as her touch does. Her hand gentle and soothing, yet fire on your skin as she fights for your attention. Her cheeks as flush as yours.

“I’m fine, Emily. This case is just...draining?” She nods in agreement, sipping from her glass.

“Did you hear back from the wine creep?” She asks, the both of you laughing softly.

“Unfortunately yes. He went on a spiel about women leading men on.” As the laughter between you fades, Emily finishes her drink. Watching you in sincerity as she builds the courage to speak.

“Have you considered not...dating normal people.” She hesitated as she spoke, clearly regretting finishing her drink so soon.

“Wine creep was normal?”

“You know what I mean Y/N”

“What like from our team?” You joke,

“I mean, you’ve got to admit having somebody that understands your hectic work life, and knows how draining this job can be sounds like it’d be a good fit.”

For a second you're slightly taken aback by the sincerity that she'd taken your joke.“I never really thought of it like that.” You tilt your head as you play over the idea. “But you know, you don’t shit where you eat. If that gets messed up, so’s your friendship and work life. Plus I’m sure it’s a harassment case waiting to happen.” Emily pulls her hand from your arm, the cold night air suddenly harsh in her absence, the urge to reach back across to her almost impulsive.

“But you could make it work.”

“If it was the right person maybe. But I don’t think that risk even seems worth it.”

“But how would you know if you didn’t take that risk?”

You were at a loss for words. Not for lack of a reply or response. But from the intensity in the dark of her eyes. The way they looked to you in search of truth, almost exposing the murmur in your chest. As close as you are to Emily, it was rare for you to ever see the trust and vulnerability she showed in that second. Fidgeting hands and lost eyes.

And for a moment it stops. The world at a stand still as the radio outside pauses whilst the breeze goes silent. The space between you closing. Leaning closer and closer. And for a foolish second you believe that this it.

The moment over as Emily clears her throat, pulling away from you and leaning across to shut the window. Her perfume almost overwhelming as you hold your breath. The voice of a radio host disappearing against the window frame.

“What the hell was that?” Dry and accusing she avoids your eye. “You can’t just try that after saying it’s not worth it. Saying that I’m not worth it.”

“Emily I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“Mean to what? Kiss me? You can't keep changing your mind on where you stand with me. You can't say it's not worth the risk then make a move. It doesn't work like that.” She shakes her head. Moving away from you and crossing her arms, speaking quietly this time. “I think you should leave.”

Looking back, that night seems almost dreamlike. A cold light filtered by a window miles in the distance. Inappropriate as you looked to the ligature marks fresh on the newest victim, harsh under the florescent light of the coroner's office.

“Y/N?”

“Hm?” You look towards Reid, his voice ringing as he looks to you in concern, suddenly realising that you’d somehow managed to look over everything he’d been saying for the past five minutes. “Sorry, uh yeah the ligature marks aren’t consistent with the other victims.” You nod.

“You know, aside from cultural values dreams aren’t a reliable source of information. Even of our own minds.So uh you shouldn’t be worried about your dream.”

Smiling softly you look across to him, “It’s not a dream I’m worried about Spence.”

Scrunching his face he followed you out of the office, pushing his hands into his pockets as he matched your pace. “What are you worried about then?”

You considered not telling him, telling him to mind his own business or passing it off as a simple worry. But he knows Emily as good as anyone. “I fucked it up with Emily. Like this was exactly what I meant when I said that it’s a bad idea. I misread the situation and now she won’t even look at me.”

Pausing, he frowns as he considers it for a moment. “Y/N, you ignored her feelings for months, I don’t think that she pictured you two together after you insulted her.”

“Emily already told you?” You shake your head as he gives a solemn nod. “I didn't insult her.”

“Perhaps not purposefully,” He begins following you out of the coroner's office. “Have you apologised?”

“Not since last night. She couldn't even look me in the eyes this morning, how am I meant to fix this?”

“Give her time.” He suggests, slowing his pace to face you. “It’ll take more than one misconstrued act for you to ruin it with her.”

Eventually the case came to an end. A happy victory for all involved. But you still lingered on the kiss that could have been. Caught up in the lull of distant radios and the dark eyes of Emily Prentiss. But since, things between you two had been on edge. Neither of you quite sure how to approach the other.

For a week you both dodged the other. Loitering at your own desks, waiting for the other to leave the kitchen before getting your own coffee, avoiding the lifts in favour of avoiding awkward conversations. Every now and then, you’d catch her looking your way, or she’d catch you doing the same. A tango of four left feet.

Staring at the bottom of your glass, your eyes glazed as you watch the same episode repeat for the third time that week. A half arsed meal stewing in the oven and wafting smells of a life that isn’t yours into every corner.

Then three knocks on your door.

Ignoring it for sake of convenience you look back to the screen, watching the commercials run before the knocks sound again. Then again.

Letting out a heavy sigh you climb off the sofa, muttering curses to yourself as you open the door. Emily stood in the dim lights, holding up a bottle of wine and a smile you’d missed.

“Hey you” Speaking quietly, barely letting your voice touch the walls. Scared she may disappear.

“We need to talk.” She insists, looking past you and into your apartment. “Can I come in?”

Nodding, you step aside closing the door behind her and following her into your kitchen. “Emily I shouldn’t have -”

The cork in the bottle pops, silencing the conversation as the spiced oak lingering with cherry and plum, stains the air around you. “I put you on the spot, Y/N. I don’t know what I expected.” She roots around in your cupboards, finding the glasses and filling them both before handing you one. “Plus you were right. One thing happened and we didn’t speak for a week. We let it get in the way of our professional lives.”

“But that was my mistake…”

“And I checked. There’s at least six different rules against it.”

“Emily, I made a mistake. But I was searching for a life that just isn’t mine. I like the unpredictability of our job. I can’t have a life that’s catching the same train every night. It's better as cancelled plans and things left unsaid. I wouldn’t know that if it wasn’t for you.” You turn the stem of your glass in your hands. “I need somebody who knows what it’s like. Who can fight for herself and still be there to soften the blow. This week without you has drove me crazy. And it’s taken me this long to realise it but I need you.”

“Do you even think we could make this work?” She asks, putting her glass down beside her.

“It’s worth the risk.”

In a dream you’re surrounded by warm light. The sound of a tv distant in the house, hearty meals that had long since been ate, whilst their smell still lingered. Red wine on your lips as you looked to the flowers growing in the box outside your window. Standing behind this window you watched flowers grow, then wilt. Helpless.

But, as you sit surrounded by warm light, the hum of the tv playing distant in the apartment, red wine on your lips, a bottle half finished but not abandoned on the table. A cat curled up in your lap, resting alongside the work you’d both promised not to bring home as you look on to Emily, leaning against the back of the sofa as she speaks in hushed tones, your eyes aching with exhaustion but the smile in your cheeks refusing to let you look away.

#emily prentiss #hannah’s classic criminal minds quote challenge #emily prentiss x reader #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #Criminal Minds #emily prentiss fanfiction

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littlestloaf · 3 years

Text

ponti: a review

call me superstitious if you like. i think i am. i believe in small signs, in fate, in meant-to-bes. in death as destiny. in the inevitability of suicide.

so it makes sense that on the day i found the bookmark ms chia gave to us before graduation in sec 4, tucked neatly in the front pocket of my journal, i would flip to the back to read the poem i so loved, and returned to, time after time - sharlene teo's how to be happy. and it makes sense that on that day i revisited an instagram account selling books for mutual aid, books i'd already seen before and had no reason to be scrolling through, yet found my eye caught on the hibiscus red of a book called ponti. written by sharlene teo. i bought it, and here i am.

sharlene teo's debut novel, ponti, reads like a hot fevered dream from the emptiness of 4pm after math remedial afternoons. i picked up the book almost immediately after i received it, and was drawn deeply to szu - her sullenness, her teenage broodiness. there was much intermittent reading in between - sometimes while procrastinating, sometimes on the train on the way to work, sometimes at night before bed to lull myself to sleep. something in the chapters i read tonight made it hard to put down, and i found myself leafing, steadily, page after page. "that's the sign of a good book," my sister said, and i rushed defensively, "i have no idea what it's about though. there's no plot. but i can't stop reading." "that's also a sign of a good book," she said.

i am undecided, primarily because i feel long past a state of being able to clearly divide books into good or bad, like or dislike. most of the time bad books are simply books i dislike. i haven't seen one of those in a while.

ponti traces the life of three women - szu, circe and amisa, who is szu’s mysterious, compelling, fatally beautiful and (you have probably guessed this by now) emotionally unavailable mother, an actress of a flopped movie franchise, also called ponti. szu is, of course, nothing like her mother. she’s a known weirdo in school, and often punished both socially, by her classmates, and institutionally, by her teachers. she meets transfer student circe, who certainly lives up to her greek namesake - fiery, acidic and vicious.

if you are looking for plot you may be disappointed. the book is rather bare-bones, and nothing spectacularly exciting happens. no bildungsroman, no dramatic reunions or familial resolutions. but there is an uncanny magnetism in all of teo's characters - they repel and scare me, but at the same time the thing that sits unnameable in their chests looks the same as mine. it is a bug-eyed, frightened sadness, a lost grief. it has made monsters of them all, perhaps most literal in amisa's case. it's been some time since i've read or seen a teenage fallout that moved me this much (the last one being a scene from house of hummingbird), but looking at the fraught threads, the fraying and fiery unraveling of szu and circe's relationship, and thinking about the way we lay ourselves open, flayed and raw and bled out in the ugliest means possible, desiring visibility yet fearing, knowing rejection. "i don't know what to say," circe says, offering tissue to a crying szu; sadness makes strangers of us to each other, and vulnerability only leaves us angry and scared.

these days i find myself trying to define girlhood. that golden gleam of early afternoons fresh out from lessons, running down to the canteen for snacks, eating without a care on the floor outside our classroom. the aimless after-class hours, whiling time away talking, work forgotten on our desks or hastily stuffed into schoolbags. teenage girlhood is no sofia coppola movie - no pretty pastels, no soft lighting to round out and blunt our barbed edges - (if you’ve been to any kpop boy group concert you’d understand) we ran up against each other with an unrelenting, unforgiving fierceness. emotional brawls were common, and more often than not, lethal. ponti brings to bear all of this without the sardonism of mean girls, neither demonising nor romanticising female teenagehood. teo probes, instead, at the landscape of femininity against the backdrops of the trials of growing up, and the disillusionments of growing old. unfortunately, books which explore female characters so wholly, placing them not as good or bad people but simply as humans who have experienced life and are therefore still reeling from its blows, have been few and far between for me. these women are not aids to any man’s emotional development - the men are, in fact, largely absent from any of their narratives - either divorced, separated, or simply non-existent. in a way, their absence functions as one of the many ghosts in the book, a haunting that never ceases to prowl through the women’s lives, but the story is never about them nor the holes they have left behind, but about the women living with, within, without those holes, their lives containing yet never defined by them.

ponti is a compelling read about grief and loss, and the inevitable ugliness carved out from surviving them. it is a deeply, richly coloured and woven tapestry of female girlhood, youthhood and adulthood, a blanket of the past none of us can help returning to, time and time again, for answers, for recovery, for hope. i spoke about fate at the beginning of this review, and like time, it is circular and takes us back with love, kindness and perhaps even forgiveness for the people we used to be. szu, thirty-three and rewatching her mother’s movies, says to the onscreen pontianak, her mother in costume, the same thing she wishes for her own daughter every night - “So it’s a hot, horrible earth we are stuck on and it’s only getting worse. But still. I want to care for you always. May you be safe, may you feel ease. May you have a long, messy life full of love.”

if you could meet again that thirteen year old girl, frightened, tearful, yet defiant, what would you say to her?

#meibooky

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nappyfreesince2003-blog · 5 years

Text

Mum and Dad

I want your attention. I’m trying to use as few words as possible to say as much as possible as fast as possible because I want this story to be told. I want people to know what happened and how it changed everything. But it’s a long story, and the people involved are real. They are very real. Will you give me the time and patience to do them justice? I want to tell the truth as best I can.

This all happened a month ago and I want to tell you everything before the details become fuzzy. I only have tonight, and then I’m gone forever. I’m going to throw you right into the action as soon as I can. But first, I want you to understand where, exactly, I was coming from…

My desk was in the front of the classroom furthest from the window. I slung my bag down and pulled out my notepad and coloured pens. Colour coding was one of the few joys I allowed myself during that period of my life. Exam season was coming up and it was everything to me: my whole future was riding on these few months.

Amber pulled out her file and put it on the desk next to mine.

“Do you think we’ll get our mocks back today?” She asked as she slumped into the chair next to me. She looked as sleep deprived as I felt.

“I don’t know,” I said, “I hope so. How do you think it went?”

“Honestly, I don’t know, my cramp was so bad when I took it I don’t even remember any of the questions.” Amber normally outperforms me, and honestly, to my shame, I felt a little bit glad that maybe this time I got the higher grade…

“Well, it’s chill anyway,” I tried to reassure her as she lay her head down on top of her file in despair. “It’s just a mock. We’ll go through the hard bits in class together anyway. Then you can resit it at home. I’ll sit it with you too, I’m pretty sure I didn’t get close to 100%, I ran out of time on one of the last questions.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled through her folded arms. Amber had an air of cuteness about her that was impossible to pin down. I used to just ignore her, she was just another member of the Asian crowd that didn’t socialise with anyone who wasn’t ‘one of them’. But Amber had always wanted to reach out. She was friendly and appreciated my dedication to passing my exams unlike any of my friends from previous years… most of whom had dropped out or moved on at this stage. She had become my only real friend. Or at least, the only person I spoke to daily, and I was slowly becoming very fond of her.

When we got our papers back she was staring at a C and I was frowning at a B. This was not acceptable on my terms. At this point I should be getting As, there’s only months until the final exam. I scanned through the annotations. Too much detail and not enough structure. My jaw clenched as I read the words. I can’t ever seem to shake that comment. Amber had the opposite problem, she skimmed everything but didn’t expanded on anything. We read each other’s.

“Want to come over tonight?” I asked, with a ‘or we’re fucked’ kind of smile

“Oh God, yes please,” she buried her face back in her arms. I stroked her smooth, wiry hair and made comforting noises.

“Megan?” Miss James had popped her head around the door asking for me. “Mr. Brooks would like to speak with you.”

A couple of idiots on the back row went “Ooooh”, while Amber comedically whispered “Don’t leave me like this.”

I was waiting outside the headmaster’s office. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. I’d gone from smoking joints behind the bike shed to little miss straight As, and everyone knew I wasn’t going back. I still felt nervous standing there though. I vividly remembered the last time I was here: begging for mercy… promising I would never do anything again, I was a scared little bitch. There was a cold sweat breaking and my skirt felt a good three inches too short.

“Hey, whot you in for?”

A distraction. A dopey, beat up kid with a thick, thick accent, but a distraction all the same.

“Me?” I gave him a look of shock, “I didn’t do anything…”

“Awright,” he grinned as the cogs in his neatly shaven head, then, shaking his head he said, “yeah yeah me nei’ver. U’m tellin’ you all these cops are bent.”

“Amen to that,” I smiled sideways. “What’s your name?”

“Will. You might’uve heard o’me.”

I hadn’t. But I did recognise the black spray paint stains on the whites of his palms.

“Was it you that graffitied the math block?”

He looked surprised, “Yeah awright, keep it down, though. Whot’s the giveaway?”

I told him. Then, seeing worry creep over his already jumpy deminer, I said, “It’s impressive. I like the style. She’s pretty good looking as well.” For context, the graffiti depicted a 7-foot, tasteful black and white stencil of a curvy nude woman. Well, tasteful for anywhere but in a school. This guy was most likely getting expelled, maybe suspended. But he had my respect.

“Thanks,” he smiled and directed those big brown eyes right at me.

I’ll say it here to cut the suspense, I had thought he was cool. But I wasn’t planning on being his mate. There are a lot of cool people around, you can’t be friends with all of them. This guy smelt like trouble from a mile away (amongst other distinct odours). My life did not need another “bad boy” to pull me off the rails. I was straight, clean and emotionally unavailable… he does have a cute smile though.

“Hello dear,” the receptionist waddled over to me, her glasses swung around her neck like the shackles of a slave. “Are you ready?”

This woman scares me. She always has. “Yup.” I responded shortly.

Will gave me a flat ‘well, good luck’ sort of smile as I picked up my bag and walked into the office. Farewell handsome stranger, ‘tis the last you’ll see of my hard-working ass.

The Headmaster is a good guy. He’d given me more than my fair share of second chances. I like him. I like his style. Right now, he looked like crap though.

“There’s no easy way to say this, Megan…” he took off his glasses and looked me straight in the eyes, something he only does when it’s gut-wrenchingly serious. Fuck. He sighed deeply, “Your mother passed away this morning.”

“What the fuck, sir?”

I can’t describe the physical sensations that those words caused in enough detail for you understand how it felt. It was something like getting into a bath that was exactly the temperature of a human body, except incredibly intense and uncomfortable. It also felt as is my face had a migraine, like a dull tightness that caused some kind of slow panic along the spine.

“I’m sorry Megan. It was a car crash… I don’t know any more details than that” he paused, “We suggest you take the day off school to be with your family. Your Dad is collecting your siblings, he asked that you head home by yourself…”

A car crash? Shit. The bastard that hit her…

“Okay.” I said, “Is there anything else?”

There was a loaded pause.

“Um, excuse me?” He fumbled about, even so far as to look for a piece of paper on his desk. “No, no, that’s it.” He was so flustered, I would have found it sweet if I hadn’t been running my whole childhood through my mind. “Wou-Would you like someone t-tto take you home? I can organise a lift pr-probably?”

“That’s okay. Thank you for the offer,” my whole system was in shock and I was on autopilot. In hindsight I should have broken down and cried. But all I could think of was getting home, seeing my dad. Finding out what happened. And doing whatever it takes to make this feeling of loss and confusion go away…

I stood up and put my school bag over my shoulder.

“N-no problem.” He stammered. This man very rarely stammers. The gravity of his discomfort dragged my heals backwards.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, sir, thank you for being sensitive.” I could hear the tension in my jaw. I felt very vulnerable, very emotionally exposed.

“No problem. I mean, of course.” He regained himself quickly. “If you need more time off or some teachers to send you notes from the lessons you’ve missed today, please let the school know.”

“Of course, sir, thank you.” I departed with what was almost a bow.

I returned to the waiting area with a stiff look of shell-shocked trauma.

Will looked up at me, I remember how much I wanted him to look away. He started to speak, to make some joke or something, I don’t even know what he said, I just walked out.

The walk home felt too short. I thought of mum. The information didn’t seem real. It felt like a horrible horrible joke. I wanted to go home and find my mother in the kitchen, daytime drinking because her shifts are so fucked up it may as well be 7 o’clock for her.

One thing you need to understand about my mother is, well, she didn’t give a shit. She worked her ass off at the hospital every day and then came home and ran our family. When I showed up in the emergency room last year with a stomach full of hard liquor, she didn’t lose her shit for a second. She didn’t try and punish me or make me feel worse than I already felt about myself. She sat me down, she talked me through it and she convinced me I was worth… something. That I was loved. Not many parents are cool enough to do that. My mum earnt my respect that day. And now she’s gone? The concept felt wrong. So wrong. So twisted, fucked up and wrong.

I wanted to see her. I wanted to see Dad and hear him tell me it’s a false alarm. That they made a mistake. That mum was at the hospital rugby tackling a junkie with no idea anyone thinks anything different.

But I knew it wasn’t going to happen. It was over, it was done. There was nothing I could say to myself that would change the situation. I remember stopping and sitting on a bench for a couple of minutes and taking breaths. I felt like lighting up a cigarette for the first time in a long time. But I didn’t have one on me. So, I just sat. I sat, and I breathed, and I calmed myself down.

When I put my key in the door and turned it I remember feeling incredibly heavy. It was as if opening the door made it all real. Home was never going to feel the same again.

The first thing my twelve-year-old brother said to me was, “This is shit, Megan. This is pure shit.” He was holding my baby cousin in his arms pressing her to his chest and holding his hand over her ear as he swore. He was sniffing through tears and he was right. This was pure shit.

“Where’s Hopper?” I asked, “Where’s Dad?”

“Hopper’s upstairs in her room.” He nodded towards the staircase, “And Dad went out to get cigarettes.”

“What!?” I said, “Dad doesn’t smoke.”

My brother just shrugged and looked down at baby Moon, she was fast asleep.

“I’ll be right back, ok?” I held them both close to me and kissed him on the forehead.

I went upstairs. Hopper was curled up on her bed with her toys. Her eyes were closed, and she had my brother’s big black headphones on over her little blond head. She was weeping loudly. As I approached her I realised she had my mother’s teddy bear folded under her arms. The teddy bear was a gift from one of my mum’s boyfriends before you finally got together with my dad. She kept it and showed it to her kids. Many mothers wouldn’t do that. But mine did.

“Hopper.” I said as I nudged her shoulder as I sat down on the side of her bed. She had a soft pink shirt on that was already getting too small for her.

She opened her eyes and wailed a new wave of pain. She flung her arms around me and wept into my belly. Her tears and snot slowly soaked their way through my top. I stroked her hair and shushed her gently. How the hell was I supposed to deal with this? Normally when Hopper cries dad takes care of it. How could he leave them in the house alone at a time like this? What if I’d decided to get cigarettes? Who would be here for these three?

As she snuggled her face into me, George’s headphones fell off her. I heard a heavy beat coming from them. I pulled then to my ear.

“Hopper?” I asked concerned

“Ummhumm,” she muttered from my lap.

“Is this gangster rap you’re listening to?”

“G-George” she sniffed through tears, “George ga’h’ve it to. me.” A fresh stream of tears rolled out of her big gorgeous eyes, “Am I in tru-trouble?” She asked me sheepishly.

“No, of course you’re not,” I said softly, stroking her hair again, “If anyone’s in trouble it’s George. He may not be old enough to listen to that but you’re definitely not.” The after a pause I asked, “Do you like it?”

“I-I don’t know,” she said, sitting back on her bed, “It’s angry and it makes me feel safe. I don’t know what they’re saying. Sometimes bad things…”

“That sounds about right.” I guess when there’s so much emotion inside you, hearing anyone expressing anything feels cathartic. Where was my emotion? I felt heavy. I felt shocked. But I didn’t feel… loss. When and how was it going to hit me. When was I going to realised it wasn’t a dream?

George walked in with Moon, his face was sombre.

“I wanted to be with you two,” he said, “Is it ok?”

Hopper nodded. And made space on the pink bedcovers. Normally she hates having him or Moon in her room, but today things were different.

George passed me Moon while he climbed onto the bed.

“Shoes!” protested Hopper.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said as he slipped off his old dirty trainers and put them neatly next to each other by the door. Again, this kind of behaviour was very rare. George never listened to anything Hopper said and constantly crossed her boundaries to get some reaction. You don’t know the little shit, so it’s hard for me to express how much this whole thing changed him. But over the few days after mum died, George matured about six years. And this was the first sign.

Moon was gently sleeping in my arms. She had no clue, all she knew was that everyone was more quiet than usual. A strong smell wafted peacefully from her nappy.

“Can I hold her?” asked Hopper.

“She just pooped.” I said.

“What’s going to happen now?” She asked without any regard to my answer

“Honestly, I’m not sure guys.” I said, “We’ve going to wait until Dad gets home and decide what to do.”

“There isn’t anything to do, she’s gone.” Said George with eerie calmness.

“Well,” I said, “A lot of things are going to have to change.”

“Like what?”

“Um, I don’t know,” I reasoned, “Dad probably won’t be able to stay at home all day, he’ll need a job. I’ll probably need to get a job too. You guys will need to start doing more things for yourselves, like tidying your own rooms. And help keep the house tidy.”

“Do we still have to go to school?” asked George.

“Not today, for sure.” I replied and scruffed the top of his head up, “You two look after each other. I’m going downstairs to change Moon’s nappy and call Dad. Okay?”

I didn’t have the answers for my siblings, and my mind was far too overwhelmed to come up with distractions. Thinking was like wading through a swimming pool of tar in the dark. I needed some form of guidance and my first port of call was my dad.

Baby in one arm I scrolled through my contacts until I found him and hit the little phone symbol on my android. The phone rang. I tucked it into my shoulder as I grabbed a clean nappy and the changing blanket. Being the oldest of three with big enough age gaps to matter, I knew the routine backwards and forwards. That being said… it had been a while.

The phone stopped ringing, “Um. Hey, this is Mark. It’s the usual story, you can leave a message, but I never check my voice mail. Text me. Okay. Bye. Ffks”

I hung up before the beep. Really Dad? I thought, now’s the time to screen my calls?

Irritated, I put the phone down. And laid the sleeping baby out on the blanket. The movement woke her up and she slowly started to register the uncomfortable feeling in her nappy. I had to act fast. I gently removed her little pink trousers and rolled up her t-shirt. Yep, that was the smell of baby poop. I peeled off the soiled disposable diaper. She was only just moving to solids, and you could tell from the distinct texture of the shit she had gifted me with.

Why was a baby this young living away from its mother and father? You may ask. And the answer is a story for another time because, as I was scanning around the shamefully untidy kitchen looking for some wet wipes, the doorbell rang.

I ignored the first few rings as the baby’s crying grew louder and louder and I searched under the junk mail and groceries for something I could use to rid this world of my baby cousin’s latest creation. But then they started knocking, and I heard the words “Police, open up.” I nearly shit my own pants. Policemen still scared me.

Quickly washing my hands, I ran to the door. I opened it.

“Hello?” I said, somewhat aggressively so that they might catch the hint that it wasn’t a good time. It was a man and a woman with the classic blue attire but no hats. I never learnt what the hats meant, but I assumed these two were lower ranking since they had a uniform on.

The woman was shorter, in her thirties and had thin blond hair tucked into a neat bun. She had a kind face sympathetic expression. The man was average height and slightly underweight. He seemed like the kind of person who became a police officer because they got bullied a lot in school.

“Hello, Miss.” Said the woman, “We’re looking for Mr. Sherwin.”

That was my Dad.

“Me too,” I said smiling ironically, “can I see your badges?”

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