Warnings:Fluff, mutual pining, Din being clueless, Established sexual relationship, live sick idiots, mild reference to smut.
A/N:req by @sturkillerbase for idiots in love. “You’re so cute. What did you just say? I said you look like a boot.”
Comments and reblogs really appreciated
Din couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t think, he couldn’t focus. He felt hot under all that beskar and he was vaguely aware that Cara was talking to him - rambling on about staying here, settling down. Why is that when she said that, all he could think about was you.
You, the mechanic he had taken on almost a year ago. You, who had broken down all his walls and pierced him straight in the heart. You, whose hands knew exactly where to touch to comfort him. You, who came along and filled that missing piece of his puzzle. You, who was currently playing with Grogu and the other children - putting thoughts of you holding a baby of your own in his head, his baby.
“If you stare longer, you’ll burn a hole into the side of her head.” He fell forward slightly, startled by what Cara had said before quickly recovering.
“What are you talking about?”
She smiled up at him - that sly smirk she always has around him - her eyebrow quirked. “The only person you’re fooling is yourself, Mando. Plain as day that you love her.” He’s just as bad as she is. She stood then, coming to stand beside him - her gaze drifting over to you.
“You better tell her before someone else snaps her up,” she says with a tilt of her head in your direction. Din follows her line of sight to find one of the local men talking to you. His hand reaches out for you and touches your arm and you laugh at whatever he’s said. It’s like a knife has been thrust into his gut - twisting around for extra effect.
You turn then - as if you can feel the heat of his gaze - and catch him staring. A sweet smile spreads across your face and you wave at him. Din clenches his fist as a wave of anger or jealousy - he’s not quite sure - washes over him. I can’t watch this. He moves away from Cara and storms off, leaving you staring after him with a confused look on your face. Your eyes meet Cara’s and she just shrugs before walking off. Maker, these two love sick idiots.
***
Sometime later, Din arrives back at the hut - having spent most of the day avoiding you - to find you dressed in a skimpy dress. He’s frozen in the doorway at the sight of you - dress clinging to the curve of your breast, flowing out at the waist. You look ethereal.
There’s a slit in the dress that he hadn’t noticed until you move. He can see the skin of your leg all the way up to your thigh and it’s making it impossible to breathe. Suddenly, the beskar armour weighs heavy on his shoulders - all he wants to do is reach out and touch you. Really touch you. Without the armour, without the gloves - without the barrier between you both.
“Din! Are you ok? You’ve been gone all day, Grogu was upset he couldn’t find you.” You’re standing directly in front of him now and he lets his eyes roam over you - hidden behind the safety of the visor. He can feel the heat coming off you - searing into his skin. Your scent - apples, cinnamon and something indescribably you - fills his nose from under the helmet and his brain short circuits.
“You’re cute!” He freezes. Did I say that out loud?
“What did you say?” You say with a soft smile on your face. You know exactly what he said.
“I said you look like a boot.” Trying not to laugh, you reach out to touch his arm but before you can - he pushes past you making his way behind the curtain separating your shared space. You stare at the space he occupied seconds ago, mind reeling. Does he feel the same way? Turning to follow him you’re interrupted by Omera and Cara entering the hut.
“Ready to dance and get drunk on spotcha?” Cara says as she wiggles her hips. They both stand staring at you, waiting for a response. “Eh..can you give us a minute?”
They share a look before turning back to you and nodding. “Can you take Grogu?”
“Sure”, Omera says as she bends down to pick him up. Once they leave you turn towards the curtain, heart racing. I need to know.
***
Din paced the length of the small space he occupied - embarrassment flooding his veins. Dank ferrek!
He’s ruined things now, he knows he has. You’ll think he’s an idiot and leave. Everyone leaves. The only one consistent thing in his life is Grogu and he doesn’t have much of a choice. I need to get out of this. Din begins pulling off his armour - piece by piece - throwing it on the ground haphazardly. He hears Cara and Omera talking and he figures you left for the celebration. It’s safe!
With both hands on either side of his helmet; he lifts it off. Holding it in his hands, he stands there and stares into the visor - his face reflected back at him. The mandalorians are his family, took him in when he was most alone in the world - he owes them his life. They are also his curse. Living by a strict creed that allows no one to see his face, not even the ones he loves.
You can never get too close. How could you when there is a barrier of beskar between you both. In the last couple of months he’s longed to find a peaceful planet somewhere in the galaxy - quite like Sorgan - and settle down with you and Grogu. Maybe you’ll agree to marry him and you can have a child of your own. She’ll never love you.
“Oh Din I’m…I’m so sorry…I didn’t mean…”
Din turns towards your voice to find you w or h your back turned away from him and your hand covering your eyes. She saw my face! You have two options here, kill or marry.
Din tosses his helmet. The loud thud as it hits the floor echoes throughout the hut. He moves toward you now, slow and steady - like any quick movements will spook you. He reaches out to touch you and his heart races upon contact. He loves the feel of your warmth under his touch. Searing into his skin.
“Mesh’la, it’s ok.”
“No! No, I made you break your creed. I’ve ruined everything Din. I’m sorry…so sorry,” you say with a sob. He turns you around and places his hands gently on your cheeks.
“Mesh’la please, look at me.”
“No. I can’t. I…I won’t. I can leave…I won’t tell anyone what I saw…please don’t kill me.”
His heart clenches tight. I could never kill you. “I won’t kill you. I can’t, even if I wanted to. I…I love you Y/N and I want you to see my face properly, so please look. He pulls your hands away but your eyes are shut tight. “You can’t be a Mandalorian anymore Din, I made you….I’ve ruined it all…”
“I can still be a Mandalorian. I love you and I want you to see my face. I want to give you that. Give you all of me. Marry me?” He whispers beside your ear.
Slowly you open your eyes and you’re met with the most beautiful brown eyes you’ve ever seen. You take him in. His hazel eyes, his brown hair that’s slightly dishevelled from the helmet and the light facial hair he has along his jaw. He was beautiful.
“Will you marry me?” Your eyes search his, and you see the sincerity in his gaze. A smile spreads over your face.
“I love you too Din. I have for a long time. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Din reaches down and his lips touch yours in a soft kiss. A moan slips past your lips and he devours it with his. Pulling back he leans his head against yours - his eyes gazing into yours. “Just repeat after me. Mhi solus tome, Mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde”
You repeat what he says word for word and then he reaches into his back pocket and places a ring of beskar into your finger. “What did we say?” Din smiles - his eyes glued to the ring, his ring, adorning your finger before looking straight at you.
“We are one when together, we are one when parted, we share all, we will raise warriors. They are mandalorian vows.”
“So we’re married now? That was easy.” He chuckles before his lips meet yours again in a heated kiss. His hands begin to roam a little and you can feel him harden against you. “Maybe we should start working on those warriors?”
A growl emanates from deep within his chest as he grabs your ass tight, pulling you close. “How long do you think we have?”
“Hmm, I’d say maybe an hour before Cara comes to find us.”
Just a few quick questions to find out what the reader wants from me and my writing.
Everyoneeee! I mean everyone needs to check this amazing kickass gorgeous writer’s work out!! You will not be disappointed at all, I promise youuu! And she gots new ones to come, so come along on the beautiful breathtaking ride!
Ps.
Ekkkk! I’m so excited and can’t wait to see what you’ll create with the other fandoms! I already know they’ll be amazingly breathtakingly badass! ( but always, never rush or push yourself to get stuff done.. Do what makes you happy and such. )
Aahhh stop you are amazing and I appreciate you so much. I swear you get a kick out of making me emotional
I’m excited to write for other fandoms (and a little nervous) but I will still mainly be a pedro girl
Warnings:Smut 18+, explicit, unprotected sex, oral (both receiving), angst, mentions of drinking blood, cursing, enemies to lovers.
Summary:You and Max have been working together for the last year and there is only one thing you have in common - you both hate each other! Now you are both in competition with each other for Ted’s job. Who will win? Who will lose? Will you both realise that’s there’s a fine line between love and hate?
Warnings:Smut 18+, explicit, unprotected sex, oral (male receiving), PinV sex, sub/dom relationship, orgasm denial, Zach has a temper (not towards you), cursing, fluff.
A/N:first req from my darling @scorpio-marionette for the smut prompt “mmm, I want you to look at me when I’m inside you.” I went with Zach on this one - there just isn’t enough of him.
Warnings:Smut 18+, explicit, unprotected sex, oral (both receiving), angst, mentions of drinking blood, cursing, enemies to lovers.
Summary:You and Max have been working together for the last year and there is only one thing you have in common - you both hate each other! Now you are both in competition with each other for Ted’s job. Who will win? Who will lose? Will you both realise that’s there’s a fine line between love and hate?
Warnings:Fluff, public shows of affection, mentions of pregnancy., little bit of anger, mention of death and prison, mention of drugs.
A/N:req by @browneyes-issac from the prompts. “Let’s go home. I am home.” I just changed this around a little. Hope you enjoy ☺️ also I will be using my old Taglist until Sunday and then it will be the new one sign up here
Warnings:Smut 18+, explicit, unprotected sex, oral (both receiving), angst, mentions of drinking blood, cursing, enemies to lovers.
Summary:You and Max have been working together for the last year and there is only one thing you have in common - you both hate each other! Now you are both in competition with each other for Ted’s job. Who will win? Who will lose? Will you both realise that’s there’s a fine line between love and hate?
Warnings:Smut 18+, explicit, unprotected sex, oral (both receiving), angst, mentions of drinking blood, cursing, enemies to lovers.
Summary:You and Max have been working together for the last year and there is only one thing you have in common - you both hate each other! Now you are both in competition with each other for Ted’s job. Who will win? Who will lose? Will you both realise that’s there’s a fine line between love and hate?
Max insisted on driving and honestly, you were grateful - your anxiety was becoming overwhelming and you would not have had the focus to drive safely.
Fidgeting with your fingers - something you did to try to calm yourself when you were like this, you closed your eyes briefly and took a deep breath inwards, trying to calm your racing heart. Please let this day go off without an incident from Dad.
Max threw a sideways glance at you, a worrisome feeling settling in the pit of his stomach with what he had just heard in your mind - he’s never seen you like this - and it wasn’t something he wanted to get used to either.
“Everything ok, toots? You seem a little on edge.” Opening your eyes and looking in his direction, you gave him your best fake smile. “I’m fine, promise.”
“Hmm, and if I believed that, I’d believe anything.” Max narrowed his eyes on the road and insisted that you share what’s on your mind without trying to pry it out of you. “Come on, you can talk to me, Toots. I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye but I care about you and I want to help if I can.”
“I appreciate it, Max, I do, but you can’t help me. My family - more specifically my father - is a fucking pain in my ass and he hates me.”
“Come on he doesn’t hate you, parents don’t hate their kids - they can get angry, sure, disappointed, but not hate.”
“Ha, you don’t know my father. I’ve never been able to do anything right, not in his eyes anyway.” The words spilled from your mouth like it was normal, it was normal and it shouldn’t be, but it’s something that you’re used to now.
“Then why don’t we just say fuck it and not go. I’ll drive us anywhere?” Max countered with a different idea, a much better idea than attending this wedding that you’ve dreaded for months. If only it were that easy.
“I can’t. The irony of it all is that I’m constantly seeking his approval and if I don’t show up - I’ll be disowned.” Shooting down the suggestion, Max reaches over and places his hand on your thigh, giving it a quick squeeze. “I could just kill him?”
Erupting into a fit of giggles, it really shouldn’t have been funny but your emotions were all over the place. You’re laughing so hard that you could barely see Max through your watery eyes. God, I love you.
The laughter died off with that thought, amusement had been replaced with another worry. You were so caught up in the moment that you forgot that he can listen in if he wants to, so the question was, did he hear it?
Max is frozen. He definitely heard it and he kept his eyes straight ahead with doubt circling his mind. Did she just say what I think she said?
***
Arriving at the venue - an overpriced hotel with too many sparkly chandeliers - you take a deep breath before exiting the car. Max appears at your side, wrapping an arm around your waist as you both make your way inside.
Fake smiles and formal greetings are made as you pass distant relatives and family friends; people that you only ever see at events like this. Max can already hear your heart begin to beat fast again and he leans down to whisper in your ear, “it’s ok, breath, I’ve got you.”
Fuck!If you didn’t already love the man, you certainly would after that. A simple yet meaningful gesture of reassurance in a time that you really needed it made you feel weak in the knees. You smile up at him with appreciative eyes. “Thanks, for coming with me. I’m glad you’re here, Max.”
There’s that flutter in his chest again and he battles with himself silently. Say it! Say it now before you lose your nerve. “There you are, you’re late.” Max’s thoughts of saying what’s on his mind were halted as he followed your gaze to see an older man approaching - small, slightly rounded stomach and the only resemblance you have to him are your eyes. Those gorgeous eyes that Max loves so much.
“We’re not late, half the guests haven’t even arrived yet by the looks of it.” You defended yourself and Max to your Dad, but he fired back. “Don’t take that tone with me-” Your father stopped mid sentence, looking at Max with scrutiny, “-and who is this?”
Immediately taking action, the vampire moves his hand from around you and goes to shake his hand, making sure to squeeze tight. Your fathers face scrunches in pain a little before you nudge his side. “I’m Max Phillips, Y/N’s boyfriend. It’s a pleasure to meet your sir.” He doesn’t say anything as he turns his gaze back to you. “Your boyfriend can’t sit up front with us.”
“Why not?” You realtialted, to which your father retorted. “He isn’t family.” Your blood boiled with the audacity of this man and you fought back, again. “Max is my boyfriend, he’s my family.”
“He still can’t sit with us,” your father states before getting distracted by some guests, turning away from you and ending this discussion. I’m going to fucking kill him. You try to storm after him but Max wraps his arms around your waist, stopping you. “He isn’t worth it baby. How about you go sit with them and I’ll find a seat at the back.”
“Hell no! I’m sitting with you, come on.” You wrap your hand in his and pull him along to the back where you take your seats. Max can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. I am so fucking proud of you.
***
The ceremony is beautiful. Your sister is a stunning bride and her husband Gerry absolutely adores her. Even though you’ve always been the shadow in her light, constantly compared against each other, you’re happy for her. “Ever thought about it?” Max whispers in your ear as you make your way to the reception hall.
“Though about what?” You asked. Turning to face him as he jerked his chin outwards with his answer, “This. Marriage?”
“Hasn’t every girl at some point.” He gives you an incredulous look and you roll your eyes with a half smile on your face. “Ok yes, I’ve thought about my wedding. Happy?”
“Yup.” He turns his attention away from you to the sign displaying the seating arrangements. What the hell, why is he asking that? “Have you thought about it, Max?”
The man laughs, sounding shy. “Not until recently.” What?He grabs your hand and leads the way to your table. Even though Max doesn’t need food to survive - for obvious reasons - he still has a few mouthfuls. I need to blend in sometimes toots he’d said, and you couldn’t help but smile at the concentration on his face as tried to act like a regular sociable human.
I could get used to this, you thought and ducked your head, forgetting once again that he can hear you. Though, Max looked at you, as if he were about to say something but a voice cut him off. “Y/N! There you are, I’m so happy you came. I know this was hard for you so I appreciate it.” Your sister - the bride was the voice that cut him off.
Pulling you in for a tight hug with a bright smile, she’s breath-taking, always has been. “Claire, this is Max my..”
“Her boyfriend,” he speaks for himself with a wink before pulling Claire in for a hug too.
“It’s lovely to meet you Max,” She beams, then pulls back to look at you, “my sister failed to tell her little sister she was dating. Don’t pay any attention to our father, he can be…well difficult. Anyway, better go mingle. Don’t leave without saying goodbye, ok?”
“I won’t.” Max nodded as the bride walked away. “She seems nice.” You glared at him then. “Well she’s married now, so hard luck.” Max looks at you with a confused expression. Without questioning it, he simply listens to your inner monologue instead. Everyone always thinks she is better than me - funnier, smarter, prettier. Of course Max would think the same.
“Yeah she’s pretty, I’d be lying if I said otherwise but in a cute way.” Acting quickly, Max tells you what you need to hear, “Definitely not my type. You are my type. You’re not cute, you’re gorgeous, you don’t put up with my shit and put me in my place, and you are amazing in bed. You do this thing with your…”
“Ok enough.” You say putting your hand over his mouth, a blush on your face. “Thank you.”
As the day progressed, your nerves slowly easing off with Max’s soothing presence and reassuring gestures, you started to actually enjoy the celebratory atmosphere and put your own worries aside, to be there for your sister.
Occasionally she and Gerry would lock eyes with you, raising their glasses with a nod and almost every time, your father would scowl. When dinner was served, you and Max just enjoyed your own company, giggling at his remarks about your dad. The champagne helped a bunch too, loosening up the tension in your body and mind.
“I need to take a leak, toots,” Max kissed your cheek and pushed his chair back to stand, “I’ll be back shortly.” Sitting alone with just your thoughts, you concluded that this day wasn’t all too bad and you were thankful that Max accompanied you, he made it better in every way possible.
However, with a quick glance over to the head table and noticing that your dad was not there, you instantly sighed with a plea under your breath, “Please Max, if my dad is in the restroom, don’t cause a scene.” Using his absence as an opportunity, you stood from your chair also and walked over to chat with your sister and brother in law.
“Hey, you. Getting lonely over there?” She leaned up from her seat, opening her arms wide for another hug. “Yeah, you could say that. Max is in the restroom,” you smiled and leaned in, kissing her cheek. “Please tell me Dad is at the bar?”
Pulling back and greeting Gerry, the look on your sister’s face confirmed your worries and you immediately started fidgeting with your fingers again. “Stop that,” Clair noticed your anxiety straight away, she always does, “and don’t worry. I’m sure Dad won’t cause a scene on my wedding day.”
It’s not Dad that I’m worried about. Nodding to her, you put on yet another fake smile and kept looking to the gents restroom, dreading for Max to reappear with blood dripping down from his fangs, but to your absolute surprise, the men walked out together - laughing?
Both you and Claire shared a look of concern, and even Gerry voiced his opinion on the sight, “Huh. That’s weird, a minute ago he wouldn’t shut up about Max now they’re best buddies.”
“Oh that’s good old Max. He has a way with… charming people,” Laughing to the couple nervously, you made an excuse to leave and go back to your own table while Max and your father stood at the bar, ordering a round of drinks and being rowdy about it. This can’t be good. What have you done Max?
The man turned to look at you with your thoughts, winking with a cheeky smile before turning his attention back to your dad. Clearly he has glamoured him, put him under some sort of compulsion. Though, you can’t complain considering how happy and laid back he looked, so Max must have said something right.
A couple moments later, Max came to join you at the table again, your father walking past with a waving smile and a glass of whiskey in his hand. No, you certainly can’t complain about the compulsion, he’s in a better mood.
“You’re not going to ask about your dad?” Max sat down and leaned into your side, placing a chaste kiss to your cheek. “No.” keening at his touch, your hands roamed the expanse of his thigh beneath the table cloth. “Don’t need to know, just really grateful for the result, Max.”
“Oh yeah? How grateful?” He smirked. Tensing with the touch of your deft fingers trailing up his thigh, Max hummed deeply and whispered sweet nothings against the shell of your ear, drawing out a soft sigh to escape past your lips. “I’ll show you later in the bedroom,” you say, biting your lip. “I’ll do that thing that you love.”
Max groaned eagerly, his gaze was intense with impatience for the night to hurry up and come to an end. You gave his thigh a quick squeeze before retracting your hand at the sounds of a microphone being tapped excessively, followed by someone speaking into the thing. “Can everybody hear me ok?”
Marc, the best man, prepared his speech. You and Max paid little attention as his hand kept sneaking up your thigh now, payback for your actions mere moments ago. Marc went on to talk about his younger days with Gerry, specifically of the time where he first met your sister and how he knew that his buddy was in love at first sight.
You did finally pay attention when your father made snide remarks here and there, fueled by alcohol no less. Or was it? As Max nipped a path of kisses along your neck, without a care for who sees, your eyes narrowed in on Gerry, on his red angry facial expression.
When he snapped his head to the side to reprimand your dad quietly, you knew something else was going on. It wasn’t just the alcohol. “Um, Max?” Tilting your head with a quiet whisper, you now want to know exactly what the vampire had done. “What did you say to my dad in the restroom?”
“Told him to relax, have a good time…” Placing a wet kiss to the back of your ear, your eyes threatened to roll shut as his hand inched closer to your heat. “…Told him to squash whatever quarrels he has with you and let bygones be bygones.”
“Uh-huh.” That didn’t sound too bad. However, it didn’t explain why your dad was being a bit of a dick about the best man’s speech, so you persisted with Max. “Anything else you might’ve said to him that you’re not telling me?”
“Hmm,” Max smirked against your skin. “Let’s say it’s my gift for you. A little payback.”
Just as you were opening your mouth to protest, you stopped to gasp when the man had made contact with your core, finding your panties hot and damp. Max’s touch had a much more prominent effect on you, far more than you yourself anticipated it would.
A broken whisper of his name bubbled up from your throat as he started to pull your panties to one side. Your cunt clenched around nothing as he slid a digit through your slick folds with ease. “Look at you, toots. So wet for me and I barely touched you.” Max degraded with a dark chuckle, pulling his hand back, you whimpered with the loss as he brought his finger to his lips and sucked the evidence of your desire.
At the sound of music filling your ears, you tore your eyes away from Max’s dark taunting smile and looked to the dancefloor. Claire and Gerry were rising from their seats and walking out hand in hand. It was the first dance and it couldn’t have come at a better time, Max was becoming feral. You’ve seen that look in his eyes before.
Max wrapped an arm around your waist, resting his hand to your hip with a grabbing squeeze and you leaned into his touch with a question. “Are you finished teasing me now?”
“Not even close, baby.” The man laughed. Looking at the dancefloor as cool as a cucumber, like he hasn’t just had his hand between your legs then tasted a sample of your juices off his finger, Max jerked his chin outwards, “But first we have a show to watch.”
“Don’t you mean the first dance? It isn’t a show Max,” You corrected him, jabbing a finger into his ribs playfully as your own little payback for him playing games with you. Giggling to yourself when he jolted with the action, he repaid the favour by tickling your sides, causing your hands to reach out onto his chest with a plea, “Ok-ok. I yield. Please stop that.”
Granting your wishes, Max resorted to just resting his hand on your hip again, but he brought his other hand up from under the table to look at his watch, sparking your intrigue, “What’s up?”
“I told you, we have a show to watch,” Max replied nonchalantly, “Patience, babe. Your gift is coming any minute now.” Instantly turning your head to face the head table, your father was not there and your stomach dropped with dread. Oh God, Max what have you done?
***
The sound of a mic tap draws your attention and you look up to see your father on stage looking around nervously. “Stop! Stop right now.”
Everyone gasps at your fathers interruption. Gerry is being pulled back by Claire who whispers something to him. “That’s it Claire, tame that beast of a husband. Bloody sham of a wedding. Cost me a fortune, ungrateful bitch. I need everyone to quieten down, I have something I want to say to my daughter, Y/N.”
You can feel people’s eyes drift to you and a worrisome feeling settles in the pit of your stomach. Max’s hand - the one resting on your thigh - squeezes gently in reassurance and you meet his gaze for the briefest moment before turning back to your father. Max hopes he’s done the right thing. That you won’t hate him after this.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way I’ve always treated you. For making you feel like you were never good enough and always comparing you to your sister Claire. You are far better than her in every way. You’re beautiful, strong willed, independent and amazing at your job and any man would be lucky to have you.”
“John!” You hear your mother gasp out in outrage. The only thing you can focus on though is Max. How these are his words coming from your fathers mouth and how you want nothing more than to grab his face and kiss him hard. I love you. You let the words linger in your mind, knowing full well he can hear but you don’t look at him, you don’t want to see the rejection on his face.
Suddenly your father drops to his knees and starts barking. Barking!He begins to move around on all fours, licking himself and sniffing some of the guests’ asses. He throws himself onto his back and waggles his arms and legs in the air - looking for a belly rub?
Your hand shoots to your mouth and Max looks to you now, worried he’s gone too far but then he feels you shake beside him. Is she laughing? You can’t control it anymore, the laughter falling from your mouth as you hold your stomach. Max feels a sense of relief. “Did I do good?”
“That was amazing. I love you…” You gasp, having realised you said it out loud. It’s out there now and you can feel him stiffen beside you. Tears form behind your eyes threatening to fall at any moment. Well done, you’ve ruined it all now. Max’s hand grabs your chin and suddenly his lips are on yours, kissing you passionately. “I need you, now.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Max stands and reaches for your hand, leading you out to reception. “I need a room for the night.” What is he doing? Max leans into you - his breath hot on your skin. “I want you to fuck you so hard, everyone in that reception hall knows who you belong to.” A shiver runs through you and your cunt is aching with anticipation. Oh yes please.
Rating:Explicit (18+ ONLY, minors this is not the fic for you)
Warnings: unprotected sex (this is fictional wrap it up irl), cum eating, Mando’s manspread is its own warning tbh, attempted assault (grabbing your arm until Mando intervenes), f! masturbation until interrupted how dare, the helmet doesn’t come off until it does, cursing, I think that’s it but as always let me know.
Summary: You realize Mando has a feature in his helmet that lets him see how hot you are at a really inconvenient time. That’s it. That’s the plot.
A/N: Some of you may recognize this as a sneak peek I posted months ago and never posted. So yes, it’s finally here.
Rating:Explicit (18+ ONLY, minors this is not the fic for you)
Warnings: unprotected sex (this is fictional wrap it up irl), cum eating, Mando’s manspread is its own warning tbh, attempted assault (grabbing your arm until Mando intervenes), f! masturbation until interrupted how dare, the helmet doesn’t come off until it does, cursing, I think that’s it but as always let me know.
Summary: You realize Mando has a feature in his helmet that lets him see how hot you are at a really inconvenient time. That’s it. That’s the plot.
A/N: Some of you may recognize this as a sneak peek I posted months ago and never posted. So yes, it’s finally here.
Summary: After years of hiding, Din finds his girlfriend on a planet with a child.
Warning: Fluff, Angst
Word Count: 1.8k
a/n:. Requests are open.
Three suns ruled over the land and the clouds in the hues of murky waters had travelled away. Tall trees protected the inconspicuous cottage of light stone. Smoke rose from the chimney, letting the inhabitants of the village know that someone lived in the nondescript building on the outskirts in the far south by the lake of hundreds of waterlilies.
Flowers of various colours grew out of the dark soil, bordered by a holey fence in light tones. The woman, dressed in the long dress in light shades, looked through the tinted window flanked by long curtains and witnessed her daughter sitting under the lonely tree playing with her dolls of straw next to the sandpit. The cake Y/N had baked was on a plate on the round table with two identically looking chairs of wood.
Smiling, the young mother strolled through the kitchen towards the open door leading into the house and leaned against the frame, unable to take her eyes off of her daughter playing in the shade of the tree. Her heart ached, realising her little sunflower had grown fast. She didn’t have to count, had placed six candles on the cake of fresh strawberries and slices of apples. Y/N pushed herself off the wood and stepped into the light of the fading suns.
“Hey my little sunflower.” Y/N breathed.
Laughing, she halted in front of her daughter, playing with the three dolls. The dark brown eyes immediately settled on Y/N and again a dagger pierced through her aching heart, felt how it broke each year a little more. Guilt dripped from her parted lips, but Y/N knew she had done the right thing. No child should be raised in a spaceship, and Y/N knew they would have taken her daughter away the moment she was born. A veil of sadness rested over her features. Tears tried to block her view of her child, but Y/N was proud she had escaped before anyone could find out she was carrying the creation of deep love.
The memories of the early morning when she had disappeared returned and Y/N remembered the moment as if it had happened yesterday. In great haste she had fled, was heading for a planet far away from war, from ships, destruction and hunters trying to kill them all. Sometimes when darkness ruled with iron fist over the fields, Y/N wondered if she had made the right decision, but whenever Y/N looked out the window and saw her daughter playing in the garden with an unmistakable smile on her face, Y/N knew she had done the right thing.
“Mama, don’t cry,” Eloise breathed, thought she understood the sadness in her mother’s gaze.
Gently, the young girl placed her hands on her mother’s cheeks and brushed the hot tears away.
“I don’t mind that you gave me a doll as a present and the cake you baked and the dress you made is wonderful, I’ll show it to my friends’, they’ll surely want you to make them one too.” laughed the girl, wanting to cheer her mother up, thinking she knew the reason for the falling tears.
“I’m not crying because of you, my sunflower. I’m fine. The suns are blinding.” Y/N tried to talk herself out of it, but she couldn’t, couldn’t fool her daughter.
“Come here mum, I don’t mind and I want to eat the cake tonight and later I will read the book and I heard the stars will be out today so we can stay out here in the garden.”, “That’s a beautiful idea and I’m already looking forward to it.” replied Y/N.
The girl with the long dark brown hair rose from the meadow and let go of the dolls reflecting a small perfect family, Y/N couldn’t give her. Spreading her arms, Y/N immediately understood what her daughter desired and embraced the dark-eyed girl, hugging her tightly and pressing her firmly to her chest.
“Mummy?” the girl breathed into her mother’s ear.
Fear was evident in her troubled voice.
“Is everything alright?”, “I’m scared, mum, there’s a strange-looking man. He is looking at me and you.” Eloise stammered.
Suddenly Y/N´s eyes widened. Swiftly she turned and then gulped. The suns were no longer blinding, clouded by a dense layer of wandering clouds yet she shielded her eyes with her right hand, thought her eyes were fooling her. Y/N would recognise him clad in heavy armour among billions. Her heart stopped beating. The cloak was long, swayed back and forth in the rising breeze. Y/N’s fingers clawed into the flowing material of the dress of her daughter, forcing her to stay behind her, trying to protect her with her body, would protect her with her life.
“Don’t be afraid my sunflower, stay behind me.” Y/N demanded in a stern tone.
Y/N knew there was no point in leaving, to run away.
“Who is that man?” “You don’t have to fear; I will protect you and if he gets too close, then hide in the house. Run away and don’t come out.” Y/N instructed calmly.
“And what about you?”, “Didn’t you hear me?” she said sternly, and Eloise nodded.
His breathing was heavy, recognised the woman he still loved from the depths of his heart. How many years he had spent with searching for Y/N, Din no longer remembered but knew it had to be many, more than five. Anger spread through his chest. Under his mask, he grimaced, had noticed the girl, knew the woman, his wife had found a lover, a new man.
“How can I help you?” Y/N asked unsure what to say.
Y/N tried to be emotionless, didn’t want to show fear and agony, knew she had to be strong but her lower lip betrayed her.
“Why did you leave me?” it escaped him.
Warmth spread through her heart. The last time she had heard his was a long time ago, so long, seeming for forever. The words were harsh and dripping with venom yet there was love lurking in the shadows. Din didn’t want to waste a second with asking useless questions, needed answers as fast as possible.
“I’m sorry.”, “You’re sorry?” he cried.
Y/N flinched, feeling her daughter’s fingers digging harder into the flowing dress.
“I had to Din, I couldn’t stay. I had to leave everything behind.” Y/N tried to reassure him.
“Because of who? How could you do this to me? I love you.”, “You betrayed me!” he screamed from the deepest recesses of his soul.
Sadness was evident in his breaking voice. Threateningly he approached her but Y/N did not flinch, making herself taller, knowing Din had noticed the girl. His senses were clouded and eyes dilated. Darkness rooted in them, dark and dooming. Words dripping with hate, an enchanted potion escaped, but Y/N felt no hate nor fear, had fallen in love with the dark eye’s moons ago, knew he would never hurt her.
“I have wasted years of my life looking for you! I’ve destroyed ships and planets just for you, to find out that you live on a lonely planet and you’ve found a new man. I thought you died.” hatred oozed from his voice.
“I didn’t cheat on you Din. I would never do something like that. Please believe me, I love you, I have always loved you.” Y/N said.
She felt fingers digging into the long dress but suddenly the touch disappeared. Eyes met on a battlefield, he made it impossible to look away. Tears tried to cloud her vision.
“Get away from my mama!” echoed a shaking yet firm voice.
Fists collided with the steel of the armour in dark hues. Small hands tried to push him away, and the man allowed it, looked down and suddenly he saw clearly. The story became clearer.
“Eloise.” she breathed her daughter’s name.
A mask covered his face, but Y/N thought she could see the confusion in the eyes settling on the girl who stood protectively before her mother, arms wide, forbidding him to come closer. Tears adorned her face and her cheeks were painted in a light red tone. Firmly Y/N pressed her daughter tightly against her, hugging and breathing loving words into her ear.
“Everything is all right. You don’t have to be afraid of him. He’s actually a nice man.” Y/N whispered in her ear, reaping the words over and over again.
Dirt covered his dark trousers. His hands slid to the helmet and dropped it to the ground. He couldn’t believe his eyes, thought his helmet made him see other things, but he saw the colour of his eyes, saw the tone of his hair and his tan skin. Closely Din studied the crying girl in the arms of the woman he loved. The next breeze carried away the veil of hate and anger. Din recognised the eyes and noticed Eloise had his nose and hair. A soft smile spread on his lips, found the answer why Y/N had disappeared and realised he was a fool for believing she had left him for another man. His thoughts humoured him. Hesitantly, Din took one step and gathered courage. Pride filled his chest. With long steps, he slowly went towards them, not wanting to frighten the little girl, and dropped to his knees three steps away from them.
“I’m sorry,” Y/N whispered, lifting her gaze.
She knew there was no point in hiding the truth behind a layer of twisted tales.
“No, I’m sorry,” Din spoke out.
Love was the only emotion Y/N could see in his eyes. He took off the gloves covering his fingers and let them fall to the ground next to him. The sand was rising with the dust. Slowly Din crawled and halted again as the gazes met and smelled the faint smell of spring lingering in the air. Carefully, his right hand approached her face, wanting to remove the tears he had summoned.
“No, Eloise, you don’t have to be afraid of him. He won’t hurt me.” Y/N said in a loving yet stern.
The little girl listened and nodded, wanted to rise and protect her mother from the touch of the stranger.
“I had to go. I had to leave. Please forgive me.”, “I understand, but I would never have left you alone. The two of you. You should have told me. I would have fled with you if you had told me or I would have made sure they wouldn’t take our child away.” the Mandalorian breathed.
The question didn’t need to escape, had found the answer in her eyes. Smiling, Din faced the young girl, reached out and his heart quickened as his daughter placed her small hand, miniature compared to his, in his palm and Din knew he had found his home.
(It’s more like a short..story? I don’t know, don’t mind me)
No warnings, just maybe know that English is not my first language
He looked at you, catching your gaze on his still sleepy and scruffy appearance.
A shy smile made its way on your lips, knowing that once again, he caught you.
“What?” He chuckled, at what it seemed to lately become a habit of yours to look at him while he peacefully slept.
“Nothing” you smiled back, while a hand went to his cheek, caressing the short stinging scruff growing there
“I just..” a short pause, in which didn’t get lost to him how your smile dropped just a little.
“I’m just scared that every time I wake up, you won’t be there with me. That it was all just a dream..”
You gulped, trying to keep the tears in the back of your eyes and the burning in your throat at bay.
A big, yet delicate hand put some hair behind your ear.
His thumb slowly caressed your bottom lip, hand tracing your cheekbone, and ending its travel on the exposed skin of your shoulder.
He said nothing, two warm chocolate eyes staring back at you. You could see a hint of something in them, maybe sadness, maybe understanding.
You continued
“They always told me that the right person would arrive, to be patient, to not lose hope.
That he was out there, slowly walking his path to me,
But I thought..how can they be so sure about it? It’s not like that for everyone, there are so many lonely people in this world..why shouldn’t I be one of them?”
A shaky breath left your lungs, while he lightly drew calming patterns on your skin, listening
“..they said that you would appear when I less expected it”.
A warm tear escaped, running down your cheek, a sob following.
“Every day, I hoped it was the day you would finally come to me.
I kept expecting you, for so long
And maybe..
that’s why you never arrived.”
The bed sheets suddenly felt colder than usual, while your hand moved to softly caress the empty cool spot near you.
With all of that being said, I do have an idea for Dieter that I want to get down somewhere so I don’t forget.
It’s your classic assistant!reader and she is in love with Dieter, but he doesn’t realize it because he’s just kind of ditzy. Maybe he doesn’t realize he feels the same until it’s too late and then they have a chance meeting a couple of years later or something.
It definitely wouldn’t take place during a pandemic and I’m not sure if there would be drugs in the story because they can be pretty triggering for me. But I wanted to put this out there and see if anyone would be interested in something like it.
Colombia. It was new, scary. And despite spending all day unpacking, my nerves had not calmed. I decided that there was only one thing to do: get myself some pizza, new yarn, my trusted knitting needles, and some new records. It was time for me to relax the only way I knew, knitting while upbeat music plays from the record player, I had placed in my new living room. Sadly, I couldn’t jump into my relaxation as I did need to go out to get said pizza, yarn, and records. I didn’t mind that much though because I did want to explore Bogota.
I grabbed my purse and hopped into my car. The used car I had gotten wasn’t the nicest, but I could afford it and it was better than trying to get public transportation in a foreign country. My first stop was the record store. I picked up one of my favorite records, Rumors by Fleetwood Mac. It wasn’t always my favorite but years of listening to it at home had made me adore it. With my record safely away in the trunk, I drove over to the craft store. There was only a handful in the city, so I was planning on taking full advantage of its proximity to my new apartment.
The store was relatively small, clearly a family run business. The sign above the door read in large cursive letters “Palacio de Artesania”. I entered and found that it was larger than I expected, although still small. The bell above the door rang and I saw what looked like the owner of the store come up to greet me.
“Buenos dias! Puedo alludarte?” The sweet old lady who approached me asked.
“Soy bien ahora,” I responded, hoping my Spanish was okay. It had been a while since I spoke. She nodded and walked over to the other side of the room, where the register was. I spotted a younger looking woman at the register. She was reading a tabloid magazine as she chewed some gum, clearly uninterested in the job she was supposed to be doing. Although in her defense, the place was pretty empty. I spotted two other people, a woman carrying a baby and a man wearing a leather jacket. I paid little attention to either, although my eyes did linger a little too long on the man. He quickly looked towards me and I smiled awkwardly before wandering down another aisle.
I could feel my cheeks flush as I realized I had been caught staring. I couldn’t control it, he just felt out of place. He was dashingly handsome and intimidating, not the type you would expect to be looking at embroidery threads. I shook my head to get myself back to the goal of this mission. New yarn. I wandered the store for a moment before finding the knitting and crochet section. While the selection was small, they did have high quality materials and after a mental check of what colors I needed, I grabbed a couple of skeins and went to check out.
I must have not been looking where I was going because I bumped into the man from before as I turned a corner. The yarn I had been carrying in my arms fell to the ground and I quickly rushed to pick up the mess. He bent down to help me collect the yarn, handing a few to me.
“Gracias señor.” I said, giving him a nod.
“Your accent is terrible.” He said in response.
“Oof, well I’m a little rusty.”
“It’s okay, you’re still cute.” I felt my face heat up at the unexpected complement.
“Javier Peña.” He held out his hand.
“Y/N L/N.” I said shaking his hand. “What brings you here? Not to be rude but I don’t expect an American wearing a leather jacket and tight ass jeans to be in a craft store in Columbia.”
“You like my jeans?”
“Never said that.”
“It was implied.”
“Answer the question.”
“I just like crafting. Embroidery is my favorite, but I’m running out of things to embroider on. As for the Columbia thing, I work at the embassy.”
“Really? I just got a job there! I’m the new receptionist for someone named Messina. What was her first name… Claudia!”
Javier looked like a deer in headlights. He stared at me for a moment before his posture changed and he seemed more closed off.
“Look, whatever you do, you can’t tell people that you saw me here. Or anything I told you for that matter. I have a… reputation to uphold.” He spit out.
“Oh, you are one of those types. No worries, I won’t say a thing. Can’t let them know you’re a big softie.”
“I am not a softie.”
“Sure…” I started walking towards the register. “I’ll see you at work, I guess. I start tomorrow.”
“Good luck. You’ll need it.”
With that he seemed to sneak away to another aisle and left me alone. I quickly paid for my yarn and made my way out, nodding at him as I left. I drove to the nearest pizza place, grabbed a cheese pizza, and made my way back home. It was dark by the time I arrived, the day had gone by quickly between the unpacking and the shopping. I grabbed a piece of pizza, started playing my new record, and began preparing to knit. An hour later the pizza was gone, a new record was playing, and the beginnings of a sweater had been knit.
Now it was around midnight, so I put away the record and headed to bed. My mind kept wandering back to Javier. He seemed like an interesting man. And he was even more handsome up close. But he clearly had some problems with expressing himself and I didn’t want to get put into that mess. Still, he made the prospect of my first day a lot more interesting. I would have a friend.
I’m still working on Monument Woman, but I have had this bang up ass idea for a fic where you get to choose your own adventure for The Mandalorian? Like you have options on who rescues you, if you fuck or not, blah de blah blah.
If I were to write this, I’d have to do it all at once, so the options can be properly linked or maybe even on a separate tumblr dedicated only to that fic?
I guess the question is would people be interested in that? It will be a lot of fucking work on my part and not be an ego bitch on main, but I don’t want to put all the effort into an interactive story for like 5 notes.
I’m still working on Monument Woman, but I have had this bang up ass idea for a fic where you get to choose your own adventure for The Mandalorian? Like you have options on who rescues you, if you fuck or not, blah de blah blah.
If I were to write this, I’d have to do it all at once, so the options can be properly linked or maybe even on a separate tumblr dedicated only to that fic?
I guess the question is would people be interested in that? It will be a lot of fucking work on my part and not be an ego bitch on main, but I don’t want to put all the effort into an interactive story for like 5 notes.
Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit. I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.
Part 6 –Step Forward, Step Back, Find Your Partner Quick
Helen tried her best to console a distraught Rosemary as Officer Garcia spoke to several of his colleagues in the hallway. Her screams had startled the director, who was already on edge due to the break-in and if the circumstances had been different, the look of surprise and horror on the officer’s face would have reduced Helen to peals of laughter. But all the situation did was add worry to her shoulders.
For nearly two hours, the officers questioned Rosemary about the break-in, about the missing piece, and they kept asking if the museum had any enemies. As much as she wanted to say Fred Breyers out of pure spite, Rosemary kept her mouth shut – sure some people weren’t always pleased with some of their program or exhibit topics, but nothing that would result in the theft of an artifact or the physical beating of a staff member. The two women were exhausted by the time the three cops left the building. Rosemary laid on the couch in her office, a wet cloth over her eyes as the lingering headache from the attack ramped up under this new stress.
“Rose, are you going to be okay?” Helen’s voice was soft, but unable to keep the worried tone at bay.
“I honestly don’t know. That statue was the only thing missing. I don’t know if I’m upset because I promised Robert we’d care for it or mad as hell that accepting that ugly ass hunk of bronze led to all of this and possibly hurt the museum’s reputation.” She sighed heavily, the now cool cloth doing little to help her. She slowly sat up, swinging her legs over the sofa’s edge.
“I wouldn’t worry about our reputation. I’m already working with Marquetta on a press release to get ahead of the game. Louis over at the Caller always does right by us, I’ll give him the scoop first and he’ll spin it in our favor.” Helen leaned back. “I’ll also call major donors today to inform them of the situation.”
“I’m sorry, Helen. I never thought this would have happened!” The younger woman groaned heavily as she tried to stand, but the director held out her hand to keep her from getting up. The body stilled.
“Did Francois’ report show anything differently than what Robert had given you?” Before Robert’s health worsened, Rosemary contacted an old friend of hers to appraise the piece as Helen wanted a second opinion for the insurance company. The in-depth discussion about the findings with Helen was moved back first by Robert’s death and then the attack. “Are we still looking at the same value?”
“I reread it the day before the attack to prep for the meeting that never obviously happened, and he seems to agree with the assessment Robert gave us. The statue was processed into the collections several months ago and I put in Robert’s information, but never got around to putting in Francois’ report.”
“Well, so long as the original value was imputed into the report, it’ll give us something for the insurance company.”
“Are we going to report it lost? What if they recover it?”
“Rose, I don’t mean to sound mean, but I doubt these officers are going to find the piece. Whoever has it is probably long gone by now.” Helen glanced over at her. “Unless a miracle happens.”
“Well good thing I believe in manifestation and miracles.” For the first time in what seemed like a long while, Rosemary smiled as her old humor began to shine through. The director smiled back, unable to let the infectious comment not affect her.
“We’ll see.”
—***—
Two Weeks Later
“Pike! Get in here!” Carmichael’s voice carried through the small cluster of offices their department occupied. “Pike!”
“I’m coming! Damn, give me a second!” Pike grumbled as he scurried from his office and across to hers. She wasn’t a loud person, so the excited shout she gave had everyone around her curious. As Pike entered the room, he could see his partner standing behind her desk, doing a little hop-dance. He raised an eyebrow.
“You need to look at this!” She pointed at the computer, her smile so big it nearly took over her face. He stopped because she was giggling, Carmichael never giggled. Whatever this was, it had to been good. Pike came around the desk and bent down to see what she was looking at and when his eyes landed on the screen, his eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped.
“This is one of them, isn’t it?” Carmichael asked, her voice quivering in excitement. He ran out of the office to the command center for the cold cases, his presence startling his crew. He looked over at the evidence board and ripped off a picture hanging in the middle before rifling through one of the boxes to find the corresponding file. He ran back to the office.
The picture in his hand was faded with time, that grainy look of age that pictures older pictures were taking on, but despite those flaws, the sculpture in the photo matched the one in the new alert in the NSAF database. The Cornucopia had always been breathtaking.
And it’s been missing since 1993.
The agents glanced over the dossier, reviewing the piece to try and discover how this priceless Russian artifact made its way to what looks like a small museum in Western Michigan. Neither had reviewed the original case file closely and both felt their jaws dropping as they read further and further into its history:
A rare example of the early Ukrainian Avant Garde art movement, The Cornucopia was created by Artem Chumak, a well-known artist from Odessa. Commissioned by the then-governor of the country as a gift to Czar Nicolas II in 1907, the piece was designed to showcase the entirety of the Ukraine in a single moment. Because the country was known for its agriculture, Chumak chose to use the image of the cornucopia as his inspiration.
The piece is made of bronze and inlaid with the following precious gemstones:
Siberian diamond
Ural sapphire
Ural ruby
Ural jade
Russian emerald
Russian opal
Ukrainian pearl
Upon the fall of the Russian empire in 1917, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna Romanov took the piece along with several others from the royal art collection when she fled Russia. She remained owner of the piece until 1920, when she sold it to the Grand Duke of Luxembourg.
In turn, the Grand Duke loaned the piece to the National Museum of History and Art and it remained with the museum until the outbreak of World War II. The ducal family took the piece back, along with several others to protect the collection from the advancement of the Nazis.
Unfortunately, the move did little good and much of the museum’s collection, including the pieces stored in the ducal family home, were taken by the Nazis, with intention of destroying them as part of the Germanization of the annexed country.
The pieces remained missing until 1949, when a team from the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (a.k.a. the Monument Men), recovered the stolen collections in a cellar in Hamburg and returned them to their respective homes. The Cornucopia was returned to the museum and was on display until the ducal family attempted to sell the piece in 1965. The sale failed and the family remained owners until the piece was loaned to the Luxembourg-American Cultural Museum in the U.S. in 1992.
In 1993, the piece was stolen from the museum and reported to the FBI’s Art Theft Squad days later. The piece has yet to be recovered despite the best attempts of the team.
Pike looked at Carmichael and they grinned at each other. While it being reported as missing didn’t mean that they had found it, it did mean that this cold case was heating up.
“Do you think we found our key?” He didn’t want to sound hopeful, but he had to admit he was optimistic that they were much closer to solving this case. The evidence they had been sifting through meticulously was painting a picture, but like a jigsaw puzzle, they were still missing pieces that brought it all together.
“I think we have.” Carmichael replied. They grinned at each other.
“Whose turn is it to go and do the interview?”
“Mine, but could you do it? Marty is out of town on business this week and I can’t leave Dinah alone.” She rarely asked to trade like this, but Pike held up his hands in understanding. They smiled, grateful they were partnered up, their work relationship had always been a smooth one.
“Sure, what could possibly happen in Michigan?”
They laughed as they started to walk to the command center.
—***—
Rosemary and Banana walked into the house, both exhausted from the day, the museum’s annual fall field trip event a cacophony of noise and excitement. The program had been exactly what Rosemary needed – something that distracted her from everything that had happened over the last month. Her stomach hurt all day from her laughter as young kids swarmed the museum in their Halloween costumes.
As she hung up her coat, she caught something out of the corner of her eye on the kitchen table. Walking over, Rosemary immediately recognized Fern’s loopy handwriting.
Hey sweetie, probate hasn’t cleared yet, but I heard word it should within the month. Not to jinx it, but welcome to Saugatuck – its’ about time! I’m also including some keys to Robert’s safety deposit boxes for safekeeping. You can’t open them until the probate has cleared, so don’t get ahead of yourself! Love you, ae-in. Always. -F
“Oh, thank god.” She huffed as she opened the bulky envelope, dumping out various keys and paperwork, including the deed to the house and the store. She had an underlying fear that something would happen, and Robert’s wishes would have been overturned and she would get nothing. “Looks like we’re here for the time being, Baba!”
Rosemary read through the papers and picked up her phone to call Fern. For the next hour, the two women chatted about the changes, what she needed to do to register ownership with the state, and more. After they said their good-byes, Rosemary pulled her jacket on and patted Banana on the head as she left the house. It was dark now, but she knew the path through the cemetery and trudged up the hill towards Robert’s grave with no problem.
“You know, I’m certain you chose this spot for some reason or another, but I think it’s to punish me for not getting enough exercise.” She groused at the polished granite, wondering how she made this walk as often as she did, and it still robbed her of her breath. She was out of shape.
Robert’s cheeky grin beamed from the porcelain cameo embedded into the stone. She had never seen anything like it, but he had told her it was common among Eastern European communities. He described how they used this horribly unflattering photo for his aunt Ionna’s cameo and that he vowed he’d choose his own rather than leave it to his relatives to decide.
She sat down on the damp ground and settle in. She was still visiting the cemetery daily and while she didn’t cry as much as she had in the beginning, her throat always felt painful after she left. Wrapping the coat around her tightly she sighed.
“You missed our field trip day. I know you loved volunteering for it and the kids who remembered you from last year asked where you were.” She smiled. “I told them you were attending as a ghost and that they couldn’t see you. I think they believed me.
“I don’t know what strings you pulled up on that cloud of yours, but Fern thinks the probate will clear next month. I’m glad, this whole process has been a pain and thank you for not making me go through it. I’d give up and just die if Fern weren’t in charge. My landlord was mad I’m breaking my lease, but I know you’re excited, you always hated that place.” She sighed as a wave of sadness washed over her.
“I miss you.” Her voice crackled with tears. “I miss you so much, Robert! I hate that you’re gone. I hate that! I hate this! And I failed you! They still haven’t found the statue and I contacted the FBI and I haven’t heard anything, and I don’t know what to do!”
She cried harder, her ribs hurting as if the pain she experienced weeks ago was still fresh. She gripped her sides as she continued to sob. She was tired and everything that had happen in the month and a half since Robert died was catching up with her. Rosemary sat in the cold evening for hours and let her sadness out. When she finally left, the exhaustion she felt forced her straight to bed when she arrived at the house. In a bit of mercy, she slept a dreamless sleep for once.
—***—
“Good morning.” The deep voice caused Marquetta to turn from the display case she was working on. A tall man with brown hair and a kind smile stood at the front desk. She watched as Bob ambled over to welcome him. She couldn’t hear their conversation after that, but she kept a subtle watch on the interaction as the two men talked. The stranger smiled again and walked past her towards the stairs and she watched up trudge up each step until he was out of sight.
“You aren’t being very subtle.” Bob’s voice sounded behind her and Marquetta jumped at the noise. She felt herself grow hot, grateful her dark skin hid the blush rushing across her cheeks. She turned to look at Bob, who was grinning at her.
“Who was that?” She tried to keep her voice steady.
“Some FBI agent wanting to talk to Rosemary.”
“FBI?” Marquette frowned before her eyebrows shot up. “FBI! Oh my god! They’re here!”
“Don’t shout. It’s rude.”
“No, Bob! Rosemary reported that statue that got stolen to the FBI! That means they know about it! They’re here for that!”
“Does that mean they’ll find the men who hurt her?” He sounded hopeful at the idea. Even if he thought her manners were lacking, Bob was deeply upset that Rosemary had been hurt the way she had been. If this young agent can help find her attackers, he was all for it.
“I bet they do if they find the statue.” The two stopped talking when Rosemary and Banana entered the building. She looked up and felt awkward when she realized they were staring at her.
“Um, is something wrong?” She sounded unsure of herself and Bob got angry, realizing that these men didn’t just rob the museum of this ugly statue, it robbed Rosemary of her self-assurance.
“Never, Rose. There is an agent from the FBI in your office. Marquetta says you contacted them.” She startled, not believing that her reporting the stolen item would bring them to her front door. They were just a small history museum in Michigan, not the Detroit Institute of Art or the Smithsonian. She figured she’d get an email or a call, but never a real agent.
“They’re here? Really?” Her eyes lit up when Bob nodded. She started to laugh because she didn’t know what else to do. Marquetta walked over to hug her and the physical contact help to ground her.
“He’s good looking, too.” Marquetta whispered in her ear. Rosemary pulled back at the comment. “Like really good looking. His butt is cute.”
The two women giggled at the comment and hugged again. Picking up the leash she dropped, the curator and her furry companion went towards the stairs, hope beginning to bubble in her chest. Maybe she hadn’t failed Robert after all, she thought. When she reached the third floor, she stopped to catch her breath before walking down to her office.
When she stepped into the doorway, she saw him standing there, looking at her walls. She couldn’t see his face, but everything about his presence radiated kindness – something she hadn’t expected from an FBI agent. When he turned to look at her as she cleared her throat, his face lit up in a smile and she couldn’t help but smile back. For the first time in weeks, she felt safe.
“I’m Special Agent Marcus Pike.” He held out his hand to her. She took it with her customary firm grip.
Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit. I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.
Part 6 –Step Forward, Step Back, Find Your Partner Quick
Helen tried her best to console a distraught Rosemary as Officer Garcia spoke to several of his colleagues in the hallway. Her screams had startled the director, who was already on edge due to the break-in and if the circumstances had been different, the look of surprise and horror on the officer’s face would have reduced Helen to peals of laughter. But all the situation did was add worry to her shoulders.
For nearly two hours, the officers questioned Rosemary about the break-in, about the missing piece, and they kept asking if the museum had any enemies. As much as she wanted to say Fred Breyers out of pure spite, Rosemary kept her mouth shut – sure some people weren’t always pleased with some of their program or exhibit topics, but nothing that would result in the theft of an artifact or the physical beating of a staff member. The two women were exhausted by the time the three cops left the building. Rosemary laid on the couch in her office, a wet cloth over her eyes as the lingering headache from the attack ramped up under this new stress.
“Rose, are you going to be okay?” Helen’s voice was soft, but unable to keep the worried tone at bay.
“I honestly don’t know. That statue was the only thing missing. I don’t know if I’m upset because I promised Robert we’d care for it or mad as hell that accepting that ugly ass hunk of bronze led to all of this and possibly hurt the museum’s reputation.” She sighed heavily, the now cool cloth doing little to help her. She slowly sat up, swinging her legs over the sofa’s edge.
“I wouldn’t worry about our reputation. I’m already working with Marquetta on a press release to get ahead of the game. Louis over at the Caller always does right by us, I’ll give him the scoop first and he’ll spin it in our favor.” Helen leaned back. “I’ll also call major donors today to inform them of the situation.”
“I’m sorry, Helen. I never thought this would have happened!” The younger woman groaned heavily as she tried to stand, but the director held out her hand to keep her from getting up. The body stilled.
“Did Francois’ report show anything differently than what Robert had given you?” Before Robert’s health worsened, Rosemary contacted an old friend of hers to appraise the piece as Helen wanted a second opinion for the insurance company. The in-depth discussion about the findings with Helen was moved back first by Robert’s death and then the attack. “Are we still looking at the same value?”
“I reread it the day before the attack to prep for the meeting that never obviously happened, and he seems to agree with the assessment Robert gave us. The statue was processed into the collections several months ago and I put in Robert’s information, but never got around to putting in Francois’ report.”
“Well, so long as the original value was imputed into the report, it’ll give us something for the insurance company.”
“Are we going to report it lost? What if they recover it?”
“Rose, I don’t mean to sound mean, but I doubt these officers are going to find the piece. Whoever has it is probably long gone by now.” Helen glanced over at her. “Unless a miracle happens.”
“Well good thing I believe in manifestation and miracles.” For the first time in what seemed like a long while, Rosemary smiled as her old humor began to shine through. The director smiled back, unable to let the infectious comment not affect her.
“We’ll see.”
—***—
Two Weeks Later
“Pike! Get in here!” Carmichael’s voice carried through the small cluster of offices their department occupied. “Pike!”
“I’m coming! Damn, give me a second!” Pike grumbled as he scurried from his office and across to hers. She wasn’t a loud person, so the excited shout she gave had everyone around her curious. As Pike entered the room, he could see his partner standing behind her desk, doing a little hop-dance. He raised an eyebrow.
“You need to look at this!” She pointed at the computer, her smile so big it nearly took over her face. He stopped because she was giggling, Carmichael never giggled. Whatever this was, it had to been good. Pike came around the desk and bent down to see what she was looking at and when his eyes landed on the screen, his eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped.
“This is one of them, isn’t it?” Carmichael asked, her voice quivering in excitement. He ran out of the office to the command center for the cold cases, his presence startling his crew. He looked over at the evidence board and ripped off a picture hanging in the middle before rifling through one of the boxes to find the corresponding file. He ran back to the office.
The picture in his hand was faded with time, that grainy look of age that pictures older pictures were taking on, but despite those flaws, the sculpture in the photo matched the one in the new alert in the NSAF database. The Cornucopia had always been breathtaking.
And it’s been missing since 1993.
The agents glanced over the dossier, reviewing the piece to try and discover how this priceless Russian artifact made its way to what looks like a small museum in Western Michigan. Neither had reviewed the original case file closely and both felt their jaws dropping as they read further and further into its history:
A rare example of the early Ukrainian Avant Garde art movement, The Cornucopia was created by Artem Chumak, a well-known artist from Odessa. Commissioned by the then-governor of the country as a gift to Czar Nicolas II in 1907, the piece was designed to showcase the entirety of the Ukraine in a single moment. Because the country was known for its agriculture, Chumak chose to use the image of the cornucopia as his inspiration.
The piece is made of bronze and inlaid with the following precious gemstones:
Siberian diamond
Ural sapphire
Ural ruby
Ural jade
Russian emerald
Russian opal
Ukrainian pearl
Upon the fall of the Russian empire in 1917, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna Romanov took the piece along with several others from the royal art collection when she fled Russia. She remained owner of the piece until 1920, when she sold it to the Grand Duke of Luxembourg.
In turn, the Grand Duke loaned the piece to the National Museum of History and Art and it remained with the museum until the outbreak of World War II. The ducal family took the piece back, along with several others to protect the collection from the advancement of the Nazis.
Unfortunately, the move did little good and much of the museum’s collection, including the pieces stored in the ducal family home, were taken by the Nazis, with intention of destroying them as part of the Germanization of the annexed country.
The pieces remained missing until 1949, when a team from the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (a.k.a. the Monument Men), recovered the stolen collections in a cellar in Hamburg and returned them to their respective homes. The Cornucopia was returned to the museum and was on display until the ducal family attempted to sell the piece in 1965. The sale failed and the family remained owners until the piece was loaned to the Luxembourg-American Cultural Museum in the U.S. in 1992.
In 1993, the piece was stolen from the museum and reported to the FBI’s Art Theft Squad days later. The piece has yet to be recovered despite the best attempts of the team.
Pike looked at Carmichael and they grinned at each other. While it being reported as missing didn’t mean that they had found it, it did mean that this cold case was heating up.
“Do you think we found our key?” He didn’t want to sound hopeful, but he had to admit he was optimistic that they were much closer to solving this case. The evidence they had been sifting through meticulously was painting a picture, but like a jigsaw puzzle, they were still missing pieces that brought it all together.
“I think we have.” Carmichael replied. They grinned at each other.
“Whose turn is it to go and do the interview?”
“Mine, but could you do it? Marty is out of town on business this week and I can’t leave Dinah alone.” She rarely asked to trade like this, but Pike held up his hands in understanding. They smiled, grateful they were partnered up, their work relationship had always been a smooth one.
“Sure, what could possibly happen in Michigan?”
They laughed as they started to walk to the command center.
—***—
Rosemary and Banana walked into the house, both exhausted from the day, the museum’s annual fall field trip event a cacophony of noise and excitement. The program had been exactly what Rosemary needed – something that distracted her from everything that had happened over the last month. Her stomach hurt all day from her laughter as young kids swarmed the museum in their Halloween costumes.
As she hung up her coat, she caught something out of the corner of her eye on the kitchen table. Walking over, Rosemary immediately recognized Fern’s loopy handwriting.
Hey sweetie, probate hasn’t cleared yet, but I heard word it should within the month. Not to jinx it, but welcome to Saugatuck – its’ about time! I’m also including some keys to Robert’s safety deposit boxes for safekeeping. You can’t open them until the probate has cleared, so don’t get ahead of yourself! Love you, ae-in. Always. -F
“Oh, thank god.” She huffed as she opened the bulky envelope, dumping out various keys and paperwork, including the deed to the house and the store. She had an underlying fear that something would happen, and Robert’s wishes would have been overturned and she would get nothing. “Looks like we’re here for the time being, Baba!”
Rosemary read through the papers and picked up her phone to call Fern. For the next hour, the two women chatted about the changes, what she needed to do to register ownership with the state, and more. After they said their good-byes, Rosemary pulled her jacket on and patted Banana on the head as she left the house. It was dark now, but she knew the path through the cemetery and trudged up the hill towards Robert’s grave with no problem.
“You know, I’m certain you chose this spot for some reason or another, but I think it’s to punish me for not getting enough exercise.” She groused at the polished granite, wondering how she made this walk as often as she did, and it still robbed her of her breath. She was out of shape.
Robert’s cheeky grin beamed from the porcelain cameo embedded into the stone. She had never seen anything like it, but he had told her it was common among Eastern European communities. He described how they used this horribly unflattering photo for his aunt Ionna’s cameo and that he vowed he’d choose his own rather than leave it to his relatives to decide.
She sat down on the damp ground and settle in. She was still visiting the cemetery daily and while she didn’t cry as much as she had in the beginning, her throat always felt painful after she left. Wrapping the coat around her tightly she sighed.
“You missed our field trip day. I know you loved volunteering for it and the kids who remembered you from last year asked where you were.” She smiled. “I told them you were attending as a ghost and that they couldn’t see you. I think they believed me.
“I don’t know what strings you pulled up on that cloud of yours, but Fern thinks the probate will clear next month. I’m glad, this whole process has been a pain and thank you for not making me go through it. I’d give up and just die if Fern weren’t in charge. My landlord was mad I’m breaking my lease, but I know you’re excited, you always hated that place.” She sighed as a wave of sadness washed over her.
“I miss you.” Her voice crackled with tears. “I miss you so much, Robert! I hate that you’re gone. I hate that! I hate this! And I failed you! They still haven’t found the statue and I contacted the FBI and I haven’t heard anything, and I don’t know what to do!”
She cried harder, her ribs hurting as if the pain she experienced weeks ago was still fresh. She gripped her sides as she continued to sob. She was tired and everything that had happen in the month and a half since Robert died was catching up with her. Rosemary sat in the cold evening for hours and let her sadness out. When she finally left, the exhaustion she felt forced her straight to bed when she arrived at the house. In a bit of mercy, she slept a dreamless sleep for once.
—***—
“Good morning.” The deep voice caused Marquetta to turn from the display case she was working on. A tall man with brown hair and a kind smile stood at the front desk. She watched as Bob ambled over to welcome him. She couldn’t hear their conversation after that, but she kept a subtle watch on the interaction as the two men talked. The stranger smiled again and walked past her towards the stairs and she watched up trudge up each step until he was out of sight.
“You aren’t being very subtle.” Bob’s voice sounded behind her and Marquetta jumped at the noise. She felt herself grow hot, grateful her dark skin hid the blush rushing across her cheeks. She turned to look at Bob, who was grinning at her.
“Who was that?” She tried to keep her voice steady.
“Some FBI agent wanting to talk to Rosemary.”
“FBI?” Marquette frowned before her eyebrows shot up. “FBI! Oh my god! They’re here!”
“Don’t shout. It’s rude.”
“No, Bob! Rosemary reported that statue that got stolen to the FBI! That means they know about it! They’re here for that!”
“Does that mean they’ll find the men who hurt her?” He sounded hopeful at the idea. Even if he thought her manners were lacking, Bob was deeply upset that Rosemary had been hurt the way she had been. If this young agent can help find her attackers, he was all for it.
“I bet they do if they find the statue.” The two stopped talking when Rosemary and Banana entered the building. She looked up and felt awkward when she realized they were staring at her.
“Um, is something wrong?” She sounded unsure of herself and Bob got angry, realizing that these men didn’t just rob the museum of this ugly statue, it robbed Rosemary of her self-assurance.
“Never, Rose. There is an agent from the FBI in your office. Marquetta says you contacted them.” She startled, not believing that her reporting the stolen item would bring them to her front door. They were just a small history museum in Michigan, not the Detroit Institute of Art or the Smithsonian. She figured she’d get an email or a call, but never a real agent.
“They’re here? Really?” Her eyes lit up when Bob nodded. She started to laugh because she didn’t know what else to do. Marquetta walked over to hug her and the physical contact help to ground her.
“He’s good looking, too.” Marquetta whispered in her ear. Rosemary pulled back at the comment. “Like really good looking. His butt is cute.”
The two women giggled at the comment and hugged again. Picking up the leash she dropped, the curator and her furry companion went towards the stairs, hope beginning to bubble in her chest. Maybe she hadn’t failed Robert after all, she thought. When she reached the third floor, she stopped to catch her breath before walking down to her office.
When she stepped into the doorway, she saw him standing there, looking at her walls. She couldn’t see his face, but everything about his presence radiated kindness – something she hadn’t expected from an FBI agent. When he turned to look at her as she cleared her throat, his face lit up in a smile and she couldn’t help but smile back. For the first time in weeks, she felt safe.
“I’m Special Agent Marcus Pike.” He held out his hand to her. She took it with her customary firm grip.
A/N: I’m back on my Monument Woman bullshit, but thanks for the Smile love!
Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit. I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.
Rosemary sat at the kitchen table, reviewing the documents in front of her as Banana curled up awkwardly in her lap. His light snores were the only sounds that could be heard in the bright kitchen besides the shuffling of papers that Fern had brought to her earlier that afternoon.
Robert left everything to Rosemary and now she had a home and business to contend with, knowing that her hands were tied until the probate cleared. Thankfully, Robert had made Fern the executor of his estate, knowing that Rosemary wouldn’t be in the best of places to handle so much information. But there were still papers to initial and checks to sign for the store in the meantime.
Just a few days before, she had walked down Hoffman Street to visit Fern’s office and passed by Jak Spravy Books. She and Robert had closed the store in August as his health worsened. She felt her heart cheer up a little at all the flowers and mementos left by people in the community. Robert had been well loved.
“Ow, Baba!” Rosemary cried out as the dog suddenly shifted, stepping heavily in the crease of her thigh. The dog whined at her sudden movements before jumping down and padding into the living room, on the hunt for a bed that didn’t move. Shaking her head, she went back to the folder, initialing where Fern had marked in the paperwork.
Sighing as she closed the folder, she stretched her arms out and let out a groan when her shoulder popped. Rosemary stood up, letting her lower back crack as well. The late afternoon sun was starting to pour into the kitchen, illuminating a life well lived. She wandered towards the living room herself to watch the dog snooze before she felt the itch to get out of the house.
Robert’s house – no, her house now – was situated a couple blocks from the cemetery where he was buried, and she grabbed her keys off the hook before locking the door as she left. The early October air was brisk as she wrapped her jacket around herself, and it smelled deeply of autumn. She crunched through the leaves on the sidewalk and thought absent mindedly that she should hire the teenager across the street to rake the yard. The walk was a short one and soon she found herself standing in front of his gravestone.
“Hi.” Her voice sounded small. “You’re probably rolling your eyes at me now, not believing I’m back again.”
She chuckled as she sat down, getting comfortable against the stone. She’d been to the cemetery every day since they buried him the week before and she found herself spending at least an hour just talking out loud. Sometimes she cried, but mostly she poured out her heart, telling his stone her fears about the future, her loneliness, her gratitude that he had been so generous.
The sun was low in the sky and the cemetery was shrouded in the hazy purple of dusk when she finally made her way back to the house. She saw cars in the driveway as she came up the street and began to jog, realizing her friends had arrived. None of the women had left her alone since he passed, and Rosemary was grateful to have such loving people in her life.
The night Robert died, she said she was alone now. But now that the shock of death had passed, she realized that was wrong. She wasn’t alone so long as her girls were with her. She bounced up the stairs with a spring that had been missing since Robert told her he was dying and opened the door. The bright light of the kitchen and the warm smells of a hearty dinner enveloped her as tightly as the three pairs of arms did.
No, she thought, I am not alone at all.
-*-
Eventually Rosemary returned to work, warmly welcomed by the rest of the staff – even Bob. Walking into her workstation, she gave Marquetta a long hug, which was heartily returned. Their staff was a small one and Marquetta had become a treasured work friend and the curator worked hard to mentor the young woman.
“I have two tours today, but if you need me, come find me.” Marquetta leaned back and flashed her million-watt grin at Rosemary, who nodded. As she left the room, she squatted down to give Banana a pet on the head and in return she received a happy doggy grin.
“Good luck with the little beesters, M!” Rosemary called down the hall to a ‘yeah yeah.’ She shook her head as she looked around to figure out what was her next project. Noticing the large pile on her previously empty ‘To Be Accessioned’ shelf, she sighed heavily and rolled up her sleeves to get to work.
-*-
Music played quietly in the background as Rosemary continued to work into the late evening. Everyone else had left hours ago, but she had been on such a roll that she couldn’t stop. She hummed along with the song absent-mindedly as she carefully stuffed the sleeve of the fragile dress that had been donated while she was gone. The satin had already frayed at the seam and she held her breath as her arm entered the sleeve.
The breath she let out was tinged with glee as she realized no further damage had been done to the beautiful piece. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she reached over and grabbed another sheet of tissue paper to start the process all over again in the other sleeve. Just as she began to roll up the flimsy paper, Banana suddenly growled. Rosemary startled at the sound.
The dog never growled.
“Baba?” Her voice was cautious. “What is it?”
The dog suddenly barked and before she could react a sharp pain radiated through her skull. The force of the hit knocked her into the work bench before she bounced off the wooden surface to the floor. The ringing in her ears nearly muffled the voices talking above her. Why did everything feel like she was mired in molasses? Shaking her head, Rosemary tried to move to her hands and knees when a steel-toed boot connected with her ribs. The air rushed out of her lungs along with a shattered cry.
Banana barked again, baring his teeth at the intruders, but cowered under the table when another boot swung at him. He whimpered, looking from the two hulking shapes that had entered the room to Rosemary, who squirmed on the floor.
“Where is it?” The voice was distorted from the growing headache and all Rosemary could do was groan. A hand reached out and slapped her. “I asked you, where is it?”
Another voice wormed its way into her addled brain, but for some reason she couldn’t understand it, as if the speaker were talking in a foreign tongue. The nausea that she had been fighting was winning and she could feel the bile rise in her throat. She rolled to her side, hoping to stem the tide, but a hand reached out and yanked her head back. Her groan sounded wet and the voices argued again in that tongue she couldn’t identify.
She heard crashing and something breaking above her head and she tried to protest, to protect the artifacts she had been processing. She reached her hand out and felt a sharp pain as glass sliced her palm. Crying out, the attackers must have heard her and looked down. A heavy boot slammed down onto her arm, pinning her into place.
“It must be in here, she got it before she left. Find it, I want it!” A third voice floated into the mix and Rosemary raised her head slightly, feeling as if what she heard was familiar. The boot on her arm moved and a sharp pain radiated through her skull as she was kicked again. Rolling onto her back, she could feel something wet underneath her and as the darkness enveloped her, she wondered if she would wake up again.
—***—
“Mrs. Morgan, I need for you to please take a deep breath. I need your help.” The young officer had kind eyes as she held onto Helen’s hand. The director was shaking like a leaf, face streaked with tears as she watched them carry Rosemary out of the building.
Nothing was out of place when she entered the museum that morning, noting that Rosemary’s car was in the lot. She shook her head, hoping the curator wasn’t overworking herself to get through the grief of losing Robert. Helen went up the stairs as she usually did, responding to a text message from her son. When she got to the top floor, she smiled as she heard the music and took a left turn towards Rosemary’s workroom.
She isn’t sure how she found the ability to call the police, her shock at the devastating scene in front of her rendering her as still as a statue. At the sight of her, Banana stood up from his spot next to Rosemary and sprinted towards the familiar face. The room looked as if a tornado hit it – items torn or broken, supplies tossed everywhere, an entire shelf knocked over, and one of the cabinets was wrenched open. And in the center of it all was Rosemary, lying on the floor - unconscious or dead, Helen wasn’t sure.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Let me try again.” Helen took a deep breath as requested and recounted everything she had witness before the police arrived. Marquetta and Bob had shown up shortly before the police did and they stood off to the side in silence, a mournful looking dog in the young woman’s arms. They watched as the paramedics left the building and Marquetta buried her face into Banana’s warm neck. Bob laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and squeezed, tears prickling his eyes at the scene before him.
After promising the police not to touch upstairs until they were done, the three museum employees quietly decided to keep the place close for the day. Not wanting to be alone, they walked down the street to a small diner, one they knew would let Banana in. They weren’t hungry, but they didn’t want to be alone.
Who could have done this and why?
—***—
“Fuck.” The word sounded scratchy and raw as it tumbled from Rosemary’s mouth. Fern and Amy sat up immediately, relieved that she was finally awake. The bright lights seemed to burn her eyes as she slowly opened them but attempts to move her hand seemed difficult as if it weighed a ton. “What the fuck?”
“That would be your first word after being knocked out.” Tina let out a chuckle as she entered the room with three cups of coffee. Amy reached out to touch Rosemary’s forehead while Fern left the room to find a nurse. “How you feeling, Muhammad Ali?”
“You’re not funny, bitch.” Rosemary mumbled and Tina let out a louder laugh.
“I’d say you’re no worse for the wear with that response.” Amy looked over at Tina, who raised her hands. The sound of heavy footsteps came closer and the doctor entered the room with Fern in tow. The two other women raised their eyebrows at the man standing before them, his slight stature not what they were expecting from all the noise they had just heard.
“Ms. Park here says Rosemary’s awake and by the sounds of Ms. Steinberger, already on her way to the Cracker Jack Club.” Dr. Westen smiled broadly, his eyes crinkling in the corner as he watched Rosemary attempt to give a withering glare in his direction.
“You’re not funny, either.”
“I know, but my husband would argue otherwise. Now, on a scale from ‘eh its fine’ to ‘I want to die,’ how bad is your pain right now?” He pulled at her eyelid, shining a light into her eyes. She groaned loudly and tried to swat away his hands.
“Stop, the light makes my head hurt.” He stood up, nodding
“Well that may be, but your eyes are reacting normally, and I’d say your concussion won’t leave much lasting damage. But you’re going to have a gnarly headache for a few days. Can you wiggle your fingers and toes?” She complied and he grinned again. “I want you to stay one more night just for observation, but I say you can go home tomorrow with no problems. I’ll write a script for you for the pain.”
After chatting further with the three other women, the kind doctor took his leave and Rosemary’s friends turned to look directly at her, their eyebrows drawn in frustration. She knew that look and weakly held her hands up.
“I’m just waking up, don’t jump on my ass yet.” She sighed. “What do I have to do to get some water around here?”
-*-
Three days later, Rosemary rode the elevator at work, ever grateful for its existence. The idea of walking up three flights of stairs made her headache seem worse. She closed her eyes and sighed, leaning her head against the wall of the car, trying to ignore Officer Garcia, who was riding up with her to the third floor. She knew they were waiting on her to give her statement, but she feared what she was going to find. The sounds of breaking glass and metal on metal still echoed in her head.
She slowly walked down the hall, a steady hand at her elbow from her new companion and she smiled as she saw Baba waiting for her outside her workshop. The dog ambled up to her, having stayed with Marquetta while Rosemary was in the hospital. She swayed a bit as she bent down to pet him and when she stood up, she felt nauseous at the dizzy sensation swirling in her head.
“I promise we’ll make this quick,” Officer Garcia sighed in concern as he felt Rosemary’s hand grip his hard. “I know that this will be difficult, but the sooner we know what happened and what’s missing, the faster we can solve this crime.”
She nodded and they continued down the hall. She gasped when she saw the room, realizing it looked worse than she feared. Shuffling into the space, she started to tear up at the box of Austrian crystal that had been donated by Mrs. Heard, a beautiful set that was planned for one of their exhibits. With the help of the officer, she bent down, shifting the box to see if anything was salvageable. It was hard to focus and she righted the box, hoping to come back to it later.
When her eyes landed on the workbench and saw the dress she had been processing was still there, she heaved a sigh of relief. She could see small spatters of blood, but she brushed it off, knowing they could remove it carefully. She made a mental note to sit down with Marquetta before she left to list what needed to be done. Until the headaches went away, Rosemary was useless in this space.
Officer Garcia dutifully took notes as the curator slowly walked through the space, noting that nothing seemed to be gone. She’d have to check the records though, she pointed out to him and he nodded in return. As she turned around, her eyes landed on her cabinet and she stood still, ears ringing for a completely different reason.
Someone had ripped open the cabinet, the metal doors hanging off their hinges and rendered into hunks of nothing. Rosemary stumbled forward with a cry, noticing it was completely empty. She began to say ‘no’ over and over until Officer Garcia placed his hand on her shoulder. She turned around; her face twisted in panic.
A/N: I’m back on my Monument Woman bullshit, but thanks for the Smile love!
Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit. I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.
Rosemary sat at the kitchen table, reviewing the documents in front of her as Banana curled up awkwardly in her lap. His light snores were the only sounds that could be heard in the bright kitchen besides the shuffling of papers that Fern had brought to her earlier that afternoon.
Robert left everything to Rosemary and now she had a home and business to contend with, knowing that her hands were tied until the probate cleared. Thankfully, Robert had made Fern the executor of his estate, knowing that Rosemary wouldn’t be in the best of places to handle so much information. But there were still papers to initial and checks to sign for the store in the meantime.
Just a few days before, she had walked down Hoffman Street to visit Fern’s office and passed by Jak Spravy Books. She and Robert had closed the store in August as his health worsened. She felt her heart cheer up a little at all the flowers and mementos left by people in the community. Robert had been well loved.
“Ow, Baba!” Rosemary cried out as the dog suddenly shifted, stepping heavily in the crease of her thigh. The dog whined at her sudden movements before jumping down and padding into the living room, on the hunt for a bed that didn’t move. Shaking her head, she went back to the folder, initialing where Fern had marked in the paperwork.
Sighing as she closed the folder, she stretched her arms out and let out a groan when her shoulder popped. Rosemary stood up, letting her lower back crack as well. The late afternoon sun was starting to pour into the kitchen, illuminating a life well lived. She wandered towards the living room herself to watch the dog snooze before she felt the itch to get out of the house.
Robert’s house – no, her house now – was situated a couple blocks from the cemetery where he was buried, and she grabbed her keys off the hook before locking the door as she left. The early October air was brisk as she wrapped her jacket around herself, and it smelled deeply of autumn. She crunched through the leaves on the sidewalk and thought absent mindedly that she should hire the teenager across the street to rake the yard. The walk was a short one and soon she found herself standing in front of his gravestone.
“Hi.” Her voice sounded small. “You’re probably rolling your eyes at me now, not believing I’m back again.”
She chuckled as she sat down, getting comfortable against the stone. She’d been to the cemetery every day since they buried him the week before and she found herself spending at least an hour just talking out loud. Sometimes she cried, but mostly she poured out her heart, telling his stone her fears about the future, her loneliness, her gratitude that he had been so generous.
The sun was low in the sky and the cemetery was shrouded in the hazy purple of dusk when she finally made her way back to the house. She saw cars in the driveway as she came up the street and began to jog, realizing her friends had arrived. None of the women had left her alone since he passed, and Rosemary was grateful to have such loving people in her life.
The night Robert died, she said she was alone now. But now that the shock of death had passed, she realized that was wrong. She wasn’t alone so long as her girls were with her. She bounced up the stairs with a spring that had been missing since Robert told her he was dying and opened the door. The bright light of the kitchen and the warm smells of a hearty dinner enveloped her as tightly as the three pairs of arms did.
No, she thought, I am not alone at all.
-*-
Eventually Rosemary returned to work, warmly welcomed by the rest of the staff – even Bob. Walking into her workstation, she gave Marquetta a long hug, which was heartily returned. Their staff was a small one and Marquetta had become a treasured work friend and the curator worked hard to mentor the young woman.
“I have two tours today, but if you need me, come find me.” Marquetta leaned back and flashed her million-watt grin at Rosemary, who nodded. As she left the room, she squatted down to give Banana a pet on the head and in return she received a happy doggy grin.
“Good luck with the little beesters, M!” Rosemary called down the hall to a ‘yeah yeah.’ She shook her head as she looked around to figure out what was her next project. Noticing the large pile on her previously empty ‘To Be Accessioned’ shelf, she sighed heavily and rolled up her sleeves to get to work.
-*-
Music played quietly in the background as Rosemary continued to work into the late evening. Everyone else had left hours ago, but she had been on such a roll that she couldn’t stop. She hummed along with the song absent-mindedly as she carefully stuffed the sleeve of the fragile dress that had been donated while she was gone. The satin had already frayed at the seam and she held her breath as her arm entered the sleeve.
The breath she let out was tinged with glee as she realized no further damage had been done to the beautiful piece. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she reached over and grabbed another sheet of tissue paper to start the process all over again in the other sleeve. Just as she began to roll up the flimsy paper, Banana suddenly growled. Rosemary startled at the sound.
The dog never growled.
“Baba?” Her voice was cautious. “What is it?”
The dog suddenly barked and before she could react a sharp pain radiated through her skull. The force of the hit knocked her into the work bench before she bounced off the wooden surface to the floor. The ringing in her ears nearly muffled the voices talking above her. Why did everything feel like she was mired in molasses? Shaking her head, Rosemary tried to move to her hands and knees when a steel-toed boot connected with her ribs. The air rushed out of her lungs along with a shattered cry.
Banana barked again, baring his teeth at the intruders, but cowered under the table when another boot swung at him. He whimpered, looking from the two hulking shapes that had entered the room to Rosemary, who squirmed on the floor.
“Where is it?” The voice was distorted from the growing headache and all Rosemary could do was groan. A hand reached out and slapped her. “I asked you, where is it?”
Another voice wormed its way into her addled brain, but for some reason she couldn’t understand it, as if the speaker were talking in a foreign tongue. The nausea that she had been fighting was winning and she could feel the bile rise in her throat. She rolled to her side, hoping to stem the tide, but a hand reached out and yanked her head back. Her groan sounded wet and the voices argued again in that tongue she couldn’t identify.
She heard crashing and something breaking above her head and she tried to protest, to protect the artifacts she had been processing. She reached her hand out and felt a sharp pain as glass sliced her palm. Crying out, the attackers must have heard her and looked down. A heavy boot slammed down onto her arm, pinning her into place.
“It must be in here, she got it before she left. Find it, I want it!” A third voice floated into the mix and Rosemary raised her head slightly, feeling as if what she heard was familiar. The boot on her arm moved and a sharp pain radiated through her skull as she was kicked again. Rolling onto her back, she could feel something wet underneath her and as the darkness enveloped her, she wondered if she would wake up again.
—***—
“Mrs. Morgan, I need for you to please take a deep breath. I need your help.” The young officer had kind eyes as she held onto Helen’s hand. The director was shaking like a leaf, face streaked with tears as she watched them carry Rosemary out of the building.
Nothing was out of place when she entered the museum that morning, noting that Rosemary’s car was in the lot. She shook her head, hoping the curator wasn’t overworking herself to get through the grief of losing Robert. Helen went up the stairs as she usually did, responding to a text message from her son. When she got to the top floor, she smiled as she heard the music and took a left turn towards Rosemary’s workroom.
She isn’t sure how she found the ability to call the police, her shock at the devastating scene in front of her rendering her as still as a statue. At the sight of her, Banana stood up from his spot next to Rosemary and sprinted towards the familiar face. The room looked as if a tornado hit it – items torn or broken, supplies tossed everywhere, an entire shelf knocked over, and one of the cabinets was wrenched open. And in the center of it all was Rosemary, lying on the floor - unconscious or dead, Helen wasn’t sure.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Let me try again.” Helen took a deep breath as requested and recounted everything she had witness before the police arrived. Marquetta and Bob had shown up shortly before the police did and they stood off to the side in silence, a mournful looking dog in the young woman’s arms. They watched as the paramedics left the building and Marquetta buried her face into Banana’s warm neck. Bob laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and squeezed, tears prickling his eyes at the scene before him.
After promising the police not to touch upstairs until they were done, the three museum employees quietly decided to keep the place close for the day. Not wanting to be alone, they walked down the street to a small diner, one they knew would let Banana in. They weren’t hungry, but they didn’t want to be alone.
Who could have done this and why?
—***—
“Fuck.” The word sounded scratchy and raw as it tumbled from Rosemary’s mouth. Fern and Amy sat up immediately, relieved that she was finally awake. The bright lights seemed to burn her eyes as she slowly opened them but attempts to move her hand seemed difficult as if it weighed a ton. “What the fuck?”
“That would be your first word after being knocked out.” Tina let out a chuckle as she entered the room with three cups of coffee. Amy reached out to touch Rosemary’s forehead while Fern left the room to find a nurse. “How you feeling, Muhammad Ali?”
“You’re not funny, bitch.” Rosemary mumbled and Tina let out a louder laugh.
“I’d say you’re no worse for the wear with that response.” Amy looked over at Tina, who raised her hands. The sound of heavy footsteps came closer and the doctor entered the room with Fern in tow. The two other women raised their eyebrows at the man standing before them, his slight stature not what they were expecting from all the noise they had just heard.
“Ms. Park here says Rosemary’s awake and by the sounds of Ms. Steinberger, already on her way to the Cracker Jack Club.” Dr. Westen smiled broadly, his eyes crinkling in the corner as he watched Rosemary attempt to give a withering glare in his direction.
“You’re not funny, either.”
“I know, but my husband would argue otherwise. Now, on a scale from ‘eh its fine’ to ‘I want to die,’ how bad is your pain right now?” He pulled at her eyelid, shining a light into her eyes. She groaned loudly and tried to swat away his hands.
“Stop, the light makes my head hurt.” He stood up, nodding
“Well that may be, but your eyes are reacting normally, and I’d say your concussion won’t leave much lasting damage. But you’re going to have a gnarly headache for a few days. Can you wiggle your fingers and toes?” She complied and he grinned again. “I want you to stay one more night just for observation, but I say you can go home tomorrow with no problems. I’ll write a script for you for the pain.”
After chatting further with the three other women, the kind doctor took his leave and Rosemary’s friends turned to look directly at her, their eyebrows drawn in frustration. She knew that look and weakly held her hands up.
“I’m just waking up, don’t jump on my ass yet.” She sighed. “What do I have to do to get some water around here?”
-*-
Three days later, Rosemary rode the elevator at work, ever grateful for its existence. The idea of walking up three flights of stairs made her headache seem worse. She closed her eyes and sighed, leaning her head against the wall of the car, trying to ignore Officer Garcia, who was riding up with her to the third floor. She knew they were waiting on her to give her statement, but she feared what she was going to find. The sounds of breaking glass and metal on metal still echoed in her head.
She slowly walked down the hall, a steady hand at her elbow from her new companion and she smiled as she saw Baba waiting for her outside her workshop. The dog ambled up to her, having stayed with Marquetta while Rosemary was in the hospital. She swayed a bit as she bent down to pet him and when she stood up, she felt nauseous at the dizzy sensation swirling in her head.
“I promise we’ll make this quick,” Officer Garcia sighed in concern as he felt Rosemary’s hand grip his hard. “I know that this will be difficult, but the sooner we know what happened and what’s missing, the faster we can solve this crime.”
She nodded and they continued down the hall. She gasped when she saw the room, realizing it looked worse than she feared. Shuffling into the space, she started to tear up at the box of Austrian crystal that had been donated by Mrs. Heard, a beautiful set that was planned for one of their exhibits. With the help of the officer, she bent down, shifting the box to see if anything was salvageable. It was hard to focus and she righted the box, hoping to come back to it later.
When her eyes landed on the workbench and saw the dress she had been processing was still there, she heaved a sigh of relief. She could see small spatters of blood, but she brushed it off, knowing they could remove it carefully. She made a mental note to sit down with Marquetta before she left to list what needed to be done. Until the headaches went away, Rosemary was useless in this space.
Officer Garcia dutifully took notes as the curator slowly walked through the space, noting that nothing seemed to be gone. She’d have to check the records though, she pointed out to him and he nodded in return. As she turned around, her eyes landed on her cabinet and she stood still, ears ringing for a completely different reason.
Someone had ripped open the cabinet, the metal doors hanging off their hinges and rendered into hunks of nothing. Rosemary stumbled forward with a cry, noticing it was completely empty. She began to say ‘no’ over and over until Officer Garcia placed his hand on her shoulder. She turned around; her face twisted in panic.
A/N:I pounded this bad boy out in 30 minutes, that’s how badly the idea needed to be written.
Reminder:I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit. I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.
“What’s that smile for, you silly man?” You cock your head towards Marcus as he lays in bed, watching you finish toweling off from your shower. He slowly shakes his head.
“Nothing.”
“Hmm, I doubt that, Mr. Pike.” He continues to smile as you toss your towel on the arm of the reading chair, your nudity on full display for him and somehow that grin of his gets impossibly larger. You slowly walk towards him, feeling his eyes rake across your body, still flush from the hot shower you took.
You reach the edge of the bed and begin to crawl across it until your right next to him. You bend your head down to pepper soft kisses along his bare shoulder and you internally grin as you felt his muscles bunch and jump beneath your touch. You remain on all fours but lower your upper half so that you rest on your elbows, nipples tightening as your breasts sway against the soft sheets.
“Hello.” You brush your lips against his, letting the velvet skin send a shiver down your spine.
“Hello.” He kisses you back, his tongue begging entrance into your mouth and the shivers grow as you open to him. With your ass and core tilted upwards, you can feel the coolness of the room more intently as you began to get wetter.
You continue to kiss for long minutes and you’re so focused on the sensation of his lips and tongue against your mouth, you fail to notice that he has snaked his arm underneath you. Suddenly his thick fingers cup your mound and you rear back, gasping in pleasure and surprise. He continues to smile, a lazy tinge to it as his eyes drop to half-mast in pleasure.
He runs two fingers between the lips of your core, rubbing gently as he passes over your clit and you moan in pleasure, thighs wanting to clasp together. You drop your face to press it into his shoulder and your hands begin to grasp the sheets beneath you to anchor yourself against the onslaught of pleasure.
Marcus slows his ministrations and your hips jerk, seeking the friction he denies you. Suddenly, his fingers return to your clit and begin to rub in agonizingly slow circles. You gasp harshly against his skin and the moan you let out seems so loud. Your body trembles as the pleasure courses through you and you finally force yourself to look up at his face.
The bastard is stillsmiling!
You growl against his skin and before you can say anything, he drags his fingers up your slit and sinks two of them into you - deeply. Your gasp is loud, and you surge forward, practically screaming into his skin. Just as before, he kept a steady, but almost maddeningly slow pace.
“Marcus!” You moan against his skin, burying your face into his warmth. “Please!”
You can’t see his smile morph into a smirk, but he was never one to deny you anything, so he obliges and increases his pace, letting the heel of his hand rub against your clit. Your hips jerk in time, fucking his hand as best you can even as your thighs shake from the raw pleasure coursing through you.
Before you know it, your pleasure crests and you come hard, almost impossibly so, screaming into his shoulder and eyes rolling into the back of your head. Your hips jerk and shake against his hand, which is stilled. When you stop, he slowly removes his hand and you drop your forehead against him.
You are in a daze, feelings of pleasure still pulsating throughout your body when you feel Marcus shift. But in the haze of your mind, you’re not quick enough to lift your head before he kneels behind you. He drags his hand up your spine and lays it on the back of your neck, fingers slowly massaging the skin there.
His light touch sends sparks of pleasure down your body, where they congregate in your now jerking hips. His smile, which has yet to leave his lips, takes on a more feral look as he rubs the head of his aching cock against you.
“Marcus!” You cry into the sheet, grasping at the fabric so hard that your knuckles have gone white. He relents and sinks into you with one shift of his hips. You cry out at the invasion, hips jerking in pleasure. His hands land on your skin, holding you tight for a moment.
He loves to feel you pulsating around his cock and he must force himself not to come just yet. When you whimper, he lets his hips draw back and then forward. Like with his fingers, he sets a maddeningly slow pace and you can barely breathe as the pleasure claws at your chest, your lungs, your heart.
You pull yourself up onto your hands, arms shaking from the pleasure that has seemed to rob you of your strength. And yet, you use the leverage to push back against his hips harder, pulling a moan from his chest. Your pants are loud, almost shrill as he begins to fuck you harder.
You never came off the high of your previous orgasm, so every move of his cock inside of you wrings every drop of want from you until your whole body is shaking in response. Soon, the tautness of your belly breaks again, and you clamp down hard on his cock and scream loudly into the pillow, throat nearly hurting from the rawness of it all.
You hear him groan behind you and with a few quick thrusts, he is coming and following you into the pleasure storm. After what seems like long minutes, he withdraws from you and you both collapse onto the bed. You turn your head and notice that his smile has been wiped off his face. And you can’t help but start smiling yourself. His eyes are closed as he struggles to capture his breath, but one of them crack open and sees you laying there with a large grin on your face.
“What’s that smile for, you sexy woman?”
“Nothing.”
“Hmm, I doubt that.”
Next day reblog, little late. Wow, I haven’t looked at my phone all day and this story is blowing up! Thanks for the love, y'all!
A/N:I pounded this bad boy out in 30 minutes, that’s how badly the idea needed to be written.
Reminder:I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit. I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.
“What’s that smile for, you silly man?” You cock your head towards Marcus as he lays in bed, watching you finish toweling off from your shower. He slowly shakes his head.
“Nothing.”
“Hmm, I doubt that, Mr. Pike.” He continues to smile as you toss your towel on the arm of the reading chair, your nudity on full display for him and somehow that grin of his gets impossibly larger. You slowly walk towards him, feeling his eyes rake across your body, still flush from the hot shower you took.
You reach the edge of the bed and begin to crawl across it until your right next to him. You bend your head down to pepper soft kisses along his bare shoulder and you internally grin as you felt his muscles bunch and jump beneath your touch. You remain on all fours but lower your upper half so that you rest on your elbows, nipples tightening as your breasts sway against the soft sheets.
“Hello.” You brush your lips against his, letting the velvet skin send a shiver down your spine.
“Hello.” He kisses you back, his tongue begging entrance into your mouth and the shivers grow as you open to him. With your ass and core tilted upwards, you can feel the coolness of the room more intently as you began to get wetter.
You continue to kiss for long minutes and you’re so focused on the sensation of his lips and tongue against your mouth, you fail to notice that he has snaked his arm underneath you. Suddenly his thick fingers cup your mound and you rear back, gasping in pleasure and surprise. He continues to smile, a lazy tinge to it as his eyes drop to half-mast in pleasure.
He runs two fingers between the lips of your core, rubbing gently as he passes over your clit and you moan in pleasure, thighs wanting to clasp together. You drop your face to press it into his shoulder and your hands begin to grasp the sheets beneath you to anchor yourself against the onslaught of pleasure.
Marcus slows his ministrations and your hips jerk, seeking the friction he denies you. Suddenly, his fingers return to your clit and begin to rub in agonizingly slow circles. You gasp harshly against his skin and the moan you let out seems so loud. Your body trembles as the pleasure courses through you and you finally force yourself to look up at his face.
The bastard is stillsmiling!
You growl against his skin and before you can say anything, he drags his fingers up your slit and sinks two of them into you - deeply. Your gasp is loud, and you surge forward, practically screaming into his skin. Just as before, he kept a steady, but almost maddeningly slow pace.
“Marcus!” You moan against his skin, burying your face into his warmth. “Please!”
You can’t see his smile morph into a smirk, but he was never one to deny you anything, so he obliges and increases his pace, letting the heel of his hand rub against your clit. Your hips jerk in time, fucking his hand as best you can even as your thighs shake from the raw pleasure coursing through you.
Before you know it, your pleasure crests and you come hard, almost impossibly so, screaming into his shoulder and eyes rolling into the back of your head. Your hips jerk and shake against his hand, which is stilled. When you stop, he slowly removes his hand and you drop your forehead against him.
You are in a daze, feelings of pleasure still pulsating throughout your body when you feel Marcus shift. But in the haze of your mind, you’re not quick enough to lift your head before he kneels behind you. He drags his hand up your spine and lays it on the back of your neck, fingers slowly massaging the skin there.
His light touch sends sparks of pleasure down your body, where they congregate in your now jerking hips. His smile, which has yet to leave his lips, takes on a more feral look as he rubs the head of his aching cock against you.
“Marcus!” You cry into the sheet, grasping at the fabric so hard that your knuckles have gone white. He relents and sinks into you with one shift of his hips. You cry out at the invasion, hips jerking in pleasure. His hands land on your skin, holding you tight for a moment.
He loves to feel you pulsating around his cock and he must force himself not to come just yet. When you whimper, he lets his hips draw back and then forward. Like with his fingers, he sets a maddeningly slow pace and you can barely breathe as the pleasure claws at your chest, your lungs, your heart.
You pull yourself up onto your hands, arms shaking from the pleasure that has seemed to rob you of your strength. And yet, you use the leverage to push back against his hips harder, pulling a moan from his chest. Your pants are loud, almost shrill as he begins to fuck you harder.
You never came off the high of your previous orgasm, so every move of his cock inside of you wrings every drop of want from you until your whole body is shaking in response. Soon, the tautness of your belly breaks again, and you clamp down hard on his cock and scream loudly into the pillow, throat nearly hurting from the rawness of it all.
You hear him groan behind you and with a few quick thrusts, he is coming and following you into the pleasure storm. After what seems like long minutes, he withdraws from you and you both collapse onto the bed. You turn your head and notice that his smile has been wiped off his face. And you can’t help but start smiling yourself. His eyes are closed as he struggles to capture his breath, but one of them crack open and sees you laying there with a large grin on your face.
A/N: I am so glad I went on vacation! I’ve got a renewed interest in this story and I knocked out several new chapters over the last few days. I am also feeling the other stories I’ve got half cooked up. I need to take a mini vacation more often!
Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit. I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.
Part 4 – Good-bye is so Harsh, Just Say See You Later
“Dammit!” Agent Fitzgerald slammed his fist on the table, startling everyone in the room. Agent Armand peered at him over her glasses and he ducked his head under her steady, motherly gaze. Everyone went back to the work in front of them as Pike and Carmichael came over to see what the fuss was about.
The junior agent sighed as he leaned his head back. He had been working to clear up some surveillance video they got from a museum in Wisconsin who had reported a piece stolen in the 1990s. It took him three days to piecemeal the tape back together, which had deteriorated over the years due to bad storage. Then it took another week to render it clear enough to see what was going on. While the original notes state that the tape was grainy, the original agents didn’t clarify that the video looked as if someone smeared Crisco over the lens.
But finally, Fitzgerald had it watchable and as he peered closely at the tape, a subtle changed occurred, causing his outburst. When he looked up and saw Pike and Carmichael, he waved for them to sit down and started the digital video again.
“Tell me what you see?” The two agents watched the tape as the gallery sat devoid of people for the entirety of ten minutes. They sat back when the video ended and looked at the man watching them. “You missed it, didn’t you?”
“Missed what?” Questioned Carmichael, curious as to what he was talking about.
“The jump.” They looked at him and he gave a sardonic chuckle, knowing that they missed what the original agents missed back then. He rewound the tape to about the halfway point and started it again. This time, the partners leaned in and stared closely at the video. Fitzgerald knew when they saw the skip because both sets of eyebrows shot up at the same time.
“Whoever this crew is, they know where the cameras are and how to alter them.” The man leaned back and rubbed his eyes. “And they know how to make it look seamless. Although the analog video was grainy, I didn’t catch it the first time I saw it digitally.”
“I think we need to get all the rest of the videos that we can review.” Pike sat back, his brain already working up a plan. “How long will it take you to review all the tapes?”
“I’m not sure, not more than a couple of days, assuming I don’t have to fix them like I did this one.” Came the reply. The special agent nodded, his eyes unfocused as he began to add this new information into his mental files.
“Pike, what are you thinking?” Carmichael stood up, waving over Agent Horacio. She mumbled to them that she needed all the tapes from all the cases gathered up and given to Fitzgerald. They nodded and walked off to begin the task at hand.
“I’m thinking we need to go back and ask people about their surveillance systems. If we can prove even the private collections had tampered videos, then this isn’t an inside job like we originally thought, it might be more. And we need to recognize this is more sophisticated than we’ve been giving them credit for.” The two agents looked at him and nodded with a shared smile. After working on these cold cases for months, they had something to go on – finally.
-*-
“Hey Carmichael, I’m going to run out for lunch, you want anything?” Pike stuck his head into her office, eyebrows slightly raised. She poked her head up, her dark eyes look dull and bleary. “You look exhausted, maybe you should go home.”
“Maybe you should be quiet for a moment Pike.” Her voice sounded scratchy and lower than normal. “And come here for a second, I need another pair of eyes.
Her partner walked over to the desk, taking silent note that she looked smaller and the exhaustion was etched into her face. Taking up a spot next to her chair, Pike leaned over to read what she was pointing at. One of the junior agents had created a compilation of quotations from the original interviews in each of the cold cases and then a list of ones from the new interviews they had been conducting since June. She watched him as he skimmed the papers and as his eyebrows rose higher on his forehead, her tired smile got bigger and bigger. He glanced over at her.
“Is this all true?” His voice sounded excited and she vigorously nodded. “Oh my god, Carmichael!”
“I know Pike! I had Horacio and Fitzgerald both review this before I looked at it. Every single one of these cases were executed the same way. This is one team we’re hunting, and they were responsible for every single case.”
Pike started to laugh in relief. There had been concern among him, Carmichael, and Armand that they were looking at unrelated cases or possible copycats, which did little to narrow their search. But the interviews showed the same pattern every single time, the original agents just never cross-matched their case with any open ones.
“They’ve been able to actively do this since, what? 1982? I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s the same group but may have had different people over the years. No way someone who was forty in 1982 is still out here robbing the say way almost forty years later.” Pike looked at Carmichael.
“You’re probably right but let me take it a step further and say they kept their theft team the same as long as they could. Someone new comes in, they learn the ways of the crew and as old members died or went to jail, new members came in. But I bet at least two-thirds of the crew were long-timers and so that’s why there was little to no deviation from case to case. The newbies become the experts by the time more new kids are recruited.” She paused. “Which I think is how all these cases ultimately were executed in virtually the same way over such a long period of time.”
“So, what we have is a sophisticated theft ring that spans nearly forty years and at least seven countries. They are so good that not one of the thirty pieces stolen have been recovered nor had the cases been connected until recently. And of course, they are all still out there, not having been caught for these specific crimes.” Pike stood up and scratched his jaw, the dark stubble rough under his fingertips. “What does that sound like to you?”
Carmichael closed the folder and sat back in her chair. The dull look to her eyes gave away to their more familiar sparkle as she bared her teeth in a bright smile.
“Sounds like mafia to me.”
—***—
Rosemary shifted in the bed, letting Banana wiggle his way between her body and Robert’s emaciated frame. In the week since she had dinner with him and Fern, his progress went downhill rapidly, and Rosemary rarely left the room. Although the late September day was chilly, all the windows were open because he wanted to smell Saugatuck.
As the dog got comfortable, she laid her head back down on the pillow and rested her arm on his warm body so she could take Robert’s hand into hers. The last forty-eight hours had been the hardest as he delved further and further into delusion, speaking in a foreign language one moment and in English the next. Sometimes he spoke of names that were unfamiliar to her, as if he were remembering a time many years ago.
The sun was lowering in the sky when Robert turned his head and glanced towards the young woman next to him. For a long moment they looked at each other, the silence between them worn and old and comfortable. But something in Robert, his old self, fought to the top and through the delusion to speak to her, his voice cracking under the strain.
“I love you Rosie. I always have. You are my daughter as sure as if I fathered you myself.” He could see the tears forming in her eyes and her throat moving as she tried to swallow them, not wanting him to see her cry. She nodded at him.
“I love you, Robert. Thank you for being in my life.” He smiled and closed his eyes, sighing. They laid like that for another hour before he opened his eyes again and looked at her. He scanned her face as if trying to memorize her freckles or her hazel eyes or that weird scar on her forehead. He finally looked her in the eye and smiled.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. And as the sun set, he was gone. Banana lifted his head and began to cry as Rosemary let her tears flow. She scooted over and wrapped herself around Robert and cried and cried. A small part of her seemed to die with him as she felt empty – far emptier than when Pops and Grams died.
She was truly alone now.
—***—
“Rose?” A soft knock came at the bathroom door, Amy’s lilting voice on the other side sounded muffled through the wood. “Honey?”
Rosemary sat on the toilet, slumped over and her face in a daze. Her hands rested on her thighs, gripping at her sleeping shorts mindlessly. She didn’t say anything, her throat raw and sore from her crying. When Amy opened the door, she bit her lip at the scene before her.
After Robert finally passed, Rosemary laid with him for an hour before pulling herself from the bed to call the funeral home. When Benson Harwood arrived with his assistant, they immediately went about preparing to remove the body as she stood by the door, arms wrapped around her torso. She shivered as she watched the two of them work, but when they zipped closed the body bag, rendering Robert from sight, she dropped to her knees and began to keen loudly.
The assistant, who was new, jumped back at the sound, but Benson had been around long enough to know what to do. The heavy-set man with kind eyes sat down on the floor next to her and held her in his arms. Rosemary cried Robert’s name over and over for nearly half an hour. When she couldn’t cry out loud anymore, she pulled away from Benson and curled into a ball on the floor, blocking the door.
“Rosemary, we need to take him. It’s time for him to go.” The funeral director rubbed her back, recognizing the shock of loss in her eyes. Like others, he knew of her close relationship with Robert and had told his wife that he was glad the old man had someone with him in his last days. He looked around the room before his eyes laid on her cell phone on the bed. “Rose, can I call someone for you?”
She laid there, practically catatonic when the assistant touched Benson’s shoulder. He looked up and nodded at her before she walked over and got the phone. He asked gently for her to unlock it so he could call her friends and her shaky fingers took three tries before her home screen popped up. When he saw the group text, he pressed dial for the first name he saw in the chat.
After explaining the situation, Amy Anton agreed to come help with her distraught friend. When she arrived, she was able to coax Rosemary off the floor, who merely crawled into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. The three looked at each other and Amy finished with Benson so they could leave. After texting Fern and Tina, she knocked on the door.
“Rosie… “
“No. That was his name for me. No.” Her voice crackled with rawness, her vocal cords in screaming pain at the movement. She turned her head to look at Amy and the tears spilled over her cheeks. “I’m alone. Alone.”
The crying began again and as if all sensation left her body, Rosemary slid off the toilet and hit the wall. She seemed impervious to pain, but Amy still shrieked out at the sight. She couldn’t muffle her own tears as she dropped to the cold tile to scoop up her friend in her arms. Tina and Fern’s footsteps echoed through the house as they arrived, and both stopped when they found the duo on the floor.
Without a second thought, the two women dropped down and enveloped their sobbing friend and held her for what seemed like hours. Eventually, they convinced her to get into the shower and then into bed. As Amy cleaned up Robert’s room, Fern called her paralegal to begin the post-death legal process, and Tina took Banana for a walk before curling up in bed with Rosemary. Sleep avoided the four women that night and for the first time in a long time, Rosemary dreaded the morning sunlight.
Next day reblog. Things start to pick up in the next chapter and soon our two storylines will converge!
A/N: I am so glad I went on vacation! I’ve got a renewed interest in this story and I knocked out several new chapters over the last few days. I am also feeling the other stories I’ve got half cooked up. I need to take a mini vacation more often!
Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit. I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.
Part 4 – Good-bye is so Harsh, Just Say See You Later
“Dammit!” Agent Fitzgerald slammed his fist on the table, startling everyone in the room. Agent Armand peered at him over her glasses and he ducked his head under her steady, motherly gaze. Everyone went back to the work in front of them as Pike and Carmichael came over to see what the fuss was about.
The junior agent sighed as he leaned his head back. He had been working to clear up some surveillance video they got from a museum in Wisconsin who had reported a piece stolen in the 1990s. It took him three days to piecemeal the tape back together, which had deteriorated over the years due to bad storage. Then it took another week to render it clear enough to see what was going on. While the original notes state that the tape was grainy, the original agents didn’t clarify that the video looked as if someone smeared Crisco over the lens.
But finally, Fitzgerald had it watchable and as he peered closely at the tape, a subtle changed occurred, causing his outburst. When he looked up and saw Pike and Carmichael, he waved for them to sit down and started the digital video again.
“Tell me what you see?” The two agents watched the tape as the gallery sat devoid of people for the entirety of ten minutes. They sat back when the video ended and looked at the man watching them. “You missed it, didn’t you?”
“Missed what?” Questioned Carmichael, curious as to what he was talking about.
“The jump.” They looked at him and he gave a sardonic chuckle, knowing that they missed what the original agents missed back then. He rewound the tape to about the halfway point and started it again. This time, the partners leaned in and stared closely at the video. Fitzgerald knew when they saw the skip because both sets of eyebrows shot up at the same time.
“Whoever this crew is, they know where the cameras are and how to alter them.” The man leaned back and rubbed his eyes. “And they know how to make it look seamless. Although the analog video was grainy, I didn’t catch it the first time I saw it digitally.”
“I think we need to get all the rest of the videos that we can review.” Pike sat back, his brain already working up a plan. “How long will it take you to review all the tapes?”
“I’m not sure, not more than a couple of days, assuming I don’t have to fix them like I did this one.” Came the reply. The special agent nodded, his eyes unfocused as he began to add this new information into his mental files.
“Pike, what are you thinking?” Carmichael stood up, waving over Agent Horacio. She mumbled to them that she needed all the tapes from all the cases gathered up and given to Fitzgerald. They nodded and walked off to begin the task at hand.
“I’m thinking we need to go back and ask people about their surveillance systems. If we can prove even the private collections had tampered videos, then this isn’t an inside job like we originally thought, it might be more. And we need to recognize this is more sophisticated than we’ve been giving them credit for.” The two agents looked at him and nodded with a shared smile. After working on these cold cases for months, they had something to go on – finally.
-*-
“Hey Carmichael, I’m going to run out for lunch, you want anything?” Pike stuck his head into her office, eyebrows slightly raised. She poked her head up, her dark eyes look dull and bleary. “You look exhausted, maybe you should go home.”
“Maybe you should be quiet for a moment Pike.” Her voice sounded scratchy and lower than normal. “And come here for a second, I need another pair of eyes.
Her partner walked over to the desk, taking silent note that she looked smaller and the exhaustion was etched into her face. Taking up a spot next to her chair, Pike leaned over to read what she was pointing at. One of the junior agents had created a compilation of quotations from the original interviews in each of the cold cases and then a list of ones from the new interviews they had been conducting since June. She watched him as he skimmed the papers and as his eyebrows rose higher on his forehead, her tired smile got bigger and bigger. He glanced over at her.
“Is this all true?” His voice sounded excited and she vigorously nodded. “Oh my god, Carmichael!”
“I know Pike! I had Horacio and Fitzgerald both review this before I looked at it. Every single one of these cases were executed the same way. This is one team we’re hunting, and they were responsible for every single case.”
Pike started to laugh in relief. There had been concern among him, Carmichael, and Armand that they were looking at unrelated cases or possible copycats, which did little to narrow their search. But the interviews showed the same pattern every single time, the original agents just never cross-matched their case with any open ones.
“They’ve been able to actively do this since, what? 1982? I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s the same group but may have had different people over the years. No way someone who was forty in 1982 is still out here robbing the say way almost forty years later.” Pike looked at Carmichael.
“You’re probably right but let me take it a step further and say they kept their theft team the same as long as they could. Someone new comes in, they learn the ways of the crew and as old members died or went to jail, new members came in. But I bet at least two-thirds of the crew were long-timers and so that’s why there was little to no deviation from case to case. The newbies become the experts by the time more new kids are recruited.” She paused. “Which I think is how all these cases ultimately were executed in virtually the same way over such a long period of time.”
“So, what we have is a sophisticated theft ring that spans nearly forty years and at least seven countries. They are so good that not one of the thirty pieces stolen have been recovered nor had the cases been connected until recently. And of course, they are all still out there, not having been caught for these specific crimes.” Pike stood up and scratched his jaw, the dark stubble rough under his fingertips. “What does that sound like to you?”
Carmichael closed the folder and sat back in her chair. The dull look to her eyes gave away to their more familiar sparkle as she bared her teeth in a bright smile.
“Sounds like mafia to me.”
—***—
Rosemary shifted in the bed, letting Banana wiggle his way between her body and Robert’s emaciated frame. In the week since she had dinner with him and Fern, his progress went downhill rapidly, and Rosemary rarely left the room. Although the late September day was chilly, all the windows were open because he wanted to smell Saugatuck.
As the dog got comfortable, she laid her head back down on the pillow and rested her arm on his warm body so she could take Robert’s hand into hers. The last forty-eight hours had been the hardest as he delved further and further into delusion, speaking in a foreign language one moment and in English the next. Sometimes he spoke of names that were unfamiliar to her, as if he were remembering a time many years ago.
The sun was lowering in the sky when Robert turned his head and glanced towards the young woman next to him. For a long moment they looked at each other, the silence between them worn and old and comfortable. But something in Robert, his old self, fought to the top and through the delusion to speak to her, his voice cracking under the strain.
“I love you Rosie. I always have. You are my daughter as sure as if I fathered you myself.” He could see the tears forming in her eyes and her throat moving as she tried to swallow them, not wanting him to see her cry. She nodded at him.
“I love you, Robert. Thank you for being in my life.” He smiled and closed his eyes, sighing. They laid like that for another hour before he opened his eyes again and looked at her. He scanned her face as if trying to memorize her freckles or her hazel eyes or that weird scar on her forehead. He finally looked her in the eye and smiled.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. And as the sun set, he was gone. Banana lifted his head and began to cry as Rosemary let her tears flow. She scooted over and wrapped herself around Robert and cried and cried. A small part of her seemed to die with him as she felt empty – far emptier than when Pops and Grams died.
She was truly alone now.
—***—
“Rose?” A soft knock came at the bathroom door, Amy’s lilting voice on the other side sounded muffled through the wood. “Honey?”
Rosemary sat on the toilet, slumped over and her face in a daze. Her hands rested on her thighs, gripping at her sleeping shorts mindlessly. She didn’t say anything, her throat raw and sore from her crying. When Amy opened the door, she bit her lip at the scene before her.
After Robert finally passed, Rosemary laid with him for an hour before pulling herself from the bed to call the funeral home. When Benson Harwood arrived with his assistant, they immediately went about preparing to remove the body as she stood by the door, arms wrapped around her torso. She shivered as she watched the two of them work, but when they zipped closed the body bag, rendering Robert from sight, she dropped to her knees and began to keen loudly.
The assistant, who was new, jumped back at the sound, but Benson had been around long enough to know what to do. The heavy-set man with kind eyes sat down on the floor next to her and held her in his arms. Rosemary cried Robert’s name over and over for nearly half an hour. When she couldn’t cry out loud anymore, she pulled away from Benson and curled into a ball on the floor, blocking the door.
“Rosemary, we need to take him. It’s time for him to go.” The funeral director rubbed her back, recognizing the shock of loss in her eyes. Like others, he knew of her close relationship with Robert and had told his wife that he was glad the old man had someone with him in his last days. He looked around the room before his eyes laid on her cell phone on the bed. “Rose, can I call someone for you?”
She laid there, practically catatonic when the assistant touched Benson’s shoulder. He looked up and nodded at her before she walked over and got the phone. He asked gently for her to unlock it so he could call her friends and her shaky fingers took three tries before her home screen popped up. When he saw the group text, he pressed dial for the first name he saw in the chat.
After explaining the situation, Amy Anton agreed to come help with her distraught friend. When she arrived, she was able to coax Rosemary off the floor, who merely crawled into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. The three looked at each other and Amy finished with Benson so they could leave. After texting Fern and Tina, she knocked on the door.
“Rosie… “
“No. That was his name for me. No.” Her voice crackled with rawness, her vocal cords in screaming pain at the movement. She turned her head to look at Amy and the tears spilled over her cheeks. “I’m alone. Alone.”
The crying began again and as if all sensation left her body, Rosemary slid off the toilet and hit the wall. She seemed impervious to pain, but Amy still shrieked out at the sight. She couldn’t muffle her own tears as she dropped to the cold tile to scoop up her friend in her arms. Tina and Fern’s footsteps echoed through the house as they arrived, and both stopped when they found the duo on the floor.
Without a second thought, the two women dropped down and enveloped their sobbing friend and held her for what seemed like hours. Eventually, they convinced her to get into the shower and then into bed. As Amy cleaned up Robert’s room, Fern called her paralegal to begin the post-death legal process, and Tina took Banana for a walk before curling up in bed with Rosemary. Sleep avoided the four women that night and for the first time in a long time, Rosemary dreaded the morning sunlight.
A/N:I’ll be on vacation this week, but I’m hoping to post weekly - Thursdays as reblogs of the previous chapter, Fridays around 6pm EST new chapters, and Saturdays as next day reblogs. And then posting when ever I so choose for one shots and drabbles.
Reminder:I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit. I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.
Tag List:
@zeldasayer , @beskars , @coolmaybelateruniverse , @the-feckless-wonder , @pascalisthepunkest , @mandoandyodito , @randomness501 , @fioccodineveautunnale , @ahopelessromanticwritersworld , @lilkermit14 , @tortles [please message me to be added or subtracted]
Part 3 – The Clock is the Enemy
“What a beautiful day, Rosie.” Robert’s smile was small, but evident. He laid back in the patio chair with a blanket around his shoulders. The normally oppressive summer heat of August had been milder this year, but Robert was always cold now. His shoulders hunched over under the heavy cotton fabric, as if the weight of the world were on them.
She looked over at him from inside the kitchen and smiled, glad that he was feeling more energetic today then he had been the last couple of weeks. She had taken him to the doctor this morning and the news was grim – mere weeks were probably left for Robert and her heart clenched as she realized she had to watch yet another person she loved slowly die in front of her. Tears sprung in her eyes and she quickly looked away so he couldn’t see them.
She stood at the stove waiting for the coffee to finish, her hands tapping the side of the brightly decorated mug in front of her. Since his confession months ago about his diagnosis, she spent as much time with him as she could, helping him as he got his affairs in order. Last week, she moved in with him as his health took a turn for the worse and he struggled to care for himself. He felt as if he should have told her no, but he was so grateful for her, he remained quiet on the subject.
When the foam had dissipated, she poured in the cognac and topped it off with a lemon slice – just the way Robert always took his coffee at home. She carried it out on to the porch and sat next to him. He sipped the hot liquid and smiled.
“You know, my mother drank her coffee like this, too.” He nodded at Rosemary’s inquisitive look. He never talked about his family or his existence before Saugatuck, claiming his life here along the coast of Lake Michigan had enough memories to explore for a lifetime.
“I never heard of anyone drinking their coffee like that before I met you.”
“You don’t know a lot of Ukrainians, then.” He smiled. “She drank it with more cognac than is probably recommended, but she needed the pep in her step as she headed off to work.”
“What did she do?”
“She taught home ec at a local high school.” He grinned as Rosemary started to laugh.
“Did she include the coffee recipe in her class?”
“No, but it would have probably helped!”
The two laughed again and soon it petered out to a comfortable silence. The trees waved slightly in the breeze and they could hear the kids down the road shouting and laughing. The day was perfect and they both soaked it up knowing that these were numbered.
—***—
“Marcus! I’m so glad you called!” Hetty Pike’s smile was evident in her tone as she heard her only son’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Hi, mom.” He couldn’t help but grin every time he talked to his mother. She was a bubbly woman who talked with her hands a lot. When he was a kid, she always held his face in her hands and told him that she loved him, her head shaking as if to reiterate what she said. When he’d protested the action as a teenager, she told him she’d never stop because it was her duty to know he was always loved. “Is dad around?”
“Abe! Abe! Pick up! Marcus is on the phone!” He could hear her voice clearly even as she pulled away to call out to her husband. Pike rolled his eyes with a small smile as he heard his father’s booming voice come over the line, drowning out his much softer mother, who said her good-byes while the two men talked.
“Son! It’s been ages! How goes the art thieving?”
“Not bad, dad. I’m calling because I have a question.”
“Shoot.”
For the next hour, they chatted as Marcus sought out his dad’s advice on various aspects of the reopened cases. The senior Pike had been an electrician before he retired and often provided advice to the agent on cases where he could, often becoming a sounding board as his son worked verbally through the case.
After walking through a few scenarios, Hetty got back on the line and the three talked about this and that for a while longer before Pike said his good-byes with promises to call more often and to try and come out for his sister’s 40th birthday party next month.
The energy of the phone call dissipated into nothing as Pike stood in his kitchen, the quiet house a stark contrast to the liveliness he grew up with. He became lost in thought as memories flitted through his brain – happy memories of his parents who were so deeply in love, every day was a chance to prove it to the other; of his sisters and him getting into numerous shenanigans that left them breathless with laughter; of his blue-collar father being proud of his son’s artistic talent and happily attending his shows.
Pike let himself smile a bit before pushing himself off the counter, pocketing his phone as he wandered down the hall into his studio. He bought the small two-bedroom house in the outskirts of D.C. because its large windows let in tons of natural light, allowing him to set up an in-home studio to indulge his artistic appetite in.
Art had always been Marcus’ passion and something he had been good at since he was quite young. He was proud that he could parlay that passion into a career. He didn’t do anything professionally, instead choosing to let his talent serve as a distraction from the stress of real life. As he sat in front of the blank canvas, his hands rested in his lap, fiddling with the pencil.
By this time, his brain was creating a mash up of his memories and Carmichael’s words from some months ago. He hadn’t been on a date since the last time he was stood up, but no matter how much he hardened his heart, he still yearned for someone to love, the kind that his parents had. The kind he thought he had with his first wife, then Lisbon, then Eleanor and Carrie and Sumata.
It seems the only place he could express his heart freely and without pain was on the canvas. He shook his head as he turned on his playlist and let himself get lost in the one place that he could be himself with no judgement.
—***—
Several Days Later
“Helen?” The director looked up from her desk and looked startled at the pale woman standing in front of her. She immediately rose and skirted the desk to take Rosemary in her arms, giving her a warm hug. She felt the younger woman’s arms snake around her waist, and she continued to hold her as sudden sobs wracked the body pressed against her own. They stood like that for many long minutes before Rosemary pulled away and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand.
The two women sat down in the office chairs and Helen took Rosemary’s hand again, noticing the slight tremors she failed to feel before. She squeezed slightly and waited.
“Helen, I need to take some time off. Robert is getting worse and I don’t want to leave him alone right now. I know I have vacation…” Helen cut her off.
“Take all the time you need. I know this has been hard for you, don’t worry about us here. We’re fine. Marquetta can handle anything that comes in for you and I’ll take over the programs you are scheduled to work. You need to focus on you and Robert.” She didn’t say it, but the and your good-byes hung in the air between them.
“Okay. Thank you.” Rosemary stood on shaky legs and they hugged again before she went to her office. Despite the grief that hung around her neck like an albatross, she set her away message on her voicemail and email before packing a few things up for Banana. The dog had gone with her to Robert’s and the mutt spent his days sleeping against Robert’s frail form, providing a steady stream of warmth and companionship when Rosemary was at work.
After looking around her neatened desk, she walked to her workshop and glanced around there. She left a few notes for Marquetta on some projects that needed to be completed before walking over to her locked cabinet. She pulled out her keys and opened it, glancing at the bronze sculpture housed inside. She looked at it for a bit longer before closing the doors again. It was still on her to-do list but it was going to have to wait; Helen knew it was there, but only Rosemary had access. With the turn of her key, she left the museum to focus on the one person who needed her the most.
—***—
Three weeks later
The day was a sunny one, the sky a deep azure blue that spoke of the coming fall and as he laid in bed with the windows open, Robert took as deep a breath as his lungs would let him. He loved Saugatuck in the fall – the leaves, the roadside stands that popped up as the harvest came to fruition, and he loved to decorate the store as Halloween grew closer.
He let himself get lost in the memories of the past for a moment before forcing himself to focus on the paperwork in front of him. His lawyer had dropped off a new copy of his will and testament and Robert carefully read everything before signing it. Even as he laid there dying, there was something about signing the will that created a finality to it all.
As he sealed the envelope and sent a text to the lawyer to come pick it up, he heard Rosemary enter the house. He could smell food and for the first time in days, he felt his stomach grumble in hunger. He began to push himself out of bed when Rosemary enter the room and frowned at him.
“Get back in bed.” Her tone was firm, but gentle.
“I can get up; I’m not going to eat in my bed.” Robert grumbled as she walked over and gently pressed him back into the pillows. Rosemary was only a couple of inches shorter than his six-foot frame, but with his body becoming weaker, she seemed taller and stronger than she ever had before to him.
“You’re going to stay here. I don’t need you falling like you did yesterday and scaring the bejesus out of me.” Rosemary wandered back into the kitchen, pulling out the take-out boxes from Coral Gables. She arranged everything on a tray and took it into the bedroom. Just as she set everything down, a knock came at the door. She walked back towards the front of the house, seeing a woman standing on the other side of the screen door.
“Fern!” Rosemary was surprised to see her close friend on the porch, her voice rising in excitement. They hugged and Fern made sure to squeeze her poor friend a little harder than usual. They broke apart. “What are you doing here?”
“Robert is one of my clients. I dropped off some paperwork for him earlier and he told me to come pick them up. Sorry to interrupt dinner.”
“Never! Come in, I bought more than enough, and he won’t eat that much.” Rosemary’s voice dropped a little and she smiled slightly as a friendly hand rested on her wrist. “Anyway, please stay and join us.”
Fern nodded and walked into the house towards the bedroom as Rosemary ran to get more plates and silverware. When she entered the room, the two were in discussion, their voices low and serious. The conversation stopped as she walked up to them and both smiled at her.
The three sat and ate, enjoying each other’s company and Rosemary noted that Robert ate more than he usually did, which made her feel better. Fern stayed long after dinner was over and as Robert dozed off, the two women continued to visit, but moved the conversation into the living room.
They had been friends for several years, meeting after bumping into each other at Robert’s store. Soon their duo became a quartet as local banker Amy met them at a local charity event and Rosemary’s old college friend Tina joined them as she set up her vet practice in Douglas, just south of the town. The three women had been worried about Rosemary for weeks, visiting where they could and keeping a lively group text going.
When she realized it was midnight, Fern took her leave and Rosemary cleaned up the kitchen. She walked into Robert’s bedroom to check on him. He woke up when he heard her and smiled. She touched his shoulder and sat in the chair next to his bed, the place she spent the most time in these days.
“I’m sorry I woke you. How are you feeling?” He reached out to pat her hand and she held it as tight as she dared. He was so pale, as if he were fading away from her in front of her very eyes.
“Like death warmed over.” The chuckle sounded strained as his breathing continued to be hard for him. “Rosie, I never said it, but I’m glad you’re here.”
“I always make time for you, Robert. You know that.”
“And dinner is always Coral Gables.”
“Exactly. Tradition.”
“Tradition.” Robert coughed hard and heavy. He took the tissue she handed to him and wiped the spittle from his mouth. “A good historian loves tradition.”
“And the story it tells.” She sat back and watched him. He suddenly looked at her, as if he were seeing her for the first time.
“Rosie, are you happy?” She looked at him, surprise on her face. “I mean in general. I’ve never seen you date anyone long term, you hardly go on vacation. You work a lot. Are you happy?”
“I guess? I don’t know. I love my work, I have the girls, I have you. And yeah, sure I could do with more vacation time, but who doesn’t?” She looked away, focusing on the window, although it was too dark to see. “Dating is… It’s not easy and most men don’t seem to appreciate my odd hours. Or I’m too tall. Or I’m too loud. And I’d rather be single and happy than in a relationship and miserable.”
“That’s fair.” He smiled. “What happened to that doctor in Kalamazoo?”
“Him?” She wrinkled her nose. “God, he was a massive asshole. Ego the size of the Grand Canyon. I went on two dates with him and had enough.”
Robert laugh slightly before sighing.
“I just worry about you Rose. I don’t want you to be alone when I’m gone. I want you to live a happy life, full of love that you deserve. Promise me that you’ll make time for that.”
“I promise, Robert.” She smiled as his eyes drooped closed, his soft snores starting almost immediately. She set back in the chair, propping her feet up on the edge of the bed to watch him until sleep came to claim her.
Reminder reblog for tomorrow’s new chapter. While my vacation wasn’t as much of a vacation as I had hoped, I did make serious headway into the story!
The doorbell rang at the most inopportune moment. It was a late Thursday afternoon and you were home with your small gaggle of children. Dinner was cooking on the stove and you were trying to keep everyone sound and happy. It wasn’t always an easy feat with four children aged eight and under and two dogs that liked to stay in the thick of it.
“Coming!” you shouted towards the door as you glanced at your brood. Lucia was coloring at the dining room table, happily humming to herself while Diego attempted to play hide and go seek with Santi, leaving Thea to toddle around in search of something to get into, “Lucia, mija, can you please keep an eye on your brothers for a moment and make sure they don’t hurt themselves?”
“Okay mamá,” she threw down her crayon and slid off her chair, laughing as she ran after the boys, calling for them to wait for her.
“And you little miss,” you scooped Thea up in your arms and settled her on your hip as she hugged onto you tightly, a little smile on her face, “are coming with me so you stay out of the trouble. The youngest and yet the biggest trouble maker!”
You pressed a kiss to the top of her mop of dark curls as she laughed and you made your way towards the door. You opened it just as the bell was rung again, finding a young woman standing there. You didn’t recognize her but you could immediately see that she was beautiful. Dark haired and statuesque with plush lips and big doe eyes, all dressed and done up. In your current state you were sure she put you to shame.
“Hello,” you said as you wondered who this could possibly be, “how can I help you?
“Is this the Peña residence?” even her voice was pretty, which really didn’t seem fair.
“Yes,” you nodded curiously, “how can I help you?”
“Oh,” she offered you a little smile that caused an unpleasant shiver run up your spine, “you must be Mrs. Peña.”
“I…am,” should you have admitted this? You weren’t even sure what was going on anymore, “what did you need?”
“Is Javier here?” Now you were worried…how did this pretty young woman know your husband? How did she know where he lived?
“No,” you replied, “h-he’s not here.”
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“I don’t,” you lied, getting seriously worried about who this stranger was, “did you need something from him? I can…take a message for him?”
“Oh no,” she giggled, a grating sound that got on your last nerve. She made it a point to put her hand on her stomach and rubbed her belly. Your eyes naturally flicked down and your heart almost stopped when you noticed the slight swell, “I’m sure I’ll see him soon. Thanks for your help, Mrs. Peña.”
“I…what…”
“Your daughter is beautiful,” she said just before turning around, and bouncing down the porch stairs, “she looks just like him.”
You watched her bound away, practically skipping as she made her way back to her car. You held Thea tighter in your arms, your heart practically slamming against your ribcage as you watched her until she was gone. You slowly closed the door and made sure it was locked before walking back into the kitchen.
Your three other children seemed unphased as they continued playing without a care in the world. You set Thea down and nudged her in the direction of her siblings while you turned back to the stove. Your mind was reeling with trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.
A sense of dread set in as the little worry that had been sparked at the back of your mind started to creep forward. No…no. There was no way. Javier would…never. The knowledge that your husband was devoted to you didn’t lessen that deep rooted fear that had sprung up.
And this had to be the day he was working late. Of course it was. But now…you couldn’t help but wonder if he really was working.
“Stop,” you hissed at yourself, trying to control your racing thoughts, “he’s at work. He’ll be home this evening. He would never…he wouldn’t.”
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
You stiffened when you heard the front door finally open. You were sitting at the dining room table, waiting for him after you’d put all four kids to bed. You listened to him kick off his shoes and drop his bag by the front door as he routinely did when he came home. He slowly made his way over to you, a happy but tired little smile on his face. But as soon as he saw your face, he knew something was very wrong.
“Did you cheat on me, Javier?” was the first thing out of your mouth, despite your initial intentions. You put down the napkin you had been playing with and looked up at him, trying to swallow down the lump that had welled up in your throat, “did you?”
Javier’s mouth dropped open as he looked at you in confusion, brows knitting together. He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation; he was tired, exhausted, and just wanted a shower and to get into bed with you. But he couldn’t find the words to even reply to your question.
"Well?” you asked softly as he leaned against the chair and let out a long sigh, “why aren’t you saying anything?”
“I don’t even know how to respond to that question,” he sighed heavily. This had come up so out of the blue and he had no clue why, “why are you asking me this? That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever asked.”
“Why aren’t you saying no?”
“I - what the fuck kind of question even is that!?” he hadn’t meant to snap at you. The shocked look on your face was enough to cause instant regret to well up as he sighed, “baby-”
“A girl came by today,” you wiped your eyes with the sleeve of your sweater, willing yourself not to break down and cry, “she was so young and so pretty. She was looking for you. Asking where you were and when you’d be back. She knew who I was - she saw our daughter and said she looked like you. She…she was pregnant, Javier.”
“What!?”
“Who is she?” you were crying now and he ached to reach over and touch you but he was afraid that would only make things worse, “why was she looking for you? Tell me. Tell me.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he insisted, a look of genuine confusion crossing his features, “I…I don’t know what’s going on.”
“We have four children, Javier,” you whispered, “four children I carried and gave you - us. We have two dogs. We have a house. We have careers. We have good friends and family. Was that not enough for you? Am I not enough for you? I don't…know what to think right now.”
“Dulzura-”
“How would you feel, Javier, if the roles were reversed? If a random man came to the house looking for me? Asking where I was or when I’d be back? Commenting about how our son or daughter looks like me?”
“I’d k-”
“Yeah,” you didn’t even give him a chance to finish, “so imagine how it feels for me. And the fact that you’re not denying makes it so much worse.”
“I’m not denying because I don’t even know what’s going on! I have no clue what happened. I would never do that to you.”
“I want to believe you,” your voice was almost a whimper as you stood up and started to breeze past him, “but I’m so…I don’t even know right now. I’m going to bed…you can stay on the couch tonight. Or I can if you want the bed.”
“I…” he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply, “I’ll take the couch.”
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
By the time Javier woke up the following morning, he felt as exhausted as the night before. He’d tossed and turned all night, worry and confusion nagging at him. The look on your face had broken his heart.
He looked at his watch and groaned loudly; he was late. The house was silent and as he poked around he realized you had already left for work and towed all the kids with you. You hadn’t woken him up. You’d never done that before.
“Fuck me,” he slammed his fist on the dresser as he tried to calm his racing mind. He let out a long, shaky breath, running a hand over his tired face, “fuck!”
He had no idea what he would do if you truly believed he had cheated on you. He loved you more than anything; he practically worshiped the ground you walked on and yet… The pain and hurt you had in your eyes had made him want to fall to his knees and beg you for forgiveness.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Javier had felt like he was in a daze as he went about his day, attempting to act as though everything was normal. You hadn’t called like you normally did when you got a break from teaching; he’d looked at his phone what felt like every five seconds as he willed it to ring. But it never did. What would happen when he got home that night? What would you say to him? Do to him?
Javier was interrupted by a soft knock on his office door. He could have pretended he wasn’t there, but he almost welcomed the distraction at this point. After he called whoever was at the door in, it creaked open slowly before she walked in. Her walk was silent and she swayed her hips more than necessary as she sauntered over to his desk. Once she was in the light and he could get a proper look at her; his breath caught in his throat and he felt rage begin to boil in his blood.
It was her. That damned kid from one of his classes from last semester. He should have known. He should have Chelsea Peltz be capable of doing something like this.
“Hello Javi,” she had a smile like a Cheshire cat as she slipped into the chair opposite his. Javier’s eyes instinctively flicked to her stomach where he could see the small swell of a baby bump.
“It’s Professor Peña to you,” he insisted shortly as she laughed lightly, “what are you doing here? What have you done?”
“Your wife is very pretty,” she grinned as leaned back in her seat, “but she seems a little young for you-”
“Don’t you dare talk about her,” in another life he would have let his anger win over immediately. But not now; now he was able to control himself, despite how he practically shook with anger, “how dare you go to my home and ask for me. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“Your home is beautiful too,” she sighed wistfully, “I bet all of your kids are super cute like your little daughter.”
She snatched one of the picture frames off his desk and flipped it around to study it. It just so happened to be a picture of you, Lucia, Diego, Santi, and Thea all snuggled into your bed, watching a movie together. He’d captured the snap when none of you had been paying any attention to him; it had easily become one of his favorites.
The young girl trailed her fingers over it before he ripped it back out of her hands, “I was right. Beautiful children. You must really love her if you got her pregnant that many times. I bet you’re really good in-”
“Why?” he sounded somewhere between angry and desperate, “why did you do this? She thinks I cheated on her - she thinks I got you pregnant. I…how could you do this?”
“I really didn’t even have to do anything,” she shrugged playfully as if this was all some sort of joke, “I didn’t say I was there because I wanted you or that you knocked me up. I just asked where you were, I don’t think it’s that weird…”
“You knew exactly what you were doing,” his chest rose and fell rapidly as he reminded him to keep calm, “why?”
“I was so nice to you last semester,” she pouted as she leaned towards him, “all I wanted was some alone time with you. Everyone knows you’re the hot professor. But you kept turning me down even when I was so nice. And then you failed me. I told you I would do anything to get my grade up. I would have sucked your cock, let you fuck me. Aren’t I pretty, Javi? You like them younger, right?”
“You failed the class because you didn’t turn in any assignments and flunked the midterm and final. I didn’t do that - you did. Your grade reflected that-”
“I just wanted you,” she hissed through gritted teeth, “and if I can’t have you and then no one will. I wonder what the school will say when I tell them you forced yourself on me - when you got me pregnant? Your career will be ruined. I wonder what your pretty little wife will do. Will she really stay with you through anything? Or will she take your kids away from you and leave you forever?”
“You know that none of that happened,” he was seething at this point, “I never touched you, I never did anything.”
“That might be true,” she admitted, “but who is going to believe you? Are they really going to believe a grown man with a bad reputation that he thinks is behind him or an innocent young student? Tell me - who will they side with?”
“What do you want from me?”
“I already told you,” she leaned closer to him, “you.”
“Never,” he spat at her, seeing nothing but red, “never. You know what - you can walk out of this room and tell them whatever the fuck you want. I would rather lose my job and any future job than see you ever again. Maybe my wife won’t believe me, maybe she’ll hate me forever, but I’d rather have that than see your face ever again.”
“Really.”
“Now get the fuck out of here before I decide to make good on that bad reputation,” he was glowering in front of her as he hauled her out of the chair, his hand wrapping around her bicep as he dragged her towards the door, “you need to get help because you’ve got some issues. Do what you want, but don’t let me see you again. Don’t ever go near my wife or my family again. If you do, there will be problems. Clear?”
She swallowed thickly, unsure of what to do. She was in deep but the rage that she saw in his eyes was enough to scare her to the bone. Instead of saying anything else, she turned on her heel and stormed out of his office, slamming the door shut so harshly that several photos and prints fell off the wall.
Javier inhaled deeply, his whole body shaking as he sat on the edge of the desk. He felt tears pricking at the back of his eyes, as he picked up the photo of you and his babies. What would he do if you didn’t believe him? He didn’t know if he would ever survive without you. You were his world, his everything. He wiped away the tears that had rolled down his cheeks; the last time his heart had been this broken was after Santi and Thea were born and you were dealing with postpartum depression.
Another knock came at his door and he jumped off his desk and set the photo down as he tried to recover his appearance. After a few moments of hesitation the door opened and there you were. His heart dropped into his stomach and he awaited your anger. Instead, you looked at him with glossy eyes and tear stained cheeks, slowly walking over to him, “Javi.”
“Baby, I-”
“I heard,” you sniffled as you practically ran to him and through your arms around him in a tight embrace, wishing you never had to let him go, “I heard it all.”
He hugged you back, closing his eyes and burying his face into your neck, “I’m so sorry…for everything.”
“I’m sorry, Javi,” you pulled back and cradled his face in your hands, before kissing him softly, “I should never have…given into any thoughts about what she’d said or did. I never should have doubted you. I know you’d never…cheat on me.”
“I would rather be dead and buried rather than ever even entertain that notion,” he huffed lightly, trying to keep it together and not break down completely, “I would never. You are…everything. You always have been and always will be.”
“I know,” this time it was your turn to wipe away his tears, just like he had done for you so many times in the past, “you’re my everything too. But…what are we going to do about…her?”
“You are not going to do anything,” he promised, “you don’t have to deal with any of this, whatever the fall out might be. But I don’t think she’ll actually do anything…she’s cunning but she’s not smart. And it would be really easy to prove that the baby isn’t mine. It’s okay, we’ll be okay.”
“Okay…okay,” you agreed as he kissed you slowly, attempting to pour every last bit of love he had into you, “I love you.”
“I love you,” he whispered into your ear, “baby, I love you so much.”
“Come home with me,” you insisted as he just nodded in agreement, “let’s get away from all of this. I don’t want to think about it anymore. I just…I’m so sorry. Will you ever forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he promised as he took your hand and put it to his lips, kissing your knuckles, “I can’t even imagine what I would have thought if the situation was reversed. I’m not a good man and I’m afraid that I would have-”
“You are,” you reassured him, “you are a good man, Javier. What was in the past is not who you are. Is it bad that…I’m the one that wants to go after her and…I don’t even know. But I do know that if anyone tried to do anything to you or the kids, they would-”
Javier didn’t even give you a chance to finish before he captured your lips again, kissing you with a hungry, needy urge that you gave right back.
“Come on,” you whispered against his lips, “let’s go home, mi amor.”
“Dulzura,” he nuzzled his nose against yours, “mi sol, mi vida. I love you.”
Authors note: just a bit of hurt/comfort— I’m having such a bad time right now and I haven’t wrote in so long. But I love Max and I miss him so much so here’s a little drabble I created as I try to process my feelings.
He smells like musk and oakwood and there’s the sweetest tinge of honey in his brown eyes. When he looks at you, they sparkle with love and adoration, and for the first time in forever, you actually feel wanted. You feel desired.
“I love you so much,” he says with a sudden abruptness, but his soft smile immediately puts you at ease.
It was like you two were made for each other. After the dream stone debacle, Maxwell was certain that he was done for. How could anyone forgive him after what he done? He was still learning to forgive himself.
But you show him a level of kindness that is so unfamiliar. Slowly but surely, you’re teaching him to love himself again. You’re teaching him to become a better man.
Alistair just adores you, and on the rare occasions that you’re not around, he finds himself at his father’s side asking him when you’ll be back. Maxwell is enamoured with everything you do. To him, you are perfect, and he swears that one day, he’s going to marry you.
But for now, he’s resigned himself to stay-at-home dad and loving boyfriend. He doesn’t want to put his focus on anything else other than you and his son. Sometimes, he does dream of rebuilding his business but in a more legit and serious way. He wants to help people. He figures it’s the least he can do after what happened. He’d worked so hard to get to DC, but even if it didn’t work out, he’d truly be okay with learning how to cook big family dinners, doing laundry and deep cleaning the bathroom. Second chances are often rarer than finding a wish-granting rock.
“I’m sad.” you announce, your body stiff and your voice unusually emotionless. It’s an empty feeling that seems to creep up on you when you least expect it.
Max’s chest fills with anxiety the moment the words leave your lips. Had he done something wrong?
“Why?” he counters.
“I don’t know,” you reply simply. “It just happens sometimes, I guess.”
Max knows this feeling all too well. He pulls you into his lap and starts threading his fingers through your hair.
“It will pass, my love. I promise you that.” he says quietly.
Your eyes flicker up to look at him and your heart fills with warmth. He’s been through so much in his life. He’s fought so hard; and you know that whatever happens next, you’re blessed enough to know that he will be standing with you by your side.
He is something else I love him so much. They are good together and this warms my heart and it’s so cute! I would like to see some more of this universe. Her meeting Marisol? her meeting the boys? her totally destroying his ex because Mari starts calling you mama too? Frankie being possessive bastard and giving you little bites and hickeys to all your colleagues know how he loves his girl. I’m too in love and too invested in this story I’m sorry it’s just so perfectly written ♥️
Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!plus sized reader
Word Count: 1400+
Rating:Mature - 18+ ONLY!
Warnings:Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story.
Notes:This is a continuation of How I See You. I was going to write all of the ones you asked for BUT since this, you’ve asked me to turn it into a series so I think I’ll address it there!
**If you want to be added to the taglist, join here or let me know!
Frankie and you have been together for about 6 months now. Everything has been great - he treats you like you’re a damn khaleesi, always telling you how beautiful you are, he is the nicest guy to not just you but your friends and family too, your conversations always interesting, and not to mention the sex is just insanely hot. The man is talented, that’s for damn sure.
But with everything so perfect, why are you so nervous?
He is something else I love him so much. They are good together and this warms my heart and it’s so cute! I would like to see some more of this universe. Her meeting Marisol? her meeting the boys? her totally destroying his ex because Mari starts calling you mama too? Frankie being possessive bastard and giving you little bites and hickeys to all your colleagues know how he loves his girl. I’m too in love and too invested in this story I’m sorry it’s just so perfectly written ♥️
Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!plus sized reader
Word Count: 1400+
Rating:Mature - 18+ ONLY!
Warnings:Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story.
Notes:This is a continuation of How I See You. I was going to write all of the ones you asked for BUT since this, you’ve asked me to turn it into a series so I think I’ll address it there!
**If you want to be added to the taglist, join here or let me know!
Frankie and you have been together for about 6 months now. Everything has been great - he treats you like you’re a damn khaleesi, always telling you how beautiful you are, he is the nicest guy to not just you but your friends and family too, your conversations always interesting, and not to mention the sex is just insanely hot. The man is talented, that’s for damn sure.
But with everything so perfect, why are you so nervous?
He is something else I love him so much. They are good together and this warms my heart and it’s so cute! I would like to see some more of this universe. Her meeting Marisol? her meeting the boys? her totally destroying his ex because Mari starts calling you mama too? Frankie being possessive bastard and giving you little bites and hickeys to all your colleagues know how he loves his girl. I’m too in love and too invested in this story I’m sorry it’s just so perfectly written ♥️
Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!plus sized reader
Word Count: 1400+
Rating:Mature - 18+ ONLY!
Warnings:Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story.
Notes:This is a continuation of How I See You. I was going to write all of the ones you asked for BUT since this, you’ve asked me to turn it into a series so I think I’ll address it there!
**If you want to be added to the taglist, join here or let me know!
Frankie and you have been together for about 6 months now. Everything has been great - he treats you like you’re a damn khaleesi, always telling you how beautiful you are, he is the nicest guy to not just you but your friends and family too, your conversations always interesting, and not to mention the sex is just insanely hot. The man is talented, that’s for damn sure.
But with everything so perfect, why are you so nervous?
He is something else I love him so much. They are good together and this warms my heart and it’s so cute! I would like to see some more of this universe. Her meeting Marisol? her meeting the boys? her totally destroying his ex because Mari starts calling you mama too? Frankie being possessive bastard and giving you little bites and hickeys to all your colleagues know how he loves his girl. I’m too in love and too invested in this story I’m sorry it’s just so perfectly written ♥️
Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!plus sized reader
Word Count: 1400+
Rating:Mature - 18+ ONLY!
Warnings:Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story.
Notes:This is a continuation of How I See You. I was going to write all of the ones you asked for BUT since this, you’ve asked me to turn it into a series so I think I’ll address it there!
**If you want to be added to the taglist, join here or let me know!
Frankie and you have been together for about 6 months now. Everything has been great - he treats you like you’re a damn khaleesi, always telling you how beautiful you are, he is the nicest guy to not just you but your friends and family too, your conversations always interesting, and not to mention the sex is just insanely hot. The man is talented, that’s for damn sure.
But with everything so perfect, why are you so nervous?
