prompt: “i'm a royal in hiding and you’re a civilian who lives in the same apartment complex as me, hi”
This little ficlet is also for @the-reylo-void, who I think could do with some stupid fluff right about now.
“Kylo…”
“Do we have to use that name?”
“Yes,“ bites out Phasma, straight-backed and hands folded in front of her. She keeps her attention on the door, on all possible exits in and out of the flat, as her job demands she does. Kylo pushes his armchair forwards, to sit by the window, just to make her eye twitch.
Ben gives her a thin-lipped smile. "My mother thinks of everything, Phas."
"Phasma."
"Phas."
"Your mother is a powerful woman, Kylo," she says, brushing her long fingers through short blonde hair. "But not powerful enough."
Ben taps the window, leaning back, taking in the London skyline. Grey buildings, covered in summer. Mikata had warned him not to get used to such weather.
"No 10-inch thick bulletproof glass?"
The reply is wordless; simply Phasma's large hands on the back of his chair and the scrape of its legs, her strength tugging him back to the centre of the tiny flat.
Ben glowers, sinking further into the seat. "I take that as a yes."
A clunk has them both moving; Phasma turning on her heel, covering him, Ben standing.
"Jesus, fucking -- what wanker---" They both hear more swearing, not as creative as his father's, remnants of his life before his entrance into royalty, then, an obnoxiously loud knock on the tiny flat door.
"I'll open it," Ben says to Phasma, pushing past the wall of woman, dedicated so much to her craft that she seems more character than human. "After all, Kylo Ren seems like he'd be the welcoming type."
The obnoxious knock sounds again. Ben sighs, tugging open the door, gesturing for Phasma to step back, at his shoulder as she is.
"Afternoon," he says, barely looking at the figure before him. Training has made him adept at taking in hundreds of faces and forgetting them without thought.
He is suddenly hit in the chest, his satchel thrust into his chest, and he stumbles back, barely holding onto the door handle. All at once, he takes in who is before him.
She is small, much smaller than him, lean, something of the countryside, or isolation at least, about her. It's in the hazel brown eyes, the tangled hair scooped into a messy bun. She wears denim shorts, a loose-fitting white vest and there is sweat on her clavicle bone, and the peek of a pink lace bra from his vantage point.
Small girl, beautiful eyes, and a large temper. Proved as she heaves---small girl, big temper, amazing strength, he adds that to the list---bag after bag into the flat, past the threshold. Phasma's eyes grow wider and bigger at each transgression of painfully laid out boundaries.
The girl with the beautiful eyes and strength turns towards him when she is done. A sheen of sweat on her brow has joined the shine on her clavicle bone. Ben feels uncomfortable in her presence, yet stands there still, dumb and holding his father's satchel in his arms.
"I'll make you a deal: you, keep your shit out of the way of the corridors and me, I won't have to move it for you. Understood?"
"Um..." It's been so long since he has said 'um' that it feels foreign on his tongue. Makes him feel like another person entirely. "P-perfectly."
She goes to leave, but he doesn't want her leaving quite yet. He wants more than simply to remember her.
"What's your name?" he blurts after her. Already at the door, she turns, glaring---but then her expression softens. She bites her bottom lip.
"Rey." Her eyes flit towards Phasma, and she jumps. "Christ! I'm so sorry, I didn't -- I didn't see you there. Are you---?"
She gestures with a finger between them.
"No!" barks Ben, dropping his satchel and hurrying forward, though, for what, he doesn't know. "She's just, um---"
He runs his eyes over Phasma.
"My cousin. A, uh, distant cousin."
"I'm helping him settle in," Phasma lies smoothly, though clearly put out, a soldier of her calibre being reduced to merely the status of 'a cousin'.
"Oh. Then you can tell him how London etiquette works," the girl, Rey, says, glancing towards him without friendliness, but more a pointed glare. Yet such a look doesn't speak of resentment yet to come. More, as it lingers, it speaks of a curiosity.
He is very unfamiliar with these English customs.
"And your name?" she asks.
He flushes as he mumbles the name. Her tilting her head forces him to repeat the ridiculous moniker.
"Kylo?" She poorly hides a snort, unaware she is speaking to the only heir of a principality reaching back beyond the history of this grey island.
A meow makes him jump, and he looks down to find an orange-and-white cat slide through his half-closed flat door. Following the sound, Rey gasps and gathers the cat in her arms.
"Babette!" she gasps, scolding, scratching between the cat's ears and earning a purr for her efforts. She glances to Ben and Phasma as she leaves. "Keep your shit out of the corridor, thanks! Bye!"
Hi Lucie! This year I started a bujo to help me keep organised at school, but starting a full time job while on finals period made life too hectic and I stopped filling the journal out. Now my life is back together and my very perfectionist self doesn't want to skip sort of giving May its space(?), so I wanted to ask if you could suggest any ideas to fill those pages up? I just don't wanna use magazine cutouts for all of the spaces. 🙈🙈
Hello Natalia! Oh, I feel you, I also don’t like to skip days/weeks in my bujo :’D
Maybe you could write down what you did during that busy period and how you felt, sort of a diary-like thing? You can do it in short bullet points, to stay true to the bullet journal system ;D, and maybe say what worked for you during the finals (whether it be a way of organizing things, certain study method etc etc) and what didn’t, for future reference? Or write about how you’re proud of yourself for making it through the exam period (which you should be! :D). Or simply add some quotes/lyrics you like, or doodles… and the rest can be filled with the magazine cutouts :D
top 5 Molly Hooper moments / top 5 Molly Hooper headcanons
moments:
when she knocks back some wine at the christmas party
when she calls mrs hudson while holding a bone saw
when she’s rambling about tom!!!!
the entire phone call scene in tfp
when she takes a look at the skeleton while helping sherlock with cases
headcanons:
her mother died when she was young. she remembers watching her put on makeup and packing picnic lunches together. she was very close to her father growing up after that.
she has Enough Money to keep her Very Happy.
SHE LOVES SOLO VACATIONS and she’s down for everything. scuba diving, zip lining, sitting on a beach for days, snowshoeing in a forest
is actually very capable of watching movies without being a pretentious shit about anatomy and blood spatter
a very decent cook BUT AN EXCEPTIONAL BAKER?? everyone is always very excited for Work Gatherings because it means molly will bring something delicious. also she’s very well liked at work. nobody thinks she’s weird for working in a morgue ????
Spawned from Twitter DMs with @introspectivenavelgazer . (Your move now, girl.)
Warnings for: dark!Sherlock, murder, a Molly Hooper caught between a rock and a hard place and really pissed off about it and porn.
NB: I originally posted this as a separate link post, because I’m an overtired idiot, but here’s the rightful post. @thenworld I hope you enjoy this piece of dark!Sherlock sin ;)
“You’re covering for a friend?” he asks her, drinking from a glass of scotch.
“She got sick, couldn’t make it in,” Molly says, resuming her slow circle around the pole. She gives a smile, and a giggle. “I’m glad.”
“I’m glad too,” he replies, with a returning smile. He settles one arm against the back of the sofa, looking her over. “I still don’t know your name.”
“Do you need to?” she parries, looking at him over her glass as she finishes her drink. Just wine, red and stinking of fruit. She puts the glass down and sets to work. She sweeps her hair over one shoulder, glancing over her shoulder at him as she grips the pole in one hand, step, step, step. Three steps in a tight circle. When Meena suggested pole dancing lessons, she’d thought her mad. They only went to three classes before schedules swallowed up the project.
As she comes face to face with him, she holds his gaze.
He tilts an eyebrow in reply.
She can’t help a genuine giggle, tumbling out from her tongue. He chuckles, grinning, in reply.
“I can’t make it sexy,” she says, momentarily giddy in this bubble of shared laughter. “I took it mainly for exercise.”
A truth. She swallows, fixing a smile on her lips, tilting her head against the cold metal of the pole.
He leans over, placing his glass on a coaster on the mahogany side table. Antique. He sinks back into the sofa, folding his hands in his lap. There’s that smile. Dangerous. Telling. Making sure she knows exactly what he could do.
The thought repulses her, and excites her, in equal measure.
For a moment, she feels dizzy and London, the London before her and the London beyond, feels so incredibly alive. She feels its pulse. Her own pulse, hammering against her throat.
She remembers her balcony. The worlds that surround her, represented by yellow lights on all day or all night, chatter or music or barking giving her snatches of other universes while she shifts between greys and blues. The cigarette tucked between Emily’s fingers, and the barely touched water glasses.
Night routes aren’t enough. She’s known that for a while.
Sherlock Holmes stands. He buttons his jacket and approaches. Stands in front of her. He wraps both his hands around the pole, above her head, tall and looming. His bottom lip trembles, twitches. With a smile maybe, but she can’t tell.
“You’re a liar,” he says, his voice thick and heady. “But right now, I don’t fucking care. Can I kiss you?”
“Is this really necessary?” Molly asked, shifting in her evening gown (it was old, last he’d seen it, they’d both worn wedding rings).
“Well, if we’re going to pull our concert off,” Sherlock said, pressing a small-but-expensive tub of ice cream into her hands as he sat beside her, “we need to know our competition, don’t we?”
Send me a pairing, an AU, and I’ll write a three sentence fic in return!
I'm not an art historian, and I don't really like thinking too much about why an artist painted something, but aesthetically and from an emotional point of view, my faves are Turner and Van Gogh. They both paint viscerally. I really like as well paintings that tell a story, or capture a moment, so I like a lot of 18th-century artists.
Example, I have a massive, massive respect and admiration for Artemisia Gentileschi. Her painting of Judith beheading Holofernes is magic. It makes me want to smash the patriarchy and rage until the final light has died.
Much of my favourite pieces are included in my Valse Mélancolique page on my Pinterest (though there's nothing of Turner or Van Gogh). That’s my shit, right there. Which explains why I’m dragging on the last chapter, I love the aesthetic too much, whoop.
Definitely not horses. I tried to like them because that's what you do when you're a girl, you get weirdly all about horses and horse riding in particular. My first (and only) horse riding lesson, I was given a blind-in-one-eye, deaf pony called Harvey, and I clutched his mane all the way, screaming my head off. I haven't, honestly, really thought about it much, but answering now... Penguins. I like them. They're dorks.