The Villa Lante consists of two square casini (houses), one built by Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola for Cardinal Gianfrancesco Gambara from 1566; the other was completed 30 years later for Cardinal Alessandro Peretti di Montalto.
The formal parterre gardens include complex waterworks introduced by Tommaso Ghinucci, a hydraulics engineer and architect from Siena.
The estate is now known as Villa Lante and was named after Duke Ippolito Lante, who gained possession from 1656 and whose family remained there for generations.
content after a haunting night exploring the queen mary, you can’t sleep.
warnings use of y/n, fluff, kinda short
authors note inspired by their video of the queen mary
You sat next to your friend Alicia, sitting in a circle of candles. It was five of you sat around an ouija board. You had agreed to help her film her boyfriend and his friends walking around the most haunted ship in the world.
“Spirit O spirit, if you’re here, tell us your name.” Payton said.
Max and Payton jumped into the air and screamed as the sensor turned from green to red.
“Guys guys guys guys,” “I rebuke this”
-you heard from all around you. Payton’s friend, Jordan’s eyes went wide behind his sunglasses but he didn’t move.
“Okay let’s keep going,”
Payton, Jordan, and Max all put their hands back on the planchette. It slid around and everyone covered their mouths.
Payton laughed, “I’m not even gonna lie that was me moving it.”
The other two rolled their eyes. “Please take his soul,”
You and Alicia stared into the viewfinder. You looked to your right for a second, and Jordan quickly looked away.
A sudden loud noise came from the other side of the hallway. You and Alicia jumped and screamed. The other three jumped. Alicia grabbed onto Payton and dropped the camera. You jumped and grabbed onto Jordan’s strong arm, not realizing it before a few seconds had passed and everyone else was staring.
Luckily Alicia broke the tension by saying, “my gosh, that was scary.”
“Should we stop?”
They said goodbye to the spirits and blew out the candles.
“Okay, me and y/n are gonna go get ready for bed, we’ll be right back.” said Alicia.
You guys came back, wearing pajamas and coming just to say goodnight. After a long day of filming, all of you guys were exhausted. Max had already gone to sleep, leaving just you and Jordan to stand around awkwardly while Payton and Alicia kissed and hugged to tell eachother goodnight.
“Dang I wish I could share a bed with my cupcake instead of Jordan the ogre..” Payton said.
“Okay rude… me and Alicia can just trade rooms… we’ll still have our own beds but you two can share.” Jordan said.
They said yes and shut the door behind you and Jordan.
You and Jordan walked awkwardly back to your room.
“Are you gonna be able to sleep tonight? I don’t know if I am,” you said to make conversation.
“Honestly I don’t know either, I don’t really like to mess with all that spiritual stuff.”
You got to your room and unlocked it. The room had one big bed in its own space, with an offshoot leading to another room with two twin beds and the bathroom. Your stuff was already set up in the smaller room so you let Jordan have the big bed and his own room.
“Okay well, goodnight.” you said, walking down the hall.
You reluctantly closed the door behind you, scared to be alone but not wanting to make it weird.
The whole room went silent. You could hear as Jordan climbed into his bed, stirred a little, then stopped moving. You saw the lamp switch off under the crack of the door, making the room pitch black.
You pulled the covers over your head, trying not to freak out and convince yourself nothing was going to happen.
Eventually you drifted to sleep.
Jordan laid staring at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep. He turned over a few times, almost drifting off, but any slight noise would make him jump awake. He rubbed his eyes and kept trying to get any ounce of sleep he could.
About an hour passed before he was half awake and half sleeping, where he fell into his thoughts. Through his half closed eyes, he swore he saw something jump towards him in the dark. He yelled out, causing you to wake up in the other room.
He put his hands over his face in exhaustion.
Jordan rolled out of bed, rubbing his eyes. He slowly opened the door to the hallway, trying to be quiet as he walked into the bathroom.
You pretended to be asleep.
As soon as the light in the bathroom came on and the door was closed, you opened your eyes, facing the bathroom door. You noticed that the only lights in the room were the bathroom light under the door, and a green light coming from the meter that detected electromagnetic changes. You tried to convince yourself that you’d accidentally left it on, even though you knew deep down you had turned it off.
You watched as the meter flickered green, then suddenly flashed red, making you throw the covers back over your head. Your breaths got faster and you felt as if you were suffocating under the blanket.
Jordan opened the bathroom door. Before he turned the light off, he saw you covering your face with the blanket.
“Y/n? Are you okay?”
You peeled the covers off your face, feeling like a complete dork. You tried to laugh it off.
“Yeah just… I don’t even know.”
You caught a glimpse of him in his tight black t-shirt and army green sweatpants before he turned the light off.
“Okay well, goodnight.” he said.
As he walked across the room, you watched the meter turn red and hold it for a few seconds, making you completely scared to be alone again. As he left the hallway, slowly shutting the door behind him, you threw your pride out the window.
“Jordan,” you said, “wait.”
He stopped himself from closing the door. “Yeah?”
He secretly hoped you would say something before he left.
“Don’t go, please, I’m scared.”
He walked back towards your bed.
“Do you want to… stay in my room?” he asked.
You said yes. He reached out for your hands in the pitch black, pulling you out of bed and guiding you into his room. He closed the hallway door, then led you through the dark to your side of his bed.
He held the covers up to let you get in and then walked over to his side. At first, you slept facing him but all the way on the edge of the bed. He laid on his back, feeling less scared now but still too much to sleep. He held his arm more in the middle of the bed, silently hoping you would touch it in some way so he wouldn’t feel as alone.
A sudden loud bang from the hallway outside made his whole body tense up. You jumped towards him, reaching out for his arm. You hugged his arm and held it close for any sense of comfort.
“Jordan, what was that,” you asked.
“I don’t know, it’s okay.” he replied. He pulled you closer so that you were laying on his shoulder now with his arm around you.
You reached up and grabbed his jaw, still unable to see anything, but turning it towards yours. His mouth tasted like fresh toothpaste and you two kissed. You laid your head back down and he rested his cheek against your forehead.
You both finally were able to ignore any noises and fell asleep.
Concept: Lawyer!Jordan Huxhold x Lawyer!AFAB Reader
Synopsis: After winning a huge court case that was a year in the making, Ambrosia finally gets a night to unwind. The entire law firm celebrates at a bar drinking, smoking, and doing other things. A night filled with exhilaration turns into sultry pleasure, and violence.
Content Warnings: Harsh language? Very brief mention of DV/DA, violence, mentions of blood, a gun, drinking, smoking, SMUT (in the next chapter), you get the gist. I’m not about to spoil the whole thing. If you’re under 18, don’t read this. I can barely handle the concept of someone under 20 doing so.
Word Count: ???
Music: I had two songs in mind while writing this. Dark Days (Revisited) - Art d’Ecco
Ambrosia - Siaynoq
Author Notes: This was originally supposed to be a oneshot, but I’m taking way too long to finish it. The layout looked WAY better on Google Docs, so if it looks like mondo duke on here, I apologize. (We need more options for the front sizes/styles/colors.)
Part 2
“The defendant is…”
Ambrosia’s heart relentlessly pounded out of her chest, she stood next to her client before the judge. The entire room was dead silent, while everyone waited for the judge to announce the judge. Her shoulders felt the weight of her client’s stresses, future, and her entire world. An entire year of sleepless nights, enraged phone calls, keeping secrets, calculated words, and deeply diving into someone else’s personal life have all built up to this moment. Despite her trembling legs, she remained standing strong. Her determined eyes remained locked in on the judge. This trial goes beyond Ambrosia, it determines whether the woman next to her receives a life of freedom, or an existence trapped behind bars. “Not guilty.”
The entire courtroom erupts into cheers, applause, and celebration. The breath Ambrosia held in can finally be released. Without even thinking, she lets out the loudest, “YES!” She’s capable of. Turning towards her teary eyed client, the two embrace as if their lives depended on each other. This wasn’t just a victory for Ambrosia. This is an even bigger one for the woman she had just spent the past 8 hours defending. As someone who’s witnessed domestic violence first hand, it was incredibly rewarding for Ambrosia to see someone not only through it, but to have a second chance at a peaceful life. The moment her chin touched her client’s shoulder, the relief came out in tears. The two stood for a few seconds bawling in each other’s arms.
She peaks over her clients shoulder and spots the opposing table sitting in place, and glaring at her. As everyone else moved from pure joy, the men remained stagnant wallowing in their loss. That only made Ambrosia bask in her glory even harder. The miserable were incapable of having her in their company.
“Ambrosia,” her boss announces his presence from behind. She turns to him with full attention, expecting some sort of scolding. “I’m taking you guys out tonight. Drinks are on me.”
Her jaw drops,“Oh my gosh, seriously???” Soon enough, everyone starts clearing out of the courtroom. Ambrosia, her boss, and client all follow suit. On the way out, she spots her coworker/favorite rival.
Mr. Jordan Huxhold sat on a hallway bench with two other coworkers, Payton and Alicia. Ambrosia and Jordan go back to their internship days. Their years of working together consisted of challenging each other and themselves at the same time. The duo rarely spoke to each other on a personal level, yet they had an unspoken connection. No matter what, the two of them ended up gravitating towards each other; during every little interaction. He makes for good eye candy, she’ll give him that. Ambrosia just couldn’t figure out if he was the committal type or not. Thankfully now is not the time for Ambrosia to do her mental gymnastics, now is the time to celebrate.
After doing a quick, victorious interview with the press, she hops in a random coworker’s car and catches a ride to their destination. A typically high end, and quiet bar is now filled to the brim with loud lawyers. Usually they’re silent, speaking in hushed tones. Today was the complete opposite. People are taking shots left and right, a few lawyers are already on the karaoke stage, and others are outside smoking cigs and blunts.
Ms, Ambrosia met up with her only actual work friend: Sierra. This wonderful friendship has been going on since the eighth grade, and is still continuing on strong. If it weren’t for Sierra constantly encouraging Ambrosia to leave her comfort zone, she wouldn’t be where she is today. They greeted each other with excited yelling and hugging. Now that everything is done, Ambrosia can finally go into detail about the case. Every secret spoken between the two has been taken to the grave.
The first place they stopped was the bar counter for drinks, of course. Ambrosia ordered some kind of blackberry scotch drink while her friend got a Moscow mule. While waiting for their drinks, a familiar voice announced itself from behind. “Ms. Ambrosia, congratulations.” Jordan says as he slides onto the stool next to her, a glass of wine in his hand.
With a grin stretching from ear to ear she responds, “Why thank you Mr. Huxhold. I’m really glad I could pull it off.”
“You should be, and you should be proud of yourself too.” He returns the smile. Ambrosia takes a moment to observe that his tie was completely off, and his sleeves were rolled up. The top few buttons of his shirt were undone, exposing the top of his chest tattoo. There’s no way one of my biggest critics is giving me a compliment right now.
In this industry, people rarely compliment each other. Besides the alcohol, the praise has been making it impossible for Ambrosia to stop smiling. “Aweee do you really mean that?”
“Yes! You were so passionate, it was genuinely inspiring. You’re amazing.” Inspiring? Amazing?? Where is this coming from? Ambrosia remains silent, her eyes search every bit of Jordan’s face for the slightest hint of ingenuity. His content demeanor doesn’t falter under her gaze, “Seriously,” he insists. Sierra caught the tension and decided to temporarily keep her mouth shut.
Despite her cheek muscles starting to hurt, Ambrosia couldn’t hold back her smile, “Thank you, that means a lot. Seriously.”
The two of them maintain eye contact for a few seconds, heat starts rising up Ambrosia’s neck; building up the most right at the surface of her face. She visibly notices the same thing happening to Jordan, then he decides to part ways. “Well I don’t wanna keep intruding on you two. Imma head back to Payton and Alicia.”
“You’ve been no bother at all, but go have fun.” Ambrosia reassures, her grin remaining strong. After Jordan suavely walks off, Ambrosia turns back towards Sierra with her mouth hanging wide open. “What the hell just happened?” She asks, unable to contain her giggles.
“I don’t know but he was lost in your eyes for a minute, oh my godd,” Sierra says, her eyes widening and brows furrowing on the last syllable.
Still giggling, Ambrosia questions, “Did you see how red he just turned??”
“Yesss, he was making a move on youuu,” Sierra answers with a smirk.
“There’s no way!” She denies, while throwing her hand around.
Sierra leans on out of pure disbelief, “You can’t tell me that’s not what he just did. His eyes were all over you!”
Ambrosia rolls her eyes with a smile, incapable of denying her best friend’s claim. She throws her hands up in defeat,“Alright fine! Maybe he did! But tonight isn’t about him, it’s about me being an amazing lawyer. So let’s focus on that.” The two exchange a look, one that can only make Ambrosia snicker even more, “Stop looking at me like that, I can’t take you seriously!”
Sierra joins in on the laughing, “You’re so into him.”
Once again rolling her eyes,“Oh my god, I’m walking home if you keep this up,” she threatens.
Sighing out of disappointment Sierra throws in the towel,” Finee I’ll stop,” she promises with a grin.
“Thank you! Can we do karaoke when I’m done with this?” Ambrosia asks, referring to her drink. Who’s Sierra to deny a round of karaoke with her best friend?
Once they got to drinking, the pair spent hours giggling like little kids, finally being able to act a fool in public without caring about judgement. The duo hopped on the karaoke machine and did “The Start of Something New” from High School Musical, trying their absolute hardest to properly get the words out. As you’d expect for two lightweights after a couple drinks, that wasn’t working in their favor. Of course, they couldn’t help themselves but to do exaggerated versions of their roles. Everyone in the bar enjoyed it nonetheless, cheering them on with hooting, hollering and applause.
“Ambrosia! Get over here!” Her boss suddenly shouts.” As if she were still in work mode, she comes running.
“Yes! I’m here,” she quickly responds. He hands her a nice bottle of champagne. “Do me a favor and pop that open.” Then he leans in a little close, “Make sure to spray that everywhere.”
Her eyes widen, “Everywhere?” The boss nods in response. She looks down the bottle, observing that the wired cage has been removed. At this point all eyes in the bar were on her, waiting for her next move. Fuck it. The woman shakes the bottle as much as she can.
Ambrosia flicks the cork, which goes flying. Her thumb immediately goes over the opening, and she uses every muscle in her arms to keep shaking. As the bottle begins spraying, everyone in the room simultaneously starts celebrating the mess she was making. Including Ambrosia, everyone is screaming at the top of their lungs as she points the bottle in different directions; the champagne getting everywhere. She couldn’t stop smiling, every moment of her night was making her cheeks hurt. This is the most anyone has seen her teeth in the past year. This is the best I’m gonna feel for a while.
The night has begun to wind down, it’s nearing 1:00. Half of the people who originally showed up have gone home to their families, spouses, and pets. Ambrosia sat at the front side of the bar, which was facing the entrance. Her chair was the very last one in the line up, so she sat with her back up against the cool brick wall; while Sierra conversed with a few others from a different law firm. At this point, Ambrosia’s social battery has run out completely, so she has no issue with sitting in silence, content with the buzz she still has going.
Off to her right, there were a bunch of booths lined up on the opposite wall of the bar. In one of them sat Jordan, Payton, and Alicia. Jordan is very nice to look at, she won’t lie. This is the perfect opportunity to fully indulge, while he’s not paying attention. Starting at the bottom, he was fitted with the black classic square toed loafers, a pair of black flared business pants, and his white button up. As her eyes raked up his lean, muscular figure, Ambrosia spent a few moments admiring the gorgeous angel and mace tattoos on his forearm. Tonight is the first time she has ever caught a glimpse of his tattoos, she finds the sight to be a pleasant surprise. Peeking out the top of his unbuttoned shirt is an outline of a star right in between his pecks. I wonder what else he’s hiding under there. The more she looks at him, the more obsessed she feels. I need to get to know him on a personal level before I start feeling this way. I shouldn’t be thinking like this.
It has been years since Ambrosia felt this gravitated towards anyone. It’s been even longer since she had gotten laid. It was mainly by choice, she decided that she needed to focus more on building her career. Unfortunately for her that meant having sex had to get removed from her schedule so that she could focus on her job.
Finally she looks up at his face, her heart starts pounding hard in her chest to find that he’s looking right back at her. Holy shit. The two maintain eye contact from across the bar, almost like they’re locked in a world where only the two of them exist. Ambrosia decides to scan over Jordan’s entire body again, slowly making her way down to his hips and tantalizingly moving back up to his eyes. His gaze doesn’t weaken, he continues staring right back underneath his low hanging eyelids.
Now is the time to make a move. Ambrosia leans in towards Sierra, and lets her know that she’s heading out for a smoke. She then walks up to where her black trench coat is hanging, Jordan following her every move with his eyes. The woman pulls out a pack of cigarettes, pulls one out and sticks it in her mouth. Simultaneously she slides into her coat. Then she side glances back at Jordan, the cig being held by her lipgloss coated lips. Finally, she slightly jerks her head towards the front door of the bar, wordlessly inviting him to follow her. After quickly excusing himself from the booth, Jordan grabs his black blazer, and quickly follows Ambrosia in her trail.
The two stand outside, on the sidewalk in front of the bar. No one else is in their presence besides a few passerbys. By the time Jordan got out there, Ambrosia was pulling another cigarette out of her pack, and holding it out as an offer. Without a word uttered between them, he takes it, and pulls out his lighter. The duo hold eye contact as he proceeds to light both of their cigs, starting with hers first. Her quick heart rate was unrelenting.
With his high status and perfect reputation, Ambrosia is sure Jordan would look bad dating someone within the firm. If you wanna be the best of the best, you must maintain a professional appearance in and outside of work.
Deciding to break the silence, Ambrosia states, “You don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to,” after exhaling a puff of smoke towards the night sky.
Jordan repeats her movements, his eyebrows furrow in confusion, “Why wouldn’t I wanna do this?”
The woman inhales another puff, pushing it back out as she speaks, “Because, it’s been a while,” she mumbles.
He takes a step closer, “It’s been a while for me too,” he admits.
Ambrosia raises her eyebrow, looking him up and down,”There’s no way in hell.”
Jordan takes another step towards her with a slight smirk, “I’m not kidding,” He is now standing so close to Ambrosia that he’s nearly looming over her. Blue eyes are peering down at her with a gaze that reeks of desperation. He scans over her face searching for any signs of discomfort. “Do you want me to stop?” His deep voice sent an indescribable sensation moving from her eardrums, all throughout the rest of her body.
Ambrosia couldn’t stop looking back at him, it took every bone in her body to not pounce on him right then and there. “No.” They continue their staring contest, knowing that kissing out in the open like this isn’t an option. I need to be on him right now.
Roman Bronze Double-Action Water-Pump, Probably 3rd Century CE From Bolsena, Italy, The British Museum, London
This pump had two pistons (a), which were raised and lowered by a rocking-beam (b). The pistons were housed in two cylinders (c). At the bottom of each cylinder was a non-return valve (d).
When one of the pistons was raised, the valve was pushed open and the water rose inside the cylinder. When the piston reached its highest point the valve closed, trapping the water inside the cylinder.
On its downward stroke, the piston forced the water out through a side pipe (e). It then passed through a second valve (f) into the central discharge pipe (g), where it drained away.
