#{flashback}

The first abstraction

Small warnings: there's lots of eyes and some glitches

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Notes:

I was really excited to finally finish this part

I had the most fan making this, like I LOVE flashback scenes.. so I made one hehe

Ok so firstly, I want to address the line pomni said right after the flashback ("so caine isn't responsible for the abstractions")

I know caine super suspicious near the end so it probably looks like her conclusion doesn't add up

So, pomni didn't get the part when caine started talking to himself because kinger wasn't there to here it

So he didn't tell pomni about it thus she came to this conclusion.

I know the costume change for kinger can feel a bit random, But! It was important to me to get in, I put it there to give you a chance to look at their dynamic before everything changed

And you know I think it's a cute and sad moment between them

"You got in my head!"

Wayback machine. A fear submitted by Lucy to Deep Dark Fears - thanks!

Chapter 1: https://www.tumblr.com/taylorswift13131313131313/807293689361743872/if-things-were-different-footman-john-x?source=share

Warnings: Mild suggestiveness. Thank you for all of the love for the first chapter! I never could've expected how many people would read what I've written and actually like it enough to want me to carry on. Thank you to everyone who left such lovely comments including @maxverstappsthighs , @superstaargirl , @notmynameisaid , @beammeupthisplacesucks1 , @babyiscrying and @antisocialfiore you are tagged as promised :) Now, onwards we go!

Chapter 2

John was a flirt.

It was just in his nature. Anyone who knew him well enough could see through it immediately, of course. The power of John's charms had become quite the running joke among the staff of Bridgerton House, and they were quite often monopolised as a means of distraction in an hour of need:

"The cakes are not quite finished being decorated!"

"Send John up. He can stall until they're ready."

"These shoes are nearly polished, I just need five more minutes!"

"Send John up, they can just stare at him for five minutes. He is prettier than those shoes anyway."

"I've just spilled water all down myself, I'm supposed to be going upstairs now to serve tea!"

"Pour some water on John, bring him with you and I guarantee they will not even notice you are there."

More often than not, these days he found himself employed in a role that could be likened more to damage control on behalf of the more scandal-prone members of the upstairs family. Somehow, his job description now included chaperoning Miss Eloise to political rallies (and lying through his teeth to her mother that they had in fact been attending various fascinating lectures on flower arranging). It also fell to him to keep track of the various... colourful dalliances of one Benedict Bridgerton, so that it would be possible to locate him if the Dowager Viscountess suddenly wished to know where he was (and to be able to get to him first in order to warn him of his mother's impending wrath).

It usually was not difficult to avert Lady Bridgerton's attention away from the misadventures of her most unruly offspring, at least for a time. John had once overheard her muttering to herself about him; he did not mean to pry, but he was sure that he heard her say his name and his curiosity got the better of him. He listened long enough to hear (bizarrely) something about gardens, and something else that had sounded suspiciously akin to 'lie on top of me'. From that point on, he simply had to flash his signature smile and whatever she had been planning on asking would conveniently slip her mind until such a time as she could pull her eyes away from him. It would usually be at this point he would need to run. In fact, there seemed to be a lot more running in his job description than he had ever anticipated. Not that he minded, because all of that running had made him strong. Strong enough to carry all sorts of things, which of late just so happened to include not only the clumsiest of the Bridgerton sisters, but also the presently crushing weight of his ill-repressed very-much-not-platonic feelings towards her.

With y/n, it was different. It wasn't just that he couldn't use his charms on her the same way that he did with everyone else, it was that he found he did not want to. For all of his bravado and no matter how much he tried to convince himself he wasn't, the inescapable truth was that John was desperately, hopelessly, irretrievably, embarrassingly, achingly in love with her. It was a fact for which he berated himself every day, but there was no changing it.

His heart had been hers since he was 14 years old.

He was a hall boy back then, too young for any serious responsibilities and thus tasked mainly with menial chores for which the more senior staff were far too busy to be carrying out themselves. On this particular day, the day that would stick in his memory for all eternity as the turning point in his (up to then) purposeless existence, he had been helping to lay out the champagne flutes for a ball that was to take place in the evening.

Everything was going according to plan... until it wasn't.

It all happened in slow motion. One minute, the glass was in his hand. The next, it slipped. He looked on in horror as it fell, he reached out to catch it- but missed and had to just stand there watching as it shattered into pieces on the floor. He stood, frozen and wondering exactly what to do next. He had never had to deal with broken glass before; his family were never able to afford such luxuries (the luxury of owning drinking glasses I mean, not just bits of smashed up ones that would be ridiculous). So, when he knelt down and tried to pick one of the pieces up, he exclaimed in shock when it pierced his skin and promptly dropped it again.

It was this exclamation of pain that was the final straw for y/n, who had been hovering around the corner and watching this all unfold. The new hall boy had become an object of some interest for her. Forced to live a far more sheltered life than she wished, y/n had not been granted the opportunity to be in the company of practically any boys her own age (who were not relations of some kind or other). Therefore, the arrival of John to the house had caused quite the stir, what with his messy, brown hair and shining green eyes that made her feel things she could not quite articulate at the time. She could see from her hiding place that the boy was on the verge of tears, and decided that maintaining a safe distance was simply no longer an option. She ran over to him before any semblance of rationality in her brain had the chance to tell her it might be a bad idea. She probably wouldn't have listened anyway.

She crouched next to him. "Here," she said quietly, so as not to cause alarm, "Let me help you." She took the fan that had been dangling aimlessly from her wrist (a present from her mother which was plainly a poorly disguised attempt to increase her interest in society matters, shockingly it was not working in the slightest), and started to brush the pieces into a small pile. John could not take his eyes off of her. The little he knew thus far about the children of the household had led him to believe that none of them had the slightest inkling on how to clean up after themselves, let alone after someone else. Yet, here she was, as clear as day, helping him.

As she knelt near the glass, wondering how best to dispose of the evidence, y/n's eyes drifted to the small cut on John's right hand.

"You are injured!" She exclaimed in a shocked whisper, looking at him in consternation. "I read a book not two weeks ago on how best to treat minor ailments, may I look at it?" He nodded, and held out his hand to her. She hesitated, before taking it in hers in order to determine the damage. "It is not deep," She breathed a sigh of relief, for she did not know what she would have done if it had been. "But I must clean it." She looked around for water... there was none. Suddenly, she had an idea. Reaching up and carefully lifting one of the already-filled glasses from the table, she declared, "Champagne will have to do." Y/n, holding his hand in one of hers and the full flute in the other, looked at John hesitantly.

"Do it." He said, and with that she seemed to grow enough confidence to rinse the cut between his thumb and forefinger with a liquid that was worth more money than he could make in a year. Once she was satisfied that the cut was clean, y/n pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and wrapped it around his hand. She tied the makeshift bandage tight, and finally looked up at him.

A ray of sunlight drifted through a high window and settled upon her, its beams refracting in various directions off of the heap of shards that had formed between them (if a record had been made of this occurrence, it would probably be referred to by historians as the accidental creation of the world's first disco ball). Seeing the specks of light sparkle as they scattered across her already softly illuminated skin really wasn't helping to quell John's growing suspicion that this girl might in fact be some sort of angel. He was old enough now to know that meeting angels was not something that really happened to people but, when he looked at her, he could not help but feel he had found something... important. It was as though the entire trajectory of his life had been leading towards (and would be forever changed by) this moment.

A life in servitude had stretched off into the distance; his future a blurry, unwritten mystery. Now, John's life-sized question mark plagued him no longer. He had an answer. A calling. A destiny. Every minute of every day would be devoted to one singular goal: becoming worthy of y/n Bridgerton. The girl who was, at that moment, tipping broken glass from a (now) very perforated fan into a plant pot as he kept watch in case anyone should catch them. She would become the reason he woke up in the morning. The reason he worked harder than he had ever thought possible. In order to stay in her life, he knew he had to make himself somehow indispensable to the Bridgertons.

He just had to work out how.

Eventually, he did. His reputation for good work and, later, irresistible flirtation gave him stability in his station with them. It seemed bizarre that he only had this position because of something he had sworn to himself at 14 years old. The promises we make at 14 are rarely the ones that last, no matter how sure we are in the moment that we will keep them forever.

But she had made him a promise that day, too.

They had just stood up from the floor, and were dusting themselves off in an effort to look a bit more presentable.

"Thank you for helping me." Said John, sheepishly.

"You're welcome." Said y/n, with a small smile. She realised she had been looking at him for a moment longer than perhaps was proper, and quickly turned away. As she walked away from him, he could have sworn he heard her whisper, "I always will."

BABY MIKE WHEELER, BABY WILL BYERS, BABY JONATHAN BYERS - ST5 BTS

CASTING BY CARMEN CUBA