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(200129) ATEEZOfficial: [#HONGJOONG] Now we gonna take you there✨ #ATEEZ #에이티즈

WILMINGTON GAZETTEER, JNO. GILLETTE. PROP., it read. Wilmington’s newspaper; one of few in the Colony of North Carolina. One too many, if you asked Roger. He fought the urge to pick up a rock and hurl it through Jno. Gillette’s window. Instead, he yanked the sodden band off his head and, making an effort to tidy himself into some semblance of decency, turned toward the river and the Blue Bull.

She was there.

She was sitting by the hearth, her tailed hair sparking in the firelight, engaged in conversation with a young man whose smile Roger wanted to wipe off forcibly. Instead, he slammed the door behind him with a crash and started toward her. She turned, startled, and stared blankly at the bearded stranger. Recognition flashed in her eyes, then joy, and a huge smile spread across her face.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.” Then her eyes changed, as realization flared up like a brushfire. She screamed. It was a good full-bodied scream, and every head in the tavern snapped round at the sound of it.

“Damn you!” He lunged across the table, and got her by the arm. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

Her face had gone dead white, her eyes round and dark with shock. She jerked away, trying to free herself.

“Let go!”

“That I won’t! You’ll come with me, and ye’ll do it this moment!”

Sidling round the table, he got hold of her other arm, jerked her up, whirled her around and pushed her in front of him toward the door. …

She whirled on her bootheel and headed for the door, walking fast. Roger gave the taproom a menacing glare, to discourage anyone who thought of interfering, and followed her.

She whirled on him the instant they reached its shadows.

“What are you doing here, for God’s sake?”

“Looking for you, ye wee fool! And what in the name of all holy are you doing here? And dressed like that, God damn you!” He’d had the briefest look at her in her breeches and shirt, but it was enough.

In her own time, the clothes would have been so baggy as to be sexless. After months of seeing women in long skirts and arisaids, though, the blatant division of her legs, the sheer bloody length of thigh and curve of calf, seemed so outrageous that he wanted to wrap a sheet around her.

“Bloody woman! You might as well walk down the street naked!”

“Don’t be an idiot! What are you doing here?”

“I told you—looking for you.”

He took her by the shoulders, then, and kissed her, hard. Fear, anger, and the sheer relief of finding her were fused at once into a solid bolt of desire, and he found he was shaking with it. So was she. She was clinging to him, shaking in his arms.

“It’s all right,” he whispered to her. He buried his mouth in her hair. “It’s all right, I’m here. I’ll take care of you.”

She jerked upright, out of his arms.

“All right?” she cried. “How can you say that? For God’s sake, you’re here!”

There was no mistaking the horror in her voice. He grabbed her by the arm.

“And where the hell else should I be, with you tearing off into fucking nowhere and risking your bloody neck, and—why the hell did you do it?!”

“I’m looking for my parents. What else would I be doing here?” …

“Why?” she sobbed. “Why did you have to follow me? Didn’t you realize? Now what are we going to do!”

“Do? Do about what?” He couldn’t tell whether she was crying from anger or fear—both, he thought.

She stared up at him through strands of tangled hair.

“Getting back! You have to have somebody to go to—somebody you care for. You’re the only person I love at that end—or you were! How am I going to get back, if you’re here? And how will you get back, if I’m here?”

He stopped dead, fear and anger both forgotten, and his hands clamped tight on her wrists to stop her hitting him again.

“That’s why? That’s why you wouldn’t tell me? Because you love me? Jesus Christ!” — Drums Of Autumn

__________

Photo: Starz  Gifs: @thewanderingace​

Drums Of Autumn, Chapter 40, Diana Gabaldon, 1996

I know that

Having to deal with the reality of someone

And them having to deal with the reality of me

It's tough

But I've never felt more inspired

Just look at me