#gretchenb

@scorneddaughter

Send “✆” for a MORNING text.

[text] why are there kiddylocks on all your cupboards[text] you realise I can just step over that safety gate right [text] did you seriously lock your windows[text] you hid my wand. what kind of[text] has anyone ever told you you have serious control issues

Send “✉” for a text that WASN’T SENT. 

[text] thank you for not pityi—[text] I wanted to say that I appreciate that you didn’t bring this up to Molly. She doesn’t need to worry ab—[text] you’re not a completely awful friend.[text] I don’t really think that your cottage smells like decaying bodies.[text] thank you for not flinching when you see my face [text] most of the time.

Send “☎” for a RUSHED text. 

[text] she’s coming over stay cool[text] no like actually cool not whatever that is[text] no. you be less orange[text] fu

Send “⁇” for a DRUNK text.

[text] maabye if you ddint [text] who even stands bhind someone when theyre breaknig into a secret lair?[text] fcuking helll e[text] i’m srory[text] i fucked up i’m os sorry[five minutes later][text] do yuo want to do laundry tomorrow?

Send “✿” for a SUGGESTIVE text. 

[text] [image has been sent][text] ;)

Send “ø” for a LATE NIGHT text.

[text] i’m sending dorcas over[text] open your damn door [text] your leg smells like old people

Send “✘” for a HATEFUL text.

[text] find some fucking friends, i can’t babysit you anymore.

Send “#” for a RANDOM text.

[text] do you ever think about how laundromats are the perfect microcosm of social behaviour?[text] i just saw a guy stick his chewing gum inside of an empty dryer.[text] now he’s taking his pants off[text] now he’s[text] i think i need to find a new laundromat 

Send “@” for a SCARED text.

[text] i went back [text] i can hear them outside the door i don’t think i’m getting out of this one[text] tell rita skeeter that i found it

Send “&” for a LOVING text.

[text] I really appreciate everything that you do for the order. i don’t think you get the credit that you deserve.[text] alcoholism is so important to us.

Send “%” for a CURIOUS text.

[text] i keep hearing this rumor that you were cursed at birth by an ancient seawitch[text] fact or fiction?

Send “ツ” for an EXCITED text.

[text] rise and shine, buttercup, it’s LAUNDRY day.[text] i’m outside[text] no you can’t just not go. the laundromat waits for no witch or wizard. i’m coming in.

Send “♀” for a HEARTBREAKING text. 

This was not how Gideon had envisioned spending his Sunday morning.

The first Howler had arrived on Wednesday, interrupting his third hour of intense study of his new (and improved shrine) to inform him he was a ‘selfish bloody prat’ who ‘didn’t think of anyone but himself’ and had quite probably ‘ruined my (her) life forever.’ Gideon suspected, after serious contemplation of the ashes that had crumpled all over one of his few remaining clean shirts, that Gretchen still might have been a bit irked about the whole backfiring curse thing.

The second had arrived on Thursday and gone into exceedingly explicit detail on exactly what she was going to do with his head once she’d removed it from his body. 

It was the fourth that had led Gideon to conclude that what Gretchen actually wanted (other than lasting hearing damage) was possibly an apology — and if his grand apology outing happened to coincide with laundry day it was only because he was nothing if not a practical man and there was nothing quite so satisfying as killing two birds with one stone.

“Cheer up, Bletchley, everybody loves the laundromat. I’ll buy you a milkshake after.”

Flip-flops slapped loudly against the grainy floors as the bell tinkled overhead, Gideon pointedly ignoring what he was sure to be a blisteringly withering glare with the kind of willful ignorance that his brother had once wielded to such great effect that Gideon was beginning to understand that he had clearly been onto something. If you ignored anything hard enough, you could pretend it wasn’t happening — like the particularly ugly velvet tracksuit that had constituted the last set of clean clothes to be found in his entire flat (from where it had come from, he’d yet to determine.) Raising the hand that wasn’t preoccupied in hauling both his and Gretchen’s overloaded laundry bags towards a heavily bearded man in a trenchcoat slumped in one of the waiting chairs and thumbing through a well-worn copy of the The Truthseeker he stage-whispered over his shoulder, “That’s Rick. He’ll tell you all about the — the illuminator if you ask nicely.”

“Illuminati,” Rick corrected without so much as looking up from his magazine.

“Illuminati,” Gideon agreed, dumping his laundry bag and Gretchen’s down onto two beaten up plastic chairs and daring for the first time to actually meet her face with a particularly forced expression of what might have been encouragement if it didn’t look quite so pained. “See, this is fun.”

PSYCHOTIC GIRL the black keys

oh no, just a psychotic girland I won't get lost in your world

KILL OF THE NIGHT gin wigmore

the street's a liari'm gonna lure you into the darkmy cold desireto hear the boom, boom, boom of your heart

DISASTER BUTTON snow patrol

I'm like a prisoner getting ready to talkI feel the blood in my handsand the threat in your walk

WOLF LIKE ME tv on the radio

baby doll I recognizeyou're a hideous thing insideif ever there were a lucky kind it'syou, you, you, you

BLOODY SHIRT to kill a king

what you want to do tonight?i got wounds to lick in lifeoh you've saidstanding like a stickthis tie could invert to be a noose instead