#-rotating him in my brain- Baby boy you have so many problems

[sege-h]

Sharp's greatest fear is betrayal. He used to see it as something he could maybe deal with. He was still terrified his newfound friend would betray him one day, but he figured that it'd be the same as it ever was. That he'd get away from it, deal with the pain, and be on his own again. Familiar territory, but one he didn't want to go back to.

Nowadays it's something he expects far less, but he's still terrified of it, even moreso than before. Because he feels like if it happened, it'd be justified, and there'd be no fighting back against it. And if he got through it anyway, the aftermath is what he's most afraid of. He doesn't think he'll be able to survive on his own again, not now that he knows what it's like to truly let people into his life.

Zel is afraid of failing to protect what's important- namely Kalin and the forest. He doesn't see that as the only purpose in his life like he did when he was originally summoned, but he still sees himself as a guardian of sorts. He's not here just to be a guardian, he's here to experience life too. But life wouldn't be as good if he didn't have who and what matters to him the most, so he has to protect it.

He uh. Didn't have a good time during the metal virus.

#7: What is your OC's greatest fear?

[captmickey]

Been thinking about the Plunderbunnies a little but all I can really do rn is rotate them in my brain, so I wanted to ask... you got any headcanons to share? Maybe regarding their wedding, or being new parents with Boybrush?

Oh boy do I!

....just realized I shout that everytime someone asks me about headcanons and the such.

But yes! Yes I do! I have thought about it intensely for... well, ever. Especially in regards to their wedding. So lets break it down by each thing because I'm that person

In regards to their wedding:

-I always loved the idea that Guybrush had to get his wedding suit tailored because he is both very tall and very lanky. But because of his nerves getting the best of him and imagining all the worst case imaginable scenarios, he shakes like a leaf which causes needles to poke him which makes him panic even more (a.k.a ask me about my 'Guybrush has a phobia of needles' headcanon) and luckily Haggis sees what's happening and manages to calm Guybrush's nerves.

-Thanks to Return, Guybrush wrote with Elaine the invites. He added the haiku and it was a surprise hit... don't ask him to write any more poems/haikus... it was a one time thing.

-Grubby hands is I.... Guybrush stomped the glass at the wedding. If you know, you know.

-I don't know why, but I loved the idea of Wally being a part of Elaine's bridal party over Guybrush's. So Carla and Wally definitely threw an excellent bachelorette party.

-The Barber Quartet were Guybrush's groomsmen. (If Winslow had known Guybrush then, absolutely would be his Best Man).

-Guybrush and Elaine dated for a bit longer before they tied the know officially. Guybrush proposed properly and with a (thankfully) uncursed ring.

-Elaine made the uncursed ring her earring as seen in Tales because one, too big to wear as a ring and two, it's her good luck charm since Guybrush went to great lengths to craft it for her.

In regards to Boybrush:

-Everybody when they heard the news initially panicked that Guybrush would be a terrible father because he's that much of a goof. He not only destroyed but obliterated that fear by being the best husband/father there is.

-Elaine, admittedly, was insulted on Guybrush's behalf that everyone kept asking her if she's feeling safe around him.

-Guybrush stayed up late and read as many parenting/baby books there is so he can take care of Elaine and their soon to be kid. It is safe to say he's the most knowledgeable pirate in that regard.

-Guybrush also panicked endlessly if he was even fit to be a dad. Not that he didn't want to be... he did. Badly. But he feared that everyone's assumption on him had some validity. Elaine had to calm him down that he would be fine... and he calmed her down as well that she would be an excellent mother.

-They were each other's cheerleaders throughout the whole thing.

-It was Guybrush's idea to stay on land during the final months of the pregnancy. He read too many books and the idea that they could be caught in a storm or a battle when it was time scared him.

-Because Meathook moved away, they took residence in his place and refurbished it to be a proper home. They still refer to their ship as home, but this is their "in-between sailing" home.

-Carla saw the extreme lengths Guybrush was going through for Elaine that she had no problem stepping in to help to let him catch some sleep. He was trying his hardest and Elaine would stare, smirk, and go "told you so."

-Winslow and Anemone were the only two to not judge but they knew not to overwhelm either. If they were needed, the Threepwoods knew where to find them.

-After Boybrush was born, Guybrush held him and immediately felt a shift: being a father and a husband was far more important to him. He still loved being a pirate, but that was easily third place.

-Whenever Boybrush woke up in the middle of the night, Guybrush would wake to take care of him... Elaine has done much of the work and he feels this is the least he can do.

-That being said, Elaine has caught him dead asleep with Boybrush in his arms in the rocking chair. She tells him it's okay that she takes care too.

-It shocked Guybrush how quickly Boybrush falls asleep in Elaine’s hold. He has to tell stories to get the child to sleep.

-One time Elaine went to Carla to help with gubernatorial work... they heard snoring and found Guybrush asleep on the couch with Boybrush on his chest drinking from the baby bottle.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

the People have requested my book report on The Library at Mt. Char so this is now a Mt Char book club.

if you have not read The Library at Mt Char there is no reason to keep reading. I hope you're having a nice day, stay safe and don't do drugs.

So Mt Char has a couple of problems, but in my opinion only one grave problem.

Not a grave problem:

Erwin doesn't need to be in this book. An astonishing amount of ink is spilled on giving us Erwin's POV and I am at a loss in regards to what that's supposed to bring to the story. I mean, it's kind of neat to see Carolyn's "trick shot" from the POV of one of the people being manipulated, but that perspective could have just been provided by Steve. Everything Erwin does of any plot significance could have been done by Steve, a character who actually matters.

Please note that I don't hate Erwin, he's perfectly fine as characters go, he just contributes nothing, and it is baffling that he and Carolyn get the last scene in the book (instead of just ending on her reunion with Michael, a scene that was emotionally affecting and felt like a natural end point to her story). We are taking no questions, Erwin needed to be cut.

Also not a grave problem in my opinion, but I am sure others feel differently and I understand why they would:

Yo, the scope of what the catalogs cover is mad vague. I mean, I get that that's the point: when you have a character whose magic powers are "anything that has to do with death or murder," that's a broad license, and I'm fine with that. These are supposed to be demi-gods. I don't require a rigorously explicated magic system.

But then like...why can't Jennifer, the healer, also heal minds? That seems weird. Or like, it's implied that she kinda can, maybe, but none of the kids talk about their therapy sessions with Jennifer: they explicitly call out that she heals their bodies. But then she talks about how Margaret and David are sick (meaning mentally) in a way she can "no longer help?" Aren't you supposed to be the God Of Healing? Why can't you help anymore? And were you actually trying to help them before - or anyone else? That's never shown. You could have just said you only healed bodies, not minds, but then it's repeatedly implied that she CAN diagnose mental and emotional problems (and therefore should probably be able to do something about them).

So that's weird.

Or like, why is there Alicia, who "sees the future," and Rachel, who "sees possible futures?" That, uh, just sounds like the author was running out of ideas. Also, if Alicia could see the future, she probably shouldn't have been in that house when the SWAT team hit, yeah?

Stuff like that. The magic the kids can do is very "they have the powers the author needs them to have when the author needs them to have them, and they can't do anything the author would find inconvenient for them to do" but that's not a deal breaker for me because overall the vibe being put off by their various magical specialties works for me. Still, there were ways of getting us where we needed to go without begging quite so many questions.

Also not a grave problem, although more of a problem than the other stuff:

You know that anime trope where a super-genius character is having an entire conversation with another super-genius character through a screen, and it's revealed that the whole conversation was a distraction and pre-recorded so that Character 2 could Complete His Scheme against Character 1? And used his super-genius brain to predict every single thing Character 1 would say? And your suspension of disbelief staggers bloodied into the alleyway and collapses because you're really trying to hang in there, Code Geass, but that's fucking stupid, you're asking for me to believe that this character's intelligence is flat-out supernatural now and you've given me no reason why that should be?

That's how I feel about Carolyn, by the time she takes over the Library. Like, okay. The kids canonically have not even been at the Library long enough for any of them to master their catalogues except for Jennifer. None of them but Jennifer are masters of even their own subject.

Carolyn has been studying in secret from multiple catalogues - which is cool! I like how she slowly reveals over the course of the latter half of the book that she has powers from other people's specialties.

...But like...

She seems close to mastering her own catalogue. She is a competent healer and can raise the dead (Jennifer's catalogue). She can block attempts to read her mind, beats David in a fight, and understands how to kill Father (David's catalogue). She speaks lion and controls the dogs that surround the Library (Michael's catalogue). She could make the mathy "Denial That Rends" thing that kicks off the whole plot, and she can make a new sun and correct orbital rotations around it (Peter's catalogue). She can predict the future with such specificity that she knows how to cause Steve to drop a clip of bullets while he's being attacked by dogs exactly where Erwin will need to pick it up later (Rachel's catalogue, also this one is stupid, she could have just given Erwin an extra clip or something, but whatever).

That's half the catalogues. Carolyn doesn't seem prodigiously more intelligent than the other kids. She's smart, sure, but they're all weird demi-gods with a genius for their specialties. The rest of them haven't even mastered their own catalogue, and I'm supposed to swallow that Carolyn has attained 'competent or better' status in six? When she has to research five of them in secret? Without falling behind in her own studies?

It would be fine if they had all been masters of their own catalogues for years and years; that would mean they would begin to stagnate, while Carolyn kept learning. But that's not the case. By the end I wasn't impressed anymore at Carolyn's resourcefulness, it just felt like she could do anything and everything, shh, don't ask questions, she's the Chosen One so she just can.

The reason this isn't a grave problem to me is because Carolyn's journey isn't about becoming more powerful: it's about her emotional journey, which isn't affected by her being stupidly OP for no reason by the end of the book. She still sucked at the things that mattered, like "feelings" and "relationships" and "not being a shitty person." But I do think it hurt the story. I should be cheering on my protagonist when her wild schemes come together, not rolling my eyes.

Anyway. All that was the aperitif. Let's talk about

THE GRAVE AND GLARING PROBLEM AT THE CENTER OF MT CHAR.

So everything that happens in the book stems from Carolyn's thoroughly justified hatred of Father (and David, but David was made that way by Father). Father treated her, and all of the other kids, with extravagant cruelty. If you haven't read the book in a while, here's a sample of the kinds of things Father did to the kids, or, if David did them, that Father did nothing to prevent:

- Cooked David alive over 2 full days in a giant bronze bull (and made the rest of the kids bring the fuel)

- Put Michael's eyes out with a hot poker every night for 2 weeks (and made the rest of the kids watch)

- Murdered Margaret every few days, often in drawn-out and painful ways

- Made Rachel repeatedly give birth, raise the babies to about 9 months, then murder them with her own hands

- Allowed David to rape all 11 of the other kids (except Jennifer, probably because she was the healer and he wanted to stay on her good side)

- Allowed David to crucify, brutalize and rape Carolyn and Peter

- Gave Carolyn a loving new family for a year when she was nine years old (those two deer), then had David murder them in front of her and blame it on her for not remembering her homework well enough, then served the two deer at a feast to 'celebrate' her returning to the family

- Whippings, skinnings, and bone-breakings as standard disciplinary actions

Whoo-ee! Okay! We are talking about mythological cruelty. I am fine with this! The story takes place on a mythological scale. As outlandish as all of that is, the cruelty feels proportionate in a story about killing and replacing god. Father is cruel, indifferent, controlling, and alien. I have no questions, Carolyn please proceed with your revenge. We seemed on track for a tale in which Carolyn defeats Father, but in doing so she runs the risk of becoming him. Will she step back from the brink and retain her humanity after all of the trauma and brutality she's endured? Let's find out!

And then

and then.

Oh boy.

And then.

...It turns out, Father is a good guy after all.

And let me be clear: THIS IS NOT, IN AND OF ITSELF, A PROBLEM.

By the time you learn that Father is actually benevolent, and loved those kids, and cares about being a responsible steward to the world, and tried to leave the universe a better place than he found it, and genuinely regretted the suffering he inflicted on them when they were growing up, it feels kind of...natural? Like, I was surprised, but also not, because there were 90 pages of book left and Carolyn had already become god. This seemed like a thematically meaningful place to take the rest of the story.

It turns out Father was training Carolyn to replace him the entire time. He had to make her hate David because it was important that she "defeat a monster" on her path to becoming god. (It's not explained why she had to defeat a monster, but sure, okay; it's the kind of mythic feat that fits with the story we're in.)

Why did he choose Carolyn to be his successor? Well, originally he chose David, but David wasn't strong enough: every time Carolyn was the monster in David's story, she defeated him, and went on to rule the universe as an unspeakable tyrant. Since Carolyn always won, Father swapped their roles. He knew he had made the right choice when he put David into the bronze bull, and heard David begging for mercy: because when Carolyn had been the fated monster, she had never begged.

...Okay, so...hang on.

Hang on.

The only rule that we've established on "how to become god" is "you have to defeat a monster," right? I'll even grant you for free that it has to be a monster who is personally meaningful to you, although that part is never stated. Overcoming a great evil which has cast you down and abused you many times before, sure, okay.

...Why the FUCK did all that other awful shit have to happen??

I did not have this question when Father was just evil! That was a good enough explanation! But now that he's not evil, you HAVE TO EXPLAIN why he treated all of the kids so brutally!

Like dude you're GOD. If you need a monster for Carolyn, I'm sure you can make that happen without TORTURING CHILDREN FOR DECADES.

There didn't even need to be any other children! You could have two kids: the languages-kid, who is the chosen one (the chosen one has to be the languages-kid so they can read the Onyx Codex or whatever it was called at the end, the one written by Original God), and the war-and-murder kid, who is the monster. They could have just been forbidden to read the other codices, if it's important to you that your chosen one still prove her resourcefulness or whatever.

Why include all of the other kids??? It wasn't to give your chosen one a sense of family: Carolyn didn't feel close to any of them except for Michael (who I liked, but whose contribution to the plot was negligible).

Or keep the kids! But then why make them, and Carolyn, hate you?? You could just say, "Hey Carolyn, I am raising you to be my successor, you have to figure it out yourself because part of proving your worthiness is this kind of abstract, big-picture thinking, but I love you and whatever you end up deciding to do, just believe in yourself." And meanwhile you're off torturing the fated monster in order to get him piping hot and ready to be served.

Was the idea that Carolyn had to endure so much horror in order to prove she was 'tough enough' to be god?? Because that's not how trauma works! Kids who have been brutally traumatized are usually not made tougher by the experience! A fact that even the book understands, because 10 of the 12 kids are completely destroyed by their upbringing (I'm giving marginal exceptions to Michael and Carolyn herself).

And like

if Father doesn't have a good reason for having treated them so badly, the whole book falls apart!

Because getting revenge for that cruelty is Carolyn's whole motivation!

We are clearly supposed to feel okay about Father going to make a new universe at the end of the book: he's going with his cool tiger friend and that little girl with the connection to the elemental plane of joy who used to be the sun, he's happy to see Carolyn embracing compassion and kindness, which means he cares about compassion and kindness. He invented light and pleasure. Carolyn does nothing to try to stop him from going. He seems like a pretty good candidate for god. And I do feel okay with him leaving! I was convinced! Father is not evil after all!

But then you have! to explain! the abuse!!

It can be a throwaway line!! "Carolyn realized that everything she and her siblings went through had to happen the way it did, because [X]," embedded in the middle of a paragraph! That would have been enough! But I need an explanation!

"They were raised the way Father was raised himself" WHY? He was raised by the Emperor, an on-the-record awful fucking dude! Father proceeded to rule the universe in a far more benevolent way than the Emperor did, why would he feel like he had to raise his kids the way the Emperor raised him?

"Carolyn needed to overcome challenges on her path to godhood" how is TRAUMATIZING HER SO BADLY SHE ALMOST BECOMES INHUMAN - SOMETHING YOU WERE OSTENSIBLY TRYING TO PREVENT, see Steve being preserved as something that could give her hope, etc - A "CHALLENGE??"

Again, none of this is a problem if Father is just evil! YOU CHOSE to make him not evil! And that's fine!! I think it's a good choice for the story actually!! But then you have to, you have to, HAVE TO explain why all of that bad shit happened!

Because all of that bad shit is the reason Carolyn made there be a story.

And it turns out it doesn't make sense.

[echoalyssa]

Used | JJ Maybank

gif by @anakin-skywalker

WARNING : There IS heavy mentions of rape in this. Please proceed with caution and don’t force yourself to read it if you can’t. If this is a trigger to you, DO NOT read this. I love all of you and please don’t ever hesitate to come to me if you are ever struggling or need someone to talk to.

The fire crackles warmly ahead of you, the Pogues had decided to camp out around a fire on the beach tonight and of course you joined. Plus it was probably mandatory. With how many Kooks there were, the Pogues would have to show up to hold their ground.

You’re leaning back against a warm chest, his button up shirt was never actuall buttoned. He has an arm over your shoulder, tangling his long fingers with your own, his head resting atop yours because of the height difference. He laughs at something that John B had said and you smile, solely because of how comforting the laugh of him had become. As well as the soft rise and fall of his chest and the fact that if you turned your head and pushed against him, there you would find the soft rhythmic thrum of his heartbeat nestled in his chest.

His other hand is holding a beer but occasionally he’ll release the bottle with a couple of his fingers and brush them across your hair. Today it fell loose around your shoulders, wavy from the time you had spent in the water with little braids scattered throughout. When you first began braiding your hair this way you would add little silver rings in the braids to make the look fancier but had quickly abandoned the idea with how fast they would fall out and get lost during your excursions with the Pogues.

Kiara says something and John B swats at her but you’re not entirely sure what she had said. You’re too lost in the way that JJ’s fingers are dragging down your wrist and playing with the different string and twine bracelets around your wrist. One of which JJ had made for you, it was probably the worst, design wise, that was on your wrist but it meant the most to you and it held up.

JJ takes another swig of his beer and then groans when he finds it empty. You giggle at his exasperation and push yourself up from your spot on the ground. You rotate to one side, your body having locked up and become stiff, and then the other.

You pluck the beer can from his fingers and then bend and press your lips to his. His fingers slide into your hair and he pulls you in, his tongue sliding into your mouth as he deepens the kiss for just a second before turning you around in the direction of the drinks. His hands linger on your hips and you know that he’s admiring his view before you knock his hands off your hips and stick your tongue out at him.

“Beautiful” He throws in your direction and you flush.

You pick your way across the sand in the direction of the cooler, suddenly feeling the urge to get a drink for yourself as well as your boyfriend. A cooler breeze blows though your hair and swirls around your body. Goosebumps immediately show up after the path that the breeze had taken. You’re wearing a black crop top and denim festival shorts, a bandana around the wrist opposite from the bracelets.

You’ll have to steal your boyfriends shirt, knowing he’d give it to you without a mind. Being that he was so warm all the time, he wouldn’t notice the cool breeze.

When you get to the table there’s a Kook boy there.

“Hey baby!” He quips.

You wince, clearly he didn’t know about your relationship with JJ... or maybe he did and that’s why he was trying to use a nickname like that.

“Just two beers” You say, as politely as possible, trying not to cause any problems with any kooks.

He glances around, trying to figure out where you had come from.

“Are you new here?” He asks and you shake your head.

He reaches below the table and grabs two beers then pops open one and hands it to you. “Want to come hang out with me and my friends?”

And if he didnt have such a douche bag personality he may have been a decent looking boy. You smile at him again politely, “I’ve got to get back to my boyfriend”

A muscle in his cheek twitches and reaches for you bottle, grasps it for a fraction of a second and then pulls back and hands you the second beer. “Okay okay, I get it. See you around?”

You nod and quickly head back to your boyfriend, settling back into his arms. You hand him his beer and then raise yours to your lips. The strangeness of the previous situation is weighing on you and you down the beer in almost two sessions. John B is ogling you, very confused as to why you have suddenly decided to chug your drink and JJ is laughing and cheering you on.

Normally you can hold your alcohol pretty well, but today the world is already spinning. You feel fuzzy and giggly and you suddenly have to pee. “Ive gotta peeeeeee” You say, turning your head and literally licking JJ’s cheek. He swats at you and pushes you in the direction of the woods. Normally he offers to come with you but today he’s engrossed in his conversation with Pope and just lets you go.

You stumble into the trees, giggling and running your fingertips across the bark. You’re stumbling farther into the woods than normal. Normally you just go in far enough to squat and pee where nobody can see you but you’re so entranced with the way the world is spinning, it’s just so pretty.

“Hi again pretty girl.” You spin, confused. And see the boy that had given you the beer. You should be suspicious but you’re just giggling, bent over at the waist.

He moves closer, and then you feel his hand in your hair. You try to jerk upwards but the world is slowing now, it shouldn’t be. You had only had one beer, something doesn’t add up here but you can’t think, your brain is moving too slowly and you’re sinking to the ground and he’s getting so close. And then... the world blacks out.

~~~

When you come to you aren’t sure where you are. It’s cold, freezing actually, and you can hear a voice yelling your name.

“Y/N! Where are you?!”

The voice belongs to your boyfriend, you would know that voice anywhere despite how slow your brain is working.

The edges of your vision is blurred and then you hear your name again and JJ is running towards you.

There’s a look of horror on his face but you’re drifting back out of consciousness again and he’s gone.

~~~

JJ runs toward his girlfriend, his mind racing. He can see her lying on the ground, she’s not conscious and he can see that. But he can also see the bruises that have appeared on her skin, he can see that her shorts are gone and she’s lying bare. He knows this isn’t her doing but he can’t bring together the words to his mind of what this is. He knows she’s been drugged and used. But he doesn’t want to believe it. He wants to pretend this is a nightmare, where he can just wake up.

He’s used to being knocked down, he’s used to the abuse and the horribleness of life but he’d always been able to protect you, up until now.

She’s been... she’s been raped. And he knows it. He rushes to you, tries to cover you as best as possible before he’s running back to the pogues, yelling for their help.

~~~

You wake up again in JJ’s bed. It’s familiar and warm, but the effects of the alcohol have worn off now and your brain is finally working and you’re sewing together the pieces of what had happened.

It comes rushing back in a flash, you don’t remember it actually happening but you remember getting the beer from the Kook, you know that he had grabbed your drink unnecessarily. You remember heading into the trees to pee, and then losing consciousness. And then you remember JJ calling for you, seeing him run to you and you remember the feelings of your body and it clicks in you.

And you let out a rough sob. Bending over the side of the bed and dry heaving as the realization hits you like a ton of bricks.

The door flies open and your boyfriend emerges in the doorway and you sob again, scrambling away from him. He’s your boyfriend and you love him but you can’t be around him, not with how violated you feel. Not with the way you can’t even look at him, hear his breathing, see the way his body is moving.

This Kook had ruined you, and left you to pick up the pieces. No man or woman should ever do such a thing as this. You’d just never thought that it could ever happen to you.

[labyrinthof-fan-fiction]

Two Ships Passing in the Night {7}

Part 7

Series Masterlist

Spock x fem!Reader, Bones x fem!Reader

AOS

Summary: Through Jim’s planning, the Defiance and Enterprise are on shore leave, in conveniently, the same planet. It’s time for you to confront Leonard and Spock, or maybe for them to confront you.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who’s liking this, asking to be added to the taglist, you’re keeping me going, thank you for sticking with my nonexistent upload schedule! If you want to be added to the taglist, just let me know!

Warnings: Alcohol Consumption, Alcoholic Tendencies (let’s face it, Leonard has a drinking problem), swearing.

Word Count: 2,631

You sat on the bridge of the ship, fingers tapping on the arm rest of your chair. You had one week until you were meeting the Enterprise for shore leave and you were starting to wonder why you had agreed to this? And you were inevitably going to have two confrontations that you had been pushing into the deep recesses of your mind. Spock’s message had made you begin reflecting on the past years, when you were a part of Starfleet Academy, then the crew of the Enterprise. Leonard and you had become fast friends at the academy, even though you were on separate tracks. Jim had been your first friend within the Command group, his father’s reputation was a burden for him, but he was determined.

Being around Jim reminded you of a saying your mother had aways told you, “Surround yourself with great people and you will achieve greatness.” He was a good friend, but the first time you met Leonard something had clicked between the two of you.

“C’mon, it’s just going to be me and my roommate, you’d like him.” Jim said one Friday walking with you after class, giving your shoulder a bump with his.

“Jim, you cannot be setting me up with your roommate, I see enough of your ugly mug.” You retorted.

“I’m not setting you two up.” Jim said, holding his hands up, “I’m merely introducing two people.”

“That is exactly what someone who is trying to set up their friends would say.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He said, “But if you don’t want to just lock yourself in your room tonight, eight o’clock.” He winked and started trotting away from you.

You grumbled as you made your way back to your room. The day turned to night and you found yourself alone in your room. You roommate had pranced out of the room once her classes were finished. You sighed to yourself. “We have two choices.” You muttered. “Stay alone, and get sad, or go hang out with Jim.”You changed into your jeans and threw on a top, you weren’t too worried about your appearance, it was just Jim and his roommate. You walked to the bar, you entered and saw that the younger cadets had shown up in uniform, hoping that their position would get them laid.

You felt an arm wrap around your shoulder and looked to your right to see Jim. “You made it!” He said excitedly.

“I’m here.” You answered, shrugging out from under his arm.

“Let’s introduce you to Bones.” He said, leading you over to a table in the corner where a man sat. He had what seemed like a permanent scowl on his face and a glass of whiskey in front of him. Jim made introductions and motioned to the open seat next to ‘Bones.’

Not setting you up my ass. You thought to yourself as Jim made his way up to the bar. You looked over at the man next to you, “So, how’d you get the name Bones?”

The man chuckled, “Doctor Leonard McCoy, I made the mistake of opening my mouth the first time I met Golden Boy over there and now I’m doomed with a nickname.” He took a sip of his whiskey. “My ex-wife is the reason I joined. Told the kid that she had left me with just my bones, and my nickname was born.”

“And he’s been a sad sack of shit since.” Jim said, putting your drink in front of you. “So, what’s your roommate doing tonight?” He asked, eyes scanning the room.

You took a sip of the drink he had placed in front of you. “Uh-uh, she’s off limits.”

Jim pouted and glanced around the room, searching for someone to amuse him for the night. He clapped his hands together, “Alright you two, don’t cause too much trouble.” He got up from the table and made his way over to a girl at the bar.

“Jesus.” Leonard muttered, gently swirling the whiskey in his glass.

“Let’s drink to the poor girl’s health.” You said, holding your glass out towards him. A small smirk came across his lips as he tapped the glass against yours.

“Amen.” You both took a swig of your drinks and a silence fell between the two of you. “Look, I know Jim was trying to set us up and if you don’t want to be stuck at a bar with a sad divorcé, here’s your chance to run kid.”

You glanced around the room at all the cadets circling to find someone to take home for the night, and honesty, that just wasn’t too appealing to you. “Considering the prospects, I think I’ll take my chances with you. So what made you go into medical?”

Leonard’s eyes widened for a moment, surprised that you actually were willing to stay. “Well, I was between a rock and a hard place, but have always wanted to be a doctor, not necessarily on a star ship, but we take the jobs we can.”

Conversation flowed easily between the two of you, it was comfortable. You both lost track of time and the night was cut off by the bartender calling final call. You glanced at the man next to you.

“I guess that’s the end of the night.” He murmured. “How far away is your dorm?”

“Not too far.” You answered, standing up.

Leonard stood up, “Call me old fashioned, but I think it’s only right to walk you home, would that be alright?”

You smiled, “That would be fine.”

The walk was filled with more conversation, it was odd how easy it was to talk to him. When you arrived at your dorm you weren’t sure how to say good night to him. Leonard shuffled his feet before breaking the silence. “I had fun tonight, but don’t you dare tell Jim.”

You laughed, “Ditto.” You held your hand out to him. “Here’s to surviving friendship with Jim Kirk.”

Leonard chuckled and shook your hand. “Good Night.”

“Night.” You said as you watched his retreating back.

The next weeks your Fridays fell into a pattern, meet Jim and Leonard at the bar, watch Jim find someone at the bar, then make fun of the cadets in the bar. A quick friendship had formed between you and Leonard, Jim kept trying to nudge the two of you into more, but you both assured him that you were just friends. You were inseparable, almost irritatingly so to anyone who was around. And now you found yourself debating every moment you had with Leonard. The nights spent talking at the bar, then eventually the nights just talking in dorms, aboard the Enterprise. How you always sought him out when you were unsure or just needed someone. How no matter the hour or how busy he was, he had time for you. How he held you when you cried over Spock, how he stayed with you when you realized you were pregnant. How he promised to stand by you no matter what. How you needed him. God, you needed him like you needed air. And that’s when you realized, you loved Leonard McCoy. That damn snarky, surly doctor with a heart of gold, you loved him.

The week passed quickly and in what felt like no time you were beamed onto the planet’s surface. The planet Jim had chosen was basically a glorified resort, but an entire planet. Which was not a surprising choice for Jim.

“Captain.” You heard a voice greet from your left. You raised your eyes and saw Spock, you had to admit, this was the first time you think you had ever seen the Vulcan look a bit nervous.

“Commander Spock.” You responded in kind.

He paused for a moment, you could almost see the gears in his brain rotating to form the perfectly phrased response. “I was hoping that we might be able to talk?” His eyes moved down from your face to your stomach.

You closed your eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “I think that would be a good idea.”

“Jim said there’s a quiet restaurant around the corner if you would like to go there, or we could walk.” Spock answered, eyes never leaving you.

“Real food sounds great, we’ve grown tired of replicated food.” You answered a small smile on your face as Spock gestured in the direction of the restaurant and fell into step beside you.

Spock’s eyes met yours when you both had finished your meals, you knew this was going to be a heavy conversation. “So, what did you want to talk about?” You asked, knowing damn well what the man wanted to talk to you about.

“I know that the message I had sent you was sudden and after my reaction at the hospital, I’m grateful that you’re willing to speak with me tonight.” He began. “ I know that I have made mistakes and that my actions have hurt you. And I apologize for that.”

You saw the sincerity in his eyes. “I forgive you and I want to apologize for keeping the baby from you, for planning to keep it secret. It was a stupid idea, you have every right, I was scared. You have every right as the father to this child to be a part of their life.”

“I will only be as involved as you allow, I do not want to overstep.” Spock began, but you cut him off.

“You are his father, that means we are equal partners in this as parents. I will not restrict you from him.”

Spock’s shoulders relaxed, but still tension knitted his brow. “You need to know that I also care for you, but I cannot give you a romantic relationship, it would be a disservice to you. And I have already done far too many disservices to the woman who is the mother of my child.”

You bit your bottom lip and gave him a small smile, “That’s alright, I don’t think we were meant for each other in that way.”

He chuckled, “There’s that human optimism, I thought Jim was the only one who had it.”

“Where do you think I learned it?” You asked a laugh falling from your lips.

Spock shifted in his seat, preparing to bring up a part of the conversation that he was less than pleased to present. “I want you to know, in my opinion, I would not mind sharing fatherly duties with Leonard McCoy, he is a good man, he would be a good fatherly figure for a child. He might feel differently, but I do not mind.” You stared at the Vulcan, mouth gaping, he chuckled. “I honestly was surprised when we had our….time together. I had always assumed the two of you would be a couple.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t all be that perceptive.” You answered once you shut your mouth.

“I hardly believe that. From my observations of humans, you all seem blind to the obvious, at least when it comes to emotions.” He teased.

“And Vulcans are completely logical, all the time.” You said, nudging his knee with yours under the table.

“Always.” He answered, quirking his brow for a moment, causing you to laugh. He glanced over at the clock on the wall. “We should probably find our other halves, no doubt they’ve gotten themselves worked up in unnecessary worry.”

Leonard sighed, he had finally completed all the medical checks on the crew members for them to be allowed free on shore leave. Jim had commed him to tell him that the Defiance had arrived. He knew that it would take you some time to finish up your duties as Captain and remained on the Enterprise for a while longer. He changed from his medical uniform into his civilian clothes. He glanced at himself in the mirror, he looked tired, probably from staying up too damn late this week. He was nervous, the two of you hadn’t spoken for a while, aside from his updates about Jim’s antics and checking on your condition.

Once he was beamed onto the planet’s surface he glanced around, looking for you, and he saw you. Rather, he saw your retreating form, along side the silhouette of a science officer he knew too well. His heart sank into his stomach. You were going off with Spock, it made sense, he was the father of your child, and Leonard had guilted him into making amends of some kind with you. But nerves created a knot in the pit of his gut.

It was no secret to him that you had strong feelings for Spock, maybe out of a feeling of obligation Spock would extend some kind of companionship to you. He was brought back to his previous argument with Spock. She loves you more than she could ever love me. That sentence had worn on his mind for so long. Leonard had tried to shake that sentence from his brain, Spock had been angry, he had started having more emotional outbursts following the death of his mother and planet. Maybe he just was letting his emotions get the best of him, Leonard had scoffed at himself. While Spock’s emotions were occasionally showing themselves, there was always logic backing them, and one thing about Spock’s logic, he had no reason to lie.

Leonard’s feet carried him into a bar, he walked in and saw some crew mates milling about, Uhura was in a corner nursing a drink, a sullen look on her face. A knife twisted in his gut, if she was here, and Spock was with you, he tried to shake the dread from his mind. He ordered a double of whiskey and made his way over to her.

“Nice night.” He said, she raised her eyes to his.

She gave him a small eye roll and gestured to the empty seat across from her. She took a sip of the drink, “Nice night for our fates to be decided, and we aren’t in the room where it’s happening.”

Leonard swirled the whiskey in his glass. “He didn’t tell you anything?”

Uhura chuckled, “He told me he intended to have a conversation with her, not much more. Told me not to worry.”

Leonard took a sip of whiskey, “Don’t worry….. Seems pretty on par for a computer.” He muttered.

“He’s not a computer.” Uhura snapped.

Leonard lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Uhura sighed, “Why do you hate him so much?”

Leonard chuckled, “Isn’t it obvious?”

It was Uhura’s turn to laugh. “I want you to say in words, why you hate him.”

Leonard took a long swig of his whiskey. “Because he took the one person I love in this damned universe and tossed her aside like she was nothing.”

Uhura gave him a knowing glance, took another sip of her drink. The pair was nervous as time continued to pass, they both knew what you and Spock were discussing, but it was uncomfortable, your future in the hands of other people. Leonard lost count of the drinks, Uhura had kept the orders going. Leonard glanced up at the door for a moment and saw you walk in with Spock, Spock’s hand was pressed against the small of your back to maneuver you around the door. You were laughing as he lead you to the table. Leonard felt his stomach twist into knots and he took a swig of his whiskey, finishing the glass, his vision started to blur as you reached the table.

“Evening.” He heard Spock greet as he slid next to Uhura.

Leonard glanced up at you, his head started spinning. His eyes met yours. “Hey, darlin’.” He murmured, then the world went black.

Taglist:

@general-latino

@440mxs-wife

@cobe76

@elizabeththefandomgirl

@harry-potter-geek

[bakugou-jpg]

Cherry wine || Single dad!Tsukishima

So hello! This is something i’ve been planning on posting for awhile now. Idk if i like it or not and Tsukishima might be a bit OOC since i haven’t been in the Haikyuu fandom for very long but oh well. Tomorrow i’ll try and post the masterlist for it and how many chapters it’ll have!

-Prologue-

“I’m pregnant”

The silence that fell over the room became deafening, not a single sound except for the distant students outside of the dorm building chatting and laughing together. The fan in the corner of the room buzzed, rotating left and right and rustling some papers on the desk. The wind softly blew through his hair, making the heat more bearable than it was before but at that very moment his thoughts and gone completely blank.

The girl in front of him leaned onto the desk that was placed behind her and knitted her eyebrows together, not in anger but purely because she had been lost in thought. Her arms were crossed and she looked at the boy's feet, biting her bottom lip while doing so.

To say it was a shock, was simply too lightly. I mean, yes, the two of them hadn't exactly done much to prevent it that night so it had been quite the possibility but it had never crossed his mind. She was pregnant, something he did. The clumb of cells that was currently busy forming into a little human was because of him.

"Tsukishima"

Tsukishima's head snapped up and for a moment his eyes widened slightly. They held eye contact for a moment, neither of them breaking it. They were both, confused. Neither of them knowing what to do know and neither of them knowing what to say.

The boy adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. He folded his hands together and fiddled around with them, something he unconciously did when he was nervous. "..Oh"

Its all he could think of at that moment. Tsukishima,  a man who always knew how to respond to whatever situation with either a logic answer or a cocky remark now felt silent. He was a rational person, but now it seemed that his brain short circuited.

The girl sighed, her eyes falling down to the ground once again. She moved one of her hands to rub over her face and then started biting her thumb nail. "I found out on Sunday. I..wanted to think about it myself a bit first. Hope you understand" She said, her voice trailing off.

Tsukishima nodded. "Of course."

Another silence.

There was one question he was dying to ask, of course, the most obvious one. He was a strong believer of the belief that it was her body and her choice and that he didn't have ANY saying in what she wanted to do, but he was still curious. At that moment he didn't even know which decision he wanted or preferred. Would it be bad if he asked? Or was it too soon?

"What do you- " "I-"

They both fell silent, not wanting to interrupt one another. Tsukishima excused himself and nodded towards her. "Sorry, go on".

The girl in front of her looked a little anxious and bit her lip before taking a deep breath and closing her eyes to calm her nerves. She breathed out and locked eyes with the boy standing in front of her. "I've thought about it..and decided what choice i wanted to make and i hope you can support me in that."

Tsukishima quickly nodded and waved his hand. "Your body your choice. Whatever decision you make i will respect it so do not rely on my approval" He said, something which made her worried expression relax. It felt as if there had bee a weight lifted off of her shoulders.

She nodded, letting her eyes roam around the room for a second trying to figure out how to put it into words.

"For the longest time i've planned out what i wanted to do with my life, with my future. Go to college, study to become an archeologist and become succesful and travel around..A baby can't fit into that plan, not yet."

Understandable. Tsukishima understood what she meant, for he too had a plan of what he wanted to do in the future. Work in a museum, it was something that he loved the idea of ever since he was a kid. She wanted to become something bigger, so of course a baby would only get in the way.

She cleared her throat and fiddled her hands. "I do, however, want to give it a chance of being able to live. For him or her to find out what joys life can gift to you and how wonderful the world can be..So i'm going to give them up for adop-"

"I'll raise them"

What.

The girl's eyes widened and she looked at Tsukishima in shock.

Tsukishima pushed himself off of the wall and looked at her for a second before taking a step closer to her. "I'll take responsibility and raise them."

What was he saying?

The girl blinked in surprise, her mouth slightly agape from the sudden response one that she had not expected in a million years. Tsukishima's eyebrows were slightly knitted, something which showed he was dear serious over this. "..please"

Why was he saying this?

The girl snapped out of her daze and ran her fingers through her hair, her other hand cupping her still flat stomach. "I-..Wh- Tsukishima..are you serious?" She asked in disbelieve, still taken aback from the reaction. "With all due respect, Tsukishima, but i really hope you understand i am not planning on raising this baby alongside you nor am i planning to hop in at a later age. I just-"

"I don't care for that. You won't have to be involved in any way, i'll make my own money, buy my own two bedroom apartment, raise my own kid. I'll work it out, if you want i'll cover half of all your medical bills" Tsukishima said while leaning back again, looking at her with his usual stoic expression again. Yet, his golden brown eyes held a mixture of confusion and fear. But that was something she would never be able to catch onto.

God what the fuck was he saying

The girl sighed and shook her head a little, trying to wrap her head around what was happening. "I mean..Medical bills won't be a problem, my family's wealthy enough to be able to cover that without a problem..I just..I thought you were passionate about this college course and wanting to succeed? Its not some kind of puppy you raise, can leave at home for the day and to come back at the end of the day and feed it and sometimes throw a stick around, Tsuki-"

"Do i look like an idiot to you?" Tsukishima said with narrowed eyebrows, tapping his finger on his other arm impatiently. Surely, he fooled around with her, but Tsukishima couldn't stand the way she thought she was better and smarter than him.

The girl rolled her eyes and sighed. "You know what i mean" She snapped back. "Its gonna be a big responsibility, its gonna get in the way of you making it big out there."

Once again, a silence fell over the dorm.

Tsukishima's thoughts were screaming at him. Telling him this decision was an impulsive one, how he had to think it through first and asking him over and over again what he was thinking. He knitted his eyebrows together and stared at the ground, slowly nodding.

"I know what i'm doing"

No he did not

The girl nodded and shrugged, her eyes glancing to the clock hanging on his wall. She looked back at Tsukishima and hummed, pushing herself off of the desk. "Well, okay then. I've got class in ten minutes, we'll discuss the details later on. Take care" She said, pushing herself off of the desk. Her hand reached out for Tsukishima's shoulder and gave it a small squeeze, something which made Tsukishima just the slightest bit uncomfortable.

He didn't even say anything, simply too caught up with the sea of a void that suddenly washed over him. It numbed all of his thoughts, all of his surroundings as the thumping of his own heartbeat echoed in his ear.

The click of his dorm room falling back into its lock flew past him, not even having noticed the girl had left. Tsukishima stood there for about 10 minutes until he was pulled back to the surface, something which made him fall back onto his bed. He put his elbows on his knees, his hands raking through his hair as he looked at his ground with slightly panicked eyes.

He let out a long sigh, his hand running over his face as he threw his head back and leaned it against the wall. It was already dark, the only people outside being the ones going to their night classes. It was cold, after all it was October and the weather hadn't been exactly the nicest out.

Tsukishima glanced out of his window, his eyes following the form of the girl who was just left his dorm and was now running outside to arrive at her class in time. His eyes were locked onto her until she had turned a corner, now out of sight.

What did he just agree to?

He let his eyes slowly slide down from his window to his bed, a place where his phone was resting. Without really thinking about it, he reached out for the phone, pressing a few buttons before bringing it up to his ear.

"..Tadashi? I..i fucked up"

Nine months felt a lot longer than it usually did. While a school year usually felt like it flew by rather quickly to Tsukishima, these past few months felt like as if there was a chain with a heavy ball chained to his ankles. Every minute, every second felt like it took forever.

As the trees lost their leaves, the snow covered the ground. As the snow melted away, the flowers started blooming again. As the flowers grew higher, the temperature did too. With every transmission, Tsukishima's feet grew heavier and heavier. It all lead up to that one moment. One moment that would change his life forever, a moment he'd remember till' the day he'd die.

As the seconds ticked by, they turned into minutes. As the small hand of the clock moved forward made a full circle, the hours started moving by. Slow, very slowly. Tsukishima lost sense of time, sitting in that chair waiting for someone to give him a sign and to inform him of the slightest bit of news. Anything.

His thoughts even stopped at some point. Surely he was panicking internally and the fact that his phone kept buzzing in his pocket, his family and Yamaguchi repeatedly asking him how it was going, didn't make it any better. Hell, the fact Yamaguchi managed to leak the information to his old teammates didn't soothen the buzz in his pockets at all. But he just stared at a wall.

The ticking of the clock, the water that dripped from the tap, the foot steps from the nurses, the distant screams of agony and the phone that rang every 15 minutes in the nurses office started to feel like a pattern. A never ending pattern that had repeated itself almost a million times already.

"Mr. Tsukishima?"

Fuck

Tsukishima's head snapped up and his eyes met the one of an older woman who was wearing a long blue cover up and a mask hanging next to the side of her head. She wore a smile on her face, a tired one, but a happy one. She had discarded the gloves she wore and Tsukishima noticed some light blood smears on the gown she was wearing.

"He's here"

He

In the past 9 months that had passed, Tsukishima had never thought that his feet could feel more heavier. But in that moment it felt as if Medusa herself had locked eyes with him and stared into his golden brown eyes, drinking in his beauty before stiffening his body and turning it into stone.

He didn't notice how his lanky long body had gotten up from the chair he had been sitting at for the past few hours and how he was now silently walking behind the doctor, following in her footsteps as she lead him to a room.

"The mother told me to inform you she didn't want to see your son and that she'd appreciate it if you stayed away for a little while" The nurse said while holding the door for him open.

His son

Tsukishima looked around the room, noticing how extremely empty and silent it was. The beds that were there were empty, waiting for a new patient to arrive. The blind were closed, but it let the slightest bit of light through cascading down onto to the little bin standing in the middle of it, surrounded by two other nurses that were busy with what was inside of it.

The two nurses looked up at him and smiled, one of them walking towards the exit of the room while the other reached out for the bundle of blankets inside of the little bed. She picked it up, stepping towards Tsukishima with a very kind small. One he didn't notice, for his eyes were only focused on the very small baby she held in her hands. "Meet your son" She said while holding the baby out for him, adjusting his hands just slightly so he'd make the baby feel comfortable.

He held out his hands, taking the bundle of blankets into his arms and immediately holding him close to his body. Tsukishima made sure to support his head, remembering all the things he read in a book his mother gifted him after having announced the news. He wouldn't dare to cause the baby any discomfort, it felt as if he was made out of the thinnest porcelain in the world.

"We'll give you a moment, we'll be next door if u need us" Tsukishima heard the older nurse say before the door shut behind her, leaving both him and his son alone in the room.

The baby slightly moved around in his blanket, one of his tiny arms poking through and stretching out towards Tsukishima's face before returning back into the comfort of his warm cocoon. A small yawn left the baby's mouth, a sight that made Tsukishima's eyes soften.

"Someone's pretty tired, huh? Nine months of sleep ain't enough for you, buddy?" He whispered, peering into the little eyes that were slowly opening up revealing a very familar pair of golden brown ones although his appeared to be just a bit more darker. It also didn't Tsukishima long before he noticed the dark blonde hairs poking out of his hat, ones that almost matched his own but just being a shade darker than his own.

He grinned and stroked the baby's cheek, taking in every detail of his face. "Aren't you just a sight for sore eyes, like i'm looking into a mirror." Tsukishima said with a short snicker.

In that very moment, Tsukishima felt his feet get lighter. The heavy chain on his feet he carried around for months that got heavier and heavier broke, just by the single stare the boy had on him. He didn't care anymore, about what he was gonna do in the future. He didn't care about if he'd still be able to finish college or if he was gonna be able to pull through.

Every thing he did, was gonna be for him. Every decision he made, was gonna be with him in the back of his mind. Every thing decent nice thing he did, he did hoping he could be somewhat proud of his old man.

And so, from 7 years from that moment, on Tsukishima was going to have a succesful career. One he had achieved after graduating from college, something he couldn't of have done without the motivation he had after his son was born and he was going to make sure his son was always first with whatever he did.

"Welcome to the world, Kaoru"

[jjba-hell]

Revoked

Still late for day 2 but I am enjoying the hell out of these prompts. (Today’s prompt was sci-fi)

Trigger warnings for the death of the ice cream gays but lemme know if I missed anything else.

Summary: a weird mismatched team of busted up aliens and half-blood humans just dealing with some shit.

For the lovely: @lasquadraweek2021

“You should really just transfer to a new body Pros. Humans aren’t supposed to live this long, babe.”

You grumble probably more to yourself than to the man whose forearm you were tinkering in. Well... maybe tinkering wasn’t the word either. He needed another repair and honestly you can’t help but feel like Risotto only offered you the air-mattress in the ship because so many of these psychos have bio-tech they can’t afford to upkeep.

“Sure, I can’t afford a rewire but I can surely afford getting my brain transplanted in a new body.”

“Human bodies are so easy to grow though.” You peer up at him over your magnify glasses with a wriggle of eyebrows. “Fully grown in a quarter rotation? Come on I still have to wait another half rotation to buy a swimsuit let alone grow a body.”

Prosciutto flexed the hand you were working on to spite you but all you did was strap the wrist down and switch off the impulse circuit before getting up and walking toward the exit of the ship where the others were sprawled out in the soft baby blue grass of the planet you were hiding out at.

Melone’s gaze shot from laptop up as you kicked your untied boots from your feet and slid into the grass, barely hearing him as he asked “Any luck with Pros’s arm?”

“I can’t keep mending the same two wires that keep popping off. Its best we find a place that can handle Babyface’s software and get a new one.”

“Still not budging for just replacing the whole thing?” Formaggio asked from somewhere across the clearing.

Like he was one to talk- Akils like him grew back heads and limbs, there wasn’t exactly a need to know anything about biotech.

“Nope. Are all humans this stubborn?”

“I think its the half Megnu in him.” Illuso was the one to chirp in this time.

“That’s still not confirmed.” You sat back on your feet to try and spot your teammates.

“Well he won’t let me analyze.” Melone sighed- continuing to worry away at the clear glass screen that held all his designs.

Melone truly was a bit of a madman to you- he designed the entirety of his body on that simple glass tablet and yet couldn’t finish his face in time before the feds were on him for unethical medical practice- ironic considering he was only putting himself through the strain of fitting his brain into a piece of machinery. What his official titles were in his old field were beyond you.

“Pesci’s not all Scud and he’s not half as stubborn.” You commented and with a soft hum the team fell back into silence.

“Where’s Ris?”

“He’s in bed- that last jump took a toll on him.” Illuso finally rose up from the grass himself heading a bit further away from the clearing, probably wandering after Ghiacchio who was asked to take a lap after he froze off Formaggio’s finger.

You clambered up a few steps to find your captain with the old-fashioned two-way radio in his hand as he lay passed out on couch of the shared living room.

Risotto would rather be caught dead than caught like this so, with intent, you stepped up to take the radio out of his hand. He seemed to gently wake at your fingers prying the piece or equipment from his hand.

“Shit.” He grumbled. “How long-?”

“Ghiacchio’s not even back from his lap- don’t worry. Just head off before they catch you.”

And with a slight groan he rolled up and disappeared down the hallways to his bunk which sounded with an ungraceful “clunk” as he fell into the bed.

Your name got hollered with the slightest tone of desperation from Prosciutto and with that you were back doing your part in the team behind the scene.

“You’re a purebred?” Prosciutto had eventually asked after a few minutes of boredom at watching you weld wires back to the motherboard.

You couldn’t help but laugh. “What am I? A dog?”

He seemed to swallow his words.

“Where do you think I’m from?” You tried to smooth it over.

“Caestea- at least your appearance would have you look like that.”

Another laugh. “I’m from Earth, Pros.”

His eyes widened. “Impossible.”

“Oh yeah. My parents weren’t exactly refugees but they are most certainly not human. Fuck knows what my genetic makeup looks like but thankfully I certainly age like a Caestean. You are all human, huh?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Not that there are many of us left.”

In a sense you felt bad for him. You’d seen photos of Earth long before it started to mimic its brother planet Mars but you rarely thought of how wickedly the planet must have lost its life before intergalactic intervention. Humans were strangely scared and selfish creatures but no one deserved to die because there was no clean water to drink.

You shook off the macabre though before closing up Pros’s arm and putting away the tools. “That should do for now but we really do need to think of a replacement in the near future.”

“Thanks.”

It was a half-assed thank you but it surely caught your attention. Pros was a little too prideful to give just anyone a thanks but nonetheless you returned the sentiment. “No problem.”

Outside the boys were fighting again- or rather Ghiacchio was arguing as Formaggio was pushing his buttons while Pesci grilled a rather obscenely colorful fish over the fire-in-tin.

“Oh just the person we needed to see.”

Getting clasped with two arms over the neck was bad enough but from Sorbet and Gelato, now that was trouble waiting to start.

“Oh gods, what do I have to offer this time.”

“Don’t be so serious!” Sorbet cooed darkly.

“We were just hoping you could help us out with the next target.” His boyfriend added.

If you could just roll your eyes back far enough.

“Wandering off from our captain’s orders doesn’t sound like something I’d want to get myself involved in.”

“Not even for a bionic manufacturer?”

“Or a healing bay, for the ship? Surely you could install those things no problem.”

Honestly it was hard not to fall for the stereotype that all Makzi’s do is play dirty and haggle like merchants but here you were, stuck between them and being tempted into breaking formation with them.

“And what would I have to lose?”

“Nothing much-“

“Maybe some face with Risotto.”

You couldn’t help but scoff. “You want me to convince him?”

“Exactly- he might actually consider something if it came out of your pretty mouth.”

“Or rather, if he could come in it.”

You took one step back and bowed out of the hold between the two of them. “Fucking sleezes. Your shit’s gonna get you killed, mark my words.”

“So its a no?”

“Its a fuck no, Sorbet. Vile comments aside, that shit is expensive, even dent-jobs sell for millions... that kind of money is too big a job for us to handle right now and stealing one even more. Get your heads out of your asses before you come up to me with more dumb shit, next time.”

And with that you slipped back beside Illuso as Pesci was grilling up the third fish for the night. Looking back at what you had said was not untrue. That night you were restless in your bunker above Formaggio- Illuso peering behind the sliding divider across the little hallway that ran between the bed bunks.

“Something on your conscience?”

“No.”

“You sure?” You nearly leapt out of skin as Formaggio’s forehead popped up just below your chin outside your divider. “You’ve turned and kicked like 10 times, babe.”

“Please don’t babe me.” You frown at him but you answered the gnawing feeling by asking. “Where are Sorbet and Gelato?”

“Probably in their bed.” Illuso answered as if there wasn’t a more logical answer.

“Wanna put money on it?” Your eyebrow raised.

“And catch them in the act? Daaamn you’re dirtier than I thought.”

“Come on then, 10 drinks at the next stop they’re not in their bunk.”

“Shit, I can’t miss on that opportunity.” Formaggio’s divider slid open all the way to allow him to plop with bare feet to the double bunks at the end of the hallway.” You and Illuso watched in trepidation as he knelt down and knocked. There was no answer save for Risotto’s stern frown behind the top divider making an appearance. “What do you want?”

“Are Sorbet and Gelato in there?” You piped up first.

The angry frown turned into concern as he slid out of his bunk to replace where Formaggio was. He slid the door open to reveal one big empty bed.

What you’d have given to be wrong. But instead the panic bit you all and soon you were messily slipping on boots and running around the ship to find the missing lovers.

Pesci checked the engine compartments he might have accidentally left open, Pros checked the storage while Risotto was seeing if he could track them on the radar. It was only when you were hoisted onto the roof by Formaggio that the dread set into your bones.

“Tell Ris to switch on the overhead console lights.”

You called back down below you. Part of you wished you didn’t... since all it did was put them on display.

It was a vile thing that made Risotto’s eyes grow darker than they already were and once dawn broke, you and Melone quietly put the bodies into the best makeshift body bags you could manage. The lake a few paces away was where you last saw those body bags.

After you left that pit stop you sat in silence in the communal meeting area, your legs flung over one of the armrests in your seat- staring blankly at the coffee table you’d nipped from a market not too long ago.

“So... what’s the plan?”

You asked at anyone who would listen.

“Do we go on as usual? Find their families?”

“Revenge?”

Your head turned to Prosciutto as he was enjoying one last drag of his cigarette.

“You’re brave.” You huffed a bit of laughter at the thought. The big boss and his cronies- the only real reason none of you strayed from Risotto’s orders was way up on a station so far up the intergalactic alliance ladder that you’d have a better shot at killing the king of Gnomia B908 and getting away with it.

“Why not?” Illuso was the one to back it. “Surely we could track the sick fucks that did it.”

“You’re thinking too simply.” Risotto grumbled over his fist. “They didn’t get themselves killed by accident. This was deliberate- a display not to challenge the higher ups.”

“Any idea what they were planning?” You sat up, propping your elbows onto your knees.

Risotto kindly pulled up their hidden plans- your name encircled in red a few times. They seemed to have had their eye on a biotech printer and medbay that was once used by the Boss himself.

“What’s the relevance of an old medbay?” Pros posed the question to you- Melone was up front with Formaggio.

“Medbays need to keep track of any irregularities in DNA to avoid any incompatibility issues. Its one of the few things that can’t be wiped because its burned into the drive. They were trying to expose the Boss’s identity.”

“And they were planning on risking us all in the process?”

You pointed at a little arrow shooting off your name once more. “They figured I could remove and replace the hard drive before anyone noticed.”

Your throat felt dry as you realized what that meant. Whoever this person was... if they could follow something as irrelevant as a used medbay to keep their tracks clean... chances are you were all, at best, being watched.

The thought must have been shared as Risotto didn’t breathe a word as he moved to the front of the ship and changed course to an unaffiliated vector you know damn well you’d probably be searched and cleansed for.

To no one’s surprise the pristine white towers blinded and no sooner than two seconds of coming into orbit of one of the bigger planets you were requested to land.

You stood beside you captain as the ship docked and you waited with your hands behind your head to greet the haz-mat team. “You must be pretty serious about this if you’re willing to get sit in their prison.”

He gazed down at you and with a deadpan tone simply said: “You’ve escaped, I’m certain you could do it again.”

[moodyoranged]

rory & seth

big spoon/little spoon:  again i think rory likes being the big spoon.  and i think seth perhaps would be more receptive to being little spoon than micah even.  65/35 split for them.  yes that’s hyper specific for no reason.

favorite non-sexual activity:  being shut ins <3  i think they’re at their happiest when they can hole up for a little bit.  they love sitting around and watching stupid tv or like sitting around while he Games and she plays twitter on her phone.  i think they like to be public menaces too and again i think going on drives is a big thing for rory but overall i think their favorite thing is just to coexist in a little space and talk and laugh while going about their day

who uses all the hot water:  rory.  i’m gonna try not to be super repetitive in this but some facts are undeniable like rory has to take long scalding hot showers.

most trivial thing they fight over:  i mean they’re simply both pickasses.  probably just the combination of rory always needing to be right and seth always needing to be a little shit causes most of their trivial fights.  they bounce back though i feel like they don’t take little fights too seriously.

what has a season pass on their dvr/who controls the netflix queue:  rory,  but i think her taste is something seth could probably get behind.  i think they have similar taste in like tv-ma comedies they watch cringe shit like rick and morty and it’s always sunny in philidephia together,  some hbo comedies thrown in there for kicks.  it may not be seth’s first choice but it’s nice easy brain off tv.

who steals the blankets:  seth actually.  but rory is baby as we know and will do whatever it takes to get in there it really is cut throat in her beds.

who leaves their stuff around:  seth.  rory keeps tidy but that’s just not something that feels as high on seth’s list of priorities.  it adds to his laid back cool guy aesthetic.

who remembers to buy the milk:  rory.  i don’t think seth is incapable i just think she’s a control freak that would rather do it than leave it in his hands.

who cooks normally?:  i think they both have like 3 things they’re very proud of being able to make that they cook on rotation.  and when they’re tired of that they order out or something but they don’t have a problem getting a little repetitive its three things they really like.....  so basically they take turns.

how often do they fight?:  they bicker more than anything but i think even that comes from a place of love because they’re twisted and think continually picking on and challenging one another is a love language.  i don’t think they have many like big serious fights once they get on the same page.

what do they do when they’re away from each other?:  snapchat probably.  they don’t treat it like some big thing when they’re apart.  they keep in touch in like a playful way and miss each other but they don’t feel a need to like be updating each other or recapping their time apart while they’re still apart.

nicknames for each other?:  they call each other pet names that probably make aubrey uncomfortable their version of a term of endearment is like evil boy,  gremlin,  stinky,  that kind of thing.  i think once they’re married they get very into like ball and chain and  old lady/old man.  my parents sometimes call each other has-been and knife instead of husband and wife and i think they’re on that kind of shit they just think its funny.

what would they get each other for gifts?:  i think they’re pretty basic gift givers.  they’re good about like actually asking and suggesting things that they would like for gifts they don’t make a big deal of it being like a big guessing game.  and part of the fun of that is like when they do pull off a surprise on one another it’s that much more amazing and special.

who kissed who first?:  seth.  rory simply was not about to put her ass on the line for him again hey man i love you but no fucking way etc etc

who made the first move?:  rory.  and then she wanted to unalive herself for six months because it was an epic fail so seth would have to make a second first move to get that going again at all.

who remembers things?:  rory.  again it’s just the burden of having such a big beautiful mind,  she’s the one who remembers things.

who cusses more?:  seth.  rory can definitely keep up but he’s probably got her beat.

[gumnut-logic]

When the World Goes Boom (Part three)

I have no idea where this fic is going...Okay, I’m lying, there is a glimmer of an idea, but then I started this fic for a specific reason which has now been blown out of the water, so what do I know? But anyway. here be the next bit :D

Apoilers & Warnings: Spoilers for season three, angstfest.

Many thanks to @scribbles97​ @onereyofstarlight​ @olliepig​ and @i-am-chidorixblossom​ for putting up with my crazy and for various readthroughs :D

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

-o-o-o-

Scott woke to the sound of singing.

It was ever so soft, but there was a beat that even he could gather. Of course, the foot tapping the floor helped.

Now when I was a little boy an’ so me mother told me, ‘Way haul away, we’ll haul away Joe! That if I didn’t kiss the gals me lips would all grow mouldy. ‘Way haul away, we’ll haul away Joe!

Scott blinked. It was half out of tune and peppered with sniggers. It bounced into an equally awkward second verse before he managed to crank open his eyes, but by the time he did, his brain had already supplied the information he needed.

Gordon stood with one foot on the floor and the other on the chair beside Alan’s bed, swinging an arm, and putting out an accent that died somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic a couple of hundred years ago. There was something about Ireland and kissing a girl named Daisy and a whole pile of half mumbled words that may have had something to do with sailing if they had been pronounced correctly.

Alan was giggling.

Scott blinked again and had to acknowledge the pain bouncing around his brain. An involuntary groan brought the apparent concert to a halt.

“Scotty, you with us?”

When he managed to open his eyes again, Gordon was close. Yet another blink and Scott realised that his little brother was wearing an eye patch.

“Wha-?”

“Huh? Oh.” Gordon flung off the patch and half grinned. “Just mucking around with Allie.”

Scott’s eyes closed for a minute and when they opened again, his brothers had multiplied and sprouted a father as well.

Virgil’s soft rumble of query was actually relaxing.

“Hey, Virg.” His throat was dry.

“How are you feeling?”

“Head hurts.”

“To be expected. You got pretty badly thrown around out there. What do you remember?”

Time paused a moment and then fragmented memory settled in. “Alan!”

A big hand held him down with a soft “Hey.” But it was echoed by a higher pitched voice.

“I’m okay, Scott. I’m here.”

Virgil shifted to the right and Scott’s eyes managed to focus on his little brother lying in bed, waving at him with one hand.

His thoughts were ever so sluggish, so it took him a moment to register the bandages.

“Alan, you’re hurt!”

“Er, yeah? Same explosion as you. Don’t you remember?”

Scott frowned and was suddenly aware of his three brothers and father staring at him in concern. His brain froze and he came up with nothing. “Uh, I don’t know.” God, his skull hurt. He reached up with a hand and held his head, closing his eyes. “Ergh.”

He was vaguely aware of Virgil speaking to someone and then he was nudged gently. “C’mon, Scooter, let’s get some painkillers into you.” He turned to find his brother offering him a little cup of pills and a glass of water. He struggled to sit up and his father moved in to help with kind grey eyes.

“Dad.” It was an exhalation of relief.

“Take your pills, son.”

A slow blink, but Scott Tracy was always an obedient child and old, old habits reasserted themselves. He took the pills and paid no attention to the upward curve of his younger brother’s lips.

Medication swallowed, his father let him relax back onto the bed and his body was ever grateful. He closed his eyes again.

When he opened them the room was dark, the only light from under the door and a soft glow on the other side of the room.

A tablet lit up his father’s face. “Dad?” It was little more than a whisper.

The glow flickered as the older man climbed to his feet and moved closer. “How are you feeling?”

A moment of thought and he realised there was less pain. It was still there, but muted. “Better? Got me on the good stuff?”

His father sat down beside him, and Scott realised the other bed was missing. “Alan?” He was embarrassed at how his voice waivered.

A hand touched his shoulder. “He is fine, Scott.”

“Where is he?” Why was he so panicked?

His father hesitated just enough to up that panic another notch. “Alan is having his dressings changed.”

“Dressings?” His voice was desperate and his heart started pounding.

The hand on his shoulder squeezed gently. “He is going to be okay, Scott. Calm down.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” What had happened to his littlest brother?

His father sighed. “Alan received burns on his right thigh and upper arm. They are serious, but are being treated.” Another squeeze. “He will be fine.” A pause. “Virgil is with him.”

An incoherent sound passed Scott’s lips. Burns. Burns were amongst his worst nightmares. His mind clawed at his memory, desperately digging for details that just weren’t there. “How?”

A grey frown. “You don’t remember?”

“No, I don’t! Will you please just tell me!” It came out as a frustrated yell. He felt out of control and he struggled to stabilise his emotions. It was like floundering in a current. His head pounded in protest.

“Scott. Breathe!”

Breathe.

He sucked air in between his teeth and the whimper that came with it hurt. What the hell was wrong with him?

Another breath.

Virgil was with Alan. Virgil would look after Alan when he couldn’t. “What happened?”

“There was an explosion during a space rescue. Both you and Alan were caught in it. You received a bad concussion which is why you are having trouble remembering. You need to give your body time to heal.”

“What about Alan?!” He was yelling again. His father’s lips thinned and Scott found himself resenting that expression. “Please just tell me.”

“I have told you several times already and each time you panic.”

“I don’t panic.” It was automatic and so obviously a lie, it hurt. As much as his heart thudding against the inside of his skull.

His father’s lips thinned even further, his expression painful. “Alan was closer. His suit protected him, but it reached its limits and in two places melted to his skin. Given the alternative was a suit breach, I have to say I’m grateful. He will be okay, son, I promise.” Those eyes were ever so dark in the dim light.

Scott swallowed hard and finally got a grip on the hysteria trying to crawl up his throat.

Two words.

“Where’s Grandma?”

-o-o-o-

Virgil grit his teeth and clung to his insides.

Alan was the bright brother he always was, quite happily discussing the latest release of his favourite video game with the male nurse who was also apparently an avid gamer. It was an advantage. Any distraction from the necessary procedures happening on his brother’s right arm was to be valued.

They had chosen to remove Alan from the room he shared with Scott for this procedure simply because every time Scott woke, his concern was for Alan, as if his mind was caught in a moment of terror it couldn’t quite remember. He would ask the same questions, scared for his little brother and then forget them again.

Virgil was worried sick.

But all the scans came back clean. The doctors suggested stress, emotional trauma and a need to watch and monitor. Consequently, they were all taking a rotational period of keeping the eldest company in case he woke yet again disoriented.

Dad hadn’t left his side beyond the few times Virgil and Grandma had ganged up on him.

In the meantime, there was Alan.

The burns were nasty and were going to need ongoing treatment. His little brother was grounded indefinitely.

Of course, the young astronaut’s opinion of that was to scoff at it and take it as a challenge. Typical Alan.

Hell, typical Tracy.

So, Virgil was watching him to make sure he didn’t do anything too fast or too stupid.

It was early days yet and his little brother still had skin graft operations ahead of him. It would be a long road. But apparently if Gordy could do it, Alan could too.

Gordon had been glued to Alan from the moment he stormed into the hospital room. The only reason he wasn’t here now was because of Grandma laying down the law and Virgil stepping in to kick his ass.

He couldn’t help but protect Gordon as well as Alan. His aquanaut brother had seen far too much of the interior of hospitals and had the psychological scars to match. If Virgil could protect him from them, he would as much as he could.

Besides, he had to be here for Alan.

He had to be.

It was ever so hard to see the astronaut as a grown adult. His little brother would always be the baby he wanted to protect, no matter his age. And in the absence of Scott, Virgil was it.

The angry red all up and down Alan’s torso where the heat had leached through his suit was painful to see, but it wasn’t the concern. It was the two patches where his suit had failed that were the biggest problem. The material had melted and fused with his skin and a nasty mix of heat and cold exposure burn had resulted. The doctors were being very careful.

Twice a day they had to change the dressings and remove any dead skin, apply medication and redress. It was a painful procedure despite the drugs they had his little brother on and it hurt to watch. Alan had been offered the nerve block that they had originally given him, but he had refused it.

Virgil planned on speaking to him about that. There was no need to suffer.

Each time Alan flinched, Virgil had to clench his own muscles to prevent his own body echoing the action.

He stood on Alan’s left side, surreptitiously holding his brother’s hand, while the nurse attended to his right side. The medic in him was watching like a hawk.

The rest of him was just hurting.

“Okay, Mr Tracy, that is that one done. How are you feeling?”

Alan swallowed and forced a grin. “I feel like challenging your character to a duel in revenge.” Virgil didn’t miss how pale Alan was and the slight tremor in his voice.

The young male nurse raised an eyebrow. “You can try, young sword master, but I will defend myself.”

“After dinner tonight, Lance server. I challenge you.”

“Hardly fair. You suffer from battle wounds.” The nurse covered up Alan’s arm and moved further down the bed and uncovered Alan’s right leg. The hand in Virgil’s tightened its grip.

“I shall handle my handicaps, dragonslayer. You take care of yours.” Forced joviality.

Virgil raised an eyebrow. Really?

The nurse eyed his brother, something in his eyes. “Very well, I will meet you on the Plains of Perseverance at eight pm.”

Alan snorted. “There you will meet your fate.”

The nurse smiled just a little and began gently unwrapping the old dressings from Alan’s thigh.

Alan’s hand gripped even harder.

Virgil grit his teeth and clung to his insides.

-o-o-o-

John Tracy hated the media. It was one of the few topics that could actually raise his hackles. Eos had compared him to a cat in the past due to the frustrated hiss that sometimes involuntarily escaped through his teeth when he had to tackle the nets and damage control.

He took it as his responsibility to take on the gossip and the tangle of incorrect facts that inevitably sprouted following every incident. He had the skill to track down sources and nip the erroneous information in the bud. Eos obliterated anything he couldn’t trace. In fact, she took great glee in the process.

Scott did not know exactly what happened on these little forays, and John was going to keep it that way.

Scott.

His stomach churned. He had never seen his big brother so emotionally out of control.

Focus.

He had launched a very specific virus this morning by uploading it to Five and accessing several crucial net nodes. It pulled date specific information on both his injured brothers with a subset data array of keywords related to the Tracy family. The results were fed to Eos who sorted it and alerted him of any major issues.

Currently the biggest major issue was Oxy-Baker.

They had reacted to the incident in defence, he had to give them that, but to accuse Scott of misconduct was above and beyond what he was willing to tolerate.

“Eos, calculate what we need to purchase Oxy-Baker.”

“As a potential investment or to bankrupt them?”

John sighed. “Part of me would prefer to wipe them off the face of the planet, but I do believe their services are necessary. They support air reclamation, the WURMs and they have taken over some of the marine reclamation as well. Gordon would have my hide if we trampled that.” Another sigh. “Potential investment and improvement. We’ll ask Brains about this one. There has to be better methods available. That air reclamation system was a death trap.” He poked his tablet. “Am I reading this list of investors correctly?”

“Your eyesight was excellent at your last medical exam.”

John muttered something in French.

“The accent doesn’t make that any more polite, John.”

“I wasn’t going for polite.”

Another muttered French word, this time with an Italian accent. The numbers added up. There was a vulnerability amongst several of the smaller investors, so a back up plan if necessary, but if he was honest with himself, there would be some extra satisfaction in tackling at least one of the major investors.

After all Francois Lemaire was due a kick in the pants.

-o-o-o-

End Part Three.

[araluen-arrows]

morgarath wins au

credit to @silver-oakleaves for starting all this in the first place :)

- in a way, Duncan thinks, he should’ve seen this coming.

- there were too many Wargals in the countryside, too many scared barons sitting on the fence and waiting for the axe to fall.

- it starts, really, at his coronation, when he can read the atmosphere instantly knows that his reign will he difficult; try as pauline might, she was never able to sway as many barons as she wished she could have. not enough men came to reinforce the army, and worse, it was the harvesttime when they fought. 

- morgarath didn’t have a harvest to reap. duncan did, and he had to choose between having an army or having a nation in famine.

- he and northolt tried to rotate the army, keeping some men and letting some go home to their farms. it worked up until the days after hackham heath, when there was still sporadic fighting as morgarath was driven backwards.

- when the right flank of his army broke formation, Duncan sent halt to mold them back together, like before.

- but unlike before, where was daniel? back on a farm in aspienne, threshing wheat and drying the rest of his harvest in the late autumn sun, rocking his son Will to sleep at night and holding hands with his wife.

- this time, when Halt falls, there is no one to take his place, no one to strike fear into the hearts of wargals, and the right flank of Duncan’s army collapses completely.

- duncan suddenly finds his forces in retreat instead of advancing. the wargals keep coming, sensing fear in the hearts of his men. sir David, commander of the king’s cavalry, falls under the onslaught.

- (days later, when his son finds out, he bitterly picks a fight with a platoon of wargals, but one twelve year old boy, even one trained by macneil, does not stand a chance against morgarath’s killing machines. gilan falls, the bodies of five wargals around him, defeated in the end by a spear to the chest.)

- the main army is forced northwards again, and at twin river forks in araluen, Duncan makes his last stand. he is tired of running, tired of hiding and living on half rations. if he’s going to die, he might as well do it beside the castle he swore to protect when he was coronated.

- morgarath gives no quarter. he does not know the meaning of the word surrender. eventually, duncan decides that enough is enough.

- he gives himself up to morgarath, instructing arald to keep his men alive. but before he goes, there is still one more thing he has to do.

- "crowley", he says, "do you remember when I told you to guard the queen with your life?" crowley doesn't trust himself to speak and nods wordlessly. duncan produces a letter from his pocket and then unbuckles his sword. "i'm going to need you to do the same for my daughter. and when she's old enough, give her these."

- the execution is quick.

- none of duncan’s supporters stick around to watch the king beheaded. crowley infiltrates castle araluen, telling everyone to get out, now, and carefully takes the baby cassandra from her nurses.

- he wanted to go after morgarath himself after that last battle. avenge duncan, who was never given a proper burial after his execution. avenge halt, who still lay on a battlefield in southern araluen, far from the man and mentor he could have become.

- but he cannot.

- arald and crowley move to picta, establishing a renegade organization that is constantly on the move. crowley and pauline raise the royal princess as their own in the gorse and wild heather of the pictish moors, running free but running scared, far away from her homeland and her father's legacy. 

- morgarath moves into castle araluen, issuing several edicts: barons loyal to duncan are immediately executed or driven out of the country. the rangers, who had just begun to reestablish a foothold, are hunted even more so. hunted out of necessity, and then out of sport. 

 - "they were the best human trackers and spies," morgarath mocks, "so I will send after them the best of the inhuman." 

- only a bare handful of the corps survive the plague of the kalkara that he sends after them. it is a terrifying way to die, paralyzed by those blinking yellow eyes, but the rangers that do manage to evade the kalkara find their way to picta. 

- arald and crowley have only two hundred men, half a dozen rangers, and one overthrown royal princess. morgarath knows where they are, knows they are among the scotti, and it is only a matter of time before he sends troops after him. the clock is running out.

- on her fifteenth birthday, crowley hands cassandra her father's sword, signet ring, and letter. "he wanted you to have these," he says quietly. 

- cassie is far from the pampered royal princess she would have been. she studies languages and politics with lady pauline, learns how to shoot and track with leander, and with her tangled red hair and scotti accent, she might as well have not been araluenian. 

 - the contents of the letter: 

 dear cassandra, rightful heir to the throne of araluen: 

i had once hoped to raise you myself, but certain circumstances, of which I am sure you are aware, have prevented this from occurring. I only regret that you were orphaned so young, but if I know crowley, he would have done his job properly. 

 I have asked him to present my sword, and my seal to you on your fifteenth birthday, along with this letter. they are to be yours henceforth; bear them with pride and as proof of your birthright, until you can be properly coronated as queen. 

queen. that is the second thing I wanted to write you about. once there was a lovely queen who sat on the throne next to mine, bright and smart and fierce. you would have loved her, and I think you will grow to be like her. your mother's name was rosalind, cassie, and she died in childbirth after giving you a name. 

one day, if things should come to pass as I hope they will, you will be queen yourself. I have known you for only two months, but I think you have the makings of a great ruler. take my sword, cassandra, and cut morgarath from the throne of araluen. it is your birthright and your duty to our people. 

 my daughter, I am proud of you.

- she slides the sword from its scabbard, marvelling at how it feels in her hand. the ring, she slips into her pocket, and the letter? in the years to come, cassandra will read the letter countless times until the paper is worn and delicate and her father’s words have seared themselves into her brain.

- there is only one problem left, of course, and that is how the fuck she is supposed to go about driving an entrenched warlord out of her kingdom. "obviously," she says to crowley, "our greatest problem is a lack of men. so, where do we find troops?" 

 - he raises an eyebrow at her, very proud of his royal princess/ranger/wild kid who previously spent her days running around barefoot in the gorse. "oh, there are plenty of fighting men in this country," he says, "and they've been very keen to invade araluen in the past. i think the time is ripe to try again." - with arald’s help, she goes to the leaders of the local scotti tribes and appeals to them for aid. favorable trade terms with picta once i am queen, she promises. no longer will vengeful araluen farmers raid across the border. no longer will you be attacked by morgarath and his wargals. just help me get my throne back. 

- slowly, the word gets around about this fierce girl, the daughter of the old king who wields her father’s sword and paints her face like a scotti warrior, a girl who was trained by Rangers since they day she could walk. more and more tribes join their cause every day.

- cassandra begins her crusade, making her way south towards castle araluen, almost like morgarath had nearly sixteen years ago. except this time, she goes to avenge her father and not depose him. 

- few can stand in her way. she combines scotti brute force with ranger tactics, and that is enough to fell even the wargals. cassandra, on her sixteenth birthday, becomes the first person ever to besiege castle araluen and win.

- she marches into the throne room, her warriors streaming behind her, and points her father's sword at morgarath, the ring glinting on her left hand like a star. when she speaks, her voice is like ice:

- get off my throne, you bastard motherfucker.

[thehomierobbstark]

Idk if you’ve already wrote about this, but could you please do a quick blurb about Erik’s girl being on her period & she sends him to the store for pads/ tampons

A/N:  I haven’t written anything like this before, so thank you for giving me the opportunity!! I’m currently on my period and it fucking sucks, but I hope you like what I did with this anon!  Thanks for asking 😄

Warnings: At the bottom 👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿.

This is for all my lil cute ass black gorditas out there rockin back fat, belly rolls and thick ass thighs that touch!!  x Reader is always gon be black, chubby, and sassy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The soft silk pillowcase caresses your face as you shift around in bed, trying to turn over to your other side.  Your body felt heavy from the deep slumber you’d awoken from, the third one you’d taken that day as you tried to replenish the ridiculous amount of energy you seemed to be running through.

As the strength returns to your body and you start to feel your limbs again, you attempt to move your hips so you can rotate when you’re met with a firm resistance.

You try again, thinking that maybe your legs are still asleep, and this time you wiggle your toes too… only you can’t move those either.

Giving a low groan in dissatisfaction, you lift your head up to see what the deal was, and upon seeing the problem you roll your eyes, letting your head flop back down on the pillow with an annoyed huff.

It was Erik. Of course.

You can’t honestly say you were surprised; every time you were on your period it was as if his attraction to you became magnetic, and it was the hardest thing trying to gain back your personal space until your period ended.

While you relax against the pillows waiting for your vocal chords to kick in, you run a play by play in your head as you try to remember how you both ended up here.

The last thing you recalled was laying on the couch, Erik was in your lap and the heating pad you’d wrapped around your pelvis had come unplugged from the wall.

You remember the very difficult process of trying to untangle yourself from the mass of muscle that was your boyfriend without waking him up, which resulted in you tumbling onto the floor from the cord getting wrapped around your leg.

While you now had a sore knee and a loose scarf, the gentle giant hadn’t lost a single wink, and you’d stormed off to the bedroom with the heating pad under your arm after chucking a throw pillow at his unconscious head.

And now here he was.  Laying all over you and invading your space, again.

“ERIK!” Your vocal chords were working again and you were about to put them to full use.

“Get up, dammit!”

He groans a tired yawn and tightens his arms around your waist, trying to bury his face into your belly button.

“I’m right here ma, why you yellin?” His tired voice mumbles into your tummy, the vibrations tingling through your skin and waking up your bladder.

Ugh. Now you were gonna have to get up.

You sigh to keep yourself from crying as you wiggle around again, this time with a little more movement since now he was awake too.

“Move little boy, I need to pee.”  You start shoving at his shoulders to get him off you so you could run and go pee before you fully woke up.  

He kisses his teeth.

“Man, what I say about that? Don’t think I won’t snatch your lil ass up just cuz you moody right now.”

“I’m only mood right now cuz you’re laying on my bladder.  Now GET. UP!”  You slap at his bare arm and he finally lifts off of you, mumbling about how he should make you pee yourself to teach you some manners.

You ignore him, scooting yourself to the edge of the bed to stand up when you feel something shift at the base of your uterus.

Your eyes widen as you realize it’s not just pee that will be rushing out of your body soon, and you shoot up from the bed, squeezing your legs together as tight as you can as you awkwardly catwalk/run to the bathroom to hopefully keep from ruining anything other than just your underwear.

You barely make it in time as you slam the bathroom door shut, hearing Erik cackle a “HA! That’s what you get!” from the other side as you pull down your pants and plop yourself down on the toilet.

You unclench and let everything flow out of you, pulling at the roll of toilet paper as you look down to assess the damage.

Thankfully other than a dirty pad you were mostly in the clear, your underwear suffering a little over bleeding at the front and high up in the back, but the compression shorts you wore were saved from being sacrificed to the clorox bleach gods.

You always wondered how little droplets of blood managed to make their way all the way up past the asscrack of your underwear, but you decided to just let it go today and be grateful that you weren’t dealing with an 80’s horror movie situation this time.  Those were always day ruiners.

You roll up the dirty pad and toss it into the knotted trash bag at the bottom of the trash can with the others, and you slide off your underwear and toss them in the sink, turning on the cold water.

You clean yourself up with some baby wipes, trying to decide if you should hop in the shower or not when a small knock on the door grabs your attention.  You glance up to see the door open a small crack, Erik’s hand sliding through with a fresh pair of underwear in his fingers.

You laugh as he tosses them to you, whispering a soft thank you baby at him as you catch them.  His hands slides back out only to be replaced by his head wedged in the door.

“Uh huh.  What happened to all that attitude you had just a minute ago? ‘Thank you baby’,” he mocks you with a nasally voice that was apparently supposed to imitate yours, and you suck you teeth, telling him to shut-up.

He sticks his tongue out at you, opening the door a little more to peek around inside.

“You good? You need anything?”

You flush the toilet, reaching over to wash your hands in the sink while you still sit.

“No, I think I’m okay right now.  Can you hand me a pad under the sink please babe?”

He side eyes you at your sudden sweetness, but steps into the bathroom and squats down to open the cabinet.

“Where are they?” He shuffles a few things around, sticking his head further into the cabinet.

“Where they usually are in the back next to the hairspray.  You don’t see it?”

You unroll a wad of toilet paper and shove it between your legs for a temporary makeshift pad and put on the fresh underwear before joining him in front of the cabinet.

You instinctively reach towards the back like how you instructed only to find… nothing.

“You were saying?” He tilts his head at you, and you shove him off balance making him fall on his butt while you move over to the drawers to search for a stray pad.

He swats playfully at your legs while you look, only for you to come up empty handed.

“Shit,” you mutter under your breath, trying to rack your brain for where an extra one might be laying around.

“Wassup? You ran out?” Erik leans back against the door, fingers playing in the curls at the nape of your neck.

“Yeah.  I think I need you to go to the store and get some more.”  You shut the drawers with a  frustrated sigh, leaning back against the door frame next to him and looking over to him.

“You know which kind to get?”

He’d only been with you a handful of times when you’d had to get them but you weren’t sure if he’d paid close enough attention to notice the brand and type you usually got.

“Uhhh…yes.” He hesitates a little making your eyebrows scrunch together.  Maybe you should show him a picture or something.

“You sure?  Cuz I don’t have time for you to be getting the wrong kind so just tell me if you need some help-”

“Girl if you don’t chill! I got this baby!  What, you don’t trust me to get you some pads??”

You narrow your eyes at him, studying him to look for any uncertainty.

“Uh huh… yeah OK.  I trust you baby.”

“Thank you!”  He pops a kiss on your forehead and gets up from the floor.

You scoot aside so he can open the door to go get his keys and wallet before getting up yourself.  Looking over yourself in the mirror you take note of your frizzy curls and oily skin, deciding that maybe it would be a good idea to hop in the shower after all.

Erik comes back with his keys in your hand, a red hoodie thrown over his head and a pair of shades on.

“You need anything else while I’m out?” He asks, already deciding in his mind to grab a pint of your favorite ice cream and a pack of cookies at the store too to help feed your cravings.

“No I’m good.  You sure you gon be okay?”  You eye him teasingly with pursed lips, and he rolls his eyes before popping another kiss on your mouth.

“Girl hush. I got this!”

With that he turns and walks out of the apartment, leaving you to laugh by yourself, and you go to turn on the shower head as you hear the front door shut.

~

“….I ain’t got this.”

It had been twenty minutes Erik had been standing in the feminine care isle by himself, and the longer he looked at all the options, the more confused his brain got by all the different types of pads and tampons there were to choose from.

In his defense,  when he left the house he thought he had it…. at least, that was until he saw all the choices there were.  He didn’t remember there being so many choices.

Wings.  No wings.  Xtra absorbent.  Panty Liners.  Maxi Pad.  Ultra thin.  8 hour protection.  What did it all mean!?

The look of confusion on his face was starting to become permanent, and he knew if he didn’t make his selection soon, Y/N would be calling him to ask if everything was alright.  He refused to call her first to ask for help, especially since he was so confident he could do this, even after she’d asked him if he needed help, twice.

Nevertheless, he knew if he went home empty handed, or, worse, with the wrong thing, there would be nothing to protect him from the absolute wrath that would rain down on him once he got back.  Not even the melting ice cream and crumbling cookies in his hand.

Taking a deep breath, he shakes it off a little, refocusing his mind.

Okay.  No need to worry.  He got this.  The man had a whole PhD for god’s sake, surely he could figure out which feminine products his girl needed without letting it get the best of him.

Starting at the top shelf, his eyes scan over the items from left to right, and before he can even get to the end of the row his mind goes blank again.  Fuck.

“Aye, my man.  You good over there?”  A voice from the left of him calls his attention, and Erik turns his head to face its owner, the puzzled look still etched on his face.

Standing close to his height is a thickly built dark skinned brother with a loose muscle t-shirt that showed off his frame.  He wore dark sweatpants with some slides of his own on his feet, his head shaved completely bald which only helped further accentuate how strong the dude looked.

“You looking real lost there bro, you need some help or sum?”  He walks up to Erik, holding his hand out to him, and Erik blinks himself back to the present, sliding his own hand against the strangers before giving him a dap and greeting him.

“Oh, yeah yeah, I’m just over here tryna figure out what to get my girl.  She goin thru her period right now.”  Erik looks back to the shelf as if somewhere behind one of the price tags will be the answer he’s looking for, and the guy beside him starts chuckling.

“Uh huh, lemme guess: She asked you a couple times before you left if you knew what you was doin and you told her yes.  Then once you got here, you realized it’s a whole notha world up in the store.”

“Man!” Erik kissed his teeth, his eyes widening a little as he looked back to his new companion.  “A whole notha world!  Ion remember there being so many damn kind last time I was in here.”

“I know man, I know.  On one hand you wanna be mad it’s so many companies tryna reinvent the wheel,  but on another every woman flow is different so they all need a special type to help make it easier for them.”

Erik shakes his head, running a hand through his dreads as he blows out a sigh.

“Bruh.  I can only imagine what Y/N be going thru every month.  You here for your girl too?”  He asks the stranger, and he nods, a warm smile spreading over his face.

“Yeah, my lil Chipmunk, she’s our middle child.  She just started today and my wife is outta town visiting family, so I gotta show her the ropes.  I learned the hard way the first time that if you freak out, then they gon freak out, so you gotta be calm about the fact that they growing up on you to help them get through it.”

“The first time??? How many girls you got man?” Erik asks him humorously, and the stranger holds up his fingers in answer.

“Three.  A house full of girls.  And I couldn’t be more happy about it.”  The man’s entire mouth shines bright with all his teeth showing, a small sparkle coming from the one gold capped tooth on the bottom row, and Erik swore that if there was a blackout right that second this mans smile could light the whole city.

“That’s beautiful bruh.  Congrats.” Erik extends his hand again to the stranger in a fist that he returns with a small bump to it.

“Thanks,” the man smiles to himself for another moment as if he’s lost in thought before clapping his hands and rubbing them together.

“Aight!  Back to business.  Let’s see if we can help you get your girl what she needs.”

He steps up beside Erik in front of the shelf of products, putting his hand to his chin as he thinks.

“Ok, first things first: Is your girl a tampon girl or a pad girl?  Or both?” He looks up at Erik expectantly, and his answer comes immediately.

“Nah, she a pad girl.  She says the tampons are too hard to insert and make her feel uncomfortable.”  Erik had remembered that conversation the first time he came with you when you’d run out of pads but you had an entire jumbo box of tampons under the sink.  You’d explained that your mom had given them to you years ago but that even though you didn’t use them you didn’t want to throw them away either, just in case a family member or friend came over who needed them.

“Yeah, my wife said the same thing, so we a “pad only” household for now.  Okay, next question: Is she a light bleeder, or do Moses gotta step in and help out?”

Erik snorts, taking a moment to think about it.  The only time he remembered her flow being really heavy was when she’d switched birth controls, and that week she’d nearly camped out in the bathroom all day and night when she wasn’t wearing adult diapers to protect every piece of clothing and furniture she owned.

He’d never been so upset seeing his babygirl look so miserable.

“No, her flow is pretty regular other than on her 3rd and 4th days.”  He remembered her saying that, too.  

“Oh!” Just as he spoke, he remembered something else.  “She likes the long pads.  They real thin but she says they absorb a lot.”

The stranger nods his head, going back to scanning the shelf.

“Okay, that helps.”  He glances down at the snacks in Erik’s hand and snickers. “I take it by the ice cream and cookies that you like to spoil ya girl, right? Which means she probably bougie, too.”

Erik laughs at that.

“Yeah, she definitely spoiled and bougie,” he was thinking about the gold plated necklace he’d just bought you last week that had his last name on it, and how you couldn’t wait to wear it out that same night with the special area code gold plated hood hoops you’d ordered offline for your birthday.  Yeah, she was bougie alright.

“Mhm, all mine are too. Spoiled asses.  Aight, so that means your girl prolly a name brand girl.  Lemme ask you, when you get a pad for her, do it have designs on the wrapper? Like lil pink and purple squiggly shit?”

Erik snaps his fingers together.

“Yeah yeah yeah! And the box look like that too, right?”

“Yaup!” Stepping up to the shelf the man grabs a box off the 3rd row, the Always Radiant Flex Foam pads in the number 2 for heavy flow.

“Boom.”  He hands them over to Erik, clapping him on the back.

Erik smiles a huge smile, recognizing the box immediately. “Yeah! These the exact ones!”

“Mhm, these the ones my first daughter uses too, and she loves them.  Sheitt, they havin a sale right now so I might go head and grab her a few boxes.”

Erik moves the box of pads under his arm before grabbing the mans hand in a handshake and pulling him in for a hug.

“Yo, you don’t know how much you just saved my ass right now bruh.  Thank you so much, I really appreciate all your help.”

“Fasho my nigga, anytime.  Gotta make sure we look out for each other when we tryna provide for the special women in our life.  Don’t forget to take a picture of that and save it in your phone. You gon need it in the future.”

“Trust and believe I will man.  I’ll never forget again.”

Both men give each other one last dap, Erik grabbing a few extra boxes of pads before heading off to the frozen section to replace the ice cream.

Before he gets out of the isle he stops, turning back to the man and calling to him.

“Aye, my man.  What’s your name?”

“It’s Jeremiah.”

“Your girls are really lucky to have a man like you in their life, Jeremiah.”

Jeremiah smiles, shaking his head.

“Nah man, I’m the lucky one.”

Erik hums at that, and he tosses him a peace sign in farewell before going off to finish his shopping.

~

The keys rattle against the door as you hear the lock open, the sound of plastic bags shuffling and footsteps entering the apartment. The door closes shut and you see Erik appear in the entryway, a bag between his teeth as he tosses his keys into the dish on the hallway table.

You hop up from the couch, pulling the towel you were sitting on free from your butt as you go to help him.

“You didn’t get my texts?  You’ve been gone for a while I was starting to get worried,”

You take the bag from his teeth first, looking in it to find a pint of vanilla bean ice cream and a pack of oreo’s inside, smiling as your sweet tooth started to hit you.

“You know me so well.”

Erik smiles as he reaches into the bag in his hands, pulling out the box of pads.

“Uh huh, too well,” and he laughs as you clap your hangs together, commending him for getting the right kind.

“I knew I could trust you,” you cheese innocently at him, and he kisses his teeth, mushing your head away.

“Whatever girl.  Here, go put your stuff away,”  he hands you the bag of pads, taking the one with the snacks from you and you skip off towards the bathroom to take care of your business.

When you come back Erik’s already on the couch, a bowl and spoon out on the coffee table next to your ice cream and cookies, and the heating pad already plugged in.

“Wanna watch a romcom tonight?” He asks, and you nod your head, settling on the couch and wrapping the heating pad around your back while Erik wraps himself back in place around your front, nuzzling into you.

As the movie starts to play, Erik chuckles silently at the sound of you crushing oreo’s into your bowl, thinking about how wonderful it would be to have a house full of girls just like you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Warnings: Humor, SoftBoi!Erik, Fluff

[chilly-me-softly]

Coparents (Part 3) • Ben Chilwell

Part 1 and Part 2 here if you haven’t read them yet! Hope you like it x ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One week. Seven days to get caught.

She would have liked to have been more careful, but it was not for her son's sake or for all the bullshit she continues to fill her brain. The reality was that yes, she also wants to understand if she and Ben are made for a real relationship before she even let her son in. But that came later. First she wants to enjoy the boy without having to share him with anyone, she wants to be able to kiss him or take his hand away from prying eyes.

And they thought they had been as careful as possible with everyone, careful not to exchange too many looks at dinner with friends, careful in saying or doing things too compromising in front of Ryan. Rotate the people with whom they left the boy because the excuses wouldn’t hold up. Behave normally, you know.

But it was difficult to do so when their child seemed to be in the middle of the ‘I want my parents together' phase and he thought he was acting like Cupid for the two of them. Not that they were bothered when he tried to keep Ben stay the night or when he interweaved their hands together when they all fell asleep randomly on the couch watching a movie or when he pretended to have a nightmare -always when Ben stayed at home- and forced them to sleep together in her bed. In fact, they should have thanked him for the moments he was inevitably making them go through together and to tell the truth, they felt a bit guilty because they saw the sadness in his eyes when one of them go home or when he doesn’t succeed in something he had put on his head.

But that day had been different, and then things had fallen apart from there. Ben had come home with some doughnuts and they had breakfast all together as a family, then they had taken him to school on foot. And Ryan had printed a huge smile on his face on the way, happy for once to be able to walk through the school gate hand in hand with his mom and dad. Together. And he almost didn't want to take their hands off when they arrived, almost fearing they might disappear at any moment. And when they picked him up that afternoon, Ryan literally threw himself on his father’s arms seeing them together again.

In his little head everything was already settled, the pair only need one last little push before finally becoming a permanent family and throw away one of the two houses. And they’re on the field at the end of a game, Ryan runs to James who takes him in his arms without batting an eyelid when “Uncle James can I come to sleep at yours tonight so mom and dad can make a baby?" says the little one as if it were the most natural thing in the world, leaving the boy somewhat stunned.

The two parents turn with their eyes wide open, caught by surprise as well as the others around them. “Honey…” had tried the girl by extending her hand to caress him, but the boy removes from her touch and hides his face in James' neck. He knew that look, she used it when she had to tell him he couldn't eat fries at dinner for the third night in a row and put meat and salad in front of him.

Never in his life Ben had seen that look in (Y/N)’s eyes, the one they exchange quickly watching the scene that is full of ‘my son hates me, I'm a bad mother'. She doesn't know how she manages not to burst into tears there at that moment. So Ben tries, stroking his back but the baby twists again. And then with a nod James takes them all into the locker room and they follow him without saying a word, Ben's hand squeezes hers as if to instil courage into each other.

“Hey, little man" James tries to get him to come off by whispering in his ear, but Ryan holds those slender arms around his neck so tightly he gives it up. And Ben looks at him shaking his head slightly, kneeling down in front of his son who gives him his back, telling him that it’s okay. They could face it with him there too, if only they would have avoided repeating it a second time.

"Ryan" (Y/N) calls him, perhaps a little too sternly because the child unconsciously clings to James even more. And that small gesture adds to the weight she feels in her chest. She sighs, sitting next to James, "Can I know why you said that to Uncle J?"

The only thing they receive in response is an incomprehensible mumble due to his pressed face against James' shoulder, but it's understandable he's crying. For a moment even her eyes fill with tears but she bites her lip so hard she resists. Taken by an act of courage, Ben stretches out to snatch Ryan from his friend's arms but the child begins to kick and Ben loses his balance, finding himself on the ground. The baby in his arms crying inconsolably.

They just can't figure out what might have brought them to that moment. They are sure they haven’t kissed when he was around or behaved differently from the usual, but somehow in their plan there was a leak and now they were back to the wall. They had to reveal the truth, and then they'd think about the consequences.

“I just wanted a kiss" hiccups the baby in his father's arms when he realizes he won't get his uncle's comfortable chest back. The faces of those present are softened and a spark seems to illuminate her face. Make a baby. A kiss. Of course! She remembers the conversation about his friend's brother, as not ready to address the issue yet they hadn’t commented. And now there they are, dealing with a hysterical child who somehow understood that something had changed.

"Oh love" she sighs more softly this time, but she still doesn't dare to approach for fear of another refusal, "why did you want it so bad?"

"You brought me to school together" he sniffles leaning on his father's chest and Ben passes a thumb over his cheeks to wipe away some tears, which had fortunately stopped falling.

"Can you keep a secret?" Ben whispers, looking at her who nods. Time to drop the bomb. The child looks up at him, his blue eyes looking at him curious. "Mom and I ... we have already kissed"

Silence. The child looks at them without saying a word. Then he smiles widely and jumps out of his father's arms. The locker room is filled with cries of joy this time, the baby looks like a loose cannon jumping all over the room.

"Ryan" she calls him signaling to approach her and he does it with pleasure this time, going to crash into her mother's legs. "Easy" she chuckles. He's too happy, he climbs on her legs to leave a kiss on her cheek. A gesture to apologize to her, a gesture that makes her forget the bad feelings of a while ago. "I want you to be clear about something, young man. This doesn’t mean mom and dad will have a baby. Just that they are together" and this time she wants to clarify, in order to avoid other problems in a few weeks.

"Madders" Ben recalls his friend who has since been enjoying the whole scene, surprised by the news but also amused by the child. They will have a lot to do while growing up.

"Ugly bastard" he murmurs before hitting the brunette who is still on the ground, and pretending to struggle to mess up his hair while he does nothing but laugh.

***

"How's you doing?" Ben sighs, leaving a light kiss, with his eyes closed, on her temple. She leans lightly on him and sighs in turn, following with her eyes their son who is trying to take possession of the ball and James who enjoys making him jump from one side to another, “A baby takes a lot of energy" he chuckles.

"Mommy, daddy come play with us!" the boy screams as he comes running and standing between her legs, she is sitting on the bench in their garden with a glass of lemonade in her hands.

"Mommy can't little man" she cooes passing her hand through his hair and the baby puts on a lovely pout before getting picked up by Uncle James who makes him squeal. "Come join my team RyRy, we already have a ball to play with"

"No Uncle J, mom is beautiful. And my little sister is in there" the child points out her figure proudly, happy to finally have his wish fulfilled, to then be dragged farther away from the blonde.

"Our little Stella" Ben murmurs laying a hand on the seven months belly now.

"Daaaaaad" the child calls him almost complaining and then passes under his uncle's legs, taking advantage of the height difference.

"Go, we'll cheer for our men from here" and he leaves a last kiss on her lips and belly before joins the group.

[joon-bugs]

Wasted

~I have to remind myself I’m not a complete hard stan at times..Happy late Valentines Day everyone!~ 

“Touch yourself.” The command was natural for him, as natural as it was for you to obey him. You didn’t move at first, weighing the repercussions of your submission. It would just be one night. One night and then you would for sure cut him off. A lie that had been repeated before. 

word count: 2,720

pairing: Jungkook/Reader 

genre: smut  

warnings: swearing, spanking, mutual masturbation, praising

2:30 am. On the dot. A shrill ring jolted you out of your dream state, and you clenched your eyes tight not wanting to give in. In answering you would be letting him win. By the fifth ring you had thrown the covers off and snatched up your phone. He only called when he was drunk, high or horny. Sometimes it was a combination of the three. You braced yourself for the onslaught of breathy pleas and pressed the button on your phone, releasing a deep sigh.

“Y/N..what are you doing?” This was how it always started. He would begin the conversation with an innocent question, something nonchalant to get your guard down. But you knew better.

“Jungkook. Its 2 o’clock in the morning. I’m sleeping.” You furiously rubbed at your eyes and glared at the wall, exhaustion still clouding your brain.

“Without me?” You could hear his pout through the receiver. You rolled your eyes and plopped back down on the bed. Why the hell had you let this kid come into your life? He was nothing but trouble and had broken your heart on many occasions. Maybe you had an affinity for bad boys.

“I’m hanging up now. Goodnight.”

“Wait. I’m coming over. I miss you.” You grit your teeth and twisted the blankets under you.

“No Jungkook. Don’t come here. I don’t want to see you.”

“We both know that isn’t true Y/N.”

“I’m serious, do no-” The line clicked and you stared at it dumbly before realizing he had hung up.

“Bastard.” You let your phone fall to the floor and hid yourself in the bed sheet, creating a cocoon of darkness. You were out again in no time, lulled by the quiet and warmth.

Your relaxing dream state was short lived however, when you sensed a presence breathing heavily in your ear. Your eyes flew open at the feeling and you froze, fear immobolizing you. Cold hands roamed your waist, circling the bare skin of your stomach. You shivered, wondering how this stranger got into your apartment.

“Ohh I’ve missed this.” Maybe not a stranger after all.

“Jungkook what the hell?!” You turned to face the man, recoiling at the pungent stench of alcohol. So that was his poison this evening. His hair was wild, swept messily to expose his glistening forehead. His leather jacket held the faint aroma of an unknown cologne and the distinctive smell of weed. Check and check. You noticed he was still wearing his dirty boots and you grimaced, noticing the clean covers become brown.

“Your shoes!” You hit Jungkook’s leg, indicating for him to remove the items.

“Shit my bad.”  He lazily looked down and shimmied them off, uncaring of how they hit the floor with a loud thud.

“How did you even get in here?” You furrowed your brow and pulled away as he nuzzled your neck. He hummed against your skin and moved to strip himself of his jacket, ignoring your question.

“Jungkook.” You pushed at his shoulder, trying not to give in to how good his lips felt on you.

“What. What?” He gave you a lidded look, clearly not all there if the glaze in his eyes was anything to go by.

“How. Did. You. Get in here?!” You shoved him on the mattress and stood, getting as much distance as you could between him and you. You had learned that serious conversations with him were more effective if you weren’t within touching distance. Jungkook’s attention span was short when it came to talking and he had a way of persuading you into things that you didn't want to or shouldn’t, do. By today’s standards you were fuck buddies, although the idea was only relevant when both parties agreed to meet for said coitus. In the beginning of your encounters, you had been fine with the late night calls and quickies. The sex was great, there was no problem in that sense. But you found yourself wanting more emotionally and expressed this to him. When you told him this, Jungkook had scoffed and ended the conversation by flipping you onto your stomach. You hadn’t brought up the idea since.

You were trying to distance yourself, slowly cut him out of your life. But he either didn’t understand what he was doing to you, or he didn’t care. He was persistent and stubborn, traits you had once admired. Now you dreaded the texts and calls that would come like clockwork. Everyday, without fail. You wrapped your arms around yourself, aware of how naked you were.

Jungkook leaned on his side, his muscled arms showcasing prominent veins. Arms that had gripped you tight on several occasions. You swallowed, willing the images to go away. He bit his lip and gave you a once over, his eyes heated.

“Damn Y/N. How can I focus when you look this good? Come here so I can see you better.” He crooked a finger and you dug your nails into your skin to stop yourself from moving. This was a part of his plan to get you into bed. Compliment then conquer.

“No. You need to leave.” He cocked an eyebrow at your boldness.

“Do I need to punish you Y/N? You know what happens when you don't listen.”

Fuck if that didn't make you wet. You shifted weight to your other foot, trying to hide the fact you were rubbing your legs together. Jungkook smirked and slid to the edge of the bed closest to you. He opened his legs wide, his thick thighs spread for you to see. They were huge, bulging out of the ripped skinny jeans he wore. He leaned back on his elbows and tilted his head back, his body on full display for your eyes to devour.

Black is definitely his color. You mused, noticing how the dark shirt accentuated the contours of his chiseled chest. Walking sin would be the best way to describe him. He was teasing, to see if you would take the bait. You turned your head away, not trusting yourself. You heard him shift.

“You're really gonna be like that? Huh. Okay then.”

Your back was suddenly pressed into the wall, the hard impact taking your breath away. You wheezed in air, your body feeling like it was hit by a truck. You twisted to see the top of Jungkook’s lowered head, before you felt him licking at your collarbone. Your breath hitched as he brought a knee between your legs and began to grind his lower body. You could feel how hard he already was and brought your hand up to grip his arm, to stop him or pull him closer you didn't know. A sudden bite to your throat had you moaning before you could control yourself.

“That's it baby. You know how good I make you feel.” He kissed the mark he made and tilted your head to face him. He engulfed your mouth in a searing kiss, licking the top of your tongue. You resisted, clawing at his arm until he pulled back with a furrowed brow.

“You’re still mad at me. I can fix that, don’t worry.”

You found yourself lifted by the back of your thighs before you could form a response, and you gripped the material of Jungkook’s shirt to prevent yourself from falling. Jungkook carried you to the bed and threw you down, your body bouncing on impact. As you caught your bearings he held the edge of his shirt and slowly stripped, keeping eye contact with you.

“I know you like when I put on a show Y/N.” And he was right. You were a bit of a voyeur and nothing got you hotter than watching someone else.

His jeans soon followed, leaving him completely naked. By the lack of underwear it seemed as if he had planned this meeting. Your mouth watered at the sheer size of him and you couldn't help the heat that flared below. The air had become thick, making normal breathing difficult . Jungkook tilted his head back, his throat dewy and enticing in the darkness of the room.You should stop him. Before this gets too far. Your subconscious nagged you to do the reasonable thing. But it was too late. You were entranced by the taut pull of his abdomen, the sharp lines of his pectorals. He was perfect. God help you.

 His fingers began to slide up the side of his shaft slowly as he let out a long moan. The sound had your toes curling instantly,the sheets protesting underneath you. His thighs flexed at the contact and he pulled his lip between his teeth, wrapping a tight fist around himself. He began to pleasure himself, tugging and pulling until his tip was red and the lewd sounds of his actions echoed all around you. Denying you were already wet would have been a blatant lie. You rotated your hips, pressing them into the mattress to try to relieve some of the ache. Your nipples jutted through the thin nightshirt you wore, adding another painful layer of arousal. Jungkook scanned you, assessing the mess he had made of you. He’d barely done anything..and yet he had you right where he wanted. His free hand placed itself on the bed, and he leaned forward, near your bare leg. You watched it like a hawk, anticipating and dreading his next move.

“Touch yourself.” The command was natural for him, as natural as it was for you to obey him. You didn’t move at first, weighing the repercussions of your submission. It would just be one night. One night and then you would for sure cut him off. A lie that had been repeated before. Jungkook cursed after a particular hard jerk and he lifted his hand, only to slam it back down. The blankets shook at the force and your stomach curled into knots. His eyes were dark, but still shone when they fixed themselves on you.  

“If you’re gonna be bad girl and not listen Y/N, I’ll spank that pretty ass of yours.” You held your breath, testing the limits of his patience. A sadistic gleam flashed in his eyes, before he flashed a toothy grin and you found yourself on your stomach. The mattress welcomed your body softly, a stark contrast to the rough hands kneading the flesh of your clothed bottom. Your underwear was then lowered to your ankles, not completely off.  

“Jungkook..” You twisted your neck to reason with him when the first blow came, the sound sharp like the crack of a whip.

“Ah!” You yelled out, jolting forward to escape the pain. Spanking wasn’t usually a common ritual in your sex life as you weren’t really into pain. And yet, that didn’t stop your lower region from pulsating at his handling. A few more hits rained down in succession, quickly turning you into a sniveling heap. You buried your face in the blankets, wiping away the tears that decorated your face.  

“So pretty..” Jungkook murmured in awe, gently rubbing his fingertips around the abused area. Fire scorched your bottom and you knew you would be sore the next day. So much for sitting. Crying out at the tender feeling you gave in, pleading for him to stop.

“Are you gonna be good now?” He was panting, but kept his voice gentle. You nodded once, compliant though already reaching the point of exhaustion. A soft rub on your back briefly distracted you from the lingering sting and you released a ragged sigh, before the touch disappeared.

“Now..touch yourself baby.” Hypnotized by the deep timbre of his voice and the fog of clustered hormones that clouded your brain, you obeyed. You lifted your hips slightly, giving your hand enough room to get through. Shakily you moved your fingers lower, aware of the heavy breathing behind you. You knew Jungkook’s eyes were staring, watching your every move. You swallowed against the desert inside your throat, your fingers finding their destination.

You were whimpering in no time, already knowing how to angle your digits so that it hit your g-spot.

“That’s it..get yourself nice and wet for me.” Jungkook encouraged, rubbing the redness of your bottom. You bucked at the lingering pricks of pain, which pressed your throbbing clit against the covers. You grit your teeth at the added stimulation, but couldn’t stop your body from repeating the action. Jungkook’s own sounds and movements had increased until he cursed and you felt the weight of him behind you. You stilled your fingers, your face hot with perspiration.

“Jungkook please..” You were beyond caring that he wasn’t supposed to be there, that you had yelled for him to leave. You were so aroused you were quaking, and he was hot. So incredibly hot. He said nothing but you felt his large hands settle on your waist. You took in a shaky breath when the tip of him pressed at your entrance, craving the fullness that would come. Meeting Jungkook had utterly ruined toys and other men for you, a fact that he would have been proud of.

“Do you still want me gone Y/N? Leave you wet and wanting? Maybe it would teach you a lesson.” Jungkook teased, gripping your body tighter. You both knew what your answer would be.

“N-no. I want you to stay..and fuck me.” Humiliation be damned. His breath was suddenly on your neck, blowing the short hairs there.

“That’s all you had to say babygirl.”  

Then in a thrust he hit home, eliciting a high pitched moan out of you. He slipped in with ease, slicked in a mixture of his own precum and your wetness. You clawed at the space around you, your chest heaving. Jungkook wasted no time, withdrawing and then slamming back inside you, propelling you forward.  The bed creaked in protest, squeaking noisily as he set a brutal pace. You weakly tried to meet his thrusts,wetness forming a patch next to your head. You were fucking drooling. Hair clung to your face, blocking your vision of the wobbling headboard. Not that it was much to look at. You lay there, only able to take the fast pull of his body into yours, feeling the building approach of your release. You felt bad for the neighbors, hoping you wouldn’t get another noise complaint. You had no money or time to find another apartment.

“I know you still need this, need me.” He huffed, weaving his hand through your hair and pulling. You winced, but this action forced you to arch your back, providing a new angle. You choked on a scream, clenching your eyes to keep from passing out.

“Tell me how much you want me. I know you do.” He was right. You did want him despite all the warning signs and you hated yourself for it.

“I want you so bad Jungkook, don’t-don’t  stop.” You mewled, contradicting everything you had sworn on. Jungkook growled, digging his nails into your skin, and ground his pelvis hard into your backside.Your muscles were tightening, clenched in preparation of the orgasm you knew would be intense. You opened your mouth to warn Jungkook that you were close, that you wouldn’t last much longer.

A sharp bite to your shoulder followed by the feeling of scorching semen filling you, pushed you over the edge, and you clamped down on your pillow to stop the noises that would for sure ruin your throat. Jungkook jerked twice more, drawing out your own orgasm to the point of pain, and then collapsed on top of you, suffocating you before rolling over. Your breaths rasped out in tandem, sweat beginning to dry on your heated flesh. Jungkook massaged your spine after a moment and then pulled your jelly like limbs to lie on his chest. His heartbeat was loud, thundering in your ears. Guilt and self loathing surfaced at the forefront of your mind, but you shoved it down in favor of taking the comfort of Jungkook’s embrace.

“Can I crash here tonight, Y/N?” It was a lull, low and melodic. You were numb. Emotionally and physically drained.

“Of course.” Next time you wouldn’t answer the phone. It was a silent lie that you would keep repeating. 

Written by Rose

[soupbased]

okay • s.s.

↳ author: @soupbased

  pairing: stiles stilinski x reader

  word count: 1193

  warnings: mentions of death, angst

  story summary: part two to “not okay”, read the first part here. 

  A/N: Hey, remember when I wrote the first part? Me neither! Anyway this is the second and perhaps final part of “not okay” my stiles stilinski reader insert. If you want more, give me a follow and send me a request for Scott, Stiles, Isaac, Derek, Liam, or Theo! Without any further, Enjoy!

—

 “Are you okay?” Questioned the boy now standing before you with a litter of moles across his face and neck. You looked up from the mountain of rocks you had collected. The nine-year-old version of yourself sat crossed-legged in a grassy area underneath the large oak tree, alone, while the rest of class raced around playing tag or climbed around the playground equipment. The full leafed tree blocked the sun from beating down on you and created a nice little area of shade.

 The boy who you later came to know as Stiles gazed at you, his wide brown eyes cartoonish even for someone your age. He lowered himself down to a crouching position. In the background, you spotted see his less outspoken counterpart awaiting him. The boy in the background fidgeted nervously with his hands and hung on the edge of the chain-link fence surrounding the basketball court

 “Yeah.” You replied rather coldly. Five schools in four years of education.To yourself, it made no sense in befriending people. Even though your father promised that this was the last time. 

 “But, you’re by yourself, at recess!” Exclaimed Stiles as if it was the most outlandish idea. “If you want you can come play with me and Scott! We’re playing superheros!” The boy then proceeded to jump upwards excitedly and lower his voice as low as he possibly could for a 10 year old. “I’m batman.” 

 This sent you into a fit of giggles. You glanced at Scott from around Stiles shoulder who gave you a shy wave. 

 “Okay, I’m wonder woman!” 

The entire week had been a hectic blur. From the revelation of the true identity of the Kanima to keeping Derek’s newfound pack from tearing Lydia to shreds. it seemed like the supernatural world was taking a catastrophic toll on your life. For the first time since that fateful night of the body discovering you had never had a moment alone to yourself. When you were alone you were never truly alone however, or so your mind made it seem that way. 

Jackson being the Kanima was almost comical. Almost. As in if he didn’t have the ability to murder you, you would’ve sat back and laughed. But, even now with the knowledge of who the Kanima was it was still a large problem. One you and Stiles would usually sit for hours on end and go back and forth over coming up with possible solutions and suspects. 

Stiles. 

The silent treatment was eating away at your mind and your heart. Even with the two of you in the vicinity of each other, with the same goal in mind of keeping your friends safe neither of you spoke a word directly to each other if you could help it. Allison or Scott filled in the brief moments of silence and exchanged looks with each other. The air had been tense the whole time not only because of the immediate dangers but, also because of the silent war between two people. 

On Stiles end the silent treatment wasn’t intentional. He was trying to talk to you and he had successfully formed few coherent sentences during the Chemistry rotation lab. With his sudden realization that his feelings for you had gone beyond friendly for a long while now, he found it hard to speak. Especially with you angry with him. 

“Stiles,” Came your soft voice from the door of his bedroom. You were dressed head-to-toe in black. Black for the funeral that had taken place only an hour before. The two of you had only been friends for about a year by then, but, him and Scott had become a second family to you. 

“Yeah.” Stiles spoke. In his hands he held a framed picture, simply staring at the photo. 

“Can I come in?” You asked. Stiles nodded, creating a spot for you on his bed. His entire face was red, his eyes glossy, and nose stuffy. You made your way to him him and sat beside him, glancing at the photo in his hand. 

It was of baby Stiles cradled in the arms of his mother. You presumed the picture had been taken by his father as he was nowhere in sight. In the background was a beach, the sky a bright blue. 

You were at a loss for words. You were ten years old, what were you supposed to say to your best friend who lost his mother? What could you say? 

“(Y/n).” Stiles spoke finally breaking the silence. 

“Yeah?”

“Can you promise me something?” Stiles eyes never left the photo and from your position you could see a tear falling down his cheek. It broke your heart to see your usually joyful best friend so broken. 

“What?” 

“Don’t leave me.” 

This was foolish. Utterly stupid. But, here you were, standing in the rain in front of the Stilinski household. The Beacon Hills police car was gone from the driveway and left only Stiles jeep. There were tons upon tons of majorly ridiculous ideas between you and Stiles, and this topped all of them. 

You knocked on the door rapidly, soaked. You waited for a few moments racking your brain for any actual rational thought. However, none came to mind. As you were about to leave the door abruptly opened to Stiles dressed in pajamas and rubbing his eyes sleepily. 

Upon seeing you his jaw dropped and eyes widened. 

“Are you okay?” Were the first words out of his mouth. He took a step back allowing you to step inside. You’re mouth opened to say something. Say anything. Instead you found yourself stuck, staring up into those big brown eyes. Like when you were kids, they were unusually big and bright. “ (Y/n) -” 

“I said I’d never leave you.” You interrupted.

Your voice was quick and the words shot out as a hasty sentence. Stiles stared at you, his eyebrows furrowed and mouth pulled into a pout. 

“When we were younger, you made me promise I wouldn’t leave you.” You spoke. “So i’m here, and i’m not going anywhere, no matter how many times you pick Scott or Lydia over me.”

Stiles gazed at you more than likely still half asleep. He looked as if he was slowly trying to process the words that had just come out of your mouth. The rain sounded as if it had slowed downed immensely and the Stilinski household made no sound at all. It was almost as if the two of you weren’t there at all. You turned to leave, having said all you wanted to say when you felt Stiles hand grip around your wrist. 

In a moment you were whirled around into Stiles chest. His arms tightened around you almost suffocatingly. It felt like home but also, different than your previous hugs. Like it was more. Against the top of your head you heard Stiles mutter a soft ‘I’m sorry’. 

“You’re so important to me, (Y/n),” Stiles started. “You’re my- You’re my (Y/n).”

Maybe it wouldn’t have meant anything to anyone else but, to you, it meant the world. To you, it meant everything was going to be okay. 

[aumonstax]

The Truth Untold - Knight!Ten

Maybe back then A little Just this much If I had the courage to stand before you Would everything be different now?

It all started when you guys were kids

The little princess and the boy that lived in the sun house.

You were the heir to the throne, the only child to the Royal family.

It wasn’t a life you would have chosen for yourself, if given the option you always said you wanted to be a knight. They got the cool job.

You always had a fascination with swords and armour, which is how you met Ten.

His father was the Commander of the King’s Guard, one of the most highly regarded men in the country and a damn good swordsman.

You had a habit of running away from your nannies, none of the maids could keep their eyes on you for more than five minutes without you pulling some crazy stunt to run off to the armoury or the training quarters to catch a glimpse of them in action.

But you got caught. Every time.

After a while Ten’s father stopped ratting you out to your dad because they were good friends but he disagreed with keeping you away from the Knights, how else were you supposed to learn to defend yourself?

He secretly started to train you to fight; enter Ten, your new training partner and the Commander’s son.

He was soft-spoken and reserved, but that soon lightened with your goofy, carefree demeanour. 

It was hard not to warm up to you, with a personality like yours people often joked about how you must have been blessed at birth by one of the Kingdom’s Mages.

The two of you would spend all day with each other, whether or not you were training. Some days you would just sit and watch, other days you would spend wandering the gardens together and he fought the urge to pick the daisies he wanted to tuck into your braids.

After a couple of months of you sneaking out to the training quarters, your father caught on and forbid you from going there.

And so you lost contact with your only friend.

Fast forward a couple of years and you’re a beautiful young princess, a year away from being ready to marry.

Being the only Heir, it was your duty to take over the throne and to do so you must be wed.

But also, now that you were known to other Kingdoms, you had to take extra precaution for your safety, and you were assigned a Knight to guard you always.

But dad, that’s why I wanted to learn how to fight. I’m too old for a babysi-

You stop mid sentence, suddenly breathless, when the door to the Great Hall is pushed open and a familiar figure enters the room.

He’s... different now. Most of the baby fat from his cheeks that you used to pinch having disappeared, they were replaced by high cheekbones, an elven nose and sharp eyes that send butterflies straight to your stomach.

Holy shi-

“I thought we could compromise. He graduated the academy at the top of his class, so I have absolutely no doubt that Ten is capable of protecting you with his life when and if necessary.”

You couldn’t stop staring at him, was he always this... beautiful?

He notices your eyes lingering on him for a second too long and the tips of his ears start to turn pink, if you hadn’t picked up on that tell tale sign of his embarrassment years ago, you wouldn’t have noticed it now.

And so, just like that you had your oldest and only lol fuck friend back in your life, although you had to admit things felt different.

It must have been the academy. It gave him the discipline and structure he needed, remembering how goofy you were as kids you could imagine it would have interfered with his training to continue playing around like when you were younger.

It took time but over the next few months together, he started opening himself back up to you and eventually it was like you were never apart. You had your best friend back.

But the problem was now he was really fucking hot, and you’re a 17 year old girl.

Did I mention he stood guard in your room while you slept ?

You weren’t sure when exactly he slept, but he had convinced you he did ... somehow ..

Unbeknownst to you, when Ten saw you that day all of his old underlaying feelings for you had resurfaced. 

He’d loved you since you were only children, if he even knew what love was then.

All he knew was you were the only person to have made him feel the way he did, and seeing how fucking beautiful you were now just made him light headed.

How was it even possible for you to look that good in just a t-shirt and jeans?

And then to start spending time with you again, just to find out you were the same little dork you’d always been.. it filled him with so much joy.

Unlike you, Ten had grown up fortunate to have many friends. Most of them were also Knights now, but a few luckily worked in the kitchen.

He wouldn’t tell you, but that was how he managed to sneak so much food into your room late at night when you were craving cake but your father had told all of the maids not to bring you anything after 10pm because you wouldn’t sleep well on a stomach full of cake,, sure

What did he knew anyway? -eyeroll-

He risked getting in trouble for defying the King’s orders every time but he couldn’t help it, the cheeky grin on your face and the way your eyes lit up.. followed shortly by the bearhug you always gave him ... He was so weak for you, he couldn’t say no

Some nights you had nightmares, and he was always by your side brushing the hair away from your sweat covered forehead shushing you softly to soothe you back into a comfortable rest. Lips hovering millimetres from your temple, longing to kiss you softly .. but he never did, the closer he got, the more the pit of guilt in his stomach weighed.

Reminding him that he didn’t deserve you, he never would.

The morning after nights like that, he would always be slightly more quiet, more withdrawn and you wondered if you’d said something to upset him.

That year flew by, and before you knew it you were standing on a rotating stand with the castle tailor Taeyong measuring you for your ‘coming of age’ ball gown. It was a glorified auction. Your parents didn’t have to tell you but it would be the night they choose your future husband. The next King.

You sat in your room silently, thinking about all of your conflicting feelings while fiddling with the ring Ten gave you. He made it when you were kids, so proud of the first thing he’d ever made in his forging class, and naturally it had to be a gift for you... his best friend.

Was that all you were?

You couldn’t stop thinking about it, especially now.

Did he feel the same way you did? Did his heart ache for you the way yours did for him?

He burst into the room sounding out of breath

“There you are! Your father asked me to come find you, you were supposed to go to Taeyong an hour ago. He’s waiting to finally see the dress on you.... are you okay?”

He asked, noticing you didn’t look up when he opened the door, or even when he spoke.

You remain silent for a minute before standing up to face him, and you lock eyes. The serious expression painted across your face told him something was up, he’d never seen you like this...

“Ten I want to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me.”

He nods slightly and you continue,

“Am I doing the right thing? Getting married to a stranger... I mean. I just feel like there’s something missing, shouldn’t I love the person I’m going to spend the rest of my life with?”

Realization starts to hit him, he knows where this conversation is going.

“I think that in your heart... you know what the right thing to do is. For everyone’s sake.”

You look at the ground between you in defeat, eyebrows furrowed.

“But what if... what if what’s right, and what’s best for me are two different things? What if I want to be selfish for once in my life? What if I want something that I’m not supposed to have.. but it’s all I’ve ever wanted... and it’s all I’ll ever want?”

Tears are forming in both of your eyes and he’s grateful you looked away, so you couldn’t see how desperately he wanted you too.

“Your father ... W-we shouldn’t keep him waiting..” His voice is barely above a whisper, afraid that if he spoke any louder everything he was holding in would just come tumbling out.

You nod once, still not looking up.

You felt so pathetic, you didn’t want Ten to see you cry; even if his expression mirrored your own without you knowing.

He escorted you down to Taeyong’s workshop to tweak the final few things on your gown for the evening, standing by the door but still inside the room. Even though Taeyong’s space was generous, the distance between the two men wasn’t so great that Taeyong missed the pained longing in Ten’s eyes when he turned you to face him, your hair and makeup now done.

“Isn’t she breathtaking?” 

If there were any air left in his lungs Ten would have done more than nod dumbly, but it was all he could manage after seeing you. Words couldn’t describe the way you looked, you were ethereal.

That night Ten had to stand on the sidelines, in full armour, helmet and all, as tradition would dictate. Watching as the masses of Princes, Dukes and more all asked for your hand to dance, attempting to court you completely ignorant to the fact a Knight had already stolen your heart.

You were as cordial as you could manage to be, still aching from the rejection you faced earlier that evening.

One Prince had stood out from the masses though. 

Jaehyun from the Jung Kingdom.

He was definitely one of the most handsome men in the room, with his wide doe eyes, dimples and cheshire grin... but it wasn’t that that had won your father’s approval.

He was a decorated Knight as well as a scholar. 

‘Brains and brawn!’ He’d exclaimed while clapping a hand onto his shoulder proudly.

And so, your father had made up his mind.

You couldn’t complain, of all the men you’d met that night he was by far the kindest. 

Sympathizing with your forced participation, as the two of you danced Jaehyun admitted he felt guilty that you didn’t exactly get a say in who you were to spend your life with. But if it were to be him.. he would do whatever it took to make you feel safe and happy by his side, and that he would promise on his life.

You almost didn’t notice Ten slip away, but Jaehyun points out his surprise at your personal guard not being by your side. You turn to look over your shoulder just as the door is closing behind him.

He couldn’t bare to watch, guilt eating at his heart reminding him he had just told you that you were better off without him.

The rest of the night carries on without Ten watching over you, and you almost feel worse without him there. As if you were dancing and laughing with another man behind his back...

And you had to remind yourself that you weren’t his, and he wasn’t yours. As mush as it hurt, you were free to enjoy Jaehyun’s company guilt-free because Ten didn’t want you. Ouch.

The next day you’re in your father’s office, Ten standing silently outside of the door, keeping watch like always. 

The two of you are discussing the details of your arrangement with Jaehyun and the logistics of you moving to live with him in the Jung Kingdom, until your time to take over ruling when your father felt you were ready.

“So Ten will escort me there or is Jaehyun returning to take us with him?”

“Us?”

Ten cocks his head, overhearing the muffled conversation also curious to hear what would be happening.

“You know that Ten won’t be accompanying you once you leave the castle, don’t you?”

“...What?” Both of your hearts sinking at the thought of being separated again.

“Jaehyun is more than capable of protecting you, and he has a very sufficient Guard of his own. Ten will stay here to fulfill his duties and work along side his father. Besides, you’re too attached to him. You’re not a child anymore, people will start to talk.”

After that day Ten’s father has him working on training new recruits, taking the opportunity to give him some hard work now that Jaehyun had sent men of his own to watch over you until he’s able to come to escort you to your new home himself.

You don’t see Ten until the day you leave.

You’re packing the last of your things when you hear muffled talking outside, followed by the sounds of your guards walking away as the door opens quietly.

A mop of dark hair peaking around the open door before fully entering the room.

“So... this is it?” He asks softly, eyes on your hands working to pack away the last of your clothes into the trunk at the foot of your bed.

You don’t bother looking up before responding.

“I guess so. He’ll be here any minute.”

He nodded in acknowledgment, as you finally looked up.

“I guess I should be grateful this time I get to say goodbye at least...” he lets out a breathy laugh without humour, leaving the air thick with unspoken words.

“I’ll return one day, when my father is ready to let me take over the kingdom. But we both know he’s a control freak so we’ll see how long that takes..”

You both crack a slight smile this time.

Footsteps approach the door before a fists lightly raps at the wood, Jaehyun opening the door with a smile after you called to him that it was unlocked.

He and Ten acknowledge each other with a curt nod, but when his gaze lands on you Ten doesn’t miss the way his eyes soften. 

And he doesn’t blame him, who wouldn’t fall in love with you?

Before you know it, you’re at the bottom of the castle steps, hand in the crook of Jaehyun’s arm as you wave goodbye to all of your loved ones.

It’s not goodbye, it’s ‘see you soon’. Jaehyun had said a few times while squeezing your hand lightly, noting the sad look on your face as you prepared to bid farewell to everyone you’ve grown up with. 

He’s not here...

As the carriage takes you away to your new home, Ten watches from the window of your bedroom.

Clutching the ring you hadn’t noticed you left behind, he wondered when he would see you again.

I'm crying, That disappeared, That’s fallen. Left alone in this sandcastle, Looking at this broken mask.

[riskeith]

heya! <3

yes! despite everything bkdk understand each other very well which usually only happens by being around each other for so long and growing up together. not to go back to that ep again but what bakugou is basically saying throughout the episode is that he now sees midoriya as a threat (someone equal). aaah man i really miss that ep now. and that makes sense! todobaku is such a force to be reckoned with shsjsjsj. at the end of the day all those ships are great on their own. and yeah! i’d say kiribaku has been my main from the get go. i just Love their dynamic yk? how bakugou acts around kirishima just ahh.... <3

literally bruh... we have to wait a couple days for that like come on... give us the floating babies man. that sounds so cool?? he’s like towering over us? also why did that give me villain vibes? like corrupted chongyun.. yes please.. DON’T SAY THAT I’LL CRY. PLEASE DON’T SAY THAT I’LL LITERALLY CRY. ilysm just the thought ahh...

your barbara is like: ready for battle! and you’re like sweetie just gimme your bandaids please.. thank you now go back home... <3 i respect that. DILUC IS SO HOT. he’s so confident and cocky like ugrhrh 🥴 if not sexy why red themed? 🥴

no males here! feminist rights! bennett is our little special boy whom we love... <3 now that you put their names next to each other, i feel like xiangling would be such a good sidekick to the boy scouts don’t you agree? like you know how some friend groups have that one person that clicks with their dynamic well? that could be her! sjsjdksj can’t believe we’re making up whole ass headcanons about this game on tumblr asks.

that elements ranking is super legit. i agree with it mostly tbh!! maybe pryo higher though because everything burns and it’s pretty useful. i’d switch it with cryo tbh! otherwise we’d have the same ranking i believe... <3 and the diluc comment!! same!! this is based of the little characters i have and what i’ve seen on youtube tbh shskshdk so that might change when i get more characters.

oh no!! 😭 i’m actually super sad for you aaah you were so excited. hopefully you get him anyway and the gacha gods back you up hehe. honestly these 4 star characters seem so weird though? like noelle and xiangling...? that’s so odd. and no i need to save for venti i only have like 1k primogems rn so even i wanted i couldn’t haha.. i do like xingqiu but nah.

172 is super average here that’s even like... a bit on the smaller size KSKSSJSK (at least the white people ofc it’s different depending on the ethnicity) i’m not that ^ tall but i’m close! 167 cm! and god you’re so tiny holy shit my little pocket sized cluna...... you’re adorable my word 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 btw when’s your bday? just wondering 😏

notes app like the proper gay i am! i just think it’s gay culture to write everything down in the notes app tbh. (i don’t wanna say us bc i don’t know your sexuality but if you relate then change the i am to we’re hskshdskdh)

interesting. how long does your writing sessions last? do you write, write, write or do you have more of a set schedule?

i just listened to control and GOD???...... literally clone shiro tbh? can you find the edit perhaps? i’d love to see it. ok i took a break from writing this response to listen to show & tell and ooooh??? i LOVE this song instantly going to my playlist kshdjdksms. melanie has such dark pastel vibes how eerie. thank you for the recs!

yes ya books!!! i don’t think there is a series i haven’t read of those popular ones. dude i still only read ya books tbh shskdhdkdb. i find it harder to visit a library though so i can’t read as much anymore but i still love them. have you read carry on? simon and kaz has that relationship dynamic we oh so love.

xiao x venti has such a large fan base on twitter it’s so Insane. not complaining tho they look perfect together. idk if you’ve seen but look 🥺 https://twitter.com/bambzart/status/1346115096045441024?s=21 can’t believe we went from not knowing about ships to sharing daily fanart of ships shskjdjdk help

love u xx m.a.

hi hi~~

AHAH honestly talking about it makes me want to rewatch it too idk that i’ve ever done that in full.. yeah I get you! well deserved kiribaku is a good ship 😤 if not canon why so many good moments? lolol

omg wait villain vibes... corrupted chongyun.. YOUR BRAIN??????? FHDSKJFHSDKJ i legit wanna try!!! need to offer something anyway and surely changing the colour from white to black won’t be that difficult... that being said i’m still just playing the game rather than doing literally anything else lollll

LMAOOOOO yeah i really am sorry barbara.... but I really do appreciate being able to heal! since I don’t have a healder on my normal team it’s like wow? I don’t need to eat food or always visit the statues? LMFAO. HFDJFHKS IF NOT SEXY WHY RED THEMED!!!!!!!!!!! you’re so correct and you should say it .

yes!! xiangling would get along so well with them... the boys would probably love guoba too 😩😩 ugh that reminds me I saw someone say xiao’s banner should have had xiao + xingqiu + xiangling + xinyan.... could you imagine 😭😭. FSKFHDSJ look. we’re having fun and that’s all that matters!

everything burns but so do you!! hfkdsjfkhsfd. but nice nice nice you 🤝 me having the same rankings.. I’m just Attached to cryo bc of chongyun and also bc i went around with both him and kaeya in the same team for so long hfskdfjs.

yeahhh not sure LOL but people are saying they rotate the 4 star rate ups and it’s just their turn now.. hm. AHAH yes save for venti!! and then by the time he returns youll have like 200k primogems 🤪🤪

FSHDKSKJF yeah i was gonna say... i feel like people from sweden are probably pretty tall..... bc white people... HFKDSJFHDSFJKSDHFKSD. god that’s a solid 10cm+ compared to me..... wow story of my life........... hfsdkhfkdsjfhsdfks. and my birthday is october 20!! spring babie 🍃 when’s yours!!

(hfkjdshksdh it’s kinda complicated.... LOLOL but i appreciate the effort/offer hfsdkjfhsdkfjsdfhks)

hmm that kinda depends? if i have the time i’ll continue writing until it’s the AM hours and i force myself to go to sleep fhskjfds. but sometimes if i’m not particularly feeling it i’ll just stop and go to something else instead AHAHHA. (actually i do that even when i’m motivated lmfao) but yeah no actual schedule! if i’m writing a fic in response to something (a trailer, a new chapter, a new ep etc) I’ll just drop everything and write until I’m done with it. hbu?

IT IS LITERALLY!! CLONE SHIRO!!!!!!!!!!! i wish i could but i’m pretty sure it got deleted :(((( i had it saved back in the day but could never find it again so :(((((( fdhskfjs she does!! like it’s definitely a different mood for sure.. and no problem! it makes me happy you liked them 🤗

FJSFLJDKS i mean they’re good tho so makes sense 🤪 oooo do you always borrow your books? and no i haven’t!! but i’ve heard so many good things about it....... (have you read the legend series? i don’t think it’s as popular as the other YA novels out there but it’s definitely one of if not the top favourite of mine)

AHAHAH that’s what we call growth and character development! hfdskfs. and yeah i’ve seen that one!!! i remember twt going crazy that day over xiao and his flute.... also look at this https://twitter.com/yilong0416/status/1348383649050324992 <33333 (if you ever want ship arts of a ship - mostly xiaoven lol lmk i have some bookmarked!!)

loveee u 2 <33 c.r.