#Also i was so hungry i ate half the egg

[maipareshaan]

A cat in my apartment complex let me pet it ahhh i was so excited, i boiled an egg for it then i searched for it for 20 mins but couldn't find it. It was so cute ahhhh i hope i see it today.

[dearlenore]

JUST LIKE DADDY • S.REID

SUMMARY: most people are delighted when their children take after their spouses, however none of them had a child with Spencer Reid. In your case, having two smart asses around is giving you a headache. A very adorable, sweet, headache.

PAIRING: mom!reader x dad!spencer

tags: PURE FLUFF, reader wears sundresses, no mentions of pregnancy (so u can imagine baby is adopted) , team doesn’t know about your or your daughter, mentions of autism and ableism (no hate crimes , just ignorance) season5!spencer

a/n: dad spencer is all that’s in my pea brain rn I should probably study tho… also you guessed it, peds surgeon reader 🥹

w/c: 1.8k

“HARPER COME HERE,” you called, glancing over your shoulder as you finished plating breakfast.

The sound of small footsteps pattering against the hardwood floor followed, but she didn’t respond right away. Instead, she wandered into the kitchen, her little nose buried deep in a book, turning pages with quiet fascination. You sighed, shaking your head with a knowing smile.

“Harper,” you said again, a little firmer this time.

She finally looked up, blinking at you with the same wide-eyed, unfocused expression her father wore whenever he was deep in thought. It was uncanny—like looking at a mini version of your boyfriend.

“Come here, baby,” you chuckled, reaching for her. She barely acknowledged you as you lifted both her and the book in one smooth motion, hoisting her onto your hip.

“Are you hungry?” you asked, shifting her weight so you could grab a forkful of scrambled eggs from your plate.

Without hesitation, she opened her mouth, happily taking the bite before reaching for more. You laughed, sitting her on the counter as her father finally wandered in, rubbing his eyes and stretching with a yawn. His hair was a mess, the result of a night spent tossing and turning, and he still looked half-asleep.

You smirked. “I forgot about the boy band you joined.”

Spencer frowned slightly, confused in his sleepy state, before realizing his hair must be sticking up in every direction. He attempted to smooth it down with one hand as he walked over to the counter, where you slid a plate of eggs in his direction.

“Daddy!” Harper beamed, momentarily abandoning her book to reach for him.

But instead of waiting for him to pick her up, she grabbed a handful of your scrambled eggs and stuffed them into her mouth.

“Wow, okay—yep, you know what? Enjoy that, honey,” you sighed, watching in amusement as she happily devoured your breakfast with zero shame.

Spencer sat beside her, sipping his coffee with a small smile as he watched her eat. You shook your head, adjusting your scrubs and tying your hair up as you muttered, “I’ve never seen a baby eat so much…”

Spencer, ever the encyclopedia of knowledge, didn’t miss a beat. “Actually, at this age, children experience growth spurts that can significantly increase their appetite. The brain alone uses about 50% of a toddler’s energy intake, which makes sense considering how much she’s learning and developing every day. So, really, it’s not just eating—it’s fueling her cognitive expansion.”

You shot him a blank stare. “Spencer, she just ate my breakfast with her bare hands.”

He smirked, ruffling Harper’s hair as she reached for another bite. “And at this rate, we might need a second fridge.”

You chuckled, shaking your head. “Remind me to get on that one.”

Leaning over, you kissed him softly, savoring the warmth of the moment before glancing at your watch. Reality settled in as you sighed. “I gotta go—one of my patients just had another seizure, which means surgery got pushed up.”

Spencer’s expression shifted immediately, concern flickering in his eyes as he reached for your hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “You’ll do great,” he murmured.

You squeezed his hand back before pulling away, ruffling Harper’s curls on your way out. “Love you both. Try not to let her talk you into giving her ice cream for breakfast again.”

“No promises,” Spencer called after you, Harper giggling beside him.

As you left, you could already hear Harper asking, “Daddy, can we read now?”

And, of course, you knew what his answer would be.

“Enjoy your special day off with daddy Harper, you’re very lucky,” you giggled, kissing Harper on the nose. “Promise to try and get out before dinner?” Spencer frowned.

“Oh, Baby…I have interns. After this surgery I leave whenever the hell i want, should only take 7 hours,” you shrugged. “So I can expect you by 3-4PM?” He smiled, Harper on his hip.

“Fingers crossed!” You called out to him, closing and locking the door behind you.

THANKFULLY, LUCK MUST’VE been on your side. For the first time in what felt like forever, you were home on time. You quietly unlocked the door, hoping to surprise your fiancé and daughter, and were immediately greeted by the soft sound of giggles echoing from the kitchen.

You smiled to yourself, slipping off your shoes as you followed the sound.

“Whoa, is that me?” Spencer’s voice was full of delight.

Standing in the doorway, you saw him leaning over Harper’s small frame, his hands gently resting on the edge of the counter as he studied her latest masterpiece. In front of her was a cookie slathered in colorful frosting, a wobbly yet unmistakable attempt at drawing their little family. Harper beamed proudly, nodding as Spencer adjusted a tiny smudge of icing with his fingertip.

“And is that you and Mom?” he asked, his smile widening as he pointed to two smaller figures beside the taller one.

Harper nodded again, her curls bouncing with the movement.

Your heart melted at the sight.

For a long time, you and Spencer had worried about Harper’s speech. She had been a quiet baby, slow to start speaking, and for months, you’d both second-guessed yourselves, wondering if you were doing something wrong. And then—one day—she had started talking, and she hadn’t stopped since.

Often times people would comment in stores, they’d question if she was autistic, in their words ‘like her daddy,’ which pissed you off to no end. Not that you were ashamed of either of them but for the sole fact it wasn’t their business.

“Is that for me?” you gasped, stepping into the kitchen.

Harper turned toward you so quickly she nearly knocked over a bowl of sprinkles. “Mommy! Look what I drew!” she giggled, holding up her cookie proudly.

You raised a brow as you inspected the chaotic yet adorable frosting mess. “That’s beautiful, baby. You even gave Daddy his new haircut”

Spencer let out a soft laugh, running a hand through his already-messy curls as Harper nodded eagerly. “We’ve been going over proper grammar all day,” he explained with amusement.

That made you smile knowingly. You and Spencer had agreed early on not to use baby talk with Harper. He had read several studies on how children learned language through immersion, picking up sentence structures and vocabulary from full, adult-level conversations.

“In order for her to develop a strong linguistic foundation, it’s important that she hears full sentences and proper word usage,” Spencer had once told you, mid-ramble, as you rocked a six-month-old Harper to sleep. “Children’s brains are like sponges. The more complex language they’re exposed to, the more their neural connections develop. It’s how they build cognitive associations—”

And yet, despite all his research, Harper still loved to test his patience by making up her own grammar rules.

“I drawed it myself!” she announced proudly, smearing frosting on her cheek in the process.

Spencer sighed dramatically, though the fondness in his eyes was unmistakable. “Drew, sweetheart. You drew it yourself.”

Harper scrunched up her nose, contemplating that for a moment before repeating, “I drewed it myself.”

You snorted as Spencer let out a defeated sigh.

“Close enough,” he muttered, kissing the top of her head.

You leaned against the counter, watching the two of them with warmth spreading through your chest. “I think it’s perfect,” you said, pressing a kiss to Harper’s frosting-covered cheek before turning to Spencer. “And clearly made with love by a little artist”

Spencer nodded, wrapping an arm around your waist as Harper reached for more sprinkles. “An artist and a linguist, apparently.”

Harper looked up at you both, eyes twinkling. “I’m a genius,” she declared.

Spencer chuckled, squeezing your waist. “Well, she’s definitely my daughter.”

“Don’t get me started. It’s like there’s two of you.” You scoffed playfully. Spencer’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean?” He crosses his arms and leans on the counter.

You raised an eyebrow, pausing mid-sip of the coffee you’d just taken from your boyfriend. “Spence. Seriously?”

He blinked at you, waiting. Oh, he was serious.

You set your mug down with a sigh, crossing your arms as you leaned against the counter. “Okay. Well, for starters, she walks around with a book in her hands everywhere—to the point where I’ve had to physically guide her away from furniture so she doesn’t run into things. Sound familiar?”

Spencer tilted his head, processing.

“And let’s talk about her memory. The other day, I told her we could get ice cream if she took a nap, and when I picked her up from daycare two days later, she said, ‘Mommy, you owe me ice cream.’ TWO. DAYS. She remembered the exact words I said, which, by the way, is something you do all the time, and it’s terrifying.”

Spencer opened his mouth, probably to say something about the hippocampus and memory retention, but you held up a finger. “Nope. I’m not done.”

Harper, now licking frosting off her fingers, was watching you both with amusement.

“She uses logic to try and win arguments. Do you know how hard it is to reason with a toddler who says, ‘But technically, you did say I could have another cookie yesterday’?” You waved your hands for emphasis. “She technically me’d into giving her another cookie, Spencer. She’s FIVE.”

Spencer rubbed his hand thoughtfully, as if considering his own genetic responsibility in this matter.

“Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that she infodumps—about things she just learned. The other day, I made an offhand comment about birds flying south for the winter, and now she’s been telling everyone about migratory patterns. The cashier at the grocery store did not ask for that information, but she sure got it.”

Spencer’s lips twitched, clearly amused. “So what you’re saying is… she’s highly intelligent, observant, and logical?”

You groaned, rubbing your temples. “Oh my God. Yes, Spencer, your genes are very strong.”

Before you could say more, Harper perked up, pointing a frosting-covered finger at you. “Mommy, did you know some birds don’t actually migrate, they just move to different parts of the same area?”

Spencer’s grin widened as he leaned toward you. “See? She’s just expanding on a topic she finds fascinating.”

You huffed, shaking your head before leaning down to kiss Harper’s sticky cheek. “You two are gonna drive me insane.”

Harper giggled, and Spencer simply pressed a kiss to your temple. “But you love us.”

You sighed dramatically before melting into his embrace. “Yeah, yeah. I love you both. Even if you’re teaming up to outsmart me.”

Harper beamed. “It’s ‘cause we’re genies, Mommy.” You snickered.

“So how many wishes do I get?”

[archangeldyke-all]

reader who packs sev lunch x sev who only remembers to eat that lunch for the little love notes stashed in there plssss!!

WAHHHHH crying crying crying crying crying

men and minors dni

you've been packing her lunches since you moved in with her.

each day, you pack up the little reusable bag with leftovers or a quick cold cut sandwich, some snacks, and a note for your love. and each night, she comes home with an empty lunchbox and the tupperware licked clean.

what you don't know is that sevika only ever opens and eats her lunches because of the little notes you leave.

the first time you'd packed her a lunch-- just a simple sandwich and bag of chips in a paper bag-- she'd been too flustered by the gesture to tell you that she doesn't eat at work. she doesn't have time, she doesn't have space, she's usually not even that hungry after a days worth of dealing with idiots and cleaning blood.

so, when she gets to work, she tosses the paper sack to ran when she hears them lament about how hungry they are. "here, now shut your trap." she'd grunted, trying to ignore the bright smile her friend was shooting her.

"thanks, sev!"

she'd thought that would be the end of it. but, twenty minutes later, ran and lock found her in the alley, both of them giggling like children as they cornered her.

"hey, sevi-bear!" ran calls.

sevika freezes, her shoulders shooting up to her ears. that's your nickname for her-- reserved only for when you're trying to get her to blush and stammer.

lock laughs at her reaction, spraying chip crumbs everywhere-- her chips, sevika realizes-- and then he holds out a scrap of paper for her to examine.

your handwriting adorns it, enough for sevika to know that you wrote something devastatingly sweet and sappy. "you forgot this in your lunch, sev." he giggles.

she reaches out and snatches the paper with so much force lock stumbles forward. ran's cackling as sevika cooly walks away. (she doesn't sprint. and she's not blushing. no matter what ran says.)

she reads the note you left her in the stall of the bathroom, trying and failing to bite back her big, sappy smile at your words.

have a good day, sevi-bear. if you pass a market, bring home a dozen eggs? i'll miss you today, work's going to be so boring, all i'll be thinking about is you. eat all your lunch, i made it with love. <3

sevika's hit with immense guilt the second she reads your words. and also, a bit of jealousy that ran and lock got to eat your love sandwich, and she didn't.

from that day on, sevika ate all her lunches. she can definitely taste the love, even on days where you're too tired to pack more than a collection of pre-packaged snacks.

but what she treasures most are the tiny scraps of paper. she collects them religiously, keeps them in her breast pocket each day until she can get home and stash her daily note in a little shoebox buried under her side of the bed.

taglist!

@fyeahnix @lavendersgirl @half-of-a-gay @thesevi0lentdelights @sexysapphicshopowner @shimtarofstupidity @chuucanchuucan @badbye666 @femme-historian @lia-winther @gr0ssz0mbi3 @ellsss @sevikaspillowprincess @leomatsuzaki @emiliabby @sevikasbeloved @hellorai @vikasub @glass-apothecary @m0numents @macaroni676 @vixel352 @artinvain

[love--bites]

I have this friend that I haven't seen in a year. Last time I saw them, they were skinnier than me and barely ate when stopping by. They didn't ask for snacks or anything to eat unless I was already planning on eating something. That's all fine and good, but I saw them again after about a year...

They had clearly put on at least 100 pounds, potentially 150, and I know it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I assure you that I'm not. When the couch barely made a sound before, it creaked and groaned against their weight. When they had no issues getting around, going up the stairs left them out of breath. When the floorboards were silent with their footsteps, they now stepped heavily around the house with the boards creaking loudly underneath them. Even their clothes, which had to be new, were struggling against their overstuffed belly.

The first thing they did was ask me for something to eat, so I gladly made them ramen. They requested two packets and a soft-boiled egg, and I gladly provided. After their meal, they asked for snacks, so I willingly gave them whatever they wanted - all that I had. They finished an entire box of cheezits and a half of a second box. They also finished half a box of cookies. They wanted hot chocolate to go with this, so again, I provided, making sure to add extra whip cream and small marshmallows. As much as I tried not to, I found myself sneaking a glance at their shirt that was now riding up on them slightly as their belly hung over their pants.

They told me they were still hungry and somewhat reluctantly asked if I had anything left to eat. I happily agreed and made a full pizza, not expecting to eat a single bite of it myself. I brought the pizza over to the kitchen table, and they took a seat, the wooden chair creaking loudly as they did so. After I added some extra cheese on top, they took a slice and quickly devoured it. Then they took another, and another. I kept them talking as they ate, somewhat of a distraction, and before they realized it, they had eaten the entire pizza. I could tell their pants were barely clinging to them, and it was clear their shirt was riding up much more than it had been before. They looked stuffed, and I could see a look in their eyes that said, "If I eat any more, I'll pop."

Their stomach, however, disagreed with their comfort and growled. Clearly embarrassed, they tried to play it off, but I knew better. I grabbed them a dessert - a tub of strawberry ice cream, a small slice of chocolate cake, ice, extra sugar, a bit of cinnamon, and a half pint of heavy cream. I pulled out my blender and made a delicious and thick milkshake. How many calories it was, I can't exactly say, but I had to be a good host to my starving friend, no? I couldn't let them go hungry.

I handed them a glass of the drink, and, hesitantly at first, they started politely drinking, but as they continued, their polite sips turned into desperate gulps, as if they hadn't drank anything in ages. They chugged the drink down - one glass became two, and two became three, and so on until the drink had been finished entirely. Their breathing was a bit more labored as they sat, seemingly pinned to their chair by their weight, and with one final gulp of their glass, the button on their pants flew off, and their belly spilled out of the far-too-tight jeans. They were extremely embarrassed, but of course, I reassured them, letting them know that it just meant there was more room to eat their fill.

As their belly hung out, filled to the brim with food, it growled, begging for more. My friend's expression said that they could barely handle more, but their stomach clearly had other ideas. With a polite smile, I asked, "Are you still hungry?"

[dumbasslesbi2]

What If?

Summary:

What if Agatha and Rio actually raised Nicholas together, unless?

Notes:

IM BACK!!! Sorry to be coming back with some angst but uh, I got my heart broken and I need somewhere to pour my feels out into. I hope y'all enjoy! Warning: ANGST!!!!!

Nothing is worse than being awoken by the cries of a screaming baby. Well, being awoken by the cries coming right next to you is even worse. Agatha stirred awake but saw Rio already had Nicky in her arms.

“Go back to sleep my love, I got it” she whispered to Agatha as she held Nicholas in her arms.

“Mmm, too late Rio, I’m already up” Agatha told her, sitting up on her elbows.

“Well, it’s already 8 o’clock so we should be up anyway. He’s probably hungry” Rio said, looking down at Agatha with adornment. 

“Give him here” Agatha told her, rolling her eyes as she lifted her tank top down.

Rio gave Agatha Nicholas and shifted behind her so Agatha could lay her head on her stomach.

“Oh ya, he was definitely hungry” Agatha said with a giggle as she looked up at Rio.

Rio couldn’t help but smile down at Agatha and brush away her stray hairs. Agatha always complained about how crazy and how hard it was to tame her hair but Rio loved it. It didn’t matter if she looked like she fought with a vacuum cleaner, Rio would have still thought she was the most gorgeous woman she laid eyes on. She bent down half way and gave Agatha a kiss on the forehead.

“I love you” said Rio, looking down at Agatha with a toothy smile.

“I love you too” said Agatha, looking up at her with nothing but adornment. 

“You’re gonna hate me but I have to get up to make breakfast, or else someone here is gonna be upset in a couple minutes” she told agatha, pinching one of her cheeks gently. 

“Well, I guess if you must,” Agatha told Rio, rolling her eyes as she lifted her head while still gently cradling Nicholas.  

Slowly Agatha also got up and followed Rio downstairs. She sat down at her reading nook and slowly rocked Nicholas while singing to him gently. Rio couldn’t help but smile as she cooked breakfast while hearing Agatha. Rio could have easily used magic to cook and do everything but there was something about being domestic with Agatha that just felt so right. She didn’t care if it was mundane or not, as long as she had Agatha and Nicholas in her life nothing else mattered. 

“Breakfast is ready mi amor” Rio yelled from the kitchen as she set all the plates on the table. 

“Thank you my love” Agatha said as she walked in, putting Nicholas in his booster seat. Rio made sure to plate him small pieces of egg and some apple for breakfast. He immediately giggled as Rio tried to feed him. 

“C’mon cariño, time to eat” Rio told him with a smile as she spooned him some egg.

Agatha couldn’t help but stare with affection, she couldn’t imagine having a child with anyone else. From day one she imagined having a child with Rio and wouldn’t have it any other way. She always found loving Rio came so easily, she honestly couldn’t even imagine a life without Rio. She loved her so dearly and Rio was just always so gentle when it came to her. She never had someone so understanding and loving in her life. After a while Rio noticed Agatha’s staring. “Baby, I can feel your stare. If you keep staring your food is gonna get cold” Rio said, side eyeing Agatha with another toothy smile.

“I can’t help it, you know how much I love you” Agatha said, finally eating a bit of her food.

“Well you can cause if you don’t eat I know you’re gonna get grumpy later” Rio said as she ate a bit of her food. “I love you too” she said as she finished swallowing. They sat in comfortable silence while Rio continued feeding Nicholas. Once they were all done eating Rio took the dishes and put them in the sink. She was about to start doing them until she felt Agatha behind her, putting her arms around her. 

“Let me darling, you cooked. Let me atleast do this my love” Agatha said as she started kissing Rio’s neck.

“Well if you insist baby” Rio told her as she started to turn in Agatha’s arm. She slowly leaned forward to give Agatha a kiss. It was then that Agatha leaned forward to meet her halfway. 

And then, Agatha woke up. Alone.

She looked down at her black-stained hands and remembered her reality.

The tears started to swell as soon as she realized it had happened again.

She had dreamed of Rio. Again.

She always dreamed of Rio. She still loved her after all this time. No matter how much she wanted to forget her and hate her, she still loved her. She wasn’t sure if she would ever stop loving her. After everything Rio had done, she still craved her.

Little did she know that somewhere else in her same reality, Rio was going through the exact same thing.

Rio had woken up to dreams of Agatha, and it broke her once again.

Rio knew she would never get over Agatha and would continue searching for her. She didn’t care if Agatha never wanted to see her again, she just wanted to make sure Agatha was okay and alive. That was all that mattered to Rio. She didn’t care if Agatha never loved her again, she just needed to know she was okay.

Sometimes, she wondered if meeting at a different time would have changed everything, if maybe, in some other timeline, they could have had Nicky and raised him as a proper family.

Every day, she missed Agatha.

She still loved her. No matter what.

Her love for her was undying.

[burn-before-reading]

Love in the Time of Socialism

joost klein x artist!reader

art, mush, and ramblings about life

warnings: depression (ish), burnout, reader character in some vague mental health funk

word count: 2k

a/n: slight prequel to blue is the colour of your eyes but can be read as stand alone. just same artist reader. vaguely romantic but just ramblings and getting feelings out haha. started this when I was in more of a bad mental state (lol) but im fine now so it got kinda tame by the end of it. still not proofreading anything

title from the song Love in the Time of Socialism by Yellow House

Rpf below the cut—

Normally Joost has to call you because its the only way you will actually look at your phone. Its more often that not you find yourself fixated on planning out your next project, and your friends have to force you back into reality. There was that one time no one had heard from you in over a week and thought you were dead, when you were just working. You hadn’t realized how many texts you missed and apologized for scaring your friends half to death. Especially Joost.

So now you leave your ringer on, and now they call.

Tonight, however, Joost calls and you aren’t in your studio. You are in your bed, where you have been for the entire day. and also most of yesterday. There isn’t a reason in your head specifically why this has happened. you MEANT to get up. Theres a list of chores and things to do just sitting on your desk, but you woke up late, so now nothing will get done. At some point it just became too stressful to even get up and look at it. You roll over and stare at the contact picture of him, smiling with some dumb fish eye lens he thought was funny. You debate not picking up at all.

But you can’t ignore him.

“Hi Joost.” your voice came through the phone more hoarse than intended when you answered, you don’t remember the last time you talked to someone. “Whats going on?”

“the others wanted to go out for drinks tonight, you hadn’t responded so I wanted to check you were joining us.” You could imagine him rocking back and forth on his heels in the middle of his living room while he talked, it was either that or pacing around.

“uhh..” Drinks at a bar was the last thing on your mind. In any other situation you would have loved to be around your friends, but right now you just needed to avoided as much as possible. “Not a good night, tonight. Sorry, I’ll have to join you guys next time.”

Joost felt like something was off, you sounded tired. “Is everything okay?”

“I’ll be fine I just… shit brain day. bad brain thats all. It happens.” You did your best to summarize how you felt without actually admitting anything, you weren’t sure how to explain anything anyway.

“ Oh Im sorry, would it be good, if I came over? I can keep you company, if thats okay?”

“you don’t have to, I’ll be fine tomorrow. I want you to have fun. ” you insisted, but he pressed on.

“I don’t mind, the group would understand. Have you eaten today?”

“Like… a meal? yes, or well, no. I had a soda..” You glance at the half drunk soda from the night before, now flat. “and uhhh..”

“I’ll pick something up.” You could hear him on the other end gathering things together, keys, wallet, probably his ipad.

“.. thank you. I’ll see you in a bit, I guess.”

-

Joost knocked on your door about an hour later. In that time you were able to get out of bed and make your way to the bathroom to change and make yourself somewhat presentable in front of a guest, and to the kitchen to make coffee despite it being 8pm.

You opened it to see Joost with a sheepish smile as he extends his arms out for a hug. “Hi.”

“Hi Joost.” you take the step to hug him, feeling his body heat contrast with the cold nighttime. “I’m glad you’re here.” the two of you head inside to your living room where he empties his bag of take out to reveal a couple different thai dishes and egg rolls. It was hard to not admit you weren’t at least a little bit hungry.

The two of you ate in mostly silence, making small talk about different projects you two have going on, or the fact that the two of you were in between projects. He done with touring for the time being and in the process of working on a new album. You loosely avoiding talking about any current work plans but mentioned one or two paintings you finished for a private gallery commission last month.

“ Just some paintings of animals and nature-ish symbolism. Honestly my heart wasn’t really in that one, but it payed the rent so.” you shrug and shove noodles into your mouth.

“Well now you have the time to work on your own stuff, right?” he commented, leaning back into your couch and looking down at you sitting on the floor instead of any of your own furniture. “Draw whatever your heart desires.”

“I mean I guess.. Im just glad to be done with the oil paints for now. I swear i think I was gonna die in my studio from all the chemicals. I dunno, I finished that whole project last month, I haven’t really been very productive since then.” you trail off and Joost gets a concerned expression on his face.

He sinks down from his spot of the couch to join you in the floor. The fluffy rug brushing against his legs as he adjusts his new sitting position.

“Its okay to take a break, you know.”

“I know I know, I just get frustrated. I never seem to have my energy directed towards the right thing. Whenever I have all those big projects from other contractors, I can brainstorm and think of all these interesting ideas I wanna work on, but I can’t because then I would get behind on the art Im being paid to do.”

“mhm.” he nods, to indicate he’s following along.

“ And then whenever Im done with those projects, I just get… tired. and my focus is gone. and Everything just feels…” you gesture the last bit with your hands, scrambling your fingers, to imply your thoughts. You aren’t looking at him, but you can still see him nodding in your peripherals. Joost always seemed to understand your thinking and explanations to things, even if you thought they were messy.

“Do you want to try painting right now?” he asks. you just shrug your shoulders.

“I don’t know what I would paint.”

“You can paint our dinner, or, or yourself, or your plants maybe?” he suggested and stands up. “Can I paint too?”

“Oh we’re actually doing this?” Not that you didn’t want to, but this self doubt had creeped into your mind again. That failing to produce something decent would prove that you’ve lost all your talent, your skill.

“yea we can have a little painting party!” he chimed, but he hesitated walking over to your studio to grab stuff, still giving you the space to reject his idea.

you looked away and started nervously tapping your fork against the table.

tap tap tap tap

“…sure. We can use my watercolors, Ive been wanting to use them more often anyway.”

the coffee table became a little more cluttered as you set up the paints for the two of you. Joost using an old set 24 pans and you using a newer set of watercolor tubes you were gifted last year and never opened. You watched as Joost immediately dipped his brush in water and started activating the blue paints, spreading it onto his paper in big random strokes.

“what are you painting?”

“not sure yet, maybe im painting you.” he looks up and smirks. you scrunch your nose up.

“why are you using so much blue. am I a smurf?” you joke and he just shrugs and points to your own paper.

“Just mess around, can’t be any worse than what im doing.”

tap tap tap tap tap tap

you fidget with your own brush for a few seconds lo get before grabbing a big mop brush and wetting your paper with clean water. Taking your smaller brush again, you pour out a small amount of yellow and mix it up with some more water. You hesitate for a moment longer before letting the brush lightly touch the surface, creating a burst of colour on the paper as the colour seeps onto the page. You make a few more random marks before switching to another warm colour and repeating the process, now watching the colours bleeds and mix into each other. You look at Joost paper and see that he is actually now trying to paint you, the blue fortunately was able to be mostly contained to the background.

“Do you ever think about what you would do if you weren’t a musician?” you ask.

“I dunno I think after this I could have a pretty successful art career.” he teases but sees in your face the question is more serious. “I don’t know. I started off with youtube, but if I wasn’t doing that… its hard to think about what my life would be like if I didn’t follow this path.”

“I always have this feeling deep down, that I made a wrong choice somewhere along the line. I was thinking about going to school for psychology, I also wanted to work with animals at one point, be a vet. I enjoy art, don’t get me wrong, but I just worry that in making it my job Ive just drained all the passion I had for it.”

You let the paper dry before staining the page with lines of dark burgundy, creating hands and a human heart. he hums as he listens, not adding anything, but simply letting you vent. beginning to piece together your mood from earlier. “I don’t have any jobs lined up right now, which is what Ive been waiting for, to work on my own stuff, yknow? I haven’t had the time ive wanted to make something for myself for a while. But now I just feel, I feel like ive been frozen.”

“things seem to be okay right now. I like what youve made. ” you look down and see the scribbles youve made with your paint. hands clasped over a broken heart. you shrug and smile softly, signing the bottom.

“Just a scribble, you can have it if you want.” You hand the paper over to him. “thank you for coming by, its… its nice being around you. Helps a bit.”

Joost takes the paper and studies it for a second. “I really like it, maybe I should come by more often.”

“If you bring the food we can have art nights whenever you want.” he holds up his paper. The blue bleeding into your skintone and hair since he didn’t wait for anything to properly dry. “I might stick to my ipad though, I don’t know why you like this paint.” he scrunches his nose at it. you laugh and it makes him smile.

You notice for the first time how bright his eyes look when he smiles, but you brush the thought away.

-

“Feeling a bit better?” he asks as he lingers by the door on his way out.

“a bit. like I said It was just a mood, I was gonna be fine tomorrow most likely… I still appreciate you coming over.”

“Don’t ever be afraid to call or text okay? Im always here to talk if you need. or just to listen.”

“definitely. Ive been meaning to uh, talk to someone about all this stuff anyway, you’re not a professional but ill keep it in mind.”

he grins and goes in for one last hug. you feel him slightly squeeze you and linger a little longer than usual before letting go. With one last glance he waves and head off. You see him pull out a cigarette for the walk back. It takes you a second to close the door. standing there watching him walk off until he turns a corner and disappears. Closing the door you sigh and go the clean up your living room.

You notice he left the portrait he drew of you. signed at the bottom with a smiley face next to his name.

It gets hung up in your studio above your desk.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole for eating my sister’s food?

🥞☕️

(to find later)

I (15m) don’t have a lot of time to get ready for school in the morning. Neither does my sister (11f) My mom is aware of this, and buys us easy breakfasts at the grocery store when she does, usually Sunday afternoon. My mom is usually great about remembering to pick up food for the week, however the breakfast food in question (pancake cups, the Pearl Milling Company ones) come in a 4 pack. (My mom gets us a special breakfast Friday so we don’t have to worry about breakfast on those days)

This is where I may be the asshole. While I eat one pancake cup for every day of the week, my sister saves up her food for reasons she won’t share. Last Saturday as of posting, she had eight in our pantry. For some reason, that day I woke up with a horrible headache as I forgot to eat the night before, and went to look at making myself some french toast. We didn’t have any eggs. Okay, I had thought, what about making actual pancakes? No pancake mix. Waffles? The waffle iron is still broken. After around a half hour of trying to find something, I turned to my sister’s stash of pancake cups. As it were, she could have ate one every day that week up until next Sunday if she still wanted to eat the breakfast my Mom gets special for us Friday, and Sunday is the day we go grocery shopping. Plus, at that point if she *really* wanted to have that many my mom was going grocery shopping the next day, she could get more. My point is, I made sure she wouldn’t go hungry on some mornings. So, I heat up the pancake cup.

When my sister wakes up, she is fuming. I try to explain that I have a horrible headache and hadn’t eaten the night before, and we didn’t have a lot of food in the house (Realistically we just had stale cheezits and 12 grain bread I could have toasted) and I couldn’t make myself any of the other things she had suggested either due to equipment broken or not having supplies. I also explained to her that Mom was going grocery shopping tomorrow, and if she really wanted that many so badly our Mom would grab some. She still isn’t happy. When my mom wakes up (from my sister’s screaming) she sides with me and says that my sister had a lot. She had one for every day of the week including Friday, a day she was guaranteed breakfast, and I felt awful from the night before. She told my sister that she really should have been more worried about me, and that I wasn’t feeling good. My mom also agreed that if she honestly thought she needed that many we could buy more the next day, and she wasn’t going to eat all of the seven she had left before Sunday. My sister stormed off.

My friends and mom think I’m not the asshole considering the situation that morning, and believe my sister should have been more compassionate towards me considering I didn’t feel well. I, however, see why my sister may be upset as at the end of the day it was her food. But, I feel like my point stands, I only took one knowing she wouldn’t have to skip breakfast one day. And if it mattered that much she had more than seven, we could have bought more the next day. Am I the asshole?

Tl;Dr - Am I the asshole for eating my sister’s food even though she had more than enough?

What are these acronyms?

[redflagshipwriter]

Reassembly 5

Masterpost

(What the frick is the bat guy about???)

They did serious damage to Lexy’s credit card in the form of a cast iron pan, a pot, basic cooking utensils and a four-person set of dishware before they even made it to the grocery store.

Peter tried not to go nuts there. He really did. But Kon had that empty kitchen! And to be honest, shopping was major wish fulfillment. Even though he knew he wouldn’t be eating all of the food he got way into it. They stocked up on easy freezer food like pizza rolls and fries. They got pasta mixes and jarred sauces and they got snacks and sweets. He even got Kon baking basics. It might take Kon a while to get into his fresh bread era, but it was going to happen. Peter was calling it now. Kon was just that kind of guy.

The last thing he got was meat. Meat and cheese and fresh vegetables. Peter ended up putting back half of what he initially put in the cart because, honestly, Kon didn’t have a massive super appetite and he didn’t know how to cook yet. Vegetables were just going to go bad, so he only got what he planned to use that night. He also stocked Kon up on breakfast supplies- bread and jam, eggs, sausage, coffee and tea and juice.

‘I wish I was staying with Kon to eat this. I’m going to be hungry again tomorrow.’

Peter pushed down that greedy little thought where it belonged. He was going to be eating lunch and dinner with Kon tonight, since they were cooking together. That was already really generous on Kon’s part. He couldn’t ask for more.

The boys ended up making spaghetti. Peter wasn’t the best cook in the world, but he could cut onion and garlic to cook meat in, shred in carrots and zucchini, and add a jar of red sauce to make something nutritionally dense that tasted really good. Kon hovered over his shoulder watching this process and making faux sports commentary. 

“Go away!” Peter shoved Kon with his shoulder, laughing. “Go start the garlic bread.”

“...Garlic bread?” Kon asked hopefully. He seemed way younger than he was sometimes. “You can make that at home?”

“You can, if you get to cutting garlic really small.” Peter tossed him a bulb without looking.

They ate dinner while watching some drama that Kon picked out on a streaming service. “Holy shit,” Kon said quietly after his first bite. He put down the plate and took a photo.

Peter snorted. Kon must have sent it to someone because his phone went off constantly after that.

He wasn’t even done eating their late lunch when he first wondered where he was going to sleep tonight. Peter stared down into his pasta like it might have some answers. When should he leave? What would he say if Kon asked for his phone number? He didn’t have one. He couldn’t give Kon the number to the phone he had on him– he was pretty sure that he really should get rid of it in case someone was tracking him. 

He should ask first. If he directed the conversation it would be easier to be normal than if he was just answering questions. So Peter swallowed hard, made himself smile, and said, “This was fun. Wanna hang out again?”

Kon noisily slurped down some sauce and wiggled in place while he chewed and swallowed. “Yeah, we should!” he agreed. “You uh, free later this week?”

He was jobless and homeless with no other acquaintances. 

“I have some time,” Peter said casually. “I’m kinda busy tomorrow, but the day after? Should I come over in the afternoon?”

“Yeah!” Kon bounced up off his seat for a moment. “We can finish the projects. Or work on them, at least.” He screwed his face up with a thought. “Can I get your handle or number, in case my work pops up?”

Peter’s smile turned fixed. “Actually, not now,” he said as casually as he could manage. “I dropped my phone in water. I just have my Dad’s old phone right now for emergencies.” He didn’t need to add that lie, but what if he needed to pull out the flip phone later? He didn’t want Kon to think that he just hadn’t wanted to give his number.

Kon laughed. “That sucks, man,” he empathized. 

Oh thank Thor, he bought it. 

The fabric was dry by then, so Peter helped Kon cut it out and sew it into place. Kon modeled his new look in the living room and then took approximately two hundred selfies while Peter worked on his project. Kon eventually flopped down on the sofa upside down and started sketching out design ideas. Peter glanced over and saw what looked like a boob window cut into some kind of top.

…Kon would look great in it. Peter didn’t comment. He smiled a little more when he went back to cutting out pieces for his own jacket.

“Smile!”

Peter looked over on reflex and cheesed. A shutter went off. “Can I send that to my friends?” Kon asked, so casually that Peter knew it mattered a lot. “Cassie says no way did I meet someone without her.”

“Go ahead.” Peter gave a thumbs up for reasons even he did not understand. Good thing he wasn’t a weird little guy! 

Kon looked relieved. There was less tension when he went back to looking at his phone. “Thanks, man. You want to think about dinner soon? You’ve been working for a couple of hours.”

Peter had to blink a few times to process that. Oh yeah, he was pretty stiff. He stretched experimentally. “You’re right,” he said, mildly surprised. “Huh. What did you have in mind?”

Kon shrugged. “Pizza?”

Peter hummed. “We can pull that off,” he decided. “We have… two more jars of marinara, one will do. Cheese, the bell peppers- yeah, that’ll work.” He stood in a smooth movement. “Could you get the flour down from where we put it- yeah, thanks.” Kon hovered back down and handed him the bag.

“I meant that we should order it,” Kon said, but he didn’t protest. “You can make pizza? At home?” He was delighted by this new information.

“You can make basically anything at home,” Peter said, because it apparently needed to be said. “Can you look up a pizza dough recipe?” He got out the salt and tried to remember where he’d put yeast.

Pizza did not go quite as smoothly as the pasta had. Kon brutalized the dough by over mixing it and the gluten developed bonds strong enough to rival the Hulk. But it was still edible! Kon was openly delighted with what he had made. Peter stole sideways glances at him, wondering if he should reassure that it was a great first try.

‘..I’m not sure he knows that it’s really tough,’ Peter decided. He said nothing. They watched one episode of Kon’s selected drama before Peter decided it was time to go.

Kon seemed surprised when Peter said that. He blinked at him a few times. “It felt like I was at the tow- a sleepover,” he said self consciously. He forced a laugh. “Yeah. You wanna leave your stuff here?”

Peter looked around Kon’s surgically clean living room and wondered if Lexy’s cleaning staff would throw away his stuff. “Yeah, sure,” he said, because it wasn’t like he had a place to store a project. “I appreciate that.”

He left not much later, making his excuses and backing out into the night with dread that he didn’t want to face curling in his gut. The feeling intensified as he got down to the lobby of Kon’s apartment building.

It was dark out, even with the streetlights on. The air was cold against his face. Peter huddled into his jacket, hand wound tightly around the strap of the bag with everything he owned in it.

At least he knew the time. It was a little past 10 pm.

He needed a shower and to sleep. The gym should be empty now. He could break back in, shower, and then go sleep on the library couch again. Even if the librarian came in early again, he could get a few hours of sleep.

He woke up again to the sound of keys in the door downstairs. This time he woke up feeling much better rested. Peter wandered blearily until he found a clocktower and realized it was nearly 9 am. Nice. He was working on his sleep debt, then. He surely hadn’t spent more than an hour between traveling to the gym, showering, and getting to the couch last night. That was maybe 9.5, 10 hours of sleep?

He left to a new hotel for a breakfast buffet. This one was particularly sad. He had two pieces of peanut butter toast and a glass of milk before he heard the front door staff quietly phone someone else asking if they had any teenagers staying at the moment. He left pretty quickly after that and walked for a while, heart pounding. The police didn’t descend on him with sirens and lights, so he was probably okay.

‘I can’t go back there.’

Later that day, Peter grimaced and took a moment to indulge in burying his face in his hands. He was overwhelmed and he still felt shitty and dirty and gross despite his shower. Maybe it was getting spotted as a homeless teen eating from the buffet? Yeah. Probably that.

He was in the library again, sitting in front of one of the older computers and hoping he'd get a reply from a potential client who had asked for some information. 

Maybe it was a little weird to spend all day in the library. He was on notice for librarians acting like they wanted him to clear out, just in case.

But, assuming no one had any problems with it, why not spend most of his daylight hours there? He could study computer science, use the computers to do his work, and be somewhere temperature controlled for free. They also had pitchers of coffee and tea for free that he took advantage of. 

He was hungry, though. He was always hungry. Maybe it had been a mistake to go to Kon’s house. It almost felt worse to be hungry again after eating everything he wanted two meals in a row. Peter suppressed despair. He was doing his best! He was taking care of himself.

"Is everything alright?" 

Peter shot up and gave a sheepish grin to the librarian. He hadn't noticed her approaching, but he'd been lost in his head. "It's fine," he said. 

The older woman gave him a sympathetic smile. "Well, let me know if there's anything I can help with. It's what I'm here for." 

Oh. Before she could turn away he blurted out, "College!" 

Her face lit up. "Are you applying?" 

"I need to." Peter wrung his hands together. "But I don't know where to start. I want to go somewhere with a strong sciences program but I think I need to go there on scholarship." 

She sat down beside him, an easy smile on her face like this was a topic that she enjoyed. “Do you care about where it is?”

Peter shook his head. “It would be best if I could stay in NYC since I know here, but I’m willing to go anywhere that meets those conditions.”

She nodded slowly. “There’s a few places I can think of.” She hesitated. “Do you expect to be eligible for testing related scholarships?”

“Yeah,” said Peter, who was so good at tests but would probably falsify the results that he needed if he didn’t manage to take tests in time. “I test well. Very well.”

“That’s great! And you said sciences? Technological sciences?” she didn’t glance at his current computer science book, but she didn’t have to. 

“Yes,” he said, not entirely sure what he should be focusing on. Engineering, to build some kind of portal? Astrophysics like Dr. Foster, to find an Einstein-Rosen bridge? He’d have to get his foot in the door to figure out what was going on in the fields here. Shit, he should have looked into that already. 

“And you would be looking to live by yourself, on campus? Or off? With family?”

“By myself,” Peter said, and wow that was depressing. “And whichever way is cheapest.” He cringed as he said it. That felt pathetic too. He wanted to say he wanted to live on campus since he’d be more likely to meet people that way. But honestly, he had no resources, at all. He couldn’t afford to be picky. 

The librarian’s smile was a bit fixed now. “I… I almost hate to suggest it, but have you considered Gotham?” She continued before Peter had to decide whether or not he should admit he didn’t know that university. “It’s a dangerous city to live in, but it’s very affordable, and there’s extensive funding for the sciences and student support services.”

“...Because it’s a dangerous city and doesn’t get many people?” Peter confirmed.

She was doing her best to keep a poker face. “That’s right. They have a brain drain situation at the moment, so the sciences are really well funded. I think you could probably go there with full support, though that might be contingent on taking an internship or job in Gotham after graduation.”

Huh. He considered it. He’d never heard of Gotham, so it had to be a city that didn’t exist back home. But so what? How bad could it be? It was like, Chicago or something? He could handle that. He was Spiderman. He was an Avenger, sort of. So he directed a real smile at the librarian. “If I could get a full scholarship there, I would go in a heartbeat,” Peter said. “Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll look into the university there.”

The librarian patted the side of his chair as she stood up. “Wonderful! Let me know if you change your mind or have any questions!”

He ended up having a lot of questions, actually, once he started looking into Gotham, but he didn’t think, “What the frick is the vampire bat guy about?” was what she’d had in mind.

[voidwritesstuff]

Desmond Wales. DAILY ROUTINE HEADCANNONS.

@fisheadz Requested me to write something for Desmond. Enjoy!

-Morning headcannons- "Ugh,who Turned on the sun?"

This Man. This poor,poor Man. He tries so hard,so hard to be a morning person. He really does try but he hates every second of it.

He has accidentally knocked his alarm clock off his desk. He also fumbles to find his glasses and in his feeling around always smudges the lenses. If hes really tired he wont even bother cleaning them and walk around with a weird blurry spot until he has to go to work and look presentable.

He Will get out of bed ,reluctantly,and walk to the kitchen dragging his feet. He sleeps with socks on. His circulation is not the best.

His breakfast is coffee (cream only), toasts. When he was with his wife (I cant for the life of me remeber her name) he ate the ocasional Bacon and eggs. He still does,if hes feeling like it. but its too much work and hes well aware hes slowly drifting into depression.

His toast has butter and sugar on it. He Will never admit It, being a health professional in a way, but he lives off of sugar and caffeine.

He Will make his breakfast, sit on his sofá and watch some sort of documental,reality show or something like that. He rarely watches the news,he doesnt want to wake up to awfulness every morning. (Hes specially avoidant of the news after his wife leaves him,and tonia passes)

Desmond takes half an hour,fourty minutes at most ,to eat breakfast. If he doesnt need to work,then he Will take an hour.

He goes to shower after,make sure he looks presentable and smells nice. He prepares his clothes ahead of time, im talking the night before.

Its worth saying he sleeps shirtless,only boxers and socks. Sometimes theyre mismatched. After his divorce the mistmatching happens more often.

He Will give his guitar a longing stare,hoping he can play some songs tonight when hes back. He usually comes too tired for it. But he still longs for it so much.

But after the shower he makes sure to Keep his beard in check (he trims it once a week) And makes himself another cup of coffee before going to his Office.

Mid-Morning. "Workin' nine to five,what a way to make a livin' "

He Will unlock his Office,and tale a deep breath of the stale air. He loves and hates his job,hes mentally preparing himself for today and whatever it is he has to put up with.

Only then he turns on the light, closes the door behind him and sits on his desk. He leaves the mug on the desk,and theres a ring of spilt coffee. He always covers it when people come over.

He shuffles his chair closer- every night when he leaves he tends to kinda kick it back when hes about to stand up. An annoying habit he cant break.

Then he begins to check his schedule,listen to his voicemail and organize his work and things he needs to do.

When his first few patients come in,its obvious hes still half awake, but most of the timed the patients dont take it personal. Hes so kind (and maybe a little old)

After each session he takes five minutes to rubb the sleep out of his eyes and clean his glasses that somehow manage to get dirty every single time.

Mid-Day- "Is a Salad enough of a lunch?".

He closes his Office for an hour. He doesnt like taking too long,he wants to dedícate most of his hours to people in need.

He is so lazy with making food with the excuse he has "little time". His wife used to help him and have a decent meal ready,but after the divorce he began to eat less healthy foods.

Lots of take out. Sometimes he would eat only a salad or a sandwich. It would leave him very hungry in the hours after. But he doesnt dare to Keep food in his Office,he doesnt want to seem unprofessional.

He also has some serious body image issues.

After his lunch he returns to work.

Afternoon- "Working hard,never hardly working"

Work👏alholic👏

He Will make himself yet another Cup of coffee. And that Will be his fuel for the rest of the day.

By the end of the afternoon his patients notice hes very,very tired,but somewhat happy.

He greets his patients with a smile,and bids them goodbye just the same way. Hes very welcoming,especially with those who never had therapy before,or New patients.

He doesnt notice It, but hes really charming.

When the late afternoon rolls in,when the sun begins to set,he closes up shop but stays for a good few hours with paperwork and schedules. Sometimes he stays too long- his wife would come get him sometimes but after the divorce he stays for a really long time.

Night- "Fly me to the moon,and let me play among the stars"

He comes home exhausted.

He Will make himself a quick dinner while jazz plays in the background. It helps him calm himself after so much of listening to other's problems.

He sings along under his breath. He had grown used to seeing his wife help him and smile at his singing. Hes got a nice voice.

Listens to ella fritzgerald, Louis Armstrong,Frank Sinatra and Many others. Once or twice he would pull his wife into a Waltz. Hes dorky,but he means well.

After that he would sit down on the sofa and eat watching documentals. Play videogames if he was in the mood.

When he comes home early and has a bit of spare time (rarely these days,given he spends too long at his Office to drown out his thoughts) he would sit and play the guitar. Tonia would sit by his side and purr,she loves his music.

He washes his dishes afterwards.

Then,showers.

He picks his clothes for the Next day,and he goes to sleep. Takes little time to fall asleep,always tired.

Rinse and repeat,rinse and repeat.

I hope you like these hcs! I had fun writing them.

[kissorkill16]

Fill My Empty Heart: A Hello Neighbor Fanfic

By JJ

Summary: After Mya's death, Aaron committed suicide. Mr. Peterson, desperate to have a family again, kidnaps the depressed and heartbroken child across the street, Nicky Roth.

Chapter 15

Enzo and Ivan woke up, snuggling up against each other. They were happy for a moment, until they remembered where they were.

Aaron's room.

Mr. Peterson kidnapped them and put them here, along with Nicky, who was still sleeping.

"We're gonna die here.", Ivan said, beginning to cry again. He buried his face back into Enzo's chest, and let the tears fall out.

Then Nicky woke up, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Enzo looked at him, "Nicky, we have to find a way to get out of here. Right now!", he said.

But Nicky shook his head and laid back down, "No. I don't want to, I wanna go back to sleep.", he said, almost sounding like he was a child begging to stay in bed because he didn't want to go to school.

Enzo looked at him, confused. But before he could question, the door unlocked and opened. In came Mr. Peterson, wearing an apron. He smiled at the kids.

"Oh, good to see you're all awake.", he said proudly, "Breakfast is ready.", he said, and then he left and went back downstairs.

Ivan immediately got up and was about to walk out the door, but not before looking back at Enzo's confused face. "I don't want to know what happens if I don't listen to him.", he said. "Also, I'm hungry.", then he ran downstairs.

Enzo looked back at Nicky's half asleep form, then he walked out of the room and downstairs.

When he got to the kitchen, he was surprised to see Trinity and Maritza already sitting at the table. He immediately ran to his sister and hugged her. "Oh thank goodness you're okay.", he breathed.

Maritza wrapped her arms around her brother and buried her face in his shoulder.

Enzo broke away from the hug and sat next to his sister, "Did he hurt you?", he whispered. Maritza shook her head, "No, but he did break a lamp.", she replied. "He said he'd replace it as soon as he went shopping again."

Trinity sighed and leaned back against her chair, "I can't believe this is happening.", she said.

Just then, plates full of waffles, eggs and bacon were placed in front of the kids, and cups of apple juice were sat down beside the plates. Mr. Peterson ruffled all of the children's hair before he went back to the counter and took a tray upstairs.

But just as he was about to leave, he turned back to the kids.

"In case I haven't told anyone yet, Nicky has a broken leg. He won't be able to move around much and he might need extra attention, but don't think that means I won't be keeping an eye on all of you.", he said. And with that, he left and went upstairs.

Ivan nervously ate his waffles, "Poor Nicky...", he whimpered.

"He said he doesn't even want to leave anymore.", said Enzo. "But when we tried escaping with him, he was running as fast as he could to get away from him."

"Yeah, before he got stuck in that bear trap.", said Maritza. "I bet Mr. Peterson put it there."

"No doubt.", said Trinity.

It was quiet for a moment, then Trinity slammed her fist down on the table.

"It can't end like this.", she said, "We came so far to try and rescue our friend, and now we're in the same mess he's in. I'm not giving up, and neither are any of you.", she said, pointing to her friends.

Ivan took a sip of his orange juice before he spoke up, "But what can we do? Nicky's got stockholm syndrome, and we're basically being monitored 24/7 by a madman who wants us to be his family. We have to be good children so we don't suffer punishments."

"Yeah, Trinity. What're we gonna do?", asked Maritza.

Trinity tapped her chin in thought, then she had an idea. "What are children mostly good at?"

Silence.

"Driving their parents up the wall.", she said. "Kids drive their parents crazy with insane ideas and demands, so all we have to do is make Mr. Peterson regret kidnapping us."

She slammed both her hands on the table, "We're gonna show him the scary part about parenthood."

Everyone's eyes widened, then they smiled and nodded.

"That's a perfect idea, Trin!", said Maritza. "Oh he wants children, well we're not gonna make it easy for him."

They all laughed as they continued to eat their breakfast.

Tomorrow, they'd put their plan into action.

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

"I hate the phrase 'healing my inner child' just state what normal activity you are doing and call it that"

Well I for one am healing my inner child by eating a platter of fish, eggs and fries.

You see, when I was a baby and then a toddler, my mother's number one complaint to my doctor was that I was hungry all the time and if she didn't feed me enough I'd go do something like hunt bugs in the garden and eat them... Or scream for more milk than she could make at all hours of the night, etc...

And he always told her that this was probably normal and healthy for me because I wasn't overweight and humans are primates, after all, but she should try giving me more protein in my diet so I didn't risk eating a dangerous bug, because i was like 2 and would just eat anything that moved.

So my mother took to cooking up platters of chicken nuggets and other meats and leaving the plate on the counter or table for me to find and "graze on" through the day... No word back yet on if this is why I seem immune to salmonella poisoning come to think of it... To the point where if I found a platter of meat left out, I just assumed it was intended for me. I was a literal baby, okay?

Did this cause me to eat the whole platter of fish they caught at a family reunion once, because my uncle ignored my mother's warning not to leave it sitting where I could reach it? Yes. And my mother is pissed at him to this day and annoyed at the whole thing because I went on to eat half a burger and an ice cream cone.

I was a skinny kid. [no one thought to figure out HOW/why]

I was occasionally a fat baby, but then I'd have some big growth spurt and the pain of growing would kill my apatite, so I'd grow in these particularly concentrated spurts where I would go from the smallest of my age range to the tallest, and pack on weight in between to make up for it. The base doctors had to repeatedly assure my mother that I was doing okay so long as it was working for me.

Flash forward to being a skinny preteen. 98 pounds on a good day and already 5'7"

I move in with my step mother just before hitting puberty.

She was raised protestant, and I would later figure it out judging by the kinds of abuse she passed on to us.

She was also paranoid of us being fat because she used to be a size 14 dating mr. america or some shit and felt like she had ruined her life by letting herself go since she met my dad. And her daughter had the genes to be heavier, so she was constantly limiting what we ate.

If I took food from the cupboard after school, it was called "stealing", if I took anything outside of meal times, it was called "stealing" and I was punished for it.

She herself would describe me as "gaunt" when this started and was annoyed I didn't fit her daughter's hand-me downs, but still restricted what I ate out of fear I might get 'fat' or it would "catch up with me"...

During mealtimes if I reached for seconds or anything more that what she felt was an appropriate serving, she tried to use shame to stop me by calling me a "glutton" [literally I know that's a little on the nose but gluttony is the name of the sin she thinks I was committing], even when I tried to point out I was just hungry and was growing, and obviously wasn't over-eating.

She also preemptively slut shamed my asexual ass so hard that when men [yes men he was 18] were inappropriate towards me I knew I couldn't go to my parents about it without being blamed. There were a lot of issues. Nearly all of it her insecurity about us not being her children and religious abuse under a different name.

At school, meanwhile, I was passing out from anemia, but if I wanted steak, or my steak rare instead of cooked to boot-leather and/or wanted more than one, she'd leave in anger to go for a walk if my father wouldn't let her stop me.

I have so many complaints about my father too but props to him for the time he "accidentally" under cooked my steak and wouldn't let her almost literally take it out of my mouth to stop me from eating it.

We went from my mother being poor and doing the best she could to feed us -regardless of what other problems I have with her care- to being shamed for being hungry in a house of plenty. Literally my mother was convinced to send us to live with my dad in part by pointing out how much better they could provide for us... There were always leftovers, there was no argument to be made I was somehow eating to keep the food out of anyone else's hands. Food went bad in that fridge. And I got in trouble sometimes for "stealing" and eating it before it could.

I cannot tell you how much this probably stunted my growth or fucked up my development or added to stress that caused me to start developing autoimmune conditions while I was still in high school.

And imagine if I had internalized that she was right instead of looking at the facts and concluding she was delusional. I got up to being 140 ish pounds with lots of muscle, huge fuckign tits, and finally being stopped at 5'8". I wasn't fat then, even if I hated the girl shaped wiggling, and I am not fat now, eating whatever the hell I want and still being about 140 pounds and 5'8" but not being dangerously anemic and on the edge of fainting all the time. If I was fat it wouldn't change anything, but genuinely the point was that nothing -even based on bad principles- was being gained by keeping me from eating and it was only ruining my health. It was about control, not care. Don't get me wrong on this I don't think the parents of fat kids should be restricting their diet either, but if I was on my way to 300 lb at 14 I could understand my parents trying to be body positive but having genuine concerns I did not need a 2nd steak at dinner. The way they treated my step sister who -was- heavier wasn't appropriate either, it was still about control and it was still unhealthy. But the fact was I was skinny and fainting and I was being denied food -that was left to go bad- when I was hungry.

This started somewhere when I was between the ages of 10-12, but even before that after my dad left my mom and she was feeding us on the salary of a waitress with 2 kids and a semi dependent mother... Remember when I mentioned my sister and I were so unused to large meals we split a happy meal on trips?

So yeah, when I eat a big fucking platter of meat protein to help myself heal and recover I am healing my inner child.

Also my inner teen, and also my connective tissue the fuck that's what food is for.

It is an act of self-care and of protest.

And my inner child is at the surface singing a little song about "eat eggs!", and this is normal and healthy for primates when they make themselves food actually.

RIP to you but I have a platter of fish and lack hate in my heart.

[attic-club-sandwich]

The Hollow Ache of Missing You

Day 6 of @ombrotherlylove2023, and I'm really excited to share this one! Beel is seriously one of my favorite boys and sometimes he just needs a shoulder to lean on. I think he feels a lot of pressure to be strong for his family and I think he can relate to Mammon a lot this way so I decided to pair them for this fic. But I hope you guys enjoy! As usual feedback & Reblogs are appreciated! Now I have to get writing the last prompt lmao

A/N: This is set in Nightbringer Era, but present time brothers! So this is present time Beel & Mammon experiencing the disappearance of MC.

Summary: Beel can't sleep and has been tossing and turning all night. The rumbling of his stomach finally pulls him out of bed to head downstairs for a midnight snack. But his hunger has been insatiable lately, and he finally realizes why.

Day 6: Midnight Snacks & Crying; Beel and Mammon.

Taglist: @amberrskiies, @obey-me-posts, @sassykattery, @delphi-dreamin, @bite-sized-devil, @flemmingbamse, @a-hidden-gem, @otomefoxystar, @siofrantic, @todothedodo, @marvelous-maniac, @nonbinary-disaster, @selfmadender, @animeismyhappyplace, @vampire-tr4mp, @meiloorun-tea, @ana-dear, @gaychaosgremlin, @sidgethegamer, @jasper-s-phantym

floral divider by @/saradika

Beel has been tossing and turning all night. He’s not sure how his twin brother is sleeping through it all as he’s tucked snuggly into the spot next to him. Belphie has been sleeping beside him in his bed a lot ever since MC went missing. They have both been having a rough time coping with losing yet another loved one, and they have been practically glued to the hip recently more than usual. He stared at the ceiling, attempting to count the hanging star and moon garlands that Belphie had wanted him to put up in their room some time ago. When that didn’t work, he tried to focus on the sound of Belphie’s breathing, smiling when he let out a little snort here and there. Eventually, a loud grumble from Beel’s stomach echoed through the room and he couldn’t take it anymore. He tossed the covers off his legs and grabbed his D.D.D. off his nightstand. It was exactly midnight, and he decided it was time to head down to the kitchen for a midnight snack. 

Beel quietly left the bedroom, and headed downstairs. Thankfully, it appeared that no one else was awake at the moment, although he was pretty sure Mammon had yet to return from one of his late night parties. He noticed that his older brother also had his ways of coping with MC’s disappearance. Beel hummed softly to himself as he rummaged through the fridge, finding the snacks he had kept tucked away for nights like these. He pulled out the Bufo Egg Donut he had been saving and quickly devoured it. He practically moaned at the taste, but still felt unsatisfied. He got a bag of Spicy Newt Chips out of the cupboard and began to snack on them as he scrolled through his D.D.D. He opened up Devilgram to see several pictures that Asmo and Mammon had uploaded, as well as a couple from Levi of a new anime figurine he had just acquired. Beel never really uploaded anything to his page, usually only food or the occasional picture of him and…MC. He knew he’d regret it, but tapped on his profile to see his most recent picture. He and MC had recently gone to a food festival in the human world together, and they had taken a selfie while they each held a giant burger as MC kissed him on the cheek. Beel felt the impending wave of sadness wash over him. He knew why nothing he ate satisfied him anymore. It’s because he was hungry for an entirely different reason. The ‘hunger’ he felt was really just a need to fill the void that MC left when they disappeared. 

He must have become lost in the memory of the photo together as he didn’t hear Mammon enter the room. He wasn’t even sure how long he had been standing there staring at his phone, while his other hand gripped the chip bag. “Oi, Beel! Beel, are you with me? Hey!” Mammon half-yelled, as he still wanted to be quiet so he didn’t wake the entire house up. He had just gotten back from his party, and was only planning on grabbing a bottle of water to take to his room when he found Beel frozen in place in the middle of the kitchen. Beel finally blinked, lifting his gaze to see Mammon staring at him with a worried expression. “Why are you crying?” Beel’s eyes widened as he finally noticed Mammon as well as the tears that were rolling down his cheeks. “I…um…” he choked out, his hands beginning to tremble. “Hey, hey it’s alright, don’t worry! Easy now.” Mammon mumbled, gently taking the chip bag and Beel’s phone out of his hand. He set them on the counter, glancing down at the picture from Beel’s phone on Devilgram that Beel had pulled up. The picture was blurry from the tears that had been dripping onto the screen, but Mammon knew all too well it was of his little brother and MC. “Beel, you know you shouldn’t be doing this to yourself.” The red haired demon blinked, his violet eyes filling with tears once more. “I-I realized why it’s worse now. My hunger, I mean.” Mammon leaned against the counter, his gaze fixed on Beel. “Because you miss them, right?” Beel nodded sadly, bringing his hand to his stomach. “I know how you feel. It might not be with food, but my gambling and spending has become way worse.” Mammon paused, stealing a glance down at the shiny gold watch against the tanned skin of his wrist. He had managed to win it at that night’s gambling session at the casino. “All of our sins seemed to intensify the moment MC disappeared.” Beel’s lower lip began to tremble again. Mammon was right after all. Belphie was hardly ever out of bed and Lucifer had even been testing his patience lately with his prideful and short tempered attitude. He just wanted MC back. He wanted them home and wrapped up safe and warm in his arms where they belonged. But he didn’t want to cry anymore, especially in front of his brothers. He may be the 2nd youngest, but he was supposed to be the strongest. 

Mammon finally pulled him from his thoughts. He realized more tears were running down his cheeks, and his mouth felt like cotton. “Here, take this.” he said, handing Beel a bottle of water. Beel nodded graciously and began to take slow sips. “That’s it, just take it easy. Do you need me to go get Belphie?” The 6th born shook his head, not wanting to wake his twin for some silly reason such as this. “Okay. Well how about we just sit for a little while. You got another bag of chips?” Beel smiled slightly as he nodded, stepping over to the cupboard once more to get out another bag of Spicy Newt Chips for Mammon. “Thanks. Let's go to the living room, it’ll be way more comfy in there.” The two of them headed into the giant common room and sat down on one of the couches together. They sat in silence for a while with only the sound of crunching potato chips filling the room. “Hey Beel, I was just thinking. It’s like, okay for you to cry, yanno?” Beel blinked at Mammon’s words. “What do you mean?” Mammon shrugged, tossing another potato chip into his mouth. “It’s just that I don’t want ya goin’ and thinkin’ you have to be strong for us all. Just cause you are strong doesn’t mean you have to be all the time.” Beel glanced down at the ground as he fidgeted with his hands. “Thank you, Mammon… I want you to know it’s the same for you. The others give you a hard time but…” he glances up, his violet eyes shimmering with the remnants of tears. “You can always talk to me if you want. I know MC was special to you too.” Mammon blushes as his own eyes begin to water. “I-I uh, dunno what you’re talkin’ about…but uh… thanks Beel.” This time Beel smiles, an actual genuine smile that Mammon knows isn’t just a facade. “Mmhm, MC may be special to us, but we are also special to them. I know they’d want us to take care of each other while they are away.” At his words, Mammon grins and gently bumps Beel’s shoulder. “I can hear them yellin’ at us for moping around like we are.” Beel chuckles, finishing up the last of his chips. The hunger has seemed to dissipate for now. “Yeah, me too. We should probably get to bed because they’d be scolding us for staying up too late.” Mammon gives Beel a pat on the back, wishing him a goodnight before heading off to his own room. Beel makes his way back to his as well, quietly crawling into bed beside his twin. “Mmn, Beel…? You okay?” Belphie mumbles, still half asleep. His eyes are slowly blinking awake, the concern for his brother overpowering the desire to keep sleeping. Beel nods, pulling the covers back up over his legs. “I am now. Let’s go back to sleep, Belphie.”

[pucchochuu]

I find it really difficult to eat.

I am nauseous in the morning and sometimes until the evening.

Other days, I want to eat a lot.

It's only been 2 days, but I'm realising the benefit of making myself eat breakfast. I haven't had breakfast in years. I skipped it and went straight to lunch, and it usually meant I was ravenous when I came home and ate so many snacks, or bought extra food at lunch time.

I only recently am trying to eat breakfast to see if I can be overall healthier.

I'm really concerned that I might be asked about my weight in the future in my appointments I have.

I've tried multiple times to count calories. It makes me extremely obsessive and I find it exhausting to measure everything. I was always concerned if I slightly went over. I also felt if I had extra calories left, I would eat even if I wasn't hungry.

The mentality behind it is not good for me personally.

If I have to return to this one day, I'll feel very deflated.

I have already done it a few times before. So I have somewhat of a rough idea of what I should and should not do to be healthier generally.

However this time I've focused more on the extreme basics of a balanced meal. The proportions, because for my whole life I've been doing it wrong.

I have found that at first, I disliked having less rice. I enjoy eating it. I looked up even for a generic meal in Asia, how much rice do people eat? The answer varies. However, I realised that some people really do eat 1/2 to 1 bowl. For my height, I should really stick to that as well.

For a few days, I've tried having 1/2 a bowl of rice with more vegetables and vegetarian meat substitute protein (yes even if I'm a vegetarian, I probably ate less vegetables than I should've been). I found that I was not hungry hours after or trying to eat a lot of snacks. I had some grapes and that felt like it was more than enough.

It really surprised me. When I've done this before, calorie counting, I felt like *I can barely eat anything for my height. I want to eat more like everyone else here is.* I'm not sure if I was because I specifically included more kinds of vegetables, but it worked in a way it never did before. Maybe it's having breakfast that helped too.

I only hope that if I continue doing this: focusing on eating healthier generally, a balanced meal with more vegetables/fruits/nuts/seeds in them, that it makes a difference.

I'm not specifically trying to lose weight this time but I think it would be helpful for myself. I just want to understand what it is not to not always feel like I'm either overeating or undereating. Or eating at weird times, eating the most random food without a care in the world.

For example, if we go out and other people want to eat pizza. I'll ensure I have vegetables with it too, and only eat half or a quarter of the pizza.

I find that I'm not reaching for snacks at the moment. I find that when other people are having food around me, such as desserts, crisps, cakes etc - it's very distracting. I don't want to have them. For them they don't think about it at all, which I have been like on and off for years.

I want to try to do better.

I need to focus less on "losing weight" "weight loss" and more on *healthy eating* and a *balanced diet*.

I don't know if it's necessarily true, because it hasn't been that long yet. But I do think my skin feels and looks a bit better lately.

I'm not a vegan, but I rarely have cows milk or cheese unless I specifically buy a dessert with it in, a block or grated bag of cheese, or pizza/pasta when I'm out. Oh, additionally any snacks like chocolate which have cows milk in it, or crisps with cheese like walkers or McCoy's.

I'm pretty close to being somewhat vegan except I have eggs. Although, not as often as I would like.

That might be beneficial for me.

I haven't felt like eating much of those unhealthy snacks.

I don't dislike them. I do like them. But from some other health appointments I've had lately, and an upcoming dentist one. Of course they say everyone should have less sugar. I don't mind having fruit.

I think for most people that eat healthier already, they probably don't even worry about it. I guess I'm at a place where I know if I have some of it, it's going to be hard for me to only have one. For example, I haven't bought them since (I'm pretty sure Heejin bought these at one point too.) they're some sort of Nutella snack. Anyway, I know I can't just eat one or two. It's hard for me.

Most normal people already have a sense of what is a normal amount to not go overboard. I think I've just not cared for a long time, so I do *know* but I just didn't care. It's very difficult to put into words what happens when I feel like I *need to over eat*. It's like something else takes over. Probably from other days when I didn't eat as much too.

I'm not very happy about days where I felt like that. It's like a loss of control or something.

I have so much seaweed at home I need to do something with as well.

I think I'll probably try making some rice balls or something, and I need to get a bag of sesame seeds.

I considered getting sunflower seeds as well. But I don't want to go overboard with the fibre all at once, because I've done that before. I'll allow my body time to get used to what I'm currently eating.

This is what I've got written down as ideas for now:

Breakfast

- 1 or 2 weetabix

- 1 banana

- 1 tbsp of nuts & seeds (not introduced those yet)

Lunch:

- 2 slices of brown bread

- 2 slices of Quorn (vegetarian meat substitute)

- sriracha mayonnaise (I really badly need to finish this. I'm the only one who eats it as well.)

- iceberg lettuce or spinach

- tomato or cucumber

Dinner:

- 1/2 bowl of jasmine rice

- a spoon of sesame seeds (I've nearly run out. So I'll probably hold off adding this into my dinner for now like I said earlier.)

- 1 rice bowl of vegetables (of course, it's seasoned and tastes good. If I'm a vegetarian and Asian, there is no way I'm going to eat a boring bland dinner.)

- 1/2 rice bowl of protein (usually this is just mixed in as a stir-fry with my veg. So I'll have to think how I go about this in the future.)

- I'll try having some pulses (lentils, beans etc.) I don't particularly enjoy eating these, and I think it's because it makes me feel so full. My idea was to mix it into my rice.

If I want to eat anymore, I'll have some more fruit. I really love eating oranges these days. I used to eat them a lot. And I mean the big oranges, not satsumas.

On some days if I'm lazy, I might for dinner just have rice mixed with ginger and seaweed + green leaf vegetables flavoured + protein.

If I really can't be bothered, at least then I have had vegetables which to me, is the most important part I've been having unbalanced!

I'm not an expert by any means. And I'm quite interested in the benefits of eating seeds now, but I'll wait until I can buy them. I've watched some nutritionist's videos for food ideas as well, and asked people I know who are more knowledgeable about this. I hope I can continue to eat in ways that make me feel better on some level.

Last night, I got back late. I was wrong to not eat dinner before I left. I felt so hungry, and when I'm hungry these days, it hurts my other pains inside even more. So I can't let that happen again.

[morsrattus]

Cucul, the Sun Cuckoo, the Adopted Child, the Spirit Hunter

The Cult of Cucul (ILLUSION BEAST SPIRIT)

The Ri Si pride themselves on their woodworking, and those who are unable to master this skill are said to not be true woodpeckers, but instead the descendents of Cucul, the Sun Cuckoo, whom Ri-si adopted after he hatched from the Sun in its death throes. Cucul is a strange bird to his brothers and sisters, unlike the woodpeckers but showing them many secrets, including the path into the realm of spirits.

Mythos and History

Before the death of the Great Burning Sun, there were no cuckoos. But when it fell into the Underworld, slain by the Raging Storm, it cracked like an egg. Within was a fat and pitiful bird, a hungry child calling out for aid. Ri-si, the merciful and kind, adopted this child.

She named him Cucul, for he cried 'cucul, cucul' all the time. When he was hungry, he would cry, for he could not yet fly and fed himself. And he was hungry all the time, for he was large, born of the sun itself. Ri-si drove herself ragged seeking food for him, and she asked her children to share their bounty as well.

Cucul ate much, growing large and fat. He saw that many of his siblings were resentful of him, for he ate far more than they did and required so much help. Cucul felt saddened and shamed by this resentment, but his sister, Dryoco, spoke out in his defense. She said that no one could be blamed for their own beast nature, nor could any child be blamed for what they needed. The only judgment that could be laid would be their behavior and their support of their kin after childhood.

Cucul took this to heart. His nature drove him, and he cloaked himself in the ways of woodpeckers, of his family - but he also explored and found his own place. First, he watched as his kin sought out food, and then he realized that he could help them. Cloaking himself in a patina of darkness, he traveled among the insects and learned their ways, seeing the poisons they used to protect themselves from his kin. When he returned, he threw off his darkness-cloak and said: "I will find you the best foods, brothers and sisters, and take only the worst for myself."

He was good as his word, hunting the best foods for his kin and taking only the poisonous and terrible for himself, that his kin might master their arts and survive without needing to hunt, as he had lived when he was a child. Dryoco decorated his nest and beamed with pride.

Later, Cucul watched as his kin produced new and beautiful carvings. He had never been able to carve or work with wood, but he watched as they spoke to the trees. He listened as the trees seemed to speak back, and he cloaked himself in bark, burning a bit of it to make a scent of wood smoke about him. In this way, he seemd to be one of the spirits of the trees.

The trees spoke to Cucul, treating him as one of their own. He learned from them of a great grove of spirits, and he followed the rumors that spread between the tree spirits. Casting off his body, he disguised himself as a proper spirit and went to the grove. As he did, he saw his shadow split in half and fly away on its own.

In the Spirit Grove, Cucul met many bird spirits - but last of all he saw the thing that had been hidden in his shadow. It revealed himself to him. "I am the Hollow Egg," it said, and it wore a hollow mask of Cucul's own face. "I am that which emerged from the darkness inside the Sun alongside you."

Cucul knew it was lying, for he had been alone, but also knew it was not lying, somehow. The Hollow Egg, he realized, was what he could have been, had his soul been eaten by evil. He gathered the bird spirits with a song, and he convinced them to help him drive out the Hollow Egg.

Again and again, Cucul would return to his kin with secrets from the spirit world, helping them befriend the tree spirits and bird spirits, and again and again, the Hollow Egg would try to rob his achievements of truth, would try to turn the spirits against Ri-si's children. Again and again, Cucul had to defeat him, shaping alliances with spirits and convincing them not to embrace the evils of the Hollow Egg.

As he did so, others among his kin flocked to him. He shaped his true shadow into a home for his spirit-self, those Ri Si who were like him learned also to do this. They became the first shamans, and now they stand alongside their kin - different, strange, perhaps, but supporting their families as only they can. They befriend the spirits, hunt the food, and provide a path by which those who do not craft to support those who do.

And ever they stand, watchful for the evils of the Hollow Egg, the hatred-shadow from outside the world, which seeks to destroy all that is good.

Nature of the Cult

Cucul's cult is very distinctly the lesser of the two major cults in Ri Si society, but it provides an important path by which those Ri Si who do not excel at or enjoy woodcraft to exist. The cult's leaders are the shamans who maintain the Ri Si ties to the spirit world, but its lesser initiates also perform most of the important hunting and foraging work that allow the rest of the clan to focus on their craftwork. The cult also functions as a route by which non-Ri Si can become Ri Si, joining as lay members or initiates and becoming adopted as cuckoo-children of the woodpecker folk.

Depiction

Cucul is depicted as a particularly fat cuckoo bearing markings of the Spirit Rune and usually surrounded by various colored feathers that are not attached to him, though his own are a distinctly dull gray. When he is in human form, he always wears a mask, usually of a bird of some kind, and a many-colored cloak. A cuckoo always sits on his human form's shoulder.

Runes

Cucul's magic flows through his nature as the Cuckoo and the First Shaman. His shaman path is described below, but his rune magic derives from his nature as the Cuckoo God, adopted by Ri-si as her child.

ILLUSION

Cucul has fairly limited access to the Illusion Rune, but within his limitations his power is strong. Specifically, his power extends to temporarily inserting himself into other groups, seeming to belong to them before he reveals his true self. Initiates have been known to use the Illusion Rune to go unquestioned by strangers, to disguise themselves as things they are not, to seem safe and harmless, to make prey or competitors ignore their presence, to seem to be from a different culture or species, to draw attention by loud noises, or to sing beautifully. Those strong in the Illusion Rune tend to be duplicitous, clever, and good at fitting in.

BEAST

Cucul's Beast Rune is focused through is nature as the Cuckoo God. He cannot offer Ri Si the power to become a cuckoo, however, for they are woodpeckers. Instead, he can grant the powers of the cuckoo to them without changing their nature. Initiates have been known to use the Beast Rune to eat poisonous things safely, to forage for fruits, eggs or insects, to hunt small prey animals, to sing loudly and well, to make other birds accept their presence, to fly swiftly or for long distances, to appear to be more or less dangerous than they actually are, to wield their beaks as weapons, or to eat large amounts of food. Those strong in the Beast Rune tend to be direct, daring, and adventurous.

SPIRIT

Cucul does not offer magic through the Spirit Rune directly. Instead, initiates with the Spirit Rune may pursue spirit charms through the Cuckoo's Egg Tradition.

The Koel Flock Spirit Society (HARMONY BEAST)

The Koel Flock Spirit Society is made up of the spirit-children of Cucul, the bird spirits he adopted as his children. These are the Koel Flock, and they hail from a wide array of birds, all agreeing on tracing their descent to the Cosmic Egg, which hatched into the Universe Dragon, the ancient and primal figure that others call Korgatsu. Only bird spirits make up the society, and only those who honor the Universe Dragon may join it.

All spirits of the Koel Flock Spirit Society are bird spirits, and they come in many types. Predatory birds are somewhat less common in this society, and the most prominent members are those whom Cucul directly adopted, honoring for their ability to understand others or support his Ri Si kin.

Members of the Koel Flock Spirit Society must participate in the rituals of their clan and devote their time to assisting the clan on matters to do with birds, hunting or spirits. They are required to take part in all hunting the clan needs, must aid in protecting the crafters, and must only harm birds which they are going to eat. They must also repay all debts, whether to human or spirit.

Koel Flock Spirits

Swift Foot (BEAST) is a spirit of chaparral cocks. He is the fastest runner of all of Cucul's spirit children, and is frequently called on to deliver messages among spirit courts or to help escape from danger. He is actually a Praxian spirit, and a sworn enemy to wild dogs, whom he delights in tricking. Swift Foot grants the power of Escape Traps. His taboo is Always Humiliate Those Who Try To Kill You.

Fruit Eyes (BEAST) is a spirit of koel cuckoos. She is a kindly mother who excels at foraging, finding hidden berries and fruits when no one else can, and she understands the fruits of the steppes and forests more than anyone but their own spirits. Fruit Eyes grants the power of Find Safe Fruits And Berries. Her taboo is Never Allow Harm to Children.

Bright Thief (BEAST) is a magpie spirit. They are a mischievous and clever spirit, prone to stealing shiny things and collecting them but freely giving them away once bored. Bright Thief grants the power of Steal Shiny Object. Their taboo is Always Give Away Stolen Goods Once You're Done Using Them.

Grass Tender (HARMONY) is a bustard spirit. She is a forager who makes use of the things she finds to tend to the wild grasses of the steppes. She is well known for her ability to hide from danger and to hide others, as well as her slow, deliberate pace. Grass Tender gives the power of Conceal Within Grasses. Her taboo is Always Carefully And Patiently Check Over Your Plans Before Acting.

Bout Singer (HARMONY) is a lark spirit. He is a loud and powerful songbird-spirit, spreading the joy of song and the power of song to avoid warfare. It is said that he embodies the tradition of using song in place of violence for contests and battles. Bout Singer grants the power of Communicate Feelings Through Song. His taboo is Never Start A Physical Fight.

Flower Guard (HARMONY) is a spirit of malkoha cuckoos. They are secretive and contemplative, spending much of their time among wildflower spirits and tree spirits in the eastern forests. They have dedicated themselves to cooperation and beauty, working to guide the plants and animals around them into tableaus of coexistence and protection. Flower Guard grants the power of Alert Others to Danger. Their taboo is Never Harm A Flower, And Offer Sacrifice to Flowers Each Week.

The Cuckoo's Egg Tradition (SPIRIT BEAST)

To join the Cuckoo's Egg Tradition, you must have a Spirit Rune. This is not especially rare among the Ri Si, though the Beast Rune is more common. Initiation into the tradition requires the aid of a shaman, who takes the initiate on as a student. Typically, a student must spend an extensive period as assistant to the shaman, learning from them and helping them in their day to day life. This grants the Cuckoo's Egg Tradition tied to the Spirit Rune.

The Cuckoo's Egg tradition teaches that the power of spirits exists in the Ri Si because the souls of those who join their tradition were actually born in the spirit world. The cuckoo spirits serving Cucul then found them and gently pushed these souls where they were meant to be, growing within their mothers. This has left them touched by the spirit world, and gives them a duty to aid Cucul in return. Shamans, it is said, are actually souls bonded with cuckoo spirit voluntarily, to better aid Cucul's woodpecker siblings in the world of flesh by allowing them to connect to the spirit world, granted through Cucul by the secrets of the Universe Dragon.

Members of the Cosmic Egg Tradition can sense spirits. Spirits reveal themselves to members regularly, and when they do, members can speak to them. They can see other spirits in the world around them but lack any power to force them to listen. If you do not belong to a spirit society, you can only use your charms as augments, but essentially all members of the tradition belong to the Blazing Wings Spirit Society.

Opposed Runes

Cucul opposes the Truth and Chaos Runes.

Particular Likes and Dislikes

Cucul honors his adopted mother, Ri-si, above all else. He is her loyal son and the protector and guardian of his woodpecker brothers and sisters, for he sees them as having given him life when he was young and so it is his duty to support them now he is not. This is the core of Cucul's teachings for his followers, in fact - the duty to support those who supported you.

Beyond this, Cucul spends little attention on other gods, focusing on the world of spirit. His greatest enemy is the Hollow Egg, the false manifestation of the spirit which was born alongside him. Cucul opposes the Hollow Egg in all things, and working against its evil is a major duty of his shamans.

Cucul also honors his grandparent, the Universe Dragon, and seeks out secrets of spirit hidden in the world by the Universe Dragon's movements. His shamans often maintain connections with the spirit-talkers of other Hsunchen groups due to their shared ties to Korgatsu.

Cult Organization

The cult of Cucul has a very loose organization, as well as having no overarching structure. Each Ri Si clan maintains its own traditions, although some traits are shared. The cult is run by the shamans, who offer their allegiance to the cult of Ri-si's leadership. All shamans within a clan are of equal rank, and most clans have several shamans. They typically organize themselves around specialties, such as having one oversee hunting while another manages medicine for the clan, and similar such things. All share the duty of interceding with the spirits in the name of the clan, and all are sworn to serve Ri-si in honor of Cucul. Initiates within the cult must obey the orders of shamans, and must swear to support and protect their clan as best they can. Initiates of Cucul who do not belong to the cult of Ri-si swear additional oaths of service, protection and loyalty, and are called the Children of Cucul, for they are those who support the Ri Si without being followers of the way of their mother.

It is possible to join the cult without becoming an initiate, and this route is notably the main way for outsiders to join the Ri Si. Even if they cannot become initiates, they can be taken in, known as the cuckoo-children. They are legally Ri Si in all respects, but must swear to raise their children in the ways of Ri-si, and to listen to and obey their Ri Si elders and serve them in exchange for their adoption.

Priests

There are no priests of Cucul, per se. All functions of priesthood rest with the cult's shamans.

Center of Power and Holy Places

For Cucul's cult, the holy places are those of spirit power, and so what sites are holy depend on the local spirits. These sites are typically not directly controlled by any one clan, and the shamans of competing clans may work to turn the spirits more to their clan than their neighbors. While occasional skirmishes between the cult's hunters may break out over this, actual harm is rare, and more commonly these conflicts involve token warning shots and intimidation.

Initiates

Initiates of Cucul must have one of the Illusion, Beast or Spirit Runes at 1W or higher. While Cucul grants no magic through the Spirit Rune directly, he may still be approached through it as a primary rune.

Shamans

To become a Cuckoo's Egg shaman, an initiate must have the Spirit Rune at 11W or higher. Their teacher in the cult brings them to a secret place in the eastern forests, burying them under stones and branches to represent the nest of childhood. If they break free and emerge (overcoming a major plot obstacle), they emerge into the spirit realm and return with their awakened fetch, which has revealed the secret truth to them: they are in truth a cuckoo spirit as well as a woodpecker, one of Cucul's children sent to bring Korgatsu's wisdom to their Ri Si kin. All Cuckoo's Egg shamans must, at all times, wear some sort of identifier or piece of clothing that is not congruent with their self identity - sometimes this is dressing as a different gender, sometimes a mask of another animal, sometimes the costume of a different culture, but to maintain the cuckoo secrets, they must always in some way mark themselves as different from what they truly are.

The Fetch

The fetch of a Cuckoo's Egg shaman is their cuckoo spirit self, for each shaman is in truth a cuckoo born among woodpeckers, revealed during their awakening as a shaman. This spirit is as much their true nature as any woodpecker self. It is always a different gender than the shaman's human body.

This bird-soul is extremely potent in the spirit world, more than capable of fighting against other spirits easily. When the shaman enters the spirit world, the cuckoo self remains with their body, keeping it safe from possession. The shaman may immediately escape from the spirit world by swapping places with the fetch as a simple contest with resistance never greater than Moderate. When fighting spirits or other discorporate entities in the physical world, the cuckoo self aids the shaman, rendering them immune to multiple action penalties.

Uniquely, a Cuckoo's Egg shaman may invoke and embody their cuckoo self physically. When this happens, the cuckoo takes on the appearance of the shaman's human body in the spirit world, while the shaman transforms into the shape of the cuckoo in the physical world, gaining all the capabilities of the bird. While in the form of their cuckoo spirit self, the shaman may still speak, but has only the physical strength and capabilities of a cuckoo otherwise. Further, the cuckoo self always grants a unique power related to its nature and the breed of cuckoo it is, such as allowing the shaman to pass unnoticed among outsiders by seeming to be one of them temporarily, running very fast, or growing too fat to move.

Cuckoo's Egg shamans are considered members of every spirit society associated with the Cuckoo's Egg Tradition for which they qualify and gain all other normal abilities of shamans. They must, however, perform the duties of a shaman within their clan, serving as the intermediary between men, beasts and spirits. They must always watch for the evil influence of the Hollow Egg and fight against it where it is found. Further, they may never learn any sorcery, nor any divine or spirit magic not associated with the gods of the Ri Si.

Holy Days

There are no set holy days for the Cucul cult. Instead, sacred days are chosen based on the needs and desires of local spirits, which they communicate to the shamans of the cult. The shamans then spread this information to their clan, gathering up worshippers to perform the spirit rites whenever they are needed. Most such rites involve the use of hallucinogens and rhythmic music, particularly log drumming.

Sacrifices

Sacrifices vary based on what spirit they are directed to. However, it is generally believed that fruits, carved goods of great skill and alcohol are always acceptable. Plant spirits, especially tree spirits, are often offered burned meats or fish, as well.

The Cucul cult are also the ones in charge of overseeing the Dragon Summons rite, the last cry for help of the Hsunchen foes of Kralorela. Only the spirits teach how to do it, and it is a grand sacrifice that hopes to draw the attention of Korgatsu, the Universe Dragon. Sometimes, he manifests to defend the people. Other times he does not. Even the shamans cannot easily explain what makes these times different.

Subcults

Cucul does not have any widespread subcults, though local subcults to heroic shamans or hunters of the clan's past are not uncommon, particularly if they performed some great feat that aided the clan's woodcrafters.

Devotees

Devotees of Cucul are rare, and there is very little magic offered to them through Cucul, but they do exist. They must have either the Illusion or Beast Rune at 11W or higher, and must give up access to all other gods' magic as normal, though they retain their own spirit magic and can still become shamans.

Common Cucul Feats

Repaying the Debt (ILLUSION): Cucul ate a lot when he was a chick, and so he felt a debt to the Ri Si for providing for him. It was a hard time, for he was born when the Darkness began. When it grew worse, many went hungry. Cucul gave of himself when this happened. He was big, bigger than any woodpecker chick, and so he disguised himself as rotten wood, attracting delicious grubs and finding nourishing berries. Then he returned home, slicing himself open to release the great food and keeping only the worst and most poisonous for himself. In this way, he was able to feed the entire clan, though it pained him and tired him to sew himself back together.

Other Associated Spirit Societies

The Green Dancers Society (LIFE EARTH)

The Green Dancers are the spirits of the forest trees and plants east of the Shan Shan Mountains, and Cucul befriended them as part of his efforts to aid his woodpecker kin. They are known as the Green Dancers for their love of artistry, particularly the slow dances they perform as they sway in the wind and with the earth. These spirits are not family to Cucul or the woodpeckers, but beloved allies. These tree, bush and flower spirits aid the shamans of the Ri Si in dealing with the Plant Folk, called elves, and also in providing spirit assistance to the many woodcrafters among their kin.

Brown Fingers (LIFE) is a walnut tree spirit. They are strong and tough, as well as loving painting and artistry. They are said to rule over many animal spirits by providing them with food. They provide the power of Be Unmoved By Strength. Their taboo is Always Provide For Those Who Serve You.

Wine Dancer (LIFE) is a spirit of the juniper tree. He is a jovial spirit, loving nothing more than celebration and ecstatic dancing, and he spreads his berries freely and with wild abandon. He is said to have taught shamans how to make alcohol. He grants the power of Spread Drunken Revelry. His taboo is Never Avoid a Chance to Party.

River's Gift (LIFE) is a globeflower spirit. They are a bright and giving spirit that is well known for their love of tea and their medical knowledge. As a healing spirit, they specifically treat the pain of the heart. They grant the power of Mend Angina or Heart Pain. Their taboo is Brew A Sacrifice of Tea Every Sunrise and Sunset and Pour It Upon The Wild Flowers.

Sword Leaf (EARTH) is a spirit of the dogbane flower. She is a rough sort who dislikes those who invade her land or try to eat her, but a great friend to bees and weavers, and she grants her power to those who defend themselves from predators. Specifically, she grants the power of Become Poisonous. Her taboo is Never Willingly Give Ground to Invaders.

Black Well (EARTH) is a spirit of the saxaul. He is found in the driest regions, blessing those who survive alongside him in the hot, dry places where few wish to go, that they may find water or fire both in his bark. He grants the power of Survive Droughts. His taboo is Always Give Shelter and Water to Those In Need.

Salt Crown (EARTH) is a tamarisk spirit, noted for her rough demeanor and extreme resilience, withstanding and regrowing from any harm. She bears crowns and bangles of salt crystal to wear while she dances, is said to be a lover of the wildfire spirits, and is often found around the salty Sirdaryo. She grants the power of Shape Salt Crystals. Her taboo is Do Not Put Out Fires.

[frogofalltime]

15.02.2024

last night i didn't get to sleep until around 3am. i was having a fever, i couldn't stop coughing, i had a sore throat and a headache, as well as period cramps. but i eventually fell asleep.

i woke up at 10am, which was when my first lecture of the day started, so of course i missed that. i got out of bed, ate two toasted bagels and a pear for breakfast, wrote some posts for @animal-of-the-day, spent some time doubled over in pain, etc

i finally forced myself to take a shower because i had another class at 1pm and i didn't want to miss this one, but i definitely couldn't go outside without showering first, i was Very gross. it was a difficult task due to being sick and in pain and gender dysphoria, so i'm really proud of myself for getting it done.

i rushed to class and made it just in time, but i was really exhausted from the walk, in a lot of pain, feeling very ill, and also sweating A Lot. idk why the weather was so warm today. it was literally snowing a week ago lol

after class @etherealspacejelly and some of our other friends were ranting about something so i listened to that for a while and then got myself some soup and a baguette for lunch. i saved half of it for tomorrow :)

i showed robin the shark picture book my mother gave me for my birthday in an attempt to help him calm down. idk if it worked, but it was fun to look at the sharks. then i went to another lecture which was really boring and a waste of time lmao

after that class ended at 5pm i hung out with my friends again for a while and then they went out so i took a short nap on the sofa. when they got back i was planning to go home and eat dinner, but robin was super stressed and i wanted to help by washing their dishes, so i went up to his room and then This happened (which cheered us both up immensely)

it was past 10pm when i finally remembered i was going to wash the dishes, so i did that and then went home. i was laughing and happy stimming the whole time. and thinking about quantum physics

my flatmate gave me the rest of the egg curry and rice her mother cooked, so i ate that with some chopped up cucumber for dinner, and also a banana and some chocolate as a sweet treat, because i was still hungry.

now i'm going to get ready for bed and hopefully sleep. but i'm still not feeling well, so that may not be very successful. but i will try my best !

[lovelylogans]

the parent trap

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: riding is magic and friendship is power and love is everything to everyone

Roman gets to meet his pony. He should, by all rights, be much more excited about it, but someone had to go and ruin it for him.

⁂

Roman could barely sleep he was so excited.

Papa had mentioned, in passing, if he’d like to go for a ride ‘round the vineyard on the incredibly famous Sprout the horse. And Roman had done his best to cloud it Remus casualness—he’d obviously been riding around the vineyard on the horse before.

But Papa had smiled at him, leaned over and whispered, conspiratorially, “I’m sure Sprout’s missed you tons,” so he isn’t sure how much he’d succeeded in acting less excited.

Roman lays out his outfit the night before: a pair of jeans, a cowboy boots that he’d dug deep in the closet to gather, a cowboy hat! that had been squished under an old shoebox diorama project, a white t-shirt, and a blue-and-red patterned flannel that he’ll put over the top.

And then Roman finds an honest-to-God leather belt with a big silver belt buckle, and that seals it. He’s going full cowboy, damn if Remus would wear this outfit or not, he is about to go horseriding.

He also spends some time, wincingly, tossing various clothing items around the room in an attempt to be Remus-esque levels of messy; he leaves a shirt dangling over a lamp, the dresser draws open, and the closet ajar to its absolute cacophony that Roman doesn’t even need to try to mess up.

He bounces down the stairs in the morning, already fully dressed, hat on in the house, which Dad would decry, but it just makes Virgil snort and flick at the hat.

“Howdy, pardner,” he teases, then, nodding, “Made—”

Roman catches sight of the platters laid out and gapes. “Oh, wow.”

“—A big ol’ breakfast, most important meal of the day,” Virgil says, circling the table and settling a massive plate in front of him. “Eggs, sunny-side up. Bacon, side of biscuits, and, in case that’s not enough for you, a humongous stack of chocolate-chip pancakes, which smell incredible and I’m stealing one except you can’t yell about stealing ‘cause I made it.”

“Wow, Virgil,” Roman says breathlessly. “Thanks!”

Virgil takes off his hat solely to ruffle Roman’s hair. “Bet they didn’t do things like this at camp.”

“No, they certainly didn’t,” Roman says, plopping himself down at the table.

“Was a little worried you’d oversleep,” Virgil says lightly.

“Oh?”

“I mean, I would if I were up half the night making mysterious phone calls from my bathroom.”

Roman nearly chokes on his orange juice.

“Oh—oh, that? I was just calling a friend from camp. Augustus.”

“The piercings friend.”

“Yeah, that one! He lives in New York,” then, calculating out the time difference, hastily adds, “but he’s on vacation right now. In… Edinburgh.”

“Oh. I see,” Virgil says, leaning against the counter, mug of coffee in hand, “so you wanted to pick a time that was convenient for him.”

Roman cuts himself a large segment of egg white, shoveling it in his mouth the way Remus might.

“Mmmm,” he mumbles around the food, making a show of how good it is—it is really good, in fairness—shooting Virgil a big thumbs-up to hopefully distract him.

“Huh,” Virgil says.

“What?” Roman says around a mouthful of food, making himself cringe.

“Nothing,” Virgil says, setting down his coffee mug. “Nothing, it’s just—usually, you stab the yolk first, to get everything all runny...”

“Just… soooo hungry, I guess,” Roman says shiftily, cursing himself—why didn’t camp ever prepare their eggs any way other than scrambled so he’d know that?! “Erm—saving the best part for last!”

“...sure,” Virgil says slowly, and Roman braces himself for suspicion when Papa breezes into the kitchen, whistling cheerfully and toweling out the last of the dampness from his hair.

“Morning, Virgil, morning, kiddo—wow, look at all this!”

“Figured you might be hungry,” Virgil says, stabbing at an egg himself. “You know, after Maddox hustled you out of here after he ate half a grapefruit and before you could get anything.”

Papa seems to miss any irritation in Virgil’s voice, instead reaching to snag one of the pancakes off the pile.

“Hey,” Roman puts in a cursory complaint, though really, he probably wouldn’t be able to eat that entire plate on his own.

“Good thing, too—gotta fuel up for a ride with my favorite guy, huh?” Papa says, leaning over to nudge Roman’s shoulder.

“How’s Sprout been?” Remus says. “You know, since I’ve been off at camp.”

“Excellent, she’s great—her and Cinnamon got some new shoes a couple weeks ago. I think she was missing you, bud, she kept making big eyes at anyone in the hopes they’d feed her apples.”

Roman turns to Virgil.

“I’ll pack a couple for you to give her,” Virgil says before Roman can ask.

Roman nods, satisfied, and turns his attention back to Papa.

“I asked José earlier and he said he’d have them both saddled up when we got down, so we can just hop right on and ride,” Papa continues.

Roman breathes a very small sigh of relief. He’d been worried about that—putting a saddle and reins on a horse had been the only thing he and Remus hadn’t been able to practice at camp.

“How’s the vineyard,” Roman prompts, looking between the adults. “Any fun guests?”

And that takes up the rest of the meal, the pair of them falling over each other to tell Roman the story of some poor woman’s thirtieth birthday, much to Roman’s satisfaction—there’s so much excellent food to eat, he’s mostly focused on, one, eating like Remus, but two, not absolutely choking to death in his quest to eat like Remus. 

It’s all so excellent. The eggs are perfectly salted and peppered—the bacon is just the right amount of crispy without being fried—Virgil passes Roman honey when he picks up his biscuit without him even asking, so he guesses that’s how Remus normally eats it, and it’s incredible, all thick salt and sweet honey and Roman drinks a whole glass of orange juice just to get through it.

And the pancakes.

Not an entirely American invention—there was a whole holiday centered around pancakes back home, after all—but the American pancakes are so. good.

They’re so thick and fluffy and sweet and warm, and with the addition of chocolate chips, melting and seeping their delicious chocolatey flavor even as Roman douses the whole thing in butter and syrup and takes huge, triangular bites—his eyelashes flutter shut in pure happiness.

He bets that pancakes, plain, smothered with Crofters jelly, would possibly be the best food of all time.

Oh, Remus is so lucky he has Virgil who can cook things like this. American food is so good.

“Well—thanks, Virgil, for an awesome breakfast,” Papa says, after he’s drained the last of his coffee and patted his mouth with his napkin.

“Yes—thanks, Virgil,” Roman says.

“You ready to rock and roll, punk?” Papa says, and Roman hops up from the table, eagerly grabbing his hat and jamming it on his head.

“Ready to rock and roll!”

“That’s what I like to hear!” Papa cries out, patting Roman’s back, and picking up his own cowboy hat. “See ya, Virgil!”

“Have fun, be safe,” Virgil says, handing over a tied-up bundle containing apples for them to bribe the horses.

“We will!” Roman calls.

That earns Roman a strange look from Virgil, but they’re out of the door before he can say anything.

Roman reaches over and grabs Papa’s hand, swinging it between them. Papa takes it, smiling.

“Good first full day back from camp?” He asks.

“The best,” Roman says earnestly. 

“But I bet there was a lot about camp that was pretty good, too.”

“Nothing like home,” Roman says, which makes Papa beam. “But yeah. I guess camp was pretty fun.”

“Did you learn to canoe and tie-dye?”

“Yeah!” Roman says, “except I wasn’t nearly as good at tie-dye as this guy Nick? His patterns always turned out perfect, he could tie-dye anything. He’s got tie-dyed sunglasses.”

“Sunglasses!” Papa says, looking impressed. 

“But I guess I did okay,” Roman says. “I got pretty good at kayaking, though. I only ever tipped over when I wanted to, even when some people were doing bumper-boats…”

Papa grins at him. “I’m sure you know nothing about how bumper-boats got started, huh?”

Roman remembers that he’s meant to be Remus, and Remus did, in fact, start bumper-boats a lot of the time.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, in a lofty, snooty tone that Remus would sometimes use to make fun of him, back when they didn’t know each other very well, but it makes Papa laugh.

“Well, I didn’t get any letters home from your counselor,” Papa says. “So I guess you didn’t explode any cabins.”

Not for lack of trying, Roman thinks.

“Maybe next year,” Roman says, which makes Papa laugh all the way down to the stable, even as they’re opening the doors to behold the stalls.

“All right, Cinnamon,” Papa says, approaching a big, beautiful Palomino, deep, auburn rust fur and an almost shimmeringly beautiful mane of gold. “All right, there, I got an apple for ya…”

But Roman is captivated by the other horse, who surely must be Sprout. She nickers at the sight of him, tossing her black mane.

Roman stares at her, open-mouthed. She’s a beautiful brown horse, with triangle of white splashed between her eyes and big, sweet-looking eyes.

“Hi there, Sprout,” he says very softly. He holds the apple in a flat hand, presenting it to her. “All right, girl?”

Sprout surveys him for a moment, out of those round, marble-like eyes, and bends her mouth to crush happily on his offering.

“Oh,” Roman says, very softly, as Sprout’s mouth tickles his hand. He, cautiously, brings a hand up to her neck, petting her very slowly and soothingly. Her fur is surprisingly bristly under his hand, but clean, and he can feel the powerful muscle of her neck beneath it.

He’s petting a horse. She’s eating out of the palm of his hand.

Today is one of the best days ever. He hopes Remus is having a day that’s even half as good.

⁂

They’re having lunch at home, despite Remus’s subtle attempts to learn what exactly makes a cheeky Nando’s cheeky in the first place. 

But the sandwiches and crisps serve his purposes perfectly fine, even if it is all a bit salty; he drains his water quickly.

“Would you like another drink, Roman?” Uncle Logan asks, where he’s just sat down at the table.

“Don’t bother—I’ll get it,” Remus says, hopping up from the table and traversing to the kitchen. 

He opens the fridge and sees a nice, tall bottle of Ribena, which Roman might have mentioned once or twice in passing? He thinks it’s some kind of soda. He takes a closer look at the label.

Squash? Weird name for a soda (isn’t that what Ribena is?) but okay. He opens the fridge and pours himself a nice, tall glass, bringing it back to the table.

He takes a swig and then nearly spits it out, clapping his hand over his mouth.

“Roman!” The adults exclaim.

It’s so strong. It’s like someone jammed Pure Essence of Blackcurrent into a glass, multiplied it by a thousand times, and then served it to him in liquid form, absolutely overwhelming any lingering flavor of his sandwich and crisps.

“Did you mix it?”

Remus swallows, clears his throat, and croaks out, “Of course!”

He’s pretty sure anyone who looks at it can tell he absolutely has not mixed it.

“Roman, you’re meant to dilute—”

“No, no,” Remus says, clutching the glass. “I mixed it! Of course I remembered to dilute it, I didn’t forget.”

Dad and Uncle Logan exchange a wary look.

“I hope you don’t get a sugar high,” Dad says.

“Boy’s the proper age for a sugar high,” Grandfather says dismissively. “Go play a round of footie in the park if you feel very hyper, eh? I was planning on a bit of a nap later.”

“I won’t get a sugar high,” Remus lies, “because I diluted it.”

Logan lets out a tiny sigh. “He’s certainly your son.”

⁂

The sun on his back, the wind on his face, his son and horse trotting alongside—there are very few better ways Patton can think of spending a free morning. 

“I’m glad you came out with me today, bud,” Patton says. “There’s something really important I want to talk to you about.”

“Funny,” Remus says, “I was about to say the same thing!”

Patton blinks. “Really? What about?”

“My father,” Remus says, and Patton nearly loses his grip on the reins. “What do you want to talk about?”

“...Maddox,” he says.

“What about Maddox?” Remus says.

“Well—what about your father?”

It’s whiplash, almost. He thinks of Janus every day—every day of his life since the moment they met—but to have Remus ask about him, after all this time…

“Dad,” Remus says. “I’m almost twelve. “

“Oh, Remus,” Patton says, rubbing the back of his neck. “We’ve talked about your father.”

“No, we haven’t,” Remus argues, “not really. A boy needs more in his life than half a crumpled old photograph.”

Patton swallows. Harsh, but true: the exact sort of response he’d expect from his boy.

“You know what?” Patton says. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

“I am?” Remus says, surprised, then, “I mean—yeah, I am!”

 “That actually brings me to what I wanted to talk about,” Patton says. “Remus… what do you think of Maddox?”

Remus considers this as Sprout shifts her footing. His face is shielded by the shade offered from his hat, so Patton can’t get a very good read on him.

“Think of him as… what, Pa? Your publicist, your friend…?”

“Just—as a person,” Patton says, resisting the urge to bring a hand up to his mouth and bite his nails at whatever harsh but true commentary Remus might have to offer.

“Oh,” Remus says. “Well… I mean, he pays a lot of attention to his hair. Good teeth….” 

…okay. Unexpected. Patton had expected insults from the outset.

“I dunno, Pa,” Remus continues, “he’s a complete stranger to me.”

That makes sense. Him and Maddox have barely known each other for any time at all—this whirlwind romance of theirs—and Patton chews at his lip, thinking hopefully of the time he’d left them to talk by the pool, that he’d come back to all smiles, and hopefully, hopefully, the news goes over at least fine…

“Well, honey,” Patton says slowly. “Believe it or not, I’ve asked Maddox to—”

“Raceyabacktotheranch, Pa!”

And Remus and Sprout are off, racing together and kicking up dust behind them like they’re entering the Kentucky Derby.

“I—Remus!” Patton calls. “Hyah, Cinnamon—Remus, wait! I’m trying to talk to you! Remus!”

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