#BUT MY DAUGHTER IS WORTH EVERY SECOND OF PAIN

[niamh-oshea]

No amount of books, videos or advice could've prepared me for how painful active labour truly was. Let alone childbirth.

So, when I told Isaac that I wanted to give birth without any more morphine, let alone a drop of the highly tempting epidural, I could understand his apprehension. But I wanted my body to do what it was made to do. What I had been preparing for it to do.

My pregnancy had not always been smooth sailing. During my first trimester, my morning sickness was round the clock. And my second trimester didn't leave me glowing. Instead, every day was a battle with my raging hormones and how they strongly affected my mood and emotions. And although all the physical sickness eventually settled by the time my third trimester rolled around, a childhood bully had decided to make yet another unwelcome appearance once again, tormenting me like he had done many times before. Except this time was his worst yet.

Somehow, he had gotten access of my computer, and of my hard drive. Finding where I keep mine and Isaac's most intimate sexctapes, he threatened to distribute it to shame me. The mental and emotional toll it took on me had its physical consequences, urging my OBGYN to put me on strict bed rest. Meanwhile, enraged, Isaac took charge of hiring the best lawyer in the country to fight our battle for us.

I'm afraid to admit that, for a while, I did feel ashamed. But more than that, I was beyond terrified. The repurcussions are endless if a sextape was to be exposed. The damage it could do to a career I worked so damn hard for. And what of my Isaac and his family? It could ruin their high reputation in mere minutes. But the Bourdins' lawyer was worth every cent they paid him, successfully silencing my bully forever and managing to keep our dignity in tact.

Still, it was difficult to find complete peace. The fact that he had seen our videos, even if he couldn't distribute them like he wanted to, made me feel violated. That was, until I talked to my sister-in-law, Annie. She managed to calm me down enough to show me a different perspective I never saw before.

I should own it, she said. There's nothing to be ashamed of. And she's so damn right. The sextape may show us at our most intimate moments but it was of me and Isaac — the man I love, the man I've been with for almost two years now, living with, and having a child with. Though graphic, it was consensual. It showed two people in love in the throes of passion. And how could they shame me for that?

Since then, I've not stopped thinking of Annie's words. But it didn't really hit me until I was at the hospital already. It was then when I decided to own my entire childbirth experience, too. I no longer wanted to be dependent on morphine to ease my contractions. I wanted to feel every breath I took, and every ache that threatened to suffocate and break me from the inside.

So many times, I wanted to give up, thinking the pain would surely win over me. But Isaac, and the idea that we'd soon be meeting our baby, were what got me through it, only for him to remind me that at the end of the day, it was my body that ultimately what got me through to the othger side. What he doesn't realise is that it had everything to do with him, too, for always having loved me exactly as I am.

As a new mother, I'm learning to never again let anyone shame me for who I am or for how I love. And I'll be damned sure to teach our daughter, Eilidh, that too when the time comes.

[bellbery]

— [P1] The Heart That Remained (Vander x f!Reader)

Summary: A monster, once a beloved protector, now haunts the tunnels of Zaun. The creature is revealed to be Vander, twisted by pain and rage, leaving his daughters Vi and Jinx to grapple with the truth. As a battle unfolds, past memories and present dangers clash, forcing a choice between saving Vander’s humanity or ending his torment. Love, guilt, and hope intertwine in this intense, emotional confrontation.

Word Count: 5.2k (im a jerk for angst)

Content/Warning: Angst to Fluff, less mention y/n until the ending, a bit bloody?, AND VERY ANGSTY

🖋️ Author’s Note: AS I PROMISED I WOULD MAKE A ANGSTY FIC ABOUT VANDER, and i promise you its worth the while i did my best to put into detail of the character’s personality and the places. It took me 3 days and i’m very happy how it turned out! Before yall read this maybe someone you haven’t watched S2, there will be spoilers obv— and i recommend yall listen to Dead Island Trailer Theme song while reading this cause personally it juST MATCHED THE SCENE IT- i hope yall enjoy my writing this is my 2nd fic! Please comment your feedback and simply support me by like and reblogs! Thank you very much yall!<3

After the chaos of the Piltover Council meeting, guilt gnawed at you like a relentless, suffocating force. Deep down, you knew Jinx—Vander’s daughter—was the cause of the devastation that had torn through the heart of the city. You couldn’t escape the weight of the promises you’d made long ago: to protect Vi and Powder when they were still just children. Those vows now felt like shattered glass, each piece embedded in your soul. You had failed them. And now, hidden behind the mask of an investigator, you carried your shame like a cloak. It was the only armor that allowed you to survive, to push down the searing ache that never seemed to go away. Months passed, and you thought you had found your rhythm in the cold, distant monotony of your work. Then Ambessa hired you. The aftermath of the beast’s rampage in the prison—the blood, the carnage—shattered that fragile peace. It was the most grotesque thing you’d ever seen. The nightmare still burned in your memory, its horrors etched into your mind like permanent scars. The beast, its monstrous presence a cruel reminder of the violence lurking in every shadow, had torn through the fragile walls of your life, dredging up the dangerous ties to the past you couldn’t outrun.

“How could this beast come out of nowhere?” You whispered, the question hanging in the air like a death sentence. Ambessa’s gaze locked onto you, icy and unyielding. The weight of her authority pressed down on you, suffocating. She leaned forward, her voice low, controlled—laced with quiet menace. “You’re asking the wrong question,” she said, her words like a blade. “It doesn’t matter how it got here. What matters is that it’s here now. And we don’t have the luxury of waiting for answers. We deal with it. We don’t waste time wondering why or how—it’s already cost us too much.” She paused, her eyes narrowing, a flicker of impatience cutting through her otherwise steady demeanor. “If you want to stay in this game, you’ll find out who—or what—created this monster. And you’ll do it fast. Before it costs us more.” You nod, the weight of Ambessa’s words settling heavily in your chest. Without a second thought, you move past the cells, your gaze flicking over them with practiced detachment. You push down the swirling thoughts threatening to overwhelm you, focusing on the task at hand. But as you walk, something pulls your attention—a cell, its door locked with an unnerving sense of finality. Something about it doesn’t sit right, a tension building in your gut.

Before you can step closer to investigate, the soft, rhythmic chime of the elevator cuts through the silence. The doors slide open, and out steps Commander Caitlyn Kiramman, her posture rigid, her face set in the same steely expression you’ve come to recognize. She doesn’t glance at you immediately, but when she does, her eyes flicker with a mixture of curiosity and caution. “Commander,” you murmur, your voice steady but carrying the weight of the unspoken. You can’t help but wonder if she’s here to speak of the very thing that’s been gnawing at your thoughts—the beast, the violence, the past that refuses to stay buried. “How is your investigation?” Caitlyn’s voice was steady, her usual sternness masking the exhaustion you knew she carried. Her sharp blue eyes flicked over you, searching for any hint of progress. You hesitated, your gaze drifting back to the closed cell. “It’s… ongoing,” you replied, the words clipped, as your unease bubbled beneath the surface. She followed your line of sight, noticing your fixation. Without waiting for an invitation, Caitlyn strode past you, her footsteps purposeful, echoing in the silence as she approached the cell. “What is it about this one?” she asked, her tone even, though her curiosity was evident. You didn’t answer immediately, the heaviness in your chest growing. “It’s locked,” you said finally, the words feeling too small for the weight of your unease. “But it’s too quiet. Too… deliberate.” Caitlyn reached out, resting her hand lightly on the cold metal bars. “Let’s open it,” she said decisively, her command leaving no room for argument. The tension in her voice betrayed her own unease, though her face remained calm and unreadable.

As the cell door creaked open, the air grew heavy with an acrid, chemical tang. There, sitting upright in the dim light, was a figure that made your breath hitch—Dr. Reveck. His sunken, hollow eyes locked onto yours, recognition flashing briefly across his face. Then came the cold, calculating glare of someone who had already weighed and dismissed your worth. “You’re persistent,” he murmured, his voice low and rasping, as though it hadn’t been used in days. “But persistence doesn’t make you immune to mistakes.” His lips twitched, a ghost of a smile that never reached his eyes. “What are you here for? To make another mistake?” Before you could respond, Caitlyn’s sharp footsteps echoed through the corridor, her tone cutting the tension. “Dr. Reveck,” she began, her words laced with authority, “you’re going to answer for what you’ve done. Whatever experiments you’ve been running—whatever monsters you’ve unleashed—it ends now.” Reveck’s expression didn’t waver, though his gaze shifted to Caitlyn with a disconcerting calm. “Answers,” he said, almost mockingly. “The only people who demand them are those too weak to seek the truth themselves.” The sudden clang of metal doors opening at the end of the hall signaled Ambessa’s arrival. Her towering figure filled the space, the weight of her presence silencing any retort Caitlyn might have had. Her eyes swept the scene before resting on Reveck. “This is the man responsible?” she asked, her voice an authoritative rumble. Reveck tilted his head slightly, observing Ambessa with a detached curiosity. “And you are?” he asked, his tone clinical, as though dissecting her existence. Ambessa took a step closer, her imposing frame making the cramped cell feel even smaller. “I’m the one deciding whether you’re worth keeping alive,” she said, her voice unwavering. “And right now, you’re not making a good case.”

The tension in the room was palpable, your pulse pounding in your ears as you stood frozen, caught between these forces of will. Caitlyn glanced at you, her expression tight, as if silently willing you to act or speak. Dr. Reveck finally turned back to you, his gaze sharper now, as though seeing past your mask of authority to the pain you’d been carrying. “Tell me,” he said softly, almost conversationally, “are you here to find answers, or are you just running from your own failures?” Before you could answer Dr. Reveck’s cutting remark, the sharp clink of handcuffs broke the silence. Caitlyn had stepped forward, her features stern as she clasped the restraints over Reveck’s thin wrists. “You’ll answer for your crimes,” she said coldly. “But your cooperation might still buy you a sliver of mercy.” Reveck barely flinched, his pale eyes darting between Caitlyn and Ambessa as if calculating the odds of survival. He let out a low, humorless chuckle. “Mercy,” he echoed, his voice dripping with disdain. “A curious word coming from Piltover’s enforcers. Tell me, Commander Kiramman—how does mercy reconcile with the blood already on your hands?” Caitlyn’s jaw tightened, but before she could reply, Ambessa’s voice rumbled from behind her. “Enough.” Her tone brooked no argument as she stepped into the cell, her towering figure filling the cramped space. “Your investigation isn’t finished here,” she said, her eyes locking onto yours with a commanding weight. “You’ve uncovered the man, but not the monster.”

Reveck’s lips curled faintly, a reaction as subtle as it was unsettling. “The beast,” he murmured, as though savoring the word. “You think you’re hunting it, but it’s already closer than you realize. Closer than any of you would dare admit.” Ambessa ignored him, her gaze still fixed on you. “Find it,” she said firmly. “Before this trail goes cold and more lives are lost.”

Reveck’s smile widened slightly, his voice taking on a cryptic edge. “And when you find it,” he said, his tone almost taunting, “you might not like what you uncover.” The weight of his words hung heavy in the air as you exchanged a brief, tense glance with Caitlyn. Without another word, Ambessa turned and walked toward the cell door, her presence commanding the attention of everyone in the room. Caitlyn followed, her hand lingering on her holstered weapon as if still on edge. You stayed behind for a moment longer, your gaze locked with Reveck’s, searching for something in his unflinching expression—a hint of truth, or maybe just an answer you weren’t ready to face.

You stepped out of the cell, the cold air biting against your skin. The echo of Ambessa’s commanding words and Reveck’s cryptic warnings swirled in your head, mixing with Caitlyn’s sharp presence. Every step away from the cell felt heavier, the pressure of what you’d just witnessed settling into the pit of your stomach. Reveck’s words wouldn’t leave you. “You think you’re hunting it, but it’s already closer than you realize.” They repeated in your mind like a haunting refrain, twisting your thoughts into knots. What did he mean? And why did it feel like there was more truth in his taunts than anyone cared to admit? The sterile prison corridor seemed darker now, its shadows crawling up the walls like something alive. A prickle of unease traced up your spine. For a moment, you paused, glancing back at the dim outline of the cell. It felt as though something—or someone—was watching. The air was too quiet, heavy with an unsaid warning. You shook your head and looked down, trying to steady your breaths, but your heart stopped cold. There, lying on the cold, stone floor just ahead of you, was a strand of blue hair. It glimmered faintly in the pale light, its color unmistakable. Powder. Your knees threatened to buckle, but you forced yourself to stay upright. A rush of memories flooded back—her laughter, her wide, curious eyes, the promises you made to her and Vi. And then the explosion, the chaos, and everything that came after. Your breathing quickened as you knelt down and gingerly picked up the strand, its texture soft but alien, almost too delicate for something so steeped in blood and tragedy. How did it get here? And why now?

The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly before you, the walls pressing in tighter. Your pulse thundered in your ears as a hundred questions screamed in your mind, all vying for answers. But one thought rose above them all, clear and sharp as a knife:

She was here.

And if she was here, then what had you missed? What was waiting just beyond the next shadow? You clutched the strand tighter, a knot of fear and determination tightening in your chest. You couldn’t let this go. Not now. Not after everything. With trembling hands and racing thoughts, you turned and walked toward the exit, but every step away from that cell felt like stepping deeper into the unknown.

You pulled your coat tighter around you, the cool night air biting at your skin. Your feet moved again, this time carrying you toward Zaun. If there was even the faintest chance she was there, you had to follow it. Whether you were ready or not, the path ahead was clear. You had to find her. And this time, you couldn’t fail. You had been at it for hours—no, days—piecing together fragments of evidence that felt more like whispers in the dark. Each lead took you deeper into Zaun’s underbelly: a blood trail smeared across cracked pavement, scorch marks that didn’t belong, and the eerie testimonies of those too afraid to say much at all. The closer you got, the more everything started pointing to one place. You’d seen the tunnel marked on old maps of Zaun—a forgotten artery deep within the district, barely mentioned anymore except in hushed tones. Something had happened there, something people were afraid to talk about. Standing at its mouth now, you could feel the weight of the place pressing on you like a physical force. The green chemfog swirled thickly, the heavy air carrying a stench of rust, decay, and something faintly metallic. It was quiet, unnervingly so, the usual hum of Zaun’s machinery conspicuously absent. You stepped forward cautiously, every instinct screaming at you to turn back. But the faintest trace of blood along the ground caught your attention, leading you further in. Whatever had been here—or was still here—wasn’t human. And yet, you couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t just a hunt for a monster. This was something personal, a shadow from your past reaching out to drag you back. As you stood at the edge of the tunnel, Dr. Reveck’s voice echoed in your mind, his words heavy with warning.

“You think you’re hunting it, but it’s already closer than you realize.”

The memory of his cold, detached tone sent a shiver down your spine. You tried to brush it off, focus on the task at hand. But it wasn’t easy. There was something about the way he’d looked at you, almost pitying, that gnawed at your resolve.

“You might not like what you uncover.”

The blood trail led further into the shadows, growing thicker, fresher. Each step you took seemed to confirm the truth of his cryptic warning. This wasn’t just a trail—it was a trap, a path carved by something that knew you’d follow. Despite yourself, fear clawed at the edges of your mind. You gripped your weapon tightly, the sound of your own breathing loud in the suffocating silence. If Dr. Reveck was right, if it was closer than you realized, then maybe—just maybe—it wasn’t the beast you were hunting anymore. Your heart pounded in your chest as you ventured deeper into the tunnel, every nerve on edge. The oppressive darkness seemed alive, pressing down on you as if the walls themselves wanted to swallow you whole. Then, breaking through the suffocating silence, you heard it—a voice. A familiar cry echoed through the hollow passage, carrying a name you hadn’t heard in years.

“Powder.”

Your breath hitched, and without thinking, your feet carried you toward the sound. The cry was raw, desperate, and unmistakable. It clawed at the memories you’d buried deep—days spent in the smog-filled streets of Zaun, promises whispered in the dead of night. You turned a corner, and there they were. The sight stopped you cold. Vi was locked in a brutal struggle, her movements sharp and relentless as she fought the towering monstrosity before her. Jinx—no, Powder—was nearby, her chaotic energy radiating even in the chaos, her laughter twisted with something between joy and pain. The beast, its hulking form both animal and something far worse, loomed over them. You stood frozen for a moment, unable to reconcile the scene before you. The two sisters you had sworn to protect were here, together again, fighting a nightmare brought to life. This wasn’t just a fight—it was their fight. But as the beast’s roar shook the walls of the tunnel, you knew you couldn’t just stand there. Not this time. You swung your electro-baton again, sending a crack of electricity through the beast’s thick hide. It staggered back, growling low, but you were ready to strike again. Then, a voice you hadn’t heard in what felt like ages cut through the chaos, sharp and frantic.

“Y/N?”

Your heart skipped a beat, and you turned, breath catching. There, standing in front of you with wide, shocked eyes, was Jinx. But it wasn’t just her surprise that caught your attention—it was the frantic energy radiating from her as her gaze flickered between you and the monster. Before you could even process the situation, Vi’s voice rang out, filled with desperation. “Get out of the way!” she yelled, her eyes locking onto the beast just as it made a move in your direction. The words barely registered before you heard the guttural growl of the creature, its monstrous form lunging toward you, faster than you could react. Your instincts kicked in just in time as you dove to the side, pushing Jinx out of the way and out of the path of the beast. In the chaos of the moment, you felt a sharp pang in your chest—Jinx’s face, twisted with a mixture of fear and resolve, flashed in your mind for just a second. She wasn’t ready to lose him again. But the situation was slipping further from control, and you couldn’t afford to wait any longer. Before you could strike, a hand shot out, gripping your arm with surprising strength. You whirled around, heart pounding, only to find Powder standing there. Her eyes were wide, frantic, pleading. “Stop!” she cried, her voice desperate, barely above a whisper. But it was enough to freeze you in place, your pulse hammering in your ears. The world seemed to slow as Powder’s frantic cry echoed in your mind.

“It’s Vander.”

For a moment, you couldn’t breathe. The name hung in the air, shattering everything you thought you knew. Your heart pounded against your ribs, memories of Vander flooding your mind—his hands, strong yet tender, holding you close during the darkest times. His laugh, the warmth he exuded when the world around you seemed so cold. He had been your everything. You had loved him with every fiber of your being. But this thing, this beast, it was not the man you had known. This creature, with its bloodshot eyes and twisted form, was not Vander. It couldn’t be. Your hands shook as you tightened your grip on the electro-baton, but it felt wrong—so wrong. The memories of him, so vivid and painful, clashed with the grotesque beast standing before you. You felt sick to your stomach, a wave of guilt crashing over you. You had failed him. Failed to save him. And now, you couldn’t even bring yourself to end the nightmare he had become. Your breath hitched as Powder stepped forward, desperation in her voice. “Please, Y/N, stop. I know it’s him. I can feel him in there. I won’t let you hurt him again.” Her words were a plea, a fragile hope in the storm. But your heart twisted with doubt. You could still hear the screams, the way the beast had ravaged everything in its path. And yet… something in Powder’s eyes, something in her raw desperation, made you falter.

The beast—Vander—lurched forward, its eyes locking onto you with an intensity that nearly paralyzed you. Every memory you had ever shared with him felt like it was being ripped from your chest.“Vander,” you whispered, the word slipping from your lips before you could stop it. The weight of it crushed you. You had spent so many years believing that Vander was lost, that the man you loved was gone. But here he was, in some twisted form, and it was as if everything you had been through had led you to this moment. Powder’s voice trembled as she pleaded once more. “Please, Y/N. Trust me. It’s him. Don’t hurt him. He’s still in there.” The battle inside you was unbearable. Every part of you screamed to fight, to destroy the beast before it could hurt anyone else. But Powder’s face—the vulnerability, the fear—held you in place. Your heart ached for her, for the girl who had once been Powder, the girl who had believed so deeply in the man who had been Vander. And for a long moment, you did nothing. Your body, your mind, were paralyzed by the weight of it all.

You wanted to believe her, wanted to believe that Vander was still there somewhere beneath that monstrous exterior. You swallowed hard, the tears threatening to break free. Slowly, shakily, you lowered the electro-baton, letting it fall to your side. It felt like an eternity, the weight of the decision heavier than any battle you had ever fought. The beast—Vander—let out a low growl, and for a split second, it seemed to hesitate, its glowing eyes softening. And then, before you could process what was happening, it lunged. In a split-second, you shoved Vi out of the way, your body reacting faster than your mind could follow. You felt the beast’s claws rake across your shoulder, pain searing through your skin. The world blurred for a moment, your vision flickering as you stumbled backward, feeling weaker by the second. And then, amidst the chaos, the word tore from your chest.

“Vander…”

The sound of his name was a raw, guttural cry, one that echoed through the tunnels, through your soul. The pain hit you harder than any wound could. Vander, that name, those memories—they tore you apart. You had vowed to protect Vi and Powder, to keep them safe from the horrors of the world, yet here you stood, helpless. The love you had for him, for both of them, never faded. But now? Now you wondered if you'd failed them all. Could you ever undo the damage, or was it too late to save any of them? This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be this. But here he was, and you couldn’t turn away. Not now. Not after everything.

As the beast—the twisted, monstrous form of Vander—pins you to the ground, his massive claw digs into your shoulder, a searing pain that nearly overwhelms you. Your body is trembling, pinned beneath his weight, but you find the strength to cry out. “Vander!” The word escapes your lips like a prayer, a cry full of pain, longing, and grief. For a fleeting moment, the ferocity in his bloodshot eyes falters. There’s a flicker of something, a split-second recognition that makes your heart ache with hope, even as your breath hitches in terror. The claws dig deeper, and for a second, you wonder if it’s all over. The beast’s heavy breaths rattle through your chest, but you can’t stop. This has to be the moment. This has to reach him. With what strength you have left, you lift your free hand and place it gently on his massive claw, the very one that could end your life. You speak the words that have haunted your thoughts, words full of both love and desperate sorrow, knowing they might be the last you ever speak to him.

“It’s me... your sunshine.”

The words hang in the air, fragile and raw, and for a heartbeat, time seems to stop. The beast’s gaze flickers—just for a moment—as if the sound of your voice stirs something deep within him. There’s a trembling hesitation in his claw, as if he’s hearing something buried beneath the rage and the pain, something that reminds him of who he was. In the chaos of your heart, you realize your words are more than a plea. They’re a lifeline thrown into a sea of darkness, hoping that some part of Vander will catch it. For a heartbeat, you feel the world shift, the crushing weight of the beast’s form loosening as something human flickers in the depths of his eyes. His growls soften, his body stills, as if struggling against the flood of memories. Then, as if through a fog, his voice—gravelly, strained, broken—rumbles from the depths of his throat, just a whisper but heavy with a history that neither of you could erase.

“Y/N…?”

The name feels like a weight lifted off your chest, like the first breath after drowning. His voice is there, faint, but real. Vander is still in there. You can feel it—the man you loved, the one who had promised to always protect you, the one who had once held you close during the darkest nights, is right here in front of you. Tears blur your vision, and your body trembles, caught between the raw pain, the disbelief, and a flood of emotions you never thought you’d face again. With a trembling breath, you whisper, “It’s me, Vander… it’s your Y/N…” In that moment, his once ferocious red eyes flicker. A slow shift begins, and your heart seizes in your chest as you see something break through the fog—a glimmer of blue and green cutting through the fire. For a single, fleeting second, you see Vander there, in his eyes. The man you loved. The protector who had once carried you through the worst storms. It’s real. He’s still in there. The grip around you tightens, not with violence, but with a deep, consuming desperation. His body trembles with something far greater than rage—something more human. His chest releases a low, guttural breath, the growl that once shook the air now softened, trembling with the weight of all that he has become, all he’s lost.

He’s no longer the man you remember, not entirely. But he’s not the beast either. No longer fully consumed by it. It’s somewhere in between, and in that space, you cling to him like you’ve never clung to anything before. You feel his hands, so monstrous and terrifying in their size, holding you close— holding you. He pulls you in with a desperation that makes your chest ache, his form trembling as if he’s afraid you might slip away again, as if this might all vanish in an instant. The sheer weight of him, the warmth of his touch, releases everything you’ve buried deep inside—the fear, the questions, the pain, the grief. Every memory of him, of what you lost, surfaces and consumes you. Your sobs come, raw and uncontrollable. The sound fills the air between you, as you let go of everything you’ve carried alone all this time. And in the grip of this agony, in the midst of your sobbing breaths, you feel Vander—the man who once loved you—is still fighting to hold onto you, still fighting to be the protector he once was. His arms, still massive, still deadly, are now filled with tenderness. He doesn’t need to speak, not yet. His embrace says everything. He’s still here, he’s still fighting, and he hasn’t forgotten you. In that moment, you realize that the beast, the rage, the monstrous form—none of it can take away who he was, who he still is to you. Tears blur your vision even more, but you no longer try to stop them. You let them fall freely, because in the midst of the devastation, the pain, and the years you spent wondering if this day would ever come, you know— he’s here. Not just in body, but in soul. And you’ll hold on to him, no matter what form he takes. You’ll fight for him, just as he fought for you.

As Vander’s gaze shifts toward Powder and Vi, his monstrous form trembles slightly, and the flicker of recognition in his eyes softens further. Despite the beast he has become, there's a tenderness in the way he moves, his massive arm opening wide, offering a place for them to find solace in his embrace. The look in their eyes is a mix of agony and hope, the weight of everything they've endured written across their faces. It’s clear they’re torn between fear of what he’s become and the desire to believe that the father they once knew is still inside.

Without a word, you reach out, your voice quiet but full of emotion.

“Go to him. He’s still your father. He’s still here with us.”

The words are simple, but they carry the weight of years of grief, the ache of a lost family and the hope of its fragile restoration. Powder’s eyes fill with tears, and Vi, standing beside her, slowly steps forward. The two of them move together, drawn toward Vander’s open arms, like a long-buried longing finally being met. They collapse into his embrace, and the world around you seems to pause. Vander, in his monstrous form, holds them close, his massive arms gentle yet desperate, as though he’s afraid they might disappear if he holds them too loosely. The pain, the fear, all of it melts away in this moment, replaced by something simple—love. He’s still their father, still the protector who had raised them. Even now, with all the darkness and the destruction surrounding them, Vander is here, alive, and for this moment, whole.

And you stand back, watching them hold each other. The tears in your own eyes sting as you witness the reunion, knowing that, despite everything, the heart of the man you loved is still present. He is their father— your Vander—and for that, you are thankful.

[n0cturn4]

Was it worth it?

Character: Bruce Wayne x Daughter!Reader Summary: In his arms, with the last breath of life Word Count: 948 Music: Hurt Like Hell - Madison Beer

The abandoned building loomed in dark ruins, like a monument to oblivion, its peeling walls and partially open ceiling letting in only scattered drops of the rain outside. The dense shadows of dusk seemed to hold a vigil around us, and the heavy air carried the smell of rust and dampness, so thick it felt as if time itself was trapped there, holding everything stagnant except for the pain.

And then, in the middle of that desolate scene, my eyes found her. She was leaning against the wall, pale, her trembling lips shaped into an expression of exhaustion that no battle could explain, one hand pressed against the open wound on her torso. Blood slipped between her fingers, slow and dark, as if each drop was being pulled from the very essence of her. My heart clenched at the sight, realizing this was no longer one of the many wounds we healed in silence. This was something far deeper, a kind of sacrifice that should never have been hers to make.

She lifted her eyes to mine as she sensed my presence, her face marked by an exhaustion that went beyond the physical, an exhaustion that burned into the soul. Yet still, she managed a tremulous smile—a smile that, somehow, seemed more of a farewell than a greeting. Leaning against the wall, her frail and fading body seemed to struggle against an invisible weight pulling her down, as if the simple act of continuing to breathe demanded every fragment of strength she still possessed.

“Why…?” The question escaped my lips in a whisper barely audible, tearing through the oppressive silence surrounding us. I moved toward her, each step heavy, each movement carrying the weight of what I knew I couldn’t fix. I knelt by her side, my knees pressing into the dirty, damp ground, but none of that mattered. I was so close that I could see the contours of the bloodstains on her clothes, the dark color I knew so well but had never wanted to see there, on her.

She tried to speak, but the sound came out weak, sliced through by the pain. Her lips trembled slightly, and I saw hesitation in her gaze, as if she was afraid to let me know everything that was inside her. I touched her hand, feeling the warmth of life slipping between our fingers as she struggled to find the words. There was something solemn and irreversible in her eyes, as if she had already accepted a fate I still refused to see.

“I… I wanted to protect you, Dad.” Her voice was faint, a breath barely reaching my ears, but every word carried the determination of someone who knew that sacrifice was inevitable. “I knew the risks… knew it would be a one-way road… but I didn’t care. It was my choice.”

I felt my throat tighten, swallowing hard, trying to contain the unbearable weight now crushing my chest. There, in the middle of the shadows, with my daughter fighting for each second of life, the mantle of Batman felt useless. I was nothing but a father, and watching my daughter fade in my arms was a suffering no battle could prepare me for. I held her hand tighter, as if I could anchor her to life, as if I could convince her to stay.

“You didn’t have to do this.” My words came out shaky, almost like a murmur of despair. “I should… I should have protected you… should have stopped you… never should have let you walk down this path.”

She gave a faint smile, that sad and tired smile that bore a courage I had never seen before. Her eyes, even weakened, met mine with a depth that destroyed me inside. She knew, knew everything, and still, she looked at me with an acceptance that felt greater than any understanding I could have.

“Was it worth it?” The question escaped my mouth almost without thinking, a mixture of pain, guilt, and the desperate hope that, somehow, her words could relieve me of this weight that seemed to crush my soul. I needed to believe that all of this wasn’t in vain, that everything she had endured had a greater purpose.

She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly. Her trembling hand touched my face, a final gesture of affection, and when she spoke, each word came out in a whisper laden with unshakable strength:

“It was worth it, Dad… it was worth it, because I would do it all over again, just to know you’re still here. I was never just your daughter… I am your shadow, and that is my part in your legacy. You gave me purpose. Now, you have to go on, even if I’m not here. You have to keep Gotham safe… that’s the path I chose, for you.”

She closed her eyes, and her hand slipped softly from mine, leaving her last breath to escape her lips. I remained there, holding her in my arms, feeling the weight of loss rooting itself within me, a profound emptiness taking over what had once been a simple desire to fight. The rain outside seemed to intensify, as if the city mourned the loss of a silent heroine, a warrior who had sacrificed herself for something greater than herself.

For a long time, the only sound that filled the space was that of the rain, like a sad melody merging with the emptiness left behind. And I knew, there and forever, that this sacrifice was the greatest Gotham had ever demanded of me—a sacrifice I would carry with me for the rest of my life, a sacrifice that, as she had said, was now an inseparable part of who I was.

[shanastoryteller]

Happy holidays! Do you have any zagreus interacting with other gods? Thanks so much

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Other people are learning about Zagreus.

Not that they know it's him, of course. He goes by the moniker prince.

Just enough to direct prayers and pay tributes, but a nameless god standing against Demeter? It's enough to send the whole pantheon in an uproar.

It's enough to send Demeter to heights of rage that Artemis previously thought her incapable of reaching.

There are gardens that her frost can't touch. Fruit she she has no hand in growing.

There are people who will not submit and die as she wishes it, blaming mortals for her daughter's death and so making them pay the price for a lost goddess.

Not even Zeus has rained destruction upon the mortals like Demeter had and not even Zeus can stop her.

It's too much. Too much taken, too much suffering.

Persephone was a sweet girl. But her loss is not worth the life of every mortal upon the earth.

Artemis is with Aphrodite, both of them having been evoked powerfully enough to send shivers down their spine. She leans against her spear and tried to think of any other way to fix this.

It's a town on the edge of collapse, a thick forest between them and the rest of civilization. In spring the journey is long but easy enough, but it hasn't been spring for a long time.

There's no game to hunt. Loved ones are dying. They beg and beg to any god that will listen but while every god can hear them no god can save them.

None but one.

But how would they know? This far out, there only contact is other isolated villages too deep in the world.

"I'm tired," Aphrodite whispers, knees pulled to her chest, something about her coltish in her helplessness.

Artemis has never tried this. She doesn't even know if it will work. But he won't ever find his way here on his own. "Can you keep a secret, Aphrodite?"

She shifts her head enough to look at her with a single garnet eye. "What secret do you have, sister mine?"

"Aphrodite," she says warningly.

She huffs, amusement aging her. "Yes, yes, my silence or my life. What is it?"

Artemis hopes she doesn't regret this. She hopes it works. "Prince Zagreus!"

"What's Zag going to do?" Aphrodite blinks. "He can't even-"

She cuts herself off and Artemis knows she's thinking through the first part, coming to the obvious conclusion and rejecting it out of hand.

"Artemis?"

They both turn and Zagreus is standing there. Not as image or projection like he was the last time they met face to face, but solidly beside her in the flesh.

He grimaces in pain and raises a hand to his side before straightening and forcing his arm down. Whatever it is that keeps him in his father's realm still has some hold on him, it seems.

"I'm kind of in the middle of something," he says. There's blood on his teeth. There wasn't any a couple seconds ago. "Oh, hi Aphrodite. Er. Please don't tell anyone."

"It's you?" Aphrodite demands. "You?"

"I am me," he agrees.

Artemis would beat him if they had the time for it. "Can you help them? This village will die. Word of you hasn't reached them and your temples are too far to travel too even if they had."

He grins it's all red. His blood drips down his chin. "It's not going to be pretty."

Artemis has never thought about how exactly the god of life and blood spreads his blessings. She thinks she's regretting that now.

"Pretty's my domain anyway," Aphrodite snaps. "Help them."

Zagreus moves too quickly for Artemis to stop. He grabs her spear and slices down his chest and then there's blood everywhere, pouring out of him, more than should be in any one body.

Aphrodite screams and Artemis wrenches the spear away, horrified. "This is celestial silver! You can't - even gods can't heal from it!"

"Death heals all wounds," he says and there's blood down his chin, spilling out his mouth with his every breath.

Then he's running.

They talk off after him and it's easy to follow his trail, the deluge blood and smell of copper filling her nose as they chase him.

Zagreus is mad. When she wasn't looking he went insane and now she's killed him.

They have to slow him down, have to get him to Hermes. It should be easy, they're goddesses and he's dying, but he stays fast enough to stay just out of their grasps.

He's lose a body's worth of blood a dozen times over and yet still more flows.

He finally trips and falls, giving gurgling breathes.

"Zagreus!" she shouts as she and Aphrodite fall into the snow beside him. "Zagreus, hold on, it's going to be okay."

He laughs and pats her cheek. He's too pale. "Relax. I die all the time."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aphrodite demands, trying to put her hands over the wound but it's too long to stem.

Zagreus doesn't answer.

His body goes slack and it takes Artemis several seconds to realize the person screaming is her.

Aphrodite is sitting there shell shocked and bewildered and then Zagreus's body sinks into the earth, not even reacting to Artemis's attempts to hold on.

"Oh."

She looks up and Aphrodite is looking behind them. Artemis slowly follows her gaze.

Every place blood touched the ground, there now grows bushes of bright purple berries, more vibrant than any fruit she's seen grow that shade. They grow thick and fat on every branch and if there anything like the other food in Prince's gardens, it will keep them alive and they'll be able to grow more themselves.

If they're willing to sacrifice the blood.

The next time Artemis sees Zagreus, she's going to kill him.

[asvterias]

𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟣: 𝖦𝗈𝗈𝖽𝖻𝗒𝖾, 𝖸𝖺𝗇𝖼𝗒 𝖠𝖼𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗆𝗒

the cast // series masterlist

chap. 1 || chap. 2 || chap. 3 || chap. 4 || chap. 5 || chap. 6 || chap. 7 || chap. 8

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Just Some Cursing

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Mom!Jessica Matthews ✘ Daughter!Reader, Mother!Sally Jackson ✘ Step-Daughter!Reader, Percy Jackson ✘ Older Sister!Reader, (Brief) Nancy Bobofit ✘ Daughter of Poseidon!Reader, (Platonic) Grover Underwood ✘ Daughter of Poseidon!Reader, Mr. Brunner ✘ Daughter of Poseidon!Reader

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: Another field trip meant to learn greek mythology quickly turns into an interesting but confusing disaster.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 4.5k+

𝐓𝐚𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭: @starvviss @lov3rgirllll @starless-nightz @random-girls-loves

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: So...first chapter, how are we looking?? 👀 Also, there's no way for me to be this consistent with my book 😮, let's hope I can keep this up!

🐚 ✘ 🗡️

𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟣

𝖲𝖾𝖺𝗌𝗈𝗇 𝖮𝗇𝖾: 𝖤𝗉𝗂𝗌𝗈𝖽𝖾 𝟣

Born from the same father but different mothers, your sibling bond with Percy was unbreakable, certainly unconditional. Your mothers were very close, growing up as best friends from when they were teenagers, accomplishing every achievement together for the sake of you and Percy’s life.

Of course, your moms fell in love, hosting a small spring wedding when you were 10 and Percy was 6 years old.

‘Look…. I didn’t want to be a half-blood. Being a half-blood is dangerous, it’s scary. Most of the time it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. If you think you might be one of us, my advice is to turn away while you still can because once they know who you are, they’ll sense it too and they’ll come for you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘My name is Y/N Jackson-Matthews, I’m sixteen years old. Am I a troubled kid? Depends on which context you put this in.’

‘To my parents, I’m the easy and less rebellious child, never causing fights unless provoked, maintaining good school grades, and protecting my brother from trouble. I didn’t mind any of it, rather enjoying being the protector of the family. It makes me visible and seen as an equal to my other family members. Don’t get my parents wrong, they love and care for me very much, but I always felt invisible, blending into the sidelines, due to my shy nature. Luckily, I’m still growing out of that mindset and managing to be an outspoken girl and not a pushover.’

‘So what happens when the protector is unable to protect? Do they give up instant hope and cower in shame? Or do they fight back, willingly seeking a second chance to redeem themselves? The answer to this question is unclear. Whether you make a change or just bystand like others?

With everything going on, from the upbringing of your heritage, both of your mothers went through thick and thin. Developing from friends into lovers hardly changed anything, presumably their love maintained massively for themselves and shared children. A loving family of four was maintained by dark secrets that cost lives.

After many years of moving from states because of unexplainable sightings you and Percy witnessed in confusion and never properly settling down in schools, Yancy Academy was persistent. You and Percy managed a full school semester at Yancy, and your parents were proud of it.

Everything was going well, Percy finally found a friend, Grover Underwood, the boy was a little peculiar but his personality was a sweet innocent one. Yes, you didn’t have any friends but you were fine with it, half of your schoolmates weren’t even worth the time. So, you just hung out with Grover and Percy, defending them against bullies, particularly a redhead named Nancy Bobofit, who was your classmate.

Despite the girl bullying your younger brothers, she never bothered you to the extent she did with others. You shared most of your classes with her, due to being assigned to AP Classes because of your academic gift. Perhaps, maybe she’s always flustered by your mere presence, her rosy cheeks, giving her true feelings away. Even when it’s with a single glance from you, the redhead girl would duck her head and turn the small smile she had on, plastering it with a hardened frown.

‘Until the day that changed, too…until the day one of them decided to come for me and my brother too. My family’s fate will all be in my hands. And maybe I wasn’t prepared for it, nobody was prepared for it. I’m a protector and nothing we hate worse is an unprepared attack.

Yancy Academy hosted a field trip to the Met Museum about Greek Gods for History Week. Standing beside your younger brothers, Grover and Percy, observing about the many Greek God statues on display while Mr. Brunner briefly discussed Greek History.

Keeping a clipboard in your hand with a worksheet attached to it and you fidgeted with the pen in your other hand. You couldn’t concentrate on anything.

“What you see here, they are not fictions. They are not fantasies. What you see here are the truest and deepest parts of yourselves. Friends…the gods, the monsters, the heroes, you see here in this room are reminders of what we are capable of.” Mr. Brunner explained to the students.

You released a tired sigh, throwing your head slightly back as you resisted the urge to roll your eyes and leave to buy snacks.

Greek Mythology wasn’t your favorite thing to learn about but surprisingly your brother, it’s the only subject he wholeheartedly admires.

“Now, on your worksheets, I want you to choose one of the subjects you see here and describe it. Not just how it looks but how it makes you feel. Hmm…okay, c’mon.” Your History teacher claps twice, urging everyone to disperse and start the assignment.

You blinked down at the clipboard holding your assignment, trying to read the instructions. Your vision goes blurry as you squint your eyes, not believing the sight. Were you seeing things now? Since when do words start to rearrange themselves on paper? That whole ordeal caused even more confusion and an even further increasing headache.

Suddenly, you feel a tap on your shoulder which brings you back to reality as you turn around to face the person. You shake your head, realizing you are in a public place and daydreaming again.

“Hey, Matthews,” Nancy smirks.

“Hey, Bobofit.” Your eyes slanted at the girl’s presence, wondering why the sudden intrusion.

“I was wondering if you had another pen that I could borrow. I seem to have lost mine,”

You nodded with a small smile, about to grab the extra pen from your sweater pocket before your brother joined in the conversation.

“Isn’t that the pen behind your ear?” Percy points out.

You raised your head and scanned the girl’s face as her red hair made it harder to decipher the pen. Nancy’s face flushed in embarrassment as her eyes widened at the blonde’s attempt at humiliation. The redhead absolutely hated that he succeeded in embarrassing her, and in front of you, too. Finally, you spotted the well-hidden pen, observing the writing utensil, safely tucked behind the bridge of her ear.

“Oh yeah, you do have a pen. You don’t need mine.”

Your brother smiles in satisfaction at Nancy’s embarrassment and your cluelessness in the entire situation.

“Yeah, so can you get lost now?” Percy says with a disdained face.

Nancy glares and scoffs at your blonde brother before turning her attention back to you with a half smile. “See you later, Y/N,” she waved with a flirty tone.

You nodded, watching the redhead saunter off to her friend group once again.

“I still don’t get why you even interact with her,” Percy exhales.

“Trust me, I don’t know myself.” You answer him, “Maybe, I want to kill her with kindness,” You joked with a dry tone.

“My sister is always the jester,” Percy rolls his eyes.

“Shut up, doofus,” You shove him. “Let’s hurry up and finish this worksheet so we can buy snacks, I’m starving.”

“I swear you think through your stomach,”

“Whatever, Perseus.”

You two chuckle to yourselves as you both look up at the statue in front of you. It was Perseus, standing victoriously while holding the decapitated head of Medusa.

“What do you see?”

The whole scenery changed, and instead of the museum being crowded it was empty, just the family of four. You, Percy, your mom, Jessica, and your mother, Sally. However, your ages also regressed there too, you were 10 and Percy was 6 as you all stood before the statue. It was a past memory.

“Perseus…that’s me.” A six-year-old Percy answered his mom.

“Mm-hmm, that’s who you’re named after.”

“Is that why you named me after him? Because he was a hero?”

“What makes you think he was a hero?”

“Because he kills monsters.”

“And what makes you think that she was a monster?”

“Mom…”

“Not everyone who looks like a hero is a hero, and not everyone who looks like a monster is a monster.” Your mom, Jessica continues with the conversation.

“This Greek talk is sooo boring,” You mumbled to yourself.

“I named you after him because when he was a very little boy he and his mother were placed in a wooden chest and cast out into the sea by a very angry king.”

Your mom looked at her two children as she spoke, “All alone, afraid, and at night, his mother would whisper in his ear; “Hold fast Perseus. Brave the storm that was made to break us for we are unbreakable as long as we have each other.”

“And against all odds, he managed his way to find a happy ending,” Sally concludes.

You and your mom shared a glance of boredom as she grabbed your hand, sneakily walking away from your brother and mother. You two left the museum and headed towards the food stand outside, ordering two medium-sized pretzels.

“We got pretzels,” You cheered, chewing on the pretzel in your hand as you skipped back inside the museum with your mom.

“And you didn’t bring me any!” Percy yelled in astonishment.

“Why yes, of course, because you and mother were boring me and mom about all this Greek mythology.”

“It’s not my fault your attention span is so short!”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk, Perseus!”

“Just shut up, Y/N/N.”

Before you two could argue again, your mom hit your arm, silencing any of your upcoming words, and replacing it with a hurried yell. Soothing your arm in pain as the impact still subsided, and you pouted at your mom.

“In public places, we use our inside voices, remember.” Sally gently reprimands her two children.

“But—“

Her warning tone was to be carefully treaded with. “Y/N…”

“Why didn’t Percy get hit too?”

“Don’t take that tone with your mother, missy,” Your mom lectures you with a firm stare. “Don’t make me get the belt.”

Neither of your parents were wearing belts and you wondered where she was gonna find one. For once, you decided to keep your smart mouth shut and avoid the consequences this time.

“Fine, we’ll be even.” Sally sighs, briefly hitting Percy’s arm harshly, wincing when his eyes start to water.

“Sorry, mom.” You held your head down in shame and bashfully took another bite of your pretzel.

He cries and you walk over to him, rubbing his back with your free hand, attempting to comfort him. Soon enough, you soothed and wiped his tears away and gave him a huge bear hug.

“Don’t cry, brother. I’ll keep you safe from our mothers.”

He sniffles at you, still staying silent, reciprocating the hug back and not budging.

Pulling away from the bear hug, you grinned softly at the young blonde. “We’ll share my pretzel if you like.” You shoved the half-eaten pretzel into your brother’s face.

Percy wipes his remaining tears away, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he reaches for the desert.

You smiled at your generosity and so did your parents at your kindness shown towards your younger brother. They loved seeing you two get along, too bad that wholesome moment quickly diminished as you began to shout again.

“Not a big piece, you hoarder!”

“How about we get you two separate pretzels?” Sally bargained with an unsure shrug and her wife, Jessica stared at her in disbelief.

“We’re not getting them separate pretzels.” Your mom, Jessica, shakes her head.

“Why not?”

“Can’t you tell, Percy, we’re broke?”

“How broke are we?”

“We’re not broke.”

The family of four started to leave the museum as you walked hand in hand with Percy as he munched on the remainder of your pretzel. You weren’t going to fight him about it because you were getting another one.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sweetie, I’m sure.”

“You’re not very convincing, mom.” You skipped to the pretzel stand with Percy by your side.

Sally smiles down at you. “Y/N takes after you,”

“Oh, please, no she does not.” Your mom scoffs in disagreement.

“Mom!” Percy yells out and he breaks his pencil in the process, startling some nearby students.

You glance at your brother in confusion, seeing he’s finally out of his trance state, returning to the harsh reality.

“I’m right here, sweetie,” Percy searched for the voice and internally shrank upon the actual voice of the person. It was Nancy, who was just publicly humiliating him in front of everybody. “Mommy’s here!” She fakely cooed, drawing out some laughs from her friends and others.

You glared at the redhead, smirking to yourself when she backed down and turned away from you two.

“Just ignore her.”

“Well, it’s getting quite hard not to. She’s like a pest, a human-sized annoying pest that you can’t get rid of.”

“Mr. Jackson and Ms. Matthews, you two will learn to control yourself, do you understand me?” You wince at the sudden harshness of Mrs. Dodds’ tone.

“Us?” Percy asked in shock, pointing to the group of girls, ready to defend himself.

“Listen here, lady, we didn’t do anything wrong—“

Mrs. Dodd sharply cut your statements off. “Do you understand me?”

“He can’t help it, Mrs. Dodds. Percy’s special.” Nancy wanted to be desperately involved. Oh, she’s definitely going to get what’s coming for her.

“I will fight you in front of everyone here and show you who’s really special.” You start to walk closer to the posse of girls but a strict voice halts your actions.

“That’s enough!” Mr. Brunner rolls over on his wheelchair to the two of you, “Pay them no mind. When you’re ready to hear what the gods have in store for you, they’ll tell you. I believe in you, in the both of you.”

“Thanks for the unnecessary inspiration, I guess,” You shrugged.

Mr. Brunner pulls two black pens from his suit, “And I believe you two will be needing this.”

Immediately, Percy accepts the pen from his teacher but you aren’t easily impressed or gullible by a basic pen.

“No, thanks, I already have an extra pen.”

“Take the pen, Ms. Matthews.” His demeanor was serious as you gulped, taking the pen out of his hand.

“It’s a pen, though.” You spoke dumbfounded, looking at the pen skeptically.

“Why, yes, Y/N, it is a pen,” Mr. Brunner nodded in agreement. Was he being sarcastic with you?

“Do you want us to write something with it for you?”

“Hang on to them. ‘Tis a mighty instrument,”

“It’s just a pen.” You argued. “If you’re that lazy to write, that’s not my problem, Mr. B.”

“Good day, Y/N.” He rolled away in his wheelchair. “I never knew a girl could have so many questions for a simple thing.” He murmurs to himself.

“What’s so special about this pen?” Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, observing the simple black ink pen.

“Just let it go, sis.”

“I’m only doing that because lunch is finally here.” You shoved the pen into your sweater pocket.

“All you’re worried about is food.”

“Of course, what else is there to worry about? Food won’t hurt or pretend to love me, food is life.”

“Why do you always do that?”

“What do I always do?”

“Get real depressing when you’re hungry.”

“It’s either a depressing state or a bitchy state, be grateful.”

The trio sits by the huge water fountain and begins to eat their sandwiches while everyone else is talking and standing around with their friends.

“There are all sorts of schools of thought about what drives that kind of bullying. Childhood trauma, a feeling of inadequacy..” Grover lists off.

“Look I get that Nancy has issues, I’m just getting tired of her taking them out on me.” Percy exhales, “I feel like maybe it’s time we do something about it.”

“You could make an appointment with Mr. Kane.” Grover suggests, “He’s really great at talking to—“

“I was thinking more of shoving Nancy into the nearest dumpster,” Percy confesses with an innocent smile.

“Oh…” Grover raises his eyebrows, “That’s not what I really had intended in mind.”

“I like it, let’s do it.”

“No, no, no, Y/N, Percy, have you two learned nothing?”

“Hey, I do learn stuff, I just forget about the consequences…sometimes.”

“If there’s one thing I know about bullies, is that you should never ever stand up to them,” You frowned at that piece of advice.

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“It isn’t right.” You piped up. “That’s a stupidass logic, Grover, you’ll just give them more power than they actually need. The only way to stand up to them is to fight, make them scared of you after you beat their ass.”

“Look…I know this place is hard for people like us but we’re not gonna be here forever. There are better places out there.” Grover reassures his best friend.

A slice of cheese comes hurling your way and it lands on Grover’s face, echoing a smacking sound.

“Oops…” Nancy smirks, balling up the piece of garbage in her hand and walking away.

“Percy….”

You piped up, opening the bag of chips, “Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,”

Percy abruptly stands up, frustration consuming his mind, storming over to Nancy and holding his hand out. At first, Nancy stared at him unimpressed with a teasing smile to further anger your brother. Seriously, what was going on with your eyes today?! First, words were disoriented on your paper and now Percy had telekinetically thrown Nancy into the nearby fountain. He did all that within a few feet, possibly two feet away from the redhead girl.

The girl went flying back a few feet in the air, screaming at her sudden height before landing into the fountain. You stare in pure amazement at the sight, laughing slightly at the girl’s hysterics.

How was he able to do that? Did you have that same ability?

“Shit…I would have done the same thing.” You admitted.

“Percy pushed me!” Is the first thing she shouts that causes you to rush over to Percy’s aid.

“What, no I didn’t!” Percy stammers.

There were murmurs and crude looks sent in your brother’s direction but you ignored it.

Judgmental looks were the least of your concerns, moreover, the annoying buzzing sound getting louder. You found the source, furiously shaking in your sweater as you hesitantly pulled the shaking pen out.

“There you are.” A familiar voice rang out, capturing the siblings’ attention. It was Mrs. Dodds’ voice and she was walking menacingly toward you two. The woman still telepathically speaks.

“We’re not fools, Percy Jackson & Y/N Matthews.

“Mrs. Dodds, you okay?”

“It was only a matter of time before we found you two,”

Your heart pounded in your chest as you gripped Percy’s wrist on instinct by your protective nature, pulling him behind you. Both watched as she stalked closer…and it looked like she was transforming into a creature. Slowly but surely, wings started to sprout from her back and her true body revealed itself.

Mrs. Dodds wasn’t even a pretty creature either, yet you only appreciate her color of scales.

“Where is it, half-bloods?” She steps on the stairs of the fountain, “Where is it?” The creature flies above you as the sibling duo stumbles back, fearful of current threats. Too appalled by the sight of everything, Percy held onto your hand tighter as he hid behind you, resting his face in your sweater. As long as he had you by his side, he’d be fine, that’s what his parents said.

‘Protect each other and you’ll be fine. Love and care for each other and you’ll be fine. Don’t ever turn your back on each other, you’re blood siblings and that’s never changing.’

All of a sudden, she plummets down at the two of you with the intent of attacking. Her height is as intimidating as she looks and you internally bite back a gulp. You just hoped she couldn’t smell emotion, and use that to her advantage because your fear was too distinctive right now.

“Hmmm….not you…you can put up a fight,” She glared at you.

Instead of attacking you first, she decided to take Percy, knowing he was too young to understand anything. So she uses her wing to shove you away from your brother, her strength forcing you to separate from the blonde.

“No, Y/N!” Percy yells as you go flying back and crash landing into the hot dog stand truck.

Once you are down, Mrs. Dodds redirects her attention to Percy with a hiss, and the blonde stumbles backward, desperately trying to escape but falls down.

In a second, the monster is on top of him, her clawed fingers briefly skimming over the color of his shirt as she analyzes the terrified boy, “Where is it, half-blood?”

“No,” You whisper, tightening the pen’s grasp, viewing the scared interaction of your brother and that creature.

Hastily getting up from the ground, staring in bewilderment at the transformed gold sword. Huh, guess it was more than an actual pen.

Stabbing the creature in her back, ignoring her first hiss, repeatedly stabbing the monster until it was fully weakened as she eventually began to disintegrate into brown dust.

After the monster dies, you stagger onto the floor, barely sitting down with sense.

“Y/N…” His voice becomes disoriented as your vision changes into a black abyss and everything goes silent.

“Are they dead?” Someone asked.

“Are they okay?”

Managing to open your tired eyes to see a circle around, looking down on you as a groan left your mouth.

“Give them some room, please.”

By the kind demand, some students disappear, mingling back with their friends while Grover stays behind, helping you and Percy off the ground.

“What happened?” Percy breathlessly asked.

You glimpsed over at a drenched Nancy with a towel wrapped around her shoulders, who was glaring daggers at your brother while being comforted by some strange woman.

Turns out, Nancy actually got what she deserved a few minutes later and it was hilarious and shocking at the same time.

“Where’s Mrs. Dodds?”

Percy’s question goes unanswered.

“I didn’t do anything to him.” Nancy exclaims and the woman escorts her away, “He pushed me.”

“Everybody go back to your lunches.” He commands the other students, who still stare and murmur amongst themselves at the sibling duo. “It’s all right Y/N and Percy, just need a moment, that’s all.”

“I didn’t understand, didn’t anyone just see that? Where’s Mrs. Dodds?” You persisted.

At your question, Mr. Brunner and Grover shared a glance.

“Y/N, there’s no one here by that name,”

“Yes, there was. She had white hair in a 1950s hairstyle, wore a trench coat, and totally gave off creeper stalker vibes.

“As I said before, there’s no one here by that name.”

“You sure?” Percy questions.

“I’m quite sure,” Mr. Brunner reaffirms with a tight-lipped smile, “All right, class, let’s move soon. Let’s go, finish your lunches.”

Long story short, all three of you got called into the principal’s office, and heavily questioned because of the earlier incident with Nancy. This talk was definitely not going to be good. By the time you were ready to leave, Grover shocked you with his statement, claiming he saw Percy push Nancy into the fountain.

Observing your brother’s reaction to his best friend’s huge lie, betrayed by the other boy, ultimately thinking he was just like the rest. You gave him a small smile, rubbing his back to reassure him that you were there for him. That’s what you always do, protect and love your younger brother like your life depends on it.

Guess, that’s the end of going to this school, you and Percy are going home! Might as while call your parents and inform them of your early visitation.

Sitting on a bench with your belongings beside you, Percy looks gloomy, probably still portraying Grover’s betrayal in his mind. He seemed to be out of it and you didn’t bother him either. This was his time to reflect on everything that happened so far.

“None of this is easy,” Mr. Brunner strolled in, “Not for you two, not for any of us. I’m very concerned about you two, I saw what happened at the museum.”

“I didn’t touch Nancy.” Percy’s self-reassurance started to sound like a plea. He just wished for Mr. Brunner to believe him, because it seemed like no one was on his side, except for you.

“I know you didn’t. At least, I know you think you didn’t.”

“Listen here, Mr. B, I saw what happened too and my brother’s telling the truth.”

“Do you want to tell me what you think happened? You can tell me. I might just understand.”

“You wanna bet?” Percy tilts his head.

“Percy…Y/N,” He lowly chuckles, “I’ve seen a lot of young people go through this sort of thing in my time, but of all of them, I suspect that…you might have the most difficult journey.”

“Oh, because that puts us at such ease,”

“It was not meant to put you at ease,” Mr. Brunner recorrects you. “I suspect that you two are special. So much more so than you know.”

“Just…stop.” The blonde boy heavily sighs. “Okay, I don’t need any more stories about how special me and my sister don’t realize we are. They aren’t helping in the slightest.”

“And I’m pretty sure I’m dyslexic,” You interrupted. “If that counts as special.”

“Ms. Matthews, you’re special but not in the way you assume.” Mr. Brunner implies.

“How is that relevant?”

“It’s not, I just wanted to feel included.”

“Of course, you do.”

A green, vintage two-seater truck pulls up, signaling your departure for returning home.

“This is our ride, we’re going home.” You spoke to the History teacher, “Get your bags, Percy, let’s go.”

Percy nods at the teacher before retrieving his bags and following into the Yancy Academy truck alongside you. Once you two were settled in the vehicle, the driver revived his engine and pulled out of the driveway.

Goodbye, Yancy Academy, you were decent while it lasted.

likes, comments, and reblogs are highly appreciated!

© asvterias, 2024. please do not copy, repost, or translate any of my works onto any other platforms without my permission.

[nadvs]

Can you dive more into how HBD Rafe supports reader during the birth of their babies? How soft and supportive he is with her and how scared he is but excited at the same time and wishing he could do more ...please 🩵

aw aw yes for sure!! 🥰

set in the home before dark universe

after she started dating rafe, it didn’t take a long time for her to see that he’s actually a really anxious person. it manifested through rage and escapism before he let her in, but since he doesn’t have a fraction of the temper he has with other people when it comes to her, she sees his anxiety come through his desperation to do well at everything and to be validated for it.

the longer she’s with him, the clearer she can see how much he struggles with low self-worth and paranoia, so when she wakes him up in the middle of the night almost nine months into her first pregnancy, feeling sharp contractions, she immediately recognizes his anxiety with the way he rushes them out of the house and speeds to the hospital. but still, he tries to calm her down even though he’s more worried than she is, mumbling it’ll be okay and i know you’ll do amazing.

the moment they’re there, she has actually never seen rafe be as polite and talkative as he is with the doctors and nurses, surely trying to get into their good graces so they treat his wife well. when they’re left alone in the room for a moment, she teases him a bit, asking what happened to her husband, and he offers her a small, worried smile, asking her what he can get for her, kissing her forehead a bunch of times, fearing he’s inadequate, that he won’t be able to help the way he needs to.

they get sent home that night because the contractions were false labor pains. each night until she actually goes into labor, he wakes up every hour with his mind racing, checking up on her, watching her breathe deeply in her sleep, feeling his pulse lower when he sees her.

when it’s time, he’s holding her hand as she lies in the hospital bed, looking at her with concern as she breathes through the pain, wishing he could do something to make it easier for her.

“squeeze my hand as hard as you need to,” he tells her, rubbing her fingers with his hand. “you’re doing so good.”

she looks at him through her grimace, finding peace in his eyes, telling herself it’ll all be worth it. when they hear their daughter’s first cries, rafe presses his head against his wife’s hand, starting to weep from the fear and love and excitement he’s feeling.

he’s terrified but so so so happy to start this new chapter, and when he holds his child for the first time, he finds a love in his heart that must have always been there but he hadn’t felt until now. he looks at his wife, knowing he’ll never be able to repay her for giving this to him.

when the second baby comes, rafe hopes he won’t be such a mess through the process again, but complications arise and he’s even more scared. the baby’s not turned correctly and rafe helplessly paces behind the doctor and nurse who are leaning over you in the bed.

they push against you at one point, making you wince in pain, and rafe huffs behind them.

“be careful,” he mutters.

“would it be best for you to step out for a moment?” he nurse says, trying to be sympathetic, clearly aware of how worried he is.

“i’m not leaving her,” rafe says with a shake of his head, looking at you with pain in his heart.

thankfully, they’re able to get the baby in the right position, and just like last time, rafe doesn’t leave your side through the process, his hand in yours, telling you how well you’re doing.

later, when you’re lying in bed holding your son, rafe comes in with water and ice chips for what feels like the hundredth time that day, asking how you are.

“can’t be that bad when i have you,” you answer, taking a sip of your water.

“i was a wreck,” he says with a disappointed sigh, “again.”

“you weren’t,” you say. you’re so used to him being hard on himself, thinking he doesn’t measure up. “you’re a great dad and a great husband.”

rafe nods, settling beside you. he feels guilty for talking about himself. this moment isn’t about him.

“you did so great,” he says. “i’m so proud of you.”

he’s always been in awe of your strength and bravery, ever since you tumbled into each other’s lives years ago and he watched you deal with something many people wouldn’t be able to handle.

your parents knock on the door with your daughter. your toddler rushes into the room and rafe scoops her up before she can try to jump onto the bed.

“be gentle with mommy,” he tells his daughter. “i’ll hold you so you can say hi to your brother, okay?”

it’s a daydreamlike moment, the three of you looking down at the newborn who has changed the dynamic of your little family in a second.

as your daughter beams at her sibling, you and rafe meet eyes, sharing a smile full of love and hope for the future. and you can see that there’s not a shred of anxiety in him right now. he looks like he feels that he’s exactly where he’s meant to be. because he does.

[nightxcreature]

Christmas Traditions

Summary: Riding through Christmas lights with Dean and your daughter

Pairing: Girl Dad!Dean x Reader

Warnings: None 🫶🏼 Pure fluff!

A/N: I know it’s a liiiiiiitle early for Christmas, but this is loosely based on a night out with my husband and daughter a few nights ago. I hope you enjoy! I am currently working on part three of “Hot-Blooded” and the next part for my soldier boy fic so hopefully those will be out in the next week or so! 👀

******************************************************

The rumble of the Impala drowned out whatever Christmas song Dean had blasting from the radio, but it did nothing to silence the cheers from the little girl in his lap. Lights flashed passed us as we coasted by, versions of Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph dancing sporadically around us. Dean’s loud laugh pulled my attention from the bright colors and I watched as he pointed toward a flashing blue figure in the distance.

“Look, Baby! It’s Santa on a Harley!” He bellowed, grinning at the small girl below him, “You love Harley’s!”

The little girl smiled, waving as we passed the motorcycle, “Yeah! I do!” She yelled out, standing between Dean’s legs and grabbing the steering wheel, “Wanna ride a motorcycle wif me, Daddy?”

His smile dropped and he pretended to cover Baby’s ears as he whispered dramatically, “You can’t say stuff like that in here, Sweetheart. Baby’ll get jealous!”

The little girl frowned and placed a sweet kiss on the wheel before whispering, “So sorry, Baby. I wub you.”

Dean grinned wider and turned her to see out the window again, “I’m sure she forgives you, Sweetheart. Baby’d never hold a grudge against you.”

She smiled widely and cheered as we passed a few brightly lit green penguins sliding onto a blue and white rollercoaster, forgetting all about potentially hurting Baby’s feelings. Dean placed a sweet kiss to her head and slid his free hand over to pull me to his side. He grinned as he wrapped the other hand around the little brunette’s eyes, driving with his knees as he said, “Don’t look now, Bud, Santa and Mrs, Claus are kissing!”

“Ewwww!” She’d shrieked, placing a hand over his tightly, “That’s nassy!”

He’d sent me a Cheshire grin and released his hold on her head as he placed a hand to the back of my head to pull me into a sweet kiss…met immediately with a loud, “No! That’s my mommy!” from below us as she tried to wrench us apart. Dean’s laugh bubbled out of him as he placed his eyes back on the driveway and released me.

“She was mine first.” He argued, sticking his tongue out before distracting her with the newest lights around us. His green eyes matched our girls as they caught the bright lights and shone beautifully, full of wonder and delight. His freckled cheeks were red and his hair full of snow from the open window. I chuckled at the sight, a blush creeping up my neck at how good happiness looks on him. Even after all the years of stress and danger and literal death he’s seen, hell, that he’d experienced first hand, he’d finally found his reprieve. I felt a bit of pride at the fact that I could’ve helped in alleviating that pain and sorrow, in more ways than one, and a smile creeped up my face. Though he’d been born to suffer, Dean had persevered and made it out of the shitshow he’d been thrown in and into this beautiful life we’d built together.

“What’re you smiling at, Mama?” He whispered in my ear as we coasted toward the end of the light show.

“A happy man.” I mutter back, placing a kiss to his cheek, “And a wonderful life.”

He smiled sweetly and pulled me closer as we made our way through the arches of lights leading toward the parking lot, “It’s been one hell of a journey getting here,” he mumbled, glancing down to our beautiful girl, “but it was worth every second.”

I followed his line of sight and sighed, leaning against him and smiling softly. The flashes of red, green, and blue lit up our girls green eyes and brought a glow to her own freckled face. The fact that she even exists is a miracle in and of itself, and one I can’t and won’t take for granted. I peeked back up at him and whispered, “Yeah, it really was.”

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Taglist: @lmhf1 @whimsyfinny @k-slla @enigmalynne @envysarchive

@daisydark @foxyjwls007 @roseblue373 @manicjk @aylacavebear

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[bunny-jpeg]

it came to me on a sunny day - dad!simon - inspired by the song 'my girl' by the temptations

maybe i'll make this a whole fic? idk... lemme know <3

telling simon you were pregnant was nothing but a shock. but it was inevitable. you two weren't the best when it came to protection, so one night of passion led to the conception of your daughter.

you mostly wore simon's jacket due to you being pregnant most of the winter. you kept telling yourself that you'd get a jacket to accommodate the growing bump, but by the time you got around to it, simon's sweatshirts kept you warm enough. even though simon still put a hat on you every time you left the flat.

simon just loved the swell of your belly, he always smiled when he felt the movement of your daughter. he would lie on the couch, legs dangled off the edge in an uncomfortable manner to be closer to your belly.

if you both weren't so worried about protecting simon's identity, you would've put him online to tout him as 'father of the year'. in your second trimester you did get married at the court house. it was an informal affair, something to put on paper. he promised that the two of you could have the whole celebration after the baby was born.

"simon." you said, "watching johnny choke on a fry that kyle threw into his mouth after the ceremony is worth more than some stupid party." you then leaned over to kiss him, your ring felt comfortable on your finger.

however as you entered your third trimester and your fingers became swollen, you had you wear your ring around your neck on a chain. when you felt about it, simon simply said, "chain's closer to your heart."

when summer came your little rosemary was born. she was born in the end of june, your friend remarked that she was a cancer sign. simon was there the whole way, even when you punched him when a particular hard contraction hit.

"i'm gonna kill you, simon." while that wasn't the first time he ever heard that phrase, it was the only time it ever made a shiver run down his spine. but he was your rock the entire way, the full ten hours it took to delivery rosemary riley.

she came out screamin' though, a far cry from the silent nature of her father. you had never seen simon cry too many times, but the first time he held the pudgy newborn, you could see him hold back the tears.

"simon."

"yeah?" his gaze didn't leave his daughter.

you patted him on the arm, "you can cry, no one's going to judge you." you knew he always felt like he had to be the protector of his little family. but when you leaned over, exhausted yourself, and kissed him on the cheek. the emotion flooded out of him.

you were parents now.

simon took to being a father really well, despite his nervousness (that he never showed on his face) to end up like his own father. he realized that it was a lot easier to be good parent than he thought.

"i love you both." he often said to you, "thank you."

he said that you gave him a second chance at life. after everything, the pain that caused him to shut down and become a killer for the military. you and rosemary allowed the coldness to turn warm. while he still was intimidating outside the home, in the safety of where you lived, he was able to be the caring parent he was denied growing up.

"rose." he said in his low voice, "where are ya goin'." then picked up the toddler with ease so she didn't topple the television on top of her, "you can see it just fine over here." then carried her back to the couch.

you both did your best to not raise an ipad baby, rather you made good use of the second hand printer you had and let you colour and draw to her hearts content. and books. so many books.

"that's a bear, rose." you said as you pointed to the drawing in the book you were reading to her before bed, "b-e-a-r."

"B!Ear!" she chirped as she kicked out her little legs under the covers. she was a very smart girl.

she gets it from me, simon said jokingly.

of course he often let his little rosemary colour in his tattoos with washable markers while they're sitting outside on a nice summer's day a year or two down the line. the little girl is still getting used to holding markers and colours outside the lines of the tattoos. but simon finds it endearing.

nothin' is gonna hurt his girls.

"honey." you said.

"yes?"

"i think we're giving rose a sibling a lot sooner than we expected." <3

(i wanted to write something tender on this beautiful spring day. if it's sunny where you are today soak in the rays!)

[fandomtherapy44]

Trick or Treat Dean x reader Oneshot! Pt2

Pairing: Dean x reader

Warnings: SMUT, language

Summary: Y/n and Dean finally get to have a treat.

Divider from

Firefly Graphics

Reblog Banner and 18+ Banner From

cafekitsune

WC: 2,401

AN/ So this is like a second part to my Congrats you're a Dad fic with Dean, but you don't have to read that to fully understand this one. This was supposed to be posted on Halloween, but life got in the way, so let's just pretend that it is okay! Also, if you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I have a Spike x reader with smut if you're interested!

I blink my eyes open to sunlight peeking through our curtains and shining on our feet. The air is cold and crisp due it being October, and I want just to ignore the world and cuddle myself deeper in the heap of blankets we have on our bed. But sadly, the world demands our attention, well, more like our daughter needs it. I knew Bella would be awake soon her being now seven and having all the energy in the world, man I never thought I would be jealous of my kid. And my boyfriend the father of our daughter Dean Winchester is just softly snoring away. 

And I couldn't blame him he has been working a lot for us, both of us were to just afford a bigger place. I softly kiss his nose get out of my bed and grab my robe. I walk to the kitchen to get breakfast ready. I start the coffee and get the pancake mix out I’ve been making new spooky designs for Bella every day, its a pain in the ass to do it but worth it to see her face light up every morning plus it’s a lot easier to get her up for school. I start to make the food pour my coffee turn on a hype playlist on my phone to try to wake myself up.

“Hey, baby,” Dean said in his early gruff morning voice coming into the kitchen and wrapping his arms around me from the back.

“Good morning sleep well?” I responded loving the feeling his arms brought an extra warming to my body.

“Yeah, I did, what is that a witch?” He asked referring to the monstrous creation I have in the pan, no pun needed.

“No, I was going for candy corn.” I slumped my shoulders pout and I could feel his body chuckle at that.

“Aww sweetheart you know Bella loves anything you make for her.” He comforted me.

“But it’s supposed to be-” Before I could get in one of my little overthinking rants Dean started kissing my neck.

“Dean, what are you doing? You know Bella has to be up in fifteen minutes.” I sighed trying not to get swept up in his presence. Which is impossible.

“I am trying to remind you that no matter what you are an amazing mother to our little girl and that you deserve a little treat.” He breathes in my scent and reaches forward to turn off the stove. He starts to kiss my neck and finds my pulse and sucks down on it like he was a vampire.

“Mhh Dean.” I moaned.

“All for you.” Then his hand slips through my robe and to my shorts.

“I love these on you so easy to…” His fingers find their way to my panties and lightly tease my slit. The fingers getting slick on them almost embarrassingly.

“To go in.” I start to move with him and grind up on him a little like a dance. I can feel him getting hard. He moves his shaft against me.

“You…are…playing…with…fire…buddy.” I stated with bated breath.

“Always have.” He then slips in.

“Ah fuck Dean!” Fingers start to pump in gently.

“That’s it just let go.” I'm already close, it’s been a while since we could have a fun time.

“Mommy?” Shit! Fuck!

Dean quickly removes his fingers and goes to wash his hands while I try to compose myself.

“Good morning Princess, did you sleep well?” I asked as I placed her pancakes on the table kissed her head and tried to forget the last ten minutes.

“Uh-huh! Good morning Mr.Dean!” She exclaimed excitedly eating her pancakes with glee.

“Good morning Pumkin!” He adored her back with her nickname. We still have not told her that he was her Dad we really want her to get comfortable and she is.

“Mommy we still have to get my costume.” Our little seven-year-old demanded.

I laugh, and so does Dean, and we sit down, too. “Well, how about this: How does Mr.Dean take you to get one, huh?” Her little eyes light up like Christmas lights.

“Really! Yay! Thank you, Mr.Dean.” She runs to hug him and then to get ready.

He turns to me with a little panic running through him. “I’m going take her? Not that I don’t want to it’s just it will be like a real bonding thing do you think she’s ready or me?” My heart leaps with joy at his shyness and happiness.

“You are ready, plus if you’re going to stay around there is going to be a lot of bonding experiences.” Before I know it he pulls me to his lap.

“Hey I am here to stay and I’m going to rock the socks off of this bonding experience.” He gave me his signature smile and I leaned in to kiss him. We start to drift into what we were doing before and I pull away.

“Mhh baby you're giving me blue balls here.” He gripped my hips.

“Sorry, but we both have work and you still have to drop off Bells at school, maybe later okay?” I get up to get ready. “I lo-” I stop myself. “I hope you have a good day.” I smile and ignore the almost confession I committed. 

It’s Halloween and I’m rushing to get ready in my costume. 

“Babe you almost ready Bella is pulling on my-” he stops dead in his tracks seeing me.

“Wow just wow.” Scanning me up and down in my Poison Ivy costume he was Batman and Bella was Robin.

“You just trying to torture me aren’t you?” He asked in a low sexy voice getting his hands on me.

“Maybe?” I innocently asked knowing what I was doing.

“Oh, are you really trying to play coy right now?” He gripped harder on my hips.

“Why don’t you find out Mr. Wayne?” I whispered and nipped his earlobe.

“I am going to have you all tied up with your own-” He gets interrupted by our adorable daughter.

“Batman! There are criminals out stealing candy we must stop them!” She pronounced it like a real superhero.

“We are coming, Robin!” He called out. He turns back to me.“We just got blocked again by our own kid what is this world coming to?” He practically whined.

“Sorry, Mr.Wayne.” I kiss his cheek grab my cape and leave with blue balls… again.

We walk hand and hand while watching Bella run down the sidewalk shouting “Criminals beware!” Yes, it is the cutest thing ever. Between the orange twinkle lights and fake monsters on the lawns, little kids running around having fun, and the man I am starting to love it felt like a dream. A dream I never thought I would get.

“Hey, Ivy what's passing through that pretty head of yours?” My Batman asked. I hug his arm tightly.

“Just I think this is the best Halloween Bella and I have ever had.” I kissed his shoulder.

He squeezes my hand in agreement. “Me too, but there was this one year where I got to fight this animatronic that is a horror movie icon!-” He sees my face of confusion and just stops. “Yeah, me too.” 

We get home after an hour of Bella yelling about criminals and yes people did look at us a little weirdly. We walk up and Sam and Eileen are waiting on our porch. “Hey guys, sorry but we weren't expecting you.” I hug them both. 

“Actually I was,” Dean responded to my surprise.

“You were?”

“I was thinking while Bella has a super fun sleepover with her Uncle and Aunt we can have our own “super fun sleepover”.” I got what he was putting down and I loved the idea. I bend down to Bella.

“Sweetie would you want to-” 

“Yes, Mommy! Love you goodnight!” She hugs me quickly and runs to her uncle. I signed thank you to Eileen and she signed back you're welcome and have fun.

“Dean you planned this?” I put my arms around his neck.

“Well what I said earlier is true you do deserve a treat.” 

“Well, Mr.Wayne show me to your bedroom.” He picks me up bridal style and takes me to our bedroom.

SMUT 18+ Below cut....

He brings me in and places me on the bed. The room is dark, and a candle is burning, giving off the scent of chocolate and sweet berries in the air.

“Oh, you don’t know how long I've been waiting baby.” He starts to kiss down my neck. Paying special attention to my sweet spot.

“Why don’t you show me?” I raised my eyebrow being bratty. I knew what I was doing and I was good at it. That’s how we met in the first place I may have “accidentally” bent down in front of him at the diner.

“Oh, I will.” He gropes all down on me like he’s never touched a woman before. His fingers linger and drag down my most sensitive areas. Knowing what he was doing.

“Babe? Babe!” I giggled. “We have time now slow down I want to enjoy my Batman.” I spread my hands down his chest. Felling his toned muscles through his costume hell he probably could be Batman. They tensed under my fingers.

“I know it’s just that I miss my Ivy in bed waiting for me.” He nibbles on my neck. Sucking hickies in the deep nape of my neck.

“Me too but we have all night and tomorrow morning so I’m thinking maybe five rounds?” I pronounce confidently. Letting him really get into it. He was now licking those sore spots.

His eyes light up. “You really think we can do five?”

I pull him down by his cape. “You're right let’s do ten,” I smirk. Like I said it has been a while.

“Oh, I like what you're thinking!”

I slowly pull off my costume to reveal my green matching sexy lingerie. I run my hands over my body to tease him.

“Oh my, I think I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

“That you are Mr.Winchester.” He climbs on top of me and we start to make out. His tongue slips to meet mine and we start a beautiful rhythm. Like we had a hundred times before.

“Mhh Dean.” His hand goes to my pussy. Fingers go straight in. Really, sloshing in.

“So wet already huh?” The fingers pump in but then move more quickly. My body reacted and involuntarily jumped up. His hand steadied me on my hip. It was so sexy that my body shook from excitement.

“Yes yes!” He makes rings around my walls. He makes patterns in me. Rubbing up and down before I know it I’m cuming.

“Shit, I guess it has been a while.” I chuckle. “You're turn Bats.”

I push him to the bed and get on top of him.

“You want slow or fast?” 

“Slow.” 

I pull his pants down and bend to pull his underwear down with my teeth and his shaft springs forward. I start with tiny kitten licks and go up and down mainly focusing on the head. My tongue circled the top like a lollipop. The flavor being sweet and salty. 

“Mhh that’s it Baby you're doing great.” He sighs in deep pleasure.

At that compliant my pussy gets wet again I guess I have a praise kink.

I then suck deeply. And bop my head up and down making sure to get all of it. I then add my hand to it. And I pump the parts I can.

“Ah fuck!” I can tell he’s getting close. I don’t pull off and he comes in my mouth.

“I will never get tired of that.” He smiles happily.

“Thank you, now should we get to the main event of the evening?” I raise my eyebrows up and down.

“Yes, we should.” He goes to pull off the rest of the costume but I stop him. “Wait I've always wanted to do it with Batman.”

“Oh you dirty girl, okay your wish is my command.” He pulls me to him and slides up his shaft to meet my slit.

“Okay, are you ready?” I nod yes.

He slips in very easily.

“Oh that is…”

“Amazing” I finish.

He starts to move at a careful but intentional pace his strokes in me making music with my body. His shaft was hard as a rock making it juts up like it was a ship hitting the shore but in the best way possible. He held me up in a way I would feel every thrust.

“Ohh Dean…” I groaned out. He is fucking sex on legs littery and physically.

“Y/n… fuck…so…good!” He could feel my walls clench around his dick hard he kept pounding and sweat started to pour from both of us making the slick a lot more slideable. 

I grab the sheets in a tight grip to remind myself I wasn’t in heaven even though I felt was pretty close. One of his hands goes up to my nipple to rub it in small circles. His thumb moves over the texture of it and my whole body is in full on stimulation. I moved up my hand to his bicep and his skin was hot. We were both meeting each other in the middle of the thrusts. We were both getting close.

“Dean..” I was breathless.

“Yeah I gotcha Baby okay ready.” I nod yes.

He slows down his thrusts to make sure we can fully chase and enjoy the high. His hand that was on my chest goes to my clit. He makes tiny pets at it.

“Three…Two…One!” Both our bodies exploded together.

He pulls out and flops down next to me in exhaustion. 

“Baby we needed that.” he pulled me in under his arm.

“Definitely, so ready for the next round.” I reached up and brought his face to meet mine.

“Ohh give me like thirty minutes to recuperate I’m not twenty anymore.” I smile at that and give him a sweet kiss truly appreciating that he is here and getting older. Because with his old job, he could of very easily of ended at twenty.

“Dean thank you for my treat best one I’ve ever gotten.” I cuddle in deeper and think “I am so in love with Dean Winchester.”

Thank you for reading! And remember to vote! Also, if you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I have a Spike x reader with smut if you're interested!

[iwanty0uu]

❄︎ all characters are 19+ y/n being 20, second female character being 19, and male character being 21, contains swearing and mentions of violence ❄︎

•unedited•

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟑…

Three weeks passed since the event with your “sister” and you didnt know how to feel. Life felt like a fever dream and as you sat down sadly in your college dorm, you received a dm, from Connie.. ?

You two had chemistry, well chemistry wasn’t the word, maybe advanced biology.. he was the type to make you think that he was all about you in private during your late high-school years, and then act like you were nothing more than friends in public. Considering that you two were friends, you couldn’t tell whether you were really trippin bout the way he acted or if you just caught feelings while he didnt. So for your own peace, you un-added him and went no contact. This went on for three years until tonight.You opened your inbox and the message read:

“long time no talk..heard niggas spreading shit bout you that aint sit right.. tell me wassup my heart.”

Your heart dropped.. the fuck was he talking about you like that for? HE CHEATED! WITH YOUR SISTER AT THAT!!

“Fuck it” you thought and began typing your paragraph..

𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤

You remembered the footsteps that entered your household, and it was her.. Your sister, Nataly and your newly EX BOYFRIEND entering your home, your safe haven. She was greeted with stares from her father, brother and yourself. “How could you do that to your sister?” Your father asked? His tone was low, and he seemed hurt for you, but this was no regular empathy, this was trauma.His face seemed as if he had seen one thousand years worth of pain and heartbreak, and it broke him to know that his daughter, his baby was just like the person who had hurt him. History repeats itself no?

“Y/n I’m not here to ask for your forgiveness but I did come here to apologize-“ before he could finish his sentence, his face was met with your fathers fist, his blood flew through the kitchen, spreading along the kitchen floor like wet fresh paint. The crunch of Ony’s nose filled the room which was followed by a gut wrenching scream.. He had no time to talk or explain himself. You would have never expected your father to move so quickly considering his size and weight but it seemed as if he took his anger out on the boy. The boy who looked too much like the one who betrayed him and slept with his gold digging…wife, his cousin. After your brother pried your father and ex apart, Ony was unconscious, and your father’s once dark blue polo almost looked the same shade as midnight, and was soaked..

You watched your sister to see how she would react, would she try to help him? Ask daddy “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?” in the voice she uses when she doesn’t get what she wants? But to your surprise, she tried to hug you, grabbing your hands and repeating “It was only twice.. it only happened twice.” Your brother must have seen the glint in your eye which caused him to act faster than you could, separating you and your sister before she got a matching broken nose.. “OH SO IM PEACE-MAKER TODAY HUH?” he repeated, pacing up and down the kitchen. “AWWWEEE SHITTTT IM GOING TO JAIL I GOT FINGER PRINTS ALL ON THIS BITCH- YO POP YOU MURDERED HIM- NIGGAS NOT EVEN BREATHING-“ his tattooed hands touched his waves, rubbing his face and fanning himself dramatically.

“You’re dead to me” you said to Nataly. And it was the last thing you remembered before leaving your home in a frenzy. “why does this shit happen to me god?” you pleaded in your car, eyes too swollen to drive causing you to pull over and take a break. After that, your memory was foggy, you did make it home though and skipped school for a week after..

𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭

You found that your conversation with Connie lasted for hours, then led to an instagram facetime, then let to an actual facetime, to talking every day for the next month, being shady to Ony together, throwing subs on social media about him, and having study sessions. Over this month, your time in the empty lecture halls with him were the best, being alone in a big room with someone who you “weren’t supposed to be with” always turned you on.. or maybe you were just a little perv, but Connie noticed this. He noticed this as he sat next to you instead of across from you one day, how you looked at his lips and not his eyes when he got the correct answer. You purposely told him that you would reward him if he passed his exam which he did, knowing exactly what you had in mind. He noticed how your soft plush lips eased into his as if they craved the intimate privacy that they once despised, craving the secrecy that caused your situationship to fail. Your slick coated your dark brown g-string under your long skirt that was now hiked up, as you sat on his lap, the way he played with your nipple piercing remembering how everyone said it was dumb to get just one but it fit you so well. This was his first time touching you this way in years, and he would make this a moment to remember. Although he wanted to continue, he stopped to wash his hands at the lab sink before he began, and then came back to finish your lewd scene. You sat patiently waiting for him to finish and this gave you time to think about your actions. Were you doing this because of Ony? No, so why do you feel so nervous?

He turned around and returned to his seat, kissing your skin which sent tingles up your spine, calming you down, but you still had something on your mind and it made your balls blue. Your high came down and as usual, he noticed. Knowing Connie for as long as you did, his maturity was now visible and in that moment he promised that you’d be his number 1. It was hard to trust niggas now-a-days but what did you have to lose? If all hell breaks loose just wait until it freezes over and go about your life as you did before him. So being you, it was easy to agree but even harder to believe him, but you ignored it. You knew yourself well and if he didn’t treat you how you were supposed to, then he’d be gone. The heat between you went back to its intensity as he deepened the kiss, leaving hickies around the open skin on your chest above your tube top. Your legs fluttered open at his touch and you felt his erection almost burning into the fat of your ass, he slowly put his fingers back inside of you, thrusting while curving his fingers inside of you, hitting your sweet spot. You could feel yourself coming to your high, gripping onto his shoulders riding his fingers, begging for his touch and affection. You pulled at his studded earlobe with your teeth as his erection stimulated your clit. You found yourself tugging on his sweats, begging to be touched by him… You slid your hand into his ethikas, pulling out his cock, it twitched while you rubbed his pink tip that was already lubricated with his pre cum. You played with the plump of his pink lips while you grounded yourself onto his dick, sinking your way onto him. You both were on the edge and near to cum, so you weren’t surprised when he bucked his hips into you before you could gain your senses. You lost control of your body as it bucked in return, matching his pace and his sloppy rythm. “Fuckkkkkk con- shit” you rubbed his shoulders as you felt your high approaching.

“You take this dick good huh ma-“ he grunted, his rhythm now inconsistent as he slowed down, edging the both of you. You felt as if you were on cloud nine, the way he caressed your skin, touching you in the places that were left cold by your ex… rubbing his favorite spots on your body. His tongue grazed against your own, swirling in the pool of your saliva, he bit your lip causing you to jump slightly. He laughed while kissing the both of your cheeks, his thumb re-located to your clit, rubbing faster and harder, pressing down against your sweet spot as you whined against his hips.

“Connie! I’m cumminggggg, oh my-“ You grabbed his body for support as you felt him release inside of you, he gripped your hips, holding you still as you jerked against him, still in the after shock of your orgasm.

“Hold on y/n- shittt” he whispered as he felt his seed leak out of you. He slightly moved his hips, pushing the other half of his girth that couldn’t fit inside of you. As it kissed your cervix, you felt your eyes roll back…but there was another pair watching you.You both heard shushed voices outside of the door, forgetting the time and how the night classes started at 8pm… it was currently 9:30 and by the grace of God no one entered the lecture hall whilst you and connie had your randevu.

“shit the time-“ you mumbled, quickly hopping off of him, loosing balance instantly as he held you up. You grabbed some wipes that sat in the inner pocket of your telfar, and cleaned you both up to the best of your ability. You couldn’t control the giggles that left your mouth as you fled the crime scene, but that night liberated you.

𝟏𝟐:𝟎𝟎𝐚𝐦

Connies head rested on your chest as it rose and fell,he slept as you were left alone with your thoughts. You didn’t regret what happened and were looking forward to a future with him..but who’s eyes were it that you felt?…..

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐟𝐤𝐢𝐧 𝐞𝐧𝐝.

hope yall liked this as much as i DREADED MAKING THIS jkjk..mwahh!~𝓵𝓮𝓵𝓮

[perseephoneee]

I have a request if you are interested? :)

A teen!dad jess. He has a best friend from New York (she can have a name or it can be Y/N, you can choose) (they are endgame, jess never had feelings for Rory but she has feelings for Jess, it won't go anywhere) Jess and his best friend have a kid, they co-parent (whether they are dating already or in the future is up to you) Jess gets sent to Stars Hallow, she ends up moving to stars Hallow to, to be close to Jess and so their kid can be with him too (she is emancipated, plus Jess knows she's coming because they keep in contact) if anyone reading this would like to turn this into an actual story, I'm totally down for reading it :) if you choose this request, I look forward to reading it. Thank you!!

alright i kind of changed the story idea around a little bit butttt i tried my best *cries*

don't be a stranger (jess mariano x afab!reader)

cw: angsty, unexpected pregnancy, but otherwise fluff??

↳ masterlist  ↳ ship exchange ↳ taglist

When you got pregnant, it was…unexpected—not planned whatsoever. You were only sixteen, not ready to raise a kid, of all things. But you couldn’t find it in yourself to give it up. And when your daughter was born, it made all the pain worth it. She was ethereal.

She was three years old now, full of personality, a lover of all things squishy. She preferred to hide behind you in the grocery store than talk to people, but she smiled at every book she saw and pet every dog you passed. Even with all of that, she didn’t have her Dad.

It wasn’t surprising that Jess got freaked out and ran when she was firstborn. You guys were just friends who hooked up, and suddenly you were pregnant. With the way his life went, it didn’t surprise you. But it hurt; it made you so angry you wanted to scream. You endured, though; you had to.

That’s why it was unexpected when an unknown number called you in the middle of the day.

“Hello?” You answered, shoving the phone between your shoulder and head as you finished cutting some carrot sticks for a snack. There was breathing at the other end of the line, and for a second, you worried something nefarious was at play. “I will call the cops—“

“Don’t,” the voice said, the familiar baritone New York accent you had spent years learning. The intonations, the snark—you knew it like the back of your hand.

“Jess?” You guessed, setting down the kitchen knife and holding the phone tightly.

“I, uh….fuck,” you heard him swear on the other line. You didn’t say anything; just let him work out whatever he wanted as you tried your best to control your breath. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“How are you?”

“Really,” you deadpanned. “Three years, and that’s all you got?”

“I don’t know what to say to you,” Jess sighed. “I thought I did, but, fuck, hearing your voice…” He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t have to. You knew all too well. You were experiencing that same feeling right now. “I’m sorry.”

“I…appreciate that,” you coughed.

“I want to see you and…”

“Her, Maria,” you responded. It occurred to you that Jess never learned your kid's name. He wasn’t around long enough for that.

“Maria,” he said, feeling the name around his tongue. I want to try.”

You laughed at that, some of that bubbling anger surfacing in a way you hadn’t felt.

“Why now?” You inquired, your fingers tapping on your cutting board.

“I’m ready now,” Jess said, and you could hear that familiar snark you used to love so much.

“I wasn’t ready; I just had to deal with it,” you seethed, and it took a deep breath to help you not start yelling. “I didn’t get that choice.”

“I know, god, I’m…sorry.”

You don’t remember the last time Jess ever really apologized for anything.

“You can’t choose to show back up because it’s convenient.”

“Y/N…” his sigh was evident on the other line. “Please, let me be better.”

You were silent for a few moments, contemplating everything—whether it was worth it, whether you wanted to try. You rubbed your eyes as if it would clear your head.

“Lunch,” you sighed. “You get a lunch with us. And only if Maria wants to. It’s her choice whether she wants you in her life or not. Alright?”

“Alright,” the relief was evident in his voice, and you tampered down any softness that might undermine your frustration.

“Alright.”

Lunch happened at Lou’s, a deli you frequented with your daughter. It was public, safe, but neutral territory that helped you see Jess again after so many years. You almost didn’t recognize him when he came in, even though he looked exactly the same. He just seemed…older. You guess you were, too.

Maria was quiet during lunch, picking at her sandwich and sending shy glances towards her father. You didn’t realize that they had the same eyes, the same suspicious furrow of their brow that showed how intelligent they were. You convinced yourself she had none of him at all.

One lunch became two, then three. Then it was routine to get lunch. At some point, it became dinners. Eventually, you let Jess take Maria out, just the two of them. She’d come home with a smile and some book he bought her. He introduced her to the Ramones (you thought she was a little young, but it wasn’t terrible, so you let it pass). She sometimes would mumble the words “Judy is a Punk” to herself while she read.

Jess became such a staple of your life that you allowed yourself to open up to him again. He was writing, getting his GED, and working on opening a publishing press with some friends. He was excited to hear you were still in college and hadn’t given up. He said the saddest thing that could’ve become of you was never realizing your potential. You had to hide your flush when he said it.

One night, when Maria was asleep, and the two of you were picking up toys in the living room, he asked you to move in with him.

“Can you even support that many people?” You scoffed, piling her books on one of the side counters.

“Yes.”

“Why?” you inquired, standing with your hands on your hips. Why was the question that haunted you throughout this entire experience. Why did he call? Why does he care? Why did he leave? Your life was dominated by the second-to-last letter of the alphabet—why?

“You guys are my family,” Jess breathed, fingers twiddling from nerves. You raised a brow, wanting more of an answer. “I had a revelation, after spending time with my Uncle…that I was terrible. I want to be better.”

You took a breath before answering. “Where do you live?”

“Stars Hollow.”

“Where’s that?”

“Connecticut.”

Your eyes bulged from your head, and if you had a drink, you would’ve spit it out.

“Jess!” You exclaimed. “That’s three hours away!”

“I’m aware since I’m the one who travels it,” Jess said, his hands in his pockets, indicating obvious discomfort. You were wrapping your brain around the fact that Jess traveled three hours every week just to get lunch with you—with your daughter—and he had never brought it up. Something shifted in your mind about that. “Look…”

“Jess–”

“I want to try again.”

“Another baby?” you exclaimed, and Jess put a hand up to his face and groaned. 

“No, Jesus Christ,” he swore. He cut you off before you could say anything else. “I was a complete idiot for leaving you, for leaving Maria. I don’t deserve half the kindness you’ve given me, but, fuck, I want to try this…family thing. I want to try with you.” Jess shoved his hands in his pockets, reminding you so much of his teenage self that it was almost painful. “I want to try with us.”

It took you a second to decipher what he was saying, and you felt your eyes widen. You were never actually in a relationship with Jess, just two friends who had drank too much one night. But you always cared. You loved everything in his nature up until he left. With him back, you remembered why you felt so much in the first place. 

“Okay,” you stammer, watching Jess’ eyes widen with disbelief. “Let’s try. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“We hate each other?”

“I’m looking forward to it,” you chuckle, and that coaxes a similar laugh out of Jess. You both end up dissolving into laughter, something raw and so unlike the layer of the past that has haunted you guys for the past months. It felt like a dam opening up, everything crashing down but resolving into something tangible. 

A few weeks later, you move to Stars Hollow, your meager items in matching luggage. The college agreed to let you finish your degree online, and you find work at the Dragonfly Inn. The town is much more colorful and friendly than the New York you are used to. Still, you find yourself loving it—just as you find yourself loving Jess, how he responds to your daughter, and the apparent way he’s grown up. 

Yes, it was unexpected. But not unwanted.

[reminiscingtonight]

Love You More

Ana-Maria Crnogorčević x Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

A/N: I told y’all what the plan for this fic was but I didn’t tell you about the twist :)

Everything Has Changed (Part One)

[WOSO Masterlist]

It’s not a competition, you like reminding yourself. Allie has two moms, double the love, double the everything, but it is not a competition. 

Mornings where you wake up to sweet kisses on your cheeks, a sleep mused Ana holding your baby girl to your chest is a reminder of why you play the game you play. The family you have waiting for you every single day is worth the early morning wake ups, the long days training on the pitch. With Ana’s soft smiles and Allie’s infectious joy, what more could you ask for?

So it’s not a competition, the love the two of you have for your daughter. 

Only…

It is.

What do you expect when two professional athletes have a baby together? Everything’s a competition.

Even something as simple as dress attire.

---

One--

Post-maternity leave training is grueling. 

You thought getting back into shape after being sidelined from a broken ankle was hard enough, but giving birth to a whole-ass human? Yeah, that took the cake. 

But despite all the pain and grumbling from your side, you did it. With Ana and Allie cheering you on all the way, the day’s finally here. 

Your first game back as a mom.  

Ana’s rushing around the house downstairs, pots and pans clanging as she quickly cooks up some food suitable for the three of you. The two of you slept in late, not noticing the time until Allie woke you guys up with a hungry cry. After scrambling out of bed, Ana was put on food-making duty while you were in charge of grabbing everyone’s clothes, including dressing Allie up into a suitable gameday get-up. 

Holding Allie in one arm, you make your way down the stairs. Tickling her stomach, the blonde gummily squeals back in excitement, more than ready for another adventure to Meadow Park. 

That’s something you’ve come to love about your daughter. Although you love everything about her, her striking resemblance to your wife definitely takes one of the top spots. Despite you being the one to push her out of your body, Allie somehow had more features of Ana than she did of you. 

Making the last couple steps down the stairs, you hurry to plop Allie down in her highchair. Pressing a kiss to Ana’s cheek in thanks, you scoop up your coffee as she gives Allie her food. 

You only have two seconds of peace until you hear an offended sounding-- “Excuse me, what is that?”

Blinking, you follow Ana’s hands to where she’s tugging at Allie’s shirt. Scrunching up your eyebrows you frown. “Uh, an Arsenal jersey? We do play for Arsenal, babe.”

“No,” she huffs, gently lifting and then turning your daughter around so that her last name is on display. “That! Allie wore my jersey last time! It’s your turn.”

Allie reaches out to poke at Ana’s cheeks in excitement, immune to your playful argument around her. 

Ana’s lips twitch as she tries not to smile, but confronted with your daughter’s delighted grunts, it’s hard for her to keep a straight face. 

You lift your coffee to your lips, more than content watching Ana pull goofy faces at your daughter than to meet her clear demands. Distracted, it takes a couple seconds before Ana remembers why she’s holding Allie in the first place. Putting the baby down in her seat with a kiss on her head, Ana turns back to you with her arms crossed. 

“I thought we agreed to take turns on claiming our daughter?”

You scrunch your nose up at her words. “And I thought we agreed to stop making it sound like our daughter’s a puppy at the pound.”

Ana rolls her eyes, handing you your toast and eggs without you even asking. You mumble your thanks as she settles in beside you, both of you watching Allie happily snack on her cheerios across the counter. 

She’s such a happy baby, always has been from the moment you brought her home from the hospital. Ana always jokes that she doesn’t know where Allie’s got it from, both of you being pretty feisty on the field, but you know she secretly loves it. Ana always turns to mush when Allie lets out a squeal of happiness, something you’re also at fault for but also happily tease Ana for doing. 

Nudging Ana, you give her a look. “How about I make you a deal?”

Ana rips her eyes away from your daughter to raise an eyebrow at you. 

“You let our daughter show her love for you today and we can let her wear my last name next game.”

Ana’s instantly protesting. “You said that last week!” An arm is wrapped around your waist before she starts peppering your face with kisses.

You try to shrug off your wife to no avail, laughing at her attempts to change your mind. “Ana, we’re going to be late for my first game back if we don’t leave soon.”

“That’s exactly why Allie should be wearing your jersey. It’s your first game back!”

“Ana!” you groan.

“(Y/N),” Ana mocks right back. 

.

Kim doesn’t look impressed when the three of you rush into the locker room late, Allie wearing her number thirteen Wälti jersey.

---

Two--

A part of you feels empty.

Waking up alone in bed, no sleepy wife to cuddle with, no bubbly baby to attend to, you’re at a loss.

You and Ana decided pretty early on that you would not be hiding your love from the world, your daughter included. A part of this meant exposing Allie to all your football families, whether it be club or country. And when it comes to country…

Let’s just say when there are 44 aunts eager to spoil your child, the two of you have to plan for trading who gets Allie during international breaks.

And this time Ana is the lucky mom.

Even with your pouting and puppy dog eyes, Ana simply gave you a kiss and waved you goodbye with Allie propped up on her hip when Leah came by to get you. You’re lucky enough that the round of friendlies were in England this time round, but nothing could combat the damper of being away from your little girl.

At this point your late night phone calls are the only thing keeping you sane.

Tonight Lucy had given you the room for privacy, opting to go wrangle some girls for a game of cards in Millie’s room. The first couple days the others had tried getting you to join whatever late night activity they were whipping up, but they quickly abandoned their quest after you nearly took Rachel’s head off for asking you to skip “just one call.”

“Just one call,” you had scoffed, angrily huffing at the way Ana laughed at you when you told her the story. “Ana, our family calls are not ‘just one call.’ Stop laughing at me!”

Safe to say you ended that day’s call early. 

But today’s has gone differently so far. 

You’d even go as far as to say you’ve enjoyed it, all Swiss teasings put aside. 

Ana’s laying it on thick, the charm, the pizzazz, everything that made you fall in love with her in the first place. Having a baby clone of herself plopped onto her lap definitely doesn’t hurt either. You’re stuck constantly gushing over how cute your daughter looks, while also throwing some compliments your wife’s way. 

All is going good, the two of you managing to ignore the fact that Switzerland and England are set to play the next match when… Ana let it slip that Allie’s wearing English colors tomorrow. 

“I’m sorry, Allie’s doing what?!”

Ana blinks, owl-eyed as she realizes her mistake. “… I think your connection is bad, you’re breaking up.”

“Ana-Maria Crnogorčević-Y/L/N--”

“That’s quite a mouthful,” she interrupts, secretly loving the way her full name sounds coming out of your mouth.

“Ana-Maria!” you huff, ignoring her tease. “Don’t you dare--”

Ana sticks her tongue out at you before shoving the phone into your daughter’s face. You’re treated with a close-up of your gleeful one-year-old before you hear a “Tell mama goodnight!” and then the screen goes dead. 

Lucy has to dodge the pillow thrown at her face when she comes to investigate the scream that makes it all the way to Millie’s room. 

.

The Swiss girls try not to give Ana weird looks as she parades around the dining room with Allie dressed head-to-toe in her Lionesses gear at breakfast.

---

Three--

“Your moms are weird,” Lia whispers to Allie, holding the small blonde in her arms. 

Sat on the floor of your living room with your daughter, your wife’s best friend has no choice but to watch the two of you glare at each other across the kitchen counter. 

The four of you were set to go out for lunch at a new place recommended by Beth and Viv. Lia even triple checked the time, knowing you to be a stickler for being on time. Despite arriving early, Lia walks into your house to find you two seconds from strangling Ana, a delighted Allie clapping her hands from her high chair.

Grabbing her goddaughter for some cuddles, Lia settled in, waiting to see how long it would take the two of you to notice her.

Through bits and pieces of your conversation Lia has figured out three things. First, Ana has hidden all of Allie’s Crnogorčević jerseys. Second, you might actually blow an aneurysm if Ana doesn’t “stop being the biggest cheater in the whole world.” And third, she really needs to get new friends who aren’t so sickeningly in love.

When the clock ticks closer and closer to one o’clock, Lia’s had enough. Unable to stay quiet, she raises her hand like a child in a classroom. When the action does nothing but urge Allie to stand on her leg (one of Lia’s hands bracing her back, of course) and try high-fiving her outstretched limb, Lia clears her throat. 

“Or!”

Your conversation instantly comes to a stop, both you and Ana turning to the brunette. 

Shooting Ana a quick look, you cautiously repeat the word. “Or?” you gently urge Lia to continue.

Lia lets out a breath, dropping her hand to the delight of your daughter, who doesn’t hesitate to start playing with Lia’s fingers. All three of you try stifling smiles as Lia struggles to stay on track. She gives Allie a pat on the head, trying not to grimace when Allie instantly goes to gnaw on her fingers. “Why don’t you guys just get her a jersey with your last names hyphenated? That is your guy’s legal last name.”

Although a sensible solution, Ana’s instantly shaking her head, nose scrunched up in denial. “Crnogorčević is long enough.”

You nod, backing up your wife. “I don’t think adding my last name would fit on the jersey.”

Lia groans. “Guys-- You know what, that’s fine. Allie can just wear my jersey from now on, capiche? No more arguing, no more stupid ‘I want the baby to love you more’s. I just want to go out for some food now.”

If looks could kill, Lia would be six feet under. It takes the reminder that Lia’s holding your daughter and Ana wrapping her arms around your waist to stop you from rounding on your best friend.

“Excuse me, whose child is she?”

“Get your own kid, Lia. You can’t claim ours,” Ana agrees beside you, a similar frown on her face.

Sighing, Lia has no choice but to watch the two of you turn back to one another and start another round of attempting to convince the other one of why Allie should wear the other’s jerseys. She stays silent because she knows it doesn’t matter. The two of you love each other too much to really let something as simple as a jersey do too much damage to your relationship. 

And it’s not like nine times out of ten Allie doesn’t show up in her little Wälti jersey when the two of you can’t agree on what she should wear anyways.

.

Years later when Allie is old enough to be choosing her own number for her youth team, you and Ana are left to glare at a smug Lia when your daughter enthusiastically chooses the number thirteen.

[justabigassnerd]

I'm (Not So) Fine

Pairing - Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x daughter!reader

Word count - 1,720

Warnings - feeling ill, lil' bit of angst, fluff, Bradley's a good dad

Summary - you try to hide feeling unwell from your dad until it backfires

A/N - it's time for another request y'all! I feel I need to formally apologise to the anon who requested this because it's taken me this long to get it out. I hope this was worth the wait. I based this on something I've dealt with a few times in my life (I still to this day have no idea what causes them or what they were but they scare me every time they happen). as per y'all, please send in requests, feedback and enjoy!!!

From the moment Bradley saw you dragging your feet as you entered the kitchen for breakfast, he knew you were sick. You looked pale and when Bradley placed your plate down in front of you, you could barely stomach half of it before it became too much.

“y/n, are you feeling okay, sweetheart?” Bradley asked after taking a sip of his coffee, watching you carefully.

“Fine.” You mutter, head down as you take a sip from your glass of water before abruptly standing from your chair, grabbing your school bag, and slinging it over your shoulder. Bradley hurriedly put the plates and glasses away before rushing to say goodbye to you like he did every morning.

“Have a good day at school, sweetheart. If you need me, text, or call me.” Bradley says as he hugs you goodbye. He knew you weren’t feeling well, and he wasn’t going to push if you insisted you felt okay enough to go to school, so his best option was to give you the choice to contact him if school became too much. With one last kiss to the top of the head, Bradley let you go before packing up what he needed for work and heading out to the Bronco to drive to work where he was sure he was in for a long day.

You, however, were in for a longer day than your dad. The second you reached the doors of your high school you wanted to go home. Your head was throbbing, and your body was achy. You could barely process anything that any of your friends were saying to you without asking them to repeat themselves at least twice. Despite your body feeling like it had been run over by a truck, you were determined to get through the day without contacting your dad or heading home early. You figured if you chugged enough water your headache would calm down and then once you got home you could take some painkillers to help your aching body.

By the time you made it to the end of the school day, you were definitely feeling a lot worse than when you started the day, but you were still determined to prove to yourself that you weren’t unwell. Your head was still throbbing but the copious amounts of water you had drank had eased the pain slightly, but it didn’t do much for your achy body. Walking home only served to make everything ache more but you pushed through everything knowing that you could take some painkillers and then you can do your homework. When you cross the threshold of your house, you head straight upstairs to the bathroom to find the medicine in the first aid cupboard and then head back down to the kitchen to take the painkillers with some water before making a start on some homework.

You were sure the painkillers had taken effect by the time you heard your dad walk through the door. Your head was feeling clearer, and you weren’t so achy anymore and you couldn’t help the smug smile that briefly covered your face. You proved to yourself and your dad that you weren’t ill. It was just a moment of weakness.

“Hi, sweetheart. Good day?” Bradley says as he comes into the kitchen, pressing a kiss to the top of your head as he walks past on his way to put his travel mug in the dishwasher.

“Hi, dad. Yeah, I had a good day. How was your day?” You reply, smiling up at him as he smiles back.

“Can’t complain. Are you feeling okay?” Bradley says, crossing to you and gently pressing the back of his hand to your forehead, watching as you roll your eyes lightly.

“Dad, I’m fine I told you this morning.” You say as Bradley removes his hand from your head, fighting back a frown. You didn’t have a temperature, but you still looked a little too pale for Bradley’s liking. Respecting that you didn’t want him hovering over you and your insistence that you were fine, Bradley backed off.

“Okay, I’ll leave you alone. If you need me, I’ll be in the living room.” Bradley says, pressing one more kiss to the top of your head, heading up to his room to shower and change into something more comfortable before heading back down to the living room and settling himself down on the sofa to watch some tv and relax. You get through your homework, put all your books and stationery back into your schoolbag and then stand up, ready to head into the living room to join your dad. As you walk, you suddenly freeze in the doorway, your eyesight growing filled with dark spots that quickly make you unable to see, your ears begin ringing and your hands fly out to brace yourself against the door frame as panic begins to grasp at you.

“Dad?” Bradley was on his feet instantly when he heard your worried tone. He headed in your direction instantly and stopped in his tracks when he saw you in the middle of the doorway, clinging onto it for dear life.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Bradley asked cautiously, taking in how pale and shaken you looked.

“I can’t see anything. My vision’s gone black, and I have this ringing in my ears. Help me dad, please.” You plead, eyes quickly filling with tears as Bradley springs into action. He carefully pries your hands from the doorframe and carefully leads you to the living room.

“I’m bringing you to the sofa, okay? You can have a lie-down and I’ll bring you some water.” Bradley says softly, his heart breaking when you tearfully nod at his words. He carefully leads you to the sofa, easing you down and helping you lie down before sliding a pillow under your head.

“I’ll be right back.” Bradley promises, pressing a quick kiss to the top of your head before heading to the kitchen to grab you a glass of water. When he returned to your side, your eyes were squeezed shut and he gently reached out, calling your name softly and rubbing the hand that wasn’t holding the glass up and down your arm. Your eyes blinked open, and Bradley smiled softly.

“Here, let’s get you sat up a little so you can have a drink.” Bradley says, helping you sit up enough to take a couple of little sips from the glass before you lie back down, and Bradley places the glass on the coffee table behind him.

“Thank you.” You mumble, looking up at your dad with a small smile.

“How are you feeling now? Any better?” Bradley asks softly, watching you like a hawk as you nod ever so slightly.

“My vision is back, and the ringing has stopped.” You admit quietly, slightly ashamed of being seen in a moment of weakness.

“That’s good. Are you feeling unwell or is there any pain?” Bradley then asks, making you fight the urge to roll your eyes. Had your grandpa not inspired your dad to join the Navy you were sure he could’ve made a career for himself being a doctor or a nurse with how much he was fussing over you.

“A little achy but I’ll live.” You say, moving your gaze to the floor.

“So you weren’t feeling well this morning, were you?” Bradley gently probes, making you nod before lifting your gaze to look at your dad once more.

“So why didn’t you tell me? You could’ve stayed home, or I could’ve picked you up from school. You know Mav would never mind if I had to leave early to take care of you.” Bradley enquires, reaching out and running a gentle hand through your hair, his eyes displaying vast amounts of concern that he was trying to keep from his expression.

“I thought I was fine. I don’t like being ill, so I thought if I pushed through it, I’d be fine.” You explain, watching as your dad lets out a soft exhale through his nose before a gentle smile appears on his face.

“Well, now you know not to push through anything. If you feel unwell you should always rest up and take care of yourself.” Bradley says, watching as you nod lightly, understanding his point fully.

“Got it.” You mumble.

“Do you need anything? Food or painkillers?” Bradley then asks, he was fully aware he’s bombarded you with a million and one questions but he wanted to be sure you were okay and help you however he could.

“I think I just need a nap.” You say, shaking your head with a small smile. Bradley then nods, prepping himself to stand up.

“I’ll leave you be then.” He says softly, beginning to stand but stopping when you speak up.

“Stay. Please.” You request, looking up at him with the puppy dog eyes that would get him buckling within seconds. You had been doing it since you were a baby and Bradley struggled saying no to you the moment you figured out the effect, they had on him. He could also tell what you wanted. Bradley had often bragged that his hugs had healing qualities and you clearly wanted one of those magical healing hugs.

“Okay, sweetheart.” Bradley says with a smile, helping you sit up so he can sit where your head had previously been. You immediately curled into his side, burying your face in his chest as Bradley grabbed the blanket off the back of the sofa to drape it over you.

“I love you, dad.” You whisper, voice mostly muffled by the material of Bradley’s shirt.

“I love you too, sweetheart.” Bradley whispers back, watching as your eyes begin to flutter close, soon being followed by your breathing beginning to even out. Bradley watched you for a moment, pleased to see no signs of discomfort as you slept.

Bradley had spent the majority of his day worrying over how you were and while you had a small scare while at home, he was there to help, and you seemed to be improving already. Bradley pressed a soft kiss to the top of your head as you unconsciously snuggled closer to him.

He’d be there to look after you on all your bad days, and all your good days.

[isaacarellanesismyhusband]

it's okay... you're okay

pair: Walker Scobell x 17y/o!reader

summary: Walker is there to reassure y/n(she/her) that she has every right to feel how she feels after a fight with her absent father

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The room felt too small, too hot. Y/N stood in the center, her fists clenched so tight that her nails dug into her palms. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears, drowning out the sound of her father’s voice. His excuses, his apologies, whatever the hell he was saying didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t want to hear it.

"Stop," she snapped, her voice shaking. "Just stop."

Her father went quiet, his eyes widening. He wasn’t used to this. The soft-spoken girl who had always looked at him with too much pain and not enough anger was gone. He didn’t know her anymore.

“I— I know I messed up,” he started, his hands raised like he could calm her down. Like this was some small misunderstanding.

“You left,” Y/N spat, her voice rising, filling the room. “You left us, and you didn’t care. You didn’t care about me. Or mom. Or... or her." Her sister, who picked up the pieces their mom couldn’t.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she didn’t give him a chance. It was like a dam had burst inside her, all the words she’d held in for so long, all the feelings she’d shoved down, finally spilling out.

“You just disappeared. And I... I spent years thinking it was my fault. That maybe if I’d been better... quieter... more like the daughter you wanted, you wouldn’t have left. I thought I wasn’t enough.”

Her voice cracked, and she hated it. She hated that she still cared, that she still hurt because of him.

“I blamed myself for everything. When I was little, I thought maybe if I’d been more like her, you wouldn’t have gone. But then I grew up and I realized that I couldn’t even trust anyone because of you. You made me feel like I wasn’t worth sticking around for.”

She was pacing now, her hands shaking, but she couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t stop. Not now. Not when everything she’d kept buried was finally clawing its way out.

“I spent so long trying to get people to like me. To stay. I thought maybe if I was good enough for them, they wouldn’t leave like you did. But no matter how hard I tried, it never worked. Because no matter what I did, I always felt like they’d leave too. Because if my own dad didn’t want me, why would anyone else?”

Her father’s face was pale, his mouth set in a thin line, but Y/N didn’t care. She didn’t care about his excuses or his reasons anymore. She just wanted him to understand how badly he’d broken her.

“I needed you, and you weren’t there. Do you know what that does to a kid? Do you have any idea what it’s like to grow up wondering why your dad didn’t love you enough to stay?”

She felt the tears sting her eyes, but she blinked them back. She wouldn’t cry. Not for him. Not anymore.

“I was four when you left. Four. I didn’t understand then. I didn’t know why my dad didn’t come home anymore. And I waited. I waited for you to come back. Every night. For years. But you never did.”

Her chest felt tight, and she struggled to breathe, but she kept going. She had to say it all.

“And you know what the worst part is? I was sixteen before I finally realized it wasn’t my fault. Sixteen. I spent my whole life thinking I did something wrong, that I wasn’t good enough. But it was you. You’re the one who wasn’t enough.”

Her father’s face crumpled, and for a split second, she felt the smallest twinge of guilt. But it disappeared just as quickly.

“I don’t want your apology. I don’t want your excuses. I don’t care why you left anymore. I just... I just want you to know what you did to me. How you ruined everything. How every time I try to let someone in, I can’t. Because I’m terrified they’ll leave too. And it’s all because of you.”

The room was dead silent now, except for the sound of her ragged breathing. Her father looked like he wanted to say something, anything, but no words came out. Good. There was nothing left to say.

Y/N stood there, trembling, her heart racing in her chest. She’d said it. Everything she’d wanted to say for so long. And yet, she didn’t feel better. She just felt... empty. Like all that anger and hurt had been holding her together, and now that it was out, she didn’t know what was left.

“I don’t hate you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper now. “I just... I don’t need you anymore. And I never will.”

With that, she turned and walked out, leaving him behind. Like he had left her.

Y/N slammed the front door behind her and leaned against it, her chest heaving. The house was silent, but it didn’t feel peaceful. It felt hollow. Empty. Just like her.

She stumbled up the stairs, her legs shaky, her mind a blur. When she reached her room, she collapsed onto her bed, burying her face in the pillow.

The tears came out of nowhere. Hot, choking sobs that wracked her entire body. She wasn’t even sure why she was crying. She thought confronting him would make her feel better. She thought it would give her some sense of relief or closure. But now... she just felt lost.

She pressed her face deeper into the pillow, trying to muffle the sound. Her chest hurt, her eyes burned, and she was so tired. So damn tired of feeling this way. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop crying.

Y/N didn’t know how long she laid there, curled up on her bed, feeling like she was falling apart from the inside out. Minutes? Hours? It didn’t matter. Nothing made sense anymore.

Before she even realized what she was doing, her hand reached for her phone, and she opened Walker’s contact without hesitation. He was the only person she could think of. The only one who might understand, even though she barely understood herself.

Her thumb hovered over the call button for a second, but then she pressed it. She needed to hear his voice. She needed *him*.

It rang once. Twice. Then his familiar voice came through, and somehow, the sound of it made her throat tighten all over again.

“Hey, Y/N—” he started, his usual upbeat tone there, but she cut him off with a shaky breath.

“I did it,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I told him everything.”

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line, then Walker spoke, his voice softer this time. “Are you okay?”

Y/N let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. The simple question—one he asked so often—felt like it was unraveling something inside her.

“No,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I feel.”

“Do you want me to come over?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, nodding even though he couldn’t see her. “Yeah... yeah, I do.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

True to his word, ten minutes later there was a knock on her window. Y/N glanced up and saw Walker standing there, his hair messy from the wind, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. She managed a weak smile as she got up to let him in.

The second he climbed through the window, Walker’s arms were around her, pulling her into a tight hug. She hadn’t realized how much she needed it until that moment—the warmth, the comfort, the familiar scent of him.

“It’s okay,” he murmured into her hair. “You’re okay.”

She buried her face into his chest, and for a while, neither of them said anything. She just let herself be held, her breathing slowly evening out as the tension in her body began to fade.

After a few minutes, Walker pulled back just enough to look at her. His blue eyes were full of concern, but there was something else there too. Something steady, reassuring.

“What happened?” he asked gently, his hands resting on her shoulders.

Y/N took a shaky breath, running a hand through her hair. “I... I don’t even know. I just snapped. I told him everything I’ve been holding in since I was a kid. All the anger, the hurt, how he ruined everything...” Her voice wavered, but she forced herself to keep talking. “I told him that he made me feel like I wasn’t enough. That it was my fault he left.”

Walker’s expression softened, his eyes flickering with understanding. “You didn’t go too far, Y/N.”

She blinked, her throat tightening again. “What if I did? What if I was too harsh?”

“No.” Walker’s voice was firm, but gentle. “He needed to hear it. He needed to understand what he put you through. You have every right to be angry. You have every right to feel what you’re feeling.”

Y/N stared at him, her chest aching in a way that was different from before. Less painful, but still heavy. “But what if I hurt him?”

Walker’s hands slid down to her arms, giving them a gentle squeeze. “Y/N, you’ve been hurting for years because of him. He left. He made those choices. And you have every right to let him know how that affected you. It’s not your responsibility to protect him from the truth.”

Y/N’s lip trembled, and she blinked rapidly, trying to hold back more tears. “But why do I still feel so... so lost?”

Walker pulled her into another hug, resting his chin on top of her head. “Because it’s complicated,” he said quietly. “Confronting him doesn’t magically fix everything. It’s okay to feel all messed up right now. But you didn’t do anything wrong.”

She let out a shaky breath, closing her eyes as she leaned into him. His arms tightened around her, and for the first time all day, she felt like maybe she wasn’t falling apart. Not completely.

“I’m proud of you,” he whispered, his voice soft and warm. “For standing up for yourself. For telling him the truth. You didn’t deserve any of what he put you through. And you’re going to be okay.”

Y/N sniffed, a small, shaky laugh escaping her as she clung to him. “How do you always know what to say?”

Walker pulled back just enough to flash her that lopsided grin she loved so much. “It’s a talent. Plus, you’ve been my best friend forever. I think I’ve got the hang of this by now.”

[use-ur-inside-voice]

Past Lives: How can a movie be so beautiful yet painful?

I watched Past Lives this past Tuesday, and I have some thoughts. I won’t necessarily speak to the movie itself, but instead to how this movie made me feel. After I left the theater, I felt this wave of sadness rush to me. I couldn’t shake the feeling of sadness as I thought about Nora and how her story is so similar to the stories of other immigrants. I know that a lot of people have been taken with the romance in this movie, but I think we all need to step back and refocus for a bit. This is a movie about immigrants, and how immigration can impact everything and everyone. As I was saying, I couldn’t shake this feeling of sadness after leaving the theater. I could only think about my mother, and how her life would be different if she didn’t immigrate to the U.S.

Would she still be a nurse? Would she have followed her passions of being an English teacher or a lawyer? Would she have more kids? Would my sisters and I know our mother tongue fluently instead of constantly asking, “What does that mean?” Would I be close with my grandmother whom I never see or understand? Would I feel the pressures of having to be extremely successful in order to feel like my life was worth it? That my parents’ pilgrimage to the U.S. was worth it? That their sacrifice was worth it? How would being the eldest daughter be if not for my immigrant parents making me feel like I need to be the saving grace of the family? Would be mother be happy? Would we be happy? 

Every so often, my parents pull out their old photo albums and show me who they once were. Photos of large smiles on faces I don’t recognize. Photos of friends, aunts and uncles at parties that I have never met. Seeing my parents light up at the photos and hearing them go on and on about what life was like when they were in their home country. The community they once had, the lives they lived, the happiness they experienced. I could see the longing for those memories in their eyes, full of glee and sadness at the same time. 

My parents, especially my mother, speaks in the future tense. “Once I go back home...,” “I’m going to walk on the beach...” “I can’t wait to see my sisters again...” “I hope I can see my mom one more time...” It pains me to think that the life that my mother lives is not one that she longed for. It’s not a life she wanted. She longs for something I can not give her. And so I’m left with the thought of what would life look life if my parents never won a green card in the green card lottery? Would my mother be happy? 

Past Lives is a beautiful yet painful reminder that the life of an immigrant can be upended in seconds, whether for better or worse. It is more than just a love story, in fact, the romance between the two main characters acts as a vehicle to show us the real meaning behind the movie. Who were we? Who are we? And who will we become? It is sometimes too painful to think about what could’ve been, but something I learned from Past Lives is that it is also beautiful to reminisce on the past, embrace the present, and look forward to the future. I hope someday my mother can go back to her home country and live out the rest of her days, and I hope once she does that I never have to ask, “Would my mother be happy?”

[blackangelism]

Born to Die

hey, so, basically, i was writing this fanfiction called born to die based upon kurt cobain and an original character called nirvana lacey anhedönia and, well, i never finished it and i think i’ve lost the inspiration to. but, i still want it to see the light of day because i think it’s beautiful (sort of). so, here we are.

Gibson Girl.

1480 words.

July 6, 1981.

Aberdeen.

Washington.

[ You wanna… ]

Lovelace.

That’s what I’m fucking carving into my arm. With that oh-so-American size of the knife, the cut was deep and my handwriting as unhinged as it could be, probably and possibly worse than the cruel (upon me!) variety of forms it takes; like it was in my journal (I’ve always adored the copulation of the words probably and possibly as it tends so well to my seeming lack of sincerity and existential confusion), but worse, worse. Tingling all over I was in not an aroused, sexual way—but in the way it tingles when the high becomes scary, when the swirly faces start to scratch at you and when your belly feels scarily pregnant (everyone whom I know wants children; I wonder, am I sociopathic or a prophetess? Probably both, they’re primarily synonymous anyway). I knew so damnéd well I was addicted to this shit, the little, translucent, hallucinatory blotters (I prefer ’em trippy on both the outside and in, and pink; but I’m an addict! I’ll take whatever anyways) I get by shaking my ass to the guy whose name I do not wish to have my married brain clouded with. He still cut into my head like the knife that was working with all it’s effort and my inputs carving that v on my plump, ripe forearm. I was addicted as fuck; and I fucking loved it. At the very fucking least, I was pumping out poems like a heroine of the fifties. It’s what it was: the fifties had Sylvia Plath and the eighties had me. Downright iconic. The blood by now—I felt like a lamb, but I knew I was the dragon—was flooding my lap on which that forearm of mine was settled. I apologise if my writing, grammer, thoughts, anything else is fucked up in this or don’t make sense—I’m drugged up into Cloud Nineteen (ten blotters, two packs of Marlboro Reds over this evening).

I know I sound fucking insane and I probably am, and I treat myself to pain Virgin Mary couldn’t have dreamt off—but, I promise I’m not mean. Just a hard, excessive exterior and a tight, eager posterior in this dollhood of mine. Does that even make sense…? I don’t fucking know shit… “Ah, fuck…” I whispered with the most disappointing one I could muster when I fucked up the second l of Lovelace.

Lovelace, Lovelace… Great, I have to recall him.

The fucker who got me into this.

Norwegian trucker in India who was friends with my greaser pa, Norman Anhedönia, called Gibson Lovelace. The chap had forty years worth of oxygen wasted in his shallow breathing (he always breathed shallow, even when he came; I had noticed), a nine-incher monster of a dick, pedophilia, a drunkard wife and an obsession with me. I’d always been what Nabokovian terms would term nymphet, and I do say I’m split on it. I’m a shit daughter and a demon child, or am I? Maybe I’m just depressed and suicidal, or I’m fucking divine and the reincarnation of Eve meant to meet her Adam through a senseless act of violence upon myself (I didn’t know at the time, but I was fucking foreshadowing; go me.). Every girl needs a senseless act of violence properly upon herself but rarely upon the other to discover her one and only cult leader.

Anywho, Gibson led me into his truck away from my father who was too busy cleaning his shades listening to Elvis on the records: January of ’77, I was seven going to turn eight in the November of that year. He fucked me raw, smashed my head so hard into the steering wheel that I bled (I was questioning too much), kissed my cuts and made me promise I wouldn’t pick up a knife again but didn’t do shit about what I actually felt; he told me to stick my tongue out and placed this thin translucent sheet of pink from a little booklet he kept in his glovebox. And I decided that I loved it. I’m at fault, I’m at fault… Fuck Waheguru.

I’m finished. I squeezed my arm as hard as I could, the blood spraying over the marble floor (I had tucked the rug away; I can’t let Mumma see). My incisors with the utmost force to keep my vocal chords at bay dug into my chapped bottom lip and drew blood there too. It trickled down to my chin and came to nirvana at my lap resting amongst the other red molecules; it left a ferric taste on the tip of my tongue, slightly bitter and quite sweet. Bittersweet. Blood, blood, blood, blood, blood… Blood, everywhere. Gibson would’ve rubbed it all over my nipples and told me to lick it up like it was his sperm all over my asscheeks or, well, just cheeks. I did have quite big tits for an almost twelve-year-old, I must admit… I’ve always had more estrogen and my estrogen was also more sensitive: susceptible. Susceptible to manipulation, fuckery, religion, what not… Finally, I could fucking feel something except for the stimuli of my g-spot and the irritation in my nostrils that still blossomed when I chainsmoked indoors or that itching feeling in me when I go too much time without my LSD. I have this delusion that I only pump men good or pump out good stuff when I’m pumped on those little squares: He said that LSD would be good for me when I told him that I write; I’ve been pumpin’ poetry for my baby ever since. I hate children, and I sincerely wish that all babies die alongside their parents and the doctors and the nurses and the medical’s parents and me…

My disorders kicked in (Borderline Personality Disorder, majorly untreated) and I fucking panicked. After so much shit, I fucking panicked. Panicked. Jumping up almost to slam my head to the sink I was cutting up like ham under, I had to hold onto the sink to make myself stand actually. I slowly experienced my hand creep up to switch on the faucet (like Gibby did to the faucet in my eyes everytime he crossed my neurocircuitry) and my other arm (I’m right-handed) creep to wash the blood from Lovelace off. Thankfully, I had a few bottles of peroxide, a pack of Reds, a babydoll dress all set up, razor and men’s shaving cream, my skincare, makeup—all of that set up, and the shower prepped as well. Today, I was to die.

The same year as Gibson’s arrival to me, I spiralled and ended up flinging my curvy body down the roof of some pretentious hotel in Seattle. I didn’t die, unfortunately. Then, well, I was transferred to a crazy people place for four years until I got out in March of ’81 (this year!) equally, if not more, fucked up. I had glowed so much surrounded by my little hellspawns, my creatures... My paradise is dying in the arms of nobody. But, I couldn’t care when the blotters kicked in and helped my cerebrum in distorting so fucking shittily my face into some eldritch horror that passed the likes of werewolves mid-transformation and golems. I giggled manically at the twistings of my eyes into the hair and my ears into halo, my mouth stretched through the giggle was transmuted to the petrified image of a dog and a lady and what fucking not. Oh, I need my pen… Pen, pen, pen, pen,... pen!

The lad

I tried to write into the journal page I had kept open on the small settee of my bathroom that I had also made sure to drip some of my essence onto (not like that, pervs; the blood, I’m saying) but my mouth wouldn’t co-operate with my cerebellum or my cerebrum. The giggles just wouldn’t stop and they just got more and more distorted like guitars fitted into amps and amps and shredding. I fell back on the ground, it cushioned by my ass, and held my head in my arms, shaking my head as if to curate outside of my all the fogginess and to shake out of my trip. I wanted to write, write! Not whatever the fuck this was. My eyes were squeezed so hard, I was crying. And, I couldn’t fucking stop laughing like a shitshow.

“Oh, God, stop, stop, stop, just fucking stop…!” Hadn’t even realised I was sobbing but in that moment that epiphany hit me like a freight train (whatever the fuck a freight train is; I just picked up on the writing tool from whatever I read using this). My arm was still bleeding, smearing blood over my cheeks; my lip was still cut from my teeth, bleeding the smaller bits too; I was shaking like a fucking banyan leaf in the rainstorms of Wash.

• • •

Strangers.

5010 words.

July 6, 1981.

Aberdeen.

Washington.

[ Don’t talk to strangers, or you might fall in love ]

Even the isolation, deprave, and mesophilia of our fucked-up, Lacey, crazies hospital was better than this drenched, little town. What was better than any of those two fucking disasters, though, was my stance on the railway tracks. Sittin’ there like teke-teke, waitin’ for my gorgeous guts to be smashed over, destroyed, violated, clawed out by the grinders of the train. I’d never seen starry nights—the ladies at Lacey would never have enough testicles to let me watch a shooting star and hope that it crash into me, the fuckin’ meteorite. My years at Cawnpore already were quite less in number, and it eternally was too polluted for us to see something more than the dhruv star and a few other killers; I’d never seen starry nights. According to this astronomical magazine I picked up while the nurses took us out to the local stores of Lacey for us teenage girls to detoxify our battlefields for minds, today was a meteor shower and I was thoroughly intrigued by blazing space rocks in the skies, so I bluffed and fucked my way out of the hospital. My egg and sperm donors did not believe for a major nanosecond that I was cured. At two years of pained age, I was standing in the middle of the gray-like-me roads, conscious of the act; at four, I burnt my pierced earlobe on purpose, using the steam-fuelled iron to; at six, any blade I pranced upon would find it’s metallic way to scent the room in the aroma of my equally metally blood, I only wished for one to kiss those marks and draw about them, to be what the lyre was to Apollo; at eight, this curvy brain of mine finally snapped into her hemispheres and told me to fling my curvy body down the highest story of our hotel. At eight, my suppliers abandoned their Catholic mistake of a dolly into a mental hospital in my Americana birthplace, Lacey.

There, I morphed myself like the blesséd Phoenix, curse, profanity I am into The Mother. Mother Lace, Mother Nirvana, Messiah of thee, and the literary combo of Three. One of the only times I shall ever cherish are my years with those six girls… My girls: my loves, only ones who would ever succeed in enveloping me with so much heat that the outward exterior, the exoskeleton of middle fingers and catty hisses, melts into a puddle of rot beneath me and the inner delicacy of my wretched fragility and mortality is on display for all those mental fuckers to eat.

Needless to say…, I missed my bundle of little women, my packets of compressed, oppressed joy. So, I lay there longing with my arms stretched onward craving hiraeth in the Heavens—now that I look back, it never was hiraeth. I knew exactly what my home was: the browned mental hospital where I spent four formative years of my Jim Morrison's life in. I longed for the hug of my collected daughters, their soft digits brushing my hair as they softly inquired escape from the hellhole I promised to save them from. My girls... I loved them, like the mother they never received. I had promised, I had promised… I was a betrayer. What mother to those girls…

On instinct I experienced my hands reach to the crown of my head, relief coursing through my blood the moment a thorn stung me. Their entity had crafted for me a crown of thorns to relish me as their Lady and Saviour. I did feel blood seep from the pinch, but I stuck my finger between my lips and thrashed my tongue around, gazing at the dying glows of the starry night.

I pretended to be Jesus.

I am Judas, or am I?

I don’t even know what I’m writing. You’re hallucinating while interpreting strange symbols written left-to-right in lead and antimony compounds upon thin, delicate tablet-like structures made of tree sap, so I guess we two are never too far apart in our crazy.

Well, to them (my girls: Laine Jean Ray, Bonita Ana Dios, Aurora May-Belle Long, Theresa Midge Check, Verbena de Baïa Voisin, Margaret Sarah Check), I still remain Yeshua. Yet, I feel a wolf in lamb’s skin as myself; a panther in the throes of the night sky that I stare emptily, tearily, upon. I fake it so real, I am beyond fake (translation: you people are fucking dumb).

In my convulsing tubule of thoughts birthed by my cerebral quality, I failed in my life to notice movement, possibly a metre from me. I was laid over the railway track like a corpse, eyes empty yet body warm for no reason at all. It truly seems bizarre how the movement noticed me neither—maybe dissolved so much in the grief were they that they were as heady as me, as crazy as I! Trapped inside the fever dream of their own thoughts, vowed to never spit it out, bit tongues and summertimes spent in clawing bedsheets and clamping hands over the own lips so as to refrain from the awareness that might spread. That might say…: I am iron. I am usable, extremely so. Exploit me, as if you have not already. Though, I might have not warneth thou… I rot as vigorously as I am used, keep me out in the world and I will break down and become ash of myself. In the velvet night, a puff of air as a sigh crawled out of me, liquid dripping down the corneas of I, ruining not the night (this was to be, I planned to die today for fuck’s sake) but my precious mascara and eyeliner. Oh, how I worked on that lining to accentuate my inherited, unwanted, auto-appreciated felinity. I’d be the prettiest girl in the morgue.

Someday you will ache like I ache.

Anyhow, the shower from the atmosphere had concluded a few minutes prior. And, well, finally, the train I was waiting for to scramble and crumble my guts into nothing but wasted potential, like I already was, had arrived… Only, it arrived wrong. It ran over the steel beside me, beside us (counting in the movement I am). A severe monsoon bummer filled my chest, the void in my heart had been concealed tightly and packed with Lyssa, Eris, what not. I craved to screech at the tyrant Father for his sin, for his fucking disruptive mercy on me—I did not want mercy! I needed death to fuck me like his personal, unpaid, loyal servant-girl; I needed it violent! So, as soon as all registered in my voluminous cerebrum, I recoiled in my pose, resorting to the protection of a foetal position as I screamed out my sobs and muffled them by staining my shaved thighs with my lipstick and drool smelling of minty chew-gum that I chewed last minute, tears of brown-black from my mascara and liner, hitting my head against my knees and punching the bloody rails that I was once moonbathing over until I experienced my knuckles burn and bruise, actual slivers of blood peek through the skin. I continued then too, but was too passionate in my quiet wailing to keep up the aggression.

And, thence, I swiped my tears with my bleeding knuckles, unrealising in my little girl’s misery of the fact, and smeared blood over my eyes and mascara over my blood. By some distance, I could hear some twigs crunching, maybe it was the movement I hadn’t noticed beforehand. When I did notice in that current moment, fear struck my gut like Cupid’s arrow when I had seen Priscilla Presley for the first time in forever. Naturally, a response occurred within the fatty mass of electric muscle in my head and I recoiled within myself, burying my face in my knees that I had pulled to my tits, only my eyes blinking up like a defensing cat—if I had been a cat, my pupils would have shrunken to that reptilian, creepy glare. I saw that the thing was lighting a cigarette, my cravings relit alongside (the appearance of the thing was half-revealed in the dim spark).

Stupidly as I ever could be, I murmured from my coil, “Do you have a light?” However softly I did speak, the boy did hear because it was the death of the night in wherever we were, the railroad was as quiet as could be with the crickets around chirping and inaudible bats may or may not be sauntering about. Dim moonlight that I somedays worshipped (as a witch, I did) proved herself, and I saw him. The first predicament was that he’s cute: blond, ice eyes, hopeless swagger, shaky legs. He paused himself in his trek, and slowly but mildly clumsily, turned to see my form. Perhaps cold moonlight proved her importance to hallucinatory pages of dead sap’s inkéd words of feel-good love. Wow, fuck, I went overboard on there. So, he scrutinised me for a moment, squinting to gaze at me carefully.

I’ll never forget what came out of my future husband’s mouth the first time he spoke a single thing to me…: You look very pretty when you’re crying; tears suit you. I don’t think that I can emphasise the moan that was nearly to escape me at that very moment, it was a shockwave of whatever down my spine to my ladyness. My knees dropped to become flat, just legs, and I did acknowledge the gashes in my doll heart bleeding so vigorously, it matched my swallowed drool.

“You don’t mean that, you’re drunk.”

His honeyed voice, sort of scratchy as I observed he was pubescent and hormonal in his blue jeans, white striped shirt—walked into the room, you know you made my eyes burn!—and black-y jacket he kept open, pushed me to experience the yayo-type, giggly joy of his chuckle, he shook his head in amuséd denial of his drunkenness. He was poetic, he had a slur, he had his thin lips wrapped around a cigarette—shit, I needed them wrapped around mine… And, I loved it. Why the fuck was I enamoured? “You’re a hypocrite,” He paused for a moment, maintaining that smile. Two distinct holes, punctures in muscle, were noticed by thee truly, myself, at that very moment; I felt my ribcaged heart palpitate. “You’re bawling your eyes out here like Virgin Mary.”

“Oh, fuck me, that’s beautiful.” The moan that was slowly and gradually, steadily and irresistibly, mountaineering up my throat finally escaped in the form of this: *Oh, fuck me, that’s beautiful*. Which, I did mean—how could I not mean *this*? I’m not Lisa Rowe, you buzz (although I wish to be—have you not read the sheer charisma produced from the description Kaysen emits of her? She was definitely the prettiest girl in the morgue!).

Hands of his extended to mine, both, and I took them, shakingly wobbling from my psych-out. I felt drunk. As terror-inducin’ it seems, drugs had exhilarated me, no cock of a man who had money this nymphet had onlooked had been left out, I was such a La Lolita for my crazy desires—but I had never had a swig before. Smelling the booze off my falling, twisted guy as he pulled me up from my literal and mental death—I only knew that my heart was hitting at my sinews, she felt a depraved wanderlust. Some wanderlust it was to, like a man in a Prime Minister pose, mark that free, angel Earth mine with maybe a flag (a tattoo) or a hole (a lovebite), something, somewhat. I held onto his shoulders for both metaphorical and literal support, he held onto the curve of the lower back I possessed, though the fabric of his jackie didn’t benefit friction and he kept slipping his arm off accidentally because, one, he adorned too much weight on; two, the fabircs intermingled like our forms, the cheap satin and whatever the fuck his jacket was made of. “Why am I a hypocrite, though?” I finally asked this little blond dude what had been pestering me (I am not to blame for this worthy-of-disdain obsessiveness, I have Borderline Personality Disorder. I am Cool Girl: I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive) for how millennium long. His ocean eyes matched mine for a moment, and he seemed to think through for a momento before he permitted the giggle of a hyena break out of him: Because you’re pretty when you cry, and I’m not.

“Yes, you are.” No hesitation was laced through me, none of that unaware uncertainty that I usually experienced leaking through my tune when I comforted one of my girls—my girls...—and instead was there an ignorant stubbornness. I was always stubborn, but what the fuck? I, having registered in my still plush cerebrum that my crown of thorns (gifted to me by Laine specifically, although all the girls worked on it) had fallen like my Lucifer when I had risen, thence I bent to grab my status, injuring my already injured hand thus further as the thorns pierced and pricked into my skin. And, I didn’t even cry…

He recoiled almost physically at my olden compliment (remember the first dialogue of the previous paragraphed rambling?) and I was due a breakdown of my psyche in that very singular fraction of a minute when my man suddenly perked up, “I only have this cig,”, changing the subject. Yahweh, my knuckles burnt. I ohed a tiny bit, and chuckled, extending one of my quivering, weak limbs and bending to wrap my lipstickéd lips on the ass of that cigarette, same one he took a drag from not fifteen seconds ago. His Atlantic eyes widened for a twiddling momentous, and, possibly and probably in drunken stupor and marijuana heights of his death wish, he giggled—I physically felt my pupils dilate, what the fuck? Maybe it was the nicotine, maybe it was the aftershocks of my tiny-teeny mental breakdown on the rail, maybe it was hisself… Damn, I think I understood Grant so well in that miniscule moment: Heaven is a place on Earth with you.

The world was built for two.

Delusional, I was convinced that it was us two the moment he grabbed the cigarette from me for his chance, and he examined the matte, messy mark of my lip stamped on it.

With the dumbest smile he could muster in my damnéd opinion, this little, blond, territorial, underdeveloped man adjusted his lips on the exact place I had left my shine, suckling it like it was some part of me. He knew what he was doing, I could pluck it from the glitter in his pretty orbs that told me shit he’d never be able to spit out in our tragic, magic relationship of some thirteen years. We kissed in death like we kissed in that moment, he blew smoke into my mouth and I giggled, almost extracting the alcohol of his from the roof of his mouth as my tongue felt her way around. We parted for perhaps, well, a second (I don’t remember the details, I’m writing this after our wedding sex, 1988. We’re in our flight back to Olympia from Honolulu, and he’s sleeping on my tits), and rejoint as I adjusted the angle to kiss-fuck this virginal Cherub better. “Darling, is this your first?”, he nodded, responsive—to be frank, that was adorable...! I’m pretty sure I squeaked out of sheer kiddy excitement, squeezing the sides of his face (cheeks). My grip migrated to around his neck, form bent for he was teenier than I. I didn’t even know his name and we were kissing in the blue dark…

Parting, I only gazed into his oceanic gaze and breathlessly giggled, “Oh, wow, fuck,... That was…, yeah.” A grand total of seven partners (three females, four males) I had engaged in before this merman, and I had never felt myself stolen of breathe ever in my existence after a mere kiss. Possibly was it the intoxication, the nicotine fucking over my senses so that my taste buds tickled with the enriching experience of his glazed cavern, but was it not thrilling, oh Mary! I had enchanted outward the sweetest giggle, and he in his still stupor snuggled his head inside the curve of my shoulder and chest; he was only that much tall. I was not lanky in any aspect, neither I am still—on the flipside, truth is that my mother repeatedly insisted upon me to not drown in my head and force her to onlook, rather to go outside, soak some tan (I am racially brown, thence I don’t require a tan) and run some. I decline profusely, tangling in blankets again and writing what, if discovered, would have positively filed me into the South Sound Behavioral Hospital yet again for a term not of four years now but of God-knows-how-long.

Eventually, I figured: some other day, this nymph may or may not have only prolonged my life now, and I told myself it. By the railway roads were grasses uncared for (like most daughters were; the human was their mother and the stain’d, tall grasses were the lost), we decided unconsciously to sit by those and talk the dimlight of the night off the clouds, to dawn we conversed. As unbelievable as it may sound considering the turbulence not even Athena might have dreamt of that had plagued the twisty courses of my lifetime, I had not sipped upon the liver eater yet: alcohol! With my newfound darling, that was precisely what I did.

We were dwelling inside uncanny synchronisation with our acts: we looked around at the same time, fixated on the same piece of cement, reached to gasp one another’s hands the same moment. I didn’t flinch, neither did the blond darling. Which..., was quite, well, it was especially choking as I... Usually froze at contact of the physique from someone whom I loved. Around this time, with my drink-induced lover, it felt good.

We curled up by grass, against a gray boulder-like structure, perhaps a part of a rotten or demolished building of some sort, debris. There, I suckled upon the lengthy cancerstick and inquired like an owl: “Why were you here, anyway?” In a casual tone I did, as if it was something so normal that I was nonchalant. “Oh, y’know, to kill myself.” The answer delivered by this sweetness would dwelling in me a day or so afterward (take that very literally) was just as nonchalant, confirming the suspicion conjured by my despaired subconscious that he was just as heady as me, as crazy as me, someone who would rot along me like iron all the while fearing the rot, hiding from something murmuring within thyself and teetering about; aura as a nymphic call and melancholia as the default ring of the mood. GOD is a teenaged girl of grunge and glitter, and I am a doll (soulless, empty, pretty with no matter on the inside yet pretty from the back—it matched!).

“No, no, like, why?” I repeated with an accentuated tone and my regular gestures of hand and eye, “The reason you wanted to kill yourself. I don’t judge, promise.” I shrugged, chuckling a bit as I passed the miniature cancer to him for a drag. “Clearly.” He chuckled too, widening his eyes momentarily to allude to my appearance; as I remember it, that elicited out from me a little giggle. I mean, it was the factual; darling, not lying. A girl; a girl dressed in a pearly babydoll dress with lacy tights (opaque white-like, frilled, a bow on top of each, knee-high) and no footwear with mascara smeared down her face from a clear breakdown of her battlefield for mind, manic brown eyes with a grape-coloured lipstick on pouty heart-shaped lips, blood and dirt also staining her optic area due to her bleeding knuckles from which she punched the steel of the rails because the train did not run over her? Paired alongside the fresh wounds on display littered across that fatty arm of hers? Oh, she was a crazy chick—and I could tell that this little guy loved it. He loved my mania, he loved my blood, he loved my crazy, he loved everything that I loved about myself. Maybe it was his alcohol that urged him this way, but I loved him for he loved what he saw.

But is she pretty on the inside?

“Well,” I spaced back in with the thrill of his voice curling the air around us; I wish we were plunged into steel. Sound travels best in something like steel… What would his voice be in steel? The thought messaged down my spine a shiver. “’s mostly everything about my life. Wouldn’t say I’m addicted, but all I do these days is mope and get high, or drink. I’ve been this since last month. Last year, I saw this… This dead boy who hung himself in the woods. That really affected me, I think; I’ve got suicide genes.” He paused a bit, sighing as he was passed the smokestick again. I puckered up a bit and drew closer to his pretty face, rounding my lips out and pushing out a ring of cigarette smoke. On impulse, he stuck nose through the centre of the dissipating smoke ring which drew from me another giggle—he was just like me! I did that too! I’d never thought someone else would…? What the fuck is going on?

Taking a drag, he then resuméd: “My parents are divorced… I’m really embarrassed of that.” He added a bit hesitantly, I could gauge that he still felt the shame of it all; which perplexed me. A divorce is shameful? How so? It’s a fucking life decision… But, that’s okay because this little one was clearly less mature and emotionally developed than I, although that amount still was remarkable considering his physique and my presumé of his age (which I thought to be elder to me, but still not too much so). “Why?”

“I want my real family back. My dad promised me he wouldn’t remarry, and he fucking did; to a bitch nonetheless. I hate her and her children are so… Phoney…!” Humming at his hurt words, I was analysing him: eyes gliding over the pasty, smooth contours of his vanilla face; staring into the trench of his pupils surrounded by his ocean eyes as he passed back the almost dead cigarette to me. The guard he wore over his exterior again was forming as he read that I was reading him without contempt (he thought I was feeling that, but I was simply analysing him emotionlessly—as if he was a labrat and I was dissecting him to figure out the following: what the fuck is this little shit?). But, I got him before he leaned away or apologised: Don’t worry, go on. Say it. I hate my cousins too. He relaxed yet again, I could see his shoulders come down and he leaned into me again,. Our heads were almost leaning against each other’s, breathes intermixing with each intake and out. “Go on.” I repeated, tapping his knee to accentuate my point.

He snapped out of whatever daze (he was reading me too, perhaps; mentally dissecting my Barbie body too, perhaps) and his hand came to clasp mine. I bit back a giggle and a smile at the contact, he did notice the corner of my lips tilt upward so he took that as a positive for further lacing of his fingers with mine. I, now a bit assured in myself, squeezed his hand and nudged him again: go on.

“Right,” He chuckled, “So, well, I just feel… Alien. You know, when I was little, I used to look at the stars,” He pointed briefly to the stars that were shining above the both of us, “And imagine my real family because I just felt like I wasn’t from here, like I was from another planet. I think I like that feeling, I was homesick for a place that didn’t even exist. And, to be honest, you’re the only other alien I’ve met.” That made me giggle after I muttered hiraeth at the sentence spoken second to the last. I found in my nicotined mindscape that this… Theory, was almost verbatim of a theory I myself had gardened in my meadow for mind. “Y’know…! I felt like that too, still do actually. I just used different terms for it. I called whatever the fuck our species are Earth Angels, angels on Earth. I read somewhere once that a person with scars of cuts on their arms was called an angel by a kid, and I think I really internalised… That.”

He chuckled, “Your mind is divine, Pretty. Yeah, I think my family is also a reason in why… I want to kill myself, y’know?”

“Oh, absolutely. I love them so much so I do what they want and they hate me for every speck of originality; I don’t know if it’s my mental disorders or it’s my hormones, but every small inconvenience makes me wanna kill myself. I’m also a hater! I hate everything and I do nothing to change it which, admittedly, makes me an arsehole—but, fuck it.” We both had laughter crawling up our throats and I could tell it wasn’t actual laughter. Oh, no. It was mania, laughing not because it threatened to spill; laughing because you had nothing else to do. Like crazy people (I do think that I am insane, in some way, shape or form. But, I also think that I’m supersane. Who fucking knows? I think a lot, don’t I?).

The cigarette had gone out by now, I think I had stubbed it out by pressing to the moist ground after he had truly started opening the shells of himself, not wishing to be distracted by drugs when I had the most addictive and healthy sedative offering his lifestory to a little shit like me. “Well, what’s it for you? I haven’t ever seen… You around…” He slurred out as we jumped down from our maniacal, little, episodic bursts of sacrilege or insanity… Well, are they not synonyms?

“Ah, so, I just moved here about a… Maybe a few days ago? I think a week or so. I moved from Lacey, though I’m actually Indian. Well… It’s a fucked-up fairytale, really. My whole ancestry and family is the following: sexist, racist, extremist to Sikhism, religious, doomed, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, very, very Indian. It’s only my grandmother who acknowledges the sexism floating between our family; she dreamt high and was ambition incarnate but her marriage to this horrible fucking man led her to be so oppressed she couldn't speak a word of English without being thoroughly taunted for it.” His face clearly contorted into a gnarly grimace, and I felt my nose start to itch and burn again remembering all this up… Never had I ever trauma-puked this well or been so comfortable vomiting it out to someone I did not know.

“’s just… Fuckin’ Hell. I can’t translate it into words, I can only feel.” Shaking my head in a paternal sort of disappointment (no matter how much I despise the fact, I am my father’s daughter; his copy of carbon) at my inability, I felt myself pulled in again… How? How was he doing this shit? Being so fucking kind? It made me anxious, admittedly. Why was he so kind? What did the fucker want?

I’m being too cynical. I wanted to cry; instead I accepted his tentative comfort and shoved my face into the nook of his neck, breathing down it like a vampire in the night. I had the purely feminine, feline urge to wrap myself around him like Sarin and never let go to slowly dissolve into him even if maggots eat us out. Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why…? For a few minutes I think, we stayed in that exact position, in a sort of silence that neutered my turmoil. His arms were gel onto my wounds, and I, terrified, readily crept in like the Dutch beetle on the elm.

“Don’t.” I eventually muttered out into the tender, pale, untouched flesh of temptation on his neck; I don’t know why I did it, don’t decipher or discover the root at all. What is a girl to do when offered love on a silver spoon when she only possesses a forked tongue of venom caused from licking slivers of love off a parental knife? I was a black, not racially but spiritually. I was corrupt, disgust, free-use trash for swollen cocks with zero semblance of any soul and only a pretty body. It’s my pretty power which is my ugly. I am disgusting… I sometimes feel the scorching need to cleanse myself, to face redemption, to hurry to salvation; and other days I revel in the hellfire of lust that would surround me once I am liberated of this uséd body.