#Cloud Ten Productions

[screen1ne]

Review: Left Behind: Rise of the Anti-Christ

"Left Behind: Rise of the Anti-Christ is to date the most complete and best of Left Behind movies that have been released to date." Read the Left Behind: Rise of the Anti-Christ review here #LeftBehind #Review #KevinSorbo @101FilmsUK

Left Behind: Rise of the Anti-Christ trailer Back in 1995, writers Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins wrote Left Behind. It was a start of an original 12 book series that spanned 9 years. There was later a series of 3 prequel books and 1 follow on novel (Kingdom Come). It became the jumping off point for a series of fast paced Christian fiction novels that went on to become worldwide best sellers…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Cars bricked by bankrupt EV company will stay bricked

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

There are few phrases in the modern lexicon more accursed than "software-based car," and yet, this is how the failed EV maker Fisker billed its products, which retailed for $40-70k in the few short years before the company collapsed, shut down its servers, and degraded all those "software-based cars":

https://insideevs.com/news/723669/fisker-inc-bankruptcy-chapter-11-official/

Fisker billed itself as a "capital light" manufacturer, meaning that it didn't particularly make anything �� rather, it "designed" cars that other companies built, allowing Fisker to focus on "experience," which is where the "software-based car" comes in. Virtually every subsystem in a Fisker car needs (or rather, needed) to periodically connect with its servers, either for regular operations or diagnostics and repair, creating frequent problems with brakes, airbags, shifting, battery management, locking and unlocking the doors:

https://www.businessinsider.com/fisker-owners-worry-about-vehicles-working-bankruptcy-2024-4

Since Fisker's bankruptcy, people with even minor problems with their Fisker EVs have found themselves owning expensive, inert lumps of conflict minerals and auto-loan debt; as one Fisker owner described it, "It's literally a lawn ornament right now":

https://www.businessinsider.com/fisker-owners-describe-chaos-to-keep-cars-running-after-bankruptcy-2024-7

This is, in many ways, typical Internet-of-Shit nonsense, but it's compounded by Fisker's capital light, all-outsource model, which led to extremely unreliable vehicles that have been plagued by recalls. The bankrupt company has proposed that vehicle owners should have to pay cash for these recalls, in order to reserve the company's capital for its creditors – a plan that is clearly illegal:

https://www.veritaglobal.net/fisker/document/2411390241007000000000005

This isn't even the first time Fisker has done this! Ten years ago, founder Henrik Fisker started another EV company called Fisker Automotive, which went bankrupt in 2014, leaving the company's "Karma" (no, really) long-range EVs (which were unreliable and prone to bursting into flames) in limbo:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisker_Karma

Which raises the question: why did investors reward Fisker's initial incompetence by piling in for a second attempt? I think the answer lies in the very factor that has made Fisker's failure so hard on its customers: the "software-based car." Investors love the sound of a "software-based car" because they understand that a gadget that is connected to the cloud is ripe for rent-extraction, because with software comes a bundle of "IP rights" that let the company control its customers, critics and competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

A "software-based car" gets to mobilize the state to enforce its "IP," which allows it to force its customers to use authorized mechanics (who can, in turn, be price-gouged for licensing and diagnostic tools). "IP" can be used to shut down manufacturers of third party parts. "IP" allows manufacturers to revoke features that came with your car and charge you a monthly subscription fee for them. All sorts of features can be sold as downloadable content, and clawed back when title to the car changes hands, so that the new owners have to buy them again. "Software based cars" are easier to repo, making them perfect for the subprime auto-lending industry. And of course, "software-based cars" can gather much more surveillance data on drivers, which can be sold to sleazy, unregulated data-brokers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

Unsurprisingly, there's a large number of Fisker cars that never sold, which the bankruptcy estate is seeking a buyer for. For a minute there, it looked like they'd found one: American Lease, which was looking to acquire the deadstock Fiskers for use as leased fleet cars. But now that deal seems dead, because no one can figure out how to restart Fisker's servers, and these vehicles are bricks without server access:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/08/fisker-bankruptcy-hits-major-speed-bump-as-fleet-sale-is-now-in-question/

It's hard to say why the company's servers are so intransigent, but there's a clue in the chaotic way that the company wound down its affairs. The company's final days sound like a scene from the last days of the German Democratic Republic, with apparats from the failing state charging about in chaos, without any plans for keeping things running:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/07/east-germany-stasi-surveillance-documents/

As it imploded, Fisker cycled through a string of Chief Financial officers, losing track of millions of dollars at a time:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/31/fisker-collapse-investigation-ev-ocean-suv-henrik-geeta/

When Fisker's landlord regained possession of its HQ, they found "complete disarray," including improperly stored drums of toxic waste:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/05/fiskers-hq-abandoned-in-complete-disarray-with-apparent-hazardous-waste-clay-models-left-behind/

And while Fisker's implosion is particularly messy, the fact that it landed in bankruptcy is entirely unexceptional. Most businesses fail (eventually) and most startups fail (quickly). Despite this, businesses – even those in heavily regulated sectors like automotive regulation – are allowed to design products and undertake operations that are not designed to outlast the (likely short-lived) company.

After the 2008 crisis and the collapse of financial institutions like Lehman Brothers, finance regulators acquired a renewed interest in succession planning. Lehman consisted of over 6,000 separate corporate entities, each one representing a bid to evade regulation and/or taxation. Unwinding that complex hairball took years, during which the entities that entrusted Lehman with their funds – pensions, charitable institutions, etc – were unable to access their money.

To avoid repeats of this catastrophe, regulators began to insist that banks produce "living wills" – plans for unwinding their affairs in the event of catastrophe. They had to undertake "stress tests" that simulated a wind-down as planned, both to make sure the plan worked and to estimate how long it would take to execute. Then banks were required to set aside sufficient capital to keep the lights on while the plan ran on.

This regulation has been indifferently enforced. Banks spent the intervening years insisting that they are capable of prudently self-regulating without all this interference, something they continue to insist upon even after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

The fact that the rules haven't been enforced tells us nothing about whether the rules would work if they were enforced. A string of high-profile bankruptcies of companies who had no succession plans and whose collapse stands to materially harm large numbers of people tells us that something has to be done about this.

Take 23andme, the creepy genomics company that enticed millions of people into sending them their genetic material (even if you aren't a 23andme customer, they probably have most of your genome, thanks to relatives who sent in cheek-swabs). 23andme is now bankrupt, and its bankruptcy estate is shopping for a buyer who'd like to commercially exploit all that juicy genetic data, even if that is to the detriment of the people it came from. What's more, the bankruptcy estate is refusing to destroy samples from people who want to opt out of this future sale:

https://bourniquelaw.com/2024/10/09/data-23-and-me/

On a smaller scale, there's Juicebox, a company that makes EV chargers, who are exiting the North American market and shutting down their servers, killing the advanced functionality that customers paid extra for when they chose a Juicebox product:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/2/24260316/juicebox-ev-chargers-enel-x-way-closing-discontinued-app

I actually owned a Juicebox, which ultimately caught fire and melted down, either due to a manufacturing defect or to the criminal ineptitude of Treeium, the worst solar installers in Southern California (or both):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/27/here-comes-the-sun-king/#sign-here

Projects like Juice Rescue are trying to reverse-engineer the Juicebox server infrastructure and build an alternative:

https://juice-rescue.org/

This would be much simpler if Juicebox's manufacturer, Enel X Way, had been required to file a living will that explained how its customers would go on enjoying their property when and if the company discontinued support, exited the market, or went bankrupt.

That might be a big lift for every little tech startup (though it would be superior than trying to get justice after the company fails). But in regulated sectors like automotive manufacture or genomic analysis, a regulation that says, "Either design your products and services to fail safely, or escrow enough cash to keep the lights on for the duration of an orderly wind-down in the event that you shut down" would be perfectly reasonable. Companies could make "software based cars" but the more "software based" the car was, the more funds they'd have to escrow to transition their servers when they shut down (and the lest capital they'd have to build the car).

Such a rule should be in addition to more muscular rules simply banning the most abusive practices, like the Oregon state Right to Repair bill, which bans the "parts pairing" that makes repairing a Fisker car so onerous:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/27/24097042/right-to-repair-law-oregon-sb1596-parts-pairing-tina-kotek-signed

Or the Illinois state biometric privacy law, which strictly limits the use of the kind of genomic data that 23andme collected:

https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=3004

Failing to take action on these abusive practices is dangerous – and not just to the people who get burned by them. Every time a genomics research project turns into a privacy nightmare, that salts the earth for future medical research, making it much harder to conduct population-scale research, which can be carried out in privacy-preserving ways, and which pays huge scientific dividends that we all benefit from:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/01/the-palantir-will-see-you-now/#public-private-partnership

Just as Fisker's outrageous ripoff will make life harder for good cleantech companies:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

If people are convinced that new, climate-friendly tech is a cesspool of grift and extraction, it will punish those firms that are making routine, breathtaking, exciting (and extremely vital) breakthroughs:

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/10/08/norways-national-football-stadium-has-the-worlds-largest-vertical-solar-roof-how-does-it-w

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/10/software-based-car/#based

[karlachismylife]

Spot on the Mark || The Queen of the Clan pt.5

CW: fem!chubby!reader, mentions of animal marking/pasting, some piss mentioned again, dead animal mentioned (no descriptions).

A lot more work goes into a wildlife documentary than you thought. It was obvious that it’s not as simple as just grabbing good quality cameras and riding off into savannah blindly, but the amount of tricks and different ways to get enough shots for a compelling and educational storyline you’re learning about seems infinite: from studying animals’ trails and routes of migration to hauling senior operators up into the trees to film fluffy and feathered stars of the future documentary as up close as possible without disturbing their natural peace.

These people have done it time and time again, telling you about the months-long stakeouts on bigger productions, the ones that can afford to simply wait every day for an animal to come and do what the script requires; the masking of carefully placed hides that can still be not enough to trick a smart bird into thinking it was all alone and perform a beautiful mating dance; the difficult hikes that test everyone’s endurance and result in barely ten seconds of footage in the end cut. You can’t help but feel excited yet intimidated when your turn comes to participate in one such trick, intended to shorten the waiting time your smaller production just can’t afford.  It’s not that difficult, but it’s smart and elegant – at least in your opinion.

This is how you find yourself stuck in your Rover with Kir, wrapped in a small blanket for additional warmth, while he meddles with the sound equipment: speakers mounted on the hood of the car and a knot of wires connecting them to a laptop, screen covered up with a scarf to muffle its light. You’re holding your night vision camera pointed at a spot just several meters ahead, a fresh carcass placed under a tree to attract a carnivore, two more cameras planted at different angles on the ground and one more strapped to a branch right above the “dining table”.

A switch clicks, and the night fills with triumphant hyena whooping, a whole cacophony of different voices celebrating a kill. This is a dinner bell for lions – no matter what the public’s perception is, it’s often the big cats coming to steal hyenas’ fresh kills, not the other way around. You hold your breath, misty clouds of steam coming out of your mouth dissipating in the loud, poorly lit night. You wait.

Time doesn’t stretch as much as you would think. This isn’t a boring, monotonous wait of a text back in a stuffy big city apartment, the only “wildlife” sounds seeping through the closed windows – revving engines of nighttime dumbass street racers or neighbours yelling at each other over hysterically loud TV.

Compared to what you’re used to, savannah seems peaceful. Somewhere in the vast darkness big predators avoid each other’s paths, unwilling to start unnecessary fights. Grass rustles in a rhythmic pattern as little springhares jump through the night, stopping to glance at the huge, imposing shadow of a human car just once and continuing on their way. The wind breathes quietly and calmly with the cooling ground, welcoming a lively picture of a complex system, each part of which is perfectly in tune with others.

You feel like you could be a part of it – like it’s a place you can actually belong to, care for and be taken care of in return, unlike the constant hectic hostility of a city. They call it concrete jungles, but none of the brutal ways of nature you’ve witnessed in the wild so far can compare to the ruthless, pointless cruelty human kind inflicts on itself and everyone else.

There is a hopefulness inside you that was completely snuffed out previously, and it sounds like a smooth, lulling chirping of insects hidden in the wet grass.

Loud baboon yelling alerts you before you manage to clock any movement or hear an animal approaching your little spectacle. Insane luck. Before gluing yourself to the camera, you glance at the time and it’s barely an hour after you put the recording on – it’s hard to contain your excitement, but you manage to keep your hands steady as you scope the area in search of your guest. Kir shifts in his seat next to you, picking up his simple night vision binoculars and following the same trajectory as your camera lens.

When you see a distinctive hunched silhouette sniffing at the bait, you almost feel the tiniest bit of disappointment – no lions today, huh? – that quickly gets replaced with surprise.

The hyena doesn’t even touch the food you placed to lure animals in and turns its back on it, instead staring straight at you and Kir. Its ears twitch, clearly determining the direction where other hyenas’ noises are coming from, and slowly, almost leisurely, it moves towards you.

“It’s coming here, Kir,” you whisper, still keeping the camera rolling, too fascinated with the elegance of each silent step the huge, dark form with devilishly glowing eyes in your night vision tape takes. “Didn’t even try the meat… what do we do?”

“Ah, shit, that’s a first one.” He sounds more surprised than concerned, and after a moment of hesitation, reaches out to turn the luring sounds off. “Maybe it’s already killed and got territorial? Worst case scenario, we just scare it away. You getting the footage?”

“I… am, yeah… it’s pretty.” Somehow you aren’t even surprised anymore, when the hyena ignores the fact that the calls of its peers or more likely rivals stop abruptly – there’s something deeply wrong with them here, you decide, too much human contact or something. Maybe these ones were released from the sanctuary? But no one in their right mind would let such domesticated animals back into the wild, right?

While the myriad of possibilities swarms your mind, the camera keeps recording, and you, quite well-trained already, don’t even seem to realize that you’re following the hyena’s steps, turning the camera more and more to the side as the animal approaches your Rover. Wait-

“Tsk, hold up!” Kir’s hand hooks into your back belt loop and pulls you slightly back into the car. When did you even stand up to lean over the car door? “Let’s not diversify its diet today with soft city cookies, alright?”

“Sorry, sorry,” you whisper, sitting back down. For a moment – just a moment – you lose the animal out of sight while you pull your pants back up, and the next thing you know it’s already right in front of you.

Standing on its short hind legs and resting front paws on the car side to lean inside.

A big snout shoved almost into your face, coming into your darkness-shortened sight out of nowhere, is bound to freak you out – you drop your camera, luckily catching it in your lap, and pull back, pressing your back into Kir, who can only grunt quietly under the sudden weight and grip your shoulders protectively.

The hyena just snorts and tilts is head adorably, a soft, almost reproachful look in its bit wet eyes reflecting every little light on the car’s dashboard and your equipment. There’s something familiar to this slender, elegant snout, nodding in the air as the big nose takes in your scent, toned down by the contrasting savannah night cold.

“Chocolate?.. Is that you?” It’s a wild guess, honestly – you can’t see shit without your camera, only able to notice the hyena’s movements by the wet glistening of its eyes, nose and lips, and even through the night vision equipment you weren’t able to determine your guest’s colour – something that would definitely help distinguish Chocolate from any other hyenas; you doubt there are any others, who are already this big and grown up, yet still carry their childish dark brown hide. Maybe Chocolate is a melanistic variant? You’ve never heard of such mutations in spotted hyenas, but it’s not like you specialize in them, right?

A soft grunt tears through your thoughts again, a non-threatening pitch that almost sounds like purring – along with the repeated scratching of its claws on the steel side of your Rover, Chocolate seems like a cat more than anything. A huge, maned cat asking to be let inside.

“No-no-no, buddy, you’re not coming into the car. It’s humans only.” You try to sound stern – it seems to work on these animals, but it’s so damn hard, when your visitor whines quietly and flutters its rounded ears, staring at you hypnotically. “Come on, there’s food. Look!”

A nod in the direction of the carcass, attracting no one but some flies it seems, has no effect on the hyena. When you pretend to throw something there, Chocolate giggles quietly and lowers itself back on the ground – but when it realizes you won’t be throwing any of your real possessions for it to chase after, it stands up against, reaching its long, thick-furred neck to breathe a hot, steamy snort into your face.

And just like that, after you blink at the pretty muzzle in disbelief, trying to find an appropriate way to react to a wild, dangerous animal almost sneezing in your face, it leaves to inspect your car.

For a moment, you worry it’ll try and jump inside from the back, but it seems to have lost any interest to join a party it wasn’t invited to. Slowly, you scramble back into your seat, relieving Kir of your weight and earning a supportive pat on the back from him, and pick up your camera to watch Chocolate.

“What’s it doing?” Kir’s whisper suddenly elicits more of a reaction from the hyena than any of your stern talking – it lifts its head from the tire it was sniffing at and scowls, a striking killer smile flashing in your direction. Seeing its sharp canines nestled in the massive jaws makes a cold shiver run down your spine. This just was right in front of your face with nothing to protect you against a sudden attack.

“Shh, quiet… don’t agitate it,” you whisper back as soon as you manage to swallow the snowball-like lump in your throat. Kir shuts up, clearly a full-on believer in your hyena whisperer abilities now, and you watch on as Chocolate lowers its cute head back, sniffing and pawing at your tire.

After several minutes of looking between you and the wheel, sniffs and huffs growing more and more impatient and exasperated, it gives up on whatever it was trying to tell you – you could swear it rolls its eyes too! – and circles your car, flicking the fluffy brush on the end of its tail in what you can only assume to be a goodbye.

You’re wrong. A real goodbye is left a few meters away from the Rover on Kir’s side. Your curious night visitor stops abruptly, sniffs the air, tilting its head so far back that it almost rests on its shoulder blades, and then, without a warning – what warning could you expect though? – it crouches down to paste over a particular spot in the tall grass.

“Is that?..” – “Yes.” You tear yourself away from the camera to glance at Kir, just in time to see him sigh heavily and put his binoculars down, rubbing his hand down his face painted with disbelief, eyebrows raised high and lips pressed together. You’re still not sure – even though little snickers already start escaping your throat and roll down your nose in sweet snorts – so you pry again: “The spot where you went to-“ – “Yes.”

Even the need to hold your camera still to capture Chocolate marking its territory with a thick smelly paste smeared all over the grass Kir went to pee in several hours ago can’t prevent you from giggling. Anxious about scaring the animal and provoking it, you cover your own mouth and keep filming – eyes on the little black and white picture just in time to see Chocolate shake its plush butt, tail high up to assert dominance, and turn to look at you.

Or, perhaps, to look at Kir.

“Okay, okay, got it, no pissing on your territory. Jeez, buddy, no need to be so petty about it, I probably live here as long as you do.” Hearing Kir mutter under his nose as he gets stared down by a proud carnivore is hilarious.

“You disrespected it. What’s it like, to have a sworn enemy because of your bladder?” Your little giggles elicit two smiles at the same time – an embarrassed one from Kir, who threatens to snore into your ear directly once you wrap up this nightly stakeout, and another wide, toothy one from Chocolate.

You can’t be sure with the blurry image your camera shows you, but you once again feel like it winks at you. How likely is it for this hyena to have some eye problems that cause it to constantly dish out the flirtiest winks an animal is capable of?

“Oh, look, it’s leaving,” Kir finally turns away from the direction Chocolate left in, and just scoffs when you hear distant whooping slowly pick up in frequency before it disappears into the night. “Wanna try with the record again? I’m not sure we will attract anyone if there are actual hyenas around, though.”

“No, no, let’s try again,” you’re fully energized despite your arms feeling cold because the blanket slipped off your shoulders when you got spooked by Chocolate. Kir pulls it back up, wrapping you in a warm cocoon, and rubs your shoulder absentmindedly while he rewinds the recording and tries slightly different settings. “Maybe we’ll attract Stinky at least, these two seem to be buddies.”

“Yeah, right,” he responds, wrapping his own jacket tighter around himself. “Because that little shit will cause less chaos that the one we just saw.”

You can’t argue with that. If that was Stinky that came to the false call, it would have definitely jumped into the back of your Rover.

“At least that’s some good footage to post online. They’re cute. Will be good promo for the documentary.”

Kir grumbles something into the warm thermos, steam clouding the air between you, and hands it to you – to warm both your hands and your whole body from the inside.

Even if you don’t catch a lion tonight, you still caught something precious – right in your heart. You just have to find a way to define it properly.

Part 4 | Part 6

Series masterlist | Main masterlist

Tagging: @elaineiswithyou-blog @creepingeva @my-halo-is-a-little-broken @sillymanjaro @ihatethinkingofnames10 @ravensfeatheruniverse @yaminax @ljh861 @darkangel4121 @ginger-n-coco @grey-shadow6475 @cryingpages @mothsdrabbles @mc-glare-is-king @vixxie22 @aldis-nuts @terraantarctica @henhouse-horrors @blizzivy @perfectus-in-morte

Here's an illustration to Chocolate's visit:

Comrades, I think I'm too deep in this now, I started watching documentaries about filming documentaries, the docuseption is coming for me...

[hereforthehitsbaby]

Peeper | Cooper Adams/Abbott x F!Reader

Synopsis: Getting the Halloween season started early with back to back parties was enough to drain you – tucker you out in a heartbeat. But Cooper used it as an excuse to see you, really see you.

Warnings: Dark!Cooper, Mentions of Stalking, Perv!Cooper, Cooper Being a Peeping Tom, Male Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Mentions of Childhood Abuse, Mentions of Fire, Mentions of a Hostage Situation, Mentions of Being Held Hostage, Choking

Rating: M

Word Count: 5.5k

Author’s Note: The SWAT outfit brought this on. You’re welcome in advance. This is second person POV from Cooper’s perspective; I wanted to try something a bit different so I hope you enjoy!  

If you would like to be tagged for my fics, please fill this out

The darkness of night is the perfect way to hatch plans, the perfect way of preying on those who you find interest in. Never does it have to be in a malicious way. No, never does it have to be evil. It can be kind and clean, courteous and courageous, just depending on the context of the situation. Sometimes the darkness can hide a lot of bad things, shroud them in a cloud of abandon so evil can take over. They can run around on short legs, running here and there are supersonic speeds – to which no one can detect a thing. It’s brilliant in a way how evil can push itself through anyone – or anyone for that matter. How it can turn someone so delicate and perfect, into a monster overnight. But not for him, no, the evil didn’t burn itself into him from birth. He was a product of evil, a product of malice, a product of hate. He is the prodigal son of evil, he’s its perfect child.

To hide that part of himself away everyday ate at him, gnawing on his bones and flesh like a disease. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to lash out – surely anyone would from stressful work conditions to life not going the way it was planned out to be. Yet no one can justify it, no one can see that part of him, the truest part of his darkened soul. It’s a mystery, a character for that matter. Though he doesn’t see it that way. He sees it as an extension of his rage, his tumultuous upbringing and constant bullying – it is a part of his personality he can switch off with just the right coaxing. Like any type of characteristic, it isn’t long before others start to notice. Not in the way that you expect, but in a duller manner. Here and there things; His cleanliness, how he doesn’t like to leave his fingerprints anywhere, the order he needs things arranged or how he copes with uncertainty. They never raised red flags – but keen eyes took notice of his particular nature. If only they knew beneath the surface, a killer was in their midst.

Cooper Adams loves to save lives, that is a given. Fire chief for the Philadelphia Fire Department for ten years, in the business for a total of seventeen. This is what he was meant to do, what he was meant to be at the end of the day. He is the solace for those who are suffering, he is the salvation to those who are stuck. He can play God and be rewarded for it – how sweet is that? But to Cooper it isn’t about playing God or being the one who is in control, it’s more than that. It’s being who everyone relies on for stressful situations, the one who knows their way out of any type of deal. It’s prevalent in his eyes when he speaks, the passion he has for his job, his family – everything in his life really. A wholesome, well-rounded American individual; He is the picture-perfect example of masculinity. He’s the picture-perfect example of a psychopath.

Too much anger and rage was directed towards him as a child, and it was not beneficial for a growing brain. Rejection at a young age can cause fear; Fear of intimacy, fear of expression, always needing to people please to get someone to like you. Cooper went through that, way too much to admit. Always fighting to have his mother’s love, which he learned too early that would always come in the form of a hand across his face. His tears were tears of love, according to his mother. Every hit that was administered by her own hands, showed just how much she loved her son. Cooper couldn’t tell the difference until he got older – until she passed away. Alas, he felt free to be himself, instead of being her disappointment.

He never wanted to get into this line of work, other work per say. Like all others, the opportunity presented itself like any other day. A fresh-faced twenty-five-year-old who wanted to make a difference in the world after the tragedies the world faced. He wanted to be a household name, one where anyone in town could say and smiles would erupt. He would always be their hero, their martyr when the flames would not extinguish. If it meant saving everyone, he was always the first on the line. That was until his first ever fire, when he realized the world no longer had a need for his kindness – but his brutality. A seven-alarm fire at Aramark Tower in Center City was supposed to change his life forever, in which it did but not for the right reason. Cooper would’ve never described himself as a violent person, but this day changed everything.

On the twelfth floor sat the culprit for the fire, a worker who was holding a whole room hostage. Some of his very own firefighters were under this man’s unsteady hand. The gun was shaking uncontrollably in the man’s hand as he pointed it towards Cooper’s chest – the smoke slowly growing thicker from the floors above. The haze was starting to set in, and the man couldn’t stop coughing. At the moment he turned Cooper pressed the man’s front against the adjacent wall – letting all of the hostages out, the workers fleeing as the next group of firefighters came up. His own department, his flesh and blood. He was grateful they were there. But not from his firehouse, those ones fled with the chaos. Instead the firefighters from across down stared at him with amused looks, surely enough impressed that a young man like Cooper was holding his own against some sociopath. Cooper was wrong though, that is when he started to notice the evil within. Its bloodied fingers sinking into his flesh like razor wire, slicing and dicing his insides with every scale it climbed. He could feel it climbing up the column of his spine, sinking its meaty fingers through his spinal discs. “Good luck finding your way out, rookie.” Someone yelled at him as they slammed the door shut, barricading him in the inside.

All hell broke loose in that moment, that gnawing sensation he had when he was a child coming back into his adulthood – expect he couldn’t push it down anymore. Clawing at his own throat, he released a guttural scream of agony as the smoke filled the room – dropping to his hands and knees with animalistic movements. “We’re just kidding, bud. Welcome to the-“ Cooper didn’t recognize the voices, he didn’t understand who it was. The man he once held against the wall was cowering in the corner, rocking back and forth with the gun pressed into his palm. He stared at Cooper like he wasn’t human, but a creature. All Cooper could see was red, filling his vision, covering his mask to the point where he could not see. He could feel it though, his body moving languidly like he was swimming – graceful, intricate, serene. He was swimming out in Myrtle Beach like when he was a kid, feeling the crisp summer sun scorch him. But boy was it worth it, it felt safe again – knowing nothing could hurt him.

As if to wipe the sunscreen off of his forehead, Cooper brought his hand around his mask to clear off the water from it. Though it wasn’t water, and he was not swimming in the ocean. Instead in front of Cooper laid six bodies, cut into pieces. Blood coated his mask, his gear, his soul. Everything was red; The white walls coated in heroic blood of those firefighters. The man who held everyone hostage, a gunshot wound to the temple. Cooper’s eyes flared at the sight, chest heaving as the axe shook within his hand. The monster he always suppressed, let feed on his trauma and rejection as a child, finally found its place within his world – within his life. It was clear the fire was starting to burn closer to his floor when the sprinkles went off, a showering of clear and red flowing down the walls. The dark carpet soaked with the blood of the victims, and the chaos of his dissociation.

Cooper walked neatly over to the deceased man and laid the axe next to him, letting the sprinkles above soak his gear until no red stood. No one saw him go up to this floor, he never commed in like he was supposed to. No one would know it was him; The cameras are long gone. “Always the monster, Cooper. You will never outrun your evil, son.” His mom’s tender voice swept into his brain, causing him to tear up – for the amount he loathed that woman, he still missed her voice. Oxygen was starting to run low in his tank, but he knew he needed to get out. Instead of staying on the twelfth floor, Cooper managed to make his way down to the sixth, panting, out of breath, and soaked. “Adams! Where the fuck were you!?” His fire chief at the time yelled, dragging Cooper out of the doorway and into the conference room for a moment. “S-Sixteenth fl-floor. P-people s-screaming, d-d-dead.” Cooper managed to let out before he collapsed, the hard linoleum whacking against his head. Everything went dark so quick, but for the first time in his life – he felt justified.

Cooper gasps as he hears your voice coming from outside of his car, his hands shaking at the recounting of his trauma. Cooper hated waiting around, letting his mind wander, because every time it always brought him back to his first kills. The first ever lives he took, before The Butcher was his name. In a way he felt for those firefighters, knowing how the aftermath made him look to be an almost casualty of The Ripper. The narrative he chose for the last seventeen years has worked in his favor, and he would keep it that way. But alas, it eats at him just like that little demon did. But you, you were what he needed – you were his solace. You kept him sane and didn’t even know who he was. It was perfect. All Cooper could do now was slowly break you, and you’d never even know.

As you walked past Cooper’s black suburban, you pulled the nurse’s cap off of your head – thinking it appropriate to be a nurse for your first of many Halloween parties. The outfit complimented your body so well; Cooper loved watching how it hugged you in all the right places, showing off his favorite parts of you. He has seen you look at him so many times, like you fully saw him rather than it being through him. You made him feel alive, feel sane in such a cruel world. How could he ever thank you for that? Bringing himself back to reality as you walked to your front door, Cooper swallowed down the panic ready to break free from his throat, closing his eyes to ground himself. All this waiting, contemplation, it was all for you. All these months, silently pining over you, he knew his time would come soon. Your time will come soon. He wasn’t going to let this will they won’t they play out anymore. This wasn’t going to be like one of the books you liked to read – it was going to be better.

Thankfully with everyone in their Halloween costumes making their way back home, Cooper could easily blend in with the rest of the crowd. His costume was unconventional – but accurate, and cool. He managed to nab one of the Philadelphia SWAT tactical gear a while ago. Never did he think it would be of use, but here he is. It left him looking inconspicuous, blending in with all of his surroundings. When the streetlights would shut off at midnight, he didn’t need to worry about getting caught or even being seen. He could go full incognito and not have to worry – because at the end of the day no one in the neighborhood watched. They never looked out for each other or mentioned when things felt off. They were complacent in their day to day, keeping their lives separate from everyone else. That’s what Cooper loved the most about your neighborhood – no one would be suspicious of him, or know he was there. Seven-foot-tall fencing covered your property; Around the sides and back into the woods. It was private, spacious, and perfect for you. He was happy you took his advice and haggled the price. Though it was only left as a sticky note on your work desk – he convinced you that you wrote it. Cooper hated gaslighting you but, it was the only way for you to get that home. He always felt guilty but, it worked out the way it needed to.

The kitchen light came on in the front of your house, your nurse costume slowly being shed away from the uncomfortable feeling of it. Cooper felt his knuckles tighten around the steering wheel as he watched you, finding his perfect moment to slip out. Your back was pressed against the kitchen counter, looking out into the interior of your home versus outside. A gaggle of college girls dressed as nuns wandered by, causing Cooper to see his opening. Slipping out of his suburban, he put on the SWAT helmet, buckling it right under his chin as he kept his eyes forward, humming to himself to keep him sane. A small smile was present on his lips as the girls stopped for a moment, checking their map location to see if the party was the right way. None of them even acknowledged him as he walked past, keeping his eyes set on your home instead. Coming from the opposite way was a few frat guys dressed as priests, causing Cooper to roll his eyes at the on-the-nose couple outfits. The squeals the girls let out at the guys made his hair stand on end, reminding him too much of the Lady Raven concert last October. The last time he saw Riley, Logan…the last time he could be a dad.

Thinking about his kids made him grow tense, worried – it sucked being away from them, but this was for the best, for now. It wasn’t like he didn’t know how they were doing in school, he kept tabs from miles away. Cooper never wanted to stop being a dad, and he wasn’t going to start that anytime soon. Bringing his phone out of his vest pocket, he brought it up to his ear, mimicking a phone call as he rounded the fence you had up, standing on the left-hand side as he walked into your yard. Silently he thanked you for never replacing your camera out back, or the motion lights for that matter. Having it be this easy for him was a dream come true, plus with your neighbors away – others unable to see him creeping around back, there was no way he wasn’t going to see you now. He tucked his phone away into his pocket once more as your back porch came into view, the stairs on the left side flush to the door. That is when Cooper smirked to himself, chuckling low into the night – seeing the one thing you forgot to do, lock the back door.

In fact, it wasn’t even closed but cracked open the tiniest amount. As a former fire chief, he needed to know these things; If a seal was loose or not flush enough against the grain, it could invite oxygen in, make the fire rage on harder if the door were to be kicked in. Thankfully no fires would be breaking out at your place, not when he made sure they wouldn’t. That itch inside of him was starting to blister, his pupils dilating with the thought of creeping through your home. Cooper was so dead set on watching you tonight through your windows, that he didn’t even consider the option of going inside. With all the clunky gear on though – he was hesitant. He didn’t let that stop him from what he really wanted; You. As his back was crouched under your living room window, he used the edge of the flashlight on his belt to push your door open, the instant smell of nutmeg and cinnamon flooding his senses.

With every inch the door started to open, he grew cautious, knowing at any point he could push it open completely and be met with you. He didn’t think you’d run and tell anyone, that was a fact he was certain of. But he didn’t necessarily know if you’d fight back. A feisty little thing like you wouldn’t surprise him, everyone has their own demons they deal with. To Cooper, more or less he didn’t want to ruin the clean research he has done on you over the last year. When he saw you after escaping police custody that night, he knew you’d turn everything around for him. A giver, a lover, an angel on this Earth – you brought joy wherever you walked, and didn’t tell a soul about your own struggles. He wanted to take that away from you, claim your suffering so you could be happy. He would take everything away from you if it meant you would be happy, safe, and serene in your own life. He didn’t want you to know pain – only joy.

As the back door swung open enough to slide his body through, Cooper stood fully erect. The SWAT gear was a bit much trying to push through the gap, causing a creak to sound. Standing still half in and half out, Cooper pushed through the last bit with a grimace, hoping you didn’t dare to come around that corner. With the layout of your home, as soon as he entered through the back door, he was met with the foyer; Winter boots, coats, and scarves hung from the hook on the wall – the warm light flooding through his body. It caused him to feel nostalgic, those times in the late 80’s to early 90’s growing up; Halloween was such a magical time, full of bright colors and warm flavors, things were good – he could be a good boy if it meant the beatings would stop. “Fuck,” a low whimper came from the opposite side of the wall, causing Cooper to stop in his tracks. He was ever-so-slowly closing the back door, making sure no creaks or groans happened as it was shut, clicking over the lever lock, as well as the two deadbolts. The curtain pulled flush to the glass; No one would see a thing.

Another whimper flowed effortlessly through the air, circling around Cooper in whisps of gold and auburn. He felt his cheeks heating at the anticipation, his toes tingling with excitement. Placing a booted foot across the fresh carpet leading to the living room, Cooper let his head peak out from where he was standing, extending out the smallest of bits to catch a glimpse of you. What he had failed to realize was the position of the living room to the foyer; You could not see him from your position but, he could see you. The couch was pushed under the bay window in the living room, a plethora of plants sat in the sills spot. The arm of the couch was a few inches away from the wall to which he was creeping around, giving him the most beautiful picture he has ever seen. It crossed his mind for a brief moment to take a photo of you like this, but he did not want to break the image set forth. He was enraptured by you, a beautiful creature in a dull world.

On the couch you laid flat, one leg tossed up around the back of the couch whilst the other fell open against the coffee table. Your platform heels were still on your feet; The clean plastic leather heavy contrast with the red bottoms. The nurse’s dress you had on earlier for a costume was pulled up and pushed down around your midsection, baring your breasts for all to see. All the while your left-hand was delicately placed between your thighs, running up and down your slit with a squelch. Your right hand was cupping your breast, toying with your nipple, your entire body shivering from the feeling. “Yes,” breathlessly you moan into the open air, grinding your hips against your hand. The second the pads of your fingers make contact with your clit, you knew you were a goner. The softness of your fingers contrasting with the warmth of your cunt caused you to slip into your own mind, not aware at all of your surroundings; You liked it that way.

Cooper on the other hand couldn’t get enough of you, trying so hard to suppress a moan he threatened to let out. His cock jolted at the moans you were letting out, throbbing harshly behind his black jeans. All it would take is undoing his belt buckle the slightest of bits to relieve some of the pressure, and he couldn’t handle it anymore. Cooper’s eyes never left your face as he peered down at you, his tall stature making everything you were doing abundantly clear. Sneaking around the corner enough to hide his body from you, Cooper undid his belt as quietly as he could, tucking the buckle into his pocket to get it out of the way. A quick flick of his thumb caused his jeans to unbutton, and the zipper to fall down easily. A wave of cold sweats broke out around his body as his skin was to the open air, the breeze cutting through his black briefs.

His gloved hand slid down the front of his briefs, running the padded side down his erect cock. The friction was a delicious burn at first, but it was not going to hold him over. Snaking his fingers between his teeth, Cooper ripped the glove off as fast as he could, shoving his hand back into his underwear and releasing himself. When the heated, erect flesh of his cock met the cool air of your home, he whimpered. Not something he would ever consider himself to do but, you made him weak in the best way possible. His bare thumb pressed against the base of his cock, trying to steady himself. A small bead of cum was pooled at the head, glistening against the firelight. Hearing your scandalizing moans set Cooper on edge, causing him to twitch due to your sweet mewls. He knew he wasn’t going to last very long, a year without any type of contact with another person would do that. Cooper wrapped his thick fingers around the underside of his cock, squeezing in slow increments to get used to the feel again.

He was burning from the inside out, his body up in flames as he watched you – while touching himself. Slowly he slid his meaty hand up the full length of his shaft, pulsating his hand in short doses; He could feel his eyes rolling back at the relief. He never found pleasure in pleasuring himself – it felt like too much work when he could make someone else feel good with him. As his eyes laid upon you sprawled out, pleasuring yourself for anyone to see, he could understand why the self-indulgence of masturbating was intoxicating, why many loved it. For him he felt the tension of the last year start to flow away; Each stroke of his strong hand sent a cascade of pleasure down his spine. He could find himself drowning in it all if he wasn’t careful, but the recklessness in him wanted to paint your face.

Peering down at your half naked form, Cooper gained a steady pace on his cock, finding the right rhythm that worked for him. In tandem with the tight circles of your fingers, he found it erotic that the same ministrations were giving him pleasure as they were you. It felt like you two were connected, not physically but on another level. He could feel his cock stiffening at the thought, his tip a violent shade of purple from all the arousal. He needed to be closer to you, this distance was eating him alive. Cooper was never this careless, he never would’ve made himself known in a situation like this. The smell of your arousal and the thin sheen of sweat on your forehead caused the animal inside of him to peer out, the one that released from him seventeen years ago, the one that put him on the map as a brutal killer. It seemed to have climbed his ribcage, puncturing his lungs, spleen, kidneys as it rose. The feral monster within him gnawing at bone, sawing through muscle and tissue in order to rise higher. Primal grunts and groans were releasing out of Cooper at an alarming rate – he couldn’t hold back much longer. For his legs took him not where he wanted to be, but where he desperately needed. Directly. Over. You.

“C-Cooper!” You moaned out sweetly, bring him back into reality. Cooper’s eyes flared out of their momentary hypnosis to see what he was being met with. Instead of hiding behind the wall of your foyer, watching you touch yourself from afar – Cooper was hovering over your head by the arm of the couch. His glistening cock mere inches away from your face, his eyes as dark as the night. He was fucked out of his mind and you were loving every moment of it. The sight of him so feral, so taken with the sight of your arousal, it was enough to cause your climax to speed up. “Touch me,” you whimpered softly, bringing the hand that was on your breast up to swipe over the wet head of his cock. The cum spattered on your thumb with a simple flick, you did not hesitate to rub it against your bottom lip. Cooper wasn’t even phased that you knew his name, someone who you have never had any contact with, or knew of what he had done – he presumed. But that was just it – it was your job to know everyone in town. To know who your next victim could be.

Cooper’s gloved left-hand didn’t hesitate to grasp at your throat from behind, restricting the blood flow to your brain. The euphoric sensation of pressure building in your head caused your orgasm to crest – a bright burning life of warmth behind your eyes as your fingers worked double time. Your body shivered with each stroke; Long, languid moans seeping out like a broken waterpipe – the flood kept coming and you didn’t want it to end. Watching you get off on your own hand caused Cooper’s climax to ignite. With a few rough thrusts into his hand, Cooper felt his balls pull up into himself – ready to burst at the seams. The animalistic scream he managed to get out was strangled as he gripped at your throat harder, his cock pressed against your forehead. Simply looking up at him was enough to make him cum. You felt like he was mere moments away from ending you where you laid, but you knew he wouldn’t – couldn’t for that matter.

Your name left his lips in a mewl of passion as his cock met its end. A clean shot of his seed cascading down your chin, your breast, and to your clothed stomach. Every bit of cum he was letting out was enough to make you wet again; A man without the touch of a woman, or himself for that matter. Each thrust of himself into his own hand caused thicker shots to flow over your body – you weren’t going to stop him. Instead, you held out your tongue as he kept going, catching some of his salty seed in your mouth. With Cooper’s eyes screwed tightly shut, you brought your wet fingers up to his naked hand, running it along the protruding veins on the back of his hand. That was enough to wake him from his quiet slumber above you, feeling the pressure building harder within your head. As the last of his cum shot out across your tongue, Cooper let his hand around your neck relax, his eyes falling open. The sight below him was a masterpiece, one he wishes he could make last forever. His essence covering your body – a fucked out look on your face. This was his own personal heaven, and he never wanted to come down from it. Your gentle gaze met his blissful one, and he felt his heart stammer. Nothing in this world could compare to your beauty; Distance did not due you justice. As he stands above you, he got to see the real you – he couldn’t get over how gorgeous you truly are.

“Lovely to finally meet you, Mr. Adams,” you huffed with a laugh after swallowing his load, biting your lip as you slowly sat up. It broke Cooper out of his daydream, his cock soft against the waistband of his briefs – still a mouthful even when not erect. Standing at full attention, you glanced down at your body to see the aftermath – feeling a flush growing over your skin at the sight of being covered in him. You could tell it was affecting Cooper as he put his cock back into his briefs, the crotch on his jeans stiffening slightly. “You as well, Miss.” He managed to let out, chuckling as his eyes cascaded down your body. There was something dark within him that he was trying to push down; You didn’t like that. It’s what drew you to him those months ago, made you want to move to this town, to be close to him. You knew who Cooper Adams is, how he was stalking you. You played into every hand of his, wanting him to know you were the good in his world. You two could rule together, be the parents of evil – to let it out instead of holding it in. He is The Butcher, and you are The Baker.

“You’re so beautiful,” Cooper murmured, not wanting to seem out of the ordinary but he needed you to know. Your eyes glanced up over him in his SWAT outfit, feeling the slick between your legs growing once more. His broad shoulders looked so form fitted in the tactical vest. His thick thighs were highlighted by the rugged denim of his jeans. His large feet covered in beat up leather boots – he is the walking embodiment of sex, and you wanted to climb him. Feeling flattered at his words, you started to make your way over to him, watching how the black of his pupils cancelled out the auburn of his irises – showing that Cooper wasn’t fully in control, but the demon inside him was. A lump formed at the back of his throat as the post nut clarity set in, trying to find his words without making a mistake. “I thought you’d be afraid of me, if you knew who I was.” Cooper mumbled, keeping his eyes trained on your carpeted floor, feeling a flush rise upon his cheeks. You felt your lips pull up into a soft smile, showcasing your loving nature. Bringing a hand up to Cooper’s cheek, you gently caressed at the small stubble growing on his chin, his disheveled brown hair in his eyes. Your right hand came up to push the hair out of his face, giving you a good grasp on his locks as you raked your fingers through. Sliding down the back of his head, at the base of his neck you wrapped his hairs around your fingers, tugging at the root with precision. Looking up into his eyes, you let a sinister smirk fall to your lips, your lips a mere few centimeters off of his; “I fear no man.”

If Cooper was right about anything in this world, it was that you were his match. The Butcher and The Baker, wreaking havoc across Philadelphia.

---

General Taglist: @rubyfruitjungle @cherryinterlude @lilly3434 @amethystblackkchaos @rosaleelovesdilfs @babygorewhore @dirtylittlefairytales @redpillbluepill @strangererotica @minedofmoria

Cooper Adams Smut: @exhoism

[lila-lou]

✨Houston - Pt. 1/2✨

Summary: While Jensen was away filming, a hurricane hit and you had to face it alone, burdened by a secret. When Jensen finally returned, relief and fear collided as you shared the news.

-requested-

Pairing: Jensen x Reader

Warnings: Language, ANGST

Word Count: 6986

A/N: No hate towards anybody. It's just fiction.

English isn’t my first language, please be lenient. 🩷

Jensen had been gone for his new show in Los Angeles, filming for what felt like an eternity — over ten weeks now, with no real break in sight. The production schedule was tighter than ever due to unexpected delays when one of the main actors fell sick, which caused the entire shoot to be pushed back. You hadn’t seen him for over two months, and the distance was starting to weigh on you. There was no chance for quick weekend visits or even mid-week surprises. Everything had changed with this new project.

In those long ten weeks, Jensen had managed to get only three days off, and he used them to fly back to see his kids. You couldn’t fault him for that and you understood how much he missed them. Still, the loneliness lingered like an unwelcome shadow. Tomorrow, though, was supposed to be different. He was finally coming home, even if just for a week, and you had been counting down the days like a lifeline.

But now, as you stood by the large window overlooking the ocean, something inside you twisted with unease. The darkening skies in the distance mirrored the storm brewing in your mind. The TV in the background blared with warnings of severe weather rolling in from the Gulf, interrupting your thoughts with each alert. The meteorologist spoke of high winds and heavy rain, not quite enough to warrant an evacuation, but enough to make you feel a creeping sense of dread.

It had been two years since you and Jensen made the decision to move to Houston, settling into this beautiful, sprawling house right on the coastline. At the time, it seemed perfect. The ocean view, the sunsets over the water, the space and serenity. But now, as the storm warnings flashed across the screen, you wondered if you’d made the right decision. You had never been good with storms. The sound of the wind howling, the sharp crack of thunder — they had always sent shivers down your spine, leaving you feeling vulnerable and anxious.

The move to the Gulf of Mexico seemed impulsive now, in hindsight. Sure, Jensen loved it here, and the house was gorgeous, but you had always known this fear lurked deep inside you. Storms unsettled you, and the thought of facing one alone, without him by your side, only made it worse.

Your stomach twisted in knots as you pressed your forehead against the cool glass, watching the gray clouds gather on the horizon.

You groaned, feeling the frustration bubble up inside you. The anxiety gnawed at you, and the tension in your shoulders made it hard to relax. “Of all days”, you muttered under your breath, pushing yourself away from the window.

With a sigh, you grabbed your phone and dialed your best friend’s number, knowing she’d be awake even though she lived halfway across the world. Spain. Never having to deal with the heavy weather nonsense like hurricanes or tornadoes. You often teased her about how lucky she was to live in a country where the worst thing she had to worry about was a hot summer day or maybe some rain in the winter.

As you walked toward the kitchen, waiting for her to pick up, the soft ring of the phone seemed to be swallowed by the growing rumble of thunder outside. Your eyes drifted to the oven as you remembered the batch of chocolate cookies you’d put in earlier. Well, they were more Jensen’s favorite than yours.

The phone finally clicked, and your friend’s cheerful voice came through the speaker. “Hola, chica! What’s up?”.

You let out a heavy sigh as you reached for the kettle, flicking it on to make yourself some tea. “Hey… just trying to calm my nerves. We’ve got a storm rolling in, and you know how much I hate this stuff”.

“Storm? Ugh, I don’t envy you”, she replied with a sympathetic tone. “It’s like a whole other world over there, isn’t it? Here I am, in sunny Spain, sipping wine and you’re getting hit with storms again. Why did you agree to move to the Gulf in the first place?”.

You chuckled, a bit of bitterness in your voice as you pulled out a mug from the cabinet. “I have no idea. Jensen wanted the ocean, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. You know me—anything to make him happy. But every time a storm rolls in, I swear I regret it”.

As the kettle clicked off, you poured the hot water over the tea bag, the steam curling up into the air. You leaned against the counter, glancing at the oven timer. Just a few more minutes on the cookies. “I mean, I get it”, you continued, twirling the tea bag absentmindedly in the water. “He loves it here, and the house is beautiful, but I just can’t shake this fear. Every time the weather turns bad, I get this pit in my stomach. And it doesn’t help that he’s been away for so long. It’s hard to deal with all this on my own”.

She sighed on the other end of the line, her voice softening. “How long has he been gone this time?”.

You swallowed, staring down at the swirling tea in your mug. “Ten weeks”, you murmured, feeling the weight of that number pressing down on you. “Ten long weeks, and in all that time, he’s only had three days off. I get it, he used those to see his kids, which is exactly what he should do. But it’s just been… hard”.

Your friend stayed quiet for a moment, as if letting the words sink in. She knew how much you hated when Jensen was away for extended periods, especially when life got difficult. “Ten weeks… damn”, she finally said, her tone laced with sympathy. “That’s rough, chica. I know you’re strong, but that’s a lot, especially with this storm hitting now”.

You nodded, even though she couldn’t see you, feeling the tension rise again as you heard another distant rumble of thunder. “It’s just been one thing after another lately”, you admitted, rubbing a hand over your eyes. “And now this storm… it’s not supposed to be anything major, but you know me. I hate this stuff. The wind, the rain, it freaks me out. Always has”.

Your friend’s voice softened even more. “I remember. Back when we used to talk late at night during storms, you’d be on edge, counting down the minutes until it passed. I can’t imagine being by the ocean during one”.

You sighed, feeling a lump form in your throat. “Yeah, and I’m here, in this huge house, by myself. Well, I’ve got Jensen’s cookies”, you added with a weak laugh, trying to lighten the mood, but the fear still lingered beneath the surface.

“Wish I could teleport myself over there and keep you company”, she said warmly. “Though I’m not sure how much help I’d be. Maybe I could distract you with all my boring Spain stories. Sun, siestas, and sangria… You know, the usual”.

You smiled, even though it didn’t fully reach your eyes. “That sounds a hell of a lot better than storm prep and waiting for the power to go out”.

Another sigh escaped your friend. “You need a break from all this. Having him around will help, I’m sure”.

“Yeah, I hope so too”, you whispered, the longing for Jensen’s presence making your chest tighten. The thought of him walking through the door tomorrow, even for just a week, was the only thing keeping you grounded right now.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, the kind that stretched just a little too long, and you knew your friend was working up to something. When she finally spoke again, her voice was quiet, hesitant. “Have you… told him yet?”.

Your heart skipped a beat, the weight of her words settling heavily in the pit of your stomach. The unspoken truth between you, the one you had been avoiding for weeks. You took a shaky breath, gripping the edge of the counter for support as the familiar wave of anxiety washed over you again.

“No”, you whispered, barely loud enough for her to hear, your voice breaking slightly. “Not yet”.

Your friend didn’t rush to respond, giving you the space to gather your thoughts. You could almost hear the sympathy through the phone, her understanding of how complicated things had become. She knew you too well—knew the fear that had been gnawing at you since you first saw the two pink lines on the test, and how you had been holding onto that secret ever since, waiting for the right moment to break the news.

If there even was a “right moment”.

You closed your eyes, leaning back against the cool kitchen counter, the weight of your unspoken truth pressing down on your chest. “It’s not exactly something I can drop over the phone”, you added softly, more to yourself than to her.

“I know”, she said gently, her voice filled with understanding. “It’s definitely face-to-face news”.

You let out a heavy sigh, your eyes drifting toward the window where the dark clouds were still gathering. The irony wasn’t lost on you — the brewing storm outside wasn’t nearly as frightening as the one in your heart. Jensen had been so clear from the beginning, right from the very start of your relationship. He loved his kids, adored being their father, but he was done. He didn’t want more. He had been through the sleepless nights, the diapers, the chaos of raising young children, and he had made it crystal clear that he had no desire to go back to that. No more babies. No more starting over.

And now here you were, facing the very thing he never wanted. The very thing that might push him away, might change everything between you.

“I just…”. Your voice wavered as you struggled to find the right words. “He was so sure, you know? About not wanting more kids. He told me from the beginning that he was done, and I accepted that. I was okay with it because I love him. But now…”. You trailed off, biting your lip to stop your emotions from spilling over.

“Now, things are different”, she finished softly, filling in the words you couldn’t bring yourself to say.

You nodded, even though she couldn’t see you, tears stinging at the corners of your eyes. “I don’t even know how he’s going to react. What if he’s angry? What if this is the one thing that changes everything? I don’t want to lose him, but I can’t hide this forever. And the longer I wait, the harder it’s going to get”.

Your friend was quiet for a moment, letting the weight of your words settle. When she spoke again, her voice was filled with warmth and understanding. “You’re going to have to tell him, eventually. And yes, it’s probably going to be hard. But you know Jensen. He loves you. Whatever his initial reaction, that won’t change. He might need time to process it, but he’s not the type to just walk away”.

You sniffed, wiping at your eyes as a tear finally slipped free. “I know… I know that. But it’s just—he’s been gone for so long, and everything’s already so strained. What if this is the thing that breaks us?”.

There was a long silence on the other end, and for a moment you wondered if the call had dropped. But then your friend spoke, her voice quiet but firm. “This won’t break you. Not if you’re honest with him. It’s going to be tough, but you can’t carry this alone. You deserve to have someone beside you through all of it. And… he deserves to know”.

Your throat tightened, and you swallowed hard, feeling the weight of her words. “I just… I’m scared”, you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper. “I’m scared of how he’ll react, and I’m scared of what this will mean for us”.

“I know”, she said softly. “But you’re strong, and you can do this. And no matter what, I’m here for you. You don’t have to go through this alone”.

You nodded again, grateful for her support even across the ocean. The sound of the timer beeping in the background startled you, pulling you from the heaviness of the moment. The cookies were done. You forced a small smile, trying to hold onto the sliver of normalcy that baking had given you.

“I’ll tell him when he comes home”, you said quietly, more to yourself than to her. “Face to face. It’s the only way”.

“You’re doing the right thing”, your friend assured you. “He loves you, and he’s going to be there for you, no matter what. Just give him time”.

You took a deep breath, steadying yourself. “Thanks. I really needed to hear that”.

“That’s what I’m here for,” she replied warmly. “Now, go enjoy those cookies, okay? And try not to worry too much about tomorrow. One storm at a time”.

You laughed softly, a bittersweet sound. “Yeah… one storm at a time”.

As you hung up the phone and pulled the warm cookies from the oven, the weight of what lay ahead still hung in the air. Tomorrow, Jensen would come home, and with him, the conversation that would change everything. You could only hope that, like the storm outside, it would pass without too much damage.

You placed the tray of cookies on the counter, their rich chocolate scent filled the kitchen, momentarily grounding you in something warm and familiar. You stared down at them, freshly baked and perfectly round, thinking about how Jensen always joked that your cookies were better than any fancy dessert. It was such a small thing, but right now, it felt like a lifeline—a fleeting reminder of the simplicity that used to define your relationship before things became so complicated.

You couldn’t help but think back to when everything was easier, when his laugh could chase away any worry you had, and when you both felt invincible. But now, that invincibility felt fragile.

The soft rumble of thunder echoed through the house, and you wrapped your arms around yourself, feeling smaller in the vastness of the empty space.

You leaned against the counter, staring blankly at the cookies, your mind already racing ahead to tomorrow. You could picture his face, the familiar crinkle of his eyes as he walked through the door, probably exhausted but happy to see you. And you knew that the moment would come when you'd have to break the news. You’d have to see his reaction, whatever it would be—whether it was surprise, disbelief, or the worst thing you could imagine… disappointment.

You closed your eyes, fighting back the sting of tears. Disappointment. That was what scared you the most.

No more kids.

He loved his children fiercely, but he had drawn that line firmly in the sand from the start. The thought of him looking at you with anything less than love in his eyes, anything less than the warmth and affection you had grown so used to, made your stomach churn.

The truth was, you hadn’t planned this. Neither of you had. And the timing couldn’t have been worse. He was in the middle of filming a new project, already stretched thin from the demands of his career. You had been doing your best to hold things together, to be patient, to give him the space he needed while you dealt with this on your own. But now the secret was too big to keep any longer.

And still, you hadn’t even allowed yourself to fully process the reality of it. The tiny life growing inside of you felt surreal, like a secret you were keeping even from yourself. There were moments when you could push it to the back of your mind, pretend it wasn’t real, but those moments were becoming fewer and further between. You couldn’t escape the truth any longer.

Tomorrow, he would be home. Tomorrow, you would have to tell him.

You placed your hands on your stomach, your fingers resting lightly, almost protectively, over the slight curve that had begun to form. It was still small, easy enough to hide under loose clothing, but you couldn’t hide it forever. And you didn’t want to. Not really. You wanted to share this with him, to let him in on the secret you had been carrying for weeks. But the fear… the fear of how he would react made it feel like an impossible task.

You took a deep, shaky breath and whispered into the quiet kitchen, as if saying it aloud would somehow prepare you for what was coming. “I’m pregnant”.

The words felt foreign on your tongue, and saying them aloud didn’t make the reality any easier to bear. But they were real. There was no taking them back now.

As you stood there, staring out the window into the growing storm, you couldn’t help but wonder what tomorrow would bring.

Would he be angry? Shocked? Maybe he wouldn’t even know what to say at first. You played out a hundred scenarios in your mind, none of them feeling quite right. You couldn’t predict how he would react, but you knew that this was a conversation that would change everything. There was no going back once the truth was out.

The thunder rumbled again, closer this time, and you shivered despite the warmth of the kitchen. You reached for your tea and held the mug in your hands, seeking comfort from the warmth.

Just then, the phone rang, its sudden chime cutting through the quiet tension in the room. Your heart skipped a beat when you saw the name flash across the screen. Jensen.

For a moment, you just stared at it, your stomach flipping nervously. The sound of his name on the screen, so familiar, so comforting, felt like a jolt to your already raw nerves. He wasn’t supposed to call until later, closer to his flight time. Your fingers trembled slightly as you swiped to answer, bringing the phone to your ear.

“Hey”, you greeted softly, trying to steady your voice, but you couldn’t help the slight quiver in it.

“Hey, sweetheart”, Jensen’s warm, familiar voice filled the line, and for just a second, you felt a rush of relief. “You okay? You sound a little off”.

You bit your lip, glancing out the window again, watching the heavy clouds roll in. “Yeah, I’m… I’m fine. Just, you know, storm’s coming in, and I’m alone in the house. I’m probably overreacting, as usual”.

He chuckled softly, that deep, rich sound that used to make you feel safe. “You and storms, huh? You’ve always hated them. It’s just a little rain though, right? Nothing to worry about”.

“Yeah, just rain”, you repeated, your voice barely above a whisper as the truth of what you were really afraid of sat heavy in your chest. But you couldn’t tell him now, not like this, over the phone. Not when he was hours away. Not when he was expecting you to be waiting at home, smiling, with cookies on the counter.

There was a brief pause on the other end, and you could almost hear the tension in Jensen’s voice, like he wanted to say more but was holding back. Then he spoke, and his tone was apologetic, laced with that familiar warmth that you loved so much.

“Hey, I’ve got to get back to filming in a minute”, he said gently, “but I just wanted to check in on you. Make sure you’re okay”.

Your heart sank a little at his words. Even though you hadn’t expected this call, the idea of him hanging up so soon, when you were craving any sense of normalcy, left you feeling hollow. But you forced a small smile into your voice, pushing aside the anxiety for his sake.

“Okay”, you replied softly, clutching the phone a little tighter. “I’ll be fine. The house is safe, and I’ve got enough cookies to last a week, even if the power goes out”.

He laughed again, that low, comforting sound that almost made you forget about the storm inside you. “You’re always prepared, huh?”.

“Trying to be”, you said, though the weight of the secret you were carrying made you feel anything but.

There was another pause, and you heard some shuffling in the background—probably crew members calling for him. He sighed. “Listen, I’ve got to run, but I’ll call you as soon as I’m at the airport later, okay?”.

“Thanks, Jensen”, you whispered, the sound of his name bringing a soft warmth to your heart despite everything. “I’ll be okay. Be safe, alright?”.

“I will. You hang in there, alright? I’ll talk to you in a few hours”. His voice softened, and you could picture him standing there, probably with that concerned look he got when he knew you weren’t telling him everything.

“I will”, you promised, though inside, you knew it was going to be a long few hours.

“Love you”, he added quickly, and those words, like always, wrapped around you like a blanket.

“Love you too”, you whispered, knowing how much you meant it, but feeling the weight of the untold truth settling even heavier on your chest.

Then the call ended, and the silence rushed back into the room, the steady beat of the rain against the windows the only sound left.

You stood there for a moment, gripping the phone like it was an anchor. The storm outside was getting louder, the wind picking up, rattling the windows just enough to send a shiver down your spine.

As evening fell, you found yourself standing in front of the large living room windows again, staring out at the angry ocean. The waves were crashing violently against the shore, each one louder than the last, and the dark sky was lit up intermittently by flashes of lightning far in the distance. For the past hour, heavy rain had been pounding against the house, making any thoughts of sleep seem impossible. You hadn’t even bothered trying to settle down—there was no way you could rest with the storm growing more intense by the minute.

The wind had picked up, howling through the trees that lined the edge of your property, bending them until they looked as though they would snap. The way the branches thrashed made your chest tighten with anxiety. This was more than just a little rain. The storm outside was quickly turning into something far more dangerous.

You wrapped your arms around yourself, trying to fight the creeping sense of fear that had been building inside you all day. It was hard to focus on anything else—the looming conversation with Jensen, the storm that seemed intent on tearing apart everything outside your door. You tried to drown out the worry by turning on the TV for the latest updates, hoping for some reassurance, but just as you were about to settle on the couch, the power flickered.

And then, everything went dark.

Your heart skipped a beat, and you stood frozen in place, listening to the sudden silence that filled the room. Even the hum of the refrigerator had gone quiet. No lights, no TV, no comforting glow from the oven clock. You fumbled for your phone, but a quick glance at the screen showed what you had feared: no signal. The storm had knocked out the power, and with it, your connection to the outside world.

You were alone.

A cold knot of fear twisted in your stomach. The walls around you felt suffocating, and the sound of the storm outside—the rain pounding against the windows, the wind howling like a creature trying to claw its way inside—made the house feel smaller than it had ever felt before. The darkness seemed endless, swallowing up the comforting familiarity of your home, and all you could do was stand there, staring at your reflection in the glass as the storm raged beyond.

And then, your thoughts went to Jensen.

Somewhere far away, sitting in an airport, blissfully unaware of how much the storm had escalated. The last time you had spoken, he had laughed, reassured you that it was just a little rain. But this… this was something else. You wondered if he had seen the news, if he knew how bad it was getting here. You couldn’t even warn him now, couldn’t tell him to stay safe, to stay put.

Meanwhile, in LA, Jensen sat in the crowded terminal, his phone in hand as he absentmindedly scrolled through old texts from you, his mind somewhere between exhaustion and the anticipation of finally coming home. He’d been waiting for what felt like hours, his flight delayed over and over again. The storm back home had been on his mind, but nothing in the forecast had seemed serious when he last checked. Just some heavy rain, maybe a little wind, but nothing out of the ordinary for Houston this time of year.

That was until an announcement echoed over the loudspeakers, the sound snapping him back to the present. The terminal buzzed with confusion as people around him started looking at their phones, murmurs rising into a collective hum of concern.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform you that all flights to Houston have been canceled due to an unexpected hurricane forming off the Gulf. Please make your way to the customer service desks for further instructions”.

Jensen’s heart sank as the words hit him. Hurricane? He immediately stood, his fingers instinctively dialing your number, but there was no response. Nothing. He tried again, and again, but each call went straight to voicemail.

His stomach churned with worry, his mind racing with worst-case scenarios. He had told you it was just a little rain, that everything would be fine. And now, a hurricane was bearing down on you, and he couldn’t reach you. He couldn’t even warn you.

The flight staff were swamped, passengers crowding around them, demanding answers, but Jensen didn’t care about the chaos around him. All he could think about was you—sitting in that house by the ocean, alone, probably terrified, with no way to reach him. He could see it in his mind, how you would be pacing around the house, trying to stay calm while the storm raged on outside. You hated storms. You always had.

And now, this.

He looked at the flight board, the bright red letters spelling out “CANCELED”, and felt utterly helpless. There was no way out tonight, no way to get to you. His heart hammered in his chest as he tried calling one more time, but once again, it went straight to voicemail.

Jensen clenched his phone tightly, his mind racing through all the possible options. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sit here, waiting, while the storm got worse. He needed to get to you, somehow, but there was no plan, no idea of how bad it really was back in Houston.

Meanwhile, back in the house, you stared out into the blackness beyond the window, the storm surging with more force than you could have imagined. The trees bent and cracked, the waves crashing against the shore with an almost terrifying strength. You had never felt so vulnerable. You had never felt so alone.

And Jensen, the one person you needed most, was miles away, waiting in an airport for a flight that wasn’t coming.

You pressed your hand against the cold glass, feeling the world outside crumble under the force of nature, and inside, you crumbled a little too.

The wind had reached a deafening pitch, and every gust felt like it was trying to tear the house apart. You could barely think over the sound of it—like a train barreling through, unstoppable and unforgiving. The trees outside the windows were bent almost horizontal, their branches flailing wildly in the storm’s fury. You could hear debris slamming against the house, the sharp cracks of branches breaking, and the deep, menacing roar of the ocean as the waves crashed closer and closer.

You glanced out the window and felt your blood run cold. The waves were rising—towering, dark, and violent—crashing up the shore with a terrifying force, each one creeping closer and closer to your porch. The stilts that your house rested on were supposed to protect you, but right now, even those massive beams felt fragile against the raw power of the storm.

A sudden surge of panic washed over you, stronger than any wave outside. You couldn't stay here, not with the ocean threatening to swallow everything. Your breath came faster, chest tightening as the reality of the hurricane fully hit you. This was no ordinary storm; this was the nightmare you’d always feared would come to life when you moved here. You needed to get away from the windows, away from the view of the violent ocean that made your heart pound with terror.

Without thinking, you spun on your heel and practically ran through the house, your footsteps quick and uneven as the wind rattled the walls. You headed straight for the guest room—one of the few rooms that didn’t face the ocean. It was smaller, tucked away in the corner of the house, but right now it felt like the only place that could give you even the slightest illusion of safety.

Your heart hammered in your chest as you reached the door and pushed it open, the beam of your phone trembling slightly from your shaking hands. You slammed the door behind you and leaned against it, breathing hard, trying to steady yourself. The room was dark, save for the dim glow of the phone, but at least here, you couldn’t see the ocean rising, threatening, looming.

Still, the storm raged around you, the wind howling and shaking the house. The walls creaked under the force of the gusts, and you swore you could feel the entire structure sway. The sound of the ocean never left your mind, though, the memory of those waves reaching higher and higher still vivid in your thoughts. You sank onto the edge of the bed, wrapping your arms around yourself as if you could ward off the fear creeping through your veins.

You needed Jensen. His presence would have grounded you, would have been the anchor you needed right now to feel even remotely safe. But he wasn’t here. You were alone. Alone in a house you weren’t sure could withstand the storm.

And then, the overwhelming sense of dread came crashing in again, accompanied by the helplessness of being completely cut off. No phone signal, no lights, no contact. The only thing louder than the storm outside was the storm inside you—the fear, the uncertainty, the crushing feeling of isolation.

Meanwhile, Jensen sat in the crowded airport terminal, his phone in his hands, staring at the same unchanging screen. The calls weren’t going through. He tried again, his heart thudding in his chest, each failed attempt making the knot of worry tighten further. Every time the call went straight to voicemail, it felt like a blow to his gut.

“Come on… pick up, baby”, he muttered to himself, running a frustrated hand through his hair. But still, nothing. Only that dead silence on the other end.

He felt sick. He couldn’t stop replaying the conversation from earlier in the day. He’d brushed off your fears, reassured you that it was just rain. You’d been nervous, but he had laughed it off, told you it was no big deal. “Just a little rain”, he’d said. Now, with a hurricane bearing down on Houston, those words felt like a cruel joke.

Jensen’s leg bounced anxiously as he stared at his phone, willing it to connect. He knew you were scared—he knew how much you hated storms, how even a thunderstorm would have you on edge. But this wasn’t just a thunderstorm. This was a hurricane, and you were alone, sitting in that house by the ocean, probably terrified out of your mind.

He had never felt so helpless. All the money in the world, all his connections, none of it mattered now. He was grounded, unable to fly home, stuck in a terminal while the storm raged on miles away, separating him from you. The worst part was not knowing what was happening. Were you okay? Was the house holding up? Had you found a safe place? Or were you sitting there, terrified, with no one to comfort you?

Jensen pressed the call button again, even though he knew what would happen. He didn’t care. He had to keep trying, had to do something.

When the call went to voicemail again, he groaned, leaning forward and burying his face in his hands. This was his worst nightmare. He had promised to keep you safe, to be there when you needed him, and now, in the middle of the worst storm either of you had ever faced, he was stuck a thousand miles away, powerless to help.

All he could think about was your voice, that soft quiver in it when you’d mentioned the storm earlier. He should have heard the fear in your words. He should have known. But he’d been so focused on work, so focused on getting through the day, that he hadn’t really listened.

Jensen felt the weight of his guilt pressing down on him, heavier with each failed attempt to reach you. He needed to hear your voice, needed to know you were okay. But every minute that passed felt like an eternity, and the storm was only getting worse.

He glanced up at the airport monitors, the word CANCELED in bright red letters next to his flight number. His chest tightened. He wasn’t getting out of here tonight. He wasn’t getting to you.

For the first time in a long time, Jensen felt completely powerless.

Minutes passed, each one feeling like an eternity. The wind outside had grown impossibly louder, the relentless howl of the storm wrapping itself around the house. You sat on the edge of the bed, your knees pulled up to your chest, listening to the chaos unfold outside. Then, you heard something—a deep, ominous rumbling that shook the walls, so loud and unfamiliar that it made your heart leap into your throat.

Your breath caught. What was that? You couldn’t even begin to imagine what had caused the sound, but it sent a wave of terror rushing through you. For a moment, you stayed frozen in place, every nerve in your body telling you to stay put, to not move. But curiosity, or maybe survival instinct, finally won over, and you shakily stood up, the beam of your phone barely steady in your trembling hand.

You tried to think logically—the cars. Bu both, yours and Jensen’s cars, were parked in the massive garage, safe when you had checked earlier. But now, with the storm surging stronger by the minute, you couldn’t be sure. What if the garage was already flooded? What if the rumbling had come from something hitting the house? The thought of the water rising higher, creeping into your home, made your stomach turn with dread. The waves had already reached your porch by the time you ran into the guest room, and there was no telling how much worse it had gotten since then.

You hesitated for a moment, then slowly climbed toward the small window at the far end of the guest room. The wind was howling so fiercely outside that it felt like the house was swaying beneath your feet, but you had to know what was happening out there.

As you approached the window, you felt a new wave of fear wash over you. The sky was black, save for the occasional, blinding crack of lightning that tore through the clouds, illuminating the storm for a brief, horrifying second at a time. You pressed your face against the glass, trying to peer through the rain, your breath fogging up the window. But it was too dark—way too dark.

You couldn’t see anything.

Your hands were trembling as you wiped at the fog on the glass, your tears only making it harder to focus. Everything outside was a blur—dark shapes, shadows, the sound of the storm so loud. You blinked hard, trying to clear your vision, but the tears kept coming, clouding your sight. It was no use. The storm had swallowed everything.

All you wanted was to see if the other houses were still standing, to know if someone else out there was going through the same terror you were, but the storm had cut you off from everything. You were truly alone.

Your sobs came in short, ragged gasps as you turned away from the window, sliding down the wall until you were sitting on the floor, hugging your knees to your chest. The fear, the loneliness—it was suffocating. You tried to breathe, tried to calm yourself, but every time you closed your eyes, you saw those waves, rising higher and higher, threatening to consume everything.

Jensen’s face flashed in your mind—his voice on the phone earlier, laughing it off, telling you it was just a little rain. How you wished he was here now, his arms around you, telling you it would all be okay. But he wasn’t. He was miles away, probably sitting at the airport, just as helpless as you were, waiting for a flight that wasn’t coming. And you hated that he couldn’t reach you, hated that you couldn’t even tell him how scared you were, how much you needed him.

Back at the airport, Jensen stood from his seat, running a hand through his hair as he stared at the departure board. He tried your number again, pressing the phone to his ear as he paced back and forth near the gate. He couldn’t stay still—couldn’t stop the gnawing panic that had taken hold of him ever since the storm had escalated.

Voicemail again.

“Damn it”, he muttered under his breath, his frustration boiling over as he ended the call and tried again. The same result. He could feel the panic rising in his chest, threatening to spill over into full-blown fear. You hadn’t answered in hours, and now there was no way to reach you.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up…”, he muttered to himself, his fingers tightening around the phone. He couldn’t stand this—being so far away from you when you needed him the most. All he could think about was how he’d dismissed your fear earlier, how he’d brushed off the storm as no big deal. And now? Now he’d give anything to take those words back, to tell you that he should have been more worried.

The airport was buzzing with frustrated passengers, but Jensen couldn’t focus on any of them. The only thing on his mind was you, alone in that house by the ocean, and the guilt that weighed heavily on his chest.

He tried your number one more time, holding his breath as it rang, hoping against hope that this time, you’d answer. But when the call went to voicemail again, he felt his heart sink.

You stayed awake the entire night, your body too tense, your mind too restless to even think about sleep. The sound of the storm had been relentless, the howling wind and crashing waves making it impossible to focus on anything but the raw terror building inside you. For hours, you sat on the bed, curled up in a huge blanket, staring at the window as if waiting for the next strike.

You couldn’t bring yourself to pick up a book or distract your mind with anything else. It was like your brain refused to let go of the constant anxiety, clinging to the fear of what might happen next. The storm’s roar had felt endless, and with no way to check on the outside world, you could only imagine the worst. Every thud, every creak of the house made your heart jump, and your mind raced with thoughts of what might have been happening beyond the walls.

By the time the storm began to fade, just before dawn, you were so exhausted that you didn’t even notice when your eyelids finally began to droop. The wind had quieted, the rain now a soft patter compared to the chaos from hours before. Somewhere in that stillness, you drifted off without realizing it, your body giving in to the exhaustion and fear that had kept you alert all night.

———————————

A/N: Please let me know what you think.🥰 

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Part 2

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Taglist: @blackcherrywhiskey @baby19sthings @suckitands33 @spnfamily-j2 @lyarr24 @deans-baby-momma @reignsboy19 @kawaii-arfid-memes @mekkencspony @lovziy @artemys-ackles @fitxgrld @libby99hb @lovelyvirtualperson @a-lil-pr1ncess @nancymcl @the-last-ry @spndeanwinchesterlvr @hobby27 @themarebarroww @kr804573 @impala67rollingthroughtown @deans-queen @deadlymistletoe @selfdestructionandrhum @utyblyn @winchesterwild78 @jackles010378 @chirazsstuff @foxyjwls007 @smoothdogsgirl @woooonau @whimsyfinny @freyabear @laaadygisbooornex3 @quietgirll75 @perpetualabsurdity @pughsexual @berryblues46 @deanwinchestersgirl8734 @kr804573 @spxideyver @mayafatimakhan @deansimpalababy @xx-spooky-little-vampire-xx

[we-out-here-simping]

You, Me, Lonely.

(s.h. x reader)

from the river to the sea (educate yourself and help however you can)

Summary: you love Steve, Steve loves you. But maybe you both want different things from life.

Warnings/tags: reader menstruates (reader has uterus), abandonment issues, the ‘six nuggets’ talk, suggestive

Word count: 3.4k

masterlist

a/n: huge huge huge thanks to @procrastinationprincesses for helping me out with this fic and giving it an ending (ur amazing sanjana <3)

writing and posting something because i might have to go MIA for a lil bit (miss me while I'm gone will ya?)

fic is inspired by ‘You, Me, Lonely’ by FIZZ i absolutely love this song like its so close to my heart ughh what can i say I'm a little bitter about the six nuggets scene 

also if you couldn't tell already I have major abandonment issues and an anxious avoidant attachment style. It will reflect in what i write soz :(

In the quiet of the night, you wish for this to last forever. That you'll have him forever.

When you came out of the shower you found him asleep on his side of the bed. His side– the one closer to the door. ‘so I can protect you from anyone who'll try to steal you from me’, he had justified it when you asked him why he was adamant on that side.

you had turned off the bedside lamp ten minutes ago, slipped under the duvet, as quietly as possible so as to not wake him up. on your side of his bed. your bed.

He always sleeps on his stomach, one hand under his pillow and the other extended a little towards yours. His body moves with steady and slow breaths, back rising and falling under the covers, head peeking out from under the rumpled up duvet. his cheeks are squished against the pillow cover. His hair is a mess from the lack of hair product, and still damp from the shower he took before you. There's a few strands of his brown hair sprawled across his forehead too. With your softest touch you brush them away from his eyes.

You wonder what he was dreaming. you hope it was something nice. He looks calm, at peace, and very, very pretty.

You look at him and you know you love him. You want to love him forever.

Love had never seemed like the type of thing you’ll get– like it wasn't meant for you. But then you met him. This boy. This boy who you never thought to be your type. You never thought you even had a type. But his boyish charm and stupid grin won you over.

Your heart doesn't skip beats around him anymore, and you’d think that that means he doesn’t have that same effect on you anymore but that would be wrong. You don’t think you’ve ever loved anyone as much as you do to him. You don’t look at him and get butterflies in your stomach, you look at him and… you’re sure. your heart is quiet and sure. You don't think you’ve ever been sure before.

You want to be sure forever.

He feels like the comfortable still of rain after a scorching hot summer, like the calm and cold breeze that cools you down. Like standing at the top of the mountain, looking at the clouds and valleys below, he feels like the crisp air that fills your lungs. Like the comfort meal your mom makes– the one you can never really recreate, the one that tastes the best when it comes from her. 

You love him and you know. You know. You know he likes you, loves you even. 

Steve Harrington loves you like a dream, and you're worried that one day he’ll wake up, look at you and realise that he deserves so much better. He’ll wake up and he’ll leave for work and he’ll bump into a pretty angel of a girl with a disposition as bright as his. And he’ll never return. people fall out of love. People fall out of love all the time.

You wish for him to love you forever.

How long is a forever anyway?

You wonder what it'll be like. When you're older, with wrinkles, white hair and weaker limbs. 

It's like you see it.

You and him in a bed– just like now but older, wiser, more tired. His back turned to you. There'd be distance between you two, you’d want to move closer and hold him– but you wouldn't. You’d just stare at the back of his head, counting all the grey hairs you’d memorised like all the moles and wrinkles on his skin.

You’d notice his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest and you would have known him so long and so well that you'd just know that he wasn't actually asleep. you'd know why he wasn't asleep.

there'd be a pain in your chest. You would know what it is, why its there. You would gulp and try not to think about it.

“Do you always stare at me in my sleep?” his groggy voice pulls you out of your own head.

You blink, multiple times. Forever, right.

He softly smiles up at you. You blink away before moving to lay on your back, the sheets rustling with your movement. “sorry I woke you up”, you mumble an apology, staring at the ceiling, you fail to hide the shake in your voice.

“Y’kay?” 

“Yeah.” the sheets beside you ruffle but you keep your eyes trained on the ceiling. it seems inevitable. You know, one day it'll happen and despite having expected it, it’ll be the greatest heartbreak of them all. 

“Thinking ‘bout somethin’?” he sounds a bit more awake.

“When am I not?” you shake your head and laugh hoping he doesn't notice that it isn't real, thankful that the curtains didn't let in any moonlight and that you had turned off the lights.

“What is it?” but this is Steve, he doesn’t need to see you to know how you’re feeling.

“Nothing.”

“Were you lying about liking the pasta I made?”

“No, Steve it was good”, a real laugh slips out of you, and you finally look at him. He’s leaning on his elbow, the messy head of hair in his hand, looking down at you. You suddenly wish it wasn’t so dark so you could see the colour of his eyes, the moles and freckles on his skin.

“Then what?”

“Nothing.” your gaze moves back to the ceiling.

“Must be something if it's keeping you up”, you feel him shift closer to you. He smells of fresh shower, mint, shaving cream and washed laundry. 

“No, I'm just….  not sleepy.”

“Yeah?”, he raises his eyebrows with a sly smirk, “Well, I know a way to make you sleepy”, he leans down– both arms caging you in, landing a kiss on your neck before trailing further up to your lips. and its lovely, so god damn lovely, you don't want it to stop but this hurts.

“Ste– mmph– Steve stop”, you turn your face away, because if he keeps going, you think you'll cry, palm pushing flat against his bare chest, “I’m– I'm not in the mood.”

“Okay, I'm sorry”, he moves back onto his one elbow. The silence gestates for a while, you can feel his eyes on you. The ticking of the clock is the only thing heard through the room before he softly says, “Hey, please tell me what's happening?”

“Nothing”, you shook your head, “I’m just tired.”

“You just said you're not sleepy.”

“J– just go back to sleep okay? sorry for waking you up”, you turn onto your side, face away from him. 

He sidles up behind you after a second or two, warm breath across the back of your neck, you squeeze your eyes shut. “yeah, like that's gonna put me to sleep", he mutters behind you.

His arms snake around your waist, pulling you in closer, “C'mon, you know I wont be able to sleep after fighting”, burying his nose in your hair– he sighed.

“Did you just sniff my hair?”

“Yeah, I do all the time. smells s’good."

"You pervert", you both laugh lightly at that, your hand going for his around your waist, before your smiles fall and silence takes over once again. 

You lick your drying lips, you forgot to put on lip balm again, “We’re not fighting, Steve.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

You take in a deep breath in, fingers drawing patterns on the back of his hand, you breath out, “m’sorry.”

His arms squeeze tighter around you, he lets out a quick sigh before placing a kiss on your shoulder, “I’ll forgive you if you tell me what’s going on with you.”

“Steve…”, your voice trails off, you're not even sure what you were going to say.

“Is it— Is it your…. Uh, that time of the month?”

That makes you want to roll your eyes at him and smack his chest but you restrain yourself, you’re not sure if you want him to see your eyes right now anyway. Instead, you sigh,  “I had it last week, Steve.”

You got it in this very same bed. Awoken by cramps in the middle of the night. and Steve, your lovely Steve had given you a hot water bag while he took off the sheets and put on fresh new ones and then gave you a soft massage that put you to sleep.

“right... yeah, sorry," he says all sheepish, “So what is it then? Did someone say somethin’ at work?”

“No.”

“Did I.. " he hesitated a little, "did I say something?”

“...no”, you curse yourself for pausing before saying it.

“I did, didn't I?”

“No, no. you–”

“honey, you should tell me if I ever say stupid shit– you should call me out immediately–”

“You didn't say anything stupid or whatever. I'm the one who's being stupid.”

his hold on you loosened, he shifted back to give you space to turn around, “What did I say? Hey, look at me,” you finally turn in his hold, facing him “what did I say?”

“We’d have the cutest little kids, won't we?”

“..what?” You stood infront of the kitchen sink. your hands stopped their scrubbing at the pot you were washing. You tilted your head towards him who had his head rested on your shoulder, his arms around your waist.

“Little Harringtons”, you could hear the smile on his lips.

“Harringtons?”

“Or maybe we get our names hyphenated. That works too, it’d be cute”, his hands hold your waist, his duty of drying the plates abandoned. “They’d have my fabulous hair, and your pretty, pretty eyes– cutest kids around the block”

“Our kids?” you repeated dumbly.

“Yeah, and six of ‘em. six little nuggets. They’ll make up half of a football team”, he giggled, warm air hitting the side of your face, “Doesn’t that sound lovely?” he smiled at you.

“...yeah. Yeah, it does.” you smiled back at him which only made him grin wider. His arms tighten around you again, and lips start a trail from behind your ears to down your neck.

You scoffed softly "You’re supposed to help me wash dishes you filthy animal." 

“Oh, fine,” he gave you an over dramatic sigh, before his hands left your sides, skin feeling lonely as ever.

“No, it's fine. I’m almost done anyway", you went back to scrubbing at the bottom of the pot, "Just go and take a shower, you reek.”

“Alright, fine, I’ll go!” he groaned, playfully as a kid, before he leaned against the counter, looking at you with his ‘Harrington charm’. His voice is silky when he asks, “Will you join me?”

“Steve." you said it almost as a warning.

“I don’t hear a no.”

“Okay then, no.”

“Tomorrow morning…?”

“I have an early shift tomorrow, you horndog.”

“We'll make it work.”

“No.”

“Okay", he sighs, “come up quickly though, I wanna be the big spoon today”, pecking your cheek before leaving for the shower upstairs.

Looking at him, you brush the now mostly dry hair falling on his forehead, tucking it behind his ear. Your fingers lingered there, you smile, “nothing, Steve.”  your thumb rubs back and forth on the apple of his cheeks. “You didn’t say anything. it's stupid.”

His hand reaches up to hold your fingers in place, he turns his head a little to kiss your knuckles, “okay, I didn't say anything” he kisses your knuckles again, gaze stuck to your face, “but could you tell me what it is you think you’re being stupid about?”

God, I love him, you think. “Don't worry about it”, your voice barely a whisper as you attempt to give him a smile. You move closer, planting a slow kiss on his lips which are so much softer than yours– he never forgets his chapstick.

And god, you needed this, your brain stops when you kiss him. thoughts quelled and its quiet again. After some time though, your throat starts to burn and your chest is on the verge of a sob. So, when you pull away, you fail to hide the stuttered breath that you take in.

Steve knew there was something to worry about, but when he hears your breath that almost sounds like a sob, he’s immediately on high alert. Before he can brush your hair out of your face to look at you, really look at you, you bury your face in his chest.

It takes him a second to realize that you’re crying and it breaks his heart because you’re trying to hide it.

“Baby..” he feels you curl in further, your face warm against his skin. He moves to pull you in closer, palm holding the back of your head. He just wanted to take away whatever it was that was bothering you. He tried to pull away to get a look at your face to help you calm down but you wouldn't let him. He settles on carding his fingers through your hair, rubbing circles on the little sliver of exposed skin between your t-shirt and shorts, hoping it gives you some sort of comfort.

"Honey", it is then that you finally let in a shaky breath. he feels the skin where you hid your face get wet maybe with tears, sweat, snot, he didn't care-- he just wanted to take all your pain away.

You both stay that way, and you're suprised by how much you sob, how hard you heave. You weren't sure how long you stayed that way, maybe minutes, maybe hours, however long. It feels like forever.

At this moment, encased in Steve's arms, breath hot against his skin, despite the nose plugged with snot, lashes clumped with tears, eyes squinted shut, you think this is comfortable. Yet it hurts. Because you'll have to pull away. It hurts so damn much because you know how this can go, you know it can hurt so, so much more. You know it will hurt.

You want this to last forever, however fucking long one of those is.

So, you hold on longer because, you’re selfish with your love for Steve. You're selfish because despite the heartache, you’ll have him, for as long as you can.

His hold on you gentle yet firm, as if afraid he'd break you. In your head, he already had. He tries to pull away again, to look at you but you can't. Your eyes still squinted close, willing it all to be a stupid dream. “Honey, I promise you whatever it is, you can tell me”, he says, voice soft as feather. Of course it's not a dream.

Your tongue betrays you, “Its…s–” stupid. Silly. It really doesn't feel stupid or silly, but god, you're so scared that you can't say it, you didn't want to say it because if you do it’ll come true, wont it?

“Whatever it is that you think is stupid," he assured you as if he could read your mind, "I still want to hear it because I know I won't think it's stupid."

suddenly it burns, and you need air. you sit up and try not to think about how ridiculously not pretty you probably look with snot running down your face, “What if- what if we- we end up hating each other?” you manage to say through hiccups.

“What?” he sits up as well, he says as if you had said the most ridiculous thing, “I'll never hate you, honey.”

For some reason, tears fill your eyes again at that, “Steve, you don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“No. Ste– people fall out of love, Steve- all the- all the time.” It terrifies him how convinced you sound of it.

“Do..... do you think you’ll fall out of love with me?”

The question startles you, its evident in your wide eyes, “Wha– what?”

“Do you think… you’ll fall out of love with me?" he repeats, "You think you’ll hate me?”

You shake your head, the tear that had been sitting on your lower lash finally slides down your already tear-stained cheek.

“Good." he wipes the wet trails left behind with his thumb, "then, why would I hate you?”

Your face twists into an expression that Steve wasn't sure what to describe it as. a deep frown on your lips, chin wobbly, brows scrunched up together, eyes red and tired yet nostrils flared. “‘Cause", you start but before you could continue another sob leaves you. you look down at your lap, trying to catch your breath. it takes you a minute before you begin again, "do you remember.... what you said about our kids?”

He nods, heart clenching at the way your voice breaks, “I don't think I can… do that”, he doesn't think he's ever heard you sound so broken. “I– I don't think if I– if I want that.”

He sits silent and you think this is it. maybe forevers aren't that long after all.

More tears fall, more sobs leave you, you don't bother to wipe them. What's it matter anyway? He hates you already. He's probably thinking of a way to let you down easily because he is kind like that “Honey.. I want a family..” you feel your heart ripping in two and you just can't look at him.

“And I want you to be a part of that family. I– I want you to be the person I built a family with, no matter the size." He wipes at both your cheeks again, making you look at him, "even if its just us.”

The relieved smile he expected from you isn't there, instead, you frown, the crease between your brows deepens. the part that hurt the most was that you push his hands away, “you’re saying that now, but what happens when years down the line, when we’re old, you– you end up resenting me. Y- you love me right now, I know. But how do you know you wont end up hating me like, ten years later?”

“I dont want to watch you grow old and hate me and then leave me, Steve. I’d rather end this now if we’re destined to just end up unhappy together.”

“We’re not. Okay? We’re not. I know I wont hate you, ever.” He reaches for your hands again. He kisses your fingers before continuing, “And I know that I want you, just you and whatever that– that that comes with. We could never have kids and I would never hate you for it.”

“You won't be happy", you say meekly, like he'd be mad at you for speaking what was on your mind to him, “You wont hate me but you wont be happy either”, you muttered, chin ducked into your chest.

“Honey”, he hooks a finger under your chin, tilting your head to make you look at him, to make you understand. “you’re what I need to be happy. You make me happy. And.. I’d hope you need me to be happy too”, a wet chuckle escapes you at that. A hint of a smile on your face despite the tears.

“You do, don’t you?” he clarified with a soft smile of himself.

You nod, "yeah", letting out a loud sniffle.

“Good. I know its scary but you’ve gotta put your trust in me. Trust me enough to believe in me when I say that you are what makes me happy. and I am happy."

He wipes away gently at your face, ridding it of the tear stains, “Sometimes, you’ve just gotta trust. I promise I’ll never break it.” 

You sob again but it's lighter than before, you wrap your arms around his neck and feel the weight you felt get lifted, you sniffle into the crook of his neck, "thank you."

You feel his lips on your hairline, "Let's go back to sleep, yeah?"

"Yeah. You still wanna be the big spoon?"

"yeah, I think you need to be the little spoon today." he pulls you down with him, your back to his chest, kissing the skin behind your ear he finally settles in beside you.

You call out his name, he hums in response. "how long do you think a forever is?"

"I don't know, honey."

"Can we stay like this forever?"

"Um.. if you mean us staying forever then yes, definitely forever. But, if you meant me being the big spoon forever, baby, I'm not sure if I'll be able to commit to that."

You laugh, "I love you." you confess.

"I love you too."

[lovebugism]

If you’re taking requests could I ask for one from the fall prompts with Steve and punchy?

“When she wears YOUR flannel shirt”

ty for requesting! steve x punchy nation rise! — you spend an autumn morning with steve which results in misplaced jealousy and spilled coffee (established relationship, fluff, v v brief miscommunication, 1k)

fictober (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ)

Steve, still wearing last night’s pajamas, stands barefoot on the patio and basks in the early morning orange. 

Fall seemed to arrive in Hawkins overnight. It’s cooler than usual outside, and everything is weirdly more yellow. Every tree has seemingly shed its leaves, too, and somehow ended up right in his pool. He uses the net to fish the dying things from the rippling blue.

You watch him from the doorway. His golden arms tense with every scoop, and his sleep shirt is so tight you can see the muscles in his back flexing, too. Your bare legs are cold and prickly with it, but the sight of him makes you feel all warm — like the mug of hot coffee burning your palm.

“You have to stop being so productive so early in the morning,” you chastise, voice still heavy with sleep. “It’s getting weird.”

“It’s gotta get done, babe,” Steve retorts with a soft laugh, his back still facing you.

You take it as an opportunity to press yourself against him. You wrap your free hand around his waist and spread your palm along the faint pudge of his covered tummy. Your cheek melts between his shoulder blades as you mumble, “Not while normal people are still sleeping. Think about it— we could be spooning right now and not freezing our asses off—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Steve interjects with a boyish vibrato. Still gripping the metal handle of the pool skimmer, he turns around to face you. His honey eyes are wide as they dart up and down your form. “No way you’re wearing Eddie’s shirt right now.”

Your brows pinch together just like his bushy ones. You look down at yourself, at the deep green and navy blue flannel swallowing you whole, then back at him. “No?” you answer, though it comes out as more of a question. “This is your shirt.”

Steve shakes his head, puts a hand on his hip, and clicks his lips against his teeth. 

“No… I’m pretty sure I saw him wearing it the other day— he said he was gonna cut the sleeves off and wear it over his jacket like a freak.”

“And I told him he couldn’t, remember?” you lilt with raised brows. “‘Cause he stole it from me after I stole it from you.”

Steve winces when you shove your pointer finger into his chest.

“So, it’s mine?” he questions, confused all over again.

You nod all slow. “Yeah.”

“Oh…” he hums, less jealous and more content than he was a moment ago. 

His chest starts to warm now that he can see you more clearly, without the haze of misplaced envy clouding his vision. 

Your hair’s a mess, and you’re still in yesterday’s makeup, and your legs are unshaven. The buttons on the flannel don’t quite line up, either, and the lapel droops off one shoulder to reveal the lovebite he left on your collarbone the night before.

If home was a place, he’s pretty sure it’d look an awful lot like you.

“…Oh,” he repeats, with a more profound inflection this time. ‘Cause he’s a boy, and you’re wearing his shirt, and it’s doing irreversible damage to his brain.

“I just got, like, ten times hotter, huh?” you tease with a knowing squint.

“Try a thousand,” Steve scoffs with a pink grin.

“A million?”

“A billion,” he argues, wrapping his free arm around your shoulders to pull you into him again. His other stays firmly gripping the pool net because he’s not diving in to rescue this thing if it sinks. “A kajillion, even,” he jokes with sparkling eyes that dance between both of yours.

You laugh before you mean to. “Wow. That’s a real big number, Harrington. Sure you know what it means?”

“If it means I wanna kiss the life outta you, then, yeah,” he murmurs lowly, already leaning in to kiss your smile.

You taste like coffee, where he tastes like minty mouthwash. It’s an unearthly concoction that feels like heaven on your tongue. 

It’s perhaps too early to be kissed so ardently, with your head tilted back against the crook of Steve’s elbow while he steals the breath from your lungs. You get so effortlessly drunk on him — quickly forgetting the crisp cold and the fresh coffee in your hand.

Steve hisses when he pulls back from you, features contorted in discomfort. “Hot coffee,” he winces through gritted teeth. “Hot coffee on my foot.”

Only then do you recognize your limp hand and the subtle splashing of your drink against the patio.

“Oh, shit!” you blurt into the quiet, early morning. “Fuck, Steve— I’m sorry!”

He shakes his head and swipes a hand through his hair. He scrunches his nose and tries to smile. “It’s okay. Didn’t even hurt.”

Your eyes flit down to his splotchy red foot, then back at him. You look more pained by it than he does. “Yes, it did!” you agonize, wrapping your arms around his waist and smushing your cheek into his chest. 

Thankfully, there’s not much coffee left in the mug to spill this time. 

“I’m sorry, Stevie,” you mumble into his t-shirt. “Fuck, I wish I wasn’t so clumsy all the time— it’s annoying.”

Steve laughs into your hair and abandons the pool skimmer to wrap both arms around you. One hand squeezes your shoulder while the other smooths up and down your back. “I don’t think so. I think it’s sweet.”

“…Even when I give you third-degree burns from my coffee?”

He exhales a faint chuckle. “Yeah, even when you give me third-degree burns from your coffee.”

Your cheek rubs against the soft cotton of his t-shirt when you turn to look up at him. Your chin tilts against his chest and bobs as you ask him, “Do you still wanna kiss me?”

A crooked smile tugs slow at his pink mouth. His honey eyes twinkle when they look down at you. He quickly forgets the tingling pain fading at the top of his foot because you’re so damn pretty wrapped up in his arms.

“I’d kiss you forever, baby,” he murmurs so fondly it makes your stomach whirl. “You know that.”

[thissliceofnonsense]

This also helps - (1) Help Relieve ADD/ADHD Symptoms - Isochronic Tones - YouTube

And also also, doing your hyper fixations first thing, before anyone else can say anything, before even your brain goes online. (I tend to do my hyper fixations until very late at night and then it takes me the entire day for my brain to get back "online" so I can work on them again... but I tried just doing some of it before my conscious brain started - writing some vague prose, taking care of plants, reading, but without wanting anything out of it. Reading without understanding but just for reading or writing in a specific "nonsense notebook") Other times I'll clean the kitchen in sporadic spirals while listening to my favorite songs (like @flaringgoosebumps said)

This doesn't work 100% of the time though, sometimes I start spiraling in a sticky mess because I can't do anything, and usually I tell my family members "I'm going outside" (because if they expect me to go outside I'm more likely to do it). I'll go outside and walk around and pretend to be a story character and/or I'll touch trees and overall just be... very childish. Again, not expecting out of this. I have trouble with - "I'm wasting time, I need to be constantly doing something because I'm not productive, or fast, enough to justify doing something for the sake of doing it."

But whenever I hit the "drowning nothing mush slump" I tend to either just.. go insane. Or do the nothing-nothing-being-a -toddler-thing. (Oh wait... it's like the shower phenomenon)

(Like moss is so ridiculously soft??? I just rubbed my hands over it for a few minutes, giggling. )

Oh AND - saving things to half-done/ always carrying the things around. Have a book you've wanted to read, bring it everywhere until that *reading mood* suddenly hits. I have a writing tablet and I make sure my WIP is starred and on the first page so it is RIGHT THERE. For some reason I always can't watch my favorite shows because I just.. can't? Even though I want to? So I save the tabs on my computer and NEVER CLOSE THEM. Sometimes they'll turn on when I start the computer and I don't have to do anything, so it's nice like that.

And I have 2x more posts in drafts than I do actually posted, and if I want to make something and go mind-numb but not have to actively look for something, I'll scroll through the drafts.

......

This made no sense.

How do people even get things done with ADHD and no medication???

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

snowflakes dancing on the wind

the wistful wyvern, chapter one

a/n: this series is the second instalment i my eflorr trilogy. if you haven't already read fused with the foe, then i'd highly recommend reading that first so that you know what's going on.

summary: three years where you’d sworn off love entirely, tried to interpret it as a good thing, a gift really. You could be more productive, more focused. But now that you were home again, hearing the molasses tone of his voice and seeing the beads of sweat slowly rolling down the landscape of his body, over the ink that crawled up his left arm, you knew three years wasn’t enough to mend your heart. The rest of your life probably wasn’t long enough either. 

warnings: knight!bucky barnes x knight!reader, fantasy AU (monsters, but not much magic), original fantasy world, ex-friends to lovers, coworkers to lovers, former fuckboy!bucky, tattooed!bucky, slow burn, one-sided pinning, flashbacks, alcohol consumption, kissing, dragon attack, childbirth (with very ronja rövardotter timing), blood, weapons, violence, crying

word count: 4296

�� gentle reminder that feedback, but especially reblogs are the way you support writers on here ∽

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TEN YEARS AGO, ON THE THIRTY-SEVENTH DAY OF WINTER 848 PR

A biting chill swirled through the echoing halls of Yoslor Penitentiary that noon when two gruff guards yanked you from your cell and dragged you to the far side wing of the prison. 

Passing countless doors, at last, they arrived at one with someone already on patrol on the outside. As a rusty key twisted in the lock with a reverberating click, the guard, still barely letting your feet skim the dirty floor, practically shoved you inside the chamber. 

As they threw you down into a cold chair and yanked at your chains to fasten them in a strong loop smelted into the stone floor by your feet, a voice suddenly caught your ears and caused your squinting eyes to flicker up. 

“Easy, boys! No need to drag her by the scruff of her neck as if she were a cat and not an eighteen-year-old girl,” you noticed the man already seated on the opposite side of the table, “would you please uncuff her?” he requested with an outstretched hand, a command, to your surprise, the guards obeyed, “thank you,” he leaned back in his seat as the manacles fell from your sore wrists. 

Rubbing the angry marks wrapped around your joints, a shiver ran through you as you saw the cloud of your exhale clear in the air. 

When the guards had settled on either side of the exit behind you, the blonde stranger opposing you tilted his head and asked, “do you know who I am?” 

“Should I know who you are?” your gaze lifted from your wrists and met his, “look man,” you sighed heavily, “if I at some point stole something from you, I don’t have it anymore. I don’t really have much of anything anymore in here,” a short and dry chuckle tied a bow on your statement. 

With his stare never straying, his chin then tilted slightly as he said, “I am Steven Grant Rogers, crown prince of Eflorr,” his title rolled off his tongue with such ease as if it didn’t have any merit at all, “and you’re Y/n Y/l/n, daughter of the famed One-eyed Ollie,” he rested his forearms against the table’s edge, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Blinking back at the royal, your brows furrowed softly at the mystery of why a man such as him would pay someone like you the time of day, “…alright, uh, sure.”

“We’ve kept an eye on you for a very long time, long before your father slipped away and made you take the fall for the break-in at the Sulmier estate,” your jaw couldn’t help but clench at the memory, “you’re very talented.”

“Yeah, can you just hurry up and tell me what you want?” you grunted as your knee tensely bounced beneath the table, “they’re serving soup today for supper and I’d rather not miss it.”

Huffing out what seemed like an amused breath, the prince glanced down a moment as he announced, “I have a proposition for you,” he met your gaze once more, “either you can pay for your father’s crimes here in prison or you can come work for me,” he offered slowly, “twenty years either way, but in here you will be treated as, well, essentially an animal,” his eyes briefly flicked around the cold chamber, “whereas with me you will be just as any other warden. You will have the same rights, the same opportunities, maybe even a home by the end of it.”

“…you wanna give me a job?” you squinted back at him. 

To which he simply nodded, “yes.” 

“Me?” your eyebrows only seemed to knit together tighter. 

“Like I said, you’re very talented. I could use someone of your skillset,” he then leaned back in his seat, “so, I’ll give you some time to decide,” he clasped his hands together in his lap, “if you don’t show up at Fort Borün before all the snow has melted, then let’s just say that you wouldn’t be able to get very far with the bounty there’ll be on your head.”

The heavy ivory pelts that made up your cloak billowed around your frame as the piercing wind whirled it around. You had to lean forward a bit to even make any headway in the howling blizzard that coursed around you. Icy snowflakes struck the upper part of your features that the tugged-up scarf didn’t cover. 

Squinting in the snowstorm as you crested the hill and walked under the archway, you glanced above and spotted icicles hanging from the drawn-up portcullis. 

As you glanced around the courtyard and the snow-dusted castle looming in the background, your feet soon carried you over towards a pair of bundled-up wardens posted outside a door. 

“Excuse me,” you interrupted the lewd joke one of them was halfway through telling, “could any of you–” 

But it wasn’t till the soldier to the right jumped and yelped, “ah, by Apa!” that it occurred to you just how camouflaged your frosty visage had been in the blizzard.

“Holy fuck!” the other one clutched his heart after nearly drawing the crossbow strapped to his back.

“Oh gods, sorry. Thought you were a snowman some fucking pixies had put a curse on,” the first knight, whose head was warmed by a thick knitted cap, steadied his breathing with a short laugh, “what do you need?”

Glancing between them, you asked, “could you point me in the direction of Master Tully’s office?”

“Ah,” the beanie-wearing warden nodded, “you’re a new recruit?”

Stifling a laugh, you tilted your head and huffed, “you could say that.” 

“I’ll show you,” the dark-haired one gestured, “come with me.”

“Thanks,” you offered him a small smile as he then held the door behind them open for you to enter first. 

The dining hall of the bustling barracks that you entered nearly gave you whiplash with the warm contrast it had to the freezing environment you’d just been trudging through for weeks. The fireplace down on the far wall warmed the interior and lit up the faces of the soldiers halfway through their meals. 

As you pulled back your snow-dusted hood and tugged your frosty scarf down to expose your nose and mouth, your palm attempted to brush some of the flakes off of you. 

“He’s right over there,” your guide pointed to the balding man sitting alone at a table in the corner of the chamber, before he disappeared from your side and joined some comrades on a long bench, sneakily stealing a chunk of bread from one of their bowls. 

Slowly stepping closer to the older man, hunched over some parchments as he dipped and softened a crusty piece of bread in his stew, you carefully croaked, “master Tully?”

“Aye?” he lifted his gaze to find you. 

“Hi, I was told to come talk to you,” you stepped closer and reached out your hand, “I’m Y/n, I don’t know if you–”

“Ah, yes, Y/n! Great to have you on board, lass,” his gruff hand swiftly gave yours a shake, “you must be tired after that long journey, so why don’t you grab a bowl,” he briefly pointed to the humble buffet off to the side, “have a wee rest, and then we’ll sit down and discuss everything after that, yeah?”

Offering him a light nod, you agreed, “sounds good, sir.” 

As you wandered over to fill up a bowl, Tully waved over the warden who’d shown you the way. 

“Barnes?” 

Swiftly, the soldier rose from his seat, “yes, sir?”

“Go show Y/n her quarters,” Tully returned his attention towards his stew. 

Barnes’ dark brows then knitted together, “who’s Y/n?” to which his commander simply pointed with the hand still clutching a chunk of bread, “oh…” the warden’s glance followed the trail, “right…” before raising his voice to catch your ears, “oi, snow!” you didn’t turn around even as he neared, “hey!”

Dragging the curve of a spoon from your lips when you finally noticed his stare, you finally perked up, “who, me?” and pointed to yourself. 

“Yeah you,” he didn’t slow down as he gestured for you to shadow him, “come.”

“Oh, uh,” with the bowl of stew still in your gasp, you tried not to spill as you scurried to keep up, “my name is actually Y/n,” you corrected him.

Halting his step momentarily, he turned and reached out an inked hand for you to shake, “Bucky,” a small smirk tugged at his lips as your eyes finally got the chance to wash over his visage now that his striking features weren’t veiled by a blizzard, “welcome aboard, snow.”

PRESENT DAY

You felt like somehow you should have predicted that this would be your welcome home greeting. That this striking heartbreak could have somehow been prevented if you’d only remembered when training was usually held. 

It was just rubbing salt into the wound you’d been trying so fiercely to mend. Yet, it was still there, open and festering, bleeding till you nearly passed out. You couldn’t start doing that again, purposely seeking out the salt just to feel something, just to for a single second feel good before reality settled in again. Perhaps your timing had been on purpose, perhaps your subconscious had just been so strong that it had forced you to return home right at the time that practice was held in the middle of the courtyard, and none other than Bucky stood in the centre, shirtless and glistening with sweat, as he ran the newcomers through a drill, sparring with each and every one of them till they yielded. 

You tried to get your feet to move again, you truly did, but you couldn’t keep walking past, couldn’t look away, could barely even breathe as he moved like water through the trainees.

But then suddenly, as your fiddling fingers had found the long, braided leather cord wrapped nearly a dozen times around your wrist to form a bracelet, the playful comment that left Bucky’s lips to egg the recruits on fell short, as his ocean eyes flickered up to find you, only worsening the bittersweet agony you were in.

THREE YEARS AGO, ON THE SEVENTY-SECOND DAY OF AUTUMN 855 PR

“Oh, wow,” Bucky swiftly lowered his goblet from his lips and exclaimed as his stare found you, right as you passed over the threshold and entered the bustling ballroom, “holy shit.”

Closing the short distance between you as he was standing off to the side, your skin prickled at his alarm, “what?”

“No, just–, you’re in a dress,” his gaze danced across the emerald silk draped around your form, the fabric’s shade made you stand out amidst all of the warm harvest fest decorations, “never thought I’d see the day…”

“Well, they aren’t really that practical in our line of work, so–” 

“Oh, I beg to differ…” he smirked, taking a sip of wine which by the looks of it was in no way his first cup, “I think you should always be dressed like this…” slowly stepping closer, his stare continued to lick you up in a way it never had before, “especially with a neckline as low cut as that,” as his eyes brashly dipped to your cleavage, your hand couldn’t help but shoot up to tug it up a bit more, a nervous instinct that only conjured a deep chuckle within his chest, “happy harvest fest to me.”

With cheeks burning hotter than the sun, you coughed out, “you–, uh, you look good as well.” 

“Oh, yeah?” he cheekily cocked a brow and leaned in a bit closer, causing your spine to press up against the wall behind you, “how good?” 

As your heart fluttered and nearly flew out of your chest, you heard yourself sputter, “oh, well, I mean, you always look good, you just–, uh…” your words then poofed away into nothing as he nonchalantly tugged a stray piece of hair behind your ear and let his touch linger on your heated cheek, “uhm…” 

“I just what, snow?” he purred, and you swore you saw his gaze flicker down to your lips. 

“You–… you–…” 

But before your wildest dreams could come true, an individual accidentally bumped into Bucky and lodged him far enough away from you to snuff out your hopes of the taste of his lips. 

“Wow,” the guy briefly clapped Bucky’s wide shoulder, “sorry, mate.”

“It’s alright,” he smiled as the fella went on his way. Raising up his goblet for another sip, he then turned his attention back to you, “so,” his grin was still bright on his features, “you gonna let me dance with you tonight?” 

“Dance?” your eyes grew wide, “oh, y-yeah,” you tried your best, though still failed to sound casual, “sure, if you want to.”

“Great,” he held your gaze a moment longer before saying, “I’m gonna go grab another drink, you want anything?” 

“No thanks, I’m good,” though there was now a decent enough distance betwixt you two, you still stood virtually plastered against the wall. 

“Alright,” he breathed as he began to back up, offering your gown one last glance before he disappeared, “that dress…” his head gently shook from side to side as a long exhale flowed from his lungs, “gods, you look way too hot tonight, it’s not fair.”

When his visage was no longer in sight, you slumped down a bit and took a generous breather, the grin on your face nearly making your cheeks ache. 

After your pulse had settled back from the nervous butterfly he had transformed it into, a fellow warden spotted you and shouted. 

“Hey, Y/n!” he waved for you to come over and join the little cluster he was on the edge of, “you’re still here! I thought you’d left already with lord fancy pants or whatever.”

“Lord Witherington, and yeah, it’s first in the morning that the ship leaves port,” you walked up to him. 

“Well, at least you get to enjoy one last harvest fest extravaganza before becoming a babysitter.”

“Hey, he is doing important research up in Efira, in areas that haven’t been explored since Rimesunder’s demise,” you raised a slightly defensive hand as you noted the historical significance, “it’s an honour to protect him.”

“Yeah, yeah, honour and all that crap,” he sighed light-heartedly as he raised his mug up to his lips, “but you still have time to get seriously fucked up tonight.”

“So that I can be both seasick and hungover tomorrow?”

“So that you can for once cut loose and have one last fun night before you leave!” 

Marinating on his point a moment, your thoughts couldn’t help but float away to Bucky. 

What if tonight was the night? What if you just finally took the leap and told him how you felt? 

Then, like a clock arm clicking into the new hour, you made your decision. 

“Give me that,” you grabbed the drink out of his hands before he could take another sip. 

“Wow, that’s what I’m talking about,” the soldier cheered as you swiftly downed the strong brew, “yeah!”

“Gods,” your face screwed up when you swallowed the last gulp, “that’s disgusting. What is that?”

“My uncle’s mead.”

“Urgh,” the sickly sweet taste burned on your tongue. 

“Yeah, he’s not that good at it,” he accepted the mug as you passed it back in his grasp, “but it’ll sure get you pissed in two sips or less.”

Hoping that the half tankard you’d downed would grant you the courage you sought, you glanced around the ballroom, “I gotta–, uh, did you see where Buck went?” and when he then pointed out towards the main hallway, you offered him a small smile, “thanks,” before disappearing down that way. 

You felt like you were gonna be sick as you walked through the crowds. But if it was from the nerves or the mead that was already making you dizzy, that you weren’t sure of. 

As you searched the castle, carefully poking your head into drawing rooms and narrow hallways, you found yourself anxiously muttering just beneath your breath. 

“…I just thought you should know that I like you–, no, not like that…” you shook your head at your tongue-tied attempt at figuring out how you’d profess to him, “James, I have been in love with you since the day I met yo­u–, no, that’s stupid, I never call him James, that would just be weird–” 

Your murmuring then hushed as you turned down a secluded hallway and spotted the very warden that you had combed the palace for, down towards the end of it. 

The only thing was, he wasn’t alone.

Sliding deeper into the shadows, you couldn’t spare yourself the heartache and not look. 

Bucky’s lips were attached to the long neck of some leggy blonde. Her quiet whimpers echoed against the fortress walls as he felt her up and surely littered her skin with heated lavender marks. 

Suddenly, they shifted, turning till Bucky’s back was pressed up against the walls and, to your surprise, now no longer obscured by his bulky physique, another lady, a redhead, appeared beside the hickey-adored one. 

“So,” the redhead bit her lip as she slid her palm down to pet the palpable tent in his pants, “are you gonna show us to your chambers or what?”

“Yes,” he breathlessly nodded, “yes I am,” before seizing their hands, “right this way,” they then stumbled further down the dark hallway till they disappeared from your sight, leaving you frozen in the engulfing shadows with tears silently streaming down your face. 

PRESENT DAY

“Snow?” his eyes grew as wide as his grin, “gods, it is you!” Bucky then all but forgot about the training session he was in the middle of teaching and crossed the courtyard, “it’s really you!” once his brisk stride reached you, he plucked you up into his brawny arms and spun you around, “you’re back!” 

As soon as your feet touched the ground again, you took a large step back, though hated how the distance gave you a better view of his naked torso.

“Hi, Bucky,” you uttered, readjusting the bag strung over your back. 

Why did his touch still have to make your heart flutter? 

“Three years,” he placed a wide palm on your shoulder, “three fucking years!”

Three years where you’d sworn off love entirely, tried to interpret it as a good thing, a gift really. You could be more productive, more focused. But now that you were home again, hearing the molasses tone of his voice and seeing the beads of sweat slowly rolling down the landscape of his body, over the ink that crawled up his left arm, you knew three years wasn’t enough to mend your heart. The rest of your life probably wasn’t long enough either. 

“Yeah, you–, uh,” you swallowed the thickness of emotions that peeked through in your tone, “you grew a beard.” 

“And you still look exactly the same…” his gaze washed over you as a soft sigh flowed from his lungs, “gods, I’ve missed you,” he then tilted his head and asked, “you missed me?”

“I–,” blinking back into the stormy sea of his eyes, you felt your frame begin to tremble at the feelings that were still as alive as ever, “uhm…” averting your gaze, you had to get away before everything burst, “I need to go report to the king,”

“Oh, yeah, right,” his electric touch slid from your shoulder, “last I saw, he and the queen were in the blue drawing room. You haven't met her yet! She’s kind, you’ll like her.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” you refused to look back at him as you turned towards the main entrance to the castle. 

And as you began to walk away, you heard his voice call after you, “really is good to have you back, snow!”

Nearly ripping the door off its hinges, a fleeting gasp escaped you as you saw the queen by the open window, shooting arrows after the beast that whirled outside. 

“Your majesty,” you exclaimed as your eyes briefly flickered to her pregnant belly, “there you are!” you then swiftly crossed the room to yank open the small servant’s door, “this way!” 

Reluctantly, the royal stepped back from the window, smoke and ash gushing into the castle from the opening, and followed you up the revealed stone spiral staircase. 

As you rushed up the tower, your glances didn’t just dart back to the queen, only a few paces behind you, but every time you passed one of the narrow windows, your vision couldn’t help but catch the chaos down below.

The stubborn dragon, that had plagued the town of Borün for two whole years now, had returned. 

With daggers still tight in your grasp, you tried not to think about the people you knew to be down there in the fray, wonder if they had all been burned to a crisp, but instead attempted to shake it off and focus on your mission at hand. The king had commanded you to flee the fight and protect his wife and unborn child. 

A glint of fire reflected in the queen’s eyes as you glanced back at her to find her pace halted and her palm clutched on her stomach as she stifled a groan. 

“My queen,” you dropped back down a step closer to her, “are you–”

“I’m fine,” she waved you off and drew in a shaky breath, “keep going, I’m right behind you.”

Soon at the top of the tower, you pushed the door open and held it for the noble to enter, your glance though darting out the window as she passed. 

But when a low groan seeped from her throat, your gaze darted back to her with worry, “alright, that really doesn’t sound that good,” the door slammed behind you as you sheathed your weapons and stepped closer to her, “did you get hurt?”

“No, I’m–, ah! I’m alright,” she uttered through gritted teeth, her eyes squeezed shut as one hand reached out for the wall while the other stayed on her belly, “fuck…” 

Glancing down towards her hand as it rubbed in slow, soothing circles, your eyes then widened, “are you–… your majesty, a-are you–”

“In labour?” her eyes barely opened as she met your tense gaze, “yeah. My waters broke a while ago.”

“Oh gods!” now you truly wished you’d just stayed down with the dragon, “now? Here? I–, I–, wha–, can’t you just turn it off?”

Letting both her quiver and bow slide off her frame and drop to the floor, she let out a strained exhale, “not really how it works.” 

“I–, I–, okay, I don’t know what to do–”

“That’s fine,” her arm then reached out for your support, “I do,” you carefully helped her further into the chamber before she sank down a wall till she was seated on the floor, her pale yellow gown bunching around her legs, “alright, I’m gonna need one of your knives when its time to cut the umbilical cord.”

“O-okay,” eyes still wide, you checked your belt just in case they’d mysteriously disappeared in your panic. 

Noticing the terrified expression on your face, the queen’s head tilted slightly as she said, “Y/l/n, please don’t pass out on me, I need you here with me.”

“No, no, I’m not gonna pass out,” you rushed to reply, though weren’t completely convinced yourself, “I just–, w-what do I do? Do I do anything?”

Raising up her fingers, she panted, “take my hand.”

“Alright, yes, of course,” you swiftly grabbed her palm. 

You had no idea how much time passed, if your hand would eventually fall off for how hard she was squeezing it, or even how many times the royal’s groans, which threatened to morph into screams, reverberated off the palace walls and mixed with the chaos rumbling from outside. 

Then suddenly, an echo shot through the castle, “dove!” and though she couldn’t find it in her to yell back, the familiar voice visibly thawed something within the queen. 

“Up here!” you yelled as loudly as you could. 

Swiftly, the door was kicked down, and in stormed a honey-haired man, whose bloodstained shield and stout axe promptly dropped to the floor with a loud clang. 

“Steve!” the queen cried out through the relieved smile that softened her pained expression, “you’re here!”

“Yeah,” he looked as if a feather could have knocked him over, “I’m here, I’m here,” the king then rushed to switch places with you, kneeling beside his wife and clutching her hand in both of his, “what fucking timing our daughter has,” a soft chuckle bubbled out of him as he bought the back of her palm up to his lips and planted a chased peck upon it, “not even born yet and she already wants to join the fray,” he uttered, conjuring a slight laugh to crack through her pain, “a real fighter, just like her mom.”

Gazing up at him, a sombreness suddenly washed over her features as she then murmured, “my love, if I don’t–”

“No,” he swiftly cut her off, “that’s not gonna happen, you hear me? History won’t repeat itself, you’ve done everything in your power to make that so. You can do this, dove. I know you can.” 

He held her hand through it all, took the sting as each one of her nails broke his skin and every ear-piercing curse she threw at him, till a new life was suddenly in the room, laying against the exposed skin on her mother’s chest and wailing about the sudden change in scenery.

© 2024 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[withleeknow]

letters i didn't send to you.

pairing: ot8 x reader (ot8 in the sense that there's no name mentioned so you can imagine whoever you want. imagine the whole kpop industry if you want lol) genre/warnings: established relationship, long distance relationship au?, angst, fluff if you squint. unedited bc i am insane word count: 0.7k note: trying something new here! dunno how people are gonna like it but i don't feel terrible about it 🤷‍♀️ a product of my emo hours and i needed an outlet and i thought oh hey why not just project this into a fic lol

as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡

navigation / masterlist / ko-fi

3:29am, i've been dreaming about you for years. stars and moons and cotton candy clouds on fire at sundown. the whole universe resides in your eyes, it's almost unfair. sleepless nights because you're not here; restless days because i can't wait for you to be back. the clock stops ticking when you're not with me. the magnetic pull gets stronger during the witching hour somehow. i've always been drawn to you, even before i knew who you were. you're the only home i'd leave all my haunts for. it's summer solstice in most parts of the world but not in our bedroom, not when the only way i can have you is through a phone screen on your pillow. your voice is trying to lull me to sleep. it doesn't come close to replicating one tenth of your warmth. to love is to endure.

-

i'm halfway through the day, and you must be dreaming of where you belong, by my side on a bed that's far too big when i'm the only occupant. or at least, i hope you're dreaming of me too. 1:19pm, i'm six hours ahead but days and weeks and months and years behind, still stuck in that airport where you left me for the first time. some days, my eyes get misty at lunch when i think about your alarm going off and your irritated groan as you roll over to make your phone stop screaming. other days, i don't have an appetite at all, not with you on my mind and the reminder that there's still oceans between us. when are you coming home? i know when you're coming home, and yet i ask anyway, as if it'll shorten the distance and make the time pass more quickly. to love is to wait.

-

saturday morning, but i can't stay in bed past 7:12am. missing you a lot tonight, was what you had sent while i was asleep. that's a little cruel for a good morning text, don't you think? it's not your fault. i blame it on the oceans, on the time, on the distance. the coffee is still brewing, just enough for one steaming mug but it would've been nice if i got to make two. can we go back to new york? we always say we would, but can we do it now? i'll meet you halfway if you let me. there's nothing that ties me to this place. you're always on the move. my home is always on the move. we were happy on that trip, right? my fondest memories of you. skylines and the high line. to love is to risk it all, and i would risk it all for you. take me home, will you? let's go back to new york.

-

the clock reads 8:18am, but the date is all wrong. you should be landing any minute now, but not for another two days. two more days until you're home, ten days that i get to be in your arms. and yet, all i can think about is your departure, about coming back to an empty apartment after you're gone again. i think about you leaving before you even return. the drive back after i've sent you off, it never hurts less no matter how many times we go through it. i can already picture the scene, it's almost routine at this point. your sparkling eyes when they find me in the crowded airport, your relieved sigh when i run to you, your hands clutching me so tightly like you don't want to let go either. it's always this damn airport. we should stop meeting like this. when the buzzing of my phone snaps me out of it, i know who's on the other end of the notification. a photo of your new polaroid camera, then a promise to make more memories to keep with us when you come back to me.

to love is to willingly weather this with you a million times and more. even if it hurts. maybe especially if it hurts. you're the reason i keep going. you're the reason why the sun rises in the morning. let's talk about new york when you're here.

all rights reserved © withleeknow. reposting, translating and/or modifying is not permitted by any means. [posted 02.07.2024]

[mazikeenhyde]

Oh Baby, Pain is Pleasure! Finale Part 2

POLY JUDGMENT DAY X READER (WRESTLER) 

Y/W/N – Your Wrestling Name 

Y/W/N/F – Your Wrestling Name Finisher

WARNING – THESE WARNINGS COVER ALL PARTS OF THIS FICTION/ IMAGINE STORY- THEY MAY NOT BE SPECIFIC TO THIS PARTICULAR PART! - 

SMUT,  GIRL X GIRL, MAN X MAN, POLY RELATIONSHIPS/SEXUAL, BDSM, BLOOD, PANIC ATTACKS, SPANKING, VIOLENT REFRENCES, INJURY, ABUSE (CONSENTUAL) CHEATING, STALKERS/ STALKING, SMOKING/ CIGARETTES , ALCOHOL

Tag List - @babybatlover @p0is0nl0ve @babiidee28 @darlingnikkisixx @commandershepardofthedas gooses-pond  rhiamaymay  scaraskzzs darkangelchronicles 

Oh Baby…Pain is Pleasure – Finale Part 2

“You’re Fired y/w/n..... You're fired, with immediate effect.” 

In that moment, in that very moment… I could say it was as if the world just fell away. As if the entirety of time stood still, as if silence was the only thing that existed on earth… but that could not be further from the truth. All hell had broken loose. 

The entirety of Judgement Day had completely lost their minds, they were screaming & shouting, demanding answers from Triple H who had now been surrounded by security in an attempt to hold back the furious group. Paul was trying to have his voice heard over them all but every word he got out, he was interrupted again. Liv Morgan had been quick to disappear out of sight choosing to wait in the wings of the ramp to enter the match. The Wyatt Sicks had already made their entrance to the ring and were now pacing their territory both inside and out of the cages. The monitors in Gorilla showed them playing up to the audience while many fans were chanting for The Judgment Day, for Mami, for Y/W/N big entrance. Abby the Witch, who had already entered the cell was sat in the middle of the canvas smiling, chanting to herself in hushed tones, her painted China mask glowing in the spotlight gave such an uneasy feeling to those in the front row. Meanwhile those further back in the cheap seats had been more than happy to begin poking fun, trying to stir up the Wyatts. 

“Y/W/N is gonna kill you…. Y/W/N is gonna kill you!” They sang, arms waving in the air as Dexter had jumped up onto the barricade alongside Huskus, shouting abuse back at the spectators. But the fans were just as quick to jump on them instead…

“Rhea’s gonna kill you… Rhea’s gonna kill you!” The audience chimed together. Out in the arena the atmosphere was really building for what everyone believed was going to be an incredible match. 

Meanwhile, backstage chaos was still at full peak. Anxiety was kicking in and I stood back from everyone in silence, I wasn’t entirely sure what to say, what to do. How do I even begin to process what he had said, what was going on? I couldn’t hear any of them now, my brain had turned into a cloud of fog. All I could focus on was a high-pitched alarm going off in the corner of the room, it was flashing on and off with an LED screen that displayed the words ‘ON AIR’. 

The main event of WrestleMania had been replaced last minuite with this Ten Man grand slam match. When it had been announced the crowd were beyond excited, they screamed and chanted ‘THIS IS AWESOME’ so loudly the ring announcers had struggled to be heard, even with a microphone. 

And yet I was not going to be in it? Pfft, over my dead body. 

I’m not sure where it came from, or indeed what bought me back to reality. Maybe it had been that alarm indicating that the show was live, and the production team were now running behind, given that The Judgment Day were still stood in Gorilla arguing with Paul and every member of the backstage crew. 

I took a deep breath and proceeded to walk over to the production crews table, picking up a steel chair and launching it across the room into the adjacent wall. The loud crashing sound echoed throughout the room as everyone fell silent and stared over in my direction. Rhea looked so concerned for me as her eyes scanned over my body for any sign of injury or upset. Meanwhile the boys were all far to angry to fully regulate their emotions at that point. 

“Enough…” I stated plainly, holding my head up high and slowly walking over towards Triple H. 

Rhea, Damian, Finn and Dom all took a step back to allow me to pass by them as I stopped in front of my boss. Security was quick to regroup and reform behind him while Judgment Day stood directly behind me, Dom reached out his hand to squeeze my fingers, desperate to make sure his girl was okay. Though I am sure he himself needed a little grounding too. 

“Why?” I questioned Triple H as he readjusted his suit shirt from Damian’s firm grip, making sure to fix his tie where Finn had attempted to throttle him with it. 

“Why am I fired? You have to tell me why. You can’t just fire me, walk away and think no one is going to question your decision.” My voice was plain, strong and confident. If I hadn’t been so focused on dealing with the situation in hand, I might have noticed Damian getting a little hot under the collar at his little lady dominating the problems at hand. I may have noticed Finn smirking with pride at the self-confidence I was displaying, or even Rhea with her arms folded and eyebrow raised, she knew full well her girl could handle business. 

Hunter cleared his throat as he placed one hand in his pocket and the other over his mouth, wiping the sweat of his chin and taking a breath. 

“This company, Y/W/N…has a strict no tolerance policy when it comes to fraternizing with other wrestling companies. You signed a contract young lady; you know the rules…. And you broke those rules. So…” Hunters words sounded almost humorous, like the situation to him was funny. 

“What are you talking about!?” I said, frustrated and confused at everything that was going on. 

Triple H very quickly got frustrated and ran his hands over his head, taking another sharp breath. 

“Look, we don’t have time for this right now. You lot…” He said pointing to Rhea, Damian, Dominik and Finn. 

“Get out to the ring, the match needs to start! Liv Morgan is waiting; she will be taking Y/W/N place. GO!!” His voice was harsh, he was not happy, but neither were my loves. I turned on the spot to face them all and smiled. 

“Finn, you always told me the show must go on, no distractions. Remember? All of you, go! Kick their asses, Ill fix this, I promise! I’ll see you out there” I held out my hands and they all quickly rushed in, sharing a warm group hug before they made their way out. Rhea turned before she exited through the curtain as The Judgment Day’s music played out in the arena, blowing me a kiss and offering a half corner smile. 

I watched as the monitors showed them all entering the ramp and making their way to the ring, the crowd cheering and chanting their names. But the front row quickly noticed it was Liv Morgan there and not me. And when Samantha Irvin announced Liv would be my replacement, the thousands of spectators were not happy. 

“BOO! BOO! YOU SUCK! YOU SUCK! WE WANT Y/W/N! WE WANT Y/W/N! THIS IS BULLSHIT. . . . . THIS IS BULL SHIT!” 

Liv smirked without a care in the world and made her way into the cell. 

The cages were locked, the bell was rung. 

The War began. 

“Ok!” I shouted facing my manager once more. 

“You are back on schedule, the production are happy and the show is running to time again! So, take a bloody chill pill grandad and explain to me what the hell you are talking about?!” I demanded standing in front of Hunter. 

He sighed, frustrated by my words and turned on the spot, taking an envelope out from the desk behind him and handing it to me. 

“Liv bought this to my attention after your match earlier, just shortly after you and the rest of Judgment Day went back to your locker room, I wanted to discuss it with you, but you were all…….. obviously busy.” He raised his eyebrows as he looked down at me, his tall figure looming above mine as I rolled my eyes at his words and proceeded to open the envelope. 

We must have been loud enough for Hunter to hear us! 

Tearing open the envelope I pulled out a handful of photographs but before I could take a look a sudden flurry of cheers from the crowd had me distracted for a moment. Both Triple H and I turned our heads to the monitor as Samantha Irvin’s voice ringed through the sound system. 

“Joe Gacy has been eliminated!” 

Dominik and Damian had managed to pair up while the others fought and with an assisted South of Heaven-Frog Splash Dom had pinned Huskus! A huge grin was plastered on my face as I turned my attention to Rhea who had Howdy pinned in the corner, pounding him with continuous punches to the face. That glint in her eye showed me she was fighting for love and her passion for revenge had completely taken over. 

Liv and Nikki were in the midst of a brutal scrap, exchanging punches and body kicks with neither showing any weakness, but my heart burnt deep and heavy. That should be me out there fighting! That is my title shot! 

Frustratingly I could also see Rowan had gotten back to his feet after a brawl with Finn, who had been sent over the top rope and into the steel cage. My poor Irish prince was in agony, then within the blink of an eye Rowans giant frame had flattened Damian with a hefty forearm, swiftly followed by a chokeslam to Dom who was now out for the count. 

“Dominik Mysterio has been eliminated!” 

“Shit…” I whispered under my breath, turning my attention back to the photographs. My heart ached for Dom, I needed to be out there. I need to sort this shit once and for all! 

“So, what is this?! What am I looking at?” I demanded taking a closer look at the photos. They were blurry, it looked like countryside landscape, but I recognized something in it. There was a vehicle in them, it was a white transit van, hidden slightly by some large branches hanging from the trees above. On the side of the van in large letters were painted ‘A.E.W’. And there I was, standing at the back looking over my shoulder. I don’t remember any of this though. There’s no denying it was me but… why do I look so…odd? Positioned so strangely? So lifeless? So?...

Then it hit me. 

This was the day the Wyatts had snatched me from my run, I didn’t look odd or strange, I wasn’t even conscious!

“I know how this may look H, but I promise you I have no connection to AEW whatsoever! Look…” I pulled the photo out to show him in closer detail. 

“Yes, it is me. But look you can see! My eyes aren’t even open and my hands… they are tied behind my back! I know its blurry, clearly this camera man they paid off is shit at his job! Look, I have a long history with the Wyatts, and one I don’t want to bring to light. I made some serious mistakes in my past and I learnt from them, Bray Wyatt helped me see that and I was a firefly. Howdy he, he can’t accept his brother has gone. And we all know when love cannot save you, evil is quick to thrive. This day, this day Finn had me training and I went for a run, the Wyatts grabbed me and took me to this old barn to try and scare me. I didn’t think much of it, Howdy’s always playing games but…..” My voice trailed off into a silent whisper as something caught my eye. 

“I never knew…. Why… they….” My voice was broken, barely audible as Hunter rushed to my side looking closer at the photograph in my hands. I was trembling as I only now realized the true ring master behind it all. 

There…

in the photograph….

Driving the van. 

My shaking finger moved to point at the driver’s seat, a blurry but prominent head of hair was clearly visible and we all knew who it was. 

“But.. that’s Liv Morgan?” Hunter questioned, taking the photo from my hands. 

“I never knew why they took me that day, it all seemed so strange. But it was, it was all so strange because it was a set up. She planned it right from the moment he set her free. Despite both of us being guilty for that night we took our revenge to far she had always blamed me. She set me up!” My voice more dominant then ever as I turned to face hunter. 

“I understand you cannot pull her from the match now, but you have to see this was all a set up! The idiot she is must of thought the photos being such a poor condition you wouldn’t of taken notice of her in the van when you could clearly see me. I deserve to be in this match, I deserve to fight for that Championship! HUNTER PLEASE!” I was begging him at this point. 

Triple H turned his head to the monitor as Samantha Irvin’s voice rang through the arena once more. 

“Dexter Lumis and Finn Balor have both been eliminated in a double pin!” Samantha sounded panicked as the referee had opened the door to the cage and Finn and Dexter had come out still swinging for each other after managing to get each other in a double shoulder down pin. Neither preparing to stop the fight they were still going until they were pulled apart by security and Dominik who was quick to check on Finn. He led him over to their opposing side of the cage as Rhea rushed to put her hand through the grate to Dom. She looked exhausted and Damian was clearly running on fumes now too. 

“HUNTER. PLEASE!” I threw my hands up to the screens as Liv was setting up her finisher.

Hunter said nothing, he simply reached over and flicked a switch on the keyboard. He nodded his head to me as my music drowned out the stadium and the crowd erupted into complete chaos. 

The lighting scheme changed to full on Judgement Day colors, flashing LED’s and stream spot lights illuminated the runway as I appeared at the top of the ramp. 

Inside the first cage remained Damian & Rhea vs Rowan and Uncle Howdy, meanwhile Nikki Cross and Liv Morgan were battling with what they had left in the second cell. 

Dom and Finn leapt up at the sound of my music, grappling the side of the cell and shouting at the top of their lungs as I ran at full speed down to the ring, the referee opening the cage door and allowing me entry. 

Locking eyes with Liv Morgan she grinned evily and hit her finisher on the witch, pushing her out of the way and to the floor below. 

And so there we stood. 

“We were friends Liv, we were family. How fast you were to sell me out...” I spoke.

“I didn’t sell you out… I bought in to a new way. You were weak, we could have finished that scumbag off for what she did to you. But no… Y/W/N always breaks, you were to soft.” Liv’s voice was full of spite.

“I wasn’t soft Liv, what we did was wrong. He taught me that, but it seems you never took his lessons to heart. A firefly always….” I tried to reason but she cut me off. 

“SCREW THE FIREFLIES!” Liv lashed out grabbing my hair and the fight began. Blow after blow, swing after swing, punch after punch. 

The crowd erupted and their chants could be heard the other end of the city. 

“Y/W/N! Y/W/N! Y/W/N! Y/W/N!”  

We tore each other apart in that ring, destroying every last piece of who we were and what we wanted to be. Nothing was off limit, and we knew it. Kendo sticks, fire extinguishers, chairs, tables and more. To the point of two broken women standing in front of each other, blood dripping and bruises across every part of the skin. The fans loved it, but they had no idea we were both prepared to destroy each other to secure victory. 

Rhea and Damian had Howdy and Rowan on their knees as they both set up for their finishers, taking a quick peek over to my match before sending these two scoundrels back to where they came from. 

“RIPTIDE! SOUTH OF HEAVEN! RIPTIDE! SOUTH OF HEAVEN!” The announcement desk was going wild, unable to comprehend the absolute madness of this match. 

“1……2…….3!!!!” THE CROWD CHANTED AND CHEERED! 

“Erik Rowan and Uncle Howdy have been eliminated! The Judgment Day win the first battle of Hell in a Cell!” Samantha Irwin announced, cheering as she did. 

Finn and Dom ran around to the side of the cell I was fighting in, Nikki cross was out for the count on the floor of the cage while Liv had me up against the ropes. My vision starting to blur as she laid her fist into my face repeatedly before getting off and picking up the Kendo stick by her feet. She swung it into my ribs again and again and again, Blasting any remaining air from my lungs. 

Liv then threw the stick to the side and turned to celebrate to the crowd, preparing her run up to the ropes for the final Oblivion. 

“Y/N! Y/N!” I could hear Finn’s voice coming from behind me. Turning my head I could just make out his silhouette. 

“Come on lass, you can do it!” Finn shouted, over the sounds of the crowd. 

“Come on my girl! Finish this!” Dom yelled. 

From my right I could hear two gentle voices calling out, trying to ground me back into reality. 

“Mi Vida, Mi Vida! Por favor, listen to me! You can do this!” Damian’s voice was gentle and full of love. 

“Bunny, you are our champion already, no you need to be theirs!” Rhea was right. 

I dragged myself back to my feet, Liv racing towards me and without a seconds thought I lept onto the rope before catching her off guard. 

“Y/W/N/F! Y/W/N/F! MORGANS DOWN MORGANS DOWN!” The announcement team went wild as I found myself laying next to Liv, she was out and I could see it. 

“PIN HER LASS! PIN HER!!” Finn screamed as I reached out, dragging my broken body towards the bitch, falling flat on top of her. 

1!!!!

2!!!!!

3!!!!!

The entire stadium flew into a chaotic celebration, with screams, cheers, chants and more! Confetti cannons blasted off down the entire ramp runway and fireworks set off, filling the night sky above. 

“She’s done it! Y/W/N has done it! We have a new champion! We have a new champion!” 

The referee unlocked the cage door and Finn, Dom, Damian and Rhea came bounding through tackling me to the ground. Their smiles, cuddles and kisses were almost enough to block any pain signals my body was sending, instead a flood of emotion took me out in waves as Damian hoisted me up onto his shoulders, parading me around the ring. 

Rhea was quick to take Liv Morgan by the scruff of the hair and send her headfirst out of the cell, dusting her hands off and turning away. 

“Get out of here, Puta!” Rhea’s accent had such a way when she spoke Spanish, I could feel my inner core heating up and Damian knew it. He bent down and Dom helped me off, grinning and planting a soft kiss on my lips. 

Finn came over, kneeling down in front of me and held out the ‘Women’s World Championship’ belt. 

“You did it Lass, our champion” he smiled, standing and pinning the belt around my waist. 

Finn put his arm around my neck, waving the others over to join us. 

There we stood, a full family hug in the light of the full moon under the glow of a million fireworks and the love of a million adoring fans. 

But no love as true, no love as strong… as theirs. 

“I made you a promise Y/N, you are a champion. Our champion…” Finn smiled, “Now, bring on those distractions!” 

I did it. 

I was their champion. 

‘To get over the past, 

You first have to accept that the past is over. 

No matter how many times you revisit it, analyze it, regret it, or sweat it, it’s over. 

It can hurt you no more’ – Mandy Hale

The End. 

[probablyasocialecologist]

Consider the ways oil and gas are already entwined with big tech. The foundation of the partnership between Big Tech and Big Oil is the cloud, explains Zero Cool, a software expert who went to Kazakhstan to do work for Chevron and chronicled this in Logic magazine. “For Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, as well as a few smaller cloud competitors like Oracle and IBM, winning the IT spend of the Fortune 500 is where most of the money in the public cloud market will be made”—and out of the biggest ten companies in the world by revenue, six are in the business of oil production. What are oil companies going to do with the cloud? Apparently, Chevron—which signed a seven-year cloud contract with Microsoft—generates a terabyte of data per day per sensor and has thousands of wells with these sensors. They can’t even use all that data because of the scale of computation required. “Big Tech doesn’t just supply the infrastructures that enable oil companies to crunch their data,” explains Zero Cool; they also provide analytic tools, and machine learning can help discover patterns to run their operations more efficiently. This is another reason why Big Oils need Big Tech; they have the edge when it comes to artificial intelligence/machine learning. “Why go through the effort of using clean energy to power your data centers when those same data centers are being used by companies like Chevron to produce more oil?” Zero Cool asks, also noting that one of the main reasons oil companies are interested in technology is to surveil workers.

Holly Jean Buck, Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero is Not Enough

[queserasora]

JEAN KIRSCHTEIN X FEM READER | NSFW WORD COUNT: 4.5k CONTENT WARNING: profanity because Jean has a tiny bit of a potty mouth, lots and lots of groping, dry humping, alcohol consumption (would it be a fic I wrote if they weren't drinking to some degree??? i think not), nipple play, lots of teasing, jealous possessive jean likes to do a lot of biting and marking, even if frankly he has no right to be jealous, he is a HYPOCRITE, that should be a warning, also jean does whatever he wants then acts like he did nothing, so another warning, he throws dishes in sinks and breaks them, another warning, the man breaks every domestic law and rule, i will fight him A SUMMARY: Jean and Y/N are in a marriage of convenience, and have been for several months. There is no reason for feelings to be involved, but when someone decides to hit on Y/N at the gym--Jean has to come to terms with emotions he has no power to control.

An arrangement of convenience should always remain that: a convenience.

Four months had passed since you first walked through his door, carrying very little in your arms. When he had asked you about the rest of your possessions you had smiled—tight lipped, abashedly, almost secretive. I didn't have much to begin with, you had said. I'll just consider this a fresh start. It had always been this way. He had met you in college, as you walked down the corridor with your head in the clouds, carrying photocopies from course books you couldn't afford.

His chest was solid when you ran into him, papers scattering into the air like tinted flower petals reminding you—one by one—that you didn't belong at that school, no matter how hard you tried. He still remembers the hole on your slip on shoes, and the way the peek of the purple sock teased him. He still remembers the flush on your cheeks, the watery pathetic look in your eyes as if you had been holding back from crying all day long. He still remembers the way they laughed at your patched up backpack, and how you held your head high.

And he remembers the way it filled him with fiery rage, how it consumed him and prodded him to want to burn the whole establishment down—just like now. He watches quietly as he sits upright on the bench. His fingers curled into fists, gripping so tightly his clipped fingernails threaten to piece skin. There's a man next to you, smiling down at you with a lecherous sheen to his eyes. Jean does his best to sit still, to stretch his arms above his head and not picture himself ripping his eyeballs out. His hand touches your elbow, and Jean stands up, reasoning yelling in the back of his mind to grab his attention.

The contract flashes through his mind's eyes, taking precedence over his anger.

An arrangement of convenience should remain a convenience. Your lives were meant to be lived in privacy, without the meddling interference from each other. Those were rules strictly discussed and agreed upon. Jean's mouth twists into a scowl at the memory of his signature, neatly scribbled at the end of the paper—the same one that he kept a copy of in the drawer of his nightstand.

You had every right to entertain that idiot if you liked—even if Jean thought he looked like he couldn't count past ten. You had every right to smile back, the way you did, and laugh at whatever joke he had just said. You had every right to live a life away from him, as long as you came back home every night, to sleep in your own bed, in your own room.

He grabs a towel, and sprays sanitizer on the bench, finding cleaning his own sweat infinitesimally more productive than to focus on the bitter jealousy gnawing at the pit of his stomach. Jean knows he has no leg to stand on, no right to stride up to you and swat his hand away. He has no right to feel cheated, or uneasy—to feel like you're being tugged away from his fingers.

But he does, so he spins in place and walks towards you, feet slamming down on the gym mats—muffling his anger. He tries to think of excuses to give, something or anything that would make him sound less pathetic than he felt. He is within earshot when he hears you.

“No, I won't go with you,” you say flatly, your gaze is pointed as you blink. “I'm married,” you tell the man. Jean is surprised when he feels your hands on his bicep. The way your fingernails softly dig into his flesh remind him that this moment is real. It's not just another fantasy that plagued him at night while he laid in bed skin slick with his own sweat. This was you, standing your ground. This was you, holding on to him.

At the moment it didn't matter whether he was just an excuse for you to push away unwanted attention. Jean stares the man down who looks appropriately abashed before his mouth twists in anger. Jean feels his own mouth water. The words are cocked on his tongue but you're pulling away, leading him towards the exit and down the stairs. They fizzle and die out in smoke with every step taken.

He had hoped the heat of the shower would wash it all way. His hair sticks to his forehead under the shower head. Eyes closed, water running over his skin, he tilts his face to the ceiling in hopes that thoughts of you would evaporate from his mind and follow the steam away from his body. Instead, you envelop him in your heated cloudiness. He sees the band of your sports bra digging into the soft flesh of your torso. He can picture, in annoyingly perfect detail, the sweat that clung to the small of your back, the way drops drifted lower until they disappeared into your spandex. The same spandex that had made him uncomfortably tight in his gym shorts when he saw you bend at the knees for a squat.

Jean stays in the shower long enough for his fingers to prune. He stays until thoughts of you turn hazy, less significant. When he makes it out of the shower with wet hair, a towel around his shoulders he sees you coming out of your room, and into the kitchen. His eyes track your movements, a predatory hunger prowling inside him like a caged animal. Jean coughs into a closed fist; a sad attempt at composure. Your curls are wet, soft ringlets sticking closer to your skull than he is used to. He is used to seeing them wild, and bouncy, swaying with every move you make—but this sight isn't unappealing either.

Your pajama shorts are, frankly, a bit too short for polite company. Jean tilts his head in barely restrained admiration as you move towards the fridge and bend over to reach for something in the back. Ass cheeks taunt him as they peek out from under the legs' hemline. Your white t shirt is snug over your chest, and see through enough he can almost picture every detail on your bra.

Jean swallows thickly and drops himself on the couch—the same spot he always occupies as you cook.

It's where he can watch you the best. It's usually innocent, almost pure but tonight Jean feels filthy as he takes in your silhouette. He can't stand the sight of your hair, the way you keep brushing it away from your face with an impassive hand. He can smell your shampoo—imagine it. He had smelled it enough times when you got too close; the scent of coconut and vanilla. He is irritated at how accurately his mind can recall it, how he can recall the back of your neck and how badly he had wanted to kiss it then. Jean licks his lips.

He wanted to kiss it still. Badly.

Jean is still irate when he sits down for dinner. His body is tense from the constant clenching of muscle. His jaw hurts, but he chews anyway, not wanting to appear ungrateful. Your mouth; however, is treacherous. A sinful siren leading him to murky waters. You wrap it around each morsel, and around your fork, as if he was made of wet paper; wafer thin. Jean swallows his desires with a swig of wine. He did not often drink, much less wine, but you had insisted; another month in faux marital bliss.

You had a strange sense of humor he couldn't help but entertain. It pissed him off to no end.

The wine is sweet on his tongue, and he wonders if it's the same for you as you throw your head back, determined to get every last drop in your glass. Your tongue dips around the rim of it, throat exposed for his devious eyes to take in. Jean shakes his head, pretending his brown hair is in the way of his eyes. In reality, he's trying to shake your hold off his mind. He's trying to dislodge the imagery of that man at the gym running his tongue up the column of your throat. Jean blinks, a heat over his eyes as he finds the hollow of your neck, and fights the urge that blooms inside of him.

He wants to kiss you there, on the soft flesh that connects your shoulder and neck. He wants to follow up the trail to just under your ear, and he wants to mark you time and time again; a signature left on skin drawn with blood and teeth.

Jean bites down on his last morsel of dinner and barely misses his tongue. He is nauseated by his own desires. He thinks there might be something innately wrong with him and the way he wants to pull you up to the table and rip your clothes off, so he can fuck you before the desire kills him first.

He thinks he hears your voice saying his name in ecstasy in his ear, loud and clear, so he slaps his hand on the table in an attempt to make a louder sound. His blood rushing to his ears, beating against the walls of his sanity, threaten to drown out your voice.

“Are you okay?” you ask him, brows drawn together in confusion. Jean shakes his head, and smiles—soft laughter following his gesture.

“There was a mosquito,” he lies with ease, wiping an already clean hand with a napkin. He sees your eyes narrow, and sees doubt peek from behind the brown in them but he ignores it. Jean had bigger, bolder things to worry about—like the sudden erection in his pants. He moves his hips in the seat, trying his best to adjust himself under the table without using his hands. It doesn't work. It especially doesn't work once you have decided you're done with entree of the night and move on to dessert.

Strawberries had never seemed like a poisoned fruit before but Jean starts to question reality when your white teeth bite down on the bright red flesh of one. Juice spills over your bottom lip, a faint red that trails down your chin. You hurriedly bring up a hand, collecting the drips on the crook of your palm. Jean breathes out noisily through his nostrils, a rogue hand going to his crotch where he palms his erection. To adjust, he lies to himself, to push it down in a way that would not pain him, but the stroke of his hand only reminds him of what he is missing.

Your fingers—the ones that grasp another berry and another berry. Your lips—the ones that suck the whip cream right off the red tip of another strawberry.

His breathing is barely controlled, and he feels heat slide up his neck and face; lust filled fingers seeking to gauge his eyes out. The same eyes that refuse to let you go. They follow you as you move to carry dishes to the sink. He doesn't know when he does it, but he stands up nonetheless, as if he is tethered to you by an invisible string. He follows you into the kitchen, his own empty dishes in his hands.

“You know,” you start, placing the dishes in the sink. You're full, and content, but it wouldn't be right to finish dinner without at least bickering once with Jean before bedtime. Also, it helped to ease the tension that flooded your body at the feel of his presence. He was standing closely behind you. Too close.Enough to make your heart race. “Since I cooked dinner yet again, the least you can do is do the dishes.”

You turn around, determined to laugh your way out of this situation. Jean's arms are around you, plates clattering in the sink as he drops them in haphazardly. The noise is sharp and it fills your ears as Jean's mouth clashes against yours. There's a gasp in the back of your throat, one you swallow promptly when he pushes against your lips. The kiss is tight lipped, forceful. His hand is searing against your skin where he grips the back of your neck, thick strong fingers digging into your flesh. His free arm curls around your waist, and he pulls you in close, crushing you against his wide chest. A flush blankets you when you feel his hard on press against the softness of your belly.

Jean thinks he might suffocate. His shoulders stiffen as he keeps his mouth on yours, trying to weigh your reaction. He thinks he should wait for a sign from you, anything that will grant him access to the inside of your mouth to find the tongue that teased him time and time again earlier. He thinks he should practice patience but the scent of your breath heavy with the sweetness from the white whine threatens to intoxicate him; to strip him from whatever meager remains of inhibitions populated his mind and body.

Your eyes flutter open and close. There is heat at the pit of your belly. You're aware of this feeling making you tremble. You're aware of the embarrassing throb between your legs, the tell tale sign of rushing blood in a state of arousal. Your body wants his, and it only makes his erection all the more evident. You're not sure if you should return his kiss, but you find yourself pressing tighter against him, eager to see what would happen if you wiggle in his embrace; tease him just a tiny bit.

As you slip your hands over his chest, your lips break away. Jean slots his mouth against yours, his tongue slipping in between your sweetened lips. In a rare moment of tenderness, Jean brushes his tongue against yours, urging goosebumps to run their course over your brown skin. You gasp in his embrace, and it was all the incentive he needed. He didn't have to think anymore. He could just take.

So he claims your tongue as his—sucks on it with greed he tried to hide with pretenses and lies. His hands go rogue, they act recklessly as they smooth down your back and grasp fistfuls of the tender flesh of your ass. Jean sucks on your bottom lip, groaning as his hands keep moving. They slide over your hips, and over your belly until they find your breasts. He is nipping at the corners of your mouth, mumbling things you don't catch while he kneads your tits. You are too preoccupied by the building wetness between your legs to care about the words he's trying to say. From experience, you know it's nothing important. Jean had the innate ability to talk the most crap when you needed him to the least.

You don't respond, and it upsets him. So he pushes you against the sink. You cry out as the edge digs into your backside. Jean picks you up by the waist and places you back down on top of the edge of the sink. You mumble something about the faucet and Jean reaches around you, blindly as he is sucking on your tongue, to move the faucet around—anything so you'd stop complaining, so you'd stop interrupting him. Your taste floods his mouth; strawberries and wine, a combination he knows he'll never be able to recover from now. Your tongue marks him everywhere it touches, tattoos of memories digging into the skin of his jaw, down the column of his throat.

His fingers are tangled in your curls. Jean grunts when you bite down on his neck, tugging at sensitive skin. He pulls you close, tightly, as if that would help ease you under his skin. Your mouth is unforgiving, and Jean lets you go as you suck on the hollow of his neck, feeling his grip on you becoming elusive. He can't contain you or this heat slowly building in the kitchen. You are an arsonist and he is an abandoned building, too tempting, too lonesome and swallowed by darkness for you not to set on fire, to not stand back and watch as the flames eviscerate its foundations into dust.

So you dig your teeth into his skin, time and time again in your path for revenge. You leave a mark for every smart quip he threw your way, for every time he laughed sarcastically at something you said. His hand slams on the door of the cupboard above you. You look up, startled, eyes clouded with lust. His dark lashes obscure the flame behind his eyes, but you see the glistening saliva on his bottom lip, and the flush of his cheeks. You see his chest rising and falling, hear the rattling of his breath and in that moment you know that Jean Kirschtein is a beast barely contained.

He is a hunter seeking to be reformed but salivating at the chance of one more kill.

His body is trembling, fighting the urge. You look so decadent underneath him, trapped between him and the kitchen sink. Your neck is marred by angry teeth, and a hungry mouth. His mouth stretches into a lazy lopsided grin. That had been his doing, and he should feel no satisfaction. He had no right and no reason except that he just wanted to. Just like he just wanted to pull your shorts down, and push your panties to the side and fuck you right there and then, on the sink, with the dirty dishes behind your ass.

A newfound breath in his lungs he goes back to your mouth, a stupid moth to a burning flame. In his mind, somewhere small and dark, he knows he should stop kissing you. He knows he should end things here before they become more complicated, before you hate him in the morning. He knows this, but his body no longer belongs to him. He thinks, in agony and in lust, that maybe it belonged to you now as you slip your hands under his shirt and run your nails down his back. He hisses into your mouth, a small groan reminding him of his hardened cock. Jean thinks of pulling away but the moment his lips are not on yours, he sees that man again—that fucking ugly face smiling down at you. If your tongue is not in his mouth he thinks about him, kissing you. If his tongue is not pressed flush against the pulse of your neck, if he's not feeling your erratic heartbeat reminding him of the throbbing of his cock—he thinks of that bastard, running his hands all over your body, pulling moan after moan from you.

He groans again as he kisses you, too much teeth and tongue, too much passion to the point you cry out when he bites down too hard; he tastes blood as he licks your bottom lip in apology. He must have lost his mind, he thinks, as he licks it again and again until he can't taste copper anymore, until you grow softer, more pliable in his embrace.

His hands are under your shirt, fingers slipping under your bra. You cry out as he pinches hardened nipples. His tongue is back on your neck, and he kisses over the marks already left, and sucks where he thinks it is too light; not stark enough. He signs over them, again and again, as he twists his fingers, causing you to moan.

“Jean” you breathe out, your trembling hands going to his wrists. You hold on to them loosely, as he continues to tease your breasts. You bite down on a whimper, and almost lose your resolve when he looks down at you through his dark and thick lashes. “Why are you like this?” Suddenly, she wanted to add, but Jean's hands are relentless. His gaze is unwavering as he watches you squirm under his touch. In all honesty, he wanted to tell you. He wanted to confess the times he had thought about you this way, responding to his touch so eagerly that he'd wake up in a sweat, aroused by the ghost of your scent in his sweatshirt.

Still, he couldn't tell you. Not now. Maybe never.

“Service,” he pants out, brushing his thumbs against your nipples. You arch your back at his touch, a soft lewd song humming in the back of your mouth. “Consider it a service for you making dinner.”

He pushes his hips against yours as he curls his fingers around your throat. His hold on you is tight, almost suffocating. You gasp both at the feel of his erection, mercilessly rubbing against your heated cunt, and at the pressure he builds with his fingers. Your eyes flutter close, another soft moan filling your mouth. Jean thinks he's at his limit, but he ignores it. He pushes past it with every thrust of his hips, seeking out every sound you can give him; every moan, sigh, and whimper he can collect. He stores them in the back of his mind for later, for when his bed feels cold and empty.

A heat swirls at the pit of your stomach. It goes around in circles, tighter and tighter each time. You're familiar with the sensation, enough that it makes your toes curl in anticipation. You gasp and shout, holding on to Jean with one clammy hand. Your other shoots out behind you as you shout in surprise when one particular thrust rubs against your sensitive nub just right.

“I'm gonna cum!” you yelp as his face comes towards you. He's chuckling in your ear, and your hand moves again without you realizing it—your body's own way of trying to ground itself from the flight of ecstasy. Your fingers graze metal, and you hear the running water. Your breathing is harsh against your own ears. Jean is laughing again as you feel him reach around you. You feel something wet and cold splash against your back and you jump in his arms.

Jean pushes against you, one hand clamped tightly around one hip. “Easy, you'll fall off,” he says against your temple, a small smile stretching his swollen lips. You dig your nails into his shoulders, wanting to bring him back to the more pressing matter. You had been so close and he had slowed the speed of his hips, causing small jittery motions of your body every time your oversensitive clit received friction.

“Why did you stop?” you ask him, but his eyes are unfocused. His jaw is set, and he looks everywhere but at your eyes. You feel his gaze on your mouth, and your neck. You feel him staring at your chest. He is reaching around you, holding his hands under the running water. He brings them towards you, and slides them over your chest over and over until it soaks through your t shirt. Your bottom lip is trapped between your teeth as you watch him. He is laser focused. The sight of white teeth pushing down on a berry colored bottom lip shouldn't be so arousing. You consider suing or at the very least writing a strongly worded letter, affronted at how wet it made you; wetter even.

It was starting to become embarrassing how much you craved him at that moment. You whimper when he wets his hands again, and slides them under your shirt. They're cold against your overheated back, fingers unclasping the bra. You narrow your eyes as he expertly reaches through your sleeves, pulls down the straps with your help, and tugs the bra off from the front—as if he's done this before, many many times.

You don't want to think about it. In fact, you hate that you are, even as your nipples are erect. You bite your tongue in hopes of staving off petty jealous things you want to ask and say. You don't get to expend too much energy in that endeavor. Jean never ceases to surprise you, and he commands your attention by grasping your breasts over your t shirt.

His mouth hangs open as he watches, amazed at the sight of the brown areola peeking through the wet fabric; translucent and teasing. You feel you should say something now, while you still can but the words never make it out. His mouth is back on you, on your breasts as he sucks on the nipples through your shirt. His kisses are gentle at first, testing, exploratory His curiosity becomes hungrier, slightly feral. Jean feels himself go blind as he sucks on your nipples, teeth grazing the t shirt until his own skin prickles from the sensation.

You egg him on, thrashing in place, seeking out his hips time and time again with yours. He feels your wetness through your underwear and straight through your shorts. He groans as he sucks loudly, his hands finding your ass. He brings you closer to his hips, moves them against you, feeling sickeningly satisfied with himself. It is him that's making you unravel, and it is him that has you here in disarray, shirt soaked through with a mixture of water and his saliva.

And it is his hair, your fingers tangle up in, and it is his name you call out when you cum, time and time again.

When you come down from your high, when your hips stop moving so viciously against his throbbing cock, Jean finds the will to pull away. He stands away from you, a small amount of drool oozing down his chin. He wipes at it casually with the back of one hand. His gaze is heavy, and his face is flushed in a way that makes you self conscious of your own.

“I'm gonna rest for a bit,” he tells you as he takes another step backwards. Your eyes flit from his face, to his abused bottom lip. You can't help when it drifts lower, to the obvious bump in his sweatpants. Jean turns away from you, and starts walking away from the kitchen and down the corridor towards his bedroom.“I'll do the dishes later, so don't fucking touch them,” he says as he pauses midway to twist his torso. His finger is pointing at you. You're enthralled by the way he frowns at you, at how casually he has changed the subject, as if he wasn't desperately rubbing his cock against you seconds ago. “That's my job, okay?”

He leaves you on the sink, the water running behind you. You startle and jump to turn it off, a shaking hand grasping the metal knob tightly. You try to ignore the slick sensation between your legs, how cold the shirt felt against your hot skin. You try to ignore the sick feeling taking over your chest, and how uneasy you felt now that Jean was gone. Now that his mouth and his hands weren't goading you into orgasm, your mind felt slightly clearer.

You shouldn't have done that.

An arrangement of convenience should remain that: a convenience. Entertaining this, whatever it was, would only make this complicated; a messy inconvenience. You set your jaw, and your convictions and decide that tomorrow morning, when your mind wasn't clouded by the phantom kisses Jean had dropped on your skin, you'll have a serious talk with him.

Lines needed to be drawn clearly in the dirt, in blood, or whatever it took.

[the-guilty-writer]

I second the ask about Hotch's daughter with endometriosis!!! I'd like to see that

I just finished it ♡

Aaron Hotchner x daughter!reader

You truly wondered how women with endometriosis survived periods before thermotherapy products were invented. Hot water bottles and heating pads were a necessity for you during this time of the month. It wasn’t that they made the pain go away - they just made it bearable enough to allow you small bits of time where you could do something more than laying down.

At the moment, a hot water bottle and a maxed out dose of Ibuprofen were holding you together - barely. After twenty minutes at school, you were sent home by your English teacher, who was concerned about your nauseous complexion. Somehow, you'd managed to do some make-up work before taking a long (and much-needed) nap.

With your dad away on a case, the list of chores was longer than normal, but the pain made moving nearly impossible, much less cleaning. Dishes needed to be put away, the kitchen table needed to be cleared, and he laundry hamper was flooded with clothes, but there was no way you could do any of it while your insides felt like they were going to fall out. The only thing you absolutely had to do was pick Jack up from school. Everything else could wait.

All the energy you’d gathered went into the ten minute drive to and from picking up your brother. He requested a snack as soon as you got home, which you somehow managed to make him food without screaming in pain. It took every ounce of energy you had left to sit at the table with your brother as he did his homework.

The pain and fatigue clouded your brain, so much so that you hardly noticed the door to the apartment open.

“Dad!” Jack jumped up his seat and down the hall toward him.

“Hey buddy,” Hotch said. The tone of his voice was a testament to his exhaustion, but a happiness to be home.

“Dad, I made this painting in art class and I really want to show you. It's in my bedroom. Come look!” Jack didn’t give your dad a moment of rest.

“Okay,” he chuckled. “I'll be there in a minute.”

Jack’s feet pounded against the floor, running to his room in anticipation. Your dad’s longer, slower footsteps followed behind. As soon as he appeared in the doorway, you could tell the case has been a hard one. He looked beyond exhausted, horrors still haunting his eyes and crushing his spirit. Not even your little brother's innocent greeting could extinguish what your dad had endured over the past few days.

“Hey, dad,” you greeted him with as much enthusiasm as you could muster up.

“Hi sweetheart.” He planted a quick kiss atop your head before moving to the kitchen. “Where are all the plates?”

A displeasement crossed your dad’s face. You'd meant to empty the dishwasher earlier that day, but the pain body had stopped you.

“Still in the dishwasher,” you said, holding back a wince as your stomach cramped.

“I thought we talked about this.”

“We did, but-”

“You’re almost an adult. I expect you to start showing up like one.” He was calm but stern. Unblinking eyes bore into you. It made you want to cry.

Hotch turned and left the kitchen, his calm footsteps indicating he was going to Jack's room.

Despite the pain radiating through your body, you stood up and carefully made your way to the dishwasher to unload it. As soon as you leaned over to lower the door, a stabbing sensation penetrated your gut. Dizziness washed over your head and blackened your vision. In an instant, you had crumbled to the floor.

You weren't even aware that you'd let out a cry of pain until your dad was kneeling next to you, a gentle hand caressing your face. Through teary, blurry vision, you could just make out the worry in his fearures.

“It hurts,” you choked out.

“I know,” he said gently. “I'm here. I've got you.”

Strong arms lifted you off the kitchen floor, carrying you to the couch. A heating pad was laid across your stomach and a straw was brought up to your lips with the gentle encouragement to drink.

When you managed to open your eyes, Hotch was next to you, a look of concern on his normally serious face.

"Hi, sweetheart." The words were the same as before, but his tone was different.

"Hi," you whispered.

"Here," Hotch brought a hand behind your back and used the other to hand you a bottle of water, "have some water."

You took gentle sips. Your father’s hand still rested on your back, rubbing it soothingly.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You didn't make me get up." It was true.

"No, but I jumped to conclusions about what you were able to do and it made you feel like you had to do something that caused you pain." Sometimes having a profiler for a dad was a good thing. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," you said.

Hotch helped you lay down again, covering you with a warm blanket. "Can I get you anything?"

You snuggled into the blanket and adjusted the heating pad to sit in the best place for easing pain. "Just the TV remote."

Your dad smiled - his small but rare smile - before handing you the remote. The rest of the afternoon would be filled with watching bad TV and chick flicks, but he didn't mind. If it made you just a little more comfortable, then it was worth it.

[spacenutspod]

Water is the most common chemical molecule found throughout the entire universe. What water has going for it is that its constituents, hydrogen and oxygen, are also ridiculously common, and those two elements really enjoying bonding with each other. Oxygen has two open slots in its outmost electron orbital shell, making it very eager to find new friends, and each hydrogen comes with one spare electron, so the triple-bonding is a cinch. Hydrogen comes to us from the big bang itself, making it by both mass and number the #1 element in the cosmos. Seriously, the stuff is everywhere. About 75% of every star, every interstellar gas cloud, and every wandering bit of intergalactic space debris never to know the warmth of stellar fusion in 13.8 billion years of cosmic history is made of hydrogen. That hydrogen got its start when our universe was only about ten minutes old, and all the hydrogen that has ever existed (except for random radioactive decays and fission reactions, but that would come later) formed before our universe turned 20 minutes. A dozen minutes, 13.8 billion years ago. When you quench your thirst with a healthy glass, that’s what you’re consuming. We can understand this epoch of cosmic history, known as the nucleosynthesis era, because over the past century we’ve become rather skilled at dealing with nuclear reactions, and in one of the hallmarks of our species we have unleashed this radical understanding into the physical nature of reality and deployed it for both peacetime energy generation and wartime bombs. Our understanding of nuclear physics tells us that earlier than the ten-minute mark, our universe was too hot and too dense for protons and neutrons to form. Instead their subatomic parts, known as quarks, were unglued in a heaving maelstrom of nuclear forces, constantly binding and unbinding in a seething rage-filled sea of gluons, the force carriers of the strong nuclear force. Once the universe expanded and cooled enough, condensates of protons and neutrons formed like droplets on the windowpane, low-energy pockets capable of keeping themselves together despite the temperatures. Eventually, however, as soon as the party got going it fizzled out: when the universe became too large and too cool, a mere dozen minutes later, there wasn’t sufficient density to bring the quarks close enough together to perform their nuclear binding trick. Some protons and neutrons would find each other in those storm-filled days, though, forming heavier versions of hydrogen, some helium, and a small amount of lithium. And since then those hydrogen atoms have wandered about the cosmos; most lost in the intergalactic wastes, some participating in the glorious construction of stars and planets, and a lucky few finding themselves locked in a chemical dance with oxygen. The oxygen has another tale to tell, also a story of fusion, on its way to becoming water. But not the fusion of the first few heady minutes of the big bang, but in the dance within the hearts of stars. There, crushing pressures and violent temperatures slam hydrogen atoms together, forcing them to fuse into helium, in the process releasing an almost vanishingly small amount of energy. But that forced marriage happens millions of times every second, in every one of the trillions upon untold trillions of stars strewn about the cosmos, enough to light up the universe for all conscious observers to enjoy. Near the end of a star’s life, it turns to fusing the built-up ash of helium piled in its core, The fusion of helium produces two products: carbon and oxygen. Now this oxygen would end up forever closed off from the cosmos, locked behind a million-kilometer thick wall of plasma, if it were not for a trick of physics that happens when the star meets its final days. Our Sun will someday experience this fate, about four and a half billion years now. When it grows old and weary, it will swell and turn red, violently spasming as it draws its last fatal breaths. Those gargantuan shudders release material from the star, launching it into the surrounding system, billowed by gusty winds of fundamental particles streaming away at nearly the speed of light. Fit by ragged fit, the Sun will lose its own self, driving away over half its mass into a spreading nebula, the only sign that distant eyes can perceive of yet another noble star laying down its struggle against the all-consuming night. But in that gruesome death, a miracle. The cycle born anew: the hydrogen and helium, the primordial elements of the star, now mixed with carbon and oxygen drift off into the interstellar void, someday to take part in the formation of a new star, a new solar system, a new world wet with water, and, if the chances are perfect, a new life. The post Thirsty? Water is More Common than you Think appeared first on Universe Today.

[urban-homesteading]

Rendering beef fat into tallow

Ten years ago, I came across a comment on a soap making forum where a woman explained how she gets her tallow pure enough to make into her soaps and it has worked really really well when I've made large batches of tallow. Since the internet is an ever-shifting labyrinth of lost advice, I thought I would help preserve her advice here as well.

By lionprincess00 from soapmakingforum.com:

"I take it and cut off all meat bits I can. Then I cut it into small inch sized pieces or so. Someone here mentioned baking soda to help the render smell, and another mentioned salt for helping get impurities out.

I put it into a pot of water that's filled halfway up the fat. I pour a good half cup or so of salt into it. I mix oh about 3 tablespoons of baking soda into water and pour it on as well. It creates a reaction and releases carbon dioxide, so beware as it heats of spilling over. I did an experiment not using baking soda in the render, and by the third it still smelled extremely meaty. Whatever the reason, it helps a ton reduce the overall finished product's odor. BEWARE OF EVAPORATION, and fill with fresh water as needed.

I heat it on medium low for a good half hour, and then lower the temperature to full low. I simmer for, oh, 4 hours or more, until the fat looks like a gelatinous gooey sinus infection lol. I strain it through a sieve into a glass Pyrex baking dish, used cheesecloth in the sieve once but can't find it anywhere after I ran out, so sieve it is.

I refrigerate it for at least 4 hours or so. It needs to cool completely through. Overnight is best.

Look at the liquid now. Below the fat in the dish after its cooled, the water is a deep muddy brown and STINKS like what I would think a dead body smells like. I almost gag at this point when I go and dump it in the field for the coyotes to sniff out haha. Once I didn't do this, and I'm assuming I used cleaner pieces of fat and cut most trimming off compared to other times, so you may or may not get this.

It looks like it's pretty clean fat now, but there's more cleaning that can occur, and I want it very very clean to prevent smell, dos development, and just the yuck factor of bits being left behind. That water was so nasty, and if it was that bad there's more cleaning throughout the fat that needs to happen.

Scrape any funk off the base of the fat disc and discard.

Pop out the solid fat disc and place in the pot. Fill with water to cover an inch below the fat, or so. This isn't an exact science, so close is fine.. Add about a quarter cup of salt and another few tbs of baking soda. Heat on low, and melt it. I keep it here for a couple hours or so. I strain it out into the cleaned out Pyrex. Cool for at least 4 hours. It just needs adequate time to harden completely through. If you pop it out too quickly, the bottom of the disc will still be water logged. The water beneath the fat disc this second render is a murky slightly tinted white. Very murky. Scrape the base of yucks again.

I do it again. This time I use about between 1/8 and 1/4 cup of salt. Honestly I dump and eyeball it, but for instructions sake, start with these and make it your own. The water after cooling is a cloudy white, but getting cleaner looking. Scrape discolored base. I do it the fourth time. The water is almost clear after this render and cooling. This is how I know most of the impurities are gone. I DON'T use salt this final render nor baking soda. The salt may be what clouds the left over water in the above rendering, but I know it still needs the extra rendering based on the smell too. The smell is nonexistent practically by the fourth render and cooling. The water left beneath the disc doesn't smell either by the fourth time. Is four necessary, probably not. I just want a clean clean product if I'm going to do it myself and not purchase it. Now is it necessary on bigger batches, yes and so is a fifth. If you're doing a lot at once, it may need 5 renders. If you split your 5 lbs into 2.5 renders each, 4 is good. If you do all at once, use a big enough pot for the bubbles of salt and baking soda reacting, and plan on 5 renders, and potentially 6 depending on how little the odor remains.

So, my final render is clear water and smell free even after a remelt of my tallow I rendered. So I do this method."