#Family Fic

[chai-berries]

all my friends support palestine and know neil druckmann is a zionist

Pumpkin Patch Aftermath (#25)

If you told Abby that one day she’d be chasing her three children around a pumpkin patch while the love of her life cackles behind her camera lens, she wouldn’t believe you.

But here she is, in the middle of October, trying to wrangle her kids to take a family photo. The youngest, your only daughter, has given up the chase and instead giggles into Abby’s warm neck as Abby boosts her up on her hip. The other two are running in overlapping circles through the pumpkins. It isn’t until Abby lets out a sharp whistle that they stop giggling and turn towards their mom.

“Get over here, now! Or no hot chocolate for either of you. Gen and I will drink it in front of you,” behind Abby’s stern mom-face is a woman who has never denied her kids a delicious cup of hot chocolate when they asked, so the boys knew this was serious. Like two puppies, they run past Abby and Genevieve and towards where you’re standing. Over their heads, you look at Abby. Her stern mom-face is gone, replaced by her loving mom-face as she watches the boys run ahead. She boosts Genevieve higher up on her hip, making the girl’s laugh reach your ears. She then meets your eyes, the adoring look turning into her mom-smile that says “I am so tired but it’s worth it” so well that you let out a laugh, to which she smiles her special smile she gives you when you are happy. You easily recognize the look and feel your cheeks warm. Elijah and Isaac are now standing next to you, looking like two well-behaved boys. When Abby finally reaches you, you’re quick to position everyone back into the previous poses they were in before the impromptu game of tag commenced.

Once everyone is posed, you go ahead and press the timer on the camera, which sits on a tripod you brought for this exact moment. You only get 10 seconds to get back to your family before it takes the photo. For once everyone is smiling with their eyes open and hands at their sides. Abby is still holding Genevieve on her hip, but she adjusted the girl’s clothes and her tiny baby beanie on her tiny baby head. Elijah stands beside Abby, holding Isaac’s hand with a cheesy grin on his face. Isaac’s smile is wobbly but cheerful, his missing front teeth adding a charm to his grin. You stand behind Isaac, who reaches for your outside hand a second or two before the camera snaps the photo. Once done, Isaac, very reluctantly, lets go of your hand so you can grab the camera, tripod, and your bag. Abby takes Elijah’s other hand, aiming to keep all the kids tethered to her in some way as you gather your stuff. When you walk back to them, Gen starts reaching out to you, your parent name falling from her lips as she lets out a long yawn. You grab her and adjust her on your hip, turning to thank Abby when she takes your bag from you to carry. She leans in and pecks your lips quickly. You are startled but grin at her. She winks at you, then turns to the boys.

“Do you want your hot chocolate now? Okay, I want you to stay with us and keep holding hands, please. Okay, let’s go,” she nudges the boys forward to walk in front of you. Staying back in step with you, she wraps her arm around your waist and pulls you closer to her. The two of you, plus sleepy Gen, walk in sync towards the food shed that the farm had set up. Abby gives you another kiss when you stop at the end of the line.

“Do you want something?” She runs her hand up and down your back.

You hum, looking down at the sandwich board. “Can I get a chai latte, small?”

“Of course.” She smiles at you and Gen. “Do you want to go find a seat for us? I’ll stay with the boys.”

You look around and see a few large picnic tables under a tent. The farm had a whole area set up where kids could play while families relaxed under the tents if it rained.

Thankfully, the sky had very few clouds and no chance of rain until tomorrow morning. Abby specifically planned the pumpkin patch outing on this day because of the weather. No way was she dealing with fresh mud caked on the kids’ shoes all over the car and house.

“Yeah, okay,” you lean in to peck her lips again. Tiny moments of PDA were all you allowed yourselves while out with the entire family. If you guys got too lovey-dovey, Elijah took it as a challenge to see what he could get up to before you guys remembered you have children to focus on. One time, before Gen was born, you, Abby, and the boys went mini golfing and while Abby gave you a celebration kiss for getting a hole in one, Elijah managed to run ahead and overlapped two families golfing ahead of you guys. Once you guys realized where he went, he was three holes ahead of you. Thus, the quick pecks are all you get while out and about.

You leave Abby to oversee the two hyper boys who begin excitedly jumping in place as the line moves.

“C’mon, mi amor, let’s go find a seat,” you whisper to Genevieve, pressing a kiss to her head. There’s a brightly painted picnic table next to the pumpkin photo op. You take a seat and slowly adjust Genevieve’s legs around you. She is still awake, her eyes looking around even though her head stays tucked in your neck. You continue to bounce her in your lap, pressing kisses to her face when she whimpers for them.

You must have been spacing out because you startle when Abby’s hand and your chai latte show up in front of your face.

“Thank you, baby,” you say, using your free hand to take a drink from the cup.

“Anytime, sweetness,” Abby responds. She takes the spot next to you, and the boys climb onto the other side to sit across from you. You can tell they’re enjoying their not-so-hot chocolates. Elijah has a whip cream mustache that he acknowledges but doesn’t wipe off, much to the enjoyment of Isaac who has his own mustache made of cream and milk chocolate.

Abby hands him a napkin but doesn’t tell him to wipe the mustache off because she knows it’ll just happen again. Instead she simply nurses her own coffee, a smile on her face as she watches her family enjoy the pleasures of fall.

When the boys finish their hot chocolates and have their faces and hands wiped clean by Abby, you all make your way back to the car. You and Abby trade mom duties. She takes Genevieve from you. The girl’s tuckered out, staying quiet as Abby buckles her into her car seat. You had the job of lining the boys up on the side of the car and helping them get the majority of the mud off their shoes before carefully boosting them into the SUV and into their car seats. Elijah was in a basic booster seat and was now allowed the whole third row of the car to himself. Isaac was still in a more protective booster seat, one with a chest clasp and a neck pillow attached.

You’re about to climb into the passenger seat when Isaac asks for his tiny pumpkin you stuck in your bag. Then Elijah asks for his too.

Abby is still in the doorway of Genevieve’s side of the car, taking her time to adjust the straps on Gen’s car seat like the worried mother she is.

“Abby, can you hand this to Eli?” You pass her Elijah’s pumpkin. Abby takes it without looking and places it in Elijah’s hands. You climb into the car and pass Isaac his pumpkin. Abby finally shuts the back door and walks around the front of the car, patting the hood gently.

You watch her climb into the car. She makes a grunt when she settles. Probably sore from having to chase the kids all over for two hours. Abby starts the car and goes to place her hand on your head seat when she finally makes eye contact with you. The grin and blush that grows on her cheeks match how you feel inside when you look at her, so you lean forward to kiss her. More than a peck, but not ostentatious. When you pull away, you see Abby has her eyes closed. She slowly opens them and beams at you. Snapping back to reality, she continues to back up the car with her hand still clutching your headrest. You indulge yourself unabashedly as you continue to watch her back up, put the car into drive, and smoothly steer with the palm of her left hand. By the time Abby pulls out of the parking lot, her hand has made its way down to your lap to hold your hand. You squeeze it between both of yours and press a kiss to the back of her hand without thinking. You turn to stare out the window at the colorful red and yellow leaves that decorate the trees.

“You okay?” Abby asks you when you stay quiet.

You look at her. She notices your slow blink. “Tired?” She asks.

You hold your index and thumb up, closing the air between them until there’s a sliver left. “A bit.”

Abby laughs at your joke, then hums to herself. You feel her thumb begin to softly run back and forth across your skin.

“How about I put on a Halloween film for the boys and I while you and Genevieve take a nap?” She spares looks to you, to try and watch your face and the road simultaneously.

You nod. “Yeah, that sounds good. You sure you don’t want to take a nap?”

Abby shakes her head. “Nah. I promised to help the boys paint their pumpkins when we get home anyway. It’s okay,” she promises.

“Okay,” you mumble back to her, a nap does sound so appealing. You keep a tight grip on Abby’s hand as you already feel yourself start to drift off.

Abby lets you have her hand until she needs it to pull into the driveway. A gentle nudge on your shoulder wakes you up.

“C’mon baby. Let’s get these kids inside and then you can nap.”

You pout at her, but follow her as she helps Isaac and then Elijah out of the car.

You unclasp Genevieve’s buckles and pick her up to cradle her in your arms. Abby makes sure to take your bag before you think to grab it yourself.

The boys’ shoes are carefully put away and you can already hear them talking excitedly about what they were going to paint on their pumpkins. You go past the living room and into your bedroom with Gen still in your arms. She slowly blinks her eyes at you when you lay her on your bed and start helping her take off her outdoor clothes.

“Hey, baby,” you keep your voice low. “Wanna take a nap with mama?” You place her clothes on the chair next to your bed. Without saying anything, Genevieve climbs over to Abby’s side of the bed and tugs your crocheted blanket up to her chin. You cough out a laugh. She really is your daughter. You change out of your outdoor clothes and into comfy, nap-appropriate clothes that consist of cotton shorts and one of Abby’s old high school shirts. You fill a glass of water in the en-suite and make your way back to the bed, Genevieve already letting out soft snores. Just as you climb under your own blanket, Abby tiptoes into the room.

“Hey,” she greets you, coming up to kiss your head. “I’m just gonna change and then I’ll leave you to your nap.” She brushes her hand over your head, combing your hair back. She presses another kiss to your head. “I love you,” she whispers. She gives you one more kiss then walks to the dresser.

“I love you too,” you tell her when she walks back by on her way to the bathroom.

“I love you more,” she whispers as loud as she can before shutting the door, stopping you from trying to top her declaration.

You are fast asleep by the time she exits the bathroom. She’s wearing one of your tie dye shirts and her favorite Halloween themed pajamas pants. She takes a second to look at you and Genevieve as you sleep. Both of you are laying on your backs, but your heads are turned to face each other. One of Genevive’s hands is wrapped around a few of your fingers. Abby could die right now because of how much her heart burns as she looks at the scene in front of her. And what a way to go that would be.

Abby tiptoes to the door and makes sure to quietly shut it before heading back into the living room where Elijah and Isaac are dealing out what paint they want to use from their paint bucket.

“Is mama and Genny going to join us?” Isaac asks Abby. He grabs a blue tube of paint, then a green one. He then looks up at Abby, his eyes bright.

“No, baby. They’re super sleepy and going to rest for a bit. So we gotta be quiet, okay?” Abby tells him. He nods his head and continues to look at the paint. After a second he turns back to Abby.

“Can we watch Halloweentown now?”

Abby smiles at him and runs her fingers through his hair. “Of course, baby.”

He gives her a big enough grin that she sees where his missing teeth used to be. He starts to hum the theme song before the movie even begins, Elijah joining in when the song actually starts to play.

Abby leans back on the couch. She looks down at the boys kindly sharing paint brushes and tubes of acrylic paint. She thinks of you and Genevieve taking a nap together upstairs.

If you told Abby that one day she’d be sharing a life with you and your three beautiful children, she wouldn’t believe you. But she sure would wish for it.

[bengals-barnesbabe]

Princess Ti

Pair: Husband!Tee Higgins x Chase Sister!Reader

Descr: The day everyone’s been waiting for is here, GAME DAY- wait something’s not right.

TW: language, mentions of sex, childbirth.

Picture Day | Main Masterlist

WC: 5k

....:::: * * •° ✾ °•* * ::::....

“Y/n, it’s almost kick off!” Your mother-in-law calls out.

You huff hugging your bump, looking at the shirt you’d usually be wearing for game day if you weren’t 41 weeks pregnant.

Usually, you'd be at the game cheering your husband and younger brother on from the stands, but that wasn't really an option this far along in your pregnancy. But you at least wanted to indulge in your favorite game day tradition: wearing Tee's jersey. However, that wasn’t going so smoothly either.

Your bedroom door opens, and Tee’s mom pops her head in. “You okay, darlin’?”

“I would be, but I’m still pregnant, so I’m not.” She chuckles and sits on the bed next to Tee’s jersey. 

“I know how you feel. You’re tired, antsy, anxious, moody. Little princess is really enjoying her time in there.” She offers you a kind smile.

“I think I made too good of home in there. Tee says there’s no better place for her to be than the womb. Of course, he would because he doesn’t have swollen ankles and an extra 30 lbs to carry on his torso. He was so scared I’d go into early labor that I think he convinced her to stay longer. 2 more weeks and she’ll be evicted via C-section, and that’s the last thing I want.” You pout, joining her on the bed.

“Hey, everything’s going to be fine. You’ve been doing everything right to get your body ready for this. She’ll come when it’s right. You said you woke up with contractions, right?”

You nod your head, “Braxton hicks. I’ve been dilated 2 centimeters for a week. Tee didn’t want to go to work, but it only lasted 15 minutes. The last one was actually before you came in, but it didn’t last long. It’s been like this since I hit 37 weeks.”

“Hey, you never know; babies surprise everyone.” You chuckle.

“I think I can fix this problem, though.” She points to the jersey. “Have a pair of scissors around?”

You go over to your vanity and dig out some hair scissors. She takes them and cuts a long triangle up the sides. “Here, now you can wear it and be comfortable.”

You slip the jersey over your white tee and admire her handiwork. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome; now we have a game to watch.” You happily link arms and join your mother in the living room.

“Y/n, your brother is driving me insane.” You roll your eyes when you see her eyes glued to her phone.

“What’d he do this time?” You sit between the ladies and hog a bowl of pretzels as she goes on about Ja’Marr’s post-game dinner requests.

You spend the next half snacking, yelling at the screen (not that you’d ever tell your husband), and listening to your mothers chat about their sons. You fell asleep during the start of the third quarter but woke to the same pain you felt this morning.

“I’m so tired of these fake ass contractions.” You hold on to your belly as the tightening gets worse. “Sorry for my language.”

Your mother shakes her head. “Babygirl, you’re in pain. No one is judging a few curse words, even if we both know you have a sailor’s tongue.”

“Momma, what-whatever, fuck- J told you isn’t- oh my god.” You grab hold of her hand as it’s held out.

“Hey hey, breathe, Y/n, breathe. Are you timing this?” Your mother-in-law nods as alarmed as yours. 

Your eyes squinched, teeth gritted, and you cried out in a pain you’d never felt before. “Mommy!”

“Yeah, baby, I’m right here.” You feel her free hand run your back. You try to do the breathing exercises she tells you and finally exhale when the pain dials down.

“Y/n?” You look up at the woman teary-eyed. 

“I lied, I don’t think these are Braxton hicks. They started a few hours after he left. I thought they were fake until they were happening every other hour. Now there’s even less time between them.” 

“I’m calling your midwife over and texting my son.” Your mother-in-law rubs your leg with a smile.

“Y/n, why didn’t you tell us you were in labor?” 

“Because I’m not. My water hasn’t broken yet, and they aren’t that close together. Tee’s not here. It’s not happening right now. If she wanted to come, it should've been this morning. It can’t be happening.” You shake your head and look up at the TV. As if on cue, your husband catches a pass and runs it to the endzone.

“Aww, babygirl, I know it’s scary, but this is what we’ve been waiting for.” She brings your head to her shoulder.

“The game isn’t over; we can’t just- ohhh fuck it’s back,” you whine as the contractions come back tenfold. You feel it everywhere now, your abdomen, back, pelvis- it was like you were being stabbed and electrified all over.

“Sarah is on her way over, and I called someone to get Tee.”

❁ཻུ۪۪♡

“Great catch, Tee! Great job, baby!” His teammates hollered as the wide receiver jogged over to the bench. 

The Bengals were winning 28 - 18 over the Browns, with both Tee and Ja’Marr catching each pass that came their way. Tee was all smiles as he sat back and took off his helmet. 

“That’s right, boy, show ‘em who's they daddy!” He chuckles as Ja’Marr hypes him up.

“Aight now, only one person can call me that, and she ain’t here yet.” They do their handshake with similar smiles. 

“Now that game gon be special,” Ja’Marr says before one of the sideline managers approaches them. “Hey, what’s the rush?” 

The girl looks at Tee with a sheepish smile.

He furrows his brows. “What’s wrong?”

She catches her breath and then speaks up. “We just got a call from your mom, your wife- Y/n’s in labor.”

“My sister’s in labor! Shit, I guess that day’s today.” Ja’Marr chuckles as his brother-in-law jumps up.

“I gotta go- wait, Coach- fuck.”

“Don’t worry, just go, Taylor knows. Go meet your daughter.” She smiles, ushering him off the field.

“I’ll catch up with y’all later. Take care of them! Good luck!” Tee waves as he runs into the tunnel.  

❁ཻུ۪۪♡

Your midwife, Sarah, arrived at the house minutes after calling her and, making her the third person in your presence who seemed to enjoy your pain. Then, before she could even examine you, you leaned over in pain and felt a small gush of fluids coat your shorts. 

On the way to the birth center, you were shifting between feeling extremely anxious, pure electrocuting pain, and intense worry. Everything was happening so fast, and the fact that your husband wasn’t here was making all your nerves go off. 

“Wow, this room is really nice. I had all my babies in a cheap ass hospital, so I’m not used to this kind of luxury.” Your mom praised as you settled into your birthing room.

“Momma, I’m begging you.” 

Tee still hadn’t arrived yet, it that, along with the fact that you were currently 5 centimeters dilated, was not helping calm your anxiety at all. Sarah and the two moms in the room were doing their best to soothe your aches, but nothing beats the comfort of being in your man’s arms during your time in need.

“Maybe you should rethink the epidural, baby.” Mama T suggests while tying your braids up into a bun.

“Yea, babygirl, it could help. It’s never too late to ask.” Your mom added. 

In return, you shook your head, unable to open your eyes due to the pain. “No, we had a plan. No matter how bad it gets, I don’t want them to take away any of my senses.”

 God, how badly you needed your husband. You wanted him to be the one rubbing your back and helping you through the worst pain you’ve ever felt. How could he not be here right now? He’s been waiting for this day longer than you and is late! 

“Where the fuck is my husband?” You grunt through your gritted teeth.

“He’s on his way sweetheart, just breath.” Sarah coos, earning a deadly side eye from you. 

“I’m going to kill him.”

“How about you think about how happy and relieved you’re gonna be when all this is over and your baby girl is safely in your arms.”

“Why did I let him do this to me?” You groaned, completely ignoring her. As the contraction subsides, you lay your hand over your eyes and let the exhaustion of labor pull you into a shallow slumber.

“Maybe we should start her on some Nitrous?”

❝ ❞ ✧ ೃ༄

About Nine Months Ago..

“My boobs have been absolutely killing me.” You hiss as you palm the tender flesh. 

“Want me to massage ‘em for ya?” You catch the cheeky smile on your husband’s face through the bathroom mirror and shake your head.

“No, Tamaurice, that will make them worse.” 

“Awww, the government name. What did I do this time?” he lightly groans, shuffling into the bathroom like a sad toddler.

“Nothing that this can’t tell us.” You shrug, pulling a box out of a CVS bag. 

“Y/n?”

“Tee?”

“That’s a pregnancy test.” 

Ever since you and Tee got married, you kept a box hidden in the lower cabinet for emergencies. “Yes, it is.” 

“Why do you already have it?” It started as a gag gift from one of your friends. It was a Secret Santa party, and they thought it would be funny since you always joke about how much sex you and Tee have.

“Baby, it’s just a precaution. I could be just PMSing, but we have to rule out the possibility.”

“How many of these have you taken without me knowing?” Enough to know you want this one to be positive.

He turns your body to face his and perfectly reads the longing on your face. You want this to be the last one more than anything.

“Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to have a baby?” You shrugged, not knowing what to say.

“Y/n, I’m your husband. Remember that really expensive party on that mountain of snow? That was a wedding.” He chuckles as you slap his chest.

“I’m very aware that we’re married. It only happened eight months ago. I just didn’t want to be disappointed when you said no.” You frown, looking down.

“Hey, hey. Baby, don’t do that; let me see you.” His voice is calm and soft as he lifts your head to see his warm smile. “If you had told me you wanted to have a baby, I would’ve gotten you pregnant the second we got to the islands.” 

“Really?” He lifts you onto the counter so you can be eye to eye and smirks.

“Oh yeah, there’s nothing sexier than my wife walking around with my last name and my baby cooking for all the world to see. Fuck I’d love to see you pregnant with my jersey on. Then, by the end I get to raise a baby that looks just like you. I couldn’t be happier about that. Then after our little prince or princess is old enough and your ready, I’ll fuck you full of me again until there’s no doubt we’ll have another one on the way.”

Hearing him talk about getting you pregnant is so possessive, dirty, raunchy even, but all around absolutely amazing. He wants this just as much as you do, and maybe more. God, you’re lucky.

Grabbing his face, you smile as big as possible. “I love you so much, Tamaurice.” Then press your lips against his.

He chuckles into your lips and gently returns the kiss, wrapping your legs around him and hugging your body. “Ok baby, now don’t you have a test to take?” He asks after slightly pulling away, just enough for his words to come out clearly. You fully lean back and play with the braids on his neck.

“What if it’s negative?”

“Then I’ll spend the next few days making love to you all over this house, and we’ll enjoy every minute of it.” He said as if it was the sweetest dream he’d ever had, then pecked your forehead. “Okay mamas?”

Oh that name brought chills down your spine. You nodded as he lifted you off the counter and onto your feet. Taking a deep breath, you finally open the pink box and take out the test. “Will you stay here with me?”

“Of course, I will; now go pee on that stick mama.” He winks, slapping your butt as you walk into the water closet (private toilet). 

“I’m right here baby!” You roll your eyes but enjoy every bit of his enthusiasm. “I don’t hear any pissing, just giggling.”

“Oh my god, Tee, give it a second!”

“Want me to bring you some water? Actually I have a better idea.” Then he turns on the faucet. What’s not to love about this man?

Moments later, he hears a flush, and you join him back at the counter. “So…”

“We have to wait 15 minutes for the test to develop fully, " you said, putting the stick back in the box and washing your hands.

“You know waiting’s never been my strong suit.”

You roll your eyes and hop onto the counter. “Tell me a secret then.”

“Only if you tell me one.” He challenges laying his hands on your thighs.

“Deal.” You both smirk and count to 3 on your fingers. 

“Ja’Marr wasn’t the one who finished the rice and peas.”

“I hate making pecan pie.”

Your eyes widen while his jaw drops. “Baby, how the hell did you eat a whole pot of rice and peas?”

“Mamas, who gives a shit about the rice. You said you loved pecan pie. You asked my momma for the recipe!” Tee’s grip on your thighs deepens a bit.

“I said it because it was your favorite, and I wanted that second date! You can’t blame me for liking your fine ass. I would pretend to play flag football if it meant you’d like me as much as I did you. You know I hate running.” You whine, wrapping your arms around his neck and pecking his pouty lips.

His lips curve back up in a smile as he chuckles. “You do hate running, so you’ve made that pie every year on my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas shit whenever I mention it all for me. You’ve never liked it once?”

You slowly nod, biting your lip. “Nope.”

A smirk grows on his handsome face, exposing his sparkly teeth. “You must’ve really liked a nigga to be doin’ all the cooking with no ring.” 

You snort, rolling your eyes as he wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you into his chest. “Of course I fucking liked you, have you met yourself. You’re probably the most charismatic, fine, intelligent, kind, sexy man I’ve ever met.” You smile, pecking his lips until he meets your lips with more force. 

After the short but sweet kiss, he pulls back from your lips but leaves your foreheads touching. “Damn, I don’t know what I did to deserve a woman like you. But I thank god every day for you. You know I’d do anything for you, too, right? Without you, I wouldn’t be the man I am today. After my first year in the league, I was feeling really low. Then, this angel walked onto the practice field and changed my life. There was no way I would’ve turned you down, not when you brought a light to my life I didn’t realize was missing.” You smile misty-eyed as he wipes away a stray tear.

“Shit, the only thing I regret in life is not buying you a ring sooner.” He says, causing you to scoff.

“Oh, two years was too late for you?”

“Oh, yeah. I was ready to be with you forever from day one. Your big-headed brother is the one who told me to wait, " he smirked.

You chuckle, laying a hand on his cheek. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. I’m yours, and you’re mine; everyone else be damned.” His head turns slightly, and he kisses your palm.

“Just me and you, baby.”

Then the timer goes off.

.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡

When Tee finally reaches the birth center, he finds your mother pacing outside.

“Hey, mama J, what’s wrong? Is she alright? Is it the baby? Oh god, what happened?” He asks with his hands going to the top of his head, panicked and looking through doors to see if anything is happening.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here.” She sighs in relief, taking the corner of his shirt and dragging him inside.

“It’s bad, isn’t it? I told her I should’ve stayed home today, but she was too stubborn, and now-

“Now, she can finally relax because you’re here.” She smiles and turns into the room. You smiled immediately upon seeing the love of your life.

“Oh fucking, finally!” Tee lets out the breath he was holding in and rushes over to your bedside. “You took your sweet ass time.”

He chuckles at your grumpiness and lifts your chin for your lips to meet briefly. “I’m sorry, mamas, I got stuck in the pads and walked into a few walls trying to get them off.”

You press your lips together to suppress your laughter. “Okay, that makes everything better, " you say as the chuckles bubble to the surface. While you release your amusement, he admires how adorable you look in your soft pink gown, with your long braids pulled up into a bun and your large bump with a fetal monitor wrapped around it.

“I can’t believe we’re having a baby. How are you so calm right now? I’ve been freaking out since this morning.” He looks over at your contraction waves and goes bugged-eyed by the giant waves produced in contrast to your bubbly appearance. “What the hell?”

“She’s on nitrous.” His mom looks over, smirking. 

“Shit, momma, I forgot you were here.” He nervously chuckles as she walks over to her son and hugs him.

“That’s ok, you have more pressing matters. You should’ve seen her earlier, though. I thought she was gonna start swinging.” The pair look over at you, taking selfies in your hospital bed.

“Now look at her, giving birth and snapping pics, mm mm mm kids nowadays.”

Then, another wave of contractions hit you a bit differently. “Oh shit.” You raise and hug your belly. “Someone call Sarah right now!”

Tee’s brows scrunch. “What’s up?”

“The baby’s coming.” You take the oxygen mask your mom hands to you and take a deep breath. He comes over and puts his hand on your lower back.

“I know, that’s why we’re here.” You shake your head and grab his free hand, squeezing as hard as possible. “Baby?”

“There’s this pressure- a lot of fucking pressure. I feel like I need to push.” You groan out.

“Wait, you mean push push?” He asks wide-eyed.

“Yes, fuck! Oh my god! Fucking shit! Why the hell did I let you do this to me?”

“Ok, we need to order more nitrous.”

“Hello friends, oh Tamaurice, I'm glad you could join us today.” Sarah chimes, walking into the room in full gear.

“Oh, that was fast.” Tee remarks.

“I heard her from down the hall, so I assume it’s baby time!” Your midwife cheers, rolling her stool over to the bed.

Suddenly, all the anxiety from earlier about Tee missing your daughter’s birth evolves into anxiety about the birth itself. “Wait, wait, wait. Baby, I don’t think I can do this. We haven’t thought this through. I’m not ready. I can’t do this.”

“Hey hey hey,” Tee cups your face in his hands and takes in the immense worry in your eyes. “Y/n, you are way more than prepared. You know exactly what to do and have all the strength to do it. You’ve done an amazing job cooking and caring for her in there, but it’s time for her to be in your arms instead of your belly.”

“But what if I’m not a good mom? What if she comes out and we just fuck her up?” Your voice trembles as you lean into him.

“Mamas, you aren’t going to be a good mom- you’ll be the best. Every decision you’ve made in the past year was for her. Our princess is being welcomed by my queen, and my queen only gives her 110%. My queen also has a king who is willing to do any and everything for you. This king is also ready to meet his Princess Ti, and I bet her momma is too.” He pecks your lips and then smiles as your tears dry up.

“Okay, let’s have a baby.”

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

The following two hours felt like a blur of emotions: voices of your loved ones urging you to push, the hands-on your body holding you up, the exhaustion of the labor wanting to take over. Then, it all fluttered away with a sudden relief and a sharp cry. You immediately slumped back into the bed, the exertion impacting every part of your body. You wanted to fall asleep right there, now that all the pain had drifted away and you felt at ease. 

Then you opened your eyes and saw her.

At first, it was just a tiny head of dark hair. Then your midwife turned around, and there she was, wrapped up in a pink swaddle cloth, one hand swiping at her light brown cheeks and big eyes searching the room. 

“Oh my god.” Your whisper makes her eyes dark right to you, and she lets out a whimper.

“You want your mama, don’t you? Come on, sweet pea.” Sarah coos and you gently place her in your arms. 

“Oh wow, you’re real.” You breathily whisper to yourself. The infant’s eyes stay on you like you're the only person in the world, just like yours stay locked on her. “Hi, baby.” 

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Tee leans over to kiss your head. You nod, stroking her tiny cheeks. 

“Yeah, she looks just like her momma.” He smiles, caressing her head.

“She’s amazing, I can’t believe we made her.” You sniffle. “Baby, we’re parents.” You smile, looking up at your husband.

“Speaking of, mom and dad, does our little angel have a name?” 

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Tee says as he rummages through the bag he brought. 

“What is it?”

He comes back with three black circular velvet boxes, one twice as big as the other two. “Here’s the real reason I was late.” You watch him smile, puzzled, while he hands you the bigger one.

“What is this?” 

“These ones,” he holds up the other two boxes, “are for our little princess from her uncles J and JB.” He smiles, opening one to reveal a small tiara.

Your eyes widen, and a gasp escapes your mouth. “Oh my god, that is the cutest thing I have ever seen.” Tee chuckles as he removes the small cap from your daughter’s head and replaces it with the small crown.

“Joe’s been asking what he should get her for months. I kept saying something fit for a princess. And he definitely delivered. He reminded me to grab it from his locker before I left. He hid it very well.” 

“And the other one?”

“I’ve had this one for a while. I think it was about a month after telling Ja’Marr that he texted me saying he had something for me to pick up.” He opens the second box.

“He didn’t.” You look up at him in complete shock and take it out of his hands.

“Pure gold bracelet, anklet, and ring set, made by the same company in NOLA that made yours. It was so hard to keep it from you; every time you had a slight ache or pain that made your days long and tiring, I wanted to bring it out and cheer you up. Especially when we found out they went out of business. I know you wanted this for our baby girl so badly. J really pulled through with this one.” Your mom joins you, looking at the set in awe. 

“I didn’t even know he knew about that.” She whispers.

“Me neither.” You sniffle as your husband kneels, takes the small bracelet out, and clasps it around your baby’s wrist.

“There are more adjustable chains for when she outgrows this one, but for now, she’s perfect.” He smiles, kissing her tiny hand.

“What about this one?” Your mom points to the box he handed you first. 

“This one is from me to my beautiful bride, who I am forever thankful for and proud of for doing one of life’s hardest jobs and giving me my baby girl.” You blink away tears as he smiles and kisses your hand before sitting on the side of the bed and revealing the last item. “I told you you’d always be my queen. And since our princess already has hers..” 

“Tee, it's beautiful.” Your voice trembled as he lifted an almost identical replica of the tiara on your baby’s head onto your own. 

“Only the best for the loves of my life.” He wipes a fallen tear from your cheek and kisses your head. Shifting over in the bed, you gesture for him to sit closer, and he gladly scoots up next to you.

Sighing in pure contentment, you lay your head on his chest. “Thank you, " you replied softly, yawning, then gently passing the bag to your husband. 

“We gotta make sure the princess lives up to her name. Ain’t that right, Tiana?” He cooes holding her with one arm and you with the other, supporting her head with your body.

“Yea my little girl’s not gonna fall for those little f boy traps, nope. She has a daddy who will show her the universe, so no one can ever top it but yourself. My precious girl, Tiana...

You swiftly drift off into a deep sleep, listening to your husband make promises to her, knowing he will keep.

ʚ❤︎ɞ ᶫᵒᵛᵉᵧₒᵤ ʚ❤︎ɞ

A few hours later, after you’ve rested and fed your baby, Tiana receives her first visitor.

“Hey, family, where’s my Titi?” Ja’Marr sings, walking in your room.

Rolling your eyes, you nudge your head to where Tee’s sitting on the lounge chair next to your bed. 

“There she is,” he grins, sitting on the edge of the bed to admire her. “Wow, she’s incredible. You did a great job, sis.” He says, handing you two bags.

“Thank you, and thank you. How was the rest of the game?” you ask, opening the bag of steaming food, which fills the room with a mouthwatering aroma, and digging into your Cajun fries.

“It was okay. Most of the guys were worried about you. But we won, so all is well. They even dedicated the win to baby Tiana.” He chuckles, removing the beanie from his head.

“Holy shit,” you gasp, causing some of the fries to fall onto your gown.

He looks back at you, confused. “What?”

“Oh right, I forgot to tell her you buzzed your hair too.” Tee mentions it as if it was nothing.

“Bro, seriously.” Your brother questions, earning a shrug from your husband.

You continue to stare at him in shock but resume eating. “Did you do it yourself too?”

He shakes his head. “Hell nah, not after what I did to him.” You snort, thinking about the impromptu shape-up you had to give your husband.

“Yeah Tiana didn’t enjoy it either; she kicked so much that day.” 

“Baby, you sure it wasn’t because you overloaded on sugar beforehand?” Tee smirked, stealing one of your fries.

Before you can respond, you hear a whine come from his arms. 

“Oh, I'm sorry, Tiana. Are we not paying attention to you?” You smile at his ‘baby voice’ and look over to watch them interact, like everyone else in the room.

“Damn, she looks exactly like you, Y/n. Especially with the gold.” Ja’Marr winks.

“I still can’t believe you kept them a secret from me for eight months. I cried for days when they announced that they were closing down. I don’t know if you're the best or worst brother doing this to me.” He chuckled, wrapping an arm around you. 

“I think I earned brother of the year with that set.” You snorted, shaking your head.

“Yea, no, not with that haircut. Now go hold your niece.” You ordered, shoving him off the bed.

“Hey, that’s fine by me. Come on,  Titi, it’s Uncle Marr time.” He gave Tee grabby hands until the baby was passed into his arms then he took the seat.

“Thank goodness you don’t look anything like your dad. You might have his last name, but you got all the good Chase features.” Your husband rolls his eyes, joining you on the bed.

Wrapping his arms around you, he sighs softly. “That’s my princess.”

“I know, honey. Think about this: she might not have it now, but when she gets older, I know she’s gonna have your amazing smile.” 

“You think so?” You nodded, then kissed his lips. 

“I know so because that’s the only expression she’s going to know. She’s going to learn that she has the best daddy who always makes sure her momma is smiling. She'll never have to worry with you by her side.” 

He chuckled, showcasing his award-winning smile. “I love you and Tiana so much.”

“We know, right, Titi?” Your daughter wiggled in her uncle’s arms, trying to find your voice, and then a slight whimper started to bubble.

“Oh, come on, Tiana, we were having a moment.” Ja’Marr pouts as the baby’s eyes start crinkling.

“I guess I’ll give you back now, but I will be back, Titi.” He mumbles, handing her to you.

“Oh, my precious princess Ti.”

﹌﹌﹌ ꕥ ﹌﹌﹌ ꕥ ﹌﹌﹌ ꕥ ﹌﹌﹌

a/n: I don't think I've ever worked on a fic as much and as hard as this one. I'm very glad it's finished, so yall enjoy. The final part of this mini series will be out next week!

Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated and encouraged if you liked this fic.

[multi-fandom-imagine]

imagine brothers force Michael to babysit Edna for a day. He obviously not a fan of this idea but then she placed into his arms. This little bundle of sunshine looks at him curiosly with her big eyes and makes cute baby noises, reaching out to him with her tiny hand and now he never wants to let her go. This baby is precious to him and he will protect her with his life! ❤️ ❤️

A/n: THATS SO CUTE 😩

He hated this, hated that he was forced to watch the offspring of Lucifer. Michael didn't quite understand the obsession Gabriel and now his father held for the child.

She was the child of two traitors after all, how can they trust her?!

And yet....

The moment you placed her in his arms with a tired yet grateful smile he couldn't help but understand the reason for the obsession because the moment the archangel looked into her eyes he saw nothing but love.

A bright smile plastered on his face as she reached for him. Her small hands placing themselves on his cheeks. When Michael looked into Edna's eye's he couldn't help but see Lucifer. Swallowing thickly, he blinked away the sudden tears as he then gave her a smile.

"How about I show you a spot that your father loved?!"

Edna's eyes went wide, though she couldn't help but let out an excited squeal.

Holding her tight, Michael gave her a smile as he started to walk off with the little girl in his arms, he decided now he would anything in his life to project this little girl. He knew the whispers from the elders, from Lute.

He'd keep her safe, no one would harm her.

No one.

[ellieslittleburrow]

The reader is Jensen's 15-16 year old daughter whose mother abandoned her when she was a baby. When Jensen marries Danneel, Danneel becomes a mother to her. However, in the present day, she worries that she will be abandoned by Danneel and begins to have nightmares. The reader then explains this concern to her mother and father or uncle Jared.

Warnings : family fight, fear of abandonment.

A/N : when given multiple choices, choose all of them hehe. Enjoiiiiiiiiiii ❣️

-------

"Mornin' honey!"

Danneel, is she really abandoning you or are you just obsessing over the idea?..Not sure.

For the past few weeks, you've been obsessing over that question-and the more time goes by, the louder your brain screams it and the heavier it weighs on your shoulders.

"Hey, sweetheart"

You instantly recognize the voice and turn around. "Uncle Jared-Hii-It's been a while!" Enthusiasm fills your voice and Jared spreads his arms wide for you to jump into. "How are you doing?"

"I've been swamped with work, how've you been, honey?"

How i've been? The words somehow snap you back to your own reality, and all that enthusiasm almost fully melts and you're about to be zone out again when your dad speaks.

"What about me, why do i not get a hug?" He continues. "You know that these days, i talk to her a lot less than i do when i'm elsewhere in the world. Comes morning and wooosh." He swings his hand like a bat. "She's gone." Your dad grabs ahold of your head and ruffles your hair, causing you to roll your eyes, hauling your head away with more force than you would've liked.

"Maybe she's got a new boooooyfriend or someone that she needs to spend time with, huh." Jared smirks, saving you from what was to come.

You tug your hands into your pocket. "Childish. And maybe she does." You raise your eyebrows. "And today's no different-"

"uh-"

Your uncle's eyes turn wide, and you slowly step back. "Sorry uncle Jared." You shrug your shoulders, turning on your heels.

"But-i had so many plans for us."

"Sooooorry." And as you wave them goodbye and close the door behind you, your heart stings. You miss your uncle to death, it's been a while since the last you saw him, and whenever you do, it's the best day ever for you. You watch movies, tell stories, ask for advice, cook.

But you can't do that today, that thing with Danneel hangs heavy in your heart and you feel that- it'll be too obvious, in your eyes, in your voice, everything. So you halfheartedly choose to go. Whatever, right? Uncle Jared can come back another day.

---

Back in your neighborhood, you snoop around the house, looking for your uncle's car, which turns out not to be there. You exhale a breath. Good. Now you can enter the house-small talk-pretend like you have to call your best friend and fly away.

But when as you opened the door to the house, laughter and noise fill the room, causing your heart to sink to your stomach

"Oh-finally. I'm honored to finally be good enough for her." You recognize your father's sarcastic tone and all you can do is puff. As you round a corner to the kitchen, you force a smile, readying yourself to pretend.

"Hi, honey." Danneel smiles and you smile back at her.

"Hey! Uncle Jared-where's your car?" You go straight to the point, surprising everyone and given the looks on your parents faces, it's not the good kind of surprise.

"it-uhhhh...it-your dad drove me here."

"Oh." You say. "Okay." The words are so blank you find yourself crossing your arms over your chest. Who are you protecting yourself from? Yourself?

"What's it with you these days, kid?" Your father takes on a slightly aggressive tone, one you hear very rarely, causing you to step back a discreet bit. "You don't spend time with us anymore, you don't eat with us-" He pauses for an aggressive second. "Don't think we didn't notice you staying up all night."

You sigh and gradually, your thoughts are louder than external noise. You would do all those things, it's not like you hate them. But-but-it's your mom. It's Danneel. She might be on her way out of your life, and how's that going to affect you? Has she thought about what that would do to you? She might be leaving. She might leave at any moment, in fact, she might be thinking about that right now.

"You know we work-right." Your father's bitter voice yanks you back to life and you realize-your eyes are stinging.

"Danneel could be gone for months and this is what you do about it-"

Those words burn at your soul, casting a even more worried look on your face.

"Jensen, calm down." Danneel butts in but that worry had already melted into anger.

"OH I BET SHE CAN'T WAIT TO LEAVE. JUST LIKE THE OTHER ONE DID."

A mixture of your name-in a growling raging voice- and a gasp coming from Danneel is all you hear as you sprint upstairs to your room. You kick the door closed and sit on the bed. What have i done what have i done-She deserved it-She will leave-but what if-

"Sweetie-"

A gasp fills the room as fear sets in.

"it's uncle Jared. I'm coming in, okay?"

Your shoulders slouch in relief. And as soon as your uncle enters the room, tears start streaming down your face.

As Jared sits beside you, he places his hand on your back, swinging left and right in the gentlest manner. "What...What was that all about, y/n?" He sounds hesitant but he proceeds. "You know all that wasn't true, none of it-"

You shrug. Because you don't know!!!! You don't know if it's true or not. "I just...I....I-" You burst into tears. "I don't know anything, uncle Jared, i don't know anything anymore."

"Well...Would you be willing to discuss your not knowing with your mom and dad?"

You shrug, leaning back on the bed to snatch a pillow and bring it over your thighs and in the meantime, your uncle leaves the room and a few moments later, your parents are there.

You lower your head down in shame. "It's not that i'm staying up all night, dad..I just can't sleep." You start just as they come in the room.

"Well-is that why you're actin-"

"NO."

"Then wh-what was that, baby?" Your dad seems to have calmed down. And you thank god for that.

You'd shrug once more but that wouldn't do much this time, so you breathe in and speak. "I....I'm scared." You bring the pillow to your chest.

"Of what?"

"Mo-Danneel...leaving"

Danneel sighs before you get to finish your sentence. "Where'd you get this from, honey? Why would you think that?"

Why would i think that? You scoff. "Well-" You whip your head to the side, locking eyes. "My real mom left, why wouldn't you?"

Danneel jerks her head back in surprise, replying with a finger to her eyebrow-to calm herself down. "Honey-Uh-Honey i would never." A thread of pain runs through her voice. And swiftly, she steps off the bed and kneels in front of you. You startle but-You don't show it.

"I wouldn't do that to you-Look me in the eyes, y/n" she commands in the softest tone and your eyes meet hers. "I love you I love you. I would never be able to live without you honey i would nnnnever."

Tears pool at your eyes again and you're in no state of mind to control yourself. "You mean that?" You ask, sniffing to stop the snot from running down your nose.

"I absolutely do!" Her voice is unshakably certain, resulting in the emergence of a tiny smile on your face. "I'm staying here- i'm not going anywhere. I promise you." She rests her hand on top of yours. "Okay?!"

You need a moment to let it all sink in, so you just keep quiet.

"Okay?" But Danneel breaks the silence, insisting on an answer.

And you do believe her-It's not like you don't! You very much do. So you do answer.

"Okay."

-------

Hope you peeps enjoyed this! See ya 🥀🥀🥀🖤🖤🖤

[redroomreflections]

A New World

Wanda Maximoff x Natasha Romanoff xchild!reader

Note: I don't even know what to call this POV lol.

Summary: Wanda and Natasha received their first foster placements

in the sixteen candles universe available on a03

As they stood on the doorstep of their new home, hearts pounding, hands shaking, and broad smiles, Natasha and Wanda could hardly contain the overwhelming mix of nerves and excitement coursing through their veins. They were becoming first-time foster parents. They had gone through all of the classes. Signed all of the paperwork. Prepared their friends for the change. It was now or never.

The daylight was waning, and the sun veiled behind gathering clouds, signaling the coming onset of nightfall. Merely an hour before the present moment, Wanda had received a phone call. She’d been finishing up with the dishes when her phone rang. Her heart leaped when she realized who it was. It was quick and short but informative. Two young girls, fourteen and eight years old. They needed immediate placement and a place to sleep for the night. So she and Natasha got to work fixing up both bedrooms. Fresh blankets, new pillows, and a stuffed animal for both of them. 

Now they are here, standing in the open doorway, ready and willing to make it work. 

“Hello,” Janice Walker, the social worker waved from the Blue Honda Accord. There’s a slight chill and Wanda wrapped her shawl around herself a bit more. 

The older girl stepped out of the car first, hiding her face under the hood of her jacket. She seemed cautious, taking careful steps as if feeling out of the unfamiliar place. Her body language showed she was holding back, maybe protecting herself from the newness around her.

She was followed by a much younger child. She turned to help her younger sibling, extending a hand in a gesture of support. The younger girl, wrapped in a vibrant pink and white puffer jacket that seemed a tad too big for her, emerged hesitantly, almost appearing smaller than her actual age.

With a gentle smile, the older sister offered reassurance, speaking softly to encourage her younger companion. As she assisted her sibling, she seemed to exude a sense of protectiveness, guiding her with careful attention, mindful of the uncertainties that might be overwhelming the younger girl.

The contrast between the two was striking—the older sister, having a poised demeanor despite her evident wariness, and the younger one, clad in a jacket that could easily engulf her petite frame, radiating an air of youthful innocence mixed with a touch of trepidation.

As the siblings approached, Natasha's heart fluttered with a mix of nerves and excitement. She couldn't help but feel a rush of anticipation coupled with a touch of anxiety. Seeing the two girls, she reminded herself to maintain a welcoming demeanor, despite the whirlwind of emotions swirling within her.

Her hands clasped lightly in front of her, Natasha felt a surge of nervous energy coursing through her veins. A smile graced her lips, although a tad strained as she willed herself to appear approachable. Her gaze flitted between the girls, noting their body language and expressions, trying to gauge their feelings without invading their privacy.

Despite her inner jitters, Natasha knew this moment was pivotal—for the girls, for Wanda, and for herself. She took a steadying breath, silently encouraging herself to remain calm and open-hearted, ready to welcome the newcomers into their home with warmth and understanding.

"Hello, Natasha and Wanda," Janice greeted warmly as she approached, her eyes shifting toward the two girls standing nearby. "This is Faith," she said, gesturing to the older girl, "y/n," she continued, indicating the younger one.

Faith, with a hint of guardedness in her expression, offered a reserved nod in acknowledgment. 

Beside Faith, the younger girl stood, her eyes wide with a blend of curiosity and shyness. Her gaze darted between the adults, and a hesitant but sweet smile played on her lips. Her demeanor oozed a sense of innocence and eagerness to explore this new environment.

Janice's warm introduction seemed to ease the tension slightly. "These two have been through a lot," she mentioned softly, her gaze shifting between the girls and Natasha and Wanda. "But I believe they'll find comfort and care here with you both."

Natasha and Wanda exchanged glances, their expressions filled with empathy and determination. They offered reassuring smiles to Faith and Y/N, silently communicating their readiness to support and welcome the girls into their home.

"Hey there, Faith and Y/n," Wanda greeted warmly, taking a step closer with a welcoming smile. "Come on in, guys. We're so glad you're here." Her voice held a gentle tone, an attempt to ease the girls' nerves.

As Wanda gestured towards the open door, Y/n instinctively clasped her sister's hand tighter, seeking reassurance in this new and unfamiliar setting. Faith, observing her younger sister's apprehension, squeezed her hand gently, silently conveying support and solidarity.

"Make yourselves at home," Wanda continued, her tone soft and inviting. "We've got your rooms all set up and cozy. Would you like a little tour?" she offered, hoping to make the transition smoother for the girls.

Faith nodded her permission. Seems she spoke for both of them. Wanda led the way, offering a tour of the house while Natasha followed closely, ready to support and assist in any way possible.

 Janice and Natasha hung back slightly, allowing the girls some space to acclimate. Janice, carrying their bags, turned to Natasha with a grateful smile.

"Thank you all for stepping up on such short notice," Janice expressed warmly, her gaze flickering toward the two girls. "They’re great kids, truly. Their last foster home just didn’t work out," she mentioned. 

Observing the little one clasping her sister's hand tightly, Natasha couldn't help but feel a surge of empathy. She nodded in response to Janice's introduction, silently acknowledging the significance of this moment for Faith and Y/n.

As they lingered at a distance, Natasha's heart swelled with admiration for Wanda's kindness towards the girls. There was a warmth in her heart as she watched Wanda guiding them through the house, instantly feeling a connection growing within her. 

As the tour wound down and Janice prepared to take her leave, Natasha noticed Y/N had strayed from the group, captivated by an intricately designed elephant statue displayed in the foyer. Smiling warmly, Natasha approached, intending to strike up a conversation about the statue.

However, before Natasha could say a word, Faith swiftly appeared and grasped Y/N's hand firmly, chiding her in a hushed tone for touching things. 

“Don’t you know better than that?”Faith mumbled through gritted teeth. Y/N's expression shifted instantly, her face morphing into a pout, as she looked down, clearly upset by her sister's reprimand.

Natasha paused, recognizing the delicate balance between the sisters. She offered a gentle smile, trying to diffuse the tension. "It's okay, sweetheart," she reassured Y/n softly, her tone warm and understanding. "This elephant statue is pretty cool, isn't it?"

Y/n glanced up, her pout softening at Natasha's kind words, but Faith's protective stance remained unwavering. Natasha nodded at Faith with an understanding smile, acknowledging her concern for Y/N's curiosity while subtly trying to create a welcoming atmosphere for both girls in their new home.

"Y/n, answer her," Faith gently urged, nudging her sister slightly towards Natasha. Y/n, with a shy glance at Natasha, simply nodded in response to her question about the statue. Natasha's heart warmed at the acknowledgment, appreciating the silent connection forming between them.

As this interaction unfolded, Wanda, noticing the budding connection between Natasha, Y/N, and Faith, joined them, standing by their side. 

Faith took a deep breath, her demeanor softening slightly. "Thank you," she said, her voice filled with genuine gratitude. "For letting us stay here," she added, a touch of vulnerability underlying her words as she expressed her appreciation for Natasha and Wanda's hospitality. “I promise I’ll keep y/n in line. She’s just curious that’s all.” 

Wanda, with a reassuring smile, responded warmly, "Curiosity is great, Faith. We encourage it around here. No need to worry. We're here to help both of you settle in comfortably."

As the conversation continued, Wanda's attention shifted slightly, noticing Faith's piercing brown eyes. There was an uncanny resemblance between the sisters despite their age difference. Their facial features, the way they held themselves, spoke of a strong bond, almost making them look like clones of each other.

"Hey, guys, are you hungry?" Natasha asked, her tone gentle and inviting.

Faith replied almost immediately, "No, we're good, thank you," a touch too quickly, almost as if trying to protect her younger sister from being put in an uncomfortable situation.

Noticing Y/n glance over at her sister before responding, Natasha couldn't help but wonder. "What about you, sweetie?" she asked, directing her attention to Y/n, who remained silent, her gaze shifting back to Faith.

As Y/n stayed quiet, Natasha pondered whether the little one could speak. She considered the possibility that Y/n might be feeling shy or uncertain in this new environment. 

"Alright, well, dinner will be arriving soon. We thought pizza might be a safe choice for tonight," Natasha chimed in, trying to keep the conversation light and easy.

Wanda then stepped in, offering to guide the girls to their bedrooms. "Let's get you settled in. We have two bedrooms here. Faith, yours is this way," she said, leading the way towards Faith's room.

As they entered Faith's room, Wanda gestured around, showcasing the space. "Here's your room, Faith. It's already pretty well set up," she mentioned, offering a reassuring smile. "But feel free to decorate it however you'd like. We want you to feel at home here."

Faith nodded in acknowledgment, her eyes scanning the room as she took in the possibilities of making it her own space. There was a faint hint of gratitude in her expression as she processed Wanda's words.

"Y/N, let's head to your room next," Wanda said warmly, leading the way towards the second bedroom. It was just one door down from Faith’s. Y/n followed with a mix of curiosity and anticipation, her eyes filled with wonder as they entered her designated space.

Once inside, Y/n's room mirrored Faith's, adorned with a desk, chairs, and a slightly smaller bed. However, one unique item captured Y/n's attention immediately—a hand-knitted purple elephant wearing a charming dress, placed lovingly on the bed. It was a one-of-a-kind creation, clearly made with care and creativity.

Y/n's face lit up with pure joy at the sight of the knitted elephant. Her eyes sparkled, revealing her deep affection for elephants. It was a moment of realization for Natasha and Wanda—they had discovered Y/n's love for these majestic creatures.

"Do you like elephants, Y/n?" Natasha asked gently, trying to engage with her.

Y/n's lips curved into a wide grin, nodding enthusiastically. 

"What are you going to name her?" Wanda asked, noticing Y/n's affection for the knitted creation.

With a playful twinkle in her eyes, Y/n giggled and gave the elephant a cutesy, silly name, her joy evident in her voice. “Ellie McSnuffles,” She named her. It was the first time she spoke, her voice soft and filled with excitement.

“That’s a lovely name,” Natasha complimented. Y/n’s smile grew even wider. 

After Y/N's joyful interaction with "Ellie McSnuffles," Faith, sensing her sister's happiness, softly requested, "Can I have a moment alone with Y/n, please?"

Recognizing the importance of sibling privacy and bonding, Natasha and Wanda exchanged a knowing glance, understanding the significance of this request. They nodded in unison, respecting Faith's wish.

"Of course," Wanda replied gently, gesturing for Natasha to follow her out of the room. "We'll be right outside if you need anything." With a reassuring smile, Natasha closed the door behind them, allowing Faith and Y/N the space they requested. 

As Natasha and Wanda made their way from the bedrooms towards the kitchen, a surge of excitement bubbled between them, evident in their expressions and animated gestures.

"I think they're really going to fit in well here," Wanda remarked, a touch of enthusiasm in her voice.

Natasha nodded, her eyes bright with anticipation. "Did you see the way Y/n lit up with that elephant? And Faith's protective instinct? They're both so unique."

"They definitely have a strong bond," Wanda observed, smiling at the thought. "And Y/n, she's got such a sweet demeanor. It's like she's trying to take everything in without saying much."

"Faith seems so responsible for her age," Natasha added, reflecting on their initial interactions. 

“She does,” Wanda nodded in agreement. They were so excited for the adventures to come. 

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

An hour later, Wanda was in the middle of making a salad when she sensed someone's presence nearby. Glancing up, she spotted Y/N peeking around the corner, her curious eyes fixated on the kitchen activities.

"Hey there, Y/n," Wanda greeted warmly, setting down the salad tongs. "Do you want to come and see what I'm making?" she asked, offering a friendly smile.

Y/n hesitated for a moment before slowly stepping closer, her eyes alternating between Wanda and the salad. Encouraged by Wanda's welcoming demeanor, Y/n approached, inching closer to the counter. As she walked over, Wanda couldn't help but notice the details of Y/n's outfit. She sported a bright yellow t-shirt featuring the beloved cartoon character Bluey, though the shirt showed signs of wear and tear from being a favorite piece of clothing. Her jeans were slightly oversized, dragging a bit on the floor, indicating they were a touch too long for her. However, it was her adorable pink socks that caught Wanda's attention—they were clean, neatly worn, and undeniably cute.

"You like Bluey?" Wanda asked with a smile, gesturing towards the character on Y/N's shirt.

Y/n's face lit up, nodding enthusiastically as she glanced down at her shirt. She seemed happy to talk about her favorite character, a hint of excitement shining through her shy demeanor.

"Come on over, it's okay," Wanda reassured her, patting the stool next to her at the counter.

Y/n hesitated briefly, then cautiously climbed onto the stool next to Wanda, her feet barely reaching the footrest. Wanda chuckled, noticing Y/n's small stature compared to the counter's height.

"Looks like these chairs are a bit too tall for you, huh?" Wanda remarked, smiling sympathetically at Y/n. "Maybe I should get some shorter stools so you can see better."

Y/n nodded shyly, her eyes widening with a mixture of curiosity and gratitude as she observed Wanda's salad-making process. It was a subtle interaction, but it marked another step toward Y/n feeling more at ease in her new surroundings.

Natasha stepped into the kitchen with a few boxes of pizza, pleasantly surpised to find Y/n sitting at the counter. She glanced at Wanda and they shared a secret smile. 

"Hey, Natasha, mind grabbing the cutting board and starting on those cucumbers?" Wanda called out, dividing tasks while preparing the salad.

Natasha nodded as she reached for the cutting board and began slicing the cucumbers. She worked swiftly and efficiently, enjoying the kitchen activity.

Meanwhile, Y/n, eager to lend a hand, had been observing closely. Wanda noticed her enthusiasm and decided to involve her in the salad preparation.

"Y/n, would you like to help me wash the tomatoes?" Wanda asked, gesturing toward the fresh tomatoes arranged nearby.

Y/n’s eyes lit up with excitement at the opportunity. She nodded eagerly, a sweet grin spreading across her face as she approached the sink where Wanda had set up the bowl of tomatoes to be washed.

"Great! Just take each tomato, rinse it under the water, and put it in this bowl," Wanda instructed, showing Y/n the process with a warm and encouraging tone.

Y/n nodded enthusiastically, taking each tomato with care and delightfully rinsing them under the water, her small hands working diligently to help with the task. The simple act of being included and given a task made her feel valued and part of the kitchen activity, contributing to the warm and welcoming atmosphere.

As Y/n busily washed the tomatoes, a droplet of water splashed onto her t-shirt, staining it slightly. The mishap caused her to freeze, her eyes welling up with tears, and a sense of distress evident on her face.

Wanda noticed Y/N's reaction and quickly approached her side. "Hey, it's alright. Accidents happen," she said, gently inspecting the small water spot on Y/N's shirt. "It's just a little water, we can dry it up in no time, y/n."

Y/N's lower lip quivered, her eyes glistening with unshed tears as she tried to fight back the emotions welling up inside her.

Wanda noticed Y/N's distress and knelt down to her level, offering reassurance. "Sweetheart, what's wrong? Are you upset about the water?" she asked softly, trying to understand Y/N's feelings.

Y/N shook her head, a pout forming on her lips, but her voice barely audible as she whispered, "I don't like that name."

Confused, Wanda gently prompted her, "What name, honey?"

"My name," Y/N murmured, barely audible, her voice trembling with vulnerability. "I don’t like it.”

“Well, is there something else you would like to be called?” Wanda tilted her head. 

I like the name Bunny, but my sister thinks it's silly," she confessed, her voice tinged with a mix of sadness and disappointment.

At that moment, Natasha, who had been quietly observing, stepped closer, offering her support. "Bunny's a great name," she said with a warm smile, trying to uplift Y/N's spirits. "It's not silly at all."

Y/N's eyes widened in surprise, a glimmer of relief shining through. Natasha's encouraging words seemed to ease her distress, allowing her to express herself more freely. It was a small yet meaningful exchange, affirming Y/N's feelings and preferences in a safe and supportive environment.

In a quick flurry of movement, Faith hurried into the kitchen, her eyes scanning the room until they found her younger sister, Y/N, standing by the sink with Wanda and Natasha. The sight of a small water spot on Y/N's shirt made her tense for a moment, but she could see her sister was safe and unharmed.

"Y/N, what happened?" Faith asked, her voice tinged with concern, a hint of her protective nature surfacing. “You were supposed to be using the bathroom.”

Before Bunny could respond, she dashed over to Faith and enveloped her in a tight hug, her eyes shimmering with apologies. "I'm sorry, I got your shirt wet," Bunny murmured, a tone of regret in her voice.

"It's okay, it's just water," Faith reassured Bunny, gently patting her back. She softened her demeanor, understanding her sister's worry and quickly reassuring her that everything was alright. “I apologize. She was supposed to be in the restroom.” She looked between the two older women. 

"Faith, it's okay. She wasn’t a bother," Natasha reassured gently, noticing Faith's protective stance over her sister.

Faith glanced at Natasha, her expression a mix of apology and determination. "I'm sorry. I just… we won’t bother you," she responded, her voice carrying a weight of responsibility.

Natasha placed a comforting hand on Faith's shoulder. "We understand. But you know, this is your house too. You're free to go anywhere you want here," she said, trying to ease Faith's worries.

Wanda chimed in, offering support. "Absolutely. It's your home now, and you can explore and be wherever you feel comfortable."

"Plus, it's dinnertime," Natasha added cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood. "Shall we all gather around the table? Pizza's waiting."

The invitation to dinner seemed to alleviate the tension. Faith took Bunny’s hand and they made their way to their dinner table. As they settled in, the atmosphere became more relaxed, fostering a sense of togetherness and acceptance within the newly formed family.

**********

Bunny sat at the dining table, her feet happily swinging back and forth under the chair as she eagerly bit into her slice of pizza. However, before taking a bite, she meticulously picked off all the pepperoni, a smile of satisfaction spreading across her face once the task was complete.

Meanwhile, as the dinner conversation flowed, Faith hesitantly posed a question that caught both Natasha and Wanda by surprise.

"Are you two legally married?" Faith asked, her curiosity evident, yet her tone respectful.

"Actually, yes," Natasha replied gently, her voice carrying a sense of warmth. "We've been legally married for a year now."

Her response seemed to catch Faith off guard, and for a moment, she appeared surprised but intrigued by the revelation.

"Wow, really?" Faith responded, her curiosity piqued. "I've never been around a married couple like you before."

Natasha and Wanda shared a glance, sensing Faith's genuine curiosity and desire to understand. 

"It's different for everyone," Wanda explained, choosing her words thoughtfully. "Marriage can look different for different people, but what matters most is the love and commitment we have for each other."

As dinner progressed Bunny, tugged at Faith's shirt, whispering in a soft voice, "Do they have wedding photos?"

Faith hesitated, feeling a bit unsure about asking, but seeing the eagerness in her sister's eyes, she mustered the courage and addressed Natasha and Wanda, "Um, do you... have wedding photos?"

There was a moment of quiet between them, sensing Faith's hesitancy, but Natasha smiled warmly, understanding the significance of the request.

"We do have some wedding photos," Natasha responded kindly, noticing the genuine curiosity in Bunny's eyes. "I'll show you later, okay?"

Bunny's face lit up with excitement at the promise, and she nodded, a smile spreading across her face. Faith offered a small but appreciative smile, grateful for Natasha's understanding and willingness to fulfill her sister's curiosity.

Now that she was satisfied, Bunny gently tugged at Faith's shirt once more, whispering with curiosity in her eyes, "What are the house rules?"

Faith glanced at her sister, understanding the significance of knowing the rules in their new home. She turned to Natasha and Wanda and gently asked, "What are the rules in the house?"

Natasha and Wanda exchanged a knowing glance, recognizing the importance of establishing a sense of structure and comfort for the girls.

"Well, there are a few basic rules," Natasha began, smiling warmly at the sisters. "Firstly, be safe, always. That's the most important thing."

"Then, be kind to each other," Wanda added, her voice gentle yet firm. "And be respectful, not just to us but to each other and yourself."

"Tell the truth," Natasha continued, emphasizing honesty. "It's essential for trust and understanding."

They paused, considering additional rules that would create a safe and nurturing environment for the girls.

"Also, for screen time, it's best to be in areas where an adult is present," Wanda suggested. "Though we can be flexible with that, especially for you, Faith, since you're older."

"Respecting each other's space and belongings is important too," Natasha chimed in, encouraging the girls to understand boundaries.

Faith nodded, taking in the rules, while Y/N listened attentively, absorbing the guidelines for their new home. 

"Also," Natasha added after outlining the house rules, "if you have any requests for groceries, questions, or anything you need, you can come to us anytime. We're here to help."

Her words were sincere, aiming to make the girls feel comfortable and supported in their new home. Natasha and Wanda wanted to ensure Faith and Y/N knew they could approach them with anything on their minds, whether it was about groceries, daily needs, or simply wanting to talk. 

"Thank you," Faith expressed with a genuine smile, acknowledging Natasha and Wanda's openness.

Bunny, a bit more softly and with a shy demeanor, echoed her sister, "Thank you," her voice barely audible, yet filled with gratitude for the reassurance and acceptance offered by their new guardians.

----> next part

[ofthemorningstars]

Cruel-Hearted Beasts

TerzOmega ~ Family Fic ~ Hurt/Comfort ~ Resurrection AU

3.8k words AO3 Version

" 'Now listen here, donna malvagia, I will not stand for my girls being treated like criminals, like second-class citizens! They have just as much of a right to stand up for themselves as anyone else!' Terzo roared.

'If you didn’t want your children to be treated like second-class citizens, perhaps you shouldn’t have laid down with a ghoul,' Ms. Voss sneered. "

Terzo and Omega's daughters (8 and 5) learn an unfortunate lesson about discrimination against ghouls within the ministry. CW: discrimination, vague depiction of light violence ---

Starlight stood over the rat-faced boy in the dirt, fist clenched and chest heaving. Her eyes were wide, full of anger and adrenaline and disbelief. 

She didn't know what happened. When she had heard her baby sister scream, had felt her calling out for help with her quintessence, she began blindly sprinting for the source of her plea. As she approached the scene and saw Astrid on the ground shielding her face against the older boy’s foot, ready to kick the helpless five year old, she lost it. She tackled him, sitting on his stomach and punching him repeatedly in the face, seeing red. 

The assault only ended when a Sister pulled her off of him, setting her down on her feet in front of Astrid. A young teenager stepped in to play referee, keeping the two offending parties apart until the Sister returned from wherever she had run off to. Starlight took Astrid by the hand and pulled her to her feet, dusting her off and examining her. Luckily she didn’t appear to be hurt physically, but her face was stained with tears and snot. Starlight wiped her little sister’s nose with her sleeve. “What did that boy do to you?” Starlight growled through gritted teeth, baring her fangs. Astrid only looked away, eyes fixed on her shoes as they filled with fresh tears. Starlight hugged her tightly, letting her sister cry into her shirt. When the Sister returned, it was with the director of their little makeshift school in tow, who glowered at them as she approached. As she helped the boy to his feet with what Starlight considered to be a little too much kindness, the girl growled again, a low rumble in her chest. The director shot her a look out of the corner of her eye, scrunching her nose up in what she could’ve sworn was disgust. “In my office, now! Both of you!” Her voice was just barely below a shout. Astrid whimpered, clinging to her sister. Starlight puffed out her chest in defiant outrage. 

“What?! But Astrid didn’t do anything, Ms. Voss! Avery was the one who–” “Enough! Save it, I don’t want to hear another word.” Ms. Voss marched them inside from the courtyard, down the ministry’s long hallways and into a cramped, dimly lit office. She motioned for them to sit down when Starlight stood there rubbing her arm uncomfortably. 

“Hitting another of the ministry’s children is absolutely unacceptable! We’ll call your parents and see what they have to say about all of this.” She spat the word “parents” in a way that made Starlight’s anger bubble up again, wondering why she said it like that. “I’m sure they won’t be pleased to hear about their daughter bloodying another child.” Starlight stiffened; she didn’t remember seeing any blood. She couldn’t tell if the woman was bluffing. 

They sat in uncomfortable silence, the girls holding hands, Starlight occasionally giving her sister a reassuring squeeze. She tried silently reaching out to Astrid with her quintessence, but to her dismay found herself being blocked out. The older girl’s heart began pounding in her chest as she heard footsteps racing down the hallway and the murmuring of voices, voices that she’d recognize anywhere. Their Papa burst through the door first, eyes wild and searching. When they landed on his daughters, he swiftly crossed the room to them, kneeling on the cold marble floor and placing a hand on each of their faces. “Oh, le mie dolci ragazze, are you alright? What happened, tell me what–” Terzo started before being rudely cut off by the sound of Ms. Voss aggressively clearing her throat. Starlight’s gaze flicked up to her as she rose to her feet, leaning forward on her desk with a grave look on her face. “Your daughters–,” there was that tone again, “--have disrupted class yet again, this time beating up a fellow child! Their behavior is disgraceful, especially in a place of unholy worship! We have rules, standards that must be followed!” She was beginning to look maroon, strands of her normally neat hair falling in her face. It was Omega’s turn to clear his throat. Starlight hadn’t even seen him come in. He looked uncharacteristically angry, his normally placid features masking barely concealed fury. “ Our daughters would never strike someone unless they were defending themselves,” Omega hissed through clenched teeth. His jaw was tight, his fists balled at his sides. Foolishly, Ms. Voss didn’t back down at this; if she was intimidated at all, she didn’t show it. “I’m afraid if they cannot behave in a civilized manner, they will no longer be allowed to mingle with the other children. We cannot have their influence rubbing off on the rest of them. We have allowed them to poison the flock long enough!” The vein in her forehead was popping out. Terzo shot to his feet, outraged. 

“Now listen here, donna malvagia, I will not stand for my girls being treated like criminals, like second-class citizens! They have just as much of a right to stand up for themselves as anyone else!” Terzo roared. 

“If you didn’t want your children to be treated like second-class citizens, perhaps you shouldn’t have laid down with a ghoul,” Ms. Voss sneered. 

Starlight’s dusky grey skin flushed dark purple, and Astrid began to sob, cowering against her sister. Omega had to drag all of them out of the room before things could escalate further, Terzo screaming and spitting all the way down the hall.

When they got back to their quarters, Terzo slammed the door behind him, leaning on it heavily and looking like he was trying not to let angry tears escape. Omega scooped up a still-crying Astrid, rubbing her back and shushing her as she buried her face in his shirt. Starlight took one of Terzo’s shaking hands in hers, looking up at him with eyes full of shame and sadness. Terzo did shed a tear then, lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing the back of it. “La mia coraggiosa bambina. Please. What happened today? Do not listen to a word that vile woman said.” When Starlight hesitated, Terzo led them all to the kitchen table. Astrid sat in Omega’s lap, holding onto him for dear life and hiding her face. Terzo gave his oldest daughter a patient touch on the arm, and she swallowed hard. “I don't… know, Papa. Astrid called out for me, and then I was hitting him, I–” Starlight choked up, losing her battle against her tears. “She was on the ground, I saw Avery ab-about to kick her in the face and I just went crazy…” She bit her lip against a sob. “I didn’t know what to do. She’s my baby sister…” she trailed off in a whisper. Omega growled low beside her, losing the battle against his rage. Terzo stared at her slack-jawed. “Kick her… in the face…” Terzo repeated, as though unable to believe what he was hearing. His eyes shot to his youngest daughter, his features etched with sorrow. He got up to kneel beside Omega, brushing the hair out of Astrid’s face when she turned to look at him. She leaned into his touch, her mismatched eyes red and puffy. “What did he do to you, il mio piccolo amore?” “He pushed me d-down, Papa. He called me a-a ‘filthy ghoul’. He s-said that you were a disgrace to the name Emeritus for… for…” Astrid broke down into a fresh round of tears. Omega shushed her, running a hand through her hair. Starlight was stunned, unable to comprehend why someone would say something like that, especially to such a young child. As Terzo returned to his seat, Starlight could tell that their Papa had more questions, but was unwilling to push the already distraught girl any further. 

“Papa. Daddy. Why would someone say that to her? What’s wrong with being a ghoul?” Starlight asked, pain evident in her voice. She saw her parents exchange a long, agonized look as they sat in uncomfortable silence. Omega was the first to speak up, pulling Astrid closer to his chest. 

“My sweet girls… We were hoping that this conversation could wait until you were a little older.” Omega pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t really know how to say this...” 

“Within the ministry, ghouls have been looked down on and treated as servants for centuries. For as long as the ministry has been around, really. Things didn’t change until a few years before you were born, after your Papa d–” Omega cut himself off, quickly looking for a way to rephrase whatever it was that he had been about to say. “After your Papa was taken out of power. But then Uncle Copia became the one in charge and brought him back. When Papa agreed to work for the ministry again, his only condition was that the ghouls were freed from their servitude and were to be treated as equals.” She saw her Papa nod out of the corner of her eye

“But a lot of the people who have been in the clergy for a long time got used to them being regarded poorly.” Terzo took over. “They don’t respect ghouls, they still expect them to be subservient.” He was beginning to get worked up. “They are ignorant, they have hatred in their hearts. It is why Daddy and I waited so long to have you. We had to keep our relationship a secret.” 

“I don’t understand why they don’t like us, Papa!” Starlight’s voice broke, her vision becoming blurry with tears. “We’re people too!” She heard her Daddy sniffle, turning around to see him wiping at his eyes. She had rarely seen him cry before, and it left her shaken. “I don’t understand it either, la mia bellissima principessa,” Terzo said softly as he smoothed Starlight’s hair. “There are many wicked, cruel-hearted beasts that live within the ministry’s halls, and none of them are ghouls.” 

“You are not, and will never be, lesser than any human. You are incredibly special, and so very loved. We will never stop fighting for you. For all of us.” There was an air of finality in Omega’s voice that stressed the sincerity of his words. He meant it. “I do not think that we should send you back there. Clearly, it is not a safe or nurturing environment. Daddy is home nearly every day, he will do an excellent job of educating you.” Terzo didn’t sound like he was giving them a choice. “But Papa, we have friends there! Not everyone is like that, some of the kids are really nice!” Starlight pleaded, but Terzo’s face was set. “Papa…” Astrid’s voice was timid at first as she looked up from Omega’s chest. “I don’t want to leave my friends,” she sniffled. “It’s not fair, I d-don’t understand what I did wrong!” She began to hyperventilate, little claws digging into the fabric of Omega’s shirt, threatening to tear it. “I'm s-sorry, Papa! Please don’t make me leave!” she gasped between breaths. Terzo’s expression softened. Omega looked broken, rocking Astrid cradled in his arms as though she were a baby again. 

“I–” Terzo hesitated, interrupted by Astrid’s heart-wrenching cries. He appeared to think for a long minute, clumsily running his hands through his own hair. “Look. I will call Uncle Copia in the morning and tell him about everything that has happened. I do not want to take you away from your friends,” he assured them both gently. “You cannot go back with things being the way that they are now. But maybe he can pull some strings and… help fix this. Tomorrow you will stay home so that we can get things sorted out. Ok?” Starlight nodded. It took Astrid a little while to calm down again, but once her breathing returned to normal, she nodded as well. They sat with their parents at the table for a while, being comforted until they were settled enough to go on with their night as a family. When they were able to handle parting, Omega cooked everyone dinner while the girls sat curled up with their Papa on the sofa, going through family photo albums and baby books. Their parents had worked hard to meticulously document their lives together since being able to live in the open as a couple. They wanted to hold onto all of their cherished memories, preserving them for both themselves and their children. Maybe for their grandchildren as well, someday, if they were lucky. “Papa,” Astrid asked, sounding more like herself than she had all day. “Are there any pictures of when you and Daddy got married?” Terzo made a face like he’d just sucked on a lemon. “Ah… Unfortunately not. We got married a very long time ago, alone and in secret.” He didn’t need to say why their wedding happened under such circumstances. It lingered heavily in the air, darkening the atmosphere again. “When did you get married?” Starlight asked, trying to lift the mood. Terzo chuckled brightly. “Over thirty years ago now.” His expression was wistful. “Wow, that’s a long time!” Astrid said in awe. “You’re old, Papa.” Terzo winced. “I know, my darling. I know.” 

When Omega called them for dinner, Starlight and Astrid raced each other to the kitchen, quickly cleaning their plates and asking for seconds. Starlight hadn’t realized how hungry she had been; they had been pulled out of class before their afternoon snack, but the horrors of the day had numbed them both to the passage of time. 

Omega decided that they would be turning in early that night when an exhausted Astrid nearly fell asleep in her ice cream. They quickly took baths and got ready for bed. Astrid was out the second her head hit the pillow. Starlight was wide awake, but skipped her nightly bedtime story. She wasn’t feeling up to it. She was still deeply affected by the things she had heard. By the agony she had felt radiating off of her baby sister, and later, her Daddy. Omega didn’t need his quintessence to pick up on her distress, but he could use it to ease it away. He sat down on the edge of her bed and took her hand in his, squeezing. Leaning down, he pressed their foreheads together, an unnecessary but comforting step for them when they connected. Her mind was flooded with tranquil waves of warmth and peace, their bond overflowing with unconditional love. Soon her eyelids began to feel heavy. The last thing she remembered before the world went dark was the feeling of her Daddy kissing her cheek.

—

Terzo was perched on the edge of their bed, anxiously biting his nails nearly down to the beds while he waited for Omega to return from getting Starlight to sleep. He hadn’t intended to leave before both of his girls were asleep, but he knew the energy he was giving off wasn’t conducive to helping sensitive little quintessence ghouls rest. He felt sick to his stomach with worry. He hurt for his children, for his husband. None of them deserved any of this. Guilt consumed him, his inability to protect his family making him feel like a failure. Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder, making him jump. He had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed Omega approaching. He peered up at his husband, trying to give him his most convincing smile. Omega wasn’t buying it. “Tesoro mio, I can feel you down the hallway. I don’t know why you bother trying to hide from me, after all these years.” Omega pressed a kiss to the top of Terzo’s head before sitting down beside him. Terzo leaned on him heavily, trying not to break under the weight of everything that had transpired within the last few hours. “What are we going to do?” Terzo whispered, closing his eyes against tears. Omega thought for a moment. “It’s only eight-thirty, we can still call Copia. I’m not sure what he can do about it this late, but I know you well enough to know that this will eat at you until you do something about it.” It only took Terzo a few moments to agree, quickly pulling out his phone and dialing his brother. 

To say that Copia was outraged would, blessedly, be an understatement. When he’d gotten the whole retelling out, Terzo had to hold the phone away from his ear to preserve his hearing against the volume of his brother’s tirade. It felt validating to have someone else feel a fraction of the anger that he felt over the situation, even if it didn’t make it better. 

They were stuck on where to go from here, the situation complicated by alliances and bullshit ministry politics. When Terzo bitterly suggested sending her to the pit, Copia calmed, beginning to back-peddle the conversation. Killing her was not an option, Copia insisted, making Terzo roll his eyes. In his anger for his daughters, he was tempted to call Copia a coward, but he knew that was unfair. He knew from firsthand experience how hard it was to balance the demands of so many forces pulling you in warring directions. “What if I fire her, so to speak? Have her moved somewhere like kitchen duty, eh?” Copia sounded pleased with himself. Terzo clenched his jaw. 

“That could be even worse, you idiot! What if she started messing with the food?! She could poison the girls!” Terzo was getting worked up again. He was fighting hard to keep his voice down.

“Ok ok, maybe not the kitchens, but you get my point!” Copia conceded. “No.” He wasn’t budging on this. “No, fratello, after all the shit that we have been through, that you have put us through, you owe me. Excommunicate her at the very least.” “Terzo, you know that wasn’t my fault! Do you know how much shit I’ll get for–” “ I don’t care,” Terzo hissed. “The girls will be going back to class next week, and there will be a different administration in place, or so help me I will make you regret the day you were born.” His tone was final. There was a long pause, followed by a weary sigh. “Ok. Fine. I’ll see what I can do.” With that, Terzo hung up the phone, too frazzled and pissed off to bother with a goodbye. He flopped back on the bed and was quickly joined by Omega, who was equally as done with this wretched day. They lay there for what felt like an hour, but in reality was probably closer to ten minutes. Terzo was beginning to drift off when he felt a tendril of his husband’s quintessence reach out to softly brush against his mind, asking to be let in. Terzo could feel the lingering hurt and insecurity in the request and eagerly accepted, flinging the doors to his emotional world wide open. Before either of them knew what was happening, they were both overcome with the torment that Omega had been barely suppressing all day. Terzo felt Omega’s overwhelming, aching guilt at having passed the curse of his ghoulish nature on to his daughters. His sense of failure for not having been able to protect them, to not have gotten them out of such a hostile environment, to not have set them up for a brighter future somehow. He shared that he sometimes wondered if Terzo would have been better off if they had never met. A ragged gasp tore through Terzo, feeling like a hole was being ripped in his heart by the depths of Omega’s suffering.

Terzo drew Omega’s trembling form into his arms, doing his best to console the ghoul who made up the other half of his soul. He told him how much he loved him, how much their girls loved him, how proud he was of him. He reminded him of how highly he regarded ghouls, of how much respect and dignity he knew them to be owed. Terzo assured him that he wouldn’t change a single thing about him or their beautiful children, that he wouldn’t even think about it for a second. Their circumstances had always been so unfair… He tried to stay strong for Omega, but soon they were crying in each other’s arms, clinging tightly. Unsure of what else to do to ease his partner’s suffering, Terzo concentrated on focusing and amplifying the love he had for his husband and for their family, making sure it infiltrated every cell of Omega’s body. Gradually Omega’s breath steadied, evened out, and soon they were still. Terzo looked at him, relieved to see something resembling peace on his face. 

“Omega?” Terzo called feebly, worn out from the effort. Omega opened his eyes and hummed in response. Terzo cupped Omega’s face in his hands, stealing a tender kiss. “Nothing that happened today is your fault, mio caro. Please. I need you to know this. You are the most wonderful father and husband we could have ever asked for. We love you. We need you...” Omega closed his eyes again, taking a deep breath before hesitantly nodding. Terzo kissed him again, and when they broke apart they kept their lips pressed together, basking in the presence and warmth of the other. They both needed to be close, were craving skin to skin contact. “C’mon, mio amato, let’s go take a shower. Let the heat melt some of the stress away,” Omega proposed. Terzo thought that sounded like a great idea, if only he could find the strength to stand. Omega got up first, carefully pulling Terzo to his feet and steadying him as he wobbled. Omega began to lead him towards the ensuite, but Terzo resisted. “Wait. Let me go check on the girls first, amore,” Terzo requested. Omega nodded, giving his hand a firm squeeze before he let go. Omega started the water while Terzo crept down the hall, careful not to wake their children. The creak of the door rang out in the quiet darkness, amplified by his own lingering anxiety. He cursed the squeaky hinges, wondering why they never got around to fixing them. 

When Terzo peeked his head around the corner, he found Astrid’s bed empty. Looking around the room with momentary concern, he spied his youngest child in her older sister’s bed, their hands clasped on top of the covers. Astrid’s other hand clutched her baby blanket tightly to her chest, the one her Daddy knitted for her before she was born. Terzo’s heart warmed at the sight. He couldn’t help the smile that followed him all the way back to the shower. That night, as they did every other night, Terzo and Omega fell asleep safe and warm in each other's arms.

[frostycatblr-fandom-files]

Hey, Frost! Congratulations on reaching 200 followers!!

This is Carol (@clonethirstingisreal), just asking on anon rather than my main account.

For my request, I was wondering about a fic focusing on Hunter & Omega with a father & daughter vibe (or just siblings is fine too.) I really don't have anything specific in mind. It could be after everyone (including Tech) is living safe on Pabu. Maybe Hunter comforting Omega about something...or vice versa. I don't know...sorry! If you need more to go on, let me know. I'm blanking...

Thanks!

New Night Routines [Hunter and Omega Family Fic]

Warnings and Information: Officially settling into island life after everything they’ve been through since the emergence of the Empire will take time, Hunter knows that. Patience is paramount in times like these, and the people of Pabu’s limitless generosity and neighborly nature make light work of helping all six members of Clone Force 99 lay down roots. Now, the biggest battle for him, his brothers, and Omega is getting a good night’s sleep.  TBB AU where everyone gets to live happily ever after. Reference and allusion to canon-typical injury and violence. Mainly fluff and feel-good family moments. Minimal Star Wars and real-world swearing. Limited Mando’a. Fictional sea creatures. Narrative and stylistic use of italics. 

Word count: 4,020

When the decision had been made to carve out a comfortable life for themselves at long last, Shep Hazard was all too happy to provide the Batch with a proper Pabuan house. He’d been insisting upon it for some time now, but the offer had always been turned down, saying the same thing each occasion.

“There’s still a lot to sort out. We need more time to come to a proper decision.”

They had the Empire to contend with. Brothers to help. Sowing the seeds of a growing rebellion.

So when the time finally came, Hunter was thrilled to take Shep up on the next offer. No more living on the run. No more sleeping and living out of the attack shuttle. They would have a safe roof to sleep under, and a steady supply of surf and sun to fill their days. The island community came together when news broke that they were here to stay, rolling up their sleeves to repay a multitude of favors from repairing Lower Pabu following the last sea surge. 

Without the whip-smart fishermen, rewiring the house would have taken Tech many long weeks of steady work in order to bring everything up to his standards on his own. 

Wrecker had the help of the community’s woodworkers in replacing anything suffering from wood rot and constructing newer, sturdier furniture. 

Artists pooled themselves together and slung paint in every room of the house under Crosshair’s watchful eye; by lunch every room had been given a base coat, and by dinner, detail-work began once it was agreed who slept where, giving those spaces tailored touches. 

Echo, though he would often be away assisting Captain Rex and the Clone rebellion, found ways to contribute to construction, incorporating hidden compartments and caches in their eventual living space for safekeeping their old armor and weaponry. 

Omega had grand plans to decorate not just the room she had all to herself, but the whole of the house all on her own if Hunter didn’t insist upon helping between his own odd jobs. The prospect of having more than just the barest of bare essentials, but now the ‘basics’ was entirely thrilling to Omega, and perhaps more than a little overwhelming at times for Hunter. 

There’s just so much… stuff.

Blankets and pillows had been small familiarities with the GAR, but patterned bedding and special linens? Decorative pillows? Was that all really necessary?

Maybe not to him, but making sure Omega felt like an equal contributor to putting together their home meant entertaining her enthusiasm in other ways when there were no tasks suitable for her to assist with. If there were heavy shelves to hang, Hunter helped her find the best baskets offered by the island’s artisans to use for storage. When the sturdier bed frames were carefully squeezed into the house, he went with Omega on a walk to collect the blankets that had been set aside for them by the many fibercraft artists. 

And every evening after dinner, Hunter promised to do whatever she wanted for an hour to reward her for being so patient throughout all of this. Occasionally, one hour often bled into two, sometimes three before both would be thoroughly worn out and ready to turn in for the night. 

Sometimes she wanted to sit under the weeping maya tree, gazing at the star-crusted indigo skies together. Other nights, Omega wanted to roam the Archium and proudly show off all she had learned from Phee, or Layana, or Tech about each of the valuable items stored here. They’ve crawled through several of the island’s coves in the growing twilight, collecting enough sea glass that Phee offered to find a jeweler who could turn the frosted fragments into beautiful sun-catchers for them. 

Enjoying this nightly routine with her, Hunter considered making this a weekly thing once the house had been finished, which wouldn’t be much longer now. While he and his vode were accustomed to sleeping in the Havoc Marauder during the Clone Wars, he was growing tired of it long term. 

Maker, he couldn’t wait to get into that house. 

As hard as it could be to accept, her brothers knew Omega wouldn’t stay little forever. She was a growing girl who needed more room to grow, to decide what kind of life to make for herself, to simply live. And a gunner’s mount was no place for any of that. 

Laying down roots on Pabu would be good for her. 

For all of them. 

After two weeks of continuous construction and regular after-dark adventures, the morning finally came that the Batch’s new house would be complete by lunch time. Perhaps even before, depending on how many members of this selfless community came together to help the vode furnish each room. 

Omega woke shortly before dawn, too excited to sleep, or think about trying. 

Hunter found himself roused from a comfortable slumber by a bright-eyed pre-teen, her pale, curly hair an adorably bedraggled mess as she gingerly shook his arm. 

“Hunter. Hunter!”

Crosshair, ever the light sleeper, began to stir in the bunk across from Hunter’s just as the other began to sit up and work feeling into his limbs. They had all promised her long ago that if she ever needed anything, and they meant anything, from one of them for any reason, she never had a reason to hesitate waking her brothers.

“What’s wrong?” 

Hunter tugged the blanket over the sniper’s head, chuckling warmly. “Go back to sleep, Cross. I’ve got it handled.” He didn’t even know what it was, but it didn’t matter. By nature of his engineering and training, Hunter had a life’s worth of experience in waking up suddenly and quickly. Alert in just a short time, he came up with something to do to let the others get as much sleep as they could while tugging on his boots. 

“Think we can find something new in our favorite tide pools that Tech hasn’t seen before?”

It should be enough to keep them occupied for an hour or two before joining the others in putting the finishing touches on the house. 

Omega nodded, enthusiastic and eager. 

“Atta girl.” 

Hunter ruffled her hair before sending her up to the cockpit to collect the beach bag Lyana had gifted her. This would give him more than enough time to shimmy out of the shirt he slept in and into something different. Once dressed, he rounded up a few more things around the Marauder he thought they might want - a drybag for when Omega inevitably wanted to splash her feet in the water, the datapad she used for her studies, and laid a change of clothing out for each of them at the foot of his bunk. Just in case. 

They met at the gangplank, Hunter keying in the appropriate sequence to lower the ramp. 

“All set, Havoc Five?”

Omega grinned, giddy and full of energy. “Ready, Havoc One!”

“Good,” Hunter returned the smile with one of his own. “Race you down to the water, then?” 

Scuttling down the ramp together, Omega tore off in a burst of gleeful giggles, Hunter close behind. 

Having been on the run for so long, living hand-to-mouth and facing peril after peril with the bravest of faces, Omega had begun laughing less and less. As their arrangement with Cid crawled to a boiling point, tempers flaring in the backroom of the Parlor, Bolo and Ketch found less and less success in making the adolescent laugh. After their treacherous ordeal on Ipsidon was met with complete apathy, it wasn’t much longer that the Batch parted ways with the Trandoshan without so much as a word. 

Phee selflessly sharing her safe haven had given Omega back her laugh. 

Pabu and the generosity of her people were giving Omega a chance at a normal life, with normal experiences. Making friends her own age exposed her to many new things. When Lyana and other girls their age invited her to her first sleepover, Tech helped her prepare for it the day before with research and reassurance. 

“If, in the event you miss us, just remember that you have Lula. She’s been with the team for a long time. She’ll help you be brave, Omega.” 

It wouldn’t be beloved tooka dolls alone that brought Omega her new-found bravery here in Pabu’s safe harbor. It would be her brothers, too. 

Patiently learning to act less like a team, and more like a family, they were navigating this new life together. Hunter would certainly never take this for granted after everything the Batch had been through to get to this point. 

Just as Omega claimed she was going to reach the beach first, Hunter would catch up in a burst of speed and swoop his sister into his arms. Both of them would reach the beach at the same time this way. The laughter shared between them felt good. Freeing. Racing down to the water without a care in the galaxy, still new and novel to each of them, would become a memory more valuable than any vault of credits he could ever imagine. 

He had wanted that kind of life, once. As a cadet, likely younger than Omega had been when they first met, the prospect of living lavishly with his rowdy band of brothers after the war had been among the grandest dreams. A distraction, really, from the growing pains that plagued him and the endless hours of rigorous training, testing and tweaking of his enhancements. 

Now, settling into an easy life from the Imperial forces that poisoned a predator with fear and slowly turned him into prey was his dream. A dream free of being faced with situations so dire and desperate he would be forced to gnaw off a part of himself to escape, or keep Omega safe. 

Safe to create new routines of poking about the deeper tide pools for shells and strange, quad-eyed crustaceans with her brothers, her family. 

“Look at this one!” 

Omega carefully plucks a large crab out of the saltwater pool, keeping her hands behind its largest claw. She holds it out to Hunter, showing it off like a trophy with the proudest of smiles that she could catch one. They were often lightning-fast, scuttling down to the surf in a flash. Crosshair had figured out how to catch them to make it less challenging for Tech to study them, but not without several pinched fingers, first. 

Once he’d mastered the technique, Cross taught it to Omega and encouraged her to show Hunter the next time he and Omega went down to the cove for their after-dark adventures. (Probably in hopes of scaring the hell out of Hunter, the little shit.) Crosshair had always been talented at finding ways to catch things that didn’t like being caught. It had been a useful pastime during the war. 

“Looks very nice.” Hunter said, verbally applauding her accomplishment. “Can you tell what it is, Megs?”

“This is a false flotsam crab!” she declared, indicating the lack of splinter-like spikes lining the smallest claw. 

Hunter had to stifle a chuckle over how much she sounded and acted like their bespectacled brother. After the sea surge, they had seen a lot of flotsam crabs and the pretenders in the wreckage of Lower Pabu. Upon identifying them, Tech declared both species were perfectly edible - though they would want more of the flotsam crabs than the false ones - and basketfuls of these crabs were collected. People may have lost their homes, but there would be enough food to prevent anyone from going hungry. 

It was like the sea’s way of apologizing. 

It was also the first time the Batch had seen the scale of Pabu’s generosity, and resilience. No wonder they had fled the Empire and come to Pabu; these were good people. Good people who were helping him give his sister a good life. 

Omega brought the false flotsam closer to her brother, holding it out to him.

“Do you want to hold it?” 

Hunter shook his head, smiling. “That’s okay. Maybe another time, Omega.” There would be plenty of chances to catch crabs in the future. Endless opportunities to splash in the cool coastal waters, and bask in the salt-laden breeze and island sun. 

Placing the cranky creature back in the water, Omega returns to the task of finding something new to show Tech before they return to the others, where together, they’ll make their house a proper home. 

When the sun has risen high enough, Omega leads the way to their new house, a large shell clutched tightly in her hands. Wearing her pack, Hunter follows behind, listening to her excited babbling of all the things she thinks her prize find could be. 

Found further down the beach by his sister, it had recently washed ashore, glimmering in the young sunlight of dawn the way Hunter had heard rumors of the appearance of kyber. Opalescent, clearer than ice. Some surfaces were smooth to the touch. Others, jagged and unpleasant. It was unlike anything the siblings had seen before. 

Omega called out their return the closer they were to the house. 

“Tech! Look what we found!” 

Hunter thought ‘we’ was being generous, but he did nothing to correct her. Tech, putting away his tools, takes the shell and examines it for all of ten seconds before announcing what they found. “Another glacial turban. That’s a rather remarkable specimen, Omega.” Omega pouts in disappointment to hear that they did not find something new, but it is soon forgotten as Tech spurs her youthful curiosity with a simple question. 

“Would you like to know what makes it so remarkable?”

“Yes!”

He asks her to wait there while he ducks inside a moment, collecting his datapad, most likely. When Tech returns, he has a second shell in hand rather than his trusty technology. “This is also a glacial turban.” he explains, kneeling beside her. Comparing the two together, he shows her how the first shell has far more opalescence and clarity than the other, and the color is stronger. 

Textbook perfect, he calls it. 

The others have crowded around to see, only opting to hold it once Omega says it’s okay. “S’beautiful, kid,” Wrecker says, carefully turning the turban over in his hands, “A real keeper!” Once he’s had a good look, the turban is passed to Echo, and the ARC trooper says the shell’s a real stunner. Crosshair says nothing, but the way he smiles as he studies the way the light warps and shifts on the surface explains more than enough. 

A teasing smile works its way free when Omega takes the shell back from him. 

“So? Do you like it?”

“Can’t get any better than textbook perfect, I suppose.” he replies, smiling wryly around a toothpick. 

Hunter lays a hand on one of Omega’s shoulders, looking down at her with a soft smile. “Sounds like we should find a special spot for you to show it off, then, Megs.” Now, looking up at his brothers, Hunter says the three words they had become very familiar with before all hell broke loose, once upon a time.

“You boys ready?”

Many hands make light work. Taking it room by room, they lay down rugs, make the beds and fluff up the pillows, and wrestle furniture into place. It would go a lot quicker if there was less fooling around, but making these new memories on what will soon be their first official day in a new house trumps efficiency. 

Phee drops in around mid-morning to check on their progress, finding the six of them piled on the floor, taking a short break in Tech and Wrecker’s room. “Getting tired? Neighbors have said you guys sound like you’ve been having a great time for several hours now.” Arms folded loosely against her chest, their friend is all smiles as Phee gives her report.

Tech adjusts his goggles before he replies. “Decorating a domicile has been more fun than I anticipated.”

Omega’s room is left for last out of the bedrooms, and every item within is a testament of love the people in her life had for her.

They started with the gifts from Phee and Lyana first. The sea glass sun-catcher was hung in a corner of the window, and a soft moon-yo toy was added beside Lula and her trooper doll on the bed. Next, each brother helped Omega fit his contribution to the room in only the most perfect places. 

The traditional telescope Crosshair had found and restored was tucked by the window, alongside other tools for stargazing. The bed frame that Wrecker had worked on longest of all was well worth the splinters when Omega lovingly awed over each embellishment that had been added by hand. The beaded curtains hung around her bed had been fashioned by Echo, worked on each night after she had gone to sleep. Tech gifted her a small set of shelves to display the special specimens she had collected in their travels. And adorning the bed laid the quilt Hunter had commissioned from one of Pabu’s reclusive-yet-crafty artisans, combining the common gray and red tones of Clone Force 99’s armor with the brighter hues found in Omega’s favorite colors. 

In spite of her excitement over her first proper bed since Kamino, Omega avoided climbing on it for fear of getting sand in the freshly-laundered sheets. Besides, they still had parts of the house to finish, chiefly the kitchen and living area, and Omega didn’t want them to lose the current momentum. If they wanted to have things finished by lunch, then they had less than an hour to do it. 

She would have the chance to find out just how comfortable the sleeping arrangements would prove at bedtime. 

Since the two of them had gone down to the beach before dawn, Hunter and Omega opted not to do a part of their nightly routine in favor of making their first night in a proper house an early one. Instead, they stayed with the rest of the Batch, playing a few short rounds of Sabbac or doing other things while waiting on their turn to shower. 

Wrecker would kindly offer to help Omega finish getting ready for bed while Hunter had his turn, but she declined. Her answer was less surprising than she might have expected; Hunter was already halfway to the refresher to get the water going before she had the chance to finish.

“I wanted to ask Tech to help me organize my specimens while waiting for Hunter…”

In good humor, Wrecker chuckles warmly before offering his sister’s hair a careful ruffle. 

“Alrigh’, ad’ika.” 

Ordinarily, Hunter never took long to wash up, but tonight he dawdled a bit more than usual to give Omega and Tech the opportunity to make decent progress. By the time he had dried, dressed, and detangled most of his hair from itself, he found the two of them sitting in the middle of Omega’s room. 

She had changed into a fresh pair of brushed-cotton sleepwear at some point, and was now allowing Tech to finish her haircare for the night. Joining this rather sweet scene, Hunter waits by Omega’s bed, quietly listening as they talk over her collection. Tech, kneeling behind her, is mostly focused on the instructions he is reading over her shoulder on how to start taking better care of the hair-type they have inherited from Jango Fett, the Clone template. 

“This appears to be mostly in chronological order, now. But a few items appear to be… missing.”

“I think some of them are still in your footlockers.” Omega replies, patiently enduring an unpleasant tug from the brush as Tech finds a rather stubborn knot. 

Promising to help her take care of getting the missing items in the morning, Tech asks Hunter to carefully set everything aside on the desk for the time being while he finishes up. He obliges his brother’s request, working quickly as both of them can see how drowsy she’s becoming. Being up before dawn will do that. Once he’s finished, Hunter lifts Omega from the floor, carrying her to bed.  

“C’mere, Megs. Bedtime.” 

He tucks her in, pulling the quilt up to her shoulder after making sure Lula is secure in Omega’s arms. It shouldn’t be long before she’s asleep, so Hunter and Tech don’t linger longer than it takes to say goodnight and shut off the light. 

“Jate ca, Omega.”

There’s little more than a sleepy hum in response. She is well and truly tuckered out. 

Omega sleeps soundly for about an hour before being stirred awake by something outside her window. It’s nothing more than playful moon-yo chatter outside, thankfully. Once they scamper off, she settles back down, but something feels… off. Not necessarily the room itself, but how quiet it is. After living on the run for so long, little more than a curtain between her and her brothers, the utter silence of the room is uncomfortable. Unsure what else to do about failing to fall asleep, Omega climbs carefully out of bed, and slips down to her brothers’ room. 

Hunter stirs before she’s gotten farther than the foot of his bed, waking easily with his keen sense of hearing. “What’s the matter, Megs?” His voice, low and sleepy, is partially muffled by his pillow before sitting up to address the situation. 

“It’s… it’s too quiet to fall back asleep. It’s making me feel uneasy.” she admits in a whisper, squeezing one of Lula’s paws to try to soothe herself. 

“... too quiet?” 

Hunter furrows his brow, wondering why a room being too quiet would make it hard to sleep when you’re sharing a room with someone. Then he remembers that she’s not sharing a room with anyone. She’s been given her own room, and she’s likely not used to being by herself anymore. Of course. All of them, for one reason or another, had forgotten to consider what might happen when she would be sleeping on her own for these new night routines… 

That was their fault, his fault, more than her’s. 

“C’mere, ad’ika. I have an idea.” 

Pillow under one arm and Omega in the other, he carries her back to her bedroom, giving her a choice. “Until we can find a sound machine to help you sleep, I’ll stay with you to help you get used to your room. Now, where do you want me to sleep?” Unsurprisingly, Omega quickly makes space so he can share both her bed and new quilt.

As she pulled it over them, she noticed the backing wasn’t just any old material. Her brothers had taken portions of their old bodysuits, carefully washing the material before donating these pieces to the blanket. Designs dear to them had been stitched in contrasting thread so she would know who particular patches came from. 

In the dark, fingers traced out the words “We’ll always have your back” at the very top of the blanket. The artisan’s neat work made her brothers’ collective loyalty and a promise all the more tangible.

As Hunter lay next to her, it wasn’t long before she was able to settle down again. Holding her close, he listened as her breathing evened out, eyelids growing heavier and heavier. Omega would be asleep before long, but not before she had one last thing to say. 

“Thank you, Hunter…”

“You’re welcome, Omega. Sweet dreams.”

Once she had drifted off, tucking her head under her brother’s chin, Hunter would carefully lay a kiss in the crown of her hair, bidding her to sleep well for the rest of the night. He listened to her for a while longer, quietly grateful that this instance of being unable to sleep was so easy to remedy. Grateful too, in a sense, that that was now among their biggest battles. 

Until their roots were firmer, settling down on Pabu would have a few growing pains. Adapting to change could be hard. Adjusting to new routines could be hard, too. 

But they didn’t have to be, so long as the Batch had each other’s backs.

Thank you for making such a sweet request for this little event Carol. I tried to include most of your ideas without rambling too too much, haha. I hope you enjoyed it! 🩷 (And apologies if the pacing feels a bit "off" in places as things were cut for brevity!)

Fic taglist: @anxiouspineapple99 @dukeoftheblackstar @dystopicjumpsuit @msmeredithrose @lonely-day3636

[Masterlist] [TBB Masterlist] [Taglist] [Requests: OPEN]

[aloysiavirgata]

Tiny AU where they just have a normal baby 🥹

They name her Rosalind Elizabeth, after Franklin and Blackwell. She has a thatch of dark hair like the pelt of a mink. She has the kyanite eyes of a storm witch.

*

“They look like a nice Stilton,” Mulder observes, Scully’s breasts blue-veined over skin so plump and creamy even her baggiest sweatshirts have a seductive air.

She wrinkles her nose. “You’ve been out of the game for too long,” she says. “That’s hardly complimentary. Mold, honestly.”

“I’m a fun-guy,” he says, and Rosalind turns her head to hiccup with disdain.

*

Skinner holds the baby with surprising ease. “Eleven nieces and nephews,” he tells Mulder, who surveys his daughter for any sign of distress.

“This baby is especially discerning,” Mulder says. “She is highly refined.”

Skinner pokes Rosalind’s fat little frog belly.

She gurgles with appreciation, reaches for Uncle Walter’s tie.

“You can tell the difference can’t you, sweetheart,” Skinner asks warmly.

Mulder scowls as Rosalind coos in reply.

*

“Fuck,” Scully hisses at her tiny daughter. “Sweet merciful Christ, we’re weaning her.”

Rosalind drools past four razor-sharp teeth, onto her mother’s bare, bitten nipple. Then she wails in disappointment, in deprivation.

Mulder pops a pacifier into her perfect rosebud mouth, watches her impossibly long lashes flutter against her cheeks like butterflies on Calimyrna figs.

The baby hums a little, settles. Sleeps.

Mulder nuzzles against the salt-caramel sweetness of her mother’s neck, his palm soothing the bleeding breast. “Sheriff Hartwell,” he murmurs into her pale throat. “I want a paternity test.”

*

“No,” Rosalind says sweetly to Uncle Byers. She pats his beard with fat starfish hands. “No.”

Frohike hoots. “Well, if that isn’t her mother’s daughter!”

Byers looks mournfully at his copy of the Junior Cryptids board book. “Rosie,” he says. “S is for Sasquatch.”

Rosalind beams back with a gummy smile. “Monkey,” she burbles.

*

Mulder holds her hand as she steps delicately across the grass.

Rosalind looks up at him, her hot chocolate hair a tumble of silken ringlets.

“Bye bye,” she says.

She releases his finger, staggers drunkenly towards her mother on the other side of the blanket.

“Daddy,” Rosalind observes. “Ma.”

She walks like Bambi on ice, like a coltish girl in her first high heels.

Mulder’s sinuses burn, his eyes are hot and wet as the deep-ocean thermal vents, where the most improbable life begins.

[xdacted]

The wind chimes we hear

Paring: Charles Leclerc x Sister! Reader

Warnings: fluff, family fluff, family angst, family feels

Word Count: 2,760

Status: Completed (part of a mini-series)

* A Request*

There was the green field, littered with dandelions and daisies swaying in the wind. Sunlight drenched the stems, rolling over the grass, kissing my skin. The twinkle of our grandmother’s windchimes, clinking together. The scent of the sea, the taste of salt dancing high above the air. 

I could hear my brothers laughing, pushing each other, shoving the other into the dirt. The sound of our mother scolding them, my father’s bellowing laughter. They called my name, pulling at my hands. They didn’t understand why I was so small, why I couldn't run like them. 

I didn’t get it either. 

They call my name again. 

It sounds fainter. 

The sun goes cold, and the grass stops dancing. My father’s face distorts, fading into nothingness. 

“Ma’am?”

There’s a hand on my shoulder, gently pushing me. My eyes blink open. 

There’s a woman smiling down at me, her red lips showing a dazzling set of pearly white teeth, “We’ll be landing soon.”

I nod, trying to suppress the yawn that grows in my chest. My headphones have slipped to my temple, and with a groan, I push them back. The cabin light is far too bright, I pull my hood further over my head. 

What a strange dream. 

We spent the entire summer with my grandmother. We ran around her spacious backyard, and we loved it. Sitting around her stained glass table, staring up at the colors as they shimmered in the light of morning. We were kids then. 

The city is nothing more than a spec outside the window. Surrounded by the glimmering sea, clouds making it seem impossibly far. Home. 

__________

Catching a car was more difficult than I expected. Normally, my mother was more than happy to pick me up - or she would’ve sent one of my brothers - but we were all coming in at different times. I didn’t want to burden her. 

Summer break was a glorious time. I always managed to snag a few days free of practice, I would always dread going back, but I would never sacrifice it for anything. My brothers were always happy to be home, hiding out at our mother’s house before telling anyone they were home. 

Our lives pulled us in different directions, but we always found our way home when Monaco came calling. I looked out onto the streets, cars buzzing past, and people bustling on the streets. This country bore us, we loved it. We would always come back. 

The car ride is short and before I know it, I’m standing at the steps of our home. The door swings open before I can knock, my brothers staring back down at me, pulling me into the waiting house. 

They wrap me in a hug, their arms tight around me. I breathe them in. The house around us seems to breathe with me. With all four of us between its walls, I feel the anxiety in my stomach uncoil. I hadn’t realized how much I missed them. Emotion is tight in my throat but I force it down. 

I would never hear the end of it if I cried. 

“Little Miss Champion,” Lorenzo brings a hand down on my hair, ruffling it. 

I whine, pushing his hand away, “Lo! My hair…”

He chuckles, “I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t sound sorry at all. I smile. This easy batter has been missing, we’ve been missing. Being here with them feels like coming back to myself. I can hear the windchimes again. 

“Good flight?” I nod, sliding my backpack from my shoulders, but Arthur is already taking it from me.

I don’t bother protesting, following them into the house. Charles pulls my suitcase behind him, parking it at the threshold of the kitchen. They let me walk in first, and when I do, my mother is standing there. 

I nearly crushed her in a hug, burying my face into her blonde hair. She presses a kiss to the side of my face, brushing my hair back, “What is this love, hm?”

I can’t help the laughter that leaves me. She smells like honey and lavender, her hair soft against my temples. I don’t ever want to break away. Her hands soothe down my back, tucking themselves under my hoodie. 

“I missed you,” I whisper. 

It’s faint enough to die in the air, but she lets out a little giggle. 

“I missed you too, my beautiful girl.”

I curl tighter around her. 

Being away hurts. It hurt to know that she was here alone, in this empty house. It hurt to hear the excitement in her voice when I called. It hurt to have her hold me knowing I’ll leave in a few days. 

“Mum -”

“I love you so much,” She beats me to it. She pulls away from me, her warm smile making my heart full. 

“That’s not fair,” I nearly whine.

She just shrugs, but the smile never leaves her.

“Alright! Enough already,” Arthur claps his hands on my back, “We’re hungry!”

“Yeah,” Charles says, sliding his arm around Mum’s shoulders, “You took forever.”

I roll my eyes and pinch at Arthur’s sides, “Shut your face.”

__________

Dinner is an easy affair. 

I don’t bother asking where Carla, Charlotte, or Alex are. The first day is always just for us. 

“So what regiment have they got you on now?”

Lorenzo gestures to my plate, it’s mostly green. I promised my trainer I’d take it easy, but with my mother’s cooking, a promise meant nothing. I shrug. 

“Nothing,” He snorts, “I mean it!”

“So why no pasta?” Arthur stuffs another forkful into his mouth, our mother scolding him under her breath. 

“Planes always mess with my appetite,” I reach for the pitcher of water, “Tomorrow I’ll eat more.”

The conversation is plain, but it’s wonderful. To just be here with them, talking about nothing. We laugh and joke, the house seems to burn with energy. Soon, the food is gone and we race from the table. 

Mum captures Lorenzo as he tries to sneak past her, she pulls him to do the dishes with her. 

“What a loser,” Arthur mutters, plopping down on the couch. He goes to reach for the remote, but I snatch it first. 

“Hey!”

I wave him away, “You’ve been here all day. I just got here.”

“Exactly,” He doesn’t make another move to it, leaning his face into the palm of his hand, elbow propped on the arm of the couch, “It’s only respectable.”

“I know you’re not talking about ‘respectable’.”

I lose myself in surfing the channels, clicking through news broadcasts and show reruns. There’s never anything good at this time, but I always look anyway. A cartoon’s theme song rings through the house and I let out a small laugh. 

As children, we would all pile into the kitchen and watch it before school. It would run right when our mother would coral us to the door, tugging on Arthur because he always wanted to see it end. 

I’m lost in my thoughts when Charles’ voice rings out. 

“Who’s that?”

Charles and Arthur leaned over my phone, tapping at the screen. I hadn’t even noticed Arthur moving. It lights up to the picture of me and my boyfriend. My arm slung around his shoulders, pulling him down for a kiss. 

Shit. 

“No one -”

Before I can snatch it back, they’re pulling it away from me. There’s a look on Aruthur's face, eyebrows pulled into a tight furrow. I can feel the anxiety coil in my stomach. I wasn’t ashamed, I just wasn’t ready. 

“No one?” Charles frowns at me, eyes darting to the phone in his hand, “This? This is no one?”

My face grew hot. Why did it always have to be this way?

Arthur scratched the side of his face, “Really? Who is this guy?”

“No one,” I sigh. 

I reach for my phone again, but Charles jumps back. He tucks the phone into his pocket, holding a hand up to my chest. I let out a groan. 

“Charles, please -”

“If he is ‘no one’,” I can already hear the question, I roll my eyes, “Why not tell us who he is?”

“Because I am a grown woman with my own business,” I thank the heavens I decided to leave him in France, “Now, give me my phone.”

“Tell us who he is.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

I almost screamed. My face is red, and I can feel the tears prick in my eyes. It was always like this. 

I can see Lorenzo enter the room out of the corner of my eye. He takes in my state - arms crossed over my chest, cheeks red, pinched expression - and lets out a bark of laughter. 

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” I say quickly, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline, holding his hands out in defense. 

“Hey! I haven’t done anything.”

The apology is on my lips, but Charles and Arthur beat me to it. 

“She has some secret boyfriend,” They flash my phone at him. I am mortified. 

“A secret boyfriend?” He steps closer to the phone, and he moves closer to the screen, eyes squinting as he inspects my boyfriend's face. He makes a look of disgust. 

“Really?”

This wasn’t fair. They were judging someone they hadn't even met. I have never, ever, judged one of their girlfriends. The many that passed by, I have never once held any hatred towards them. But they hated my boyfriend simply because he loved me. 

It was so stupid. 

“Why this guy?” Lorenzo turns to me, Charles and Arthur voicing their agreement, “Really? You shouldn’t be -”

“I am not a baby!” I can feel the tears, my voice going thick with emotion, “I am a grown woman. I can live my own life. I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not five years old anymore!”

They stare at me, mouths agape. As soon as my words leave me I want to take them back. I can see the regret crawl across Charles’ face, but I can’t take it. I snatch my phone from his hand and run out of the room. 

I hear them call my name, and even feel as Lorenzo tries to grab my arm, but I push him away. 

I stomp upstairs, slamming the door behind me. 

__________

When I stop, my lungs burn. I’m wheezing out into the air. My heart is thundering within my chest. I can feel the embarrassment pool in my gut. 

It didn’t matter how many trophies or world titles I won. It would never matter. They only saw me as their little sister. I had been in their shadows for years, watching as they stepped into the light. The world loved them, the world adored them. 

Couldn’t I have this one thing?

Couldn’t I have someone to love me?

I pick at the hem of my shirt. I’m being selfish. They didn’t mean anything by it, it was just careless teasing. But to me - I dared to look at my phone, my boyfriend's beautiful smile staring back at me - it wasn’t careless. I bite on my lip, pulling at the skin. 

My room is just as it always was. The walls are littered with pictures, posters lining the sides of my bed. I filled it to the brim, you could hardly see the wallpaper beneath. On my dresser, there are the trinkets I left behind. Seashells and paddock passes. I can feel the emotion welling in my throat again. 

This was more than just the teasing. 

I push my back into the door. On the other side, I can hear my brother’s voice. They’re arguing, scolding one another, blaming the other for my outburst. But it wasn’t their fault. 

So much was changing, we were growing and it frightened me. I side down the frame, pulling my knees into my chest. The tears come before I can stop them. I really was a baby. 

I moved out two years ago. I wasn't far, but I wasn’t home. Charles moved out ages ago, and Lorenzo before him. Our leaving wasn’t new, but that didn’t change how strange it was. At first, it felt wrong. I threw myself into training, hours with my coach, and hours distracting myself. There was a reason I only came home a few times a year. It was always hard to leave. 

Summer break was always my only exception. I stayed and it hurt.

I always wondered if they felt like this, but I never had the nerve to ask. I was afraid they’d laugh in my face, afraid they would call me a kid. Being away seemed so easy for them, racing across the world. Different cities, different countries, different time zones.  

It didn’t look difficult for them at all. 

Meanwhile, I cried at my first international competition. It was only for three days, but I called home every night. 

I rest my chin on my knees, blowing out a sigh. 

My tears have subsided into sniffles. The ridiculousness makes my face burn again. I can almost laugh, but before I can push myself off the floor I hear their footsteps come up the stairs. They try to speak in hushed whispers, but I can hear everything anyway. 

“Move, this is your fault!”

“Mine?! You made her upset!”

“Shut up, both of you!”

I almost laugh, covering my mouth just in time to stifle it. I can hear them stop at my door. There’s a long moment of silence, I can feel their hesitation. I look up at the doorknob, the dying sunlight spilling in through my blinds. 

There’s a tentative knock. I say nothing. 

Charles calls my name. 

I say nothing. 

It’s evil, but it makes me crack a smile. 

Another knock rings through the room, louder this time, “Stop being mad at us…”

I can hear Charles and Lorenzo smack Arthur on the head. 

“OW!”

“You’re so stupid.”

Lorenzo tries this time, but his voice is soft, “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to make you upset, will you open the door?”

I rise to my feet but just stare at the door. 

“Please?”

With a roll of my eyes, I turn it open. It reveals the apologetic look on their faces. 

“We’re sorry,” They say, nearly in unison. I can’t help but laugh. 

When we were kids and got into fights our father made us apologize together, we’d have to redo it if we weren’t. 

“I’m sorry,” Arthur starts, looking up at me, fiddling with his hands, “We shouldn’t have looked at your phone.”

To his right, Charles nods, “It was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

I look at Lorenzo. 

“What?” He holds his hands up, “I didn’t really do anything wrong -”

Charles jabs him in the ribs. 

“Ah! I’m - I’m sorry,” He muttered, brown hair falling into his eyes as he doubled over, “I’m sorry.”

“I meant it,” My arms are tight, gripping onto my sweater, “I’m not a kid anymore.”

“We know,” Lorenzo pulled himself upright, “We know. It’s just…you’re our baby sister.”

“No one is ever going to be good enough for you.”

“Ok,” I mutter, “But he doesn't have to be good enough in your eyes. He’s my boyfriend. He’s good enough for me.”

They seem to think. The silence that passes over us is heavy, I can almost see the wheels turning. 

Arthur is the first to speak, “Does he make you happy?”

I can’t help the shock that makes its way onto my face, “Yeah…he does.”

He shrugs, “Then that’s all I care about.”

I crack a smile, reaching over to grab his hand. He interlaces our fingers, giving me a quick squeeze. I can feel the unsaid, ‘I love you.’

Charles doesn’t say anything, he just moves forward, wrapping his arms around me, “I want you to be happy. That’s it.”

I let go of Arthur to hold his middle, “I know. I am.”

He lets me go with a sigh, pulling away with a smile. It’s bright and the one thing that hasn’t changed since our childhood. I hear the windchimes again. 

Twinkling in the daylight.

Lorenzo hooks his arm around my neck with a sigh, “If it’s what you want, I guess it’s alright.”

I smack his arm. 

He smiles too, pressing a kiss to my forehead, “I mean it.”

“I know.” 

The anxiety clears. There’s still something unsaid between us, but it isn’t enough to ruin this moment. Our mother calls us from down the stairs. 

“Have you made up yet?”

We dissolve into laughter. 

“Yes, mum.”

_________________

A/N:This work has been cross-posted on Wattpad and AO3. All are under the name XDACTED. Thank you for reading and feel free to request fics about any of the drivers <3

[not-poignant]

Daily excerpt for chapter 9 of Constellations:

'He ignored your safeword?' 'Funny, right? Someone like me going through that? Like, it's the least of what I deserved.' The silence was cold and Gwyn sat there aware of all the younger versions of himself that would have thought exactly that. He felt sick.  He understood then with a horrible, heartbreaking clarity, why Efnisien had to stop seeing him. Because Efnisien lived with all those younger, judgemental versions of Gwyn. Because Efnisien had internalised blaming himself for everything, and he would have beaten Gwyn to the punch before he could have told Efnisien he deserved it. Because he would have. He fucking would have done that. He felt really sick, then, and he took a slow and deep breath, and swallowed the saliva that built in his mouth.  'It's not funny,' Gwyn said roughly. 'It's not funny that you went through that. You didn't deserve that. You don't deserve that. You don't deserve more than that.'

[chai-berries]

eli’s costume dilemma (much to the amusement of his moms)

you: “so you wanna be spider man? like from the comic books?”

elijah, obviously irritated: “no :( i wanna be a spider who is also human!”

abby, overheard from the kitchen: “hey! we don’t raise our voices at your mama!”

elijah, quieter voice: “sorry mama. i’m just… frustrated”

you raise your brows at his choice of words.

you: “why are you frustrated?”

abby walks in from the kitchen, she wipes her hands on a dish towel then swings the towel over her shoulder

elijah: “everyone thinks i’m going to be spider-man but i wanna be a spider who is also human. it is different.” he pouts.

you open your arms and he climbs up to sit next to you. it’s a perfectly strategic move to hide your smiling face from his sad one.

you, brushing his hair back in a comforting manner: “and what is the difference again?”

elijah: “he was made into a spider but is human. i was born as a spider-human”

abby makes eye contact with you: “what a weirdo” she mouths then turns around to head back into the kitchen to work on dinner again

you hide your smile by kissing elijah’s temple

you, once you tame your laughter: “okay, baby. then a spider-human is what you will be. what do you need help with?”

elijah, thoughtful to your question, though obvious to the irony and absurdity of his costume: “i need to make four more legs appear on my body”

you: “hmm what about paper towel rolls? momma puts them in the recycling bin so I bet some are still there. why don’t you go look?”

elijah, happier than before: “ok! thank you mama!”

elijah detaches from you and sprints to the kitchen

abby, overheard in the kitchen, to elijah who must have ran right to her: “okay my little spider-human, what are we working with here?”

[stew-skys-husband]

Here comes the long awaited dadneto fic:

"This day couldn't get any worse. Except for the fact it keeps repeating. When will this stop?"

Peter is stuck in a time loop and the only thing that will get him out is telling Erik he is his son.

(let's pretend i posted it yesterday)

[lastbluetardis]

What Makes a Family (1/?)

Summary: Single parents Rose Tyler and James McCrimmon come together to embark on a whirlwind, passionate romance that seems to be the happy ending neither of them thought they'd get. But when James's past comes back to haunt them and threatens to tear away everything they've built together, they must find a way to weather the storm that will either break them or draw them ever closer, all while answering the question of what it means to be a family.

💜 It's back!! This is the new and improved version!! 💜

Ten x Rose AU

This Chapter: Teen, ~8800 words

AO3

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“We gather here today to remember the life and love of Jeremiah “Jimmy” David Stone, beloved son, partner, and father.”

The words rang hollowly in Rose’s ears, like they were being spoken from very far away. She barely felt like she was present, like this entire day was happening to someone else. The small body she held in her lap shifted, forcing her to snap back to the present scene. The child’s big blue eyes blinked owlishly as her three-year-old son, Matthew, fixed his gaze on her.

“That’s Daddy,” he said in that whispering way of toddlers that really wasn’t a whisper at all.

“That’s right,” she murmured, smoothing his cornsilk blond hair away from his face. “Hush now. Can you sit nice and quiet for Mummy?”

“Uh huh,” Matthew said, slumping back into her belly.

The priest at the front of the church shot her a sympathetic glance, his pale gaze flitting between Matthew and David, Rose’s nine-year-old son. If anyone in the church was annoyed by Matthew’s interruptions, they didn’t show it—nobody would dare chastise a child who’d just lost a parent.

Rose reached over and silently wrapped her hand around David’s. Her son gave no reaction that he felt her touch, sitting as still and silently as he’d been doing these last four days since the accident that claimed the life of his father. She was so useless, unable to offer anything other than hugs and kisses and words of affirmations to her children, while she raged against the world for forcing this tragedy into their young little lives.

“I’m hungry,” Matthew stated, drawing muffled chuckles from those sitting around them.

Rose had prepared for this. Matthew’s stomach was as unpredictable as a summer storm, and she made sure to always have snacks on hand for him. She reached into her purse and rooted around until she felt the cool plastic bag that contained dry cereal.

“Thank you!” Matthew chirped when she handed it to him.

“Shh, baby boy. We have to be quiet.”

“Indoor voice,” he said, and to his credit, he actually whispered that time.

Rose pressed a kiss to his fair hair and tried to tune in to the priest and ignore the nagging urge to get up and leave. Why should she be allowed to sit here and mourn a person she didn’t actually miss? Any moment now, people would realize she was faking her bereavement and would call her all sorts of nasty truths, would clue in her kids that she wasn’t actually sad that their dad was gone.

Beside her, David rested his head on her upper arm, sniffling softly. Her heart squeezed. She scooped him closer into her side, squeezing him as if that could do anything to help him through this awful day.

On her other side, her mother rested a comforting hand on her thigh. Rose knew there was no love lost between her mum and Jimmy; hell, her mother had been the only person to know Rose was looking for a new flat for herself, ready to leave the relationship that had been slowly crumbling for nearly three years.

Somehow, after the birth of their second child, Rose had begun growing in a different direction than her boyfriend. She didn’t know exactly what had happened, if it had been something silently brewing for years that she never addressed; nothing obvious had catalyzed it. Well, not until six months ago, when she learned her boyfriend was cheating on her with one of his colleagues. Funnily, after the initial jolt of anger and betrayal, Rose felt nothing at all. If anything, a sense of peace settled over her, giving her the confidence and motivation to begin actively searching for a way out of her lackluster and loveless relationship.

Regardless of what she did (or didn’t) feel for her late boyfriend, regardless that he hadn’t been the best partner to her since Matthew had been born, Jimmy had been a damn fine father, and her eldest child was in emotional agony. She’d be damned if she left him alone in his grief.

The funeral passed as painfully as any other. Rose could feel the prickle of pitying stares directed at her and her kids, and she willed time to move faster. Listening to the eulogies was the worst, as Jimmy’s friends and family stood at the front of the church and spoke about how wonderful Jimmy was, how deeply he’d be missed, and the hole he’d left in the lives of everyone who knew him.

But finally, it was over. The only good thing about being a supposedly grieving partner was that she could gather up her kids and escape rather rudely without people actually thinking she was rude.

“Let’s go home,” she murmured to her kids, holding David and Matthew’s hands while she guided them away from the throng of people wanting to give her their last-minute sympathies and sorries.

She threw one last lingering glance to the closed casket that concealed the broken body of her late boyfriend, her gaze flicking to the photograph of the blond man with the crooked smile that’d had her falling head over heels at fifteen.

Goodbye. I hope you’ve found peace, wherever you are.

Rose didn’t know what exactly she believed regarding an afterlife, but she hoped there was something. A realm of tranquility where the best of everyone shone through and there was no hurt or anger or resentment. Yeah, that sounded quite nice.

As she moved to turn fully away from the casket, her eyes landed on a middle-aged couple; the woman was sobbing uncontrollably into the chest of the man: Jimmy’s parents, whom she hadn’t seen or spoken to since that night in the hospital after Jimmy’s accident, when his mother had screamed and raged at her, hurling insults at her that had hit their mark and still stung, even days later.

Rose quickly looked away, not wanting to draw their attention or their ire, and continued ushering her boys out of the church.

oOoOo

The tides of grief ebbed and flowed, more mercurial than a storm at sea. There were moments when Rose was perfectly at peace with what had happened, and then there were days when she raged at the unfairness of it all, certain that all joy had been sapped from the world, never to return again.

David was a husk of the boy he’d been, and Matthew melted down any time she was gone from his sight for more than a few minutes. She wanted to shake David, to jar loose any emotion at all in his little body, to beg him to please pretend. But how unfair was that, to force a child to fake normalcy when his world had been irrevocably changed, just so she would feel a bit better about the whole thing?

Rose prayed to any deity that cared to listen for the patience to guide her kids through these tumultuous times, and spared a prayer for herself to have enough energy to keep herself and her family healthy and whole. It felt like she was doing everything wrong, and in her worst moments, she was sure her boys would’ve been better off if she and Jimmy had traded places. Surely David and Matthew needed their father more than their stupid, useless mother.

Rose was at her wits end, and lost her temper with her kids more often than she would’ve liked. Matthew forgave her outbursts quite readily, while David seemed wholly unaffected by them, which was somehow even worse.

The straw that broke her back was when the boys got into a heated fight, with Matthew pestering Rose and David about when Daddy was coming home. David eventually shoved his little brother with enough force that he stumbled a few steps back before falling to his bum a couple inches from the coffee table in the center of the living room.

Rose watched in horror as the scene unfolded, her mind showing her visions of Matthew’s head cracking open against the solid oak wood of the table.

“David!” she shrieked, rushing to Matthew’s side to make sure he was okay. Apart from loud wailing, he was uninjured. “What were you thinking?!”

“He won’t shut up!” David shouted, and Rose was taken aback by the vitriol in her son’s voice. This was a complete about-face from the shadow David had been in recent weeks. “Dad’s gone and he’s dead and Matthew won’t shut up!”

Rose’s heart ached, and she tried to soothe her crying child while keeping her attention on her eldest.

“He doesn’t know any better,” she said hoarsely, at a loss with how to deal with this sudden and violent emotion raging through her son. “He’s three.”

“He’s stupid and I hate him!” David screamed, his face going bright red as tears welled in his eyes. “I hate him! I hate you! I hate this stupid place! I hate it all!”

He then promptly stormed down the hall to the bedroom he shared with his brother, and slammed the door shut.

Rose was left reeling, completely numb and on the brink of tears herself. Matthew was still screeching, tugging at her arms because she wasn’t consoling him thoroughly enough. At least that was one thing she could do. One thing she could fix. She scooped Matthew into her lap, and within moments, he was happily chatting to her again and asking to play kitchen.

David didn’t come out of his room for the rest of the night, and refused the dinner Rose brought to him. The bedroom door was locked, and though she had a pin that would pop the lock from this side, she wasn’t quite ready to break David’s trust. If he wanted privacy, she could give him that.

It didn’t stop her from sitting outside his door for the rest of the evening, while Matthew watched a film with his grandmother. Jackie, bless her, came over for dinner every evening to help Rose with cooking and getting the kids to bed.

It was almost the boys’ bedtime when David emerged. He paused upon seeing her on the floor. His face and eyes were red and swollen, and Rose wanted to haul him into her lap and squeeze out all of his pain.

“Sorry for what I said,” he muttered, rocking back and forth from his toes to his heels.

“I forgive you,” she said, having forgiven him hours ago. “David, I’m so sorry. I really am trying my best here. But I need some help. How can I help you?”

He merely shrugged and said, “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. And I don’t expect you to be fine for quite a while.”

David stayed silent, and when she didn’t elaborate, he stepped around her to use the loo, then went right back into his room.

And that, it seemed, was that.

The following weekend, her mother and best friend conspired to get her out of the house. Rose had been wholly consumed with her kids since Jimmy died, and as a result had become a hermit, distancing herself from everyone and everything she used to enjoy doing. Part of her didn’t think it was fair for her to carry on with a vivacity that had been stolen from Jimmy. Another part of her felt it cruel to partake in anything that could be considered “fun” when only a few short weeks had passed since she’d lost her boyfriend.

“You can’t stay locked up forever,” her friend, Shareen, had said. “It’s not good for you, which means it isn’t good for David or Mattie. You need to be at your best for them, which sometimes means doing something just for you.”

Rose hated that her friend was using her kids as a counter-argument, but she couldn’t exactly fault Shareen’s logic, which was how she ended up in a black dress that clung to all the right places, being hauled out to the lively streets of Friday-night London. Her mum was staying overnight to watch the boys, and Rose kept her phone glued to her hand in case one of her children needed her to come home.

They didn’t.

The hours passed, and by her fourth martini, Rose had forgotten why she’d been so hesitant to go out. The music was loud, reverberating deep into her bones as she danced the night away with her friends. Shareen had recruited their mutual friend Keisha for the night; of the trio, Keisha was the wildest of the bunch and could make any outing memorable. It was Keisha whom Rose had gradually drifted away from as motherhood took priority over clubbing, though Keisha’s friendship was one that could be picked up with ease, no matter how long they’d gone between speaking.

Rose was toeing the line between tipsy and drunk when a brown-skinned man with close-cropped black hair sauntered up to where she stood at the bar, waiting for a new drink.

“Can I get that for ya?” the man asked, his deep voice ringing with that familiar Cockney accent she’d grown up around.

“Sure,” she answered, blinking through the dim lights to make out the man’s features. He was handsome enough, she supposed.

The man introduced himself, but it was impossible to hear over the din of the pub. Richie? Ricky? Dickie? Whatever. She found she honestly didn’t care, and so she replied, “I’m Piper,”, giving the name she and Jimmy had been considering for Matthew if he’d been a girl.

The lie fell off her tongue so easily. The whole night was fake anyway, a brief respite from the hell that had become her life. She had merely stepped out of time and into a new life for these few brief but wondrous hours.

“Pretty name for a pretty girl.”

Rose barely contained the eyeroll, and instead grinned a wide, flirtatious grin she hadn’t flashed in years. Fuck it. If she was going to play pretend for the night, she was going to act her heart out.

“Let’s dance,” she shouted over the thumping bass.

The eager expression on his face told Rose that was what he’d been hoping for. She gulped down her drink, ignoring the burn as it went down, and let herself be pulled onto the dance floor.

Time ceased to exist. There was nothing except the alcohol in her bloodstream and the solid heat of this man’s body against hers. When he bought her a shot after four songs of dancing, she accepted. And when he pressed his mouth to hers, she let him. She threw herself into it, missing the simple pleasure of a kiss, missing the quickening of her pulse and the throbbing heat rushing through her. He palmed her rear, hauling her hips to his, and she could feel his interest growing behind his jeans.

“Wanna get out of here?” she whispered, placing her lips right against the shell of his ear.

“Fuck yeah,” he growled.

Alarm bells should have sounded in her head, but there was utterly nothing as she let this stranger pull her though the city and to a little hotel that charged by the hour.

The sex was… fine. Not the best she’d had, but certainly not the worst. For a glorious moment in time, she let the agony of the last few weeks melt away and she became Piper, this stranger of a woman who let a stranger of a man take her to a hotel for a mindless, carefree fuck. She let herself drown in ecstasy, in the closeness of another body pressed to hers, skin on skin.

Richie/Ricky/Dickie passed out after he’d finished. Whether that was due to the sex or the booze, Rose didn’t know, and she didn’t care to find out. She slipped out from the sheets, used the loo, and started gathering her things. Through it all, this man whose name she still didn’t surely know remained dead to the world. Looking more closely at him, with the yellow glow of the hotel lamp illuminating his features, she thought he looked like a boy who used to live on the estate when she was growing up. But she blinked, and the resemblance was gone.

Rose left some money on the nightstand to cover the hotel fee, then hailed a cab. She’d given the driver the address to her mother’s flat before she even processed what she was saying. It would be empty, what with her mum staying over at Rose’s place, and solitude was something Rose was craving.

The trip took all of ten minutes, then Rose was letting herself into her childhood home. Not much had changed, apart from her old bedroom having been converted into a room for the boys to sleep in when they visited.

She made a beeline straight for the bathroom as the weight of her night crashed down around her. Piper was gone, dead and buried in that motel room with Richie/Ricky/Dickie, and Rose had risen from the ashes, horrified by all her choices. What had she been doing? What had she been thinking?

She shucked off her clothes and scalded herself in the shower, wishing that the water could wash farther than skin level, to cleanse out the pain that had become her daily life, cleanse the rot of emotions that festered deep within her soul.

When the water turned cold, she dragged her weary bones from the shower and dressed in clothes she kept in her old room. She spotted David’s stuffed wolf and Matthew’s stuffed dinosaur sitting on the bed, as if waiting for their little masters to return, and Rose crumpled. She curled up on the mattress and hugged the toys tightly to her chest, tucking her nose into the soft creatures. They smelled like her boys, and she ached for them. Not only them, she ached for Jimmy. She ached for the life he should have, ached for their family that had been torn apart. She just… ached.

The wailing of her phone interrupted her misery, and she cursed when she saw Shareen’s name on the screen. Rose answered, but before she could get a word out, her friend screamed, “Where the fuck have you been?!”

“Sorry, I…” I let a total stranger fuck me in a hotel. “I needed to get some air.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Shareen continued, still shouting. “We thought you’d been abducted, you stupid fucking arse!”

“Well, I haven’t been,” Rose snapped.

Both women went silent, and Rose could hear that her friend’s breathing was as heavy as her own. After a beat, Shareen asked quietly, “You all right?”

The lie was right there, on the tip of her tongue, but all Rose managed was a weak, “No.”

“Where are you? I’m coming for you.”

“My mum’s,” she said, rubbing at her stinging nose as tears started welling.

“Be there soon.”

And sure enough, ten minutes later, a series of knocks sounded from the front door. Rose kept hold of the stuffed animals as she went to let her friend in. The moment Shareen saw her, she threw her arms around Rose. The weight of her friend’s embrace, the strength in her arms, was her undoing. Rose’s knees buckled, and Shareen slowly lowered them to the ground, until they were sitting in the same position as when Rose found out she was pregnant at sixteen.

“Shh, I’m here.” Shareen planted a kiss to Rose’s hair. “I’ve got you, babe.”

Thank God someone did, because Rose didn’t have the strength to hold on anymore. Her life wasn’t meant to be like this. She wasn’t meant to be left with two children and no partner to help her. Jimmy was supposed to be there. Even if he had been a shitty partner, he was supposed to be there.

“I can’t do this,” Rose rasped, chest tightening until she could barely breathe.

“Yes you can,” Shareen murmured, squeezing tightly. Then she repeated exactly what she’d said all those years ago, when that damning pregnancy test sat on the floor in front of them. “It’ll be hard, but you can do it, ‘cos you’re Rose motherfuckin’ Tyler.”

oOoOo

That disastrous night out had been good for one thing: it lit up a spark inside Rose that she hadn’t felt since the night a pair of police officers knocked on her door to tell her that her boyfriend had been involved in a serious accident. But she didn’t want to dwell on those memories. The Before Times, she called it in her head.

She refused to let the energy of her home be sullied by all of the hurt, grief, and rage of Jimmy’s passing. Not that she was going to force her boys to move on before they were ready, but she wasn’t going to sit idly by and do nothing to improve their situation.

And so Rose spent weeks poring over her finances, doing more maths than she’d ever done whilst in school to figure out what the new household income would be. While she would be missing out on Jimmy’s half of the income—which wasn’t insubstantial—she no longer had to budget for all his reckless spending. It had often been a point of contention between them, how he wanted instant gratification with anything that caught his eye.

In the early years of their relationship, about a year after David had been born, Jimmy had admitted to her that he really wanted to make his dream of being a professional musician a reality. He’d been in a band for years and they were trying to make it big when Rose got pregnant. Kudos to him, Jimmy had left the band and found a job to help support Rose and their new family.

So when he’d told her of his dream, and knowing he’d shelved it for the last two years for her and their son, Rose agreed. She still loved him enough at that point to want it for him. She picked up extra hours at the retail shop she worked at, and worked hard to climb her way to a team lead position. She’d also begun taking art commissions, designing logos for small businesses or creating various pieces of digital art for random people on the internet who were willing to pay her real money for her drawings.

Despite the extra income, it didn’t make up for the construction job pay Jimmy had been bringing home, and the family found themselves barely staying afloat. Jimmy, to his credit, admitted defeat when, after eighteen months of trying to make a name for himself, he brought home even less money than he had with his teenage boy band.

But that debt had begun to snowball out of control, and horrible as it was, Jimmy’s death was the one thing able to put an end to it. Half of his death benefits were enough to pay off all their old debt, and with the other half, Rose figured she could put down a decent down payment on a house.

In her years as a freelance digital artist, Rose had made a nice little name for herself. As long as she didn’t spend extravagantly, she should be able to make her commissions and Patreon subscribers pull her family through for a little while longer, with their finances being further padded by the survivor benefits Rose would receive until the boys reached legal adulthood.

She was ready to drop it all, though, the moment their finances grew unstable. In a heartbeat, she would find the best-paying work she was qualified for to keep her and her boys out of any more debt. Rose remembered all too well being a child of a parent who struggled financially; it had placed undue stress on her mother, which had caused her mum to have a short temper and an eventual resentment towards anyone who appeared to be even slightly well-off. Rose didn’t want that for herself, or to subject her boys to that sort of behavior.

Rose debated for ages about where she wanted to move. On one hand, London was all she and her kids had ever known, but on the other, it was full of memories and ghosts of Jimmy. Not to mention bloody expensive. While she began her house-hunting search in London, she gradually expanded her search parameters to include cities and towns farther and farther away, because otherwise she would be downgrading to a smaller home with a higher monthly payment.

It was a shock to the system to see how expensive some of these homes were—all she’d ever known was the rent payments of small flats—so she had to constantly remind herself that a monthly mortgage would be right on par with her monthly rent. She could do this. She would do this.

Half the battle was researching everything about each house that caught her eye. She needed to make sure the neighborhoods were safe and the schools were good, but she also wanted quick and easy access to public transportation, since it was often easier than driving. Not to mention that her mother had never learned to drive, so she was utterly reliant on public transportation.

God, her mother. Jackie would lose her mind upon learning Rose was moving away to a new town. Her mum was a creature of habit. She visited all the same shops and restaurants, had the same friends for the last twenty years, and stayed in the same flat that she’d lived in with Rose’s father when he’d still been alive. London was home for her mother, but to Rose, it was just a city.

Rose would have to tell her mother sooner or later. But not right now. Not until Rose found exactly what she was looking for.

oOoOo

“I don’t think we can stay here anymore, Mum.” Rose absently sloshed her wine around her in glass, electing to stare at the swirling liquid rather than her mother’s bright blue gaze.

“Too many memories?” she asked sympathetically. “Can be a blessing or a curse, I’ll tell you. I couldn’t bring myself to leave behind all traces of your dad. But you… well, you weren’t exactly planning to stay forever.”

“It’s just, David is having such a hard time,” Rose whispered, feeling tears prickling at the backs of her eyes as she recalled the phone call she’d received earlier that day from her child’s teacher, informing her that this was the third time this week that David had spent his lunch period sitting quietly by himself, not touching his food, not engaging with his classmates. This behavior was becoming the new norm, apparently, with David isolating himself with every passing week. “He won’t eat. He won’t go outside and play with his friends. His friends don’t come to visit. He won’t talk to me. All he does is sit on this stupid bloody couch and watch the stupid bloody telly. He doesn’t even care that Mattie controls what they watch. He’s just… he’s empty, Mum, and it’s killing me.”

The tears spilled over and Rose set her wine glass on the table to instead grab a handful of tissues to press to her eyes. The sofa cushion dipped beside her, and she was soon ensconced in her mother’s arms, breathing in that familiar scent that somehow made her start to cry harder.

“I need to get him out of this flat,” Rose whimpered, clinging to her mother. “I’m trying to find him someone to talk to, but all child therapists of any worth are full up, and his school counselor is bloody useless, sayin’ he’ll get over it all in a few months and I should carry on as normal. But it’s not normal. His life will never be normal again.”

Her mother stroked her back in long, slow lines, making soothing shushing noises while Rose blubbered into her jumper. The agony that had been eating away at Rose for the past two months was boiling over; she had this primal fear that her baby boy would waste away in front of her very eyes, and that she’d never be able to get him back if she didn’t do something to pull him out of his head.

But what more was she supposed to do? She made him all his favorite foods and had a variety of snacks on hand, but even then, he only picked at it all. He’d visibly lost weight, and not even the supplemental high-calorie protein shakes his pediatrician recommended were helping. She’d broken down one night and tearfully begged David to eat. He had diligently swallowed every piece of the chicken nuggets and broccoli on his plate and, when he was finished, said, “Sorry I made you angry,” which had sent her spiraling further, requiring her to retreat into her bedroom and scream into a pillow. When she’d returned, David was plopped on the couch beside Matthew, who was happily munching on a second plate of nuggets, watching Paw Patrol.

She gathered David up into her arms and he nuzzled into her, saying, “My tummy hurts.”

She stroked his hair and apologized, telling him he should only eat as much as his tummy says he needs.

“I don’t want you to be angry,” he argued.

“I won’t be,” she promised. “I shouldn’t have said what I said. I just want you to be healthy. And we need to eat a balanced diet of meats and fruits and veggies to be healthy, right?”

“And po’sicles,” Matthew chirped, eyes glued to the television.

Rose rolled her eyes but smiled at her youngest. “Only popsicles after we’ve had our healthy dinner.”

After that night, she hadn’t had as much trouble getting David to eat his dinner, but he ate portions similar to Matthew’s, and even then, sometimes food was left on his plate. It killed her every time he asked, “Did I eat enough?”

Presently, Rose sniffled and pulled back to wipe her running nose on a tissue. Her mum sat back too, but didn’t move from Rose’s side.

“We need to get out of here,” Rose repeated. “Somewhere new. New school, new home, new everything.”

“Well, there are loads of schools in the city. I’m sure you can find somethin’ better for the boys. You didn’t think about schools when you and Jimmy settled here. Now you can.”

But Rose merely shook her head, knowing she was about to break her mum’s heart. “No, I mean… we need to get out of the city. Out of London.”

Her mother merely blinked, then furrowed her brow. “What d’you mean? You can’t leave the city, you have nowhere else to go.”

Though she knew her mum didn’t mean it cruelly, Rose’s hackles rose.

“I can go anywhere I’d like,” she snapped.

“But… what’ll you do for work? Your friends are here. I’m here.” Her mother’s voice warbled, and her eyes shone wetly.

Rose’s irritation bled away, leaving her exhausted, which seemed to be her only state of being lately.

“We need a fresh start,” she murmured. “I need a fresh start. And I don’t want to be fightin’ you about it. I really need your support, Mum. Please. I feel like I’m goin’ mad. I’m suffocating.”

Her mother, to her credit, just swallowed thickly and nodded. Rose curled back into her mother’s arms and contented herself to sit quietly while her mum played with her hair like she’d done when Rose was a small child.

“Found anywhere nice?” her mother asked, her voice carrying a forced lightness to it. At least she was trying.

Rose shrugged, but the little neighborhood she’d spotted online was still sticking in her mind. She reached for her phone. “I keep comin’ back to this one.”

She pulled up the house listing for a four-bedroom two-bathroom home in West Sussex, a borough called…

“Crawley?” Her mum wrinkled her nose. “Really, Rose? Sounds all… I dunno… slithery. Snaky.”

Rose giggled. “I know. But isn’t it cute? The boys could have their own room. Their own bathroom too, which’ll be nice when they become teenagers.”

She shuddered at the thought of parenting teenage boys, and forcibly shut those worries down to be dealt with at a later date. “And look. I can make this into a guest room for you.”

Her mother was quiet for a few moments, scrolling through the photographs of the home. Rose knew them all by heart at this point, and had been mentally decorating the space for weeks, as though it was already a done deal that this would be their new home. She hadn’t even seen it in person yet. Hadn’t driven through the neighborhood or its surroundings, and yet, something told her deep down that this was the opportunity she’d been looking for.

“Well,” her mum said after five silent minutes of scrolling through the photos, “my mate Bev has a son who’s in the real estate business. Let me call her up, see if her boy knows someone in this Crawley town. Get us an appointment to see the house.”

Rose melted closer to her mother. “Thank you.”

Her mum’s only response was to kiss the top of her head.

oOoOo

“Here we are!” Rose crowed, ramping up the excitement in an attempt to pass it along to her children.

Matthew was sold, as he had been all morning, nearly vibrating with excitement at moving to a new house. The boy gasped in delight as he took in the semi-detached house they had just pulled into the driveway of. The garage was open, revealing the boxes and pieces of furniture Rose hadn’t yet relocated into the house during the weeks-long preparation for move-in.

The little house Rose had found in Crawley was everything she’d hoped for, and the minute the house tour had ended, Rose had put in an offer. It was a little more money than she’d hoped to spend, but the house was in perfect shape, with no renovations or replacements needed. Plus it was big enough for her little family to grow into for the rest of boys’ childhoods without feeling like too much space.

“Gramma! S’Gramma!” Matthew squealed upon seeing a familiar face step out from the garage. “And Auntie Reenie!”

Rose was forever grateful that her best friend had taken the day off from work to help with move-in day. Her boys adored their auntie, and Shareen told Rose she hoped her presence today would comfort them and assure them that she’d still be a permanent presence in their lives.

David, meanwhile, was stoic and silent, no different than most other days. It squeezed Rose’s heart nevertheless.

“Let’s grab our suitcases and take a look,” Rose said, putting the car in park then exiting to help her youngest out of his car seat.

However, David beat her to it, and had expertly unclipped his brother from his seat before slipping out of the car. Likewise, when Rose opened the boot of the car, David hoisted Matthew’s Jurassic Park suitcase out before grabbing his own Captain America suitcase.

“That was very kind of you,” Rose praised, brushing a hand through her son’s hair. “Thank you for helping your brother.”

David flashed her a small but genuine smile, and knocked his head further into her hand. She took it as an invitation for a hug, which he readily reciprocated.

“Ready?” she whispered into his ear.

“Ready.”

Matthew had left them behind to sprint up to his grandmother and Shareen, so Rose placed a hand on David’s shoulder and kept pace with him until they joined the small group.

“If you’re this excited about the garage, wait ‘til you see inside,” Jackie drawled, ruffling her grandson’s hair.

“Le’s gooooo,” Matthew said, spying the door that led into the house proper.

Rose nodded for her mother to open the door to let her children get their first glimpse into their new home. She half expected Matthew to sprint right in, but instead, her three-year-old galloped to his brother and took his hand.

“David le’s go! Le’s go see! C’mon c’mon c’mon.”

The boys abandoned their suitcases and rushed inside. Rose’s heart hammered with nerves and she picked up her sons’ luggage and followed them in, Shareen right on her heels. While she knew deep in her bones that this fresh start in a new house would be good for her kids—particularly David—it didn’t stop her from fearing they would hate the house and resent her for making them leave behind the life they’d known in the Before Times, when their dad was still alive and life was bright and shining.

Rose followed the sounds of her youngest son’s excited chattering, silently observing her kids take it all in. The garage opened into the kitchen, where Matthew had found the plate of biscuits Shareen must’ve made. Shareen worked part-time at her sister’s bakery, and had picked up quite a few tricks in the baking department. The chocolatey biscuits were melt-in-your-mouth soft and so rich that Rose nearly moaned.

“They’re safe for Mattie, too,” Shareen said when she spotted the three-year-old stuffing almost a whole biscuit into his mouth.

Rose knew that her friend would never bring over any sort of food that would set off Matthew’s lactose intolerance. Shareen was one of the handful of people she trusted to treat her son’s dietary restriction seriously, unlike some of Jimmy’s friends who swore it wasn’t that big of a deal, leaving Rose to deal with the miserable child and his hours-long diarrhea and stomach cramps.

“Thanks, babe,” Rose said, knocking her hip against Shareen’s.

Shareen winked and followed the kids through the new house as they explored.

“Look David, our table! An’ chairs! ‘Dis is where we eat. An’ look, our couch is here too! How’d’it get here?”

Rose stifled a chuckle. How odd it must seem to a child to have all the furniture they were familiar with suddenly in a brand-new location. Like magic.

“Mummy and Grandma moved it here,” Rose said, kneeling behind him and giving him a loose hug. “Remember when we put things in boxes at our old house? Everything you had before is here for you now.”

Matthew gasped. “My dinosaur bed too?”

“Why don’t we see if we can find it,” Rose whispered conspiratorially.

Matthew once again took his brother’s hand before racing off to explore more of the house, hollering, “Where’s my beeeeed?”

The boys streaked right past the living room to the steps that led to the upper floor. The three adults followed dutifully.

“MY DINOSAUR BED!”

Rose was sure the entire damn neighborhood heard her son’s shriek of joy. She poked her head into one of the bedrooms in time to see her three-year-old flop face-first into the duvet with the Jurassic Park logo printed across the front.

“IT’S HERE!” Matthew’s words were muffled into the fabric but the sentiment came across perfectly.

Rose crouched beside her son and rubbed his back. “Are you happy?”

“Oh yeah,” Matthew said, and he turned his head to the side to flash a broad grin at her. It melted her heart almost as much as it broke it, to see her late-boyfriend’s smile on her little boy’s face, and she scooped him up for a hug.

“Hey, wanna see a surprise?” she asked, kissing his chubby cheek.

He nodded vigorously, and watched her like a hawk as she flicked on the inconspicuous black cube that sat perched on his nightstand. It didn’t do anything of note, and Matthew frowned, brow furrowing. 

“Look up,” Rose hinted.

Matthew did, and let out a squeaky “ohmygosh!” as he beheld the blue lit-up pattern of a brachiosaurus on his ceiling.

“A dinosaur light!”

“Mhm. Watch this.” She pressed a button on the side of the lamp, and the long-necked dinosaur changed into a triceratops, also in blue. She pressed the button again, and now a velociraptor projected in blue light on the ceiling.

“My turn, my turn!” Matthew said, peering closely at the button his mother had been using. He pressed it, and gasped in delight to see a stegosaurus projection.

Again and again, Matthew pushed the button until he cycled through all ten dinosaur types the lamp came with.

“I know your favorite color is blue, but let’s see what happens when we touch this button,” Rose said, motioning to the button adjacent to the dino-swapping one.

Matthew dutifully pressed it, and squealed when the tyrannosaurus on his ceiling turned from blue to green. He pressed it again, and it turned from green to red. He cycled through all the colors of the rainbow before returning it to blue.

“‘Dis is the bes’ lamp ever!” He flung himself into her arms and gave her a wet, sloppy kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“What do we say when we get a present?” his grandmother reminded from where she leaned against the door jamb, drinking in the scene before her.

“Thank you thank you thank you!”

“You’re very welcome, baby boy,” Rose said, hugging her child just that much closer, relishing the weight of him in her arms. Before too long, he might not want hugs and kisses from his daft old mum, but for now she cherished the affection her child loved to give and receive. “I’m happy you’re happy.”

Once they’d spent an appropriate amount of time oohing and ahhing over Matthew’s room, the four Tylers and Shareen meandered down the hall towards the second second-floor bedroom. Rose’s heart skipped a beat as she watched David enter the room. 

She’d had such a hard time with decorating her eldest’s bedroom, because lately, he showed no interest in anything at all. With one exception…

“Iron Man! David, s’Iron Man!!”

Just like he’d done in his own room, Matthew flopped onto his brother’s bed, his face buried in the arc reactor in Tony Stark’s chest that was printed upon the duvet.

“Pew pew,” Matthew said, voice muffled.

Rose gnawed on the corner of her thumb, watching David like a hawk.

After Jimmy had died, Rose wasted hardly any time before cleaning out her boyfriend’s things, wanting to get over him as soon as humanly possible. She mostly worked alone, not wanting to upset her kids to see her emptying their flat of anything of their dad’s that she didn’t want or couldn’t use.

Her boyfriend had been an avid comic book reader and collector, ever since she met him when she was fifteen. He must have had hundreds of Marvel comics stashed around their house. Rose piled up the dozen or so boxes of comic books in their living room, intent on reaching out to collectors or other various shops to see if they’d be interested in taking them off her hands. But when she dragged out the last box, she was surprised to see David sitting cross-legged on the floor, an open Captain America comic book in his lap. She silently observed him, barely breathing. For fifteen minutes, Rose stood still as a statue, watching her eldest finish the comic he was on, then move on to a new one.

“Hey,” she’d called quietly.

David jolted, and quickly placed the book back into the box.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, pushing himself to his feet.

“No, wait. Don’t apologize.” She set the final box on the floor and crouched in front of her son. “Did you like that comic?”

He shrugged, a little too casually, and said nothing more.

“They were your dad’s,” she said unnecessarily. “But I think he’d love for you to have them. Do you want them?”

A spark that had been missing from David’s eyes glowed ever-so-slightly, and he shyly nodded. Rose grinned in encouragement, and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Your dad didn’t keep them very organized. I think I see a Spider-Man in there with some Captain Americas. Wanna see what we’ve got to work with?”

Again, David nodded, and without further prompting, folded himself back onto the floor. They’d spend the next hour and a half going through all of the volumes Jimmy had collected over the years. Rose had nearly wept to see her son actively engaging in an activity.

Presently, those comics sat on a bookshelf in the corner of the room opposite the bed, hundreds of thin little books stacked in neat piles. Rose had splurged a bit and ordered action figures of all of the main superheroes David had liked best; those figures decorated the shelves, watching over the book piles that belonged to their respective hero.

David noticed them and smiled. He picked up each action figure, inspecting them carefully, then turned to Rose and skipped up to her, arms opening to fling them around her middle. He squeezed as he whispered, “I love my room. Thanks, Mum.”

Rose’s eyes burned, relieved and overjoyed that her child was excited about something. It had been far too long.

“You’re very welcome, baby boy,” she murmured, using the nickname she hadn’t used for him in over five years. “I love you.”

“Love you,” he parroted, still holding her.

She stroked his hair, breathing him in, then said, “Things’ll get better. You’ll see. This house will be good for us.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, “I think so too.”

oOoOo

The first day of school always brought about some nerves, what with Rose having gotten used to having her boys home every day for two months, but this year it was almost unbearable. Rose bit her nails down to the quick as she watched the clock relentlessly.

David had seemed fine when she dropped him off at Arcadia Academy that morning, but he always seemed “fine” nowadays. While he wasn’t as sullen and withdrawn as he’d been in the winter and spring months, he was far from the bright, bubbly child she’d known for the first nine years of his life.

Not even the art commissions Rose really ought to work on could distract her from the panic that David was miserable and wasn’t making any new friends and hated that he left all of his old friends behind at his old school.

She had called his teacher, Miss Clara Oswald, a few days before the term began to explain their situation. Clara had been genuinely sympathetic and supportive, and had given Rose the contact information of the school counselor, Mr. Danny Pink, who was supposedly one of the best in the region.

“You can set up appointments for David for the after-school hour, if you’d like. I’d suggest you do that sooner rather than later to get yourself on the schedule. Or I can work with Danny to find a time when David could go during class time.”

“After school sounds preferable,” Rose admitted. “I don’t think returning to class after a therapy session would be… Well, therapy can be hard, is all.”

“Oh, don’t I know it.”

And so Rose had done exactly that: she’d gotten David an appointment with Mr. Pink for every other Wednesday beginning in the middle of September. Hopefully those sessions would help him more than the ones he’d had with his previous school counselor, who’d suggested David distract himself with things he liked to do, and who’d scolded Rose for not doing more to bring David out of his shell.

Rose also hoped her youngest was faring well in his new nursery class. Matthew had been in tears, clinging to her legs and screaming for her not to go when she’d dropped him off. Bless them, the nursery staff waited patiently for him to calm down, and even let Rose stick around for a few extra minutes to show Matthew around his classroom. His teachers, too, knew that Matthew was getting over the death of his father; while he’d adapted much better than his brother, Matthew was much clingier and quicker to melt down than he’d been in the past. The boys’ pediatrician assured Rose this was normal behavior, and all she had to do was love him through this transitory period of his life. The doctor had also helpfully given Rose a few info pamphlets on childhood grief and trauma, just in case.

In the end, Rose had had to leave her whimpering child at the school or else she never would have let him go. Logically, she knew her toddler would be fine after a while, but it didn’t stop her from imagining Matthew sobbing non-stop, thinking his mummy had abandoned him and would never come back for him.

Those heart wrenching visions were enough for her to collect her youngest from nursery a half hour early. She apologized profusely to his teachers, but they seemed to understand the situation, both her perspective and Matthew’s, and merely smiled before leading her to her child.

“He did so well today,” one of the teachers, Miss Ruby, praised. “He settled down about ten minutes after you left. He made a few new friends and did a wonderful job of telling us when he needed to potty.”

Rose nodded absently. “He’s been trained for almost a year now.”

The teachers seemed rather impressed by that, and Rose couldn’t help the little flash of pride. At least she was doing something right, in this parenting department, even if it was as insignificant as teaching her child the proper location to empty his bladder and bowels.

Matthew was squatting beside three other children when Rose poked her head into the classroom. Thanks to having a big brother, Matthew had learned early how to play with other kids, rather than around them. It seemed like the vast majority of children were parallel playing, with a small handful—Matthew included—actually playing with a doll’s house and acting out various family scenes.

She watched quietly, not wanting to disturb the kids, but Matthew happened to glance up and spotted her immediately. He squealed, dropped the toys, and sprinted to her, shouting her name. He barreled into her open arms and wrapped himself completely around her.

“Did you have a good day?” Rose asked, rocking him slowly from side to side.

“Uh huh, I have new friends! C’mon c’mon!” He wriggled, and when she set him on his feet, Matthew grabbed her hand and tugged her to the group he’d been playing with. “Dat’s Jamie an’ Nancy an’ George!”

Rose said hello to the children, who merely blinked at her.

“Dis’s’my mummy!” Matthew said proudly. “I’m goin’ home now. Bye!”

He didn’t wait for a response before tugging on her hand and leading her out of the classroom, as though he’d been doing it his whole life.

David’s school was a few blocks away, so by the time they made the walk, kids were beginning to trickle outside to find their respective adult that would take them home. Cars idled in a long queue, while other parents, like Rose, were gathered around the school grounds to collect their child. While Rose did have a car that she could use to pick her kids up from their respective schools, it was much easier to catch the bus and avoid the traffic.

A handful of teachers stood guard at the school doors and on the walkway leading to the front drive. Rose did a passing glance over the adults shepherding the children out of the building. She spotted David’s teacher, Miss Clara Oswald, leaning casually against the doorframe, chatting with a tall, lanky, brown-haired bloke Rose didn’t know, and a dark-skinned man Rose recognized as the school’s counselor, Mr. Danny Pink.

Rose had told David she would be standing beneath the school’s giant maple tree at pick-up time, so she made a beeline for it, praying her son hadn’t checked there only to find her missing. She was in luck: she waited for all of thirty seconds before she saw the slightly disheveled mousy brown hair of her child among the sea of little blondes, brunettes, and gingers. His eyes met hers, and he gave her a wave before bounding up to her.

“Hi, baby,” she whispered, folding him into her arms and pressing her nose to his hair. “I missed you. Did you have a good day?”

“Mhm,” he replied, giving her a good squeeze before letting her go.

“Make any new friends?”

David shrugged. “It’s the first day. Everyone’s new.”

Rose sighed, but couldn’t exactly fault his answer. She remembered all too well the awkwardness of the first day of school, and how overwhelming it was to meet a new classful of fellow students. It must be doubly awkward for him, not knowing a single soul at the new school. Rose brushed off the ever-present anxiety that screamed at her that she shouldn’t have taken David away from his old friends.

Matthew began chattering to his big brother about his day at nursery, but dutifully allowed Rose to take his hand and guide the two boys to the bus stop a few blocks away that would take them home.

[infiniteimaginings]

Hi, I was the kickin it anon! That’s ok!

If I would be able to send it in again if ok? It was one where Kim has a younger sibling who was part of the wasabi warriors while Kim was part of the Blag Dragons, and while Kim never bullied them, she never really noticed if of stopped it; and once she joins the WW, she realised what’s happened and the pair slowly rebuild their bond?

The Wasabi Code (Sister!Kim Crawford x Sibling!GN!Reader) [Platonic]

Summary: Your sister was apart of the Black Dragons, but she's not anymore. She joined the Wasabi Warriors and she swore by the code, but did she really follow the code? Does she even know she's already broken it? Pronouns: You/Yours, They/Them Warnings: None Word Count: 2.6k A/N: I LOVE KICKIN IT. Sorry, got a little carried away there, I love Kickin It.

Competitions for you have been harder to get through as the years went by, and everyone at the Bobby Wasabi dojo knew exactly why. Well, everyone but the new kid Jack.

You were practicing on one of the dummies, but your mind seemed elsewhere. Rudy was trying to bring your spirits up, but this happened every competition, this happened every single time. Due to that, Rudy wasn’t that hard on you, he patted you on your back and told you to take a break, sending you to Falafel Phils to grab lunch for the dojo.

Jack watched you leave with a bit of confusion, “What’s up with them?” He asked, adjusting his uniform since it had been sliding over.

The group of boys trying their best to practice heard his concerns and stopped what they were doing, deciding to group up at one of the benches. 

Jerry huffed out a breath, “It happens every tournament against the black dragons, we can’t really blame them. They might have it worse than us.” He expressed, scratching at the back of his neck.

“How?”

Their redheaded friend pointed to the group of black dragons out in the courtyard who had just finished their practice. “One of those monsters is related to them by blood.” Milton stated, shivering as he looked away.

The prodigy of the dojo sat with a mouth wide open, “Don’t tell me it’s Frank-”

Eddie shook his head, “It’s the girl.”

“Kim?”

The group nodded and Rudy finally joined the conversation. “The two don’t have the best sibling relationship, so they don’t like being against Kim.”

“What does that have to do with karate?”

“Because Kim doesn’t care who they are.” Rudy spoke, clapping Jack on the back before standing, walking off to his office.

Jack looked around for a bit more context, but Jerry and Eddie already decided to walk off, hands raised in surrender. The only person who stayed was Milton, and he was the only one who seemed willing to answer. “Kim has shown through tournaments that she’d rather gain the respect from the black dragons than worry about how they treat her sibling.” 

That was the last of the conversation about you before you came back to the dojo, a bigger smile on your face than when you left.

“What are you so happy about?” Jerry asked, hands still up to help Eddie with his punches. 

You grinned and held up four bags, “Phil gave me free extras!” You announced, causing the boys to rush to you and open the falafel filled bags.

No one told you that they told Jack about your family rivalry issue, Jack didn’t mention it because he realized he preferred his friends all smiling rather than down. 

Someone else noticed your bright smile, how happy you were, and how everyone gathered around you. Someone noticed how strangely familial the scene looked in the dojo from the outside, but they didn’t feel much about it so they walked away.

Once the dojo began to close up, everyone went their separate ways and you walked home alone after showering, new clothes smelling fresh and clean. 

You walked into your home, saying hello to your father, and heading straight to your shared room with your younger sister. Kim was the one with the bedroom to herself since you decided to share with your other sister a few years ago. She greeted you and told you that it was your turn to set the table, to which you didn’t argue. You set all your bags down and beelined for the kitchen where your dad was cooking dinner.

“How was practice?” He asked you, trying not to burn himself with the oil on the stove.

You hummed, grabbing four plates to set around the table, “It was good, we have a tournament on Saturday.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s against the Black Dragons, did Kim not tell you?” You asked him, grabbing napkins and silverware.

Your dad thought about it before shaking his head, “I don’t think so.” He answered simply, this was a typical occurrence. You remember her tournaments so you tended to let your dad know more than she did herself. You didn’t mind it much.

After a while of the two of you talking, you sat at your spot and your dad called for your sisters. Your younger sister took one of the seats close to you around the square table. Your father on the other hand left an empty seat to one of his sides, but he sat across from you, the farthest seat from you at the table. This meant that Kim would have to sit next to you, you weren’t worried, why weren’t you worried?

Kim was the last one at the table, she sat down and ate, talked to your sister and your dad, she was so full of life. She didn’t talk about karate but she talked about a movie she saw or a go-kart she got to race with some friends from school. She wouldn’t talk to you though…oh, that’s why you didn’t mind when she sat next to you, because she never acknowledged you.

When your little sister talked, everyone would laugh and smile, they would interject for more stories, and the young girl would feel like a princess with all the attention. She would tell you all about projects, books she read, activities she did, and sleepovers she would be having. It almost made you feel as if all of you were connected, all of you.

It became your turn, and Kims eyes would dim, her fork would get heavier, her head would never lift up enough to fully look at you. You would tell stories of what happened at the dojo, how Jerry got detention again, how Milton and you won the science fair, the attempt of flirting Eddie tried, or how Rudy tried a sandwich challenge at a sub place and lost miserably. You would talk about how much you adored your friends. Then, when you spoke about all the fun you were having with the new kid Jack, Kim would excuse herself and walk off.

You didn’t mind, this happened all the time. Your sister didn’t like when you were able to win, because Jack chose the Bobby Wasabi dojo over the Black Dragons, in Kims mind Jack Brewer chose you over her, and she didn’t like that.

You didn’t mind, this happened all the time. You didn’t like that she felt as if there was an ability to win or lose, but this all started when you went to separate dojos. Kim chose the Black Dragons over the Bobby Wasabi Dojo, in your mind Kim Crawford chose almost complete strangers over you, and you guessed you didn’t have any right to feel like that, according to her.

Both of you were fine with ignoring each other, neither of you cared much at all.

When you were at school, your lockers were on different sides of the hall. When Kim would be alone, grabbing her textbooks, you would be walking by with the Bobby Wasabi Warriors to your locker, even if none of you had a class together. 

In Kims mind it was ridiculous how stuck together you all were, but if that were the case why was she frowning, why did she feel a tug in her chest when she saw you laughing with the group so easily. You had never laughed like that with her before, how do these boys get the sentiment so quickly, without doing anything?

Kim didn’t notice that she was standing and staring until Jack met her eyes, he waved slightly and Kim hesitantly waved back, books in her hand.

You noticed Jack waving to someone so you followed his gaze and saw Kim standing frozen, almost like a deer in headlights. You tilted your head a bit, and Jack noticed you seemed to have no sense of malice in your eyes, maybe a bit of confusion, but not sort of hatred. Due to this, he decided to wave Kim over. Everyone in the group saw this motion, but no one seemed to really mind.

Kim saw no protests, but she didn’t know why she walked off in the opposite direction hastily. She didn’t know why she wouldn’t walk over.

The boys all looked at you and you held your hands up, “I don’t know, don’t look at me.” You chuckled out, closing your locker, signaling that it was time to get to class.

It became a habit, sometimes you guys would see Kim looking at you. In the halls, at lunch, after school, even when you were inside the dojo. The Black Dragons have to pass by Bobby Wasabi to get to any place in the mall, they have no choice but to look away if they don’t want to see you guys. Kim looks through the windows, she sees all of you sparring, practicing, she sees how you guys laugh and dogpile each other, she sees how much fun you all have.

When you notice someones eyes on all of you, you would look up and Kim would rush away as if she didn’t want to get ‘caught’. It was weird, she’s never paid much attention to you so you weren’t used to the attention on you and the guys. 

You assumed it was because of Jack, but if you were to share that with the boy he would shake his head and tell you, “I don’t think so”. You were sure it was though, there was a competition tomorrow and Jack was the star of it all since he was going to help you guys win the belts you needed. You were very sure that Kim was just getting intel for the Black Dragons, but they don’t get much when Jerry is giving Eddie a head noogie, so you didn’t really care.

You didn’t care until Kim Crawford, your sister of all your life, suddenly quit the Black Dragons the moment she saw how much her ‘team’ was just a group of liars and cheaters. You didn’t care until Kim only quit the moment she saw how the Black Dragons treated Jack after breaking his leg. You didn’t care until Kim walked into your dojo after quitting to try and join the Wasabi Warriors as if she’d never done anything. You didn’t care until everyone just let her in with the snap of her fingers.

When Rudy had Kim stand in front of him, making her copy his movement of pressing his fist to his palm, he recited the Wasabi code. “We swear by the light of the dragon's eye, to be loyal, honest, and never say die.” When she repeated the code, they ended with a ‘Wasabi’ and a group hug you refused to take part in.

Jack walked over to you and tried to ask what was wrong but Kim took hold of your wrist with a sickeningly sweet smile, mumbling a small excuse before dragging you outside of the dojo to the middle of the courtyard.

“What is your problem?” Kim asked you, letting go of you, hands on her hips.

You blinked at her blankly, “Oh, I’m sorry. Are you actually talking to me now?” You asked sarcastically, crossing your arms.

“You’re being childish.”

“I’m not the one who completely disregarded the fact I had multiple siblings.”

“I never did that!” She spoke harshly, voice getting higher as she glared at you.

You sighed, smoothing the knot in your brows, “Kim.” You spoke her name slowly, looking up at her. It’s been so long since you’ve made eye contact with her for this long, when did this all stop, when did you stop being family? “I just don’t trust you, but can you blame me?”

Kim blinked at you with a mouth wide open, “I’m your sister.”

“Are you?” You asked seriously, “After you joined the Black Dragons, suddenly I didn’t exist anymore.” You reminded her of how the past few years had been, “You practically abandoned me because why? Because we went to two separate dojos?”

Kim stayed silent, moving her hair over her shoulder, the sudden realization of how little time she actually spent with you.

You nodded at her silence, “You just swore by the Wasabi Code that you’d be loyal.” You told her, tilting your head, “So you can be loyal to them, but not to me, the person who has known you for all of your life.”

There was no response.

“I know everything about you Kim.” You told her honestly, tongue poking the inside of your cheek as you spoke. You noticed she began to look down, tears filling her eyes slightly, “I knew all your tournaments, your fairs, charities, when you were in cheer.” You listed off, “I still gave you birthday gifts, I knew of the recommendation letters, I moved rooms because I knew you would want your own.” You continued on, not letting her speak. “I know everything about you, but for some reason you treat it as some disease to try to get to know me at all.”

Kim sniffled a bit as she looked up to meet your eyes. Her eyes were watery, her cheeks splotched with red, “I didn’t realize that-”

“That you’re just like the Black Dragons?” You interrupted, your phrasing causing something to twist harshly in Kims chest. “Admit it, you’re just as bad as them.”

“I didn’t mean to be!” She suddenly spoke out, grasping at her chest, her blonde hair sticking to her face due to the wet tears on her cheeks. “I thought I could find people like how you had them.” She mumbled out, breathing heavily. “I saw you all the time, having fun, not worrying about whether you’d get kicked or not!” She cried, her voice cracking as she continued to explain. “I wanted to find that myself, because if I got it without you, maybe I could actually deserve to be a part of it with you.” She continued on, tears continuing to fall.

“Why didn’t you just join Wasabi then if you wanted it so bad?!” You yelled, shaking your head slightly angrily.

“How was I supposed to just join after everything they’ve done to you all!” 

There were no more words exchanged, just your heavy breaths and Kims choked out sobs.

You understood what she meant now, no matter when she joined, it still would’ve turned out like this. The only way it wouldn’t have been like this was in some alternate time where you both joined the Wasabi Warriors, an alternate time you guys weren’t in.

You never expected Kim to cry in front of you, you never expected your sister to care so much about being with you to the point she thought it over and knew she couldn’t just be friends with you after all of that. You never expected your sister to want to be your friend.

After a moment, barely a second, you brought Kim up in your arms, her face buried in your shoulder, your chin on hers. You gently rubbed her back up and down. 

“You aren’t like the Black Dragons…I’m sorry.” You muttered to her, “You’re better than how they were.” You continued to whisper reassuring words to her as her cries calmed down and her arms found their way around your torso. 

She sniffled once more, “I swore by the Wasabi Code that I’d be loyal, and honest.” She told you, “I promise I’ll be better.”

“I know you will be, you’re my sister.”

[stephy-gold]

Do anyone has middle aged MSR fics??? Hehehe 😅😅😅 I can’t take the recent pictures of GA and DD of my mind because they look so good