#Me: I’d probably be into older men because they’d be more likely to be more mature

[fucktheroyals]

Growing is realizing dating older men suck actually and I as much as I love actors that are almost twice my age, my cut off limit is a single year older than me. I, as a woman, can’t fucking take a man feeling superior to me, simply because he’s older than me.

[hangmanbrainrot]

more than this

a/n: HI. Me again! After talking with @rosiahills22, I simply HAD to give this idea a whirl. I hope y’all enjoy! Reader’s callsign is Van Gogh (to be explained) and I don’t use Y/N. :) special thanks to @bradshawsbitch​ for the encouragement. :’)

warnings: so much mutual pining, dash of angst toward the end. Generally, all my posts are 18+ because I don’t want minors interacting with my page! Probably naval inaccuracies.

word count: 3975

summary: You and Jake have been best friends for years now… Why mess with a good thing?

pairing: Jake Seresin x Reader, Jake Seresin x Aviator!Reader — callsign: Van Gogh

“Vee, you aren’t seriously wearing that to Family Day.”

You glanced down at your striped sleep pants and faded Navy t-shirt, then whirled around to look up at the oh so familiar source of the question. Lieutenant Jake Seresin, in the flesh. He was wearing a navy blue t-shirt, jeans, and black leather-banded watch on his wrist. His signature toothpick was missing from its usual post between his lips. 

“You clean up nice,” you retorted, ignoring his initial remark. “And I thought we agreed, no call signs today.”

You ‘tsk’ed at him and turned back toward your laundry basket, then bending to pick it up and hold it at your hip. 

“You have one of the coolest callsigns, besides mine, of course. What’s wrong with Van Gogh?”

“I got it because I dropped my books and everyone saw all the doodles in the margins of my notes. And it doesn’t even make sense, because Van Gogh was a painter. At least yours has a cool story, I mean—”

He said your name, low and sweet, to cut you off. The two of you weren’t about to rehash that story again. 

“Better.” This earned you a smile. “I told you, I’m not going this year. I’m just gonna hang out here, take advantage of the empty lounge, and chill.” 

“And I told you, my mother demanded to see you. In fact, I’d dare say she’s more excited to see you than she is to see me.”

“Can you blame Mrs. Seresin for having taste?” you replied easily, the teasing lilt to your voice unmistakable as you flashed Jake a megawatt smile. 

“I’m absolutely telling on you, when I see her. ‘Mrs. Seresin’ instead of Sandy, as requested.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” you shot back, mock horror covering your features.

“Can, could, and would. Get dressed, Vee. Families will be here before you know it!”

The way that Jake departed after speaking let you know it wasn’t up for debate.

———————————————————————————————————

You heard Jamie and Courtney before you saw them, their familiar, slightly shrill voices carrying over the crowd of people all waiting for their own aviator to make an appearance. Jake’s older and younger sisters had always treated you like the additional sibling they’d never had, but on a day like today, it made your heart ache. You knew, of course, not everyone was lucky enough to find a kind family to adopt them the way the Seresins had adopted you. Even Robert Seresin himself — gruff as he was, he had a you-sized soft spot, much like his son. Though good luck getting either of the Seresin men to admit it. 

You smiled as you spun on your heel, ready to retreat. Content to revel in the knowledge that you were loved, but too heavy-hearted to witness it today. You’d beat Jake here, somehow, so maybe you could slip out without his notice, either. Come up with some feeble story about suddenly coming down with a migraine, and nurse your ache alone, with your mounds of freshly laundered clothing, once you were sure he and his family had departed for the day.

But instead of proceeding forward, you collided with navy cotton and ginger and leather and… Jake. Had he always smelled this good?

“Hi, I was just,” you pushed out, before being interrupted. Why were you so nervous, all of a sudden? It was just Jake. 

“Trying to ditch me. Darlin’, my feelings are hurt.” The tips of your ears burned red with embarrassment, even as your stomach did backflips over the way his accent thickened on the word ‘darlin’.’ 

“Sorry, Jake.” You didn’t even have the wherewithal to hide the giggle leaking into your words. But you were smart enough to play it off. “I was just going to get a jacket.”

“Vee, it’s July.”

“Yes, I do have a calendar and I can read!” Your eye roll was practically involuntary. “I just get cold sometimes in the AC.”

A lopsided grin slid onto his features while he aimed a pointer finger at himself. “Human furnace. Let’s go!”

Before you could protest, he was slinging an arm around your shoulders and all but crushing you into his side. “I think this outfit is much more appropriate for a trip off base.” It sounded like he was testing the compliment. And, truthfully, you liked this particular combination of white cap-sleeve blouse and jeans quite a bit yourself, too. But it was nice of him to notice. Then again, you couldn’t recall a time when Jake hadn’t noticed you, not since the beginning of your friendship. He was just always so checked in with you. Always so present. If you squinted, you could call it attentiveness. 

“Jacob Michael Seresin, it is rude to keep your mother waiting! And where is — there she is, there’s my girl.” 

Before either of you could inhale, a head of blond hair identical to Jake’s came bounding toward you, Sandra Seresin bundling you up in her arms like she hadn’t seen you in years, rather than the months it had been since the last time she had seen you via FaceTime.

You hugged Sandy a little tighter, as if you were afraid you would disappear if you let go. If it weren't for this woman and her family, holding onto you — in more ways than one — you often feared no one would remember you at all. No one to be on the receiving end of a phone call or a folded flag, if you didn't make it home one day. You would just… cease to exist. Quietly. Perhaps that was fitting, considering that was exactly how you lived your life.

You were your parents' only child, and they were gone. Well, your father was, anyway. Your mother never recovered after his sudden death, and had taken to self-medicating to ease the pain of his loss. Which, sure, you got, once you were old enough, but you were still small and new to the world, when the light that was your father went out. No one is ready to lose a parent they're close to, but certainly not when they're five. And it felt like you'd lost her, too, by the time you were 10. Moved out by the time you were 16. So, she wasn't gone, but there was no relationship to be had. You knew, of course, that if something did happen to you, they'd find her. But who would she be mourning? You had lived a whole life she knew nothing about; you had become an entirely new person. Someone she knew nothing about, but that the Seresins knew like the backs of their hands. Courtney was filling your hands with your favorite candy on the walk to the parking lot, and Jamie's kids were telling you about how they were doing in school. 

Maybe someone, maybe a few someones would remember you. And fondly, you hoped.

At the height of the day, the sun was relentless, but as you walked beside Jake in the parking lot, you couldn't help noticing it made his hair the perfect shade of blond, and rendered his eyes the color of sea-glass.

"You know they just missed you," he chirped, misreading your expression and mistaking your melancholy for annoyance.

"No, no," you said softly. "It's nice to be missed. I just.."

"Today is hard," he finished your sentence matter-of-factly, and without any sort of air of pity. You heard, in its place, respect. He had no idea how you felt, but he'd always left space in your friendship for you to feel it. And, in true Jake fashion, he'd tried to fix it, by introducing you to his family, all those years ago, now. You'd only known each other a few months, then. But he didn't want you to be alone. And, the truth was, you hadn't been. Not since the moment you met him. All you ever felt when you were with Jake was ease. Comfort. 

Your hand found Jake’s without thinking, eyes burning with unshed tears. “You’re my best friend, Jake. And I will not hesitate to kick your ass if you tell anyone how soft I got.”

You glanced over at Jake just in time to watch an unreadable emotion cloud his expression. Before you had time to think it over, he was squeezing your hand. “I’ll always keep all your secrets, Vee. Including that you prefer green Jolly Ranchers, even though blue are clearly superior.” 

—————

The Seresins took you and Jake to a small diner off base, and it was today that you learned it was Jake’s favorite. You all sat in a booth toward the back, bunched up together in the cushioned semi-circle bench. Jake’s warm thigh brushed against yours, and you’d be lying if you didn’t notice the jolt that went through you, every time those thick cords of muscle pressed against you when he laughed, or when he reached forward to grasp one of the menus wedged between the matching salt and pepper shakers on the table. 

With an arm lazily draped on the booth behind you, fingers loosely grazing your shoulder every so soften, Jake opened a menu for you to share. 

“Well, what do you think, darlin’?”

“How did I not know this was your favorite place?” You asked, ignoring the question he was obviously asking you.

But he indulged you. “This was the first year I actually convinced you to come with us.”

“Convinced? I felt slightly bullied, Seresin.” You grinned, in spite of yourself. 

“Forgive me for wanting to spend a little time with you, darlin’.” He sounded almost coy. You glanced up at him, at the same time he looked over at you, and found that ‘butterflies’ were an understatement for what that look was currently doing to your insides. It felt like a cross between adoration and desire, but what was even wilder was that Jake’s expression seemed to mirror your own — which was absurd because it was Jake. Jake, who always made sure you never got left behind; Jake, who sometimes pulled his punches with you when he was ragging on you over the comms. Yeah, that Jake, your Jake was looking at you like… that?

But then you heard Jake’s dad clear his throat from across the table and you and Jake glanced up like you’d been caught doing something far less innocuous. Your mind worked overtime trying to decipher what just happened here but the moment flickered and burnt out before you, and the conversation moved on like a film unpaused.

Despite the fact that his entire family was here, it felt like Jake couldn’t bear to take his eyes off you for a moment, not that you were complaining. And it was something his mother noticed, too.

“So, between the two of you, who do you think is the better pilot?” Courtney teased, a mischievous glint visible in the hazel of her irises. 

But then Jake said your name at the same time you said his, causing you both to turn to each other in surprise, mouths agape. 

“Stop being modest,” he accused, almost immediately. Part of you wanted to make special note of this moment, record it somehow. So that the next time Jake decided to have a pissing contest with some other pilot, you could chime in and remind him it didn’t matter, since he thought you were the best anyway. You went to shove at his chest, but your hand — and your heart — stuttered with you made contact. He was so solid. Just firm muscle and warm skin. When your gaze dared drift upward, he was blushing. Your comment, voicing the observation, would die on your lips, as your server returned to the table with a tray full of milkshakes. Leave it to Jamie to secure dessert when you weren’t looking.

—————

When the meal had run its course and everyone was preparing for the trip back to base, you couldn’t help but hang back a little bit, just to take it all in. Jake was indulging Courtney in one of those rare, long bear hugs, while Jamie and his mother ran off to the bathroom, and his dad made small talk with another patron seated at the diner’s counter. In spite of your resistance, this family had yanked you, kicking and screaming, into their lives. Whether you’d found them or they’d found you didn’t matter, what mattered was the moment unfolding before you. You wished you could wrap it around you and let it warm you from the inside out. 

You weren’t sure when Jake had released Courtney to return to your side, or when the rest of his family had filtered out the diner’s front doors, so you jumped when you heard his voice from beside you. 

“You okay, sugar?” He was close enough that you could smell the tang of his cologne — softer than before, but still present — and feel the body heat rolling off of him in waves. You practically ached with the desire to move, to be touching him in some way, and the ferocious way this feeling roared to life within you startled you. Instead of giving in to that yearning to touch, you spun around and put some distance between you, eyes trained on him. You were desperate to find out what had changed, but when you gazed into Jake’s eyes. You just saw him, you just felt him. Nothing else had changed. But maybe nothing had needed to. High stakes situations meant you were constantly filtering out your emotions: keep, alter, discard; keep, alter, discard. You rifled through feelings often before you took a breath. It felt silly to question whether or not you’d simply overlooked or ignored your feelings for your best friend all along, but what else could be true? It wasn’t the way you felt about him that was new; no, it was the sudden impulse to do something about it that felt like an unscratchable itch.

You took a nearly imperceptible step closer, and Jake mirrored your actions. He said your name softly, cautiously. 

But then, from behind: “Hey, is everybody else outside?” 

Jamie’s voice was like cold water to the face. Still, you nodded, regaining the distance between yourself and Jake. You blinked a few times, as if you were hitting some sort of invisible reset button in your mind.

Keep, alter, discard.

You were silent, the entire ride back to base. You went through the motions of ‘see-you-next-time’’s and ‘take-care’’s, and stood in the parking lot until Robert’s truck was completely out of view.

“Thanks for today,” you mumbled, without looking up at Jake, then spinning on your heels to head back inside.  There was still enough of the day that you could get your laundry done if you headed straight in and got to work, you just had to —

Jake’s hand on your wrist stopped you in your tracks. Your skin was tingling where his fingers were wrapped around you. Jaw set, you clenched, mouth forming a straight line. You were back on base now; you were back to being naval aviators. There wasn’t any room for these silly little schoolgirl feelings Jake inspired in you. You didn’t get to twirl your hair and bat your eyelashes and fall head over heels for your best friend. Instead, you got to linger somewhere painfully between ‘duty bound’ and ‘already in over your head.’

“What is it, Jake?” You hadn’t yet turned to face him, and that was an offense he didn’t take lightly to; though instead of waiting for you to rectify the situation, he does so himself. It was so very like him. 

“Look at me, please.” The raw edge to his voice startled you into compliance. 

You turned and regretted it immediately.

“What did I do?” His eyes were so soft, so entirely unguarded. A fear you didn’t recognize was plain on his face. “How can I fix it?”

“It’s nothing, Jake.”

But he was not convinced by your sighed syllables. “That’s bullshit.” Even the way he spoke was gentle, like he was afraid you’d evaporate from the sheer force of his words if he spoke too loudly.

“Something changed, after lunch, something… Something happened,” he continued. “Did Jamie say something to you? Court?” 

A short burst of laughter punched out of you, but it sounded colder than you imagined, and Jake stepped back like you’d slapped him. Fear was replaced by irritation. You recognized that particular crease in his brow, but you resolved that this was good. Maybe he needed to hate you a little, so you could get over whatever was most definitely not happening here.

“What?” You laughed again, though this time it sounded more forced than before. “Did you expect me to go all weak-kneed because you saved me, Jake? Showed me what a real family was like? Would you like me to grovel with gratitude now, or can I save that for later?”

And you regretted the words the moment you said them, instantly spiraling. It was vicious and careless, but a low enough blow that it would end things — it would fix things, once and for all. But then that feeling from earlier returned, that burning at the back of your throat and the sting in your eyes. You understood now that what you were feeling was loss; you were preparing for the loss of your best friend. Prematurely, perhaps, but if you knew Jake at all, you knew it wasn’t that premature. He let the others think he was a jerk and a blowhard but, to you, he admitted to the real softness of his heart. The purity of it. It was you he sat beside, shaking with worry after Phoenix and Bob went down after a bird strike. You, he called when his niece got a case of the flu so bad she was hospitalized and he couldn’t see her. You, he pleaded with for help when he’d mouthed off too much in class and was pretty sure everyone hated him now. You knew everything he did was so startlingly fucking earnest. To question how genuine he was, to question his integrity, was the kind of wound that could only be delivered intimately. And you had done it so very well. A real stab and twist.

You mumbled an apology, just desperate to escape Jake and that angry, but somehow still pleading look in his eyes. It was when your back was turned that Jake finally spoke.

“God, I have to be so fucking stupid.” 

“Jake, don’t,” you said, stilled but not turning back around. Your pride wouldn’t let him see you cry.

“No, I must be. I must be a complete fucking idiot to have misread all the signs that you… That we want the same thing.”

You didn’t dare speak at first; you couldn’t. And then, when you did, the ragged nature of your breathing startled even you. “And what is it that you think we both want?”

“More than this, Vee!” He sounded exasperated, and you didn’t need to face him to know that Jake had run a frustrated hand through his hair. “More than tiptoeing around each other and how we feel about each other, and trying to pretend like, like…” 

“Trying to pretend like what?” The words ripped out of you like a sob and you couldn’t will yourself to be still anymore. Your body angled toward his like you were fucking magnetized. 

“Trying to pretend like I am not in love with you.” 

The words landed like lead around you, and you had to bite back a sob. When that wasn’t enough to muffle the sound, you slapped a palm to your mouth. 

He had done it. He had taken that big thing, wrestled it into submission, and then laid it bare in front of you. But, more than that, he’d laid himself bare in front of you. He was more naked now than he’d ever been in any locker room. This was Jake at his most honest.

And you could feel yourself teetering so dangerously on the edge of giving in. Your breaths heaved in and out of you with great effort. 

What if you ruined this? What if he left you? What if, what if, what if…

God, but what if you didn’t? What if, for once, something just fucking worked out, and someone just stayed? If there was anyone in your life who was capable of staying, wouldn’t it be Jake? Who else could it be? 

Your resolve was so thin, so fragile; when you finally spoke, it was: “Jake, I’m scared.” 

He took a step toward you. He could’ve closed the gap between your bodies in a singular stride, but he was giving you an out. One last chance to walk away. You remained anchored to your spot on the pavement. When he took the final step toward you, he had a palm raised to frame your face — he was shaking, but he rested his forehead against yours, too. And that was Jake, in a nutshell. Scared, but pushing forward. It was one of the things you admired, one of the things you loved most about him. 

“Don’t be scared, Vee.” The plea was soft, softer than a prayer. “Don’t be scared. Whatever there is to figure out, we’ll figure it out together. We can make this work.”

“And if we can’t?”

“We’ll figure that out together, too.” 

Even as your every survival instinct was telling you not to, even as all you wanted to do was run, you leaned in. The kiss was a little clumsy — he hadn’t been ready, you were too nervous. But then your hand found purchase against his chest, and one of his at your hip. And then you were practically tugging each other closer; your lips fitting together more seamlessly. How had you held out this long? How had you deprived yourself of this? 

Jake retracted, eyes wild and bright when he looked at you. As his lips sloped into a grin, you knew something was coming. 

“Ma’am, I’m not sure if you heard me, but…”

“Oh, you mean your little love confession?” you reveled in the flush that crept up his neck and the laugh that fled your now kiss-swollen lips as a result.

Though realization seemed to darken his expression, and his eyes left yours. The loss was one you felt immediately. 

“What?”

Jake must have felt the tension begin to seep into your body, because his thumb began to press slow, soothing circles against your hip. 

“Vee, I know you don’t need me to save you. You have never needed to be saved by anyone.” His brow furrowed a moment, and the hand still cradling your face dropped to meet the other at your hips. “But if you want to be… If you want someone else to help you carry all that weight on your shoulders. Well, that would be okay, too, alright?”

You weren’t certain, but when Jake met your gaze once again, you were almost positive there were tears welling in his eyes. The sight of his vulnerability rendered you speechless, so you nodded mutely, then managed a small ‘okay.’ It was instinctive for you to rest your forehead against Jake’s chest and allow his arms to envelope you in his embrace. More so than ever before.

You weren’t sure how long the two of you had been standing there when you finally spoke up again. “Hey, Jake?”

“Yeah, darlin’?”

“I love you.”

He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t need to. Instead, he dropped a kiss on the top of your head, and tightened his arms around you. And maybe, just maybe, you thought… this wouldn’t be so bad. Whether it was 20 minutes or 20 years, you wanted as much of Jake as he was willing and able to give. 

Keep, alter, discard? You were definitely keeping this feeling.

[its-time-to-write]

Hi there!! I absolutely adore your writing, and I was wondering if I could request a little something about Jamie being your guest to a wedding?? Just something sweet and fluffy because I feel like he’d be a spectacular wedding date. Love you!!

Here you go! Haven’t been able to write as much this week, I had finals and in between tests and papers, I’ve been pretty much living at the doctor’s. My brain is feeling a little fried, so I hope this is a coherent fic because I’ve tried to proofread a bunch and it all just looks like squiggles to me, so… anon, if you read this, send me your honest feedback in my inbox. Love ya!🍊💚

i’m glad you exist

“What’s this?” Jamie asks from his position on your kitchen island. 

You glance up from the stove. “What’s what?” 

He holds up an envelope rimmed in gold. 

“Oh, that’s an invite to my old roommate’s wedding. Remember I told you about her? Calls everyone ‘queen?’”

Jamie’s face shows recognition. “Right, yeah, she the one dating that motivational speaker?”

You laugh. “Yeah, they got together a month after I met her. He lived one floor down. Anyway, their wedding’s in a few months so I left the invitation out so I’d remember to RSVP.”

Jamie’s engrossed in the details on the invitation. “Says you can bring a plus one.”

“Yeah,” you reply, “probably won’t though. It’s back home, so, it’s not just a weekend-type deal. My mom and dad want me to come stay for like a week and a half.” You turn back to the stove and narrowly avoid burning the food. “You like your dinner a little crispy, right?”

“Babe,” Jamie says slowly, “you stayin’ with your parents?”

“Nah,” you say, transferring the food onto plates, “too crowded. And loud. My mom always has all the grandkids over all the time.” Your older sister has two kids, and your older brother has three. “She offered, but I told her I’d just get an AirBnB or something.”

“Y’know,” he says, taking the plates and moving to the table, “it’s on the off season. Don’t have any branding deals that week either.”

“Jamie,” you begin, a smile beginning to spread across your face, “are you offering to go to this wedding with me? And meet my parents?”

Jamie shrugs nonchalantly. 

“You are!” you say gleefully, “Oh my god, my mom is going to lose her mind. You know she absolutely loves you, right? She talks about their trip out here all the time. And this time you can meet my whole family, like my sister and her husband, they’re definitely my favorite because my niece and I have the same middle name. Plus my brother is always busy with work and his wife is cool, I guess, but we don’t have a lot in common? Except one time we watched High School Musical together, and she knew all the dances and all the words! It was crazy. And we’ll definitely have to go to the beach, do you know how to surf-?”

You ramble on happily as Jamie just grins at you, digging into his food. 

—

It’s wedding week, and your dad picks you up from the airport. You and Jamie are on your way to your parents’ house before checking into your own house and you’re confident that most of your family is going to be there. Your parents are the only ones who have met Jamie in person, and right now your dad and Jamie are in the front of the car chatting on about who knows what. You just know you’re tired, and you’re grateful that your dad picked you up a coffee. You’re probably going to steal Jamie’s too, because he does not need more energy and yours is gone way too quick. It’s nice to be home. The sun is shining, and the streets are familiar. You’re looking forward to seeing your old friends, and showing off your gorgeous footballer boyfriend.

They’d all heard about him of course, and were more than thrilled that you had finally found someone who actually liked being around you. That sounds terrible. You’re not annoying. You just have a habit of being with men who see you as a chore, not for the wonderful person you are. The person Jamie sees you to be.

You’re pulling into the driveway, and just as you suspected, the entire family is there. You notice your brother’s Range Rover and your sister’s Jeep. You smile to yourself. How very like them.

You hop out of the car, grab Jamie’s hand, and the door is open before you even make it all the way up to it. Your mom’s arms are open for a hug which you reach for except she turns away at the last moment and hugs Jamie first?

“Mom!” you say, laughing, “I’m your literal daughter and I haven’t seen you in forever!”

She smiles and pinches Jamie’s cheek. “I’ve spent more time with you than with him. You’ll survive.”

She wraps you in a warm hug then says, “Come meet the family, Jamie! And you’re staying for dinner. You can get to your house after you’ve taken a break.”

You shake your head and Jamie just grins. Poor boy has no idea what he’s getting himself into.

—

Jamie was thoroughly interrogated by your family, including your nieces and nephews (“Why do you call it football instead of soccer? Did you bring us candy?”). You’re both so exhausted that as soon as you walk through the door of your AirBnB, you collapse onto the bed, fully clothed.

—

It’s the day of the wedding, and you’re stressed. You’d been fine until the exact moment that you and Jamie began walking up to the venue. Everything is fine, you’re walking hand-in-hand, but then you just stop. 

“Jamie,” you say, tugging on his hand, “Jamie I can’t do this.”

He turns to you in surprise. “What d’you mean you can’t do this?” 

“I mean, it’s a lot of people I haven’t seen in forever and I don’t know, I’m just freaking out.”

Jamie laughs of all things. “Babe, it’s all right. Look, you’re with me, yeah? And I’m fucking amazin’. And you’re fucking amazin’. So whatever you’re worried about, ain’t a problem.”

Sometimes you forget how cocky Jamie can be. And how much it can boost your confidence. 

You blow out a breath. “Thanks babe. You’re right, it’ll be fine.”

—

It was more than fine. Like, way more than fine. Your friend looked lovely, and she was overjoyed to see you, and Jamie was the absolute best. He befriended your entire table and insisted you dance with him for every song. He was weirdly good at it, too. 

“It’s all in the hips, babe,” he said.

It definitely was.

Your favorite part, though, is the last dance. 

It’s a slow song, and the only people left were couples. The bride and groom had left, sneaked out a back door because she hated send-offs, so everything was winding down. 

Jamie has your hands in his, and brings them to loop around his neck.

“You alright?” he whispers. You nod. “Good,” he says, voice still low. “Wanted to make sure you had a good time. I fucking love weddings. The dancing, the food… you.” He grins and you smile back. “You look fucking gorgeous, by the way. Not sure I mentioned it earlier.”

You’re blushing now, swaying to the music as his hands circle your waist.

You say, “Thanks for coming with me, Jaim. I don’t think I would’ve had as much fun without you.”

Your hands are on the sides of his face now, thumbs tracing his cheekbones.

You lean up to kiss him and right before you do he whispers, “Gonna be us someday, yeah?”

You forget how to breathe for a moment, opting to nod instead.

Jamie smiles, and leans down to finish what you started. 

[thygoddessouijathicc]

Old Man Yaoi May Not Be So Old

So there’s a segment in the DSaF fandom that beleive Dave and Jack are visibly old men. I’m fine with it, I used to, and in fact love the designs especially because there’s seems to be an almost taboo of drawing old people to a point and it’s homely really great that people here are doing it, but I don’t think that’s actually true canonically like I used to. I must stress though DRAW THEM HOW YOU LIKE. They can be old or not it doesn’t concern me.

Both of them are corpses. In terms of age, yes, they are quite old, but corpses don’t tend to age. And we see this in DSAF with the Phones not aging visibly, perhaps it’s just that it’s stock photos but Harry, despite being Gen 1, is physically not old. Why? Because Harry isn’t alive. None of the phones are. The phones are just well preserved and act like living creatures.

You know what else isn’t alive but acts like it? Dave and Jack. While they’d be in terms of numbers, old, in DSAF 3, given their ages at which they died it’s unlikely they’d physically get any older. And don’t say some kinda magic thing because we know for a fact that both behave like corpses, especially Jack. Jack paints himself orange to look alive (a weird colour choice but I digress), he does this because his body is rotting, likely turning black or purple (this also means any cursed colour swap between the two, the Jack side may just not have put on his makeup yet lol). Jack is rotting, definitely not alive body behaviours. Dave also does not behave like a living person. How many of those do you know that can do what he does. There seems to be a consensus that Davetrap is rotting but Dave is too nothing happened to Davetrap to kickstart the process that would mean Dave could not have before, it’s likely the pests just got in because he was stationary and likely far slower.

Let’s also talk about their behaviour. It’s not great to go off of but Jack doesn’t act like a mature adult and neither does Dave, they act like they’re rather young adults still figuring themselves out. Jack especially is quite childish, as if he never got a chance to mature. You could bring up Dee, but Dee’s situation is far different. It doesn’t seem like Dee has actually mentally matured so much as she has been put in a position in which she has no choice but to take on a more mature role and tries to fit that, she has no reason to mentally age, and none of the other children have meaning if she actually got older there would have to be more to it. Dee is as old as she always was, any maturity added is not due to age but due to her situation. Dave and Jack are immature people, and with this in mind it paints a somewhat grim picture of the fact that they never got to mature.

One could mention the ending in which Jack dies of old age… but the phones also have beards here and Jack is actually established to be semi immortal so dying of old age just doesn’t make sense, he can die, but it seems like he gets back up. So let’s be real the beards are fake, and Jack probably ate something weird, and will be fine in like 12 minutes. The game probably ends when you die because it would be weird if it didn’t even if you do get back up.

The only time I’d say Jack permanently dies is when he’s burned. Which leaves no body behind, which by the same principle as the others, means there’s nothing left to come back which sucks for him because oops no soul either.

Jack can also get rabies but… this also doesn’t feel like a sign he is alive.

Dave actively does rot in the game as Davetrap, Jack rots constantly, it’s safe to say their bodies do not work like human ones especially considering not having organs is not something that kills Dave. At least not that we know.

With all of this in mind, yeah. They are corpses. And as I’ve said before, corpses do not age in DSAF physically or mentally, even Blackjack is incredibly immature if you actually look at his behaviour. He’s also an asshole who never gets character development but that’s a story for another time.

It actually makes more sense if they don’t age given the very little change in their behaviour or character between games even after a massive Timeskip nothing seems to have changed at all which makes sense logically too, because why would Fredbear give Jack the ability to age? Let’s be real here if Jack can age eventually that will become a problem given that he is immortal seemingly as long as he has a body to return to. There’s no reason to give him the ability to age and plenty of reasons not to.

Now that’s not to say their bodies don’t change, they do. And if you realistically want to draw DSAF 3 Jack in his most canon possible form… which I doubt many do… Jack doesn’t age he rots he’s probably just a lot worse for wear if he hasn’t found a way to stop rotting yet. Him being an old man is unlikely, but a very decomposed zombie? More likely than you’d think.

And before anyone brings up the tapes, Dave may just look like that, pretty much every piece of art in that game is by a different person who is not Doggo, while Dave seems to be a bit older Jack does not. The tapes are in the past if we are saying that is Dave’s age in DSAF 3, sorry no.

DSAF 3 has incredibly inconsistent art to a point I’d say fans can largely disregard it but that’s an essay for another time just know art in that game isn’t as canon as people seem to think it is. At least not by my observation.

Dave and Jack are old men in age, but not in body. No in body they are most likely the age they died at which seems to have been pretty young for both of them like we know Jack was in his early 20s and Dave is a few years older but also died at the very least a few months before Jack. They aren’t old men, at least not canonically.

I must stress I mean they probably are not canonically old because honestly the DSaF fandom needs to take a chill pill and stop being angry at people for making their own designs, literally do what you want as long as it’s not illegal or like super fucked up. Don’t make Jack 12 and Dave 60 and ship that, but if you want to draw them old be my guest. This essay was just my observation of the idea that the fandom calls them old men and people seem to think they are canonically but it just seems unlikely.

[annoyinglandmagazine]

Russingon Headcanon

Maedhros and Fingon’s relationship reads like a romance right? Regardless of whether you ship it their entire relationship is compromised of several romance plot lines rolled into one and is a textbook example of a romance. You have the families who hate each other keeping them apart, the opposite sides of the war thing, the hopeless quest to save their beloved from the enemy at all costs, succeeding against all odds because of the power of love and just so much more. You see where I’m going with all this right? It reads like the script to a Disney film.

So if someone with no prior knowledge of who these two people are were to hear this story they’d probably think it was a similar kind of story to Beren and Luthien. They wouldn’t really question that this was a romance. So what I’m saying is that there were probably men and dwarves who were told this story and heard it was an old elven story and interpreted it exactly like that. So I’d say it’s a reasonable assumption that at some point songs and stories started to crop up and became pretty popular ballads. I’d also say a lot of the time Maedhros was depicted as the damsel in distress. Make of that what you will.

So when the elves hear these songs they’d probably see these similarities right away. I feel like Turgon would get to the point where he’d have to screen all the songs played in his court beforehand to make sure there was no trace of his older brother in a romantic context even implied because it makes him so uncomfortable. He gets really flustered when anyone brings it up because YES he knows it’s common knowledge but he was trying very hard to recover from the image of walking in on them during his childhood and does not appreciate the reminder . Maglor would absolutely love it. He makes a point of playing the instrumentals of the more well known ones at formal events just to watch Maedhros turn gradually more red. He also sometimes changes the lyrics to contain as many innuendoes as possible and stresses their names in the ones where they’re mentioned. He’s the only person who’s ever dared to play one in the presence of both Maedhros and Fingon. He changes the music to one of the ballads every time they get too close to each other during the evening and everyone always turns to look for them when it comes on so they have to scramble to a respectable distance.

Celegorm and Curufin are absolutely in on this and Tyelko helps come up with some of the dirtier verses. Everyone collectively agrees to preserve the innocence of Amrod and Amras. Finrod is secretly teaching the men more and more romantic ones but escapes all the blame. He’s actually the person who introduced most of the ones with their names in them.

Maglor teaches Elrond and Elros all of them without telling them who they’re about. Maedhros is absolutely murderous when he hears the twins singing about him and Fingon but he doesn’t want to let the twins know the truth so he keeps his mouth shut. Many elves are absolutely horrified when they hear that these are an important part of Numenorean culture. He made Quenya one of their languages don’t tell me Elros wouldn’t find this hilarious. Imladris is one of the few elvish settlements where these songs are allowed because Elrond secretly enjoys stirring things up. He figured out what they were about when he was still a kid but he finds everyone’s expressions way too funny to call a stop to it and just plays innocent.

[ilikekidsshows]

wait where did astruc say that stuff about sailor moon now 😭 is that like a recent thing or??

---

There's a new interview out, or there's a proper translation for an older one, because I’d heard some of the stuff in it before, but Astruc could also just be repeating himself. The interview is for Astruc’s ego stroking, since he mostly spends it playing the pass the blame game for his contested writing decisions and trying to sound wise and experienced by pretending he’s seen critically acclaimed shows he actually hasn't. He also tries to hype people up for Miraculous being this never-ending show that just goes on and on by claiming he has only told 5% of the story he has planned. I’m just wondering, if he has so many story ideas, why didn't season 4 have a proper story and spent all its runtime setting up season 5 instead? He also claims season 7 will make you rethink season 6, which makes me think it's gonna be another season 4 where nothing actually happens despite this show being supposedly fully serialized now. Or they're going to make some more blatant retcons and pretend they're surprising and totally set up plot twists instead.

A lot of people are freaking out about Astruc saying there's enough of this sloppily-told story to last us twelve seasons, but I’m cringing at his claims that they have Gabriel and André’s backstories all figured out and they’d like to dig into that some more while giving André a redemption arc. He was really into the idea of an André redemption arc, because, as he puts it, André actually wants to change unlike Chloé, who Astruc really totally wanted to redeem, you guys, but she told him no :( 

I’m serious, by the way; he literally claims he wanted to redeem Chloé and gave her every chance to change her ways but she just wouldn't, because real people in her position wouldn't and they value realism oh-so-much, which is why Marinette can install a one-way mirror in the girls' bathroom at her school and not get a felony charge. He loves to act like he isn't the puppeteer holding the strings. I can hardly wait for some retroactive justification for how these rich, middle-aged white men’s abuse and neglect of their children is okay. The show didn't have enough abuse apologia in it yet! :D

Like, I expect writers to lie about how great their writing is, they're trying to sell you a product of said writing after all. I just think, if he's gonna claim he’s doing something new and unique, he should actually check the media he claims his show is related to. Every time he makes statements about shows, movies or comics, he makes it obvious that he doesn't actually know anything a person who’d seen them would know about them. Like, yes, Sailor Moon is the core Scout, but any decisions the Sailor Scouts make are made together or Luna gives them orders. Usagi is not the standard type leader Astruc makes it sound like she is when he says his Sailor Moon -like Miraculous AU would have Marinette “lead her own hero team”. Although I’d be interested in an AU where Marinette actually cares about what others think, Astruc has made it clear that's not what he's interested in, so his description of Sailor Moon is already incorrect before he says this version of Miraculous also wouldn't have a love story, because I guess he thinks the “Tuxedo Mask is useless” memes are the actual canon or something, which just proves that he hasn't seen the show, since from the first episode onward, Tuxedo Mask is an important, helpful ally to Sailor Moon. Just because he doesn't have flashy magic attacks in the first anime doesn't mean he doesn't contribute important insight or distractions or isn't actually physically capable.

Basically, Astruc can't say two sentences about a piece of media without all of it being incorrect. He's gotten way too comfortable thinking nobody in this fandom reads or watches anything not Miraculous-related, probably because, in all these years, the fandom at large hasn’t discovered that Marinette is clearly just Nikki Maxwell with superpowers all the way down to her character design. When you get away with plagiarism, it tends to make you cocky.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Are There Evil Animals?

Originally posted on my website at https://rebeccalexa.com/are-there-evil-animals/

There’s a great discussion over on BlueSky about animal species unfairly seen as villains. Folks are posting pictures of species that we feel get a bad rap (I chose to highlight the gray wolf and snakes.) Ironically, I also had a note in my calendar, placed there months ago, to write about whether there are good or bad animals. So–today’s theme is whether there really are “evil animals”, and what makes them separate from “good animals”.

Please keep in mind that I am coming from a western perspective as an American of European heritage, and cultural views of various animals vary from species to species and culture to culture. And, of course, individual people within a community may disagree. But let’s stick with general trends in western viewpoints. Also, I am not going to wade into the issue of invasive species and whether they are “good” or “bad” from a moral sense, though I did get into clarifying what makes a species invasive a while back.)

There are certain animals that seem to draw the ire of people more than others. Spiders and snakes are two groups that are frequently relegated to the undesirable group of “creepy crawlies”, are the subject of many people’s phobias, and are all too often killed simply for existing. I’ve seen people post pictures of their pet snakes and spiders, only to have others reply “If I saw that thing anywhere near me I’d kill it”–something I bet they’d never say about someone’s beloved pet dog or cat. Slugs are seen as gross and slimy, bats will supposedly fly into your hair, and even pet domesticated rats will get looks of revulsion.

While all large predatory animals have seen their numbers plummet in the past couple of centuries due to overhunting, gray wolves and coyotes face extra-venomous persecution. Barry Holstun Lopez’ classic work Of Wolves and Men, and Hope Ryden’s God’s Dog: A Celebration of the North American Coyote, both explore in detail how these canids are not just controlled, but gleefully slaughtered by those who proudly display “smoke a pack [of wolves] a day” on their trucks and hang rotting carcasses of coyotes they’ve shot on fences alongside roads. The reintroduction of wolves in particular has been hindered by the protests of those convinced their livestock will all be killed and their children carried off. And Ryden’s work tried to counter the sentiment of all too many people that “the only good coyote is a dead coyote.”

Lopez in particular tackled the idea that wolves were specifically evil because they had supposedly been sent by Satan himself to plague good God-fearing people. And while many wolf-haters today probably don’t recognize the roots of their hatred, they still pursue the extermination of the species with religious fervor. Snakes, similarly, were maligned not just because a few of them are venomous, but because of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. The bible is full of parables and metaphors involving animals that place them in either the “good animals” category (like sheep) or the “evil animals” category (like goats.) And while western society is becoming increasingly less Christian, the cultural influences of centuries of Christianity can still be felt.

Thankfully, advances in science have offered a much more nuanced view of animals, and nature in general. We know for sure that the Earth is much, much, MUCH older than 6000 years, and that the many species that have come and gone over the eons came to be through natural selection. At their core, every species of animal (and plant, and fungus, etc.) is a living system whose most primitive purpose is to make sure its genetic material is successfully replicated. Far from making life into a strictly mechanistic process, I feel that this just makes the many adaptations species have evolved over time that much more fascinating.

Take the gray wolf, for example. Long legs help them to run swiftly, but they have solid endurance as well and can trail prey for many miles. Broad feet keep them from sinking into snow, like snowshoes, and keen hearing, sight, and smell help them to locate prey. They can dispatch said prey with sharp teeth which also allow them to shear off pieces of meat which is then broken down by an efficient digestive system. Far from being solo predators lurking in the shadows, wolves have complex social lives, and a pack is generally composed of a primary pair with their young from various years. They work together to raise each year’s pups and find food, and they spend quite a bit of time playing with each other or sleeping off a good meal. All of these adaptations work together to make an organism that has successfully passed its DNA down through many generations. It’s pretty impressive, thinking about the complexity of all of the tissues and organs and systems that go into making one single wolf, and how DNA holds the key to its own preservation and replication in increasingly complex packages.

But these genes and adaptations do not make the wolf “evil”, any more than herbivory (other than the occasional nest of baby birds) makes a deer “good”. And that’s the thing: at its heart, nature is amoral. Not IMMORAL, mind you; amorality means being not at all concerned with right or wrong, good or evil. Wolves and deer prey on their respective foods, and deer and plants have defenses they use to try to keep from being eaten. That doesn’t make them inherently bad, and they aren’t rubbing their paws (or hooves) gleefully together like some cartoonish villain as they think about killing their next meal. It’s just the way of things, ever since the first eukaryotes evolved two billion years ago and began eating other living beings.

So why, then, do we persist in seeing wolves as evil animals and deer as good ones? Well, we’re judging them by human standards, and specifically western, Christianity-influenced standards. We’re pretty biased, because we think that any species that does things we want them to is good, but those that inconvenience us are bad. We like hunting deer and we only really get annoyed with them if they eat our crops (which can also be solved by eating them.) But while wolves may eat our livestock (and the deer we want to hunt), we can’t really eat them, and so their value to us isn’t enough to keep them in the “good” category. Although wolves gave us dogs, the wolves that remain will not bow to our demands, so dogs become the only nice and respectable wolves we will accept in our lives because they directly benefit us, whether as working animals, companions, or both.

We can see this pattern among other species, too. Those that we find beautiful or useful, and which do not significantly impact our lives in any negative way, get to be good. Any that cause us problems end up being bad. Sadly, “I saw it and it scared me” is often enough to relegate a species to being a problem. Even though spiders do a great job of keeping our homes and other environments free of flies, ants, and other insects that might, say, spoil our food, we persecute spiders because we see them as scary. In the vast majority of human-spider encounters there is no way the spider could possibly get close enough to bite, and would only do so in self-defense–yet in many of these encounters the spider loses its life just for being there.

We don’t even think twice about squashing a spider or other “bug” that made the mistake of being visible. Demonizing animals as evil means that we don’t have to feel any responsibility toward their preservation. And, in fact, you can extend that whole idea of “evilness” to nature in general. Nature, until recently, was mainly seen in the west as something to be tamed and tied down, turned to agriculture, industry, and other good human-benefiting pursuits. Preserving wild ecosystems is seen as wasteful by the sort of person who only sees dollar signs. Why should we reintroduce wolves if they get in the way of our raising livestock? Why should we protect old growth forests instead of cutting them down for profit? Why should we restrict fishing to help fish populations recover from generations of overfishing, when it might mean a drop in seafood revenue?

In the end, the whole good/evil dichotomy as applied to animals is just a symptom of our selfishness. Those of us who understand the complexity of ecology also grok the concept of existence value, which I just wrote about in my last article. This concept allows us to get out of our self-centered viewpoints, showing how a species (or ecosystem) is important simply for existing, regardless of whether we can use it for something or not. I also think it’s important to drop that idea that a species can be inherently good or evil, and instead take Henry Beston’s view that they are “other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” Like them, we humans are also the product of billions of years of adaptations and evolution, no more or less amazing than any other species. We’ve spent too long trying to make the whole world dance to our tune alone; we need to give the other beings space for their music, too, and appreciate its beauty as much as our own.

Did you enjoy this post? Consider taking one of my online foraging and natural history classes or hiring me for a guided nature tour, checking out my other articles, or picking up a paperback or ebook I’ve written! You can even buy me a coffee here!

[foggyfanfic]

The Wedding Gift

Oneshot Preview: Juan's ears turned red and he frowned again, “I’m not complimenting you, this is just fact. If I measured your facial features the math would back me up.”

“I mean, it’s ok if you are complimenting me,” Mirabel said.

“Well, I’m not. Your face is mathematically sound. That’s all there is to it.”

Summary: As Mirabel gets to know one of the men from the village, she tries to figure out if he likes her for her, or because she's a Madrigal.

Words: 15.7K

“Oh! Mirabel! Perdon señor, uno minuto,” somebody called, Mirabel turned to find the voice and was surprised when the guy manning the bean stall waved her down, “Señorita Mirabel, do you have a bit of time?”

“Sure, yeah, what uh, what’s up?” Mirabel said, hoping to hide the fact that she did not remember this guy’s name at all. He was maybe a year or two older (or younger) than her, she vaguely remembered seeing him on the playground back when they were children. She was pretty sure. They may have even exchanged polite words at a party once. Possibly.

“It’s Juan,” he said, a little dryly. 

“Right. I know. Of course I know. Juan, what can I do for you?” Even as she spoke her eyes ticked over his face for some distinguishing feature she could attach the name to. But there were none, his nose was flat, but not especially so, his hair was black with very normal brown undertones, his skin wasn’t especially light or dark, his head neither very round nor very angular nor very square. Ultimately, his face could best be described as a face. No additional adjectives necessary.

Juan very clearly did not believe she knew his name, but instead of being annoyed he gave her a rueful smile and said, “It’s fine. Pretty sure my parents couldn’t have chosen a more generic name if they’d actually just named me ‘generic’.”

Mirabel chuckled, a little sheepishly, “I probably would remember that better.”

“Maybe I should change my name to that, is that the sort of thing we’ll be able to do at this new-fangled city hall?”

“Yeah, actually, it is,” she said, “although it might be a while before we set up a procedure for that sort of thing.”

In the past nine years since the miracle was reborn, Mirabel had slowly come to the realization that one of Abuela’s problems was the fact she was doing the job of at least three people. Emphasis on the “at least”. Abuela had acted as the de facto mayor of the Encanto since its inception, which probably wasn’t that bad back when Encanto was a handful of refugees. Now though, now their village was edging ever closer to being a small town, and having a one woman town government was not an option. It took a bit of research, and a lot of talking to people, but Encanto’s City Hall was under construction, and Mirabel was currently running around trying to recruit people to run for the city council.

“Well, when you do I may just be the first in line,” he leaned on the little bit of counter that wasn’t covered in baskets of beans, “but believe it or not, I didn’t interrupt your day to talk about how forgettable my name is.”

“Of course, yeah, what do you need?” She stood up a little straighter, she was doing her best to take as much work off Abuela’s plate as possible so Abuela could focus on prepping the newly elected mayor. They wanted the transition to be as smooth as possible.

“I wanted to hire you for a commission.”

Mirabel actually jolted a little out of surprise, “You- what?”

“A commission, an embroidery commission,” he said, clarifying when she just stared at him, “my sister’s getting married soon and she’s really into fashion so I figured for a gift-, well, one of your pieces might be the obvious choice, but they don’t call me generic for nothing.”

“Oh.”

“Do you-? I completely understand if you’re too busy. You can say no.”

“No, no, it’s not that, I’d be happy to uh to make your sister’s gift,” Mirabel said, quickly. She decided not to tell him she was just surprised to have her embroidery acknowledged. It wasn’t like she lived in her familia’s shadow anymore, but people were a lot more impressed by her communication and leadership skills than her skills with a needle and thread.

It felt surprisingly good to have a spot light shined on this particular talent.

“Oh good,” he smiled, “no offense to the town tailors, but everything they make is meant for function, I really want to give her something that’s actual art.”

Mirabel felt her face heat up, and it was all she could do to keep her smile pointed up at him instead of smiling down at her shoes, “I-, that’s-, thank you. That’s very nice of you to say. What uh, what did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know, something in her favorite colors I guess?” he shrugged, “I have no idea how you artist folk come up with ideas, so I kinda have to trust your judgement on this one. What’s a good design that says ‘Yay, you’re in love’?”

Artist. He called Mirabel an artist.

“Um, a heart, maybe? Or I can ask Isabela to lend me her flower dictionary, I could probably embroider a bouquet that means true love and good blessings and stuff. What were you thinking of putting the embroidery on?”

“One of our Má’s old blouses, my sister loves that thing and Má has been planning to fix it up and give it to her for ages. Figure this is as good a chance as any.”

“I’d have to see it to get an idea what designs would look good on it.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. You free for dinner? Around six? She’ll be eating with her in-laws tonight, so we wouldn’t even have to be sneaky.”

Mirabel thought about her schedule a little, slowly starting to nod, “Sí, I can do dinner.”

“Great, let me write down my address for you,” he turned away, quickly scribbling on a piece of paper then handing it to her.

She laughed when she looked at the piece of paper and all it said was, “It’s the house right behind me.”

“Cute,” she told him.

“I can write down directions if you need me to,” he shrugged.

“Hm, gee, I think I might be able to find it myself.”

“You sure.”

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

“Well that’s good, because I can’t think up a good follow up joke,” he grinned a little sheepishly.

“This one is good enough to stand on its own,” she said, neatly folding up the paper and putting it in her pocket.

“Gracias, I’m here all week,” he replied, leaning on the counter again, “except for tonight, when I’m at dinner. See you at six?”

“Yeah, see you then,” she chirped, before practically skipping away.

An artist!

—

A little less than a week later, Mirabel flipped through her sketchbook, lips pursed as she considered the designs she’d come up with for Juan’s sister. She couldn’t decide which ones she liked best. 

Sighing, Mirabel looked up at the clock. If she walked fast she might be able to catch Juan before he went home for the day. The bean stall wasn’t one of the market stalls that rotated vendors. Like a lot of the other staples, it was in the market five days a week, which meant Juan was in the market five days a week.

Dinner with him and his parents had been alright, but Mirabel had been surprised by how quiet Juan had gotten once his parents were at the table. It wasn’t an upset sort of quiet, more like every time she started to talk to him, he would redirect the conversation so his parents could take over. He seemed pretty friendly in the market, but when he was home he suddenly became-, well he was still friendly, he just didn’t talk much. 

With her sketchbook in hand, Mirabel walked through town, being sure to wear her “busy face” to make it less likely somebody would try to stop her for a favor. She reached Juan just as he was carrying the last basket of beans into the storage shed between the stall and his house.

“Juan, hey,” she called out, trotting the last few steps to his side, “you got a second?”

“Technically, I have forty-three thousand seconds, but I have to fit dinner, sleeping, and breakfast in there,” he said, then grunted as he placed the basket of beans on a sturdy looking shelf. Mirabel quickly glanced away from his arms as his biceps flexed.

“Oh,” Mirabel wasn’t sure how to respond to that, “well uh, you mind sharing a few of those forty-three thousand seconds with me?”

“Do you want any specific seconds, or would just any do?”

“I was hoping for the next few uh hundred? Thousand?”

He cocked his head, eyes narrowed but unfocused, “That would be about sixteen minutes.”

“That should be enough, I think? I just want you to look at my ideas for your sister’s blouse.”

“That I can do.”

“Right, great,” Mirabel got her head back in the game, “here, I know you said you were going to trust my judgement, but I want your input on the design. I just can’t pick my favorite.”

Juan quietly took the proffered sketch book and flipped through her ideas. He carefully considered each one of them. When he was done, he went back to the first one and started again.

“Something wrong?” Mirabel asked.

“No,” Juan said, not looking up.

She waited for him to finish looking, then when he seemed ready to take a third pass, prompted, “What do you think?”

“I think I see why you can’t pick your favorite,” he said, continuing to stare at option one, “these all look really good.”

Mirabel blushed, even as she rolled her eyes, “Thank you, but that doesn’t help me make a decision.”

“No. I suppose it doesn’t.”

He idly turned the page and stared at option two for as long as he’d stared at option one. Mirabel waited for him to say something else, something helpful. He turned to option three and stared at it as well.

Mirabel cleared her throat, he looked up at her, still silent.

It took her a second to figure out how to politely rephrase the question in her head, “Which would you choose?”

“All of them,” he said, then turned back to her sketchbook.

“Putting all of them would make the shirt look gaudy.”

“Oh. Would it?”

“Sí.”

“Only some of them, then.”

“You are zero help.”

He snorted, then nodded, “You are correct.”

Mirabel shook her head as a chuckle bubbled past her lips, “How about I go calculate how much each one would cost to make, then come back and we try this again?”

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” he perked up, and finally handed her the sketchbook back, “I’ll come with you. Where do you get your thread?”

“Uh, Lucia’s,” she said, jabbing her thumb in the direction of her preferred fabric store, “but you don’t have to do that, I’ll honestly probably be there for hours. We’ll blow right past the thousand second mark.”

“Does it take that long to find the right thread?” He looked simultaneously startled and impressed.

“Meh, it’s more that I’m friends with Lucia. And her back room is where the sewing club meets.”

“Ah, so you’ll be chatting,” he nodded, “will I also be required to chat?”

“A tiny bit, I mean, when I drag my Tío Bruno along everybody is fine with him just standing sorta awkwardly next to me. Unless Jo brought Adelaide, then they talk about something called NASA.”

“That’s what I’ll do then.” He started walking in the direction she’d pointed, and Mirabel trotted after him so she could take the lead.

“Stand awkwardly next to me? Or talk about NASA?”

“The first one.”

Mirabel huffed out a surprised laugh, “Do you hate talking that much?”

“No, I just do it all day,” he shrugged, “I handle numbers quick, so it just makes sense to have me run the stall, but I’m not-. I would prefer if it was just me and the numbers, and maybe a few people like you.”

“Like me?”

“Yeah, you know, people who are-,” he cut off and made a vague hand gesture, he actually reminded her a little of her Tío Bruno when he did that, “people who aren’t draining to talk to. People that make you feel more energetic, not less.”

“Oh,” Mirabel glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, “uh, thank you?”

A frown flittered across his face, then he said, “I didn’t mean that as-. You're welcome, but I’m not trying to be nice. It’s just the way it is.”

“Uh, pretty sure it’s pretty subjective actually,” Mirabel said, “in my experience feelings always are.”

“It’s not a feeling, it’s probably science.”

“Science?”

“Sí, I bet all your smiling does something to people’s brains. Like caffeine,” he nodded along with himself, “Or maybe your voice is just the right frequency to help people wake up, like sunlight.”

“You think… my voice sounds like sunlight?” she asked slowly, trying not to laugh.

“Well, obviously not literally, but I think your voice makes people feel more awake, like sunlight does.”

“Right, and uh, do I smell like laughter?”

“Now you’re just being preposterous.”

Mirabel couldn’t help but giggle, “I don’t think it’s science, I think you just enjoy my company.”

He huffed, “Everybody enjoys your company, and there’s probably a scientific reason for that too.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, really,” he stopped walking so he could narrow his eyes at her, “maybe you give off pheromones.”

Mirabel couldn’t help but laugh outright at that, “I do not!”

“You might,” he insisted, then pursed his lips, “or it could be psychology. People like things that are pleasant to look at. You are pleasant to look at and covered in art. Ergo, people like being around you.”

“Pleasant to-. Are you saying I’m pretty?” She didn’t know whether to be flattered or laugh some more.

“If that’s what you want to call it, but it’s hardly scientific, now is it? You are well proportioned and symmetrical,” he sniffed, continuing on his way. Mirabel followed him, trying not to be too amused at his expense. 

“Well, thank you,” she eventually said.

His ears turned red and he frowned again, “I’m not complimenting you, this is just fact. If I measured your facial features the math would back me up.”

“I mean, it’s ok if you are complimenting me,” she said.

“Well, I’m not. Your face is mathematically sound. That’s all there is to it.”

Mirabel blushed, despite how much she still wanted to laugh. Who talked like this?! It seemed Juan genuinely believed what he was saying, but it was also possible he was choosing to put the moves on her in the weirdest way possible. He wouldn’t be the first guy to make a pass at her. Hell, she’d even gone on a few first dates that went nowhere.

If this was his way of making a move, he got points for originality.

“Well, I’m going to choose to be flattered and say thank you,” she declared.

“I’m just being logical,” he grumbled, and she swallowed another laugh.

By the time they got to the fabric store he was done pouting, and instead seemed prepared to stop and read every price displayed in the shop, whether it was connected to their project or not. Mirabel left him to it, she wanted to ask Lucia about how her recent trip to the city went, anyway.

The conversation took at least half an hour, and when she turned to look for Juan, he was standing in the corner, examining the thimbles.

“Are you bored?” she checked with him.

“Not at all,” he said, “take your time.”

“Are you sure, I don’t have to chat with-.”

“No, Mirabel, please, I mean it. Take your time, have fun, don’t ignore your friends on my account,” he said, putting the thimble down and giving her an earnest look.

“Ok, then I’m going to slip into that back room there and see if anyone from my sewing club is in today,” she pointed the door out to him, “come find me if you need me.”

Mirabel peaked her head in through the door and was pleased to find three of her friends in the room. Katrina, or Kat, sat at the table, cutting out a pattern for a new dress. Meanwhile, Josephine, or Jo, and Jo’s best friend Adelaide sat on the couch, Adelaide holding half of Jo’s latest project in her lap so it wouldn’t drape on the ground. Mirabel greeted them all enthusiastically and asked how they were doing. After twenty minutes, Juan slipped up next to her and quietly took the sketch book.

“Hey Adelaide,” he said.

“Hey,” she said back, voice quiet enough to be a whisper.

“Hola Señoritas Josephine and Katrina,” Juan nodded at each of them in turn.

“What? I don’t get a casual ‘hello’?” Jo asked, with a friendly grin, “Is this because I ditched astronomy club?”

“Sí,” Juan said, while Adelaide nodded.

“Astronomy club?” Mirabel asked.

“Not a real club,” Jo explained, “but Adelaide loves astronomy, and Juan loves math, so they-. What’d you guys do again?”

“Adelaide takes measurements of the bodies in the night sky, and I use those measurements to calculate the answers to questions she had about them,” Juan said.

“Yeah, the only part I have in it was making Addy a quilt based off some of their science stuff that one time,” Jo shrugged, “actually, you guys helped with that, remember?”

A quilt based off “science stuff”. As far as descriptions went, it was severely lacking. Josephine came up with brilliant projects for their club to do together, but there was a reason she always drew them out on a sheet of paper.

Before Mirabel could ask for more information, Juan told her, “You embroidered pictures of all the constellations. With gold and silver thread.”

Adelaide snorted, just a quiet huff of air through her nose, for some reason she was giving Juan a look that was almost, almost, hinting at being amused.

“Oh! That quilt! Sí, I remember,” Mirabel nodded happily, “that one was really fun. I didn’t realize you were involved.”

It had been fun, Jo had brought the idea to their sewing/fiber arts club, a quilt that was an accurate depiction of the night sky on Adelaide’s birthday. While Jo did most of the work, she had gotten Mirabel to help with the embroidery, Kat and Suzane had helped with some of the more tedious stitching, and Lucia had made some beautiful button stars. They had spent three months working on it together then invited Adelaide to a meeting so they could present it to her over cake. Adelaide was the quiet sort, never one for big expressions, but she had cried and even hugged each of them. The whole thing was a very fond memory for Mirabel.

“He did all the calculations by hand,” Adelaide said, “isn’t that impressive Mirabel?”

Juan gave Adelaide a look, his ears bright red, while Adelaide focused on Mirabel, making very steady eye contact for a woman that... well. Let’s just say Adelaide got along really well with Tío Bruno.

Mirabel watched Juan very closely while she said, “Yeah, that actually is pretty impressive. I can’t even imagine how complicated that math would be.”

Juan tensed up, looking anywhere but at Mirabel, “It’s not-. Numbers aren’t that complicated, it’s just most people have better things to do than sit around and play with them.”

“Mirabel complimented you Juan,” Adelaide said, and she was definitely smirking just a little.

Juan shot her a glare, then said in an almost normal voice, “Thank you Mirabel. You are too kind.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’d call it a compliment,” Mirabel said slowly, “you’re smart. It’s just the way it is. In fact, it’s probably science.”

Juan looked at her, a little startled, “It’s-. That’s not how science works.”

“No, no, I think it is,” she pretended to think for a moment, “maybe it’s pheromones.”

Adelaide actually giggled, Juan shot her another glare.

“I see how it is, well fine, if the two of you are just going to gang up on me, I’m going go play with my true friends,” he began walking away, the sketchbook hugged to his chest, “numbers.”

Mirabel watched him go, then as soon as he was out the door, turned back to Adelaide, “So am I reading this right?”

“How long has Juan had a crush on Mirabel?” Jo asked at the same time, grinning from ear to ear.

“Are you going to go for it?” Kat asked Mirabel, then shrugged, “He’s kinda cute, in a plain way.”

“I don’t know,” Adelaide said, seemingly answering Josephine’s question, “his sister told me about it a few days ago.”

“I-,” Mirabel hesitated to tell Kat she wasn’t sure in front of Adelaide, it seemed like Adelaide and Juan were close, “I want to get to know him better. And, you know, actually hear from his own lips that he’s interested in me.”

Mirabel had discovered the hard way that her life did not have room for any games. She needed somebody blunt, who could tell her what they wanted without making her guess. The closest thing she’d had to a relationship had fizzled out because the guy kept trying to play it cool while Mirabel was just trying to juggle her many interests and commitments.

“That’s smart,” Adelaide said, back to her usual almost whisper.

“You think so?” Mirabel asked, she’d sort of expected Adelaide to press the issue on her friend’s behalf.

Adelaide nodded, face giving away nothing.

“If you don’t go for it, I might,” Kat said with a shrug, “he seems stable.”

“Does he, though?” Josephine asked, “He gets flustered easily.”

“Flustered easily is way better than angered easily,” Kat shrugged again, “trust me.”

Mirabel placed a quiet hand on Kat’s shoulder. She had recently broken off her engagement to her school yard sweetheart, who had quit being so sweet once he discovered a love of tequila.

The conversation moved on to other things, eventually Mirabel separated herself to see if she could find her sketchbook and the man who took it. When she did, she waited a while to announce her presence, instead she watched him scowl at two nearly identical colors of thread for a few seconds. He did seem stable, safe.

Mirabel hadn’t spent much time thinking about romance, not until she reached her twentieth birthday and suddenly every Má, Tía, and Abuela in town were throwing their single sons, nephews, and grandsons at her. Even now, she wasn’t sure if it was romance she was thinking of, or just marriage. Romance was what Dolores and Mariano had, marriage was what Isabela and Mariano almost had. It was an important distinction.

She wanted both, well, technically she wanted kids and she wanted romance, so marriage seemed like the right way to go.

The problem was, Mirabel wanted somebody that let her be herself. That didn’t seem like it’d be hard to find, Juan was half right, everybody loved being around Mirabel. But that was because Mirabel was a leader in the community these days. All those first dates that went nowhere, went nowhere because it was clear that the guy was on a date with Señorita Madrigal, not Mirabel. She was proud of what she had done for their town, proud of the ways she’d stepped up and grown in the past nine years, but she still wanted space to be imperfect.

Would Juan get that? Did he understand Mirabel was human, not just a Madrigal?

Only one way to find out, she decided, clearing her throat as she approached him.

“First you and Adelaide ganged up on me, now I’m being defeated by the color red,” he said in greeting, “it would seem I am very bad at going to craft stores.”

Mirabel laughed a little, “Why is the red defeating you?”

“Which one of these goes better with the little blue flowers you’ve drawn here,” he held the two spools of thread up to her sketchbook so she could compare.

“Uh, well,” she tried to say it as gently as possible, “neither of them. That’s not embroidery floss.”

“Embroidery-? Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Mirabel. I am absolutely abysmal at going to craft stores.”

“Ah, you’re not that bad,” she took the chance to awkwardly pat him on the shoulder, “I don’t think it’s something a person can be good or bad at, really.”

”And yet, here I am.”

Mirabel looked down at the two threads, “Here, put these down, and I’ll show you where the embroidery section is.”

“This is why I’m trusting your expertise,” Juan sighed, following her.

“Did you look at the other supplies? Pretty sure I have everything but the right sized hoop.” 

“Well, thread was supposed to be the last thing, but clearly I can not be trusted,” he shook his head, “my numbers are probably all wrong.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did fine,” she said. But she was wrong, Juan did not do fine, she couldn't fathom why he thought she would need so many needles, even after he repeatedly insisted it was better safe than sorry. Furthermore, he could not be trusted to color coordinate his socks with his shoelaces, much less an entire embroidery project. By the time she’d collected all the thread she would need, she had a pretty good idea why he always wore beige.

He had enough money to buy the thread and hoop right then and there, so he did, plus a couple of embroidery needles.

“In case yours break or get dull,” he’d said, when she once again tried to talk him out of buying her more needles.

“I mean, I have a lot of extras,” Mirabel had argued, feeling a bit bad that he was paying for everything. Even if this was, technically, a commission.

“Well, now you’ll have two more.”

He walked her back to Casita, and she tried to pull more information about himself out of him, but he only seemed interested in talking about her.

When she asked about his day, he deflected. “Oh, I just sold beans all day, nothing interesting. What’d you do today?”

When she tried to connect with him by letting him vent, he downplayed. “Bah, sure, sometimes customers can be a bit testy, but I’m sure I’ve never dealt with any problems like building a town government from scratch. How’s that going?”

And when she desperately tried to learn more about his interests, he dodged. “Meh, I don’t really have any hobbies, what about you? I know you also make the occasional stuffed animal, and play the accordion. Anything else?”

When they parted ways at the front door Mirabel once again found herself watching him go, thinking about the differences between romance and marriage. She was moderately sure they both required knowing a bit about your significant other.

Shaking her head, she decided it might not be meant to be. Juan was handsome and nice, but if he wouldn't let her get to know him, they could never have a real relationship.

Pity. He had some nice arms.

—

“Hey Mirabel, the bean guy’s here to see you,” Antonio called, poking his head through her door.

“Oh, Juan? Uh, send him up,” Mirabel said, over her shoulder. She was sitting on her floor, trying to come up with a rough budget to get the town’s new government started. Spread out around her was every bit of information she could find on Encanto’s financials. It was, to put it mildly, a lot.

“You sent for me?” Juan said, knocking politely on her door while he walked through it.

“Yeah, uh, you’re good at math, right?”

“Sí?”

“Great, I need a budget,” she held up a list of all the infrastructure repairs planned for the next year with one hand, and the estimated tax revenue with the other, “I’d ask my Pá but he’s busy helping the merchants work out a-. I guess that doesn’t really matter. He’s busy, and I can’t figure this stuff out.”

Juan joined her on the floor without a word and began looking over the various paperwork. After he had been reading for a while, it became obvious that whenever he finished reading something, he sorted it into one of two piles. She sat patiently, a part of her worried that if she spoke or moved, she’d scare away her numbers guy and be stuck with the evil budget. Instead of moving, she just watched him.

Eventually, she started to notice little details that escaped her the last few times they'd spoken, like the mole on the shell of his right ear that almost made the ear look pointed. His eyelids were naturally very hooded. He had very little stubble on his jaw line, but a fair amount on his chin and extending down from his sideburns, which were currently trimmed to a perfectly average length.

“Have you ever thought about growing your sideburns out?” Mirabel suddenly asked, surprising herself.

He paused, a list of improvements the village wanted to make to the church hovering over the farther pile, “My side burns?”

“Sí,” she plowed on, ignoring the burning in her cheeks, “it looks like you could.”

She reached out and traced her fingers down the stubble to indicate what she meant. He turned to look at her and Mirabel slowly drew her hand back. For a few seconds neither of them said anything, then he chuckled.

“Uh no, I’ve never thought about it, I’ve always trimmed them,” he shrugged, “I’d probably look real goofy with giant sideburns and no beard.”

“Well-. Ok, you would,” Mirabel leaned back on her hands, “but I always thought if I could grow facial hair I’d have fun with it. Like Camilo can’t grow a full goatee, but he could technically grow a goatee in the shape of a question mark, but he refuses cause he thinks it’ll look weird.”

“Hm, tell you what, you spend a day with clown makeup on, and I’ll grow out my sideburns,” he said.

“I’ve already done that,” Mirabel pointed out with a grin, “my Pá and I pretended to be clowns for my nephew’s birthday last year.”

“Oh. Well. Guess I’ll have to grow out my sideburns then.”

“Really?”

“I said that I would.”

“Even though you’ll look goofy?”

“Meh, what’s my pride worth,” he shrugged, “hopefully not as much as my word.”

“Oh, very profound,” Mirabel chuckled, “I might embroider that on a pillow.”

“If you do I demand you give me the pillow, that is probably the wisest sounding thing I’ll ever say,” he said, “I need to remember it and share it with my grandchildren.”

Mirabel nudged his shoulder with hers, “I’ll put it on a handkerchief for you. That way you can have it in your pocket wherever you go.”

“Genius,” he breathed, “absolutely genius.”

He turned back to sorting the paperwork, after a moment more of watching him, Mirabel stood and walked over to her sewing desk. She got out a leftover scrap of soft, blue fabric, scissors, some needle and thread, an embroidery hoop, and an embroidery needle. She opened her drawer of embroidery floss and debated the colors she had to spare, after a moment, she grabbed a deep teal that she’d used to shade the water on a beach themed project a while back. Mirabel sat back down next to him, and got to work making a handkerchief.

They sat on the floor, working in silence, for what must have been an hour before he requested some paper and a pencil.

“Do you want an abacus?” she asked, rummaging through her desk for a good pencil that still had an eraser.

“Don’t need one,” he said, carrying not just his sorted piles, but her crafting supplies over to one of her sewing tables, “although I do enjoy playing with the little beads.”

Mirabel chuckled, but admitted, “Yeah, me too.”

She placed the paper and two pencils down in front of him as he set up the piles of paperwork how he apparently wanted. Mirabel picked up her hoop and the newly hemmed handkerchief. They went back to working in silence for a little.

“So, you like math?” Mirabel eventually asked, rolling her head around to ease the growing stiffness in her neck.

“I know, not very exciting,” he chuckled sheepishly, “and not always as useful as being able to sew.”

She had to smother an eye roll at the way he insulted his own interests. It reminded her of some of her more frustrating conversations with Isabela, who occasionally relapsed into trying to be perfect, or Bruno, who was just generally pretty down on himself.

“Most hobbies aren’t exciting to the people who aren’t into them,” Mirabel pointed out, “and it’s clearly very useful, because you’re here helping me.”

“Sí, but I don’t use anything other than basic arithmetic for actual practical stuff,” Juan pointed out, “most of the fun math is for sailors and scientists.”

“So why not be one of those?” She let humor color her voice, she knew as well as he did that he didn’t want to live anywhere other than Encanto. Their town may have had some problems, but not nearly as many as the rest of the world. Better the bean guy, or gift-less Madrigal, in a loving paradise than a captain on cold, apathetic seas.

“Oh please, could you imagine me sailing a ship,” he rolled his eyes, even as he humored her.

“Hm, not right now, but maybe once you grow out your sideburns.”

He laughed, the sound seeming to take him by surprise. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, then apparently gave up and just shook his head, chuckling.

Mirabel considered her handkerchief, she was halfway done with the phrase, and she could already tell it was going to be pretty bland. The other end of the handkerchief needed something to balance it out. She took some of his unused paper, tore off a shred, and slid it in front of him.

“Write down your favorite equation,” she said.

“Um, ok?”

“Trust me.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, writing a collection of Latin symbols and parenthesis on the scrap paper.

“What is it?”

“It’s a quantum physics equation,” he said, “uh, speaking of things that are not useful, it’s a new realm of study. Relatively new, I mean. It’s only about as old as our parents. This one has to do with uh Einstein’s thoughts on quantum entanglement.”

Mirabel cocked her head, plumbing the depths of her memory for when she helped purchase new books for the library, “That’s something to do with atoms being connected, no?”

“You-?! Sí! Well, close, particles being connected. Not necessarily atoms,” he said, “I’m surprised you’ve heard of it.”

She shrugged, and in a blithe voice said, “You’re not the only genius in the room.”

“No, because that would be you.”

“Oh come on,” she groused, she was getting kind of sick of him putting himself down.

“I’m serious,” he said, “look at that. You just made that, out of nowhere, in the time it’s taken me to read a few lists and stuff.”

“That’s not what I-,” Mirabel hesitated, she had only hung out with Juan two times before this, she didn’t want to get too personal.

“What? Not what you what?”

Then again. Maybe if this were nine years ago, Mirabel would have been more patient about this sort of thing, but it wasn’t nine years ago. Mirabel had spent the past almost decade dealing with her Tío Bruno’s self loathing, and she’d found that “being patient” with things like this didn’t do much to solve them.

“Why do you keep putting yourself down like that? You’re not going to burst into flames if you admit you’re impressively smart,” Mirabel said.

“Oh,” Juan looked down at the paperwork, eyes clearly staring right through it, then he shrugged sullenly, “I uh I just don’t want to give off the impression I think I’m better than anyone.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” Juan grimaced sheepishly, “I used to try to impress people, y’know, with how smart I am, but uh it just kinda made folks think I’m an arrogant asshole. So now, I don’t do that. I do the opposite actually, it seems to work better.”

“So you don’t actually think you’re an idiot.”

“No, not really, but bragging about how I can calculate the Earth’s distance from the sun based off some shadows doesn’t make people like me.”

Mirabel examined him for a minute, turning what he’d said over in her head, “So do you mean it, you know, when you compliment me? Or is that just to get me to like you?”

“It’s- both? Or, ugh, ok so this isn’t me putting myself down, but I am so much better with numbers than words.”

“I mean, you’re putting yourself down a little.”

“I know, but it’s also me complaining, so it doesn’t count,” he said. She did roll her eyes this time, but let him have this one.

“Well you don’t have to answer right away, you can think about it for a minute,” she offered, putting a hand on his arm.

He smiled at her, and seemingly accepted her offer, eyes going unfocused for a few minutes. She waited patiently, hand still on his arm.

“I know that a lot of people know how to sew, I know that not a lot of people know how to do math like I can,” he said slowly, “but uh, I had a lot of time to think y’know back when I was driving people away by trying to impress them. Common skills are common because people need them, because they’re genuinely useful. There might be a whole club dedicated to your art, but that’s because your art creates something people can use everyday. It’s not just that I don’t want to seem arrogant, I also don’t want to seem like I don’t appreciate what you can do. Like I take your skill set for granted.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that you can compliment me without insulting yourself?”

Juan started to say something, but froze halfway through the first letter of whatever word he was planning to start his sentence with. He pressed his lips together.

“Has it ever occurred to you that you could compliment me without insulting yourself?!”

“It is entirely possible I am only this good with numbers because my brain isn’t storing any other information,” he said, quietly.

Mirabel snorted, gently swatting his arm before taking her hand back, “I wouldn’t say it isn’t storing any other information, you seem to have a good memory.”

He nodded slowly, “Sí, all the better to remember every time I’ve embarrassed myself.”

“Everybody embarrasses themselves,” she said.

“Name one time you’ve embarrassed yourself.”

“Only Madrigal grandkid without a gift.”

“That doesn’t count, at worst it’s because that candle was a moron,” he waved her statement off. She giggled at the idea that a candle could be stupid, but decided she didn’t want to get into the whole miracle thing at that moment.

“I fall off of things a lot,” she said.

“Oh please, you-. Huh. You do, don’t you?”

“I really do.”

“That does make me feel a little better,” he gently nudged his shoulder against hers, “I mean, if even the great Mirabel Madrigal could fall every once in a while.”

“The great Mirabel Madrigal,” she scoffed.

He shrugged, “You have accomplished 30% more in your time on this earth than everybody else in the village. Except your Má and Abuela, of course.”

She felt her cheeks burn, “What? I have not. How would you even-?”

“Calculate it? Simple, an accomplishment is anything that takes work, and one is proud of when they’ve achieved it,” he said, “so a lot of your embroidery projects count as accomplishments. I am also counting giving birth and raising the child to adulthood as accomplishments (which is why your Má and Abuela are beating you). And that’s the sort of accomplishments that most people in the village have. But you’ve also modernized Encanto’s school curriculum, gotten new books for the library for the first time in decades, created a system where people can privately ask for help when they’re struggling to make ends meet, and now are setting up a new town government. Keep in mind, of course, that each of these accomplishments come with additional sub-accomplishments that must be accounted for-. What? Why are you smirking at me like that?”

“Nothing, I just had no idea you were paying so much attention to me,” she said.

“I’m not,” he argued, blushing, “not anymore than anyone else is.”

“Oh please, my own sister doesn’t keep track of all my projects like you apparently have,” granted, that was mostly because Isabela had gone from planning her wedding, to being pregnant, to being a new mother in very quick succession. All things that tended to monopolize a person’s attention. But still.

“That’s-. Adelaide talks about you a lot.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. Really. Of course she does, you’re one of her favorite people.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Oh. Yes, really, she thinks you’re pretty great,” Juan said, “I know she can be really quiet but uh, if you get her one on one she tends to open up a bit more. Whenever we’re working on some astronomy project she talks about you, Josephine, Suzane, and Katrina a lot.”

“Huh, I had no idea,” Mirabel idly picked up the handkerchief and continued working on it, “I actually have been meaning to spend more time with her, anyone that gets along with my Tío Bruno has to be interesting.”

“Ay, she never shuts up about him,” Juan chuckled, “to hear her tell it, he’s the second funniest person in the village.”

“Whose the first?”

“I’d like to say me, but honestly, I think it’s whoever she has a crush on,” he shrugged, “but neither she nor Josephine will tell me who that is.”

“Ah,” Mirabel nodded. She didn’t have anything else to say, so she just kept sewing. After a few seconds, Juan picked his pencil back up and kept calculating.

He ended up staying for dinner, where he barely said a word. He seemed perfectly content to sit next to her in silence, listening to the conversation around him, but not adding anything. Considering that Tío Bruno was sitting on her other side, doing the same thing, it made it easy for Mirabel to dip in and out of the conversation without seeming rude.

When he left, Mirabel handed him the handkerchief. He stared at it with something bordering on awe.

“It’s just a handkerchief,” she said.

“It’s a Mirabel original,” he argued.

“You came up with the words.”

“You made them better, smoother,” he read it out to her, “May my pride never be worth more to me than my word.”

“That’s basically what you said.”

“I’ll keep it on me at all times,” he said, “can’t promise I’ll use it, but I’ll probably look at it twenty times a day for at least the next year.”

“I didn’t make it so you’d look at it,” she shook her head.

“Maybe not, but one does not wipe their brow with the Mona Lisa.”

That had been too much praise for Mirabel, face burning she had wished him a good night and fled back into the safety of Casita.

—

“You are never allowed to make fun of me for Bubo again,” Isabela said in way of greeting, pushing Mirabel’s door open without so much as the notion of knocking.

“Oh, hello Isabela! Please, come on in. No, no, no, don’t worry about knocking,” Mirabel said sarcastically, not looking up from the flowers she was embroidering, “I don’t ever want privacy or anything.”

“Seriously, the bean guy? You’re dating the bean guy?” Isabela asked.

“Still better than marrying Bubo,” Mirabel grumbled, “and I don’t know yet. He’s nice, but I’m not sure if, y’know, he likes me because I’m me, or because I’m a Madrigal.”

Isabela paused, then sighed, chuckling ruefully, “That right there is exactly why you���re not allowed to judge me for being with Bubo. She- He loves me for me. For the parts of me I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to share with the village.”

Mirabel’s hand froze, reluctantly she admitted, “As annoying as his machismo is, I do like how happy he’s made you.”

Isabela glanced at the open door, then closed it, “The machismo isn’t real. I- he’s not like that when he feels like he doesn’t have to be. It’s like how I used to try to be perfect, y’know; there’s more to him than he pretends there is.”

“In that case, can you tell him to knock it off? Or at least pick a different facade?” Mirabel huffed. Bubo had been getting better, calming down, acting more genuine. Mirabel had actually started to like her brother in law. Then his son was born and suddenly it was like somebody cranked the machismo up to eleven.

“I can try, but… let’s just say there’s a very specific reason he’s chosen this one.”

Mirabel made an unimpressed sound and continued sewing. She had figured something was going on, the way Bubo almost seemed to panic that one time Mirabel and Luisa had caught him with some of Isabela’s lipstick on his lips screamed Issues. But this family had gotten a literal crash course about why you needed to work through your issues rather than bury them, so Mirabel had a lot more patience for his pain than his pretenses.

“But seriously, the bean guy?”

“Maybe. I haven’t decided yet,” Mirabel repeated, “why?”

“Oh, because he’s downstairs with a gift for you.”

“What? Isa,” Mirabel hissed, hurriedly standing, “and you just left him waiting down there?”

“Oh he’s fine, I left him with Tío Bruno. They’re both kinda weird, I figured they’d have a lot to talk about.”

Mirabel rolled her eyes and rushed out her door.

In the courtyard below, Tío Bruno was struggling his way through a polite conversation with Juan, “What about plays? Do you uh, do you enjoy the theatre?”

“Um, one time I took a trip into the city to watch my favorite physicist give a lecture on his latest theorem,” Juan replied, “that’s sort of like a play, no?”

“No. B-but I mean! Uh. It um it sounds interesting?”

“Oh it was! How much do you know about light physics?”

“Um. Oh! Mirabel! Hola, you have a guest,” Tío Bruno stood abruptly, ignoring the loud crack of his bad knee, “he uh, he brought you math.”

“Math?” 

“Adelaide said you might wish to see it,” Juan also stood, shrugging a little sheepishly.

“You’re friends with Adelaide?” Bruno asked, more like gasped. As if Juan had just revealed he had a third arm under his shirt.

“Sí, she has me do all her astronomy calculations for her.”

“Oh, ok. So that makes sense,” Tío Bruno said, putting a lot more emphasis on the word “that” than he probably realized. He looked between Mirabel and Juan a few times, then asked Juan, “What about fiction? Do you like fiction?”

“Not really.”

“And you don’t sew? Paint? Origami?”

“No, no, and no.”

“Hm, alright?” Tío Bruno glanced between them a few more times before abruptly walking away, “Bye.”

They watched him go.

“Adelaide said he wasn’t scary,” Juan huffed, “the liar.”

“He’s not scary,” Mirabel immediately jumped to defend her uncle.

“Oh sure, maybe not in the way everybody says he is, but I don’t think he likes me,” Juan shook his head, pouting just a little bit.

“Oh! No, that uh, that’s not what dislike looks like on him,” Mirabel shook her head, chuckling a little, “if he disliked you, he would have sat in the corner over there and stared at you, silently, until you got uncomfortable and left.”

“Like a grumpy cat?”

“Sí, but don’t tell him that, he prefers rats.”

“Wait, the rat thing is true?”

“Yeah, the rat thing is true.”

“I can see why Adelaide looks up to him.”

“Does she like rats?”

“No, she likes people who are nice to rats though,” he shrugged, “and spiders. And anything else people usually call vermin.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s Tío Bruno,” Mirabel chuckled, “anyway, you uh, you brought me math?”

“Oh, uh, sí,” he twisted and picked up a notebook he’d left behind on the couch, “it’s-, I uh, I calculated how much thread you’ve likely used in the past year.”

“What?” Mirabel gasped, surprised to find herself genuinely excited by that, “No way. How?”

“So you uh, told Adelaide how many spools of thread you used on her quilt, right? And she told me, and I wrote it down, and recently I measured the length of each stitch-.”

“Why?”

“Adelaide wasn’t giving me any numbers to play with,” he shrugged.

Mirabel giggled, “What?”

“She brings the quilt with her whenever we do astronomy club, right? Well, the other day we went out and she got really fixated on Saturn for some reason, but wasn’t giving me any data, so I got bored and started measuring your stitches.”

“Alright?”

“So, each of your stitches is about a fifth of an inch, and they max out at 2,000 stitches per square inch when you’re doing a full picture with shading,” Juan said, handing her the little notebook, “assuming you do the same amount of embroidery on each quilt, mind you, these are only preliminary calculations, for accurate numbers I would need to look at all of your projects in the last year, but! Using Adelaide’s quilt to calculate the amount of thread you use per square foot of cloth, factoring in that most of your embroidery is done on your own shirts and skirts, and keeping in mind that you sometimes do line art, or three dimensional things like your butterflies… about 1.5 thousand yards of thread.”

Mirabel gaped down at the notebook, slowly looking over the numbers, “I had no idea it was that much.”

“That’s honestly a very modest estimate,” he said, “I would need to go digging through your closet to get you a better number. Which would be a weird thing for me to do.”

She chuckled and nodded, but didn’t take her eyes off the little booklet of numbers, “Wow.”

“Yeah, so uh, that’s what I got,” Juan said, and when she looked up at him he was rubbing at the mole on his ear, “sorry to uh interrupt your Saturday afternoon with this, but Adelaide thought you might find it interesting.”

“I do! I absolutely do,” Mirabel answered, putting a hand on his bicep to reassure him, “thank you for this.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

She watched, almost contemplatively, as the color rose in his cheeks the longer her hand was on his arm. Lately, Mirabel found herself growing fond of his face, even if it was a bit nondescript. She enjoyed talking to him, and made time to stop and chat with him whenever she was in town. Mirabel had gotten in the habit of checking in with her feelings since Casita fell, and lately whenever she checked her feelings, there was a new affection for “the bean guy”.

“I’m working on your sister’s shirt,” she said, slowly pulling her arm back, “would you uh like to come up and sit with me?”

“I would,” he nodded, “if you don’t mind?”

“I wouldn’t ask you if I did.”

“Sí. Right. That makes sense,” he chuckled following her as she led the way to her room. When they got there he stared at the shirt and new embroidery, eyes practically glowing with admiration, then he nibbled on his lip and slowly reached for her measuring tape. After checking her face for permission, he measured a few of her stitches.

Mirabel withheld a laugh, and waited until he was done, then sat on her couch and continued to sew. He sat a respectful distance away from her, scribbling in his notebook.

She liked this. She liked the quiet companionship of working on their hobbies next to each other. She liked that she felt relaxed with him, calm, at ease, like she didn’t have to be Señorita Madrigal.

Mirabel’s parents had told her their love story a few times, as parents tended to do. When she was a little girl, she’d thought it was the most romantic thing ever. Her father had fallen for her Má first, his constant need of her arepas giving him plenty of reason to think about her. Her mother had fallen for her Pá slowly, starting when her Pá commented on a new recipe her Má was trying. It wasn’t even that he’d complimented it, it was just that he had noticed when nobody else did, that he had paid attention to the work she put in, not just the magic he got out of it. Eventually, they started dating. Then they decided to get married, only for Abuela to initially disapprove of the match. Abuela had since said it was the grace and maturity with which Pá handled the rejection that changed her mind. Abuela’s approval earned, they got married, and the rest was history.

As a child, on the very rare occasions that Mirabel had contemplated falling in love, she’d of course hoped to follow the template of her parent’s story. However, now that she was an adult, she knew that any man her mother disapproved of likely wasn’t a good man.

Now that she was an adult, she had very different thoughts about what she wanted. Not just out of love, but life in general.

Mirabel wanted kids, she wanted free time for her hobbies, she wanted a busy schedule, she wanted noisy family dinners, she wanted quiet Saturday afternoons. Mirabel wanted to help her community like her Má and Abuela, but she had long since discovered she didn’t actually enjoy being treated as a Sainted Madrigal. 

Whereas Mirabel had once wanted somebody to see the parts of her that were special, now she found herself hoping for somebody that saw the parts of her that weren’t.

Was she being realistic? Ungrateful? When she was younger, she had done everything she could to feel like A True Madrigal. Now she was considered the quintessential Madrigal and she wanted to feel like Just Mirabel. Was it possible to achieve a balance of the two?

“You’ve sighed twenty-one times in two minutes,” Juan suddenly said.

“Oh, sorry,” she felt her cheeks warm up, “just thinking.”

“Anything that you wouldn’t mind sharing?”

“Um, I don’t know if-,” she cut herself off, she wasn’t sure that he would understand, but she knew people didn’t like being told that. Actually, most of the villagers didn’t like being reminded that the magic family they’d placed up on a pedestal was full of real people.

“Does it have to do with the new town government?”

“Heh, not this time. And I’m told that if I’m thinking too hard about all that, I start growling,” she said, a bit sheepishly.

“Hm, is it a family matter?”

“No, no, the family is fine.”

“Is it a people thing?”

“A people thing?”

“Yeah, you know, how most people all kind of suck a little,” Juan said, shrugging, “you work so hard to not suck, I’m guessing dealing with people who don’t bother trying to be decent is extra tiring for you.”

Mirabel let her embroidery fall into her lap, and stared at him, letting that sentence revolve around her brain until she had picked out the part that had made her feel a little warmer, she repeated it back to him, “I work hard to not suck?”

“Don’t you?” he asked, and it sounded like an honest question more than he was defending his statement, “I suppose you could have been born as decent as you are, the human brain is such a mysterious machine. It is possible you could be, for lack of a better word, hard wired to be kind.”

“I do work hard at it. I just-,” she paused, trying to figure out how to phrase what she wanted to say. Was it weird to thank him for assuming she wasn’t born a perfect paragon and had to actually try to be a good person.

He waited.

Mirabel watched him wait for her, watched him for any signs of impatience. There were none.

Finally, she said, “I was thinking about the pedestal my family is put on by some of the other villagers.”

“Ah, sí, that,” he nodded, “I apologize for that.”

“Why? You don’t seem to-.”

“I think I do though,” he shook his head, “I’ve been thinking about your response to my theory that people like you because of science. The way you very cruelly laughed at me, that is to say. On reflection, it’s more likely I have you on a pedestal because you’re so kind and talented.”

“Or because you have a crush on me,” Mirabel pointed out without thinking. She immediately grimaced.

Juan froze, then he got very red, “What? No I don’t.”

“Right, yep, sorry, don’t know why I said that,” she immediately said.

He didn’t respond at first. She watched him as his eyes zipped back and forth beneath lowered brows.

Juan suddenly stood and started pacing.

“I do not have a crush on you.”

“Mm-hm.”

“That’s-. No. No I do not.”

“Of course, we can forget I said that,” she said, but Juan was still pacing, scowling at the ground. Every once in a while, he shook his head.

Suddenly he stopped, “I don’t have a crush on you, you’re just especially pretty.”

“Um.”

“No, I know how that sounds, but hear me out,” he held up a finger as if asking for one moment, “You are an especially pretty girl, I am a young man. It is only natural that I would spend this much time thinking about you.”

“Right,” Mirabel said slowly, not wanting to argue with him.

He scowled again, paced a few more laps, then said, “And the reason I think about you more than any of the other pretty girls is probably just because you’re a more interesting person.”

“Juan,” Mirabel said, gently.

“I know how this sounds,” he said, again, “but that’s just-, that’s just a fact. You are one of the most interesting people in the village! You’re creative and witty and highly intelligent. That-. Those are all traits that make a person interesting. It’s not a crush, you’re just pretty and interesting.”

“Ok, ok,” she nodded, slowly standing. She hadn’t meant to give Juan some sort of crisis.

“It’s not a crush,” he insisted.

“No, of course not,” she approached him carefully.

He watched her, once again reddening, “This isn’t a crush, i-it’s just biology.”

“Uh-huh, biology,” she nodded, putting a hand on his shoulder, “would you like to sit back down?”

Juan stared at her for a few beats, then glared at his shoes and grumbled, “I bet every guy my age wants to kiss you. It’s normal.”

Mirabel couldn’t help it. She giggled. His eyes snapped up to her, brimming with betrayal.

“Sorry, sorry, I-. That’s just-. It was a nervous giggle,” she was only mostly lying.

“I’m making you nervous,” he gasped, horrified.

“No, this conversation is,” she clarified, “I don’t know how to respond to uh this.”

“To me not having a crush on you?”

“To you insisting that I’m pretty and interesting and you want to kiss me, but you don’t have a crush on me.”

“I know how it sounds-.”

“Do you?”

He frowned, then sighed deeply, “I have a crush on you, don’t I?”

“I think you might.”

“I am so sorry.”

“I wouldn’t have invited you up here if I minded.”

“Right.”

They stared at each other for a few beats.

“You touch me more than you touch other people who aren’t a part of your family,” he gestured at the hand that was still on his shoulder. With a small spark of surprise, Mirabel realized she liked how blunt he was, it made things easier.

“I know,” Mirabel said, then decided she would be just as blunt back, “I’ve been trying to decide whether or not I should date you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I would like it if you did.”

“I noticed.”

“Right, of course you have,” he sighed again and returned to the couch sinking onto it and putting his head in his hands, “how long have I had a crush on you?”

“I don’t know,” Mirabel shrugged, “at least since the fabric store.”

He groaned, but didn’t say anything. After waiting a while, Mirabel returned to the couch and picked up her embroidery. She worked on it while he sat beside her, apparently grieving.

“Right,” he slapped his knees and stood, “guess I better get to work.”

“Work?” she asked.

“On flirting with you,” he paused to pick up his notebook, “I have a crush on you, and apparently I have an actual chance of being with you, so it would be stupid of me to just sit here panicking.”

“Oh,” Mirabel blinked up at him, “I kind of like being able to sit with you while we do our own thing, though.”

“Oh, then I’ll work on it here,” he sat back down and flipped to a new page in his notebook, “just don’t peek.”

Mirabel blinked at him a few more times, then she giggled again, only this time it wasn’t a single giggle that managed to sneak past her defenses, but a whole army of them.

“Is that a good sign?” he asked, blushing.

“Sí,” she nodded through her laughter.

“Hm,” he nodded thoughtfully and scribbled something in his notebook.

When he did eventually leave, he first ripped out a page with some calculations on it and gave it to her. Circled at the bottom was an estimation of how much string she would use on the blouse by the time she was done with it.

—

The next time she stopped in the market to chat with him, Juan greeted her by saying, “I talked to my sister, she says I’ve had a crush on you since your quinceñeara. And also that I’m not allowed to grow out my sideburns until after her wedding. I will be disowned, and possibly dismembered, if I ruin the wedding pictures.” 

“Oh,” Mirabel quietly filed away the fact that his crush apparently started back when she was still The Giftless One, then asked, “You’ve had a crush on me for over nine years and didn’t notice?”

“Mirabel, I can not emphasize to you enough that my entire personality is math,” he told her, very seriously, “I spend all day sitting around, thinking about two things, you and math. Usually a combination of the two, actually. If you do decide to date me, at the end of every date I will graph how much you laughed, or blushed, or calculate the odds that you enjoyed the main course more than the dessert. There is nothing else in here but numbers. Like a cup full of  dice.”

Mirabel felt a grin slowly stretch across her face.

“I’m serious,” he said, “I mean, I’ll try to be romantic, but unless you think me making a spreadsheet about your favorite coffee mix-ins is romantic, I can’t make any promises.”

“Is this you trying to convince me to date you?”

“This is me trying not to disappoint the woman I’ve apparently had a crush on for a decade,” he said, then he huffed as if frustrated, “Can you believe I’ve had a crush on you for a decade and my sister never told me?”

“I mean, she probably assumed you knew,” Mirabel pointed out.

He shook his head, “No, she said she thought it was funny that I didn’t.”

“Ah, that-. Yeah, that’s the sorta thing Isabela or Camilo would do,” Mirabel reached over the counter of the bean stall to put her hand on his shoulder, “at least you know now.”

“It was a little easier to look at you when I didn’t,” he said, eyes skittering away from her as a grumpy pout pushed out his lower lip.

Mirabel found herself giggling a little.

“You promise that’s a good sign,” he double checked, sounding equal parts weary and wary.

“Sí, you’re-,” she stopped herself before she called him adorable, Camilo had made it very clear that most men did not like that, “charming.”

Juan considered this, then slowly nodded, “I can deal with that.”

“Señorita Madrigal,” a voice interrupted them, Mirabel turned to find Señor Rivierra waving her down, “do you have a moment to discuss the elections for city council?”

Mirabel bit her lip and glanced at Juan. She didn’t actually want to leave, but she did want to talk about the elections with Señor Rivierra.

“Go ahead,” Juan quietly said, “I’ll be here whenever you got a free moment.”

“I’m going to work on your sister’s gift at Lucia’s after the market closes, I know Jo and Adelaide will be there today, you should come spend time with us,” Mirabel invited him, “help me get to know Adelaide.”

“I would love that,” he smiled quietly, “I honestly can’t think of a better way to spend an evening.”

“Great, I’ll see you there,” she squeezed his arm, then drew back. As she walked away with Señor Rivierra, she kept finding herself looking back at him over her shoulder. He waved at her every time she did.

—

“Hey Má,” Mirabel walked into the backyard two days later, “you got a minute to share some motherly wisdom?”

Her Má glanced up from her herb garden with a bright smile, “Oh, I have all the time in the world for my brilliant daughter.”

Mirabel fondly rolled her eyes, although now that she had two nephews, Mirabel was beginning to understand the urge to gush over the kids in your life. Still, she good-naturedly groaned, “Má.”

“What? It’s true,” Julieta shrugged, clipping off a few more sprigs of cilantro, “come into the kitchen with me. Tell me what you need.”

Mirabel followed her mother and pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. For a few minutes she watched her Má bustle around the kitchen, getting a soup started, it would seem.

“How did you know Pá loves you for you, and not for the whole Madrigal thing?” Mirabel asked.

“Oh, is this about Juan,” her mother threw her a somewhat sly smile, a teasing glint in her eye.

Mirabel bypassed the teasing however, “I’m surprised you know his name. It kinda seems like nobody does.”

Even Jo called him “the bean guy” half the time.

“He got tutored by your father when he was, oh gosh, ten years old perhaps. Your Pá was very impressed by his head for numbers,” Julieta grinned a little conspiratorially, “and he is dying to know if you two are dating.”

“I’m thinking about it,” Mirabel said slowly, “but I-. I want to be with somebody who likes Mirabel, not y’know, Mirabel Madrigal.”

“Hm, sí. You, as usual, are wise beyond your years,” Julieta shrugged a little rueful grin on her face, “I didn’t notice the difference between being loved for who I am and being admired for my gift until I had been dating your father for six months. I suppose I didn’t realize going into it that he saw me for me, it was only when we had our first fight and he was still just as in love with me afterwards that it clicked.”

“Your first fight, huh?”

“Sí, I have done my best to shield you from how petty I can be,” Julieta gave her a sheepish smile, “but you can ask your Tía about that. There was this one Christmas-, you know how hard it is to shop for your Tío Bruno, sí? Well, there was this one Christmas I had come up with the perfect idea for him, I told Pepa, and your lovely Tía stole it before I could get to the market. Oh, I was furious. And I did not handle it with grace.”

“What’d you do?”

“Well, first of all she stole the idea at the end of October, and I gave her the silent treatment until I had found a new gift,” her mother paused for dramatic effect, “half way through December.”

“No. Má, a whole month?”

“Sí, a whole month. And a half. Plus I cooked her least favorite foods for dinner every night, that entire time.”

“Má!”

“Like I said, I have a petty streak,” she shrugged, “and your Pá saw it but loved me all the same. He didn’t lay down and take it, mind you. He told me flat out if I treated our kids that way he would never trust me alone with them, but he didn’t love me any less once he saw my imperfections.”

Mirabel contemplated this. Weirdly, it reminded her of her recent conversation with Juan in the market, of the way he had tried to warn her flat out what he thought she might not like. She doubted the math thing would ever actually bother her, she was way more bothered about the way he still occasionally put himself down, but none of that was a deal breaker for her. 

She tried to think about what parts of her might be a deal breaker for him, it was hard though, so far he had been so easy going she couldn’t imagine him getting truly annoyed by much of anything.

Her Má paused what she was doing to face Mirabel, “I know you’re not anywhere near being there yet, but when your Pá and I started thinking about marriage, I kept thinking about that conversation. About his conviction that he would protect you guys from me if I ever slipped up. At the end of the day, that was what I wanted most out of a husband. Not just somebody who loved me warts and all, but somebody who I could count on to hold me accountable when it came to our kids. Parenting is hard, nobody gets it exactly right, and having somebody who’ll carry the load with you is important.”

Julieta didn’t say it, but they were both thinking of how Abuela had been forced to raise her own children alone, and all the problems that had caused. More than ever, it was clear that Abuela loved her familia, however; nobody was perfect. She had had nobody around to make up for what she lacked, she had gone decades without anyone who could call her out on mistakes she hadn’t noticed herself making. And the triplets had suffered for it.

But, Mirabel realized, all of the work Abuela had put into making things up to the familia had demonstrated better than any hug how much Abuela cared.

So she didn’t need to be perfect, she didn’t even need to find somebody with whom she could be a perfect parenting duo. She just needed somebody who saw her imperfections, loved her despite them, and was honest with her when she made mistakes.

She hugged her mother, thanked her for her time and wisdom, then went up to her room and gathered some paper and pencils. Mirabel made it to the market just before close, and spent some time milling about, checking in with a few of the villagers. When the market closed and people started packing up, she approached Juan’s stall and waited patiently while he transferred all the beans into the storage shed.

“Hola, what can I do for you?” he asked, traces of his customer service voice lingering after a long day of work.

“I want you to teach me how to do your favorite formula, the quantum one,” she said.

Juan blinked at her a few times, then in a very calm voice said, “Marry me.”

Mirabel snorted and giggled, “I’m serious.”

“I kind of am too,” Juan said, shaking his head and laughing a little, “what’s brought this on?”

“I’ll explain after,” she shrugged.

“Alright,” he said slowly, then gestured for her to follow him, “uh, how much math do you know? Did you ever learn any calculus?”

“Um, no, I learned some geometry in school, some accounting from my Pá, and I’ve been learning some statistics for the whole town government thing,” she said.

“Statistics? How about we do that instead,” he held his front door open for her, “so you can actually use whatever you learn.”

“I didn’t bring my statistics book,” she pointed out, she’d thought she’d be learning some theoretical physics.

“I have a few, I’m guessing you’re trying to learn how to best interpret polls and stuff?”

“Sí, and to figure out when we need to add another school, where to put it, how to divide up the students,” Mirabel rattled off, “oh, and where to put the different polling locations to make voting as easy as possible for everybody.”

“Let’s do the polling location thing, I helped with the census you guys did a few months back, so I should have all the data we need,” he said, leading her down the hall to his room.

“Works for me,” she followed him into his room, pausing in the door to take it in.

She was not surprised to see the two floor to ceiling bookshelves either side his desk, each filled with titles like “Differential Calculus”, “All about Angles”, and “The Math of Divinity”. She was surprised to realize she recognized something in a picture frame by his bed. It was a little card she had made, one of dozens to be honest, she had passed them out at the end of her quinceñeara to thank guests for coming. Each one had been shaped like a butterfly, and she’d used yarn leftover from other projects to “embroider” the patterns on the butterfly’s wings. He had it displayed so that the card was open, the butterfly’s wings were spread. Quietly, she picked it up.

“Looking back, knowing what I do now, I think that butterfly is what got my attention,” Juan said, coming up behind her. She could feel his warmth at her back.

“Really? This?”

“Sí, it’s so simple, but so creative,” he said, “and you went through the trouble of making at least one for every family that came. It’s-. You’ve always been so good at striking that balance between being absolutely brilliant, and genuinely warm. At the time I… I would have given anything to do the same.”

“This was-. Back then I really wanted people to see me as being just as special as the rest of my family,” she admitted, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks. Even nine years after the fact she didn’t like telling people how much she’d hungered for approval.

“It worked,” Juan said, then paused, when she glanced at him over her shoulder he looked thoughtful, “at least, it worked on me. Although I think I’ve always assumed there was some reason you didn’t get a gift, some factor in the equation that hadn’t been revealed yet. It makes no logical sense otherwise.”

Mirabel sighed, nodding. Ever since the miracle had been reborn, an assumption had bubbled up among the villagers. She’d overheard two people discussing it shortly after the miracle came back.

“-with the way she’s stepped up, just like a mini Alma, it would make sense,” the woman who sold tea on Saturdays said, sitting in her stall at just the wrong angle to see Mirabel.

“I don’t get why the magic couldn’t just stay in the candle, though,” the man who was leaning against the side of the stall replied, not looking over his shoulders to see Mirabel right behind him.

“I don’t either, but what’s more likely? That the grandkid who takes after Dona Alma the most didn’t get a gift, but just so happened to have magic to repair the miracle as a complete coincidence; or, that she’s the miracle’s chosen successor,” the woman said, “I just hope we don’t have to build a new house every time the magic passes on.”

It wasn’t that Mirabel hadn’t considered it. It wasn’t exactly a huge leap. It was more a perfectly normal sized step. And she knew other people, including her Abuela, had reached the same conclusion. But her Abuela, her entire familia, approached it differently than the villagers did.

“I never should have gotten so caught up in the miracle,” Alma had said the morning after Mirabel’s twentieth, shaking her head, “if I had just taken a step back I would have seen it so much sooner. You have always been-.”

“You’re b-basically all the best parts of this family concentrated into a little ball of crafts and attitude,” Bruno had jumped in, holding his fingers together and squinting at them as if he was trying to read something on a tiny piece of paper, “it was such a shock that you didn’t get a gift, I-I think we just-. I dunno.”

Alma had given her son a fond smile as he shrugged and waved away the sentence he’d abandoned, they had been standing in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to brew, she eyed it as she spoke, “We couldn’t see the forest for all the trees. If I hadn’t allowed the miracle to define us so, I may have noticed sooner what an incredible young woman you were becoming.”

“There were a lot of things we shouldn’t and should have done,” Tío Bruno said, eyeing the walls that no longer held a secret corridor to his secret room, “but uh I guess if one of us had stepped up and done all that communicating stuff, we would have been the ones to bring the magic back.”

It was a small difference between “turns out Mirabel was special because she was chosen by the miracle all along” and “Mirabel was chosen by the miracle because it turns out she was special all along”. But it was a small difference that made a big impact.

Lately, Mirabel had been feeling closer and closer to her family, but just a little farther from the rest of the village. Lately, she had been put up on the same pedestal as the rest of her family, and she sort of missed being among the crowds.

But even worse than that, “It stings a little, that none of this worked. That all the hard work and passion I put into being creative and helpful never earned me any real respect. But that putting a doorknob in a door did.”

“What do you mean? This is impressive,” Juan reached around her to gently hold the part of the frame she wasn’t, “and people have always loved you. How-? I am honestly asking, respect must have been, I don’t know, how could they not respect you?”

Mirabel smiled, turning fully to look at him, “It isn’t that people didn’t like me, or that they looked down on me. They pitied me. I used to get things for free, not because I helped watch everybody’s kids, or because I played the accordion at so and so’s wedding, but because I was the only Madrigal without a gift. The good ol’ not special, special. Pity isn’t respect.”

“If they only respect you for the doorknob, is that actually respect?”

“I don’t know,” Mirabel shrugged, “this is-, all of this, the way people look at me now that they assume I have magic, the pedestal my family’s on, all of that, it’s been bothering me lately.”

“Only lately?”

“It’s slowly built up over the past nine years,” she admitted, “at first it was really nice to finally feel like ‘a real Madrigal’, and it took a few years for that to fade. When I turned twenty people suddenly started talking about me getting married and it made me think about what the rest of my life is going to look like. And over the past four years, well… it’s slowly sinking in that all this stuff is just going to be a part of my life forever now. I’ve spent so much of the past nine years solving problems, realizing these ones are out of my control is driving me a little crazy.”

“That makes sense,” he nodded, “that sounds pretty frustrating.”

Mirabel looked up at him, he wasn’t that much taller than her, it was entirely possible he was the exact height you’d get if you took an average of everybody in town. She examined him openly, and he stood quietly, letting her.

“It’ll be a part of my spouse’s life, and my kids’,” she warned him quietly, “the village does genuinely love us, b-but they love us as leaders, not as neighbors. Being with me means being seen as something a little bit other.”

Juan cocked his head, “I hadn’t considered that.”

Mirabel gulped, waiting to see what he’d say next.

“I will have to think about it,” he eventually declared, “but I suppose that’s the point of dating, isn’t it? To test out what a life together would look like.”

Mirabel shrugged, while shaking her head minutely, “I’m pretty sure the point of going on dates is to spend quality time together. At least, that’s why my parents do it.”

“Ah, I will keep that in mind,” he nodded, then he seemed to settle back on his heels, as if waiting for something. After a few beats, she realized he was waiting to see if she would talk about her thoughts and worries some more.

Mirabel really kind of hoped she was right about him. That this would work out and she’d end up with this quiet, kind of strange man who listened to her and admired her hard earned skills and bluntly spoke his mind.

“You uh wanna get started on this math lesson?” she prompted.

“I would absolutely love to,” he said, “here, sit, I’ll grab another chair and all the census data we need.”

The rest of the afternoon and evening was fairly frustrating for both of them. Juan never once raised his voice, grew snide, or implied she lacked intelligence, but she quickly learned that when he was annoyed he’d clench his jaw and sigh through his nose. On the other side, Mirabel struggled to grasp some of the more esoteric equations, but absolutely refused to just let him do the math for her, or even to let him move on to the next concept until she’d correctly explained what he’d just taught her back to him. 

When they were informed dinner was on the table (and Mirabel was given a last minute invitation to said dinner), they packed up their calculations in tense silence.

Once everything was cleaned up, Mirabel put a hand on Juan’s arm to keep him from leaving the room. She took a few deep breaths and reminded herself why she put the two of them through this.

“Do you still have a crush on me?” she asked.

“Oh, after seeing how hard you’ll work to understand things, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you,” he said, but he was scowling, “however I never want to do that again.”

Mirabel chuckled, “To be honest, neither do I. But I kinda have to do stuff like this if I want to help our village.”

“Fuck our village,” Juan sighed, rubbing at his temple, “I don’t mean that, but also I do feel it. Deeply.”

“Yeah, I do too sometimes,” she also sighed.

“You are incredible, that sucked though,” he said, “I deeply admire how dedicated you are, that you didn’t try to cut a single corner, but I am dreading the next time we do this.”

“Well, at least this miserable experience has brought us closer together,” she laughed a little.

“Has it?”

After a split second’s hesitation, she stepped into his space and kissed him on the cheek, “It has.”

Face burning, she fled down the hall as calmly as she could manage. He caught up with her a few seconds later.

“On second thought, I am happy to do this again tomorrow if it means you’ll kiss me,” he informed her, voice light but matter of fact.

When they reached the dining room Mirabel was giggling.

—

Mirabel had just put the last stitch on the last flower on the blouse for Juan’s sister, when somebody knocked at her door. She put the blouse down and stood, walking over to the door and trying her best not to get her hopes up. When she opened the door it was just Camilo.

“Oh, it’s you,” she sighed, accidentally letting her disappointment leak into her voice. She hadn’t really seen Juan all week. He’d sought her out a few times after the math lesson, then suddenly stopped, but continued to light up whenever she stopped to chat with him at the market. Unfortunately, people were starting up their campaigns for city council, and she only had seconds to spare throughout her day.

Camilo, strangely enough, didn’t tease her for her obvious disappointment. He didn’t say anything. He just crossed his arms, leaned on the door frame, and stared at her, eyes narrowed.

“Did you need something?” she asked.

“The bean guy?”

“He has a name, y’know.”

“Sure, sure, sure. I’m sure he does. And you know? He seems real nice. But… why?”

“He’s a good listener, I like his sense of humor, we can relax togeth-,” Mirabel paused, then sighed, “he’s downstairs waiting for me, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, but I left him with Tío Bruno, so they’re probably happy to talk about weird stuff together.”

“They are two different genres of weird,” Mirabel grumbled, pushing past her cousin. Sure enough, when she got downstairs, Tío Bruno was once again staring at Juan like he was a Swedish book of riddles.

“How about basket weaving?”

“Nope, just math.”

“Flower arranging?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Finger puppets?”

“Afraid not.”

“Interpretive dance?”

“Mm no, just math.”

“3D printing?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Right, yeah, I think it’s from the future. Sorry. Uuuh? How about making hedgehogs out of your handprint?”

“Like in school?”

“Sí.”

“Uh no, not since I was nine.”

Mirabel cleared her throat before Bruno could continue the interrogation. Juan was visibly relieved, while Tío Bruno turned to look at her, mouth screwed up in confusion. She tried to signal with her eyes that she wanted him to leave, but he either ignored or didn’t notice the nonverbal request. Mirabel sighed.

“Juan, just in time, I just finished your sister’s blouse,” she said, “would you like to come up and see it?”

“I-, sí, very much so,” he nodded, looking two parts eager and one part uncomfortable as Tío Bruno continued to examine the both of them.

“Great, let’s go,” she took his hand and pulled him towards the stairs as soon as he’d taken it.

Behind them, Tío Bruno muttered, “Weird.” in a voice that wasn’t nearly as quiet as he probably thought it was.

Mirabel rolled her eyes and was about to apologize to Juan, when she noticed Camilo was “casually” leaning on the rail between the stairs and her room. She glared at him while they passed, but he pretended not to notice. Mirabel pushed through her door and closed it, narrowing her eyes at Camilo as he strolled closer as if he just sort of happened to be wandering on over. The last thing she saw as the door closed was the Oh So Innocent look on his face.

“Are you sure your family doesn’t hate me?” Juan asked, as soon as the door was closed.

“No, Tío Bruno talks to you, that means he likes you,” she said, then turned to her door and shouted, “and Camilo is just a nosey asshole!”

“Yeah Bean Guy, don’t let it get to you,” Camilo called back, and if Juan wasn’t already looking so nervous she would have gone out and smacked the smarmy grin Camilo was definitely wearing off his stupid face. She glared at the door, then dragged Juan further into her room where Camilo wouldn’t be able to hear them.

“Anyway! Hola, how’ve you been,” she said, once she thought they were far enough from the door.

“Uh frustrated, to be honest.”

“Oh. Why? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he shook his head, “but I’ve been working on something that I am not good at.”

That said, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a knit flower on a choker. It was Mirabel’s favorite shade of teal, with a yellow center and a green leaf. On the blue ribbon of the choker there were tiny maroon butterflies lining the top and bottom of the ribbon. 

Mirabel gasped, “You made this?”

“Sí, it took me all week and Josephine had to stop by my place once a day to show me how to fix my mistakes. I had to redo the ribbon four times, but I’ve done it. I have made you a necklace,” he held it out to her, looking genuinely proud of himself, “I chose the yarn for the flower based on the fact you wear that shade of teal sixty percent more than any other color. Then I had Josephine and my sister help with colors to match it.”

Mirabel bypassed the choker to hug him. Well, technically she pounced on him, but she couldn’t think of any other way to express how she felt.

“Well, that’s a good sign,” Juan said, wrapping his arms around her, “right?”

“Sí.”

“Great! Would you like to be my date for my sister’s wedding?”

“Sí.”

“Even better,” he said, still holding her. He was warm, and delightfully sturdy. A part of her just wanted to stand there and rest against him for the rest of the day. She had a meeting with the city council candidates tomorrow to discuss campaigning rules and it would be nice to spend the day relaxing against him. However, she was pretty sure they should actually go on a few dates before she asked him to spend thirteen hours holding her.

Slowly, Mirabel released him, he took his cue from her and let her go. When they were far enough apart that she could see his face, he was grinning ear to ear. She smiled fondly up at him.

“Will you put it on me?” 

“Oh, sí, of course,” he held the necklace up as she turned around and carefully put it around her neck, buttoning it in the back while she held her hair up out of the way. When she turned back to him he saw his hard work on her neck, and his grin got just a little wider.

Mirabel chuckled a little, “Feels really good seeing somebody wearing something you worked hard on, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, incredible, but uh, this is probably something I’m not doing again,” he chuckled a little sheepishly, “at least, not without your help. Josephine kept smacking me.”

Mirabel giggled at the mental image, “She can be very outspoken about her opinions.”

“Outspoken is one thing, but why’d she hit me?” he grumbled, shaking his head, then he perked up, “Anyway! You said you finished my sister’s blouse?”

“I did, come on,” she took his hand again and led him to the couch where she’d been working on the blouse. After double checking that the last stitch was secure, she took it out of the embroidery hoop and handed it to him. He held it up, eyes meticulously roving over every detail.

“Maybe I’ll just keep it, frame it in my room like the butterfly you made,” he said, not taking his eyes off the flower chain on the collar.

“Oh no you don’t, this is some of the best work I’ve ever done, I want to see her wearing it,” she put her hands on her hips, “now, what about her husband?”

“Her husband?”

“Sí, it’s a wedding gift, no? You’re generally supposed to give things for both the bride and groom,” Mirabel pointed out.

“Oh, uh, right. That guy.”

“That guy?” she snorted, shaking her head, “Do you not like him or something?”

“No, I do. But you know how it is, she’s my only sister, I guess I imagined a prince would swoop in and make her a princess,” Juan shrugged, sitting on the couch, “I like him, and I like seeing her happy, but I guess it just feels weird to see her marry a real person.”

“You have a brother, don’t you?” Mirabel asked, sitting next to him, “Isn’t he married?”

“Ah, sí, but he was married and helping his wife care for his in-laws at their place, by the time I was born, so he’s more like an uncle. Honestly, I’m closer to my sister in law than I am to my brother,” he shrugged, “but my sister. She was my first friend. It’s kinda sad, you know, seeing her move onto the next step of life. A step that involves her leaving our home.”

Mirabel smiled sympathetically but couldn’t offer anything more than a hand in his. Madrigals did not move out of Casita, people who married Madrigals moved in. She’s never had to worry about her siblings and cousins dispersing to the wind.

Juan sighed, and flashed her a bittersweet smile, “But you’re right, I should get him something too.”

“I can embroider something for him that matches,” she said, “what does he usually wear?”

“Hats,” Juan said, “he is always wearing a hat. He’s balding.”

“Hats, ok, I’ll make him a hat with a matching pattern on the brim,” she said, “do you know what his head size is?”

“No, but I know where he gets his hats, I’m sure if we tell the hatter that we’re making a wedding gift, he’ll give us any information you need,” he started to stand, “oh, if you don’t mind going right now.”

“No, not at all,” she also stood, “we should do this quickly.”

They left hand in hand and strolled their way down to the hatter’s shop, talking about their families and gifts and weddings. The hatter loved the idea of giving the couple matching clothes, and gave them a hat for free, so long as they agreed to put his name on the card. On their way back, they stopped for some coffee and a couple pastries. Then they spent the rest of their day sitting together on her couch. Her embroidering the hat, him calculating how much string she’d ended up using on the blouse.

In a year, they would have a small spat over whether that counted as their first date, or whether their first date was a week later when they got lunch together. The spat wasn’t serious, but Mirabel had been working on Juan’s gift with the later deadline in mind and was embarrassed it wasn’t finished. Meanwhile, Juan had gotten what he considered to be their anniversary engraved on the ring he’d gotten her, and he wasn’t sure how to explain that without giving away the surprise.

Ultimately, Mirabel let him win when he got down on one knee. She had found somebody who wanted to marry her even when she was being stubborn and sarcastic. That made her the real winner in the long run.

[imaginmatrix]

Hiiiiii just for fun I thought I’d show some irl examples of how imagine the characters in aoyaom— as always this is about ✨vibes✨ only, I don’t really think of these as “face claims” or EXACTLY how I think they’d look, but certain features capture a tangential feeling of you get me?

Anyway, here are the candidates for Academia’s Next Top Models— imagine them as slightly more realistically pretty, whatever that means? Like these same people pictured, but without a team of skin and hair and makeup artists and a lot of money for whatever treatments or physical alterations they want. People who would make you double take if you passed them on the street, but don’t look like they stepped out of an Instagram filter. Anyway.

Spoilers for aoyaom ahead!

Annabeth Chase

Pictured: Tetiana Kizko, Dorit Revelis (but older lol— maybe Annabeth in college?), Morgan Crabtree, and Julie Hocke

Honestly for her, I just focused on hair hair hair. But also I need her to have features that are like Percy said in the epilogue: soft or sharp depending on lighting and mood and stuff. But towards the beginning of the story, she’d probably look a bit more haggard and worn down than this— I imagine circles under the eyes, her poor hair heat styled smooth, and just a constant scowl on her face that makes some people (like Becky) just not notice how pretty she is at first (not Percy tho. He noticed right away.)

Luke Castellan

Pictured: Leif Stacey, Rudi Dollmayer, and Danny Smith

At first I was like “what does near 40/already 40 year old Luke even look like?!?!” because when I wrote most of aoyaom, the oldest I saw him in my head was like. 30. Similar vibes to how I pictured him in the og series as a kid (except he was barely over TWENTY in those, GOD) but then I found a photo of Leif Stacey specifically and went “oh that’s him.” A guy who’s clearly older, but young woman would still find him REALLY attractive. Charming, put together, chiseled, does good work in education, but also a total secret scumbag in one particular area— 😬 ……. I would probably be in the same position as Annabeth if I were a freshman in college, because I’m very dumb!

Percy Jackson

Pictured:

Okay listen. I. Hate. Looking for real life men who remind me of fully-adult Perseus Jackson. I hate it. None of them ever have the right vibe for me!

Evans Nikopoulos is maybe the closest? Maybe????

And Arthur Gosse is in there I think??? But I’m not even sure he’s a good fit either— idk he looks like a different man in every photo I see of him and I can’t figure out if there’s just 2 different models with this name or what!!! who even are these people? Heck if I know! Whenever I find a dark haired man on Pinterest, for all I can tell his name is Damien Alexander Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and he only exists in wattpad’s very own “The Alpha’s Maître d’: Part Seven of the Lust Devourer Mafia Werewolf Fated Mates Cycle Part 2 Chapter 12” or whatever WATTPAD LOVES THEIR DARK HAIRED BOYS!!!!! PINTEREST’S DARK HAIRED MAN SELECTION IS ONLY POPULATED WITH WATTPAD FACE CLAIMS!!!!!!! Finding the names of these men is a total nightmare!!!!!!!

Mike Pishek is there too. I seriously labored in the Pinterest mines, and then there’s only like one specific photo of each of these men that feels like “Percy” ish to me

I think one of them is Daniel Illescas. I don’t know anymore.

Percy is just HARD because you need a guy who is intense, but can clearly be silly and have a good sense of humor and a mischievous twinkle in his eye, who can be flirty then smoldering, but then is incredibly good natured but a bit of a rebel— I hate this man there’s a reason he doesn’t exist. I never want to look at skinny pretty people on Pinterest ever again.

I was planning on doing more, but then…

Piper. Oh my GOD Piper. If I thought trying to find “Percy vibes” was hard… that’s just a whole dark haired white man. There’s trillions of those. I was trying to find a Native American woman who was specifically of Cherokee descent for Piper, and I spent almost 7 hours scouring the internet for literally any actress or model who could fit, and I’m pretty sure I’ve just. Completely lost my mind. And it certainly doesn’t help that so many results are just… disgusting displays of stereotypes!!! Maybe I wasn’t using the right search terms in google, but GOD it was just. A nightmare. It’s dire out there. I knew it would be but. I gave myself such a migraine trying to do her justice. I found ONE woman who was a model I think? In the 90s? There are so many beautiful Native American actors and models and people, yet it’s still like this! And maybe it would be fine to just use any indigenous women, as long as they’re from a tribe, but I don’t want to treat them interchangeably I guess— I don’t knooooow anyway that whole search gave me a temporary eye Twitch and destroyed any remaining dregs of my hope in society, and killed my will to keep finding examples for other characters, but I will absolutely try again!!! She deserves it!!!!!!

Anyway let me know who you’d like to see. Hopefully I will not have another breakdown. It’s probably fine.

[diminuel]

Steffi notes: This is an anon submission! (I never know how to make that visible since tumblr submissions are so weird when they’re being posted. I will offer commentary under the post (italics again).

Warning: this submission mentions rape

So an SPN story like this

Set during season 1 Sam and Dean go to a town after hearing about a local legend of a beast that kidnaps beautiful women, mainly sisters. When they get to a bar as usual the bartender tells them the story of the beast and how back when the town was founded in the 16th century a man lost his two daughters after two town drunks raped and killed them and made a deal with a witch who gave up her tower and turned the man into the beast the town now knows and anytime two sisters are chased into the forest by two drunks the beast kills the would be rapists and protects the girls in the tower til the father comes looking for them. When Sam and Dean walk out their immediately catcalled by two drunks and at first they try to brush it off before the men try to get handsy with them before they know it their chased into the forest where they encounter the beast where it kills their would be rapists in front of them causing them to faint. It’s not long when Dean wakes up in a very pink feminine room with nothing in the wardrobe but pink dresses and while Sam gets the exact same treatment as Dean gets he gets blue

Dean: Dude why do I get pink? Sam: I don’t know what do you want me to say?

For a month in the tower anything they want is there. When they want food they get it. They want a bath it’s magically drawn for them. They want entertainment, painting supplies, books or instruments are their for their entertainment. For a month they get the best dresses and their hair starts growing out. Deans straight with curled ends and while Sam’s naturally wavy and is halfway down his ass. And every time they look out the beast is out there guarding the tower with all its life.

Meanwhile John is searching for his sons thinking about what might’ve taken them and wondering if yellow eyes got a hold of them. That is until he hears about the beast and goes looking for it only to encounter it and revealing it can talk and tells them the story of how Dean and Sam were nearly raped before he put them in the tower to keep them safe and all John can feel is how he failed to protect them when they needed him but the beast takes him to a meadow where Dean and Sam are playing in and their both in matching dresses with Dean wearing pink and Sam wearing blue. John just hugs his two sons just glad for them to be okay and they leave

Steffi commentary

I think I would probably change some things around to make it feel more like a season 1 story?

(A side thought at first: 16th century? Wasn’t the first European permanent colony in NA founded in 1607?)

That said, I don’t think S1 Dean and Sam, who are seasoned hunters by that time, would let themselves be chased by human would be rapists or then faint because there’s carnage. Since the “Beast” is willing to stretch his own lore to “kidnap” two men, people “in peril” might count as well. So I’d probably turn them into some monsters chasing them, maybe they too had been attracted by a powerful magical force.

And where is the beast getting all the furniture, entertainment and dresses from? Does it come with the magic deal? Also, I feel Dean would rather go naked than put on dresses, no matter the colour X3 Once he’s older he might put on a nightgown, since we see him do it, but at 26? I think he’d go naked. *lol* And I think they might chop off their hair if it magically started growing.

That aside, generally this could be a case fic. Though I would see Dean and Sam putting up much more of a fight in general and I doubt they’d wait for Dad to save the day. Especially Sam.

[alpurrtwhizkersss]

a little introduction [2023]

hey, my name’s Alpurrt, otherwise known as alpurrtwhizkersss here on Tumblr :)

i decided i’d do an introduction post because i’m thinking of starting to write on here. 

Masterlist: https://www.tumblr.com/alpurrtwhizkersss/698998070518644736/i-love-you?source=share

i’ll be writing on my own, so i don’t rely on requests but they’d be really great to recieve!

you can find my pronouns in my bio, they may change quite often so i’m not going to put them here because i can’t be bothered coming back to edit this post every week :’)

i do lots of things! my main passion is art, but i’m not sure how much of that i’ll be posting on here, so i’ll mainly be posting about my other passion, which is writing!

here’s the good bit that you all probably care about, what fandoms i write for! okay, actually, first i’m going to tell you my rules for writing:

feel free to request things using the ask box! i’ll always have in my bio whether my requests are open or closed, and i’ll try and get to requests (if i get any) as soon as i can, but since i’m currently at school they may take a while, so please be patient with me :D

I will not write:

Smut, requests concerning serious mental disorders/issues, very dark topics, anything which could insinuate a lack of consent in a relationship, other’s OCs/self-inserts, canon ships (I only write X Readers!)

I will write:

Angst, fluff, making out, hurt/comfort, injury/violence descriptions (this does not mean self harm, I’m sorry but I don’t feel comfortable writing about this topic.), X Reader write from prompts if you give me a prompt and a character, platonic!reader, familial relationship!reader (NOT ROMANTIC) and LGBT+!Reader/Ships!

If you have any questions about these rules/want to clear anything up, drop me an ask!

NOW! Fandoms I write for (With the characters!)

Star Wars:

Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, Poe Dameron, Finn, Rey Skywalker, Padme Amidala, Han Solo, Leia Organa-Solo, Qui-Gon Jinn, Lando Calrissian, Satine Kryze- All of the clones, I’ll really write for anyone from Star Wars, apart from Rebels- since I haven’t seen that yet! But I will update you all when I have :)

Marvel:

Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson, Stephen Strange, Steve Rogers, Thor Odinson, Loki Laufeyson, Shang Chi, Katy Chen, pretty much all of the Eternals apart from Sprite, Steven Grant, Marc Spector, Jake Lockley, Natasha Romanoff, Wanda Maximoff, Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Foggy Nelson, and Matt Murdock.

I will write for pretty much every X-Men character, I also write for the Fantastic 4 :)

DC:

I write for Gotham as well as other DC canons, so literally send ‘em all in, but if you want specifics:

Every Young Justice character, the entire Batfamily (Damian is questionable, depends what the request entails.), most villains apart from The Joker, most Arrowverse characters, characters from the Sandman, The Suicide Squad (2021), Peacemaker, and John Constantine. There’s probably many more I haven’t thought of, so like I said, just send them all in to me :)

Resident Evil: 

Leon S Kennedy, Ada Wong, Albert Wesker, Claire Redfield, Chris Redfield, Ethan Winters, William Birkin, Annette Birkin, Sherry Birkin, Jake Mueller, Lady Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, Karl Heisenberg, Rose Winters, Joseph Frost, Richard Aikens, Forest Speyer, Luis Sera, Ashley Graham.

Finally, we have some other fandoms that I write for but that aren’t my mains! I won’t be listing names of characters I write for these fandoms so just send a request in and I’ll likely do it :)

Lord Of The Rings

Star Trek

Doctor Who

His Dark Materials (I won’t write for Lyra unless she’s older)

Criminal Minds

The Lost Boys

BBC Ghosts

Supernatural

The Umbrella Academy

The Matrix

RDR2

Final Fantasy 7

Harry Potter/Marauders

Power Rangers

TMNT

Les Miserables

Nancy Drew Video Games

The Hardy Boys

Assassin’s Creed

Stranger Things

It (2017/19)

The Walking Dead

James Bond (PLEASE SOMEBODY ASK ME TO WRITE FOR THESE MOVIES I’M LITERALLY BEGGING)

Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency

Six of Crows

Hannibal

Newsies

The Walking Dead

helplines:

America:

https://www.apa.org/topics/crisis-hotlines

Britain:

https://www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/helplines-and-crisis-contacts#:~:text=If%20you're%20in%20crisis,line%20%2D%20text%20SHOUT%20to%2085258

[gaysindistress]

Don’t mind my ramblings 😂

I have to go to the town I grew up in with my dad this weekend and I’m dreading it because I haven’t been back in like 5-6 years. That and it’ll be a 2 hr drive on super winding roads.

Anyways….I’m feeling ✨angsty✨ so if y’all want some insight into where my self proclaimed angst writing powers came from, read ahead.

Or don’t, I might delete this later. I haven’t decided if this feels like oversharing or not.

Warnings: mentions of racism, religion, and country music

I usually don’t listen to country because it’s awful most of the time and it reminds me too much of home. But when I do, that shit s l a p s and Im not talking Zach Bryan or any of that mainstream shit. ZB is great but I’m talking Colter Wall, The Death South, Uncle Lucius, the Devil makes three, and even late Johnny Cash.

I grew up in a tiny ass town (the population is literally under 200) and the only thing for miles are ranches and hundreds of acres of open land. We didn’t have wifi or cell service until 2018 and i learned to drive on a forgotten forest service road in an old manual farm truck that didn’t have seatbelts. It barely had seats to be completely honest. We would walk to the church on the hill every Sunday wearing our Sunday best where the preacher would be drenched in sweat as he spoke about the Bible and told us that the End Times were coming. We needed to ask for forgiveness, pray any chance we got, and turn off the radio. The songs that out society loved were the Devil’s music and gospel was the only thing acceptable. I couldn’t say the Lord’s name in vain or my great grandma would whack the tops of my hands and make me help her clean. God was something to be afraid of but to be loved reverently as he was out Father.

Afterwards, my great grandma and grandma would make supper for all of us. The staples of homemade jams and bread were always there but the meat and veggies would change depending on what we had available.

We did laundry in a ringer washer and dried the clothes on a line in the front yard. I learned how to sew and mend anything you could think of before I turned 10. My dad and uncles made sure I was the best shot in the family. My mom taught me how to befriend a horse so that you became one when riding. She’d say that there was nothing more dangerous than a rider and a horse who weren’t in sync. It was a running joke that I was Annie Oakley and my grandpa tried for years to get me to do rodeos but my parents wouldn’t let me. Granted I didn’t want to either, the people could be vicious and as I got older, the racism grew worse. My dad was whiter than my grandpa so few people said anything to him but if I was with my grandpa, people would say some of the foulest things you could think of. When I was probably 8, I remember asking him why that group of men yelled at us to “go back to the Rez” and to hide the alcohol. He didn’t answer me and dropped me off with my great grandma. When he came back maybe 30 minutes later, his knuckles were bloody and he tried to wipe them off before he sat down next to us but I still saw them. I knew better than to ask him about it because the look he gave me when he noticed me staring at his hand was one full of hatred, anger, and a deep pain that could never be erased and it told me everything.

My mom wasn’t safe from it either and in their ignorance, people would say whatever they thought might be the most hurtful. Her mom used a mix of Arabic and English when she spoke to my brother, cousins and me but that stopped when all the news would talk about was the war in Iraq and terrorist groups infiltrating America. My mom was terrified that someone would accuse us of being connected to these groups even though her family was from a different country entirely. So my Sitto stopped speaking Arabic and no matter how hard I try to learn it again, nothing sounds as beautiful as hers.

For the most part, I blended in but if anyone looked at me long enough, they’d see what I’d learn to hide. I bleached my dark brown hair and straightened every curl until it no longer held its shape. I covered my face in makeup so that it looked pointed and no longer held the soft flat planes it used to. I used accents of gold and similar colors to lighten my nearly black eyes. Before only the sun could bring out the yellow flecks but I refused to go out for long in order to keep my skin a lighter shade. During the summers when I spent all of my time outside and away from others, my skin would brown until it looked like the dirt and clay beneath my feet. I did all that I could to make myself blend in better and when I failed, my work ethic of sun up to sun down and my ability to keep my mouth shut made it so I was forgettable. No one bothers the average in a town like the one I used to call home.

We’d spend every weekend in late summer and early fall cutting wood for the elders in town. My dad knew everyone’s addresses by heart and didn’t need navigation when he dropped off the wood. After those long days, my great grandma would lay out old quilts she’d made over the years on the lawn so all of us could sleep under the stars. We’d laugh and giggle as we pointed out the constellations and told each other stories. It was then that I learned how our grandparents painted the multicolored hills that surrounded us. Sometimes when we all began to fall asleep, we’d hear the coyotes and once I swear I heard a wolf howl even though my dad said they hadn’t been around in decades. Rarely did I see the big black bear that liked my great grandparents’ Apple trees. I would see the aftermath of his feast though as the raccoons took their share. Sometimes the turkeys would scare them off but that was only seasonally.

I can’t relate to most country music because that’s not the world I grew up in. We didn’t have bonfires on Friday nights after the football games or go mudding when it rained. We didn’t hunt or fish for fun because it was a necessity as the nearest store was an hour away. My childhood in those rural ranch lands was beautiful but harsh and makes any spaghetti western that featured Clint Eastwood or John Wayne look like child’s play. People try to liken to it Yellowstone but i always say it was closer to the prequel 1883.

Country music has always been deeply intertwined with religion but I can’t relate to the way that Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan sing about their god even though I should. I didn’t pray to the God they sing about because the one I grew up with was something from the Great Awakening. The God I grew up with was an old one that demanded sacrifices in the form of our days spent in service to Him and forgoing what modern society offered us because it was deeply sinful. I feared the Devil would one day walk amongst us because that’s what our preacher told us would happen if we listened to the radio or watched any new movies. I imagined when he did claw his way to earth from the depths of Hell, he would wear a suit and tie with a great grin full of teeth sharp enough to snap my bones in one bite.

The “country” I grew up in is nothing like what people imagine when they listen to its music media. It’s not like Yellowstone, any of those homestead shows, or whatever else is labeled as western. The “country” I grew up in, the one that feels most like home albeit a distant one, was more like the one that Colter Wall, Delta Rae, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Death South, Uncle Lucius, the Devil makes three, and of course Johnny Cash all sang about.

[jakekiszkaenthusiast]

challenge accepted- j.m.k

pairing: josh kiszka x reader

warnings: SMUT, (f.receiving) oral, very unprotected sex, arguing with a lot of strong language.

author’s note: …..enjoy.

“what, like ever?”

you shake your head solemnly, raising your eyebrows as your friend giggles and slaps a hand on your knee.

“i’m being serious, kate. no man has ever made me cum- thus, my conclusion: men aren’t worth shit.” you say, only half-joking.

kate snorts another laugh and her reaction pulls your lips into a reluctant smile. you were being harsh on purpose, knowing how funny your friends would find it, but your words were one hundred percent true. no man had ever made you cum, and you couldn’t help but feel pushed further and further away from your attraction to them with every disappointment of a night.

“c’mon, y/n. you gotta give them more credit than that, they try!” another friend chimes in, causing you to roll your eyes.

“but that’s the problem- why should we reward them for doing the bare minimum? in my opinion, if a guy can’t make a girl cum, he isn’t worth any kind of time. think about how much effort we put into getting ready for a date, just to lie there like a dead fish and let them finish in two minutes flat- it’s bullshit! god, i fucking hate men.” you rant, hands waving around to emphasise your impassioned speech.

your friends hum in agreement, nodding their heads. you take a long sip of your drink as you try to formulate more points to rant about, eyes travelling around the busy room.

you didn’t really know why you were here, in all honesty. your older brother was hosting, and you honestly felt childish for sitting around at a house party at the ripe age of 22. this kind of thing was from your teens: bad beer, too-loud music, and your brother’s friends everywhere.

swallowing your drink down in one, you begin ranting again.

“and that’s the point: if we don’t tell them they’re shit at sex, they’ll never learn will they? it’s just basic logic- though it’s not like any of them listen, they’d probably just ignore you and tell-“

“-can you shut the fuck up? for like, two minutes? i’ll literally pay you.”

a voice interrupts you, belonging to the curly haired man sitting on the edge of the couch. you had tried to ignore him when he sat down initially, and you had succeeded. you completely forgot he was even sat there, listening to you complain.

“and who the fuck do you think you are, josh? watch your mouth, asshole.” you spit back, the alcohol maybe taking control of your tongue more than you would normally allow it to.

“i’m just sick of hearing you bitch and moan- we get it, no one has fucked you good enough. ever think it’s because you’re insufferable?”

you scoffed loudly, scrunching your face up with anger.

“fuck off, josh. just because you know i’m right, doesn’t mean you can be so rude. i bet you couldn’t make a girl cum if you had a fucking manual.”

he rolls his eyes at the easy target, but you could tell you had actually got under his skin. he huffs and stands up, slamming his drink against the coffee table; you mirror his actions, not quite finished with this conversation yet. following him through the house until you were pushing the back door he slammed in your face open, out into the cold night air. your thin dress didn’t protect you from the chill, and you hugged yourself as you looked at the man pacing around your garden.

“what the fuck is your problem, josh?”

“oh, she’s come to continue her whining! how lucky am i?” he shouts out into the night, clenching his fists and turning away from you.

“wooooow, i really got under your skin, didn’t i? feeling a little insecure, joshie?”

“y/n, shut up.”

“no, no. was i just a little too accurate? did it upset you? good. i’d like to see you try and make me cum, i need a laugh.”

“is that a challenge?” he turns his head and look at you, nostrils flared and an unknown glint in his eye.

“sure, why not. it’s not like you could actually do it.” you say with a shrug, turning on your heel to leave, finished with the argument.

a hand grabs the back of your dress, forcing you backwards. josh catches you with his arms and pulls you against his front, gripping your hips through the thin fabric of your dress.

“who said you could leave, y/n?” his breath was hot against your ear, and you could smell the joint he smoked earlier on his clothes.

“me.” you breathe, grabbing at the hands digging into the fleshy part of your hips.

“too bad.”

“what do you think is gonna happen, josh? what’s your next move?” you ask with a teasing voice, smiling when you press your ass into him.

“you think because you’ve had bad experiences, every man is the same.”

“well..yeah.”

“let’s change that.”

josh moves his hand to your arm and makes towards the door, pulling you into the house, through the kitchen and into the hallway, knowing where your room was from the many times he came to visit your brother.

he pushes you into your own room, nodding towards the bed for you to sit on.

all of the anger you felt for him had dissipated- you hadn’t expected him to actually take it seriously; all your attitude was left back in the garden the moment he grabbed your hips.

“sit back.” he commands, standing above you.

“what are you gonna do?” whispering, you were unable to find your voice, pure adrenaline running through your veins with the way he was looking at you.

“just sit back and take your panties off.”

you let your body fall against the comforter and uncertainly trail your hands to the hem of your dress, looking into his eyes for confirmation. he nods softly, eyes watching you with an intensity you weren’t used to. gently pulling the panties down, you’re shocked to feel how wet you already are- being that riled up clearly did something for you.

josh moves to his knees, stroking up the entirety of your leg and moving around to your hips, pulling your body until you were almost hanging off the edge of the bed. he moved his hands back up to your knees, pulling your legs open slowly, revealing yourself to him. when he finally slotted his head in between your legs, you could feel his cool breath on your sensitive skin and shivered.

after his tongue presses to your clit, you suck a breath in and stiffen. he licks a languid stripe against your skin, humming softly when your hands brush his hair out of his face and tangle with the curls on top. his hands were gripping your thighs and digging into the soft flesh.

his tongue circled your clit a few times and you feel your mouth begin to hang open, letting a long sigh out and looking to the ceiling. this feeling was completely foreign to you- no man had ever paid this kind of attention to you.

a moan finally leaves your mouth when he sucks on your skin, eyes squeezing shut. he wasn’t moving too fast or too slowly, just right to get your hips bucking against his face and an even louder moan piercing the room. the lewd sounds of him lapping against your core make your cheeks flush, and you hoped no one would be able to hear from outside.

your hips buck again, grinding you against his mouth. something like a growl sounds in the back of your throat when he slips two fingers into you, beginning to pump in and out of you quickly. his fingers brush your g-spot and you squeak, not used to this kind of stimulation- you pull on his hair softly, pushing his mouth harder against you and begin moving your hips in time with his fingers.

“f-fuck, josh. i think i’m gonna-“

he hums loudly, wordlessly urging you on and speeding up his fingers. your legs lift up, and you feel your hands gripping josh’s head tightly- you’re still grinding against his mouth, barely contained moans becoming trapped when you clamp your mouth shut. he continues sucking and licking at your clit, pushing you further and further to the point of no return.

“josh, fuck! i’m-oh fuck.” your voice trails off into a whisper, the force of your orgasm knocking the air out of your chest. your whole body stiffens as you topple over the edge, and you’re reduced to silence when he keeps moving his fingers through your high.

you finally gain the energy to gasp loudly, the air feeling good in your lungs once more. he slows his fingers when you start to clench tightly around them.

josh licks your clit one last time before pulling out and away from you completely, standing back on his feet and reaching down to press against his hard cock straining in his pants. you watch him lazily, trying to catch your breath and process what just happened.

“did i prove you wrong?” he asks smugly, palming himself now.

“…shut up”

he laughs, pressing his free hand against his chest. you smile reluctantly, breathing a laugh through your nose. snaking your hand between your legs, you touch your clit again and shudder, still sensitive; watching this, josh’s eyes darken and the smile drops off his face.

“on your front, ass up.” he demands, and you oblige.

the clink of josh’s belt catches your attention, the sound of his zipper going down sending a shiver up your spine. he prods a finger back into you, making you jump gently.

“ready for me, y/n?”

“please, josh.” you whisper against the comforter.

his cock presses into you and you groan, feeling him stretch you out. you fist the sheets below you. he takes a deep breath in when you grind back into him, moving your hips in circles and letting a moan out. he begins rocking his hips into you, stroking the skin of your ass and squeezing.

josh leans down to press his chest against you, the fabric of his shirt brushing your shoulders- the new angle hitting you even deeper inside. a hand brushes your hair over your shoulder, exposing your face to him.

“you look so pretty like this, baby”

you can only whimper in response, feeling a bead of sweat rolling down your forehead. his thrusts get harder, your bodies sliding and slapping together in a mix of sweat and pleasure.

“can’t believe i made you cum, guess it means you were wrong. did it feel good, pretty girl?”

“mhm, so good. so good inside me, josh, keep going.” you moan, gasping shuddering breaths through your mouth.

“that’ll teach you to argue with me like that again. y’know, you can always just ask me to fuck you next time- we don’t have to yell.”

“josh?”

“mm?”

“shut the fuck up.”

instead of replying, josh bunches your dress up with his hands and uses it as an anchor for him, pulling on it pound into you harder. an especially deep thrust sends electricity to your toes, an involuntary clench around him eliciting a deep moan from behind you- the sound sending more fire to your stomach.

“tell me how good i feel, josh. tell me.” you gasp out, angling your head to look at his face, twisted into a sinful expression.

“so fucking good, y/n. so. so. so. good.” he enunciated each “so” with a thrust and squeeze of your ass.

you can feel your body starting to get floppy, legs unable to support your weight much longer as your second orgasm fast approaches, body shuddering with overwhelm while he reaches round and presses a finger to your clit, circling it tightly to help tip you over the edge again.

“such a good girl, are you gonna cum on my cock like you did on my fingers?”

“yes-fuck, josh.”

a low moan signals that josh is almost there too, hips beginning to fall out of pace and his breathing becoming erratic. you let the sensations wash over your body, feeling transported to somewhere other than your room- the feeling of josh’s cock twitching inside of you being the only thing grounding you to the bed.

you let out a strangled moan as his fingers and cock push you into your second orgasm, letting your legs collapse as you convulse with overwhelm. josh fucks even harder into you, chasing his own high, until he finishes deep inside of you. he moans loudly, throwing his head back and biting his lip, eyes squeezed shut.

he pulls out, pressing a kiss to your shoulder before helping you get off the bed. using a t-shirt you had thrown over your desk chair, he cleans you both up and throws it into the laundry basket.

“let’s go back out, they’re still partying out there.”

“i just need to find my panties, did you see them anywhere?”

josh smiles a smug smile, patting his pocket and beginning to open the door. your mouth gapes open and you scramble after him, pulling him back into the room.

“you can’t tell anyone this happened, my brother will kill us if he finds out.” you whisper, holding his head with both hands and forcing him to look you in the eye. he flicks down to look at your lips, licking his own.

“our little secret, pretty girl.”

he presses a kiss to your lips, gripping your chin with one hand and pulling you against his body with the other. after breaking away, he faces the door and hesitates for a moment to throw over his shoulder:

“just don’t let your brother see my cum running down your leg- that might blow our cover pretty quickly.”

[capseycartwright]

9. ice skating for buddie 💖

“I’m going to die.”

Eddie tried his best to swallow a grin, looking dutifully sympathetic as he looked at Buck. “Buck, baby,” he tried to reassure. “You’re not going to die.”

Buck glared at him from where he was clinging to the side of the ice-rink. “I’m going to die, Eddie,” he said, as though it were a definitive fact. “I’m going to die while ice-skating, and that is going to be a deeply embarrassing eulogy for you to have to write.”

Eddie was trying not to laugh – really, he was. “I’d write you a really nice eulogy, babe.”

“Sure – we’re gathered here today to say goodbye to Buck, my incredible husband who agreed, for some godforsaken reason, to go on an ice-skating date in Los Angeles, of all places, because it’s not as though we all live in California to escape the plague that is snow and ice in the winter,” Buck huffed, clinging a little tighter to the side of the rink as he wobbled precariously on his skates. “And because I’m an idiot who thought it would be cute, and romantic, my dear husband is dead.”

“I’d probably be a little more polite, but sure,” Eddie teased. “You’re a drama queen. You know that?” he skated closer, confident as he scooted across the ice. It’s not as though he’d grown up ice-skating – he was from Texas, for crying out loud – but he had good balance, and it was easy from there.

Buck glared at him again. “Being rude to me isn’t going to help.”

“Neither is clinging to the wall,” Eddie pointed out, twisting on his skates, grinning to himself. “Will I see if they’ll give you one of those penguin supports they give little kids?” he joked, watching as a kid who couldn’t be much older than eight shuffled around the ice with the support of plastic penguin wearing a bowtie.

“Ha,” Buck huffed. “Do you – do you think they’d give me one?”

“I think you’re too tall,” Eddie pointed out. He’s not sure the rink they’d come to kept extra large plastic penguins on hand for ridiculous grown men who were too afraid to let go of the wall and actually ice-skate. Eddie knew Buck didn’t always have the best balance. Husband was a ridiculously athletic man in many, many ways – the schedule Buck was training to for a half Ironman was proof of that – but balance, that was a different issue.

“Come on, Bambi on ice,” Eddie grinned, gesturing at Buck’s gloriously long legs as explanation for his joke. “Give me your hands.”

Buck shook his head. “I’ll just pull us both down – and then Christopher will have to write us a joint eulogy, and he’s too young.”

Eddie couldn’t swallow his laugh, this time, shaking his head at his ridiculous husband. “Not to sound like a dad,” he began, knowing the preface was fair warning that whatever he was going to say next was going to be particularly dad-like. “But these tickets were fifteen dollars each, and for that to be worth it, you’ve got to do at least one lap.”

Buck twisted, looking around the not exactly small expanse of the ice-rink. “What about half a lap?”

“A whole one, Buck,” Eddie said, firm. “You’ve got to make it back to the start if you want off the ice – and it’s a one-way system.”

Buck sighed, loosening his death grip on the side of the rink. “This is the worst date idea you’ve ever had.”

Eddie took both of Buck’s hands in his own, slowly moving them backwards as Buck let himself get pulled along, leaning too far forward already. Eddie wasn’t convinced they’d make it the entire way around the rink, judging by the wobbly stance and terrified expression on Buck’s face, but he was going to try his best.

“Our worst date ever is the time you accidentally took us to a swingers party,” Eddie pointed out, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t about to accidentally run a child over. “This doesn’t even come close.”

Buck flushed bright right at the memory, shaking his head. “Humans weren’t meant to be on ice, is all!”

“Some of the earliest ice-skating happened in Finland 4,000 years ago,” Eddie grinned, spouting off the first of a string of facts he’d learned for the occasion. Years of being married to Buck had taught him that sometimes, the best thing to do was distract him with random facts – he always loved that.

Buck’s nose wrinkled. “Really?” he inquired, relaxing, a little, enough so that Eddie could tug them along a little quicker.

“Mm,” Eddie confirmed. “And the first organised ice-skating club was the Edinburgh ice-skating club,” he continued. “In the 1740s – though some people claim it started in the 1640s.”

“That’s a really long time ago,” Buck said, curiosity clearly piqued.

“Right?” Eddie grinned. “Humans have been ice-skating for a long time, Buck. It’s not that dangerous – you just have the body type of a drunken giraffe.”

“Okay, rude.”

Eddie grinned, nudging them past the entrance of the ice-skating rink and on to their second lap of the rink, Christmas music blasting over the speakers. Christopher was seventeen now, and in a phase where he’d decided he was too cool for Christmas, and all the cheesy traditions they had – and Eddie had been trying harder than ever, this year, Buck the natural stand-in for all the things Christopher refused to do because he was a grown up now, dad. Sue Eddie for wanting to hold onto the magic of Christmas – it was always going to be his favourite time of year.

“Eddie – Eddie, you passed the exit,” Buck looked at Eddie with wide-eyes. “Eddie – Eddie, baby, you’re going too fast, we missed the exit. Eddie – Eddie, come on, man!”

“One more go,” Eddie reassured. “One more, and we can go and get dinner.”

(It was eight more – and Buck complained for days about how the entire experience had him on the verge of death. Totally worth it.)

send me a christmassy prompt

[mercy-burning]

Your Favorite — Part 1

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: When Y/N comes home from college for the summer to meet her mom's new boyfriend, she finds herself in a rather tough spot when she can’t stop thinking about him— And it seems he feels the same... Category: SMUT (18+) Content: Adults w/ age gap, masturbation (female and male), minor exhibitionism kink, oral sex (male receiving), penetrative sex, breeding kink (kinda? i think? 😅) Word Count: 7.3k (do you see now why I had to make it a miniseries? alsdjfdk)

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | MASTERLIST

DISCLAIMER: In this story, Spencer is dating Y/N’s mom while also having a sexual relationship with the reader herself. Because of that, there are obvious undertones of cheating, alongside some perv-y tendencies when it comes to a partner’s daughter. That being said, Spencer and Y/N’s relationship is consensual. However— If any of what I just forewarned is something that you think will make you uncomfortable while reading, please do not read! If there are any more disclaimers you think I may have missed, don’t hesitate to tell me! There is another post I made HERE with some disclaimers as well if you want to know more about what this story will entail.

NOTE: This intro is already too long, so I’ll just get this out of the way: you can find visual nsfw inspirations for this story over at @mercy-midnight, I’m working on a playlist for this story on my Spotify @/mercyburning, and I don’t know when part 2 and 3 will be out, but you can assume they’ll be here within the next few weeks.

———

JUNE 5th

I hate my mom's new boyfriend.

For the past three months she'd been telling me about this new guy who's "The One" as if "The One" hasn't been like four other guys in the past two years.

And as much as I'd love for my mom to find someone to spend the rest of her life with, I don't believe she'd ever find Mr. Perfect at this rate. Unless she spent more than a few months with them at a time before dragging me home from college for a weekend to meet them, I really don't see it happening.

It just sucks. Because every time she does this, every time I return home, I see the glimmering hope in her eyes and the diminishing spark in his, and I know. I know it won't last, and her heart will be utterly broken within the span of a few months.

I always thought maybe she just had terrible taste in men.

But this time around, when I begrudgingly walk through the door of my childhood home for the summer and see my mother clinging to a man who returns that glimmer in her eyes, I know she's picked a good one.

And I hate him.

His name is Spencer Reid, and he's a retired FBI agent who teaches full time at local colleges now.

He greets me with a bona fide, radiant smile, unlike all the others before, and it sets my insides on fire. And when we sit down for dinner, he's polite (but not in a fake way,) and he seems genuinely curious about my studies and my personality and my relationship with my mother. And when dinner is finished he offers to clean up while Mom and I settle in the living room.

I see the way he looks at me as I leave, a gentle, closed-mouth smile and eyes that linger a little too long on my exposed legs before averting, a glint of shame pooling within them, and it only spreads that fire in my belly.

Maybe I'd been imagining the whole thing, because deep down I wanted him to look at me the way he had... But it's hard to tell when my brain is mostly setting off sirens, blaring "THIS IS WRONG! THIS IS WRONG!" on a loop with blinding lights.

And they're even louder when my mom wraps her arm around me and lays her head atop mine. "Well, what do you think? He's great, huh?"

She's so lovesick, it hurts. It hurts even worse knowing that all I can think about is his big hands wrapped around my throat while he fucks me into the squeaky twin-sized mattress in my bedroom upstairs.

But I can't tell her that, obviously.

And so I decidedly hate him. And I have no choice but lie to her face, embracing her joy and hoping that I'll be able to survive this summer.

"Yeah, Mom. He's really great."

JUNE 19th

It's been two weeks and I can barely stand to be in the same house anymore.

I try to keep myself busy by going outside, to the beach or for long walks in the park; but it's too hot for my liking, and our town is so small that unless I want to spend my time in the grocery store or one of the three bars on Main Street...

I'm stuck either outside where it's hot and uncomfortable, or in the house where it's also hot and uncomfortable.

We have air conditioning, of course, but that's not the problem.

It's Spencer.

I thought by now my little crush on him would have gone, but the longer he hangs around the house, the stronger my feelings for him grow. They're not romantic—nor do I think they ever could be given the fact that if anything serious really were to ever happen between us, my mom would disown me for the rest of my life and murder Spencer with her bare hands—but that doesn't make it any easier on me.

Every day he just exists, right in front of me with that tug-able mop of hair, those warm honey eyes, and his hands that never stop moving. I swear, it's like every time he breathes, his hands are breathing too, challenging me to try and stop them.

But I refuse to touch him. Because I know the moment I do, all will be lost. I won't be able to control myself anymore. And if I don't drop to my knees and try sucking his dick at the dinner table, I'm sure I'll blurt out how I can't handle it anymore and that I need him, and either way I'd be royally fucked.

Right now he's in the dining room, teaching my mom how to do a disappearing card trick. She thinks it's utterly charming that he can do it at all, but mostly that he's patient and willing enough to teach her. And normally I'd agree, but I can barely look at them without wanting to waltz over, grab his wrist, and suck his fingers into my mouth.

It's truly pathetic.

So I try to focus on the television just a few feet away. It's one of those rare instances where I wish our house was bigger, because while I don't mind having less wall-space between rooms, I do mind not being able to watch TV without the kitchen table in my periphery at a time like this. And I think about going up to my bedroom instead for a moment, but I'd have to go past the kitchen, and I just know Mom is going to ask if I'd want Spencer to teach me his magic trick.

And I most definitely do not want that.

In another life, maybe, where he isn't a hot professor and rather an average-looking dude who's way too into fantasy football... But not in this lifetime.

So there I sit, concentrating so hard on Family Feud that my face hurts.

When I hear a flutter of cards and joyous giggling from the other room, it's more than my face that hurts.

It's also my chest, churning and tensing at the hands of the green devil.

Fuck!

I barely even know this man... I haven't really talked to him because I'm afraid that if I try to hold a conversation I'll snap. He's literally just some hot older guy who's dating my mom, and still, my whole body twists and aches with envy when they do anything together, and it fucking sucks. Not only because of the jealousy, but it's also the fact that my mom deserves to be happy.

This time it's different. This time, she's really found someone who returns her every loving gaze, who makes her laugh, who's kind and genuine and not a total douche. She's happier than I've seen her in years.

And the one time she finally finds "The One", every waking second of my life is spent longing for him fuck me.

But it's only been two weeks.

And it's also been nearly two years since I got laid, so maybe that's just my issue...

I figure it can't hurt, so in a spur of the moment decision, I turn the TV off and sprint towards the stairs, right past Mom and Spencer before they can ask questions.

———

I hardly even register the dimness of the light inside the house by the time I glide up the steps, fumbling with the key and trying to make my entrance as quiet as possible. Though, because I'm so used to the dark by this point, the light—no matter how dim—nearly blinds me. The door shuts louder than I'd have liked, and I cringe inwardly, pausing as if that will keep anyone from seeing or hearing me. Not like it'll matter, considering Mom and Spencer are the only ones that are staying here and they'd also been the only ones aware of my plans for the evening.

Well, somewhat, anyway. I told them an old friend invited me out and I probably wouldn't be home until late.

Regardless, that instinct of trying not to get caught coming in late at night is stronger than common sense. Throw a little cheap beer and some shots into the mix, and it almost feels like I'm a teenager again.

The only thing different now is that I have a pool of some stranger's cum soaking my underwear and a man in front of me who stands like an angel. An exhausted, almost scruffy-looking angel more like, but my point still stands.

"You're up late," Spencer observes. It's a simple enough statement— not really judge-y, but I can tell that regardless of his knowledge of my coming home late, he seems shocked to see me coming through the front door right now.

And it's hard to look away from him. Just like it has been for the past two weeks. Still, I try, just barely avoiding his eyes as I cross my arms and fight the urge to clench my legs together. "I'm a whore. What's your excuse?"

Maybe not the best thing to say. But like I said, common sense? Gone.

"O—oh... Umm..." Spencer stumbles through his words, obviously stunned by my response, and the look in his eyes kind of makes me want to curl up in a ball and die from embarrassment. Still, I stand my ground and wait for him to continue.

He settles on a short, "I can't sleep," and then there's nothing else.

"Ah," I express. One syllable. I don't draw it out, I don't exaggerate it... This is the first real conversation I've had alone with him, and I've made it extremely awkward, so I sigh and take a few steps forward, trying to walk past him. "Okay. Goodnight."

I only make it a few steps before he stops me, his hand reaching out to tap my shoulder. "Wait—"

The touch makes me jump, and he pulls it away immediately as I turn to face him. My heart is racing at the speed of light, my panties are soaked through, and if I'm not careful that whole 'no common sense' thing is going to bite me so hard in the ass I won't have one left.

"Can I talk to you?" His voice is barely audible, and the gentle rasp it has to it seems to make me even more wet.

I nod, not trusting myself to speak.

"Look, I um... Your mom has been totally transparent with me about her relationships, so I know that she's been through a lot of them in a short amount of time... And I know that must be a little difficult for you. Especially now that I'm here... And you've been... distant. And I know that I don't know you that well, so forgive me if I'm assuming anything, but I just want you to know that I don't have any intention of making things difficult for you and your mother."

Too late, pal, I think bitterly, the gentle authority in his tone setting my insides alight. I'm positive that voice could get me to do so many things...

That's the alcohol and sex talking, Y/N, just shake it and move on...

He starts again, but I cut him off with a short wave of my hand. "Look, I... I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I had a really long night, and I'm exhausted. I just wanna shower and go to bed."

I expect more resistance, but Spencer only nods. I still can't bring myself to look him in the eye, though this time I catch his hands clenching at the bottom hem of his shirt. "I understand. Sleep well."

Without another word I turn on my heel and walk a little faster towards the stairs, and I'm about to take my first step when I realize he's followed me. His voice calls out my name softly from a few feet behind, and it stops me in my tracks regardless of my desire to get out of there as fast as I can. And then I turn around and finally look directly at his face.

Big mistake.

His eyes are on my legs again, trailing slowly upwards until he reaches my face. The light over here is dimmer, barely noticeable at all, though I swear I can see red forming on his cheeks.

"I like your dress," he says softly. It's almost meek, like he'd been afraid to say it but took a chance anyway.

It's such a random, small compliment, but with the alcohol and endorphins flowing through my body after the night I'd just had, it nearly makes me quiver.

It also makes me incredibly stupid.

An amused, almost sensual grin forms on my face as I make eye contact with him, and I feel myself throb at the way I can just barely see his throat move. He looks like a deer in headlights, afraid to make one sudden move.

"Turning to flattery to try and win me over, are we?" I say slowly.

I almost think he'll stumble over his words once more, but again he surprises me with a full answer. It's only three words but it's clear, and his voice is deep, and I want to fucking jump his bones right then and there.

"Is it working?"

This has to be the alcohol making me imagine things... I swear I didn't even drink that much tonight, but it has to be an obvious lapse in judgement. The drinking mixed with the sex mixed with the dirty thoughts I've been having about this man lately have to be what's making this feel real. It's all culminating into this one big fantasy (or delusion, more like), and all I need is to shower and sleep it off.

That has to be it.

So because there's no other reasonable explanation that my brain can conjure up, I take a chance and throw Spencer a wink before turning and sprinting up the stairs.

And it's that same seemingly undeniable reasoning for this illusion that doesn't keep my hands from wandering in the shower. Even though those warning sirens in my brain keep blaring, telling me that the common sense is still there for me to utilize, they're drowned out by my thrumming heartbeat and the repetition of Spencer's soothing, authoritative voice, guiding my movements.

Keep rubbing your clit for me, baby... Just like that, nice and slow...

Warm water cascades down the front of my body as I lean back into the wall of the shower, but that's not why I'm so warm. This heat radiates through my insides, spreading like wildfire and bringing out small whimpers and mewls that I know I'll have to contain in fear of waking my mom from her bedroom right next door.

But then the thought of her hearing me next door as I cry out her boyfriend's name only excites me more. I keep it quiet still, but just knowing that someone else is in the house while I'm having these thoughts right now (one of them being the object of said thoughts) is what finally brings me over the edge.

I finish my shower on weak legs, definitely overstimulated now, but also feeling even more tired. I know that the moment I lay down on my bed, I'll be pulled into the sweet, soft surrender of a deep sleep.

Nothing else has ever sounded so pleasant.

———

When I woke up that morning after, I was feeling surprisingly calm. Realistically I knew that my whole 'this has to be an illusion' montage had been less truth and more inebriated babble, and the longer I sat on it the more I thought it'd all turned out for the better.

Turns out, tipsily masturbating in the shower to thoughts of your mom's hot new boyfriend was a surefire way to get it out of your system, right?

Wrong.

It really had been okay at first. I thought about Spencer almost immediately, and yeah, he was still hot as fuck—But there wasn't this overwhelming desire within me to jump his bones when I saw him that morning, his hair messy and his hands clutching a cup of coffee while Mom made breakfast behind him.

But that good feeling I had about all of this? It lasts only about a split second.

Because the moment he looks up and sees me, the mug falls out of his hand and shatters to pieces. His eyes stay glued to me, even as my mother darts over to pick up the pieces of the ceramic that are scattered about the table and the floor. And when she turns back to grab a paper towel, he still stares at me, once again at my legs.

It takes me all of four seconds afterwards to remember that not only did I talk to him briefly last night, but I also flirted with him after he complimented me.

That whole part seemed to have slipped my mind when waking up, and now that his gaze is bringing me back to that moment, that 'this has to be an illusion' montage is starting to become larger than I'd remembered.

It isn't until he finally snaps out of it and starts to help my mom clean up the mess that I snap out of it, too, going back upstairs to clear my head and cool the heat radiating over my skin.

———

There's a knock at my bedroom door about an hour later, and it sounds different than my mom's usually quick two-knock succession. That means it's someone else, and unsurprisingly, my stomach tightens at the thought of seeing him again.

"Yeah?" I call out, turning in my desk chair and meeting Spencer's figure in the doorway. He's changed, a rather nice pair of slacks and a white button-up shirt clinging to his limbs.

"Can I come in?"

"Mhm," I say. I still don't know if I entirely trust myself to say anything more than a few words to him, and as he enters the room and sits on the foot of my bed, I wonder if he can tell.

He tries, really tries, to look me in the eye, but I know that it's hard. I've been in the same spot. And then he takes a deep breath before folding his hands in his lap.

"Y/N, I want to apologize... When we... talked last night... It was kind of weird, and then this morning wasn't really any better..." He can barely get out the words 'talk' and 'last night'... And then he avoids my gaze altogether, staring at the floor and trailing off, trying to put his thoughts together it seems.

And that's when it starts to click into place.

There's one thing that both last night and this morning have in common, and I've noticed it almost every time I've caught him staring at me. At my legs. It's happened almost daily since I've met him. And then, the night I come home clearly having just been fucked, waltzing past him, entertaining his fascination with my legs and then masturbating to thoughts of him in the shower, he finally starts dropping mugs.

He must also really feel something here. Something similar to my own feelings. And really, that should be a red flag, because he's my mom's boyfriend, and it's a goddamned fucking mess...

But fuck, it excites me.

I'm still wearing my pajama shorts, silky and lavender in color, and I use them to my advantage, slowly crossing one leg over the other and just barely gaining Spencer's attention back.

"Yeah, what was that, anyway?" I ask him, amusement dripping off my tongue.

I can tell from his reaction that he wasn't expecting me to ask. A few times he opens his mouth to speak and then closes it , stumbling before panicking. He's been pretty good so far at coming up with answers and explanations, so the fact that this time I finally seemed to have broken him down makes it all the more clear.

He must have heard me in the shower.

Right?

I'm almost completely positive that's what this is about. And there's one way for me to get the confirmation I'm looking for.

"So you heard me, huh?"

I try to keep my voice as plain as I can as not to give away my motives, and with my luck Spencer is so flustered that he probably wouldn't have even noticed it at all. He looks up at me, his eyes desperately trying to find something he can use to make up a lie, but in the end there's no use.

I've caught him. And he knows it.

"Yes," he whispers. He looks exhausted, guilty, and also a little like he wants to cross the barrier and kiss me.

Okay, maybe that part's just in my head. I really can't tell. But I do know that hearing me call his name out in the shower last night is what brought him to this point of severe distress. As much as that excites me, though, it also embarrasses me a little. Maybe if it hadn't happened we could have avoided further destruction.

It must read on my face, because Spencer perks a little. "Oh! Y/N, I'm not... I'm not mad or anything. I really didn't mean to overhear and invade your privacy... Really, I-I'm sorry."

The fact that he's apologizing to me right now, rather than acting all grossed out that I even did it in the first place, tells me he either feels guilty for not being able to help himself from hearing me, or he's just a good guy who loves my mom and doesn't want to ruin it because of a little mishap.

Either way, it's frustrating, because I don't know what to do.

Well, I know what I want to do, but I don't know if I should hint at it.

But then he does something. It's small, and no one would have noticed, but I've been fascinated with his hands since the moment I met him, so my eyes are instantly drawn there.

They're clenched so hard, his knuckles are nearly white.

He's nervous.

To ease his mind a bit, I hold off on poking the bear harder (though it's really tempting to see what will happen if I don't) and nod, trying to make myself look as apologetic and small as possible.

"It's okay... I... I won't make it awkward if you won't?"

His shoulders slump, and his body seems to relax. "Y–yeah. Yeah, deal."

He gets up off the bed and blurts one final apology before heading for the door, but that part of me that wants to poke the bear further makes me stand up and follow him.

"Spencer?" I call out.

He freezes and turns to face me, and I don't think he quite expected me to be as close as I am. I have to tilt my head up to look at him, and the angle gives me an added layer of this innocence I'm trying to achieve.

"I'm sorry, too..."

No the fuck I'm not.

Whether he can sense my lie or not, he doesn't show it. But I think he at least knows that I'm pitching my voice a little higher on purpose, and if that doesn't give it away, the way I'm staring at him sure should.

Still, he only nods and retreats.

All there's left to do is see what happens.

JUNE 25th

For someone who agreed not to make things awkward, Spencer sure can't keep his eyes off of me.

To be fair, I have tried to keep things fairly normal. I only really interacted with him if I had to, I kept my distance, and I saved my skimpier clothing for the strangers I was regularly going out to see almost every weekend.

My lustful feelings for him aren't as strong now that I've been getting some on a semi-regular basis and keeping myself occupied. I've been doing my part.

But I still can't shake him entirely.

Whenever he spends the night (which is surprisingly most nights), the occasional wet dream about him gets me frustrated when I know he's just down the hall and sleeping soundly next to my mom. On those days I try to cut as much interaction with him as I can, though it doesn't keep me from seeing the occasional stare he throws my way.

I wish I could say that I hate it.

But I don't, and it increasingly gets worse. It's only been a week, so there's still time, but honestly, I don't think there's any shaking him.

Today especially is one of those days where it's hard not to give into the incessant need to tease him and coax some stronger reaction out of him.

I talked to Mom earlier this morning about getting some new clothes, and she had this brilliant idea to have Spencer take me. "It would be a good chance for you two to bond a little, don't you think?" she insisted, nudging him in the side and silently pleading with her eyes for him to agree.

I could tell from the look on his face that he really wasn't ready to be alone with me again, but that only excited me.

"Yeah, I think that's a great idea," I piped up, positively beaming.

Mom was so excited for us to 'bond' and also that I was gladly inclined to go through with it that Spencer couldn't have said no to her even if he wanted to.

And I was pretty sure he didn't want to.

Yet here we are, sitting in the car, the air conditioning so strong it's blowing some of my hair into my eyes. I think it had been his way of punishing me for choosing today to wear a short skirt, something I usually refrain from nowadays unless I'm going out, and it makes me smile. I can't help it.

I also can't help the way my fingers play with my skirt, dying to tease him some more. I just want to see, to know for sure that I'm driving him mad.

"No offence, but you seem weird today... Is there something wrong?" I ask him, lifting my skirt just a smidge. The air from the car blows the fabric in waves.

"You're acting this way on purpose."

Well, I hadn't been expecting that answer... All this time he'd hardly been confrontative, and now he's full-on calling me out. It's plain to see that he's finally snapped, and I would have felt sorry about it if I didn't find it extremely sexy.

"What do you mean?"

"Y/N..."

My name on his lips is a warning. He's clearly annoyed, exasperated, and I'm loving every second. "Don't act oblivious. I'm not stupid, and neither are you. I don't want to make you hate me or anything, but you have to know where I'm coming from. I was willing to let the shower thing slide... And you said you were too, for that matter, so I don't know what's changed, but it has to stop now. Understood?"

Oh, all I want is to argue with him. I want to point out that none of this is really my fault because he's the one who hasn't been able to stop staring at me all summer so far. I want to tell him that if he wants this to stop he has to make it stop.

But that isn't going to give me any of the answers I'm looking for or further proof of my theory that he wants me just as badly as I want him. And I am not going to fuck this whole situation up by making a poorly-timed move on him.

I have to know for sure.

So, I fold my hands neatly in my lap, sigh, and look dead ahead. "Right... We said no awkwardness. I'm sorry."

Spencer seems to accept my apology and continues down the road.

When we make it to the mall I think he's calmed down. At least, he seems a little more comfortable around me, and honestly I'm okay with it. As much as his spiel in the car turned me on, it also exhausted me to the point of silence.

Even as we walk around each store in the mall, I just lead and he follows, not saying a word when I pick out a top or a pair of pants or whatever else I need. And when it comes time to pay, he takes the basket from me and pays for it with no question.

Near five bags of clothes later, I figure I could get used to this new dynamic.

But then we pass a lingerie store, and I remember that the main thing I'd needed was new underwear. I start to turn into the store, but stop suddenly, pausing awkwardly and deciding to go straight ahead instead.

"You don't want to go in?" Spencer asks.

I shake my head. "No, it's fine. I can just pick some up later, it's not a big deal."

He sighs then, nodding his head towards the sign. "If you need to go in, you can... I'll just wait out here if you're uncomfortable."

I really want to call him out, ask him if he's the one who should be worried about being uncomfortable. But so far this afternoon has been pretty decent, and I really don't want to make things any weirder than they have to be.

Besides... If my theory is right...

"Sure. Thanks. Uh, how am I gonna pay, though?"

"O—Oh... I'll uh... I'll just watch the counter and come in when you need me."

"Orrrr, you could just give it to me?"

This time I get a laugh out of him. "Not a chance. Go in, I'll wait."

I smile at him and hand him the bags to hold onto while I leave, and it fills me with absolute amusement that he'd just given me one more ounce of proof that I'm right.

He's gonna have to come inside and pay for what I bought. He could have just given me the card, and maybe he truly doesn't trust me with it (which I don't know why he wouldn't honestly), but he chose to come inside all the same.

I browse happily then, going through the displays and picking out things I need, but also things I know Spencer will like.

Specifically, I stumble on a pair of lavender panties, embroidered with flowery trim up top. The pattern from the outside is lace, but there's a thin layer of cotton underneath designed to be more comfortable to wear.

I've noticed that he can never seem to look away when I'm wearing anything, really, but it's more intense when I wear one of two things. Florals, and any type of purple. And these fit both of those bills perfectly.

Now there's just one more bill to take care of.

I stride over to the counter and turn around, finding that Spencer's caught my eye immediately. Either he truly had been paying attention to the counter the whole time, or he'd been watching through the glass, following me with his gaze to the best of his abilities. Either way, he blinks a few times and looks like he's gathering the courage to go in before actually taking any steps.

I laugh to myself, eager to gauge his reaction to this next step.

Surprisingly, he holds up well. The air between me, him, and the cashier is obviously awkward, but he doesn't say anything and barely looks at what she rings up. (I say barely because he tries extremely hard not to look at the purple pair I picked out, inadvertently adding another checkmark to my list of proof.) She tells him the total, he hands her the card, and within a minute, everything is in our possession and we're leaving the mall entirely.

I don't think there are any more steps to my plan today once we get in the car and I tell him thank you. (To which he responds a short and simple, Sure thing, and turns the radio on.)

But then there's a note taped to the front door, and it instantly gives me another one.

My Sweethearts,

I got called in on a work emergency and won't be back until 7. I would have called but I figured you were having a nice time and didn't want to interrupt! I'll bring home dinner, and then maybe you can tell me about how your day went. Can't wait to hear it!

XOXO,

Eve/Mom

I check my phone, seeing that it's almost 3.

Perfect.

But I don't want to give myself away too quickly, so I thank Spencer again for taking me out and tell him that I'm going upstairs to make sure everything fits right. He nods and lets me go, though not without lingering eyes. I can feel it.

The smile never leaves my face as I try all my clothes on. Once each article has been fitted, I throw it in a laundry basket and move to the next, until I get to the last piece.

The lavender panties.

As expected, they fit perfectly, and as I look at myself in the mirror I picture what Spencer would look like when he sees me wearing them.

That's right. When.

I throw back on my earlier outfit and grab the basket, acting as bored and normal as possible to find him sitting at the kitchen table, reading a book.

"Hey," I greet him, setting the basket in front of me once I reach the bottom of the stairs. "Everything fits good, I just need them washed now. Could you run these down to the laundry room for me? I think I'm gonna make something to snack on before Mom brings dinner."

It doesn't surprise me to see him look at my legs before my face, even if it is brief. I want to smile, but I hold back, watching him nod with a tight smile of his own.

"Sure."

He disappears and then I wait.

One...

Two...

Three.

I sneak as quietly as I can to the laundry room once I hear the washer door open. I hadn't specifically asked him to put them in the washer for me on purpose, and it looks like now he's doing exactly what I thought he might.

My head peeks around the corner, barely in his range of sight as I watch him empty the basket. He takes one item of clothing at a time and throws it in the washer, and halfway through the basket he stops, just to place a pair of my new underwear on the dryer beside him.

My heart races faster the more I wait for him to get to the end of the basket. Once he does, he pauses again, and I think I know exactly what he's looking for.

Still, he sets the basket aside and picks up the stray pair of underwear, a simple black cotton pair that I'd been getting for years, and drapes it over his hands. My thighs instantly clench, and I try so hard to remain where I am so I can see where he takes this.

He takes it straight to hell, apparently, tentatively pulling his dick out of his pants and gripping it firmly. I can barely see since his back is partially turned, but I see enough, and god he's so fucking pretty. My underwear dangle from his left hand while the other works slowly over his erection, a soft sigh falling from his lips.

I fight to let one of my own slip as my hand sinks down the front of my body, past the lavender cotton and lace that I know he just wishes he had right now.

And then, a few seconds later he's already coming, using my brand new underwear to catch each rope of it, and the sight nearly has me on my knees.

And because I want to catch him in the act, I quickly draw my hand away from myself and step into the room, barely giving him time to recover.

"You come fast."

Spencer looks utterly devastated when he turns to see me standing in the entryway to the laundry room, arms crossed and an amused smirk adorning my face.

"Y/N... I—I... I'm so sorry, I didn't... I..."

"Don't worry about it," I say, taking a step towards him and shrugging. "You heard me, and now I heard you... We're even. Besides, I... figured you might be looking for these."

He's still stunned, but he looks down all the same, watching my hands slip under my skirt and glide the lavender panties down my legs. I step out of them and hold the garment up on one finger, a soft smile still on my face.

"I picked 'em out just for you, you know," I tell him, tossing them past his face and into the washer. "I've noticed that you like purple."

This time he's quick to respond. "Y/N, we... We can't... This isn't right."

"Says the man holding my underwear soaked in his cum..."

He looks panicked again, extremely guilty, but if this isn't going to end in a total disaster, then I have to reassure him that I'm okay.

"Spencer, I'm not mad..." I take another step forward, and it feels much like trying to approach a wounded animal. I can see in his eyes and in his posture that this conflict is killing him, so I decide to show some rapport. "And I know... I know this is messy... I love my mom... And I'm sure you care about her a lot... But are we really going to ignore this? We tried that, remember? And now look where we are."

"I..." He swallows, shaking his head and trying to avoid my eyes. "I can't stop thinking about you... I can't..."

My hand finds his arm, and the light touch has him sighing out, an incredulous, breathy laugh escaping him. "Y/N, please... Don't."

"Don't what?" I ask softly, praying he won't turn me away. If he does, we're just back to square one, only the square is jagged, sharper than ever before, and in serious danger of injuring someone.

When he meets my eyes, I see nothing but a desire for something he knows he can't have. "Don't want me."

Now it's my turn to laugh. My knees start to wobble as I go down, keeping my eyes locked onto his, and I swear I see them dilate fully. I scoot in closer, sliding my hand up his leg and finding the words in my heart to finally say out loud.

"It's too late for that..."

My face moves closer, and the hand of his that doesn't currently hold my underwear flies down to gently tug at my hair, keeping me in place.

"If you do this... God, Y/N, I won't be able to stop myself..."

A smirk dances over my lips as I lean in, breath fanning gently over his exposed skin. "Don't."

He swallows. "Don't what?"

"Don't stop yourself."

I barely get the words out before his hand is completely pulling me towards him, and the second my lips press against the silky skin of his hard cock, he loses it completely.

His fingers thread through my hair as I kiss and lick my way softly up to the tip. Once I'm there, I swirl my tongue out and taste the small beads of cum that had remained after he came, a low, satiated hum radiating through my body and making him shiver under my touch.

And then I wrap my lips fully around the head of his dick, and there's no stopping the most beautiful sound I've ever heard come out of his mouth. It's a broken, desperate whisper of my name. The crack in his voice when he says it spurs me forward, and I take him deeper into my mouth until he hits the back of my throat.

That's when he tosses my underwear in the washer and uses both of his hands to grab my head, roughly guiding me along his cock and fully taking control of my actions.

The fire in my belly doesn't ease up, not even once he's decided that he can't take it anymore and pulls me off of him harshly.

And that's only because now he's fully turned over, finally given into these desires that have been plaguing him presumably from the moment we met.

"I want you stripped and in your bed, on your hands and knees within the next five minutes."

I get up off the floor and walk up to him until our bodies are flush, my arms reaching up to wrap around his neck.

"What are you gonna do to me, Spencer?"

He searches my eyes, and his own grow dark with the purest form of sin I'd ever seen. And when his hands come up over the back of my legs, and under my skirt to grab my ass and pull me even closer to him, I can't help the little mewl that slips past my lips.

He smiles, and if it hadn't been for the grip he held on me, I would have fallen to my knees. "Little girl, when I'm through with you, you'll have to come up with some excuse to your mom about why you can't walk straight... Is that what you want?"

The mention of my mom should send me running in the opposite direction, but his threat only prolongs that fire in my veins and makes me want him even more.

I tilt my head up and press a gentle kiss to his lips.

"Do your worst..."

———

Turns out he was very true to his word.

Sitting at the kitchen table is somewhat of a relief, but I try not to walk around as much when Mom gets home. She'd asked me almost immediately if I was okay, and I told her I was just hungry and needed to eat something.

She seemed to have bought it, rushing to the kitchen to unpack the fast food she'd ordered for us. Over her shoulder, Spencer gave me a sly smile, and it took everything I had within myself not to crumble.

Through bites of food, I only half-listen to Mom telling us about the stuff she had to do at work because most of the words I'm hearing are in my head— A loop of endless dirty talk that plants deep into the soil of my stomach and spreads out through my whole body. It infects me, like the most beautiful poison, and I never want it to stop.

"Tell me, sweetheart, you ever let a man come inside you before?"

His weight on top of me coupled together with the heft of his voice has me whining out in pleasure, each snap forward of his hips over my ass as he pounds into me from behind the most delectable burn I've ever felt.

"Uh huh," I answer happily, twisting my head to feel his cheek against my own. "That night you heard me in the shower... I walked through the door with a stranger's cum soaking my panties... And you know what?"

He grumbles, his hips hitting into me harder as he waits for me to continue.

"I wished it was yours..."

My legs clench together under the table and I take a large gulp of water.

I feel something graze over my bare shin, and I already know it's Spencer's foot, a silent reassurance of his presence and that no matter what, he'll always be here.

"Here's what's going to happen..."

He has me on my back now, my legs hoisted over his shoulders and bent back so I'm nearly folded in half. His hips are flush against mine and I can feel his cock throbbing as he comes into the condom.

"You're gonna make an appointment to make sure you're clean... You're gonna make sure you're on good birth control... And then the next time I fuck this pretty little pussy, you're gonna really know what it feels like to have a man come inside you."

Right... Like I really need a reminder of his presence.

I can practically feel it still inside me, taking up every inch of space my body could provide. And no matter how long I go without seeing him, I have no doubt that it'll always remain.

"But that's enough about me, I'm sorry." Mom's voice shifts and breaks me out of my fantasy. "So, how did your day of bonding go? You have fun?"

Spencer and I share a look, a smile spreading over his lips that makes me smile in turn.

"Yeah, Mom," I say. "It was great."

He nods in kind. "Yeah... We'll definitely have to do it again."

His foot grazing over my leg under the table cements the unwavering smile on my face, as does the way my whole body burns at the memory of him fucking me upstairs only hours before.

I don't even flinch or get sick to my stomach when Mom reaches over and gives Spencer a kiss.

———

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MEET THE MIKAELSONS| D.H.

Pairing: Derek x Fem! Reader, Teen Wolf x The Originals (requested) 

Word count: 1962 words

Warning: none, just fluff

Summary: Reader takes her friends and her boyfriend, Derek to visit her family home where they find out that she’s related to the infamous Mikaelson vampires.

“Just don’t touch anything,” I command calmly, Stiles pausing mid air as his hand hovers over one of Klaus’s paintings and everyone allows for a soft laugh, Derek kissing the side of my head as his hand remains inside my back pocket.

“This place is beautiful,” Lydia notes, looking around slowly as her eyes move over the various features of the compound.

“Yeah,” I say with a shrug, walking deeper into the compound as I mimic her actions, mentally comparing the way it looks to the pictures Rebekah sent me with her letters and I can’t help but smile when my eyes settle on the Mikaelson crest, fingers reaching out mindlessly as I trace the carved wall numbly.

“What does it stand for?” Derek asks, moving behind me where he wraps his hands around my waist, face resting on my shoulder. My smile grows due to the gesture, free hand finding one of his.

“Mikaelson,” I note softly, memories of our family suddenly speeding through my mind like a slideshow, things I’d told myself I’d forgotten completely proving to be embedded into my brain.

“Like the ancient vampire family?” Scott asks, having disappeared to the bathroom for a minute as soon as we got here.

“More vampires?” Stiles asks from behind me, and I nod.

“Yeah, they’re the first of their kind,” I explain, though my attention is far from this conversation, a feeling similar to the one I felt when I explained this to Derek, him being the only one knowing not only who I truly am and where I come from, but whom I was running from. “The Originals,” I add, and Derek gives me a slight squeeze, turning me around in his arms, probably picking up on my dazed state.

“Cool,” Is all Stiles offers as a reply, taking Lydia’s hand as Scott follows them to explore more of the house.

“You okay?” He whispers, leaning towards me. I nod in his hold, hands moving to his arms.

“Just a little weird being here, I guess.” I look up to him, smiling slightly when our eyes meet. “I thought that when I finally got to see this place in all its glory, they’d be here with me, waiting maybe,” Derek nods with understanding, smiling sympathetically.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” He loosens his grip, leaning back to get a better look at me. “We can leave if you’re not comfortable,” He offers sweetly and I shake my head with a smile, kissing his lips quickly.

“No,” I tell him though I can’t hide the slight rise in my tone, his brows furrowing as a result. “We need to let things cool down in Beacon Hills and no one will bother us here,” I pause, sighing softly as I move my hands over his bare arms. “Besides, there’s a literal coffin around here somewhere with my name on it.”

“Wait really?” Derek asks intrigued as he looks around the room pointlessly. I nod, not fighting against the smile on my lips.

“Yeah, a dagger too, but I doubt we’ll find that just laying around,” I pull away from him briefly, taking his hand in mine as I guide him towards the hallway by the staircase where Stiles’ is excitedly gesturing towards the wall.

“It’s her!” He announces loudly, eyes moving over the painting that Klaus painted of our family, and I subconsciously tighten my grip on Derek’s hand, his thumb moving up and down against my skin to soothe me.

“It’s not her,” Lydia argues with a roll of her eyes, arms folded as Scott simply watches the scene unfold. “It’s far more likely to be a relative that looks remarkably a lot like her,” She reasons and Derek bites back a grin at my side.

“She’s a vampire, right?” Stiles ask, looking to me for conformation and I nod, seeing no need for the question as he literally walked in on me sipping from a blood bag a few months ago. “And she’s been annoyingly vague about her family and her history, right?” He asks, question directed at Scott and Lydia this time, they both nod. “And she brought us to her family home, which has paintings of the Mikaelson family which Scott saw in the bestiary, where he also read that the Mikaelson family also have a long-lost hybrid sister who hasn’t been spotted in years…” Stiles nods eagerly as he waits for the pieces to fall together, Scott and Lydia looking to me as it does.

“Are you a Mikaelson?” Scott asks, hands in his pockets as he shifts on his feet, I release a shaky breath before offering a mere nod as reply, Stiles almost jumping up and down with the conformation of him being correct.

“Holy shit,” Stiles begins and turns to me, eyes sparkling with excitement. “That is so cool, like literally the coolest thing you’ve ever told us about yourself,” He informs me, and Derek shakes his head at my side, glaring at the boy as he continues to grow more excited.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Scott asks hesitantly, ignoring Stiles who is fiddling with his jacket sleeves as he takes a closer look at my specific painting. “Didn’t you trust us?” He adds as well, and I shake my head quickly.

“Of course I trust you,” I begin, and Derek squeezes my hand again, reminding me to breathe as I think of the best way to explain this. “I wanted to tell you all, truly I did, but our family has enemies around every corner, and I didn’t want to bring you guys into that,” I look over all of them quickly before turning to meet Derek’s gaze. “I love you all too much to create unnecessary collateral damage.“

“So why tell us now?” Lydia questions with a raised brow and I notice the added heartbeats filling the room behind us before I could fathom a reply, the gushing wind of their entrance still swirling around us.

“Because you’re in need of our assistance,” A familiar voice explains, and I close my eyes for a second in preparation before turning to face my older brother.

“Elijah,” I whisper in acknowledgement, the words barely leaving my lips before he’s picking me up into his arms, twirling me around in a welcoming hug that causes a childlike giggle to erupt from my lips. “I’ve missed you too,” I confirm, hands on his shoulders as he sets my feet back on the ground and I take a moment to center myself. “And you,” I say when my eyes meet with Rebekah’s, happy tears tugging at her eyes and I release myself from Elijah’s presence to pull her into my arms, her arms folding around my neck as she holds me close.

“It has been far too long, Y/n ,” She whispers, laughing lightly through her tears. She squeezes me tightly before pulling away, hands moving to comb back the hair that’s been ruffled through our hug and her hands still on my cheeks as she takes me in. “My little sister, even more beautiful than I remember,” She notes, which earns a scoff from both my lips and Elijah’s.

“I look exactly the same, Bekah and you know it,” I muse, taking the handkerchief from Elijah’s hands to hold it out for Rebekah . “Though, I’d never turn down the compliment from the beauty of the family.”

“Oh, I take great offense by your insinuation, love, ” Klaus announces, and everyone turns to the entrance, where he leans against the wall, watching the interaction. “Welcome home, Y/n,” He notes with a large smile, and I know as far as greeting go, that’s quite the scene from the hybrid.

“Thank you, Niklaus,” I offer in the same and my cheeks practically hurt form the pure excitement rushing through me at seeing them all again, the nerves and discomfort from earlier slipping away almost completely, until Klaus’ eyes meet Derek’s and suddenly reality sinks back in. I take a few steps back, smiling up at Derek before rejoining our hands, my other hand snaking around his upper arm to keep him close. “I should introduce everyone,” I note with a nervous smile and Derek simply nods reassuringly.

“I’d begin with the creature you’re so eagerly latching onto,” Klaus announces, happy tone from earlier replaced with the all so familiar big brother voice.

“Play nice, Niklaus,” Elijah instructs, accepting my grateful smile before silently commanding me to continue.

“This is my boyfriend, Derek,” I begin, looking up at the man as he extends a hand towards Elijah inducing the longest handshake I’ve ever had to endure until Rebekah clears her throat, the two men pulling away from each other. “Then there’s Lydia, Stiles and Scott,” I add, releasing a small huff of air as I gesture to each of them individually.

“It’s good to meet all of,” Rebekah speaks up, catching my gaze with a warm smile before she looks to my guests. “We’re the Mikaelsons,” She explains, and I nod lightly. “Elijah, Klaus and I’m Y/n’s personal favorite, Rebekah,” She declares simply, mimicking my gesture until everyone has extended an acknowledging nod.

“We should talk business,” Klaus commands suddenly, standing from his leaning position to walk towards us. “You bunch are here for a reason, aren’t you?” He muses with a slight wink my way and I roll my eyes at the remark, knowing that only he would take this opportunity to take a jab at my decision to leave them.

“Don’t start, Niklaus,” Elijah offers with a tight tone and I would’ve laughed if the room wasn’t so tense, a sense of familiarity filling me at the little group dynamic that’s remained the same through all these years.

“I’m not starting anything, Elijah,” Klaus replies, hurriedly pulling his leather jacket straight. “I’m simply trying to remind our dear sister that she is here on what she called a family favor and that we wouldn’t want to waste her precious time,” I’m too late to stop the soft laugh that escapes my lips, Klaus turning towards be in slight shock.

"Honestly Klaus, it has been centuries and you're telling me that no one has yet to remove that stick from your ass?” I mock and Elijah steps forward, fully prepared to stop the interaction when a smile traces the hybrids lips.

“Little sister,” He muses and then shakes his head, pointing at me. “You have booked yourself a long dinner,” He announces and pats Elijah on the shoulder to invite him to leave the room with him. Elijah spares me a brief smile before following.

“That went better than expected,” Rebekah notes and I smile at her, nodding with relief as Klaus and Elijah begin discussing the diner plans on their climb up the stairs. “Why don’t I show you three your rooms,” she says and motions for Scott, Stiles and Lydia to follow them, pausing to give me a quick kiss on the cheek before leading them away as well. I turn to Derek with a smile, his eyes already waiting for mine as I do.

“You did good, sweetheart,” he tells me, making my heart swell as I lean into him. “I’m very proud of you,” He adds, and I feel a blush creeps onto my cheeks.

“I couldn’t have done it without you at my side,” I say simply, resting my chin against his chest as I look up at him. He hums lightly, shaking his head as he lifts his free hand to gently push the hair behind my ear.

“You definitely could have,” He muses and gently kisses my forehead, sending a welcome rush of pure bliss through my veins, I smile as he lingers close. “My brave girl.”

Hi there, more of my work can be found on Wattpad.  Mxx.

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