#PLEASE LET OUR BABY LIVE AIDA

[gwenysklurp]

mitsubas bag !

what should i add to his bag? and who do i do next, its up to you !

[wildkrattslegendsofzoera]

My name is Ahmed Bakr, a Palestinian. I live in the Gaza Strip. My least wish is to save my wife and children (Neven, Khaled, Joan, Aida, and Musk) from certain death. I write these words and ask for your help. I do not know whether we will be able to survive. This is my last message to you as a human being and the story of my life and my family since the beginning of the war. My son (Khaled) is his age. (8) years old and suffers from enlarged liver diseases, infections, and anemia from contaminated food and water. We are unable to treat him, buy medicine for him, hold a baby no more than two months old, and I am unable to provide her with milk, pampers, or even supplies for small children. My children need food and treatment. We are deprived of the food we love. Our mental health is deteriorating and very destructive, and we need hygiene supplies in the tents. I was displaced from my home from the north to the south, to Khan Yunis, then to Rafah, and then to Nuseirat. I was injured by an occupation sniper while searching for a living for my children. I endured carrying water, searching for wood to light the fire, and bringing food for my children because there was no gas for long distances. Long, all day long, surrounded by devastation, bloody missiles and shattering shrapnel. We endured constant fear day and night for a whole year without any peace or comfort. I do not know where to take my children. Our lives are very painful and difficult, and every time we miraculously escape death, I want to help everyone who can help us, those with compassionate hearts. We live in the heat of tents and under the blazing sun. My house was completely demolished after years of effort and fatigue and building our house. Then, one night and one day, everything disappeared and my children’s room was completely burned and demolished. Even our car was not spared from the bombing, as we had all the wonderful means and tools. For the sake of a decent life, we started roasting our food over the fire despite the fatigue and heat. We are still standing despite the bombing, hunger, and severe shortages. We need your help. At this Save My Children event, we invite you to share our story with your friends and families with clarity and support. Your sensible words and prayers provide strength to endure these difficult circumstances... (Your donation) can make enough difference in our lives. We depend on your support and your standing by our side through this traditional ordeal, boxing, to restore hope and safety to Hayat and her family. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for considering my application. Your support and donation are very important to me and my family

Show your support for this GoFundMehttps://gofund.me/1d3a37c4

To all of my followers, please don't let their voices go unheard. Go support them.

[lightup0nlight]

I have been unwell. My beloved husband, may Allah bless him, has been taking care of me while I recover. Today, alhamdulillah, I'm well enough for him to go to work as usual.

Later in the morning, my mom called. My mom asked if I wanted her to come by, so she could take care of me. My mom, who is already physically old, asked her adult daughter if she wanted to be taken care of.

Ya Salaam. Ya Salaam.

Look at the rahmah of a mother.

Our mothers go through so much hardship to nurture and raise us since we were babies, and they continue to be concerned about us even up until now.

🌺 Allah says: ❛His mother bore him in weakness and hardship, upon weakness and hardship…❜ 【Surah Luqman 31:14】

I learned from a tadabbur that our mothers' hardship doesn't end after pregnancy, after raising us, after high school, after university, but it goes well into our adulthood and the rest of their lives. Even when we're adults, even when we're married, even when we've moved out of the family's house, our parents continue to love us, and worry about us.

If we've been holding back words of affection to our parents, please let us stop that today. Send that text. Say that you love them. Show that you appreciate them. Lessen their hardship. Our kindness in this dunya can never repay their kindness, but it doesn't take much to make them smile.

Your sister in Deen, Aida Msr ©

[verifiefangirl]

Elriel headcanon: how about u Azriel and Elain babysit and our shadowboy is uneased with toddlers?

Battlefield and babies

Elain got along with children like a house on fire. It was like a different side of her was revealed. 

She would be right there beside, Feyre and Rhys’ son, Adius, rolling in on the grass. 

Splashing bathwater,  building wooden blocks with him. 

Azriel, on the other hand, was always squeamish around kids. 

His shadows wreathing around him constantly made him look like the monster underneath children's bed. 

Not to mention his gruesome, beyond repair, scarred hands looked crude against the smooth, newborn skin. 

He spent as little time as he could with the infant. Always feigning some sort of excuse when someone asked him to hold Aideus.

The only time he’d really held him was when he was first born, but never again. 

Feyre always thought Az just needed to warm up a little and feel comfortable but his demeanour towards their child never changed.

It was obvious that Azriel thought the child was the cutest, most charming thing. 

He would always bring him numerous toys and artifacts from his travel, doting on Aideus like crazy. The child was spoiled both by Cassian and Azriel. 

The Highlord and Highlady had to attend an emergency gathering in day court. 

They didn’t want to travel with Aideus when he was so young. Usually, Nesta and Cassian were left on babysitting duty.

Though the couple were up at the steppes at the moment, overseeing some training leaving the responsibility to Azriel and Elain.

 Elain was ecstatic and Azriel was a nervous wreck. 

They set up his crib, change table in their cottage.

 As soon as his parents winnowed out of their home, the wailing started. 

Az eyes widened in alarm. He’d never really heard Adieus cry and especially not for a such a prolonged period.

Elain tried her best to soothe the incensed child who was usually so even-tempered. 

Finally Az suggested she go introduced them to the numerous animals outside their cottage. 

As soon as Aideus, big violet eyes landed on the chickens his crying ceased. 

They both let out a visible sigh of relief as squeals of delight escaped his lips. 

The small child was definitely rambunctious and a handful. Az did his best to help Elain with caring for him without actually interacting with the child. 

Getting his blanket, diapers ready, preparing a bottle but his moonflower was still worn out.

She practically thrust the small, precious bundle in his arm, telling him she had to start getting dinner ready and then she was taking a relaxing bath after. He’d have to entertain Aideus while she was gone.

You could see the colour leeching from Azriel’s face but he could hardly protest that. 

As she left for the kitchen he turned to look down at Aideus who had stilled his happy gurgling. Instead his small fingers clutched his jaw, drifting to his mouth. 

He tried to keep his panic at bay. This was the future ruler of his city and he didn’t want to fuck the baby up. 

He gently rocked side to side like he’d seen Feyre and Elain both do. 

“Elain!” He called out from within the living room. “He’s touching my face. Is that normal?” He asked, anxiety lacing his voice.

Her light tinkering laughter was his only answer. 

Aideus rested his full cheek against the crook of his neck and he swear his heart melted. 

He sat down instantly on the couch, not wanting to drop the precious cargo. He sat their for the next hour until Elain came out of the kitchen, shaking her head and laughing at him again.

“Honey, could you please give Aidas a bath while I feed the animals.” She held a hand before he could even start to protest. Already heading out the door. 

“Sure, how hard can it be? You got me, right little man?” 

Aideus just gurgled in response and made grabby hands for his shadows and wings, which rustled with fear.

Heading up the stairs to their room. He started filling the baby plastic tub inside their actual tub. Aideus, small wings flapped with excitement. He found himself have a dopey smile covering his face from the action.

He slowly undressed the child and made sure the water was a lukewarm before slowly settling him in. 

He bared his one toothed smile in Azriel’s direction as he splashed with his hands. 

Supporting his back and gently sponging him. He murmured prayers under his breath.

Aideus seemed none the wiser at Az lack of experience with babies. In fact he was so overjoyed with the bath that he had soaked Az tunic with his splashing.

Satisfied with his handiwork he wrapped him in a fluffy towel and set him down on the bed while stripping out of his shirt.

Then he worked at his downy hair which was damp and placed him in his night time onesies.

Elain had entered the room just as he had finished. Kissing his cheek Az readying the child for her taking again only to be shot down once more.

“I need to bathe, love.” The she devilled grinned like she was enjoying this so much. He let out a tortured groan.

“Lain, please.” He begged.

“You’re doing fine, Az, just a little longer.”

Letting out a sigh he settled down on the bed with the baby again who was on his back and sucking on his rattle.

Aideus was happy to be left to his own device until he wasn’t. Starting up his wailing again. Azriel brought him back to his bare chest and instantly the sniffling stopped.

He looked at the child stunned. He reclined back again and Aideus settled on his chest. Those violet eyes fluttering shut as he sweeped his mangled hands through his soft hairs.

He had never felt such peace wash over him or felt softer skin than his godsons. He hadn’t realised in the midst of soothing Aideus that he’d drifted off too.

When Elain came out of the bathroom. The sight of her two favourite males, sleeping, almost made her heart swoon.

Her muscled shadowsinger looking so docile and non threatening with a baby bundle on his chest. His large hand securing the child in place.

Aideus comfort and slight drooling, made her giggle. She wished the rest of their family could see the intimidating spymaster right now.

She knew Az was against the idea of him becoming a father but maybe this would change his mind. Seeing how great he was with his brother child.

Taglist 

​  @julesherondalex​ @jemma-nessian-and-elriel​ @maastrash​ @empress-ofbloodshed​ @wolffrising​@azrielismycinnamonrollprimary​ @sezkins79​ @poisonous00​ @humanexile​ @sleeping-and-books​ @highladyofidris​ @theshadowsinger-and-thefawn​ @rhysanoodle​ @b00kworm​ @mysweetvilllain​ @nite0wl29​ @mirainthedark05​  @negativenesta​

[pynkhues]

Prompt for PH: One of Kenny’s friends develops a big crush on Beth.

OKAY! Managed to get a whole bunch of prompts in this one which you can see in the note over on ao3 ;-) 

(Also your lowkey reminder that in the C&C universe, Rio has two older sisters – Carmen’s the oldest, an ER doctor, who’s recently gotten divorced from her husband. They have two boys Raf and David. His other sister, Aida, is an artist and a graphic designer who has an off-again-on-again girlfriend and no kids.

Ages of the kids in this one:

Sadie & Sara – 16/17Kenny – 15Rafael ‘Raf’ (OC, Carmen and Matt’s son) - 14Danny & David (OC, Carmen and Matt’s son) – 12Emma – 11Marcus & Harry ‘Lil Money’ – 10Jane – still 9 and annoyed about itDakota – 4)

-

“And then what?” Aida asks, sitting forwards in her seat, a wide grin on her face, and Beth can’t help it, she chances a look at Rio, who’s just - - rolling his eyes, of course, but also his lips are tugging up – maybe – just a little, despite himself. There’s something about it that settles warmly in her, the softness in his look, and she drops her hand to his leg before she can think any more of it, squeezing lightly.

And she smiles, almost shyly when he glances down at her hand, then at her, a look of surprise briefly passing across his face that quickly smooths into something steadier, something good. She knows she’s still not the best at this - - touching him first, especially not in front of people, but it’s getting easier, or - - no. Not easier. Rather it’s getting harder to control the impulse to.

The arm he has tossed over the back of their couch shifts suddenly behind her, bending, until his fingers smooth over the back of her neck, the skin revealed from where she has her hair up in a messy bun, making her shiver.

“Well,” Annie replies, lurching to her feet off the couch and heading over to the bar cart. She waves the bottle of merlot around, gets a yes from Beth, Ruby, Aida, a no from Stan, Nancy, Carmen – before she can wave it at Rio or continue on with her story, they all hear a loud, young voice sound from upstairs.

“No.”

Which proves enough to make them all pause. Beth’s gaze darts back to Rio, but he’s squinting above them, like his eyes can burn a hole through the ceiling, through the floor above them, straight into Marcus’ room.

It’s Ruby who breaks the silence in the end.

“Hmm,” she supplies, turning pointedly towards Stan. “Doesn’t sound like one of ours?”

“Nope. Lil’ Money does not have that set of pipes on him, and I’m pretty sure Sara’s still teaching Emma how to French braid in the family room.”

Which in turn is enough to make Beth lean sideways in her seat, half across Rio’s lap, just enough she can see down the hallway to where Sadie, Sara and Emma are watching To All the Boys I Loved Before on low volume in the family room, Emma sitting on the floor between Sara’s legs as Sara does her hair while talking to Sadie over the movie.

“Or mine,” Annie agrees, like she’s seeing what Beth’s seeing, despite the fact that there’s no way she could, and Beth chances a look over at Rio again who looks apprehensive at best, his jaw rocking as an explosion of tense childish chatter erupts from upstairs. “Or yours, Nance, so seriously chill.”

“I hate it when you say that,” Nancy says, prickly as she eyes off the stairs. “Do you think Dakota woke up?”

“You literally have a baby monitor in your hand, you would’ve heard. Plus I’m pretty sure Beth and Rio’s room is like, sound proofed so the kids don’t hear - - ”

“Annie,” Beth says sharply, glancing sideways at where Carmen’s rolling her eyes and Aida’s about three seconds away from faux retching.

“Please, we all know you two exist in a constant state of foreplay. Your hand is practically on his dick right now.”

“OKAY!” Ruby says suddenly while Beth snaps her hand off of Rio’s leg, something that only makes Rio level a heated glare at Annie across the room. “Who’s checking on the kids?”

“It’s probably one of mine,” Carmen says with a sigh, finishing off her drink and dropping her wine glass to the coffee table. “At the moment, they’re just - -”  

She waves out an exhausted hand, and Aida and Beth both offer her sympathetic looks.

“Divorce can be hard on them,” Beth says. “It’s just an adjustment though. You’ll all get through it.”

Rio grunts in agreement, and Carmen nods, grateful, as she gets to her feet. She opens her mouth to reply, when they hear footsteps pounding down the hallway above them, and then they can see it – Jane and Marcus at the top of the stairs. Beth bites back a groan, at where Jane’s party dress is already torn at the back.

“Just go play with Emma,” Marcus whisper-yells, his little face stern. “This is boys only.”

“Mom says there’s no such thing as boys only,” Jane hisses back, yanking her arm out of his grip, hard enough she wobbles a little at the top of the stairs, and Beth’s heart lurches as she pushes off the couch, ready to race up if she needs to. “You’re just worried that they’ll like me more than you, and then you’ll have to go and watch dumb, kissing movies with Sara and Emma because nobody will want you on their team anymore.”

Marcus scoffs, curling his lip, but before he can say anything, Jane’s bolting down the hallway, back towards what Beth can only guess is Marcus’ room and god, she’s fast, but Marcus has hit his growth spurt, is practically more leg than boy these days, and Jane - - well, Beth’s pretty sure Jane is destined to be Annie-sized. Beth rolls her eyes, hearing them start to scuffle, and she’s starting towards the stairs when Rio gently knocks her back towards the couch, a silent directive to stay, and starting up them himself instead.

Which - -  fine, he can handle it, she thinks, reaching for her drink when - -

There’s a slam, a crunch, a wail.

Suddenly Beth can hardly breathe andRio’s running and everyone else is on their feet, Carmen pushing past to get tothe front. 

“First aid kit?” she asks.

“There’s one in both of the bathrooms,” Beth says quickly, getting to the foot of the stairs only to see Rio sitting on the floor in the hallway, Jane hysterical in his arms, her fingers purple even from here. Marcus’ door is open again at least, and he’s standing in it, ashen faced, all the other boys tucked in behind him. Carmen ducks up past her and Beth starts to herself, only to have one of Carmen’s boys – David – suddenly bolt down the stairs past her, trying to escape the inevitable punishment, almost barrelling her over. She throws out a hand to stop him, and he looks up at her with wild eyes. Beth gives him a disapproving look.  

“Jesus,” Annie says somewhere behind her, not to her. “Doesn’t it make you glad our kids are old?”

“Makes me glad I don’t have kids period,” Aida adds, and as if on cue, the baby monitor in Nancy’s hand goes off with Dakota’s four-year-old bustling. She yelps, leaps to her feet, pushes past Beth who’s still trying to get hold of David to get him back up into the kid jail upstairs Rio’s inevitably creating when she hears Stan stepping up behind her.

“Not all our kids are old,” Stan calls back to Annie, smiling softly at Beth, before wrangling David and taking him up the stairs towards the other boys. “And those pipes before might not have been Lil’ Money,” he says, raising his voice firmly but gently, just to make sure Harry hears. “But boys only sounds like somethin’ that kid’d be a part of, so.”

Beth moves to go with him, but only makes it up two steps when she hears:

“Is everything okay?”

With a blink, she turns on the spot to see Kenny suddenly in the downstairs hallway beneath her, shadowed by his friend, Mason. She nods, painting on a smile for them, even as her gaze flicks back up to where Rio’s still comforting Jane, Carmen now beside him, trying to get a look at her fingers.

“The boys just got a little boisterous and Jane got hurt. It’s okay,” she says, watching as Rio shoots his most disappointed stare down across all the boys, but levelling something that must be particularly sobering at Marcus and Danny, as it has the latter recoiling and the former bursting into sobs of his own.

“Does Rio need help?”

Beth blinks over at Kenny again, who stares earnestly, honestly back at her, and Beth smiles softly, shaking her head and reaching out to straighten the collar of his shirt. He likes to iron them himself these days – something that she’d thought perhaps had been at Rio’s insistence until Rio had denied it. It was all Kenny, which was all sorts of lovely, despite the fact that he wasn’t actually all that good at it. She looks at the creases, at the upturned corner, and like he knows where she’s going with it, Kenny rolls his eyes, batting her hand away.

“Cool, well, we just wanted to tell you Mason’s going home.”

Straightening, Beth glances behind him to where Mason shuffles a little on the spot, his blond hair floppy, his forehead peppered with zits, his eyes bright and green. Behind them, she can hear Aida and Annie laugh about something in the living room, behind her, she can hear Stan’s gentle, but firm reprimand.

“How are you getting home, sweetie? Do you need a ride?”

Mason shifts his weight, plays a little with his backpack strap, and shakes his head. Somewhere upstairs she can hear Carmen insisting Rio let her look at Jane’s hand, only this time she hears Rio insisting he’s got it covered, which is typical, really. He always thinks he knows best, even though Carmen’s an actual medical professional and his expertise consists of patching up his own gunshot wounds. Beth inhales, sharper than she intends, itching to get up there.

“No, I’m okay, Mrs. B. My mom should be here any minute. She’s coming straight from work, so.”

Beth nods, glancing up again briefly at where Rio’s finally stood up, finally let Carmen lead him and Jane into the bathroom. Rio’s hand is tight on Jane’s back, her arms curled desperately around his neck, and - - he has it covered, Beth reminds herself. She looks back at Mason.

“Okay, well, let me grab you some leftovers to take home for your mom.”

“Mooom,” Kenny groans, embarrassed, and she’s back down the stairs and halfway down the hall before she hears Kenny lean over to Mason. “Sorry, it’s kind of her thing. Everyone always leaves with something.”

Which isn’t untrue, but still. She knows Mason’s mother is widowed, knows it wasn’t a year ago that his father died, knows his mother works hard, long hours, so it’s the least she can do to put some of the dinner aside for her, and maybe a little extra, that they might get another meal for both of them out of it too. It’s not like she didn’t make enough – a slow cooked lamb pot roast with almonds and pomegranate. She grabs a few slices of the spiced bourbon apple pie she’d made for dessert too and a few of the practice-round peach and candied ginger muffins too (the good ones had gone to Demon and his wife as a thank you for taking care of the kids at the warehouse last week when Beth and Rio had had a one hour meeting turn into a half-day one. She’s not sure Demon will ever recover from managing all five of them). She pops them all into containers, spinning on the spot, her party heels clipping on the floor as she walks back to them, surprised to find only Mason.

“Where’d Kenny go?” she asks, blinking, and Mason shrugs, fiddling with his bag strap again.

“Sadie wanted to show him something. I said it was okay.”

Beth sighs, glancing back upstairs at where the crying seems to have died down and where Stan’s leading Harry, Marcus, Danny, and Carmen’s boys – Raf and David, down the stairs towards the family room. Beth mouths okay? And Stan nods.

“Bruised, and a bit of a nasty cut, but they’re not broken,” he adds. “She’ll be fine.”

She smiles gratefully, before turning her attention back to Mason.

“Sorry for the chaos,” she says lightly, and Mason laughs.

“It’s kinda cool. I don’t have any brothers or sisters and like, only one cousin who’s way older. Like she’s already married and stuff.”

Beth hums, opening the front door and stepping outside with him into the cool evening air. It’s breezy enough to billow her dress slightly, and she smooths it down with one hand, still clutching the containers of food to herself as Mason moves to stand beside her.

“What you made for dinner was pretty awesome,” he tells her, and Beth smiles over at him, mind already back inside, hoping the boys don’t ruin Emma, Sara and Sadie’s movie. Raf in particular isn’t particularly good at hiding when he finds something boring, after all. Hopes it gives her enough time to go up, inspect Jane’s hand for herself, to lay kisses on it like she’d do when they were all small, like it might make her feel better. “Like, and the fact that you made a dessert with bourbon in it - - that’s pretty fuckin’ dope.”

Beth arches an eyebrow at that, pulled back to the moment, and it’s all it takes for Mason to pink at the cheeks, shrugs.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, and Beth laughs.

“It’s fine, nothing I haven’t heard before, I can promise you that,” she replies easily, and Mason wrinkles his nose, still smiling, still blushing a little in embarrassment, and Beth softens before she can help herself. They’ve been seeing so much of him since his dad died, since his mom’s working more, and he’s a good friend to Kenny and a sweet kid, and god, if maybe she doesn’t look at him sometimes and remember  - -

Well.

Remember.

“And thank you,” she adds. “It’s nice to know my cooking is fucking dope.”

She winks at him, and Mason’s blush only deepens, his feet shuffling. He opens his mouth to say something to her, what, she’s not sure when suddenly a car pulls into their driveway - - or, at least, it tries to – not an easy feat with all the other cars there.

Beth waves as Mason’s mom pokes an exhausted head out of the car, and Mason moves to grab the containers from Beth.

“Thanks again, Mrs. B,” he says, and Beth nods, smiling.

“Get home safe now.”

Mason smiles, waving as best he can around all the containers before darting off towards his mother. She watches him go, get in, waits for them to drive off before turning to go back inside. It’s not a new habit exactly, but still. She’s had enough reminders of what she and Rio do for a living to like to see people off these days, whoever they might be.

Stealing back inside, she can hear Carmen’s voice peel down the stairs:

“Y’know, maybe if you got out of your goddamn helicopter right now, this would go a lot faster.”

Rio snaps something back at her, his voice too low, gruff to be heard, but it’s enough to make Carmen huff out that irritated laugh in reply that’s so much like Rio’s Beth’s head briefly spins. She thinks about going up but then - - Jane’s not crying anymore, and besides it sort of sounds like the last place she wants to be right now.  

Shaking her head, she makes her way towards the living room instead, smoothing out her dress as she goes.

“ - - because they’re like her little groupies.”

It’s Annie who says it, leaning forwards in her seat and raising her glass as if to punctuate a point, and Beth blinks, not entirely sure what she’s walking in on.

“Right?” Nancy says, somehow having gotten back into the living room, standing up as she rocks a dozing, four-year-old Dakota, who’s draped across her chest like a monkey. Her voice is too loud as she makes wild eyes at Annie. “Did you see the way he looked at your sister when she was hand whisking the cream for dessert? His eyes were like - - bulging. He looked like Jim Carey in The Mask.”

Annie looks far too amused at that, looking over at her with a grin.

“Wow, Nance, dated reference.”

Nancy holds up the hand not clutching Dakota still to her chest in a very highschool talk to the hand gesture, opens her mouth to say something when Ruby suddenly coughs, breaking up everyone’s laughter. And then - -

Well.

Everyone’s eyes are on her.

“Did I interrupt something?” Beth asks slowly walking towards the bar cart to pour herself a drink, and it’s Stan in the end who takes pity.

“Your sister’s just talking about your fan club,” Stan tells her. “Kenny’s little friend over there looked like the president of it.”

Beth blinks, jerks her head back and just - -

What?

“Fan club?” she says, and Annie crows.

“Told you. B’s always been totally oblivious,” she leans forwards towards Aida conspiratorially. “I mean, your brother is a master of eye fucking and it still took them like, forty years to get together.”

“Annie,” Beth hisses again, as Aida clenches her eyes shut, holds a hand up to Annie’s face, and says:

“Please never talk about my brother’s eye fucking again.”

It’s enough to make Annie cackle – rocking back in her seat and then forwards again.

“Seriously though. They come around after school all like - - limbs and body odor and cystic acne, and sit around the table and just like - -watch her, it’s kind of creepy.”

Gaping, Beth stares at Annie, waving her drink around.

“What are you talking about?”

“All of Kenny’s weird, horndog friends,” Annie insists, and Beth blinks, because surely she doesn’t mean - -

“Are you talking about his study group?”

“They’re studying something,” Ruby says lowly, and Beth turns around to give her her most betrayed look, before Ruby laughs.

“It’s just a part of growing up, B, and honestly, they’re nice boys. They’re just teenagers and you’re the hot mom in their little clique,” Ruby shrugs as she says it, and Beth blinks as Stan, Aida, Nancy and Annie all nod, like this is just some sort of universal fact.

“I am not - - ”

Beth flails, and Ruby gives her a look.

“Bitch, do not start with me. You are. Deal with it. I can tell you from experience, it’s a blessing and a curse. You know how many of Sara’s friends got crushes on Stan? Particularly when he was in uniform? I felt like I was going to have to start wiring jaws shut with the way these girls would hang around with their mouths open like - - ”

She does an impression – eyes wide, lips parted, and Stan laughs, pushing gently into her side.

“You’re one to talk. Sara’s first boyfriend followed you around more than he did her.”

“I did say it was from experience,” Ruby agrees, more than a little smug. She gestures between the two of them. “Two hot parents under one roof. Should be illegal. I feel bad for our kids.”

Laughing loud and hard, Stan nods, leaning in to kiss her, and Beth half rolls her eyes and half melts, because - - cute, okay, while Annie fakes a retch in the background.

“Speaking of hot dads, that’s going to be a serious problem for you,” Nancy tells Beth, wide eyed, still rocking Dakota while she stands. “Like, I’ll be the first to say Chris is not my type, but that man is - -“

She sounds a little breathless, rolls her eyes to the ceiling, mouths oh my god, and Annie laughs at her.

“You’re a freak, Nance.”

Nancy flails out with her free hand – just enough to whack Annie pretty well upside the head.  

“One of the boys does have a thing for him though,” Annie adds, and okay, that Beth does know.

“Tommy?”

Annie blinks over at Beth, grins, impressed.

“Well, look at you!” she says. “Picking up on the lust of a teenage boy. I reckon that kid jacks it to your not-husband at least twice a day.”

“Annie,” Beth groans again, a sentiment echoed by everyone else in the room, and at least that’s enough to make Aida jump in.

“God, I’m having flashbacks to highschool,” she says, waving a hand around. “All of Chris’ weird, baby gangster friends would come ‘round and just like - - totally fuckin’ perv on me and Car. One of them used to hang out the front of the bathroom while we were in there until our mom threatened to run him over with her car. I think he might have been listening to us pee?”

Which - - is awful, but also just helps Beth to double down on her point.

“Yeah, well these ones aren’t perving,” Beth says, finally sitting down again beside Annie. “They’re children.”

Aida blinks, looking sideways down towards the family room, as if gauging the ages of the kids sitting in there, which means it isn’t much of a surprise when she says:

“How old’s your kid again?”

“He actually turns fifteen in two weeks,” Beth says, unable to bite back the smile, because he really has just been so excited for his party. He’s one of the last kids in his class to have his birthday, and he’s treated every other birthday party he’s been to this year as little scouting missions, talking Beth through what he thought was cool and what was totally lame – the fact of which had amused Beth to no end.

(“Would be good if he could put this much effort into school,” Rio had said gruffly after Kenny had talked them through all the good and bad things of the last party he’d been to, and Beth had just laughed.)  

“Yeah, they’re pervin’,” Aida says, making Beth startle, and Annie crows happily, holds up her hands and says something that sounds like preach, sister, which - -

Beth opens her mouth to reply, when suddenly Carmen appears in the doorway, swearing colourfully in Spanish as she flops down onto the couch beside Aida. She grabs her drink – which Annie had topped up while she was upstairs – and throws it back in one gulp, before looking over at Beth.

“You ever finally murder that asshole, please call me so I can make sure you’ve finished the job,” she says, and Beth can’t quite hold back the laugh.

 *

 Rio exhales, content, pulling out and rolling off her. He stretches a little back on the bed, his spine cracking as Beth grabs a few tissues from her bedside table, cleaning up between her legs. She still feels a little hazy – probably should have skipped the last two glasses of merlot, but she also feels pretty good, fucked-out good, tossing the tissues into the bin and wriggling into Rio’s side. She preens happily when he turns just enough to brush the hair back off her face, and leans in to kiss her.

After Carmen had come down, Beth had gone up, finding both Rio and Jane in Jane’s bedroom, her little hand tightly bruised, band-aids on almost every finger. She’d stopped crying, but collapsed into Beth’s arms the second she’d seen her, and Rio had pressed his lips to both their foreheads before heading downstairs. It had been late enough at that point that she’d eased Jane into sleep, and found herself back at the party before long, the conversation of Mason and Kenny’s study group forgotten, at least until the end of the night when Annie had made some bad joke about Beth’s boyfriend hopefully not coming back tonight – which had gone over about as well as anyone could’ve expected given Rio hadn’t been there for the context of the joke.

“Annie was a lot tonight,” she says, thinking more on it, and Rio hums.

“Yeah, she’s always a lot, mami,” Rio replies, shrugging a little as he folds back down into their bed. “Don’t help when she does shots with Aida before dessert though.”

Beth snorts, looking over at him, taking in the slope of his nose and the fan of his eyelashes. He’s looking rested at the moment, which is a way she’s recently learnt she’d never seen him look. Something fresher about him, since they dropped two of their more problematic clients from their books. They don’t need the money after all. They’re doing – all in all – pretty good.

The thought settles happily, but still - - Beth can’t quite help but poke at tonight.

“That thing about my boyfriend too,” Beth adds, shaking her head. “You’re lucky you missed it – she called Kenny’s study group my fan club.”

And he does laugh at that, amused in a way that Beth laughs too, because he gets it, thinks it’s as ridiculous as she does, and Beth wriggles a little further down in her bed.

“Fan club? Shit, I woulda said groupies.”

And - -

“What?”

Rio hums, looking over at her, amused.

“What?”

“Groupies?”

“Mmm,” Rio hums again, gaze flicking down to her sheet covered body. “Three minutes away from throwin’ their boxers at you, since hittin’ on you ain’t gettin’ them nowhere.”

Beth wrinkles her nose, and Rio laughs, leaning over to bite it, before reaching over her to turn off her bedside lamp. Beth waits until he’s off her and lying back down to reach over and turn it back on.

“When?” she asks, sitting up in bed, clutching the sheet to her bare chest, and Rio blinks up at her, forehead furrowing in confusion.

“When what?”

“I mean give me an example of when they’ve - - ” she flails a hand out. “Hit on me.”

And she squints a little, immediately annoyed at the too-big, too-bright grin that spreads across his face. He turns a little over in their bed towards her, popping an eyebrow and not even bothering to hide his amusement which is frankly rude. Beth squints harder, holds the sheet a little tighter.

“You wanna know when Kenny’s classmates hit on you?”

He says it with such heavy disbelief, that Beth latches onto it, widening her eyes and nodding.

“See? It sounds ridiculous.”

“Only sounds ridiculous coz you ain’t seein’ it.”

She rolls her eyes, thins her lips down at him, and Rio laughs, propping himself up on his elbow so that he’s sort of half raised to meet her, and she has to resist the urge to flatten her hand on his face and push him back down onto their bed.

“’Sides, they ain’t hittin’ on you, they’re just checkin’ you out, prob’ly seein’ which one can get the best look down your blouse,” his eyes slip shut again as he yawns and says something that sounds suspiciously like horny motherfuckers. Beth frowns. Thing is, she’s barely even noticed them looking at her. They’re a study group for goodness sake, it makes sense they’d want to spread out around the dining room table while she’s making dinner in the kitchen, or working on something she brought home from the office at the kitchen island.

They come in sometimes to talk to her, but that’s just because they’re polite, and usually it’s to ask her if she can make them a hot cocoa or something, and okay, maybe she did look up the other day as she was stirring in the cocoa powder and Mason was staring at her chest or - - that was probably nothing, she reminds herself. God - -  

“They’re children,” Beth insists, and Rio laughs again, a little exasperated this time. He shakes his head, before glancing back up at Beth, his eyes wider than they have any right to be, inquisitive almost.  

“How old’s Kenny turnin’ next week?”

And right, Beth thinks. That’s exactly it!

“Fifteen,” she says, punctuating her point, and Rio holds his hand out like it proves his.

They both just stare at each other, briefly confused how the other can’t get it, and Beth finally scoffs, flopping heavily sideways into her pillow, resting on her elbow, mirroring Rio’s pose so she can better argue with him.  

“Please, when I was fifteen I had only just started dating Dean and we were like,” she flails a hand out. “Babies. We thought the sexiest thing in the world was holding hands at the drive-in. We didn’t even kiss until my sixteenth birthday.”

He gives her a look at that which is simultaneously incredibly amused and incredibly judgemental.

“Yeah, coz that dumbass ex of yours couldn’t close a deal if it came pre-signed,” he says. “Wanna know what I was doin’ at fifteen?”

Which - - well.

“No,” she replies petulantly, because while she knows Rio’s history is certainly - - extensive to say the least, she can’t say beyond brief bouts of insanity she’s ever had any desire to know the details. Rio grins again, huffing out a laugh.

“Look, it ain’t that deep. You’re their friend’s mom, you got this whole too-sweet, Martha Stewart energy in this stacked, Jessica Rabbit package. They know they ain’t got no chance beyond lookin’ down your shirt and standin’ a little too close, but they gonna try it anyway coz they’re young and they’re really fuckin’ dumb. You get uncomfortable with it, you tell them to take a walk. They don’t, you snitch on their horny asses to their parents. That don’t work, you tell me, and me and them can all have a little talk.”

He shrugs, like it’s the simplest thing in the world, and Beth stares at him, irked by the blasé authority of his tone, like he knows what this is, like - - like it isn’t the first time he’s going through this with a kid too.  

“I’d rather you didn’t pull a gun on a group of teenagers for looking at me,” she says dryly, before adding: “Which I’m not even convinced they do by the way.”  

Rio rolls his eyes, looking briefly at the ceiling before back at Beth.

“Then what are we talkin’ about?”

And - - well. She doesn’t even really know. It had just surprised her – how Annie and Ruby – god, even Stan, had been so certain that Mason had a crush. Little Mason, who’s been coming around since Kenny started at Glenvale almost three years ago, bright eyed and sweet and helpful and a child and if Mason’s growing up, then that probably means Kenny is too.

She feels her lower lip wobble before she can even help it, and sees Rio clock it, frown, but before he can say anything, Beth quickly cuts him off.

“Well Annie thinks one of the boys has a thing for you,” she says, putting on her best know it all voice that both Rio and Ruby say is going to get her in trouble one day, and for a minute, Beth doesn’t think he’s going to let her pivot, but in the end he just lets loose a smug grin, shrugging knowingly.

“Mm,” he hums. “One with the glasses and those ugly ass sneakers?”

And just - -

Okay.

That’s not fair.

“His name is Tommy,” she sniffs, but dammit, he is the one with the glasses and the ugly sneakers. “How do you even know that?”

“Just because it takes someone proposition’ you in the passenger seat of your mama van to realise someone’s checkin’ you out don’t mean we all got that problem.”

Beth blinks, a flush finding her cheeks, sliding down her chest before she can help it, and Rio’s tongue darts out to wet his lips and she knows he’s going to press them to the bony cup at the top of her sternum before he even does. He likes that, she knows, to taste her blush.

She shivers pleasantly, raking her nails down through his hair, feeling him purr against her chest.

“It didn’t take that, just so you know,” she tells him. “I knew way earlier.”

Well, a little earlier, not that much earlier, but - -

He makes a placating noise, but she knows he doesn’t believe her. His hands glide down over her naked sides beneath the sheet, pulling her hips against his and Beth lets herself be pulled, despite still feeling a little sore from doing all of this fifteen minutes ago. His recovery time really is pretty unbelievable.

Lifting his head, Rio just stares at her for a minute, like he’s trying to read something on her face, when suddenly he says:

“You gonna make all this a thing?”

“No,” she replies quickly, and Rio makes a noise like he doesn’t quite believe her, and Beth grins, leaning in to kiss him, snaking her hand down between them. It’s not like they’ve never used sex to distract each other before. Besides, it’s not a thing.

She doesn’t think it’s a thing?

(It’s probably a thing.)

 *

 Or - - at least, it’s not a thing until the following week, when she’s tossing the salad for dinner and Kenny strides in the backdoor, his hair still wet from swimming and the faint smell of chlorine lingering around him. She flicks her gaze up, checks the clock.

“You’ve got about fifteen minutes to shower if you want to before dinner,” she tells him, holding out her cheek for Kenny to lean down and press a quick kiss too (he’s already so tall, almost eye-to-eye with Rio and she knows he’ll be at least a head taller than him in no time).  

“Thanks, I showered at the pool though,” he replies, disappearing briefly into the laundry to put his swimming things on to wash before getting back to her, sliding into one of the stools at the kitchen island, his fingers drumming a little on the counter.

“You sure?” she asks, squinting a little, amused, back at him. “You smell like you could strip the wallpaper in your sisters’ rooms.”

Kenny rolls his eyes at her, and Beth has to bite back a grin, grabbing the cucumber and starting to dice it for the salad.

“How was school?”

“Good,” Kenny offers easily, leaning back a little in his seat. “I got a B- on my history exam.”

Beth stops, dropping the knife to look at him properly, a big grin painting her face. “That’s amazing! The one on the Industrial Revolution?”

Kenny nods, and Beth glows.

“I’m so proud of you, honey. I know how hard you worked on that.”

Because he did, is the thing. Kenny’s not studious like Emma, nor naturally smart like Marcus, nor creative like Danny. He’s not even like Jane, who - - well. Beth resists the urge to entertain that particular point of annoyance.

(“She’s practically gifted,” the teacher had told them at the last parent-teacher meeting with an exasperated shrug. “She picks up on things incredibly quickly, she’s a natural problem solver, she just - - would rather use those talents to disrupt the class instead of be a part of it.”

Rio had ranted the whole way home.)

“You can put it on the fridge,” Kenny jokes, and Beth gives him a look, because she absolutely would if he’d let her. Kenny’s always hated that sort of thing though – particularly because his B- will be sitting on a wall of Emma and Marcus’ perfect scores.

“SO,” he says suddenly, smacking his hands lightly down on the kitchen island. “I’ve been thinking - - when was the last time you and Rio went on a date?”

Which - -

What?

Beth blinks wildly, neck jerking back, before she firms herself back up, narrowing her eyes at him in suspicion.

“We go on plenty of dates,” she tells him slowly, her hands starting to steadily chop the cucumber again. “Why?”

Grabbing his cell from the back pocket of his jeans, Kenny scrolls easily through something before finding whatever it was he was looking for and presenting it to her to read – an online ad for the Detroit Food and Wine Festival. She blinks, briefly touched, before her eyes scan the rest of it and see the date.

“That’s on Saturday,” she says, adding: “At the…same time as your birthday party.”

“Oh! Is it?” he asks innocently, looking at it again. He shrugs, practiced, and Beth feels her jaw tighten before she can help it. “Oh, man, that sucks. But y’know, this doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d wanna miss. Whereas like – my birthday – you’ve been to fourteen of those already, and I’m gonna have like, a hundred more or whatever.”

Beth stares at him, shifts her weight, before dropping her attention back down to her chopping.

“And what about your father? He’s driving over from South Haven.”

“Well, I mean, if you and Rio are going to this, it’d be kinda weird if he was the only parent, and y’know, it’s so far to come anyway and he doesn’t really like the drive anymore. Besides, he’ll be here next month for grandma’s birthday, so we could just do something for mine then too.”

“And your brothers and sisters?” she asks, her voice tight, and Kenny shrugs, but seems to briefly waver, realising he’s sprung.

“Sleepovers?” he offers, and Beth drops the knife, the irritation in her suddenly bubbling over. She wipes her hands furiously on her apron before just - - fisting it a little, shaking her head.

“Kenny - - I - - ”

“Josh’s party was unsupervised and it was the best one!”

It’s dropped so quickly, with such urgency, it takes a moment for the words to catch up with her, and when they do, she finds herself reeling forwards in fresh anger.

“Josh’s party was unsupervised?”

“I mean, no,” Kenny tries weakly, realising his mistake before shaking his head. “But it felt like it! His parents were out of town so it was just his sister, and she was really cool, and it just felt like - - better, y’know? I don’t want to have a bunch of little kids around screaming like Jane or doing weird things like Danny, and my parents hanging around being embarrassing. I want to just hang out with my friends.”

Outside, Beth can hear Rio pull up to this house, can hear the kids tumble out of it from after school activities, a bustle of chatter and heavy backpacks and still-little feet, and Beth finds herself gritting her teeth.

“Birthdays are about family,” she tells him, her voice tight. “The party and the friends are a bonus. Besides, I’ve been cooking already and I have some special treats planned and some games and - - ”

“What?” Kenny says, slouching back in his kitchen stool, huffing out a sullen breath. “A bounce house and a clown cake? Mom, I’m fifteen not five. Save it for one of your other kids, it’s not like you didn’t have enough of us.”

“Excuse me?” Beth says sharply, and Kenny glares at her, sliding to his feet, and striding off down the hall, and it’s typical, that Rio would walk through the front door right as Beth is yelling: “Don’t walk away from me, mister, we haven’t finished talking!”

But Beth’s left only with Rio’s raised eyebrow and set jaw, Kenny upstairs and out of sight.

 *

 “It’s not funny!” she insists, irritation still sparking in her belly as she slips into her nightie, but Rio just keeps laughing, sprawled, nude in their bed. She glares back at him, and he looks practically delighted back up at her, which is exactly what she needs right now - - truly.

“Mami, it’s hilarious,” Rio says, and Beth scowls. “Shit, that kid really think Imma let a bunch of teenagers go unsupervised in my house?”

“Our house,” Beth corrects, grabbing her tube of lotion from the top of her chest of drawers and moving to sit on the edge of the bed. Rio waves a hand at her like same difference which is categorically untrue, particularly when it comes to him. She squints at him, purses her lips, but doesn’t say anything as she uncaps the lotion tube.

“I mean, shit, that paintin’ in the hallway alone would pay for at least one of their college tuitions.”

Which sure, Beth thinks, rolling her eyes, and having to bite back the urge to say let’s sell it then, because despite everyone else apparently thinking it was dope she mostly hated it. Still, they’d agreed to compromise – Beth had gotten her super comfy pear-green couch for the family room after all (Rio had wanted brown leather, a fact Beth had adamantly disagreed with).  

“That’s not the point,” she tells him now, spreading the lotion on her legs.

“What’s not the point?”

“The - - ” she waves a hand out at him. “Unsupervised part.”

He pops an eyebrow in question, and Beth sighs, annoyed that he’s not getting it.

“He tried to uninvite us to his birthday party.”

Even saying it aloud somehow makes it that much more real, digs the knife in that little bit deeper. She’d made three stress cakes after he’d gone upstairs as a result, the fact of which had made everyone in the house nervous. Jane had even come over and given her a hug which was – Beth was pretty sure – one of the seven signs of the apocalypse. Right now though, Rio just shrugs.

“Only surprise about that is that he ain’t tried to do it sooner.”

Which - - no, Beth thinks, spinning on the spot in betrayal, her hand clutched to her chest, and Rio stares at her, shocked by her reaction, before shaking his head, exasperated, half sitting up.

“He’s turnin’ fifteen, ma! What do you expect? He don’t want us around, crampin’ his style and whatnot.”

“What style?” she scoffs. “He still has Star Wars bedsheets.”

“Not for long,” Rio sing-songs, flopping back down in the bed. When Beth just stays there, sitting up, her legs only half-lotioned, he turns around to look at her, laughing again. “Aw, I’m sorry, baby. You hurtin’?”

Which - - okay, she is, but if he’s going to make fun of her for it, she certainly won’t be having that conversation with him.

She glares at him, and when he reaches out to pull her towards him, she stands up, striding over to her chest of drawers to put the lotion away, and she’s thinking about going downstairs to do the frosting on one of the cakes she made earlier – still too annoyed for bed – when she feels herself being grabbed from behind.

Gasping, she flails as Rio carries her back to bed, depositing her heavily enough on the mattress she squawks, but before she can move to sit up, he climbs – still naked – on top of her, pausing only when they’re eye to eye, him on his hands and knees above her, giving her enough room to wriggle out if she really wants to, and then he just - -

Stops.

Stares at her, like he does sometimes, somehow both soft and firm, blinking slowly, and Beth stares back at him and just - - frowns. Rio sucks in his lips, thinking, before he sighs.

“Gotta leave the nest sometimes,” he drawls, and Beth’s frown deepens.

“He is not leaving the nest yet,” she says sharply, and Rio nods above her, takes her in again, shrugs, and his voice is softer when he says:

“Startin’ to flap those wings though, huh?”

Beth’s lower lip wobbles, and she looks away from him.

“It’s a good thing,” he tells her. “You want him independent. Don’t wanna be tryna cram him back inside you like your sister doin’ with Sadie.”

And - - well. Beth gives him a look at that, because he’s not exactly wrong. Annie’s not at all ready for Sadie to disappear off to college next year, but then - - god, Kenny’s not that far behind. Still, above her, Rio laughs softly, reaching down to brush her hair off her face.

“’Sides, we got more,” he tells her. “Don’t think Danny’ll ever move out.”

“Yes, he will,” Beth says, sighing glumly. “They’ll all leave me.”

“Well then you got your sister,” he replies dryly. “Don’t think we’ll ever get rid o’ her. Kenny’s gonna go away to college and she’ll probably take over his room, pretend she always lived there or somethin’. Move her girl and Delaware in.”

And okay, maybe that makes her crack a smile. She arches an eyebrow up at Rio.

“I know you know his name is Dakota.”

“Know it’s a stupid name still too,” he tells her with a shrug, and when he leans down to kiss her this time, she lets him.

 *

 “Wait, does that mean we were uninvited too?” Annie asks, eyes wide as she helps lay out the food for the party on the table on their back deck, and before Beth can even think to reply, Ruby scoffs loudly.

“Bitch, why would he want us here if he doesn’t even want his mom and stepdad there?”

Annie curls her lip, gesturing wildly between them all. She looks good at least, in her black romper, her hair newly bleached, her lips bright red.

“Because we’re about a million times cooler than Beth and - - okay. Not Rio. But definitely Beth. I’d want me here.”  

Ruby rolls her eyes, before grabbing another platter of the little cucumber and sesame sushi rolls Beth had made to lay out. She looks good too – in a white blouse and black skirt, a black bow at the neck of her shirt. She pushes the platter back on the table, fitting it between the rice paper rolls and the little chicken meatballs.

“It’s tough, I get it. You should have seen Stan the first time Sara said she didn’t want us at her debate – get this - - apparently our cheering is embarrassing now? It was like she ripped his heart out of his chest.”

Beth gives her a commiserating look, before moving the punchbowl to the other end of the table, taking a moment to look over her handywork and - - well. It looks great. She knows it looks great, just - - it’s also now what she’d been planning. She’d abandoned more than a few of the things she’d organised after Kenny had been so rude – even after he sort of, almost, half apologised – which meant there was no longer the popcorn machine or the ping pong table she’d hired, or the retro, inflatable couches. Instead, she’d stuck to streamers, food, a few iceboxes, a killer punch (if she did say so herself) and a birthday cake that Marcus had studiously helped her make.

“It looks killer,” Annie says, like she’s read her mind, reaching over to squeeze her hand.

“Very grown up,” Ruby adds, and just - - Beth frowns, because it does, but also maybe she’s not entirely ready for that. She opens her mouth to say something along those lines when Emma suddenly appears in the doorway of the house, and Beth gasps, a wide grin spilling across her face.

“Honey! You look beautiful!”

Emma practically glows at the compliment, giving them a spin in her pink and white gingham dress and tan sandals, her long, dark hair fanning out like a cape. Annie instantly starts singing the walk walk fashion baby part of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance and Emma sucks in her cheeks like a model, catwalking out to them in a way that makes them all hoot and Emma burst into giggles, flushing bright and pink.

She spins again when she gets to Beth, and Beth stops her, turning her around so that she can tighten the straps on her new bra (and maybe that had been kind of a fun growing up thing, Beth thinks. Emma had been so excited, and they’d found her some with polka dots and glitter and a set with unicorns that had even Jane nodding in approval).

“Do you know if Mason’s coming?” Emma asks suddenly, kicking a little at the deck floor as Beth finishes fiddling with the straps on Emma’s bra, and Beth blinks, glancing quickly at Ruby and Annie who both purse their lips and raise their eyebrows.

“I think he might be,” Beth replies slowly, and Emma blushes all over again, spinning around to face Beth, blinking her big, blue eyes back up at her.  

“Can I borrow some of your lipstick?”

And - - right, she looks back at Annie and Ruby again who shrug, and finally Beth gestures for Emma to lead them back into the house, trying her best to put aside the instant grief she feels at even the thought.

She’s sitting on the floor in their en suite with Emma, onto their third shade of pink lipstick, when Rio pokes his head in through the door, having just gotten back from the grocery store picking up ice and soda.

“Dean’s here,” he grunts, and Beth looks over, leaning back from Emma in the process, and she sees it – the moment Rio clocks the make-up. It really isn’t much – a brush of mascara and the lipstick, just enough to make Emma feel grown up, but still. Rio arches an eyebrow at Beth, before looking back at Emma.

“Look at you,” he says softly, and Emma smiles tentatively, eyes darting between Beth and Rio before she clasps her hands together in her lap.

“Do I look pretty?”

“You always look pretty, darlin’,” Rio replies easily, striding towards them and leaning over Beth’s back to kiss the crown of Emma’s head. It’s enough to make Emma glow all over again, and Beth can’t quite help the smile, even if she feels that increasingly familiar clench in her belly at the thought that this first will soon turn into something normal. “You wanna try and get your sister ready? I gotta talk to your mom about somethin’.”

Emma nods, standing up and darting out of the room, already calling out to Jane by the time she’s in the hallway, and Beth calls out, “Get your dad to help, honey!” because god help the person who tries to get Jane ready for anything on their own.

She starts putting the make-up away, surprised when Rio stays lingering in the doorway, looking down at her. When she looks up at him, Rio gestures to his face.

“That new?”

Beth gives him a look, because she knows he knows it is. Still, she wrinkles her nose a little, a soft smile on her lips.

“I think she has a crush on Mason.”

The news only serves to make Rio raise his eyebrows, a decidedly unimpressed look on his face as Beth finishes putting her make-up away.

“Mason? Fifteen-year-old Mason?”

“You know another one?”

“She’s eleven.”

“Only surprise about that is she ain’t got one sooner,” Beth says, imitating him from the other night and laughing when he gives her a filthy look. She shakes her head, holding a hand out and letting Rio help her to her feet. “Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing. Besides, according to both you and Annie, Mason has a crush on me, anyway.”

Rio makes a noise in the back of his throat at that, but doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t let go of her hand either, at least not right away, squeezing it softly in a way that makes Beth squint a little at him.

“What?” she asks tentatively, and god, he better not have to go, he can’t leave her here with a million children. Rio lets go of her hand, taking a slight step back out of the doorway and into their bedroom, like he’s thinking how best to say something, and finally, he just says it.

“Kenny asked me to pick him up some beers.”

It takes her a moment to even comprehend the words, to wrap her head around them, and when she does, she feels a bite of fury she hasn’t felt since Kenny uninvited them the other day.

“What?” she hisses, because god – the audacity of that kid.

Rio hums, like he’s read her mind, stepping back towards the bed and picking a bottle off their dresser that he must have brought in with him.

“I got him some.”

“Rio - -”

“Got him some o’ these,” he says, passing the bottle to her and it’s a type of beer she’s never seen before with a bright label and a European name. She glares at him as she takes it, turning it around, anger churning inside of her, gaze flicking back down to the label, spots a zero amidst all the writing on the back and then she - - pauses.

“These are non-alcoholic,” she says slowly.

“Mm,” Rio hums, amused at himself, when Beth arches an eyebrow back at him. “Told him it was some real high-end shit, y’know? Ain’t in English, so they ain’t gonna know.”

“What if they look it up on their phones?” Beth asks, but she can’t quite hide her own amusement now either, the lingering anger reserved only for Kenny.

“Then he can be pissed at me later,” Rio tells her with a shrug. “Means right now though he ain’t gettin’ his friends to raid their parent’s liquor cabinets coz he thinks he got cool parents.”

“We’re not cool at all,” Beth tells him and Rio laughs, shaking his head.

“Nuh,” he agrees, grinning at her, and Beth leans in and kisses him.  

“Speaking of parents’ liquor cabinets, have we - -“

“Locked it away last night, mami.”

“Hmm,” Beth hums, feeling her eyelids drop a little, her gaze settling on his lips. “You’re sexy when you’re being all responsible, keeping our kids safe,” she purrs, and Rio leans in closer.

“Yeah? You sexy in this dress.”

Beth grins against his lips, hooking a finger in the collar of his shirt, yanking it down just enough she can press a kiss against the tattoo on his neck. He makes a noise that vibrates against her lips, and then suddenly his hand’s at her chest, squeezing her breast, and Beth gasps, enough to give him the momentum to press his lips against her own again, pushing his tongue into her mouth, and - -

“Beth! Kids!”

Rio sighs at Dean’s voice calling up, breaking the kiss to push his forehead against hers. He squeezes her breast again for good measure and Beth steps back, out of reach.

“Later,” she promises, and Rio smacks her ass on the way out in agreement.

 *

 “How many kids did he even invite?” Ruby asks, and Beth groans, looking out across her backyard.

“He told me thirty,” she insists, taking a sip of her glass of wine as another few teens stride past them and out onto the lawn, talking loudly about how much somebody’s ass jiggles? Which - - Beth flushes, pulls a face, takes a longer drink of wine. Thing is, it probably is only the thirty – along with maybe a few plus-ones, just they seem to sprawl, to kick out into every crevice, a mess of gangly limbs and potent body spray and oily foreheads.

It doesn’t help that Kenny seems to have disappeared. She’s not sure she’s seen him since she got him to go talk to Dean for a while – he had driven out and miraculously gotten here on time after all, even helped set up some of the iceboxes with Annie and Sadie.  

“The beer was genius by the way,” Ruby says, watching some boys’ cheers at the end of the lawn, yell something about getting turnt, and Beth grins, nodding, as Ruby adds: “Stealing it for Lil’ Money. No way that kid isn’t going to be like, stealth wild. I’m calling it now.”

Beth hums in agreement, because Harry really is sneaky like that.  

“Just like Marcus,” Beth says, and Ruby laughs.

“Sure, I think you might be in for a bit of a harder time with that guy though,” at Beth’s questioning look, Ruby adds: “He’s got his dad wrapped around his little finger and he knows it. At least Stan can still smell Harry’s bullshit.”

Beth laughs, nodding in agreement again, because honestly. Marcus misbehaves plenty, but every time he gets caught, Rio acts like it’s the first time it’s ever happened. It doesn’t take much either – a wobbly lip, battered eyelashes, slipping in a daddy instead of dad like he’s still six and not recently ten. Rio will still dutifully dole out the punishment, but he’ll be back to pretending Marcus is the best behaved kid on the planet and whatever he’d done was out of the ordinary instead of - - well, the ordinary.

“Jane too, huh?”

Blinking, Beth turns to look at Ruby again, her forehead furrowed as Ruby watches her.

“What?”

Ruby shrugs, a knowing look on her face.

“He ran when Marcus slammed her fingers in that door at dinner the other week. He didn’t come down any time soon either.”

He hadn’t, of course, and Beth smiles, warm, feeling the condensation pearling on her wine glass. She’s thought more about him upstairs with Jane than she cares to admit, the way he’d stroked her hair, the way even the next day he’d peeled the band-aids off to carefully check the cuts, comparing them to the scars on his hands to make Jane feel tough.

“It’s cute,” she says, and Ruby shakes her head.

“It’s a lot more than cute, B. He’s really in it.”

Which - - Beth looks at her, and Ruby tilts her head to the non-alcoholic beers, then suddenly out again, and Beth follows her gaze to where Dean is talking to Emma on the other side of the deck, and - -

Beth frowns.

Dean says something, loud, unintelligible, gesturing broadly, then laughs at whatever it is he said, and Emma tucks her hair behind her ear, shifts her feet, presses her soda with her favourite pink curly straw in it to her chest. She looks - - uncomfortable, but more than that – like she’s trying too much, a half, uncertain smile on her face, a tittering, pretend laugh on her tongue, and Beth’s frown deepens. She glances back at Ruby, who gestures like it’s okay, and Beth gets up, starting towards them, and she’s barely halfway there before Dean leans down, ruffles Emma’s hair and starts towards Beth.

She opens her mouth to speak, but Dean cuts her off, a strange look on his face.

“Beth, what is our daughter wearing?”

And just - -

What?

Beth blinks, looking back at where Emma is standing, alone now, in the corner of the yard, the curly straw in her mouth, her pink gingham dress hanging sweetly from her shoulders, looking out across the party.

“What?”

“Isn’t that dress a little short?” Dean insists, leaning closer to her, and she can smell the alcohol on his breath, and Beth rolls her eyes, feels herself smarting.

“It’s hot, and it’s almost to her knees anyway,” she tells him, and Dean scoffs, rolling his eyes.  

“She looks - - ” he waves a hand around, and Beth pushes out a hip, annoyed before she can control it.

“Looks what, Dean?”

He flounders for a minute, gesturing wildly, looking back at Emma across the yard, who’s pointedly not looking at them – knowing that they’re fighting, and god, Beth thinks, she - -

“Older.”

Which, obviously, Beth thinks, and she opens her mouth to reply that yes, she probably does, given it’s been almost two months since he’s bothered to see them, when suddenly Dean gestures to his chest, cups his hands there, and Beth sees red.

“Yes, Dean,” she says through clenched teeth. “Your daughter is wearing a bra now. She got her first period last month too, if you’d like to know just how much older she is.”

Dean flushes, like that was the last thing he wanted to know, and Beth rolls her eyes, shaking her head and looking at Emma across the party, on her own now since Dean’s abandoned her, sipping shyly on her soda, looking around and she can see it – the exact moment Emma starts to crawl back inside herself, anxious with the volume of people, of older kids, the swell of noise, and Beth’s heart lurches, is just about to abandon Dean herself and start towards her again when Annie suddenly materialises at Emma’s side. She doesn’t know what she says, couldn’t hear her if she tried, but whatever Annie does say makes Emma Emma again, her face brightening, her little shoulders shaking with giggles.

Annie throws an arm over Emma’s shoulders, pulls her into her side, says something else that has Emma nodding adamantly and then chattering away, and thing is - - Annie is a lot, always, but god, Beth thinks, smiling, despite herself. She’s a lot of the best things too. She watches her guide Emma towards Ruby, where Sadie and Sara now are too, the latter perched on the arm of her mother’s chair, and Beth just - - feels overwhelmed with gratitude.

Thing is, Ruby was right. Rio is in it, she knows that – knows if she trains her ears, she’ll hear him inside with Danny and Marcus and Jane, with Raf and David too, who arrived with Carmen an hour ago, but - - so are Ruby and Annie.

It’s been a long time since she felt alone.

Her gaze flicks back to Dean and she finds her anger dissipate when she sees the look on his face. Sees him watching Emma too – seeing how easy it is for Annie, how simply she can talk to her, how easily she can make their daughter happy, and then Beth just feels pity.

“She’s growing up, Dean,” Beth says with a sigh. “They all are. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s not going to stop.”

And - - right, she thinks, looking across the yard at Kenny’s friends, gangly and surly and pubescent and - -

Right, she thinks again, her gaze flicking back to Dean.

“Jane and Danny are inside with Rio and Marcus. It would be nice if you could talk to all the kids before you leave.”

“I’m not leaving yet.”

“Good,” Beth says, shrugging. “And I’m just saying I’d like it if you talked to all your children before you did leave. They haven’t seen you in months.”

With that, she turns on her heel and back to the others.

 *

 “Too big?” Beth asks, and Marcus laughs, shaking his head, and Beth hums a little, moving the knife aside to make the slice a little bigger. “How about now?”

“I could eat the whole thing,” Marcus insists, grinning, and Beth gives him an amused look, cutting off a big chunk of the gingerbread fudge, and passing it over to him, watching him shove the whole thing instantly into his mouth.

“You choke on that I’m gonna hear about it from your daddy,” she tells him, and Marcus makes a production out of pointedly chewing in a way that makes Beth laugh.

She opens her mouth to say something about being a little too smart when suddenly she hears Kenny’s laugh out on the other side of the window. She pauses, unable to stop herself, and god, she thinks - - didn’t she just have this conversation with Dean? Still, she thinks, biting the inside of her cheek. Kenny hasn’t talked to her all night, had vanished amidst the crowd of his friends, and to hear his voice so suddenly - - it’s weird. Like it’s been more than just hours.

“Yeah, he’s pretty cool,” Kenny says.

“More than cool,” a girl’s voice replies. “Like, I don’t want this to sound weird, but your stepdad is kind of a DILF.”

“Oh my god, Lex - - ” another girl says, but the first - - Lex - - keeps talking.

“No, like, I don’t know if you’ve seen most dads, but that whole dad-bod thing like - - it isn’t the compliment some people think it is, you know?”

“Like, it’s not something to aspire to,” the other girl says, and Lex hums in agreement.

“Right,” Lex says. “And like – honestly – your mom is kind of hot too. It’s super weird.”

“Super weird,” the other girl says.

“I’m kind of like, shipping them?”

“Oh my god, is this your first het ship?”

Lex laughs, and Beth pretends she knows a single word that’s coming out of these girls’ mouths. She glances at Marcus, who raises an eyebrow at her, listening too.

“What’s that mean?” she whispers conspiratorially, and Marcus swallows the fudge thickly, before saying:

“It means she thinks you and dad are good together,” he says, and Beth blinks, smiles, preens a little, because that’s nice, she thinks, turning her attention back to slicing the fudge.

“Yeah, they’re like - - in love, I think,” Kenny says, and Lex and the other girl aww in a way that makes Beth pull a face in amusement. “It’s like good and bad because I mean, my mom was not in love with my dad at all, and it really sucked, but at least I didn’t have to listen to them bone all the time, you know?”

Beth cuts the fudge a little harder, a heat finding her cheeks, and she looks sideways suddenly at Marcus who’s looking pointedly away (even though his fingers are inching for another slice of fudge) and just - - great, she thinks, trying to swallow her embarrassment.

Perfect.

Outside, the girls’ squeal.

“Oh my god, old people having sex is so cute.”

Which - - okay, not helpful, Beth thinks, pushing her hip out and jabbing the knife into the fudge. She should really try and move Marcus away from this conversation but - -

“Do you think he has more tattoos than just his neck one?”

“What?”

“He’s got to. Nobody has just a neck tattoo. It’s pretty hot though.”

One of the girls’ hums in agreement, and then the two of them descend into chatter about how tattoos are sexy and dangerous and Beth blinks in amusement, pushing the fudge onto a platter to take outside when suddenly Kenny says:

“Yeah, I’m gonna get one - - a neck tattoo. Next year probably.”

And then it’s silent, or - - maybe not. Maybe it’s just Beth, standing there at her kitchen counter, her eyes wide, her hands stilling on the knife in her hands, because what?

“Don’t you have to be 18 for that?”

“Yeah, but only if you don’t have permission,” Kenny says easily, almost too coolly, and Beth blinks hard. “I mean Rio got us beer tonight, so.”

“Hot,” one of the girls says – whether to Rio buying (non-alcoholic) beer or Kenny’s potential neck tattoo, Beth has no idea, and she just - - is having trouble processing right now. Might be having trouble breathing too? It’s hard to tell. She swallows thickly, glancing sideways at Marcus who’s looking wide-eyed up at her, and Beth opens her mouth to say something, what, she has no idea, when suddenly she feels a hand tug on her sleeve.

Spinning on the spot, still wielding the knife, Annie ducks back.

“Woah!”

Beth flounders, putting the knife in the sink and shaking her head.

“Sorry.”

“Totally cool. Uh - - soooo, I don’t want to freak you out of anything, but someone has definitely spiked the punch.”

Her eyes widening, Beth looks down at Marcus, who’s eyebrows are practically up at his hairline right now, and Beth turns back to Annie who passes her a cup and - -

Yup.

That’s some college-style, budget vodka with that familiar nail-polish-remover aftertaste. Beth cringes, blinking up at Annie.

“And you - - just discovered this by drinking it?”

“Mmm, more by Mason hurling in your rose bush,” Annie says with a shrug, and Beth groans, throwing off her apron and hurrying outside, leaving Marcus with Annie, and - - right, she thinks, pushing past a boy filming Mason on his cell, shooting him a filthy look as she crouches down into the yard beside him.

To say he looks a mess is probably putting it mildly. There’s vomit down the front of his button-down shirt, his floppy hair is stuck with sweat to his forehead, his eyes are glassy, and for some reason, he’s missing a shoe. Beth waves the other kids watching off, and leans forwards to push back his sweaty hair.

“Hi, honey,” she says, and Mason blinks sleepily up at her, a flush finding his cheeks.

“Hi, Mrs. B. Sorry about - - “

He flounders, leaning back in the grass, green around the gills, and Beth shifts enough to try and haul him up, Ruby suddenly appearing at her side as they drag him past the fray of kids, bumping through the crowd, up towards the house.

“Bathroom?” she asks, and Beth shakes her head.

“My en suite. I’d rather the kids didn’t see him.”

Somehow, they manage to get him up the stairs, and roll him into the bathtub, pulling off his vomit-drenched shirt and grabbing a washcloth from the drawer in the vanity. Wetting it, Beth starts to mop him up when Ruby rises to her feet beside her.

“I’ll grab some of Kenny’s clothes.”

“Thanks,” Beth says, and Ruby just nods, ducking out of the bathroom and leaving Beth with Mason in the tub. She really has no idea what time it is, but it’s got to be close to ten, the nighttime light filtering in through the bathroom window, the sounds of the party loud below them. She makes quick work of grabbing a cup off the sink and filling it with water, getting it into his heavy, wobbly hand and encouraging him to drink while she mops the vomit from around his face, and - - god, it’s all in his hair too. With a sigh, she pushes the sleeves of her dress up, praying that Annie, Rio and Dean have control of everything downstairs between them.

“You look really nice tonight, Mrs B,” Mason says, or - - well, doesn’t say. Slurs, Beth thinks, and she smiles at him, grabbing the cup of water before he drops it. “I mean, you always look nice, but you look like, super nice.”

“Thanks, honey,” she replies, wetting the washcloth again as Mason swerves.

“By nice, I mean hot,” he tells her, voice lowered conspiratorially, and right, Beth thinks, amused but also kind of wishing the earth would swallow her whole. She wipes another bit of vomit off his cheek.

“You’re very sweet,” Beth tells him. “But I am much too old and much too unavailable for you. There are a lot of nice girls downstairs though. And boys too. So - - how about we clean you up, and you can get back out there where you should be, huh?”

Mason sort of nods, mostly, but sinks back into the tub, his narrow chest somehow looking all the skinnier here, his face rounder, more boyish with it’s drunken flush and his wet eyes, and then - - not wet eyes, Beth realises.

Teary eyes.

She sits back, rinses out the washcloth before wetting it again, and sitting by the edge of the tub, and she just watches him for a minute. All gangly limbs, his chin dropped to his chest, his mouth set into a hard little line, and Beth exhales softly.

“It’s been tough at home, huh?” she says gently. “Since your dad died.”

It’s instant then – the way Mason bursts into tears and Beth sighs, heart full in her throat, and leans across the tub, pulling him against her as he sobs against her chest, and when she glances up next, she sees Ruby in the doorway, holding a towel, a few slices of buttered toast, and a set of Kenny’s clothes.

And well.

Ruby’s all in it then too.  

 *

 “You changed,” Rio says, tugging at the strap of her new dress, and Beth spins into him too easily, pressing her chest to his. She’d had to – between Mason’s vomit and tears. Still, she’d come back down to find Annie sitting back with Sadie, and when she’d asked after Rio, he’d been getting the younger kids ready for bed, and the relief Beth had felt at the thought had been close to overwhelming.

“There might have been an incident,” she hums, and Rio arches an eyebrow at her, hands finding her hips. “Drinks may have been spiked.”

Rio grunts, like it isn’t much of a surprise, and says, “We tried, mami,” and well. Beth’s inclined to agree.

She presses further into him then, or maybe presses is the wrong word. Sinks maybe. Collapses probably. All of her exhaustion catching up to her, and she lets Rio sway her gently, glancing over his shoulder to where the swell of the party is still thriving, and she just sighs.

“How do we even break one of these things up?” she asks with a groan, and Rio hums against her, hands moving from her hips to knit together around her, to rest, clasped, at her lower back.

“Say the word, and I’ll get it done,” he tells her. “Sooner, yeah? Kinda want these kids outta my house.”

“Our house,” she corrects again, and Rio laughs softly, swaying gently with her, only to suddenly stop. The movement is enough to make Beth stop too, to look up at him, her eyes tired.

“What?”

“Gimme a sec,” he says, letting go of her, and Beth frowns as Rio steps back from her, striding outside suddenly, and Beth blinks and then - - she smells it too.

“Is that marijuana?” she hisses, and Rio nods, rocking his jaw, and she can see it – the irritation heavy in his look.

“Yeah, fine if he wanna smoke, but he ain’t smokin’ some lowgrade shit when there’s kids sleepin’ upstairs,” Rio says, and Beth blinks.

“It’s fine if he wants to smoke?” she hisses, shrill this time, and Rio waves a hand at her, striding promptly outside and Beth stumbles out after him, following him off the deck past Annie and Sadie (the former of whom makes a joint gesture at Beth who nods in reply), and around the side of the house to where Kenny’s standing in a cluster of kids, passing around a joint.

“Yeah, nuh,” Rio says, grabbing it out of Kenny’s hand, flicking it out into the grass. “Party’s over,” he decides. “You, upstairs. Ladies, you wanna call your parents, or you want us to?”

The girls either side of Kenny blink wildly, flustered under Rio’s full attention, and Beth steps closer to stand behind him.

“Rio - -”

“Nuh, man, we had an agreement – only thirty kids – there’s more than thirty here, only the beer I get you, there’s more than that here too, and no drugs around your kid siblings or your mom, so.”

Beth blinks wildly, staring at the back of Rio’s head, because what agreement? But then her gaze finds Kenny’s – who’s staring, mortified between Rio and her, his mouth open, before finally settling on Beth.

“Mom - -“ he starts, and yeah, that’s not gonna happen. Beth folds her arms over her chest, pushing out a hip.

“Don’t know why you’re looking at me,” she says. “I wasn’t even invited.”

Somewhere behind her she hears Annie yell BOOM! And Sadie laugh while groaning mom, and Beth stands up a little straighter, thrusting out her jaw when Kenny finally scowls. He opens his mouth, but Rio must give him a look because suddenly Kenny’s storming past them, back into the house, a gangly, teenage thundercloud amidst the silent storm of his friends, and Beth reaches out, squeezing Rio’s shoulder.

It’s quick then, loud – Annie leaping up behind them, cupping her hands to her mouth and yelling:

“You heard the man, move out! Moooove out!”

There’s a chorus of groans, but the kids all start to pack themselves up, and it’s not long before their front yard is packed with fifteen-year-olds texting their parents for pick up and - - well, it’s almost midnight at this point anyway, so she doesn’t feel too badly.

She sits on the front step of the house with a big glass of bourbon, watching the crowd and next year she thinks maybe they’ll hire somewhere. Somewhere with security, she thinks dreamily, and other people to clean up. Somewhere maybe her and Rio can leave them. She bets Demon would know a place. Probably Annie too.

She’s still thinking about it when she feels a weight press against her back, and she glances up, surprised to see Danny hanging over her.  

“What are you doing up?” she asks, and Danny shrugs, moving to flop down beside her on the step.

“I don’t like these parties,” he tells her authoritatively. “There’s too many people and you can’t even hear anyone and everyone pretends beer makes them fun when it makes them boring.”

Blinking, surprised, Beth hums, pleased. She runs a hand back through his blond hair, pulling him against her side, inhaling deeply. He smells like soap and sleep and boy, and god, he’s older than Emma, but it doesn’t always feel like it.

“Yeah,” she says softly, eyeing off the crowd again. “I’m going to remind you you said that when you turn thirteen next year, and every year after that too, you know that, right?”

Danny blinks up at her, his blue eyes wide, and Beth grins, pressing a kiss to his temple. Still, he sits with her as they watch the kids disappear from their front lawn, the faint sounds of Annie, Ruby, Rio and even Dean helping tidy up inside, broken up only when Annie finds one of the abandoned joints and says, “Blergh, this weed is awful,” at the top of her lungs.

 *

 She’s still tucking Danny back into bed when Rio appears in the doorway, leaning there like he too often does, just watching her. Danny’s probably too old for this really, but he seems to still like it at least, these quiet moments with her, or perhaps he knows she maybe needed this tonight, needed to put one of her kids to bed like they were still small, and it’s too easy to reach out, cup his jaw as he yawns, blinking sleepily up at her.

“’Night, honey,” she whispers, and he mumbles something like ‘night, mom back, and Beth kisses his forehead, steals out of the room, taking Rio’s hand as she goes.

“Everyone’s - - ”

“Gone home,” he finishes. “House mostly back together, enough you and me ain’t gonna want to set the place on fire tomorrow. ‘m savin’ the yard for Kenny though.”

Which - -

“Good,” Beth says finitely. “I can’t believe him. He just - - didn’t care.”

“Didn’t think,” Rio corrects, and when she looks back at him, he shrugs.

“Fifteen, ma. He’s got a lotta fuck ups left in him. That’s okay. We catch him and we check him.”

With a sigh, Beth nods, rubbing a little at her bleary eyes. She’s still annoyed at Kenny – at him uninviting them and still, somehow, expecting so much – the beer and the food and the - -

She squints.

“You had an agreement?”

Rio hums, tilts his head.

“You wanna fight about that now or in the mornin’?”

Staring at him, she thinks it over, any real anger in her blanketed by exhaustion, and so she shakes her head, waves a hand at him and says:

“In the morning.”

Making a sound of agreement, he starts walking them both back to their bedroom only when Beth slows her step, laughing, the thought suddenly having found her again.

“Be prepared for him to start asking you to take him to get a tattoo,” she says, and Rio pops an eyebrow.

“That allowed?” he asks her, and Beth gives him a look that just makes him laugh, pull her up just short of their bedroom, crowding her back against the wall.

“You did good tonight,” he tells her. “They’re lucky to have you.”

“You  too,” she mumbles, because it was good - - to not have to think about everything. To know he’d be there, to catch whatever she didn’t, to keep the kids happy and occupied when she couldn’t, to clean up when she was too tired to. She smiles, raising a hand to hook beneath his chin, pulling him in to kiss her, and Rio does happily - - more than happily, sinking his hips instantly against hers, pushing her flush into the wall, and god, just - - the weight of him against her, it still just does things to her.

“It’s later,” he purrs against her mouth, and Beth grins, nipping at his lip, running her hands down his back to grab his (non-existent) ass.

“You know what?” she hums. “I think it is.”

He grins, squeezing her breast like he’d done in the bedroom at the start of the night, and Beth giggles, yanking them back into it, walking them backwards, blindly in the dark towards their bed, tumbling down onto it, his mouth on her neck, only to hit - -

Another body?

Another, yelping body?

Beth gasps, and Rio springs forwards, tense, ready for a fight, only to throw the light on, and oh god, Beth thinks, flushing pink to the roots of her hair.

“Mason! Honey, I am so sorry, I completely forgot you were in here.”

That she’d put him in here, Beth thinks, mortified, after her and Ruby had mopped him up and moved him to sleep it off in Beth and Rio’s bed.

“Uhhhhh,” he squeaks, eyes wild, and Beth flounders.

“Let me - -“

“I might call my mom?”

Behind her Rio nods sharply, and Mason nods adamantly, moving tenderly, but quickly as he darts down the stairs, and god, Beth thinks, groaning covering her face. She feels it before she sees it, Rio’s hands dropping to the front of her dress, and she glares at him, about to bat his hands away when she glances down and sees that he’s fixing it, and - -  

“Oh my god, did he see my - -”

Rio kisses her quickly.

“Don’t overthink it,” he says against her lips, and Beth groans, louder this time, letting Rio deepen the kiss, but not for long. In a few minutes, she’ll need to go apologise to Mason. In a few minutes, she’ll offer to drive him home, and then she’ll do it, making awkward conversation the whole way and pretending Mason isn’t staring at her like she’s - - well. Like he’s seen her at second base with her - -

With her Rio.

It’ll be an hour before she’s home, an hour before she gets back in bed, and Rio will be asleep, and soon so will Beth. In the morning she’ll argue with Kenny, but he’ll clean the yard, make promises she knows he won’t keep, and she’ll tell Rio maybe growing up is good – because shipping Kenny off to college sounds really good right now, and Rio will lower his voice, laughing, and purr to her all the things they can do once all the kids are out of there, and for the first time maybe the idea sounds like something that could be full instead of empty.

But that’s later.

Right now, Beth digs her nails into the base of his skull and kisses him properly.

[chilling-seavey]

Anything But Mine (d.s.) - Chapter Twenty

A/N we love some angst in this universe 😌

Tuesday, December 24th, 2019

Christmas season came around quickly and much to Florence's dismay, her twin brother broke the news to her that he wasn't coming to spend the holidays with her. It was going to be another Christmas at the Clifford's for the young mother, and now, as Clementine's first Christmas was approaching, Florence couldn't help but feel badly that she didn’t have more to offer her daughter. Michael and Luke didn't mind whatsoever as they were more than happy to have Florence and her daughter over for the holiday season. They even invited Emilio, who would be spending Christmas alone since Ivan was staying in LA with Callum and a flight to Spain was way out of budget. The Clifford's generosity was something Florence admired greatly.

It was late morning on December 24th when Emilio met Florence at her condo to help her finish packing. Florence was running between her closet and her suitcase, having spent too much time packing the baby clothes to even think of herself. Emilio was sat on the floor in the living room, Clementine between his spread legs with various plastic toys. Florence lugged her suitcase from her bedroom, taking it to the front door before heading back to the living room.

"Mama!" Clementine shrieked, pointing to her as she came up behind Emilio. Florence set her hands on his shoulders and pressed a kiss to his head.

"Are you done packing?" Emilio asked, looking up at her.

"I think so. Just need the diaper bag and the food."

"I can help if you want."

"Help by keeping the little troublemaker busy." Florence chuckled before heading to the kitchen. She took out all of the baby food jars and started packing them into a thermal bag. When the doorbell rang, Florence stopped, turning to the living room. Emilio looked back at her just as confused. She closed the lid and headed down the hallway to see who it was. The door was opened to reveal her twin brother.

"Surprise!" Callum beamed, hugging his sister tightly.

"Oh my God!" Florence laughed lightly. "What are you doing here?"

"We came to surprise you."

"We?" Florence questioned.

"Surprise!" Ivan jumped out from around the corner.

Emilio was at her side in an instant, Clementine perched in his arms, and he greeted his brother just as excitedly as Florence had.

“What are you guys doing here?” Florence asked, stepping aside to let them in.

“We’ve been planning this for a month now!” Callum said, his hand in Ivan’s as they walked into the living room. “You didn’t think we’d let our favourite siblings spend Christmas alone, did you?”

“I did last year.” Florence mumbled.

“Forget last year. Last year was a mess. Things are good now.” Callum said quickly.

"Well I'm definitely surprised. But, Cal, I already told the Clifford's I'm going to their place for a few nights."

Callum's jaw clenched lightly, "Just tell them I came here and surprised you."

"They bought everything already, Cal. I can't cancel when we're supposed to be there in an hour." Florence mumbled.

Ivan and Emilio exchanged awkward glances. Callum sighed, frustrated at his sister's lack of enthusiasm of him flying in to surprise her.

"You guys can join I'm sure." Florence suggested.

"Yeah!" Ivan tried to lighten the mood.

"It'll be a huge party!" Emilio added, peppering kisses to the baby’s cheek, making her giggle.

Florence and Callum looked at each other, both very uncomfortable with that entire idea, but there was barely another appropriate solution.

“We should start packing the car.” Emilio said, breaking the slightly tense silence that had fallen.

Once the baby food was packed and the diaper bag was re-stocked, they made their way down to the parking garage with all their bags to pack into Emilio’s car. Once Clementine was strapped into her car seat, Florence noticed a familiar car approaching. The pastel blue stood out amongst the dark hues in the garage.

“Surprise.” Callum whispered as he got into the car with the twins.

“Callum, oh my God.” Florence groaned with annoyance, more to herself than anyone.

Once parked, Grayson got out of his car and walked over to her, his expression was unreadable.

“What are you doing here?” Florence whispered, taking him by the arm and leading him a few steps away.

“Callum texted me and said you would want me to join you for Christmas. Ethan’s in the car too. Why is Emilio here?”

“I-I-We’re going to the Clifford’s. I didn’t know you were coming. I’m sorry.”

Grayson exhaled deeply, setting his hands on his waist and turned to the ground.

“I do want you here…I just didn’t think you wanted to be. That’s why I didn’t ask. Emilio was going to be alone for Christmas too and I figured you were going home.”

“We literally canceled our flight home to stay with you for Christmas.”

“I mean you can still come with us. Michael and Luke won’t mind at all. Neither will I.”

“And Emilio?”

“He’s fine too, I’m sure.” Florence said, gently grabbing the sleeve of his jacket in her fingers, “Please.”

“Okay.” Grayson sighed. “I’ll meet you at the Clifford’s.”

He leaned in to press a kiss to her cheek before getting back in his car. She watched him drive off before getting into the black BMW beside Callum.

“I’m going to kill you, Callum George.” Florence grumbled as Emilio followed the blue Porsche silently out of the parking garage.

~~

Michael and Luke were more than surprised to see a party of seven at their doorstep midday on Christmas Eve. Pleasantly surprised, but surprised nonetheless. Especially when they laid eyes on the eldest DiCaprio son who was stood next to his twin sister, any and all colour already drained from his face. As the group walked through the door greeting everyone, Michael made sure to give Callum a hug, whispering a “It’s really good to see you again.”

At that sentence, it was like all worry fell away, replaced with memories of all the sweet things the Clifford men did for him, and Callum replied with a, “You too, Mr. Clifford.”

Florence smiled at the interaction, her own worry falling aside as she was back in her home away from home; the place where she spent most of her pregnancy when she had nothing. It hadn’t been long since she had last been there, but it always felt like home to her.

Once they made their way to the living room, Florence introduced her guests, Ethan, Grayson, and Emilio already knowing so much about the family that helped her at her worst. Callum held tightly to Ivan’s hand, his eyes flicking nervously to Aidan who was stood opposite him, his arms crossed over his chest.

Florence could hear the nervousness in his voice when he introduced Ivan as his boyfriend to the group. Of course, they all welcomed him happily. All expect Aidan who slunk off somewhere else to avoid greeting the newest member of their strange ‘family’.

Everyone sat around the living room, Florence sandwiched between Grayson and Emilio, Clementine sitting on the rug in the middle of the room with Connor, Aidan’s younger brother, and Ivan. Callum was almost magnetized to his sister, sitting on the floor in front of her. She wasn’t complaining, he was her comfort too and right now that was just what she needed.

Grayson draped his arm over the back of the couch, innocently joining into conversation with the group. Emilio glanced at him and frowned to himself, setting a hand on Florence’s thigh. She smiled at him, keeping her hands folded together on her lap.

“What are you doing in school?” Luke asked Emilio with a small smile.

“I’m taking Psychology.” Emilio replied. “Minor in Spanish Studies.”

“He’s killing it.” Ivan spoke up from the floor. “But I’m not surprised.”

“So you want to go into a counselling profession?”

“I’m not sure yet. It’s interesting but I haven’t made up my mind of a future job yet.” Emilio shrugged.

“That’s okay. I didn’t know what I wanted to do until I was 25.” Michael said.

“I didn’t even go to college.” Grayson spoke up. “E and I went right into an internship at CTV at 17 and now a full-time producing gig there.”

“That’s really impressive.” Luke gaped.

Ethan leaned over to give his brother a high five. Emilio’s grip tightened a little on Florence’s leg.

“Well while all you guys are having a successful life I’m not going anywhere so…” Florence mumbled.

The room replied with various rebuttals, offering her positive assurances for her future.

“Plus, you have the cutest and sweetest daughter ever.” Luke said, smiling down at the baby on the rug.

“True. I can’t really complain.” Florence chuckled. Clementine laughed, pulling the end of her red dress into her mouth. Connor picked her up from under her arms and set her on her feet, holding her securely by her waist. Her little legs kicked around and she reached out to press her hands to his cheeks.

“Any walking yet?” Michael asked.

“Nope.” Florence sighed. “She’s been cruising but nothing on her own.”

Connor slowly removed his hands from her waist and the baby wobbled a little and fell to the rug before rolling onto her back and kicked her feet in the air. Ivan laid on his stomach next to her and tickled her stomach, making her shriek with giggles.

“Hopefully soon.” Florence sighed.

Michael and Luke eventually headed to the kitchen to continue preparing dinner; Florence, Aidan, and Grayson joining them. Grayson loved to cook, and he didn’t hesitate to help Michael with the turkey, rolling up his sleeves of his festive sweater and taking off his expensive watch in the process. Luke put on Christmas music through the Bluetooth speaker which was always a tradition in the Clifford house; it wasn’t Christmas until their voices were sore from screaming the lyrics at the top of their lungs.

Aidan clearly wasn’t in the Christmas spirit since his ex-boyfriend showed up on his doorstep unannounced. Florence stuck with him, taking his hands and trying to dance with him to an excessively loud ‘Sleigh Ride’. He couldn’t hold back his smile at the girl’s terrible dance moves and ended up swaying along with her. Once Aidan was in a better mood, Florence moved over to Grayson, setting a hand on his shoulder as she watched him stir the homemade gravy. Luke stuck in a spoon and took a sip to try it.

“Needs some more pepper.” He added a little sprinkle and Grayson continued stirring.

“Look at you, being the backbone of this meal.” Florence teased.

“Gravy is the main focus of any Christmas dinner.” Grayson added.

“How’s it going?” Emilio’s hand on Florence’s waist startled her as she didn’t hear him approach but she smiled at him,

“Dinner’s almost ready.”

“That’s good. I’m starving.” Emilio’s slight glance at Grayson didn’t go unnoticed by the girl between them. Grayson kept his eyes on stirring the gravy.

“Ok, children. To the table, please!” Luke called loudly as he placed the last fork into its setting.

Callum carried Clementine to the highchair, getting her buckled in as everyone else found their spots around the table. Michael and Luke got the head and everyone else took to the sides, Callum ending up next to Aidan in the bustle. Both were too stubborn to complain. Ivan was on his other side, thankfully enough for Callum since Florence was across the table and not beside him.

“Who wants to cut the turkey for us?” Luke asked.

“I can cut the turkey.” Grayson offered.

“I can do it.” Emilio piped up, joining Grayson at the head of the table where he stood with the turkey on the serving dish in front of him.

“I got it.” Grayson said.

“I want to do it.” Emilio protested.

“I already offered though.” Grayson turned away from Emilio’s persistence and held the large knife to the beautifully brown turkey.

“But-“

“You literally get everything else, why can’t I do this one thing?” Grayson snapped, turning to him again, the knife still held tightly in his hand.

“Okay, boys, let’s calm down.” Michael called from across the table.

“Come sit, Emilio.” Florence whispered sharply.

Emilio grabbed the carving knife from Grayson, “You’re the pity invite.”

“Why are you so annoying and disrespectful?” Grayson spat.

“Guys! Enough!” Luke said loudly, grabbing the knife from Emilio’s grip.

“Holy shit, I’m literally sitting next to my ex and I’m better behaved than you two.” Aidan grumbled.

Florence went to laugh a little, but Ivan’s shocked expression kept her quiet. Had Callum not told him who Aidan was? Emilio and Grayson took their seats on either side of Ethan, shamefully, and Florence whispered a sharp “What the hell was that?” to Emilio.

Luke then had to carve the turkey, the serving process uncomfortably quiet.

Dinner seemed to be mostly fine. Conversation was pleasant and the Christmas spirit was back in the room. Emilio and Grayson barely so much as looked at each other but it seemed better that way. They all watched a movie together after dinner, Connor quickly choosing Elf from the cabinet of various DVDs as it was always another family Christmas tradition. Last time Florence was sat on the couch watching Elf was a year ago, when she was still pregnant with Clementine and was staying at the Clifford’s. So much had changed since then.

Once the movie was over, Emilio took Clementine upstairs to get her ready for bed as Florence followed Grayson to the guest room. He noticed her following him but simply glanced at her before looking away, unzipping his bag to take out his pyjamas.

“Did you have an okay night?” Florence asked quietly from the doorway.

“Yeah. Michael and Luke are really nice.” Grayson answered plainly.

“I’m sorry about Emilio.”

Grayson didn’t answer.

“Gray.”

“I know you are.” He sighed, finally turning to her. “Doesn’t hurt any less.”

“He’s just-“

“Protective. I know.”

“I’m sorry.” Florence mumbled. “Callum shouldn’t have said anything. Then you could have been with your family instead of stuck here.”

“I’m sure tomorrow will be looking up.”

“Oh, sorry.” Ethan said quietly as he noticed the slightly tense conversation happening in the doorway he was approaching.

“I’m going upstairs now anyway.” Florence smiled at him before looking back to Grayson. “Good night.”

Callum and Ivan were stuck on the pull out in the living room – it was either that or Aidan’s room which was arguably not an option – and she stopped to hug her brother and say good night to the two of them before heading upstairs. Connor’s bedroom door was already closed so she let the brothers to their privacy and walked into Aidan’s room where she was staying, finding Emilio sitting on the bed with Clementine in his lap and a picture book in hand. The eleven-month-old had damp hair from her recent bath and a red pacifier in her mouth to match her Christmas pyjamas. Her small hands were holding onto the sleeves of Emilio’s hoodie bunched up at his wrists and she seemed to be reading along with him. At the sound of the door closing, they both looked over at her and smiled. Florence climbed up next to them, kissing her daughter’s head before leaning on Emilio’s shoulder.

“What are you reading?” Florence whispered.

“The Night Before Christmas.” Emilio smiled.

“Fitting.”

Clementine whined loudly, smacking his hand in an attempt to get him to keep reading. Emilio returned to the story, reading quietly out loud, Florence cuddled up next to him and the baby almost falling asleep on his lap. The house was warm and still smelt of their delicious dinner, contrasting the snow that fell gently outside the window, setting on the dark street and the barren trees, a perfect ending to Christmas Eve.

[agl03]

hey after the finale could you check which theories you got right and stuff? i haven’t watched any of season 6 except the fs episode bc i was Not Pleased with how 5 ended, and i want some heads up before i binge the whole thing lol. regardless, thanks so much for being great to the fandom. sorry you’ve been getting shit lately you don’t deserve it at all

Hi Anon,

Personally I think Season 6 might be my favorite Season as a whole right now.  I see what they set up with killing Loop Fitz and its was traumatic as all get out but now I see what they were doing.

I understand I put a big target on my pack when I open myself up with the metas and responding to so many asks.   But I just ask to be respected for what I do, don’t have to agree, just be nice.  I’m a human person and this is my esccape that I need now more than ever.

But yes, here is my predictions from my post earlier and I bolded what I hit and put ‘notes’ in italics.

Something BAD happens to Elena.  The result is severe injury, possession, maybe even a death and save thanks to Monolith Magic.

This could be one of the last times we see her with her Robotic Arms, be it the monoliths or Fitzsimmons Family over hiatus that get her new ones.  Just file this one away for next year....

Her injury will not only take her out of commission but likely is the reason we only see Mack and Daisy with Alt Jemma.  In the May and maybe Deke stay with her.

The Flint we saw at the end of 11 isn’t real.  He’s a manifestation just like Benson’s husband was.  He’ll be the one that puts the Monoliths back together and something tells me Izel isn’t going to let him hang around.   had this one on the list before the peek too!

Letting Pachicuti out is a BAD idea and will have some dire consequences. IE he stops Izel but then goes on all sorts of a rampage himself and it could have ramifications into next season.

In the end it will be the team, likely Daisy or May, connecting to some part of Coulson that will allow them to stop him.

Some of the team get possessed by some of Izel’s people.

There is a tie in to Maveth

The sword fight is gonna be freaking awesome and maybe happens after Mack and Daisy have been ‘taken’

Another Ghost Rider reference to help set up Season 7.

The Jemma and possibly Pilot Deke seen in the promo/promo pics are from the future/alternate dimension.  Mack and Daisy see them due to getting pulled into a portal or one of the Monoliths.  Jemma will offer a dire warning and do some set up for Season 7.

The “Other Shoe” with the Chromicons is going to drop as Malachi and Baal Gad proceed with creating Chronica 3.  They turn out to be the biggest bads of the season.

Izel is a decoy to hide how much danger the Chronicoms pose.

The Chronicoms intent to make Earth Chronica 3

The Chronicoms will go after the Monoliths and possibly Fitzsimmons

Another target is Koenig, WE ARE OUT OF TIME PATTON AND YOU SAID YOU WERE IN SEASON 6!  Given they are going after people important to Shield, Koenig is keeper of a lot of secrets so will be in major danger in Season 7 and will likely be the target in an ep.

Somehow we’ll see a return of Leopold and ID Jemma.  I’m counting the Chronicoms using Fitzsimmons minds against Shield with this one...because you better believe they will draw from what AIDA did in the Framework...cough changing peoples lives and changing history as a result cough.

Enoch is leading some sort of resistance or revolution against the Chronicom Hunters.  Everyone file away that Chronicoms can be reassigned to Hunter for next season okay.

It’s revealed that Season 5 isn’t the first time Enoch used the monoliths to save the earth from an extinction level event and he also helped get rid of Hive.

We see Space Vegas one last time

They ‘singling’ out FItzsimmons and their intelligence all season gets paid off, big time.

Fitzsimmons go all home alone on Malachi and are able to stop or delay him.  That will in turn cause them to call Enoch who does a ton of set up for Season 7 time travel craziness.  I mean close enough...

Deke has a huge hero moment

Snowflake gets a hero moment or we at least find out what the heck she’s been up too outside of binging Netflix.

The FItzsimmons family save each other at some point

We see Deke’s place again

Deke is the reason Fitzsimmons don’t go to the temple of doom as he tries to keep them out of the field/danger and goes himself instead.

We finally see Koenig and Papa Kasius possibly another surprise Cameo.

The team possibly loses the Lighthouse or control of it setting up the need for a new base in Season 7.

Eventually the team will beat Pachicuti but the result won’t be getting our Coulson back, rather we’ll have a mix of Sarge and Coulson moving forward.

It ends on the biggest cliffhanger in the Shows History possibly with all or part of the team missing/scattered and teasing Timey Whimey fun times of Season 7.  I can very much see an end similar to Self Control where we get glimpses of everyone in a “New Life”

The Fitzsimmons baby bomb isn’t dropped in a way we expect but there is a hint or Something taking us another step closer to it.  

One or both of Fitzsimmons will be separated from the team.  However if Fitzsimmons separate from each other it will be on their terms and for “one last time”. 

I can’t and won’t rule out Fitz getting grabbed before the credits roll.  Are we counting that he’s had to be hidden away?

My ask box will die after.

[pocketfulofmuses]

Who: Tristan, Tobias, Lexie, Tobias & Aidan Where: Starts at the apartment of Tristan & Tobias and leads to the courthouse When: 7/25/19 About: Tristan & Tobias elope and flew to California with Lexie and Tommy 

It was early afternoon, and Tommy was supposed to be at work. Instead, he found himself all but kicking his brother's door down in his fury. He hadn't been this mad at Tristan in a long time-- he'd made his peace with the family's line of work and his brother's involvement in it. But that day at work, one of his colleagues asked how Liam was doing, and Tommy had stared at him blankly. He was hurt to be left out of the loop, scared for his family, worried that Tris might be in danger. But it all came out as anger at his twin.

He grabbed Tristan by the collar of his shirt and yanked him off the couch. "How long have you known our cousin was in a coma? When were you gonna tell me? You fucker!" 

Lexie sat in front of the coffee table, across from Tristan and Tobias, magazines spread out all over the surface of it. Ever since she strolled into Bryan's office and asked to be put into the business she had been spending a ton of time with Tristan and whenever Tobias or Tommy were around, she would use the wedding as an excuse of why she was always hanging around. "Okay so we are covered on the caterer and the dessert.. we should figure out where we are doing this at.." before she could keep going Tommy busted the door down and had Tristan up off the couch in a matter of seconds. 

Tobias scrambled up off the couch and moved to grab Tristan while Lexie moved over to Tommy to try and pull him off. "Babe, come on.. let go of him."

Tristan had been trying to keep his mind off the threat to their family and the state Liam was in, and he and Lexie had agreed not to tell Tobias and Tommy the details. He should have known it would come back around to bite them. Before he could even make a comment on the venue choices, his brother had stormed in and yanked him off the couch. When it came to fights, Tris could go from zero to one hundred in a snap, and he seemed to bring that out of his brother too.

"You always think you know best, huh?" Tristan snapped, shoving his brother back away from him. "Maybe you could trust me for once, asshole!"

Tommy lunged at him again, ready to throw down, but hands were holding both of them back. 

Lexie kept a grip on Tommy's shoulders to keep him from lunging at Tristan. "Don't you two ever just use your words?" A part of her felt guilty for not keeping Tommy in the loop but with how these people were if she kept him out of it. He would stay safe. She moved in between the space and put her hands on Tommy's chest. "Take a deep breath. Please." 

Tobias held onto Tristan, holding him back as he moved his hands down to his man's waist, tugging him closer to keep him from trying to get to Tommy. "He's just frustrated. Don't get too angry, Tris." He muttered into Tristan's ear.

Tommy knew she had a point, the two of them were never good at just communicating even at their closest. It was why things tended to blow up for them. Tommy let out a sharp breath through his nose, knowing he had to calm down before one of them took a swing and they didn't speak for months again. That wasn't what he wanted. He put his hands up in a sign of truce, eyes still blazing at Tris. 

Tristan clenched his fists opened and closed, opened and closed again at his sides before he let Tobias tug him back. "Alright, alright," he huffed, settling a little further against his fiance. He looked across the space they'd created at his brother. "I'm sorry," he admitted. "I should've told you...we were trying to protect you...don't fucking hit me."

Tommy might have huffed a laugh at the plea to not hit him, but one word caught his attention instead. He turned to look at Lexie, his brow furrowed in confusion. "We?"

Lexie moved back behind Tommy so she could keep her hands on him to keep him from lunging at his twin brother, she was actually relieved when Tommy listened to her when it came to the truce and how they need to keep their hands to themselves. Sometimes the twins acted like two year olds. She lifted her gaze up to Tristan, her lips parting when the word we came out of his mouth. 

Tobias held onto Tristan as he lifted his gaze up to Lexie as well. He didn't know much about what was going on with the family business either so the whole finding out their cousin was in a coma was new to him as well. So his hands dropped from Tristan and he glanced at Tristan then at Lexie but he knew the blow was much bigger to Tommy than it was to him.

Lexie lifted her gaze to Tommy as she looked down at her hands for a second. "Tommy…" she looked back up at him as she pressed her lips together. Her sister had been tangled up in the business before she ran off and her father was embedded in it so.. "I'm sorry.."

Tristan realized his mistake the second it left his mouth, and he muttered "Ah, shit," to himself. He glanced over at Tobias, an apology in his eyes without him having to say the words. A lot went unspoken about what Tris does for the family, for Bryan and Liam, and Tobias had always seemed okay with it. Or at least tolerated it and understood. He knew they could talk just the two of them later, because Tommy was likely about to blow again.

"You knew…" Tommy was saying to Lexie. His eyes cast over to Tris for a moment, who was grinding his teeth hard, then back to Lexie. "The head of our family got beaten almost to death, he's supposed to be untouchable...You two…" Tommy let out a long stream of air and walked a few paces away, tugging his hands back through his hair. "You just have to get mixed up in this family shit, don't you? You have to put yourselves in the middle of shit that could get you killed." He turned his gaze to Tobias, looking for an ally. "You're okay with this, Tobias?" 

Tobias shoved his hands into his pockets, hearing what Tommy was saying about the head of the family was almost beaten to death and he just found himself staring at the area in front of him before looking at Lexie. Did she get mixed up into all of this too? Was that why she was always here? He had to wonder now what Tristan was doing with his nights and the fact he knew nothing about it was enough to make him want to double over in pain.

Lexie turned to look at Tommy as he started to pace. "It's family, Tommy." She thought about everything the O'Shea's had done for her after her father died, all the nights she hid out with the twins when her father was drunk and abusive. She lifted her gaze up to her boyfriend before moving towards him. "You gotta understand.." She started to say until he turned his attention to Tobias who looked like he was going to be sick.

"I didn't know any of it." Tobias found himself mumbling as he moved back a few steps. He knew Tristan was in this family but he never really thought about any of it. "I.." before he could say anything, the front door was opening again.

"You two do realize you have phones to answer -.." Aidan trailed in, looking at his phone before lifting his eyes to see Tommy and Tobias standing in the living room as well. "Oh…" He cleared his throat as he shoved his phone and hands into his pockets.  "Sorry. Just doing a headcount." He was going by all the people who were working for them and letting them know retaliation was going to happen and to make sure not to go anywhere alone. It also didn't help that no one could find Danica and Hunter's brother in-law was shot dead in her apartment. He turned his gaze towards Lexie and Tristan before moving towards the kitchen. "I'll let you guys finish up.." 

Tristan saw the look on his fiance's face and immediately felt a wash of guilt, his stomach twisting. He could take Tommy's wrath and Lexie's blame, but he'd never wanted to be the cause of that hurt in Tobias's eyes. "Baby, please…" he said, not even sure what he was begging him for in that moment. Tobias knew he was a soldier for Bryan, but maybe he'd just never realized the extent of what that meant. Tommy did though, which was why his eyes still flashed with anger. 

"Family, right," Tommy huffed at Lexie's words before whirling towards Tristan again. "What about me? What about him?" He gestured to Tobias, blinking hard as tears stung his eyes. "We're your family, Tris." 

Tristan felt a lump in his throat as he looked between the two most important people in his life. "Of course you are," he told Tommy. "This has all been about protecting you."

"Don't give me that shit!" Tommy yelled, his eyes red and glassy. But before Tristan could utter any kind of response to his brother, or comfort his fiance, the door flew open again. 

He literally threw his hands in the air in frustration. "Not a good time, man!" he told Aidan. 

Tommy looked at Aidan, and something dawned on him.  "Oh my god," he said. "That's why Ashlyn left...You're all in danger, so Bryan sent them away. I'm a fucking idiot." He stormed passed them all, giving Aidan a dark look. "I need some fucking air." He went through the kitchen to the little metal landing that led to the fire escape ladder.

Tobias found himself moving away from Tristan even with the pleading. He didn't know what to say or how to even breathe at this point. How could he have been so fucking naive? He glided his tongue along his lower lip, moving his hand out of his pocket and moving it down his face. He only lifted his eyes to look at Tommy before turning his gaze to Lexie who looked like she wanted to be swallowed up and all he wanted to do was ask her how involved in this she was because if she was defending Tristan in this. "Why are you defending this?"

Lexie turned her gaze to Tobias, looking at him before shrugging her shoulders. She wasn't sure if her being in tangled up in this was something that should come up now and Tommy seemed to be only upset with Tristan. So, she stood there instead of uttering a word because she didn't know what to say about any of it. Her head turned when Aidan came strolling in about a head count and it made her want to kick him. She knew something was different about him since he was kidnapped but this was crazy. "Aidan.." she gave him a look before looking at Tommy again. "Tommy…" She exhaled, moving after him. 

Tobias stood there. He had been a fucking idiot too. How could he have not pieced all of this together? He moved towards the chair, grabbing his jacket. "Me too." He said softly, moving to the front door. "And don't follow me." He turned his head to look at Tristan, opening the door and walking out. He slammed the front door and moved down the stairs to get to his car. 

Aidan leaned against the kitchen counter, looking at Tommy when he walked by and gave him a dirty look. He tried to stop Lexie but she pulled her arm away from his touch and went out the window to get Tommy. 

"Tommy, please. You're not an idiot." Lexie said as she crawled out the window and onto the fire escape. 

Tristan spared a glance at Aidan that just said help me with his eyes. Now he realized why Aidan had been keeping Ash at a distance, why he had once said that he didn't know how much longer she'd put up with him. He decided not to go after his brother yet, but like hell was he going to listen to Tobias's plea to not follow him. 

Tristan ran after him, letting the door swing shut loudly behind him. "Baby...baby!" he called, stopping Tobias before he could get in his car and drive away from him. "Please just talk to me. Please." 

Tommy was gripping the railing tight, his hands hurting from it, remembering nights when Tris would convince them all to share a joint right there on that ledge. He swallowed hard, not turning to look at Lexie when she joined him. Instead he gazed up at the blue sky, blinking hard, hoping gravity wouldn't pull the tears from his eyes. "You know I left because of all this," he reminded her, thinking back over five years ago. "I always knew Tris would fall into it, even after what happened to mom, but you too?" 

Tobias stopped when Tristan moved in front of him. He stared at his fiance, thinking about Liam being in a coma and the fact Ashlyn had been sent away because of the dangers rolling into Chicago. The fact Tristan didn't tell him any of this made him feel like a moron for thinking their relationship was different. He turned his gaze to look past Tristan, moving his hand to the door handle of his car to have something to hold onto. "What do you want me to say, Tristan?" He turned his gaze back to his fiance. 

Lexie stood behind Tommy as she kept her hands to her side. She turned her head to look up at the sky too, the simple nights all of them would have at this apartment. It honestly was something that should have been happening throughout the years. Her eyes moved to the back of Tommy's head when he talked about why he left. He left shortly before her father died and her sister ran off. She exhaled as she thought about everything Bryan did for her while Tommy was gone. How she was one of the people to help stitch up all the wounded. If she had been honest, she had been apart of it since the moment Tommy left. "I'm aware." She said softly. "If we are being honest. I've been apart of it since the moment you left." 

"I'm sorry," the apologies kept tumbling from from his mouth. "I told you you were way too good for me." It was supposed to be a running joke they had together, something Tris has been working on getting over. But now it seemed abundantly clear that he was just a thug after all, and Tobias deserved better. "I help Bryan out when he asks me to," he began, trying to explain. "I man the bar a lot, where everyone meets and stuff...Sometimes I beat people down who need a message sent. Lately I've just been Aidan's backup, or protection for Ash. I don't even know everything that's going on, but Bryan doesn't have me do much…" It didn't sound good, he knew. Tris took a step towards him,  reaching up to touch Tobias's face. "When this is over, when Bryan takes care of whatever this threat is, I'm done. Okay? I'll get a real job, I won't go back to the bar, I...I'll take care of you." 

Tobias gave him a look at the joke he was trying to make. That wasn't his problem. The job wasn't the problem, it was the fact Tristan never told him about any of it. He moved his hand up to Tristan's wrist to stop him from touching his cheek because he knew the second his fingers touched him that he would be a puddle because that was the effect Tristan had on him. He moved Tristan's hand back to his own body as he shook his head. "My problem isn't the fact you work for your shady family. I knew that the moment I came into your life and we became something." He said softly, dropping his hand from the handle of the door. "It's the fact you've kept me in the dark about everything. I didn't know how serious things were. I didn't know people in your family were getting hurt or dying. I didn't know your life was in danger, Tristan!" He raised his voice slightly which wasn't something he ever did especially with Tristan. "You left me in the fucking dark and that… that is not okay with me."

Tommy put his head in his hands as her words sunk in. He hadn't been able to cope with his mother's death, he and Tris were fighting, it had been so much easier to just run away and not look back. "Don't tell me that," he muttered, heartbroken. He finally turned to look at her, his eyes still red though no tears had fallen yet. "You two, and dad, are all I've got, okay? You're all I care about. And this shit, the family, I get it. But it got my mother killed. And I can't lose anyone else that I love." 

Tristan felt about ready to crack, hearing Tobias's words and seeing the look on his face. "I thought...I thought I could keep you safer, the less you knew," his voice was rough. Tristan didn't have his brother's control, and tears were already running down his face. He dropped his hand to his side when Tobias made it clear not to touch him. "I'm sorry," he said again, swallowing with some effort. "But I'm a nobody, I'm not in any real danger, or Bryan would've sent me away too." It was something he had to believe, the reason why Bryan held back and gave him less and less to do. "If you wanna go, baby, I'll get us away from here, just say the word and we're gone."

Lexie turned her head to look away from everything, wanting to get themselves out of the conversation and forget it was even happening. She understood where he was coming from but this was all she knew since he left. Being around Tristan and the pub. She walked over to the railing to stand next to him, putting her hands on it as she leaned against it. She inhaled as she closed her eyes, tilting her head down at his words. She lifted her head to look at him, seeing the red eyes. She moved her hand to his face, putting the palm of her hand right up against his cheek. "I know." She said softly, looking at him. "But people who have been there for me and who took me in when my dad died. They are in danger, Tommy. We are all in this shit whether we are actively in it or not." 

Tobias shook his head again, crossing his arms over his chest. "I don't care. If you would have ended up dead because of this shit… What am I supposed to do, Tris?" His voice cracked as he turned, feeling the sting behind his eyes. "Who would have explained any of it to me?" He asked softly before looking back at his fiance. "Do you think you could even do that? Would we even be safe?"

Tommy looked over at her, not wanting to believe how true her words were but feeling it deep inside. "Is it worth your life? To be there for them?" He asked, voice rasping. "Can't they handle themselves? I mean...We're all just kids compared to them, they've been doing this all their lives." He thought about Bryan, even Hunter, who seemed to have no choice but be part of this life. He tipped his face into her hand, taking comfort from it but mostly just feeling useless. 

Tristan didn't know what to say. He knew the danger he signed up for years ago when he joined Bryan's ranks, but back them he never thought he'd be getting married, never thought he'd be someone to lose. "You're not gonna lose me, baby," he told him, reaching for his hands. He wished things could be easier, simpler for them. That they could be a regular couple whose only worry was their wedding venue. "I know, I'm a piece of shit," he muttered. "I'm so sorry, baby. I don't know, I don't know if we'd be any safer, but if you wanna go I'll go with you."

Lexie didn’t know what to say to that because she wasn’t sure. Besides Tommy and Tristan, she didn’t have anyone and when Tommy left all those years ago. All she had was Tristan who was deeply embedded in the whole thing. She didn’t really think she had anything to lose. She moved her fingers across his cheek, brushing her fingers down his cheekbone to his jaw as she put her fingers against his chin. “I don’t think my life is on the line. All we’ve been doing is helping out Aidan.” If she was being honest, it was honestly all her and Tristan had been doing lately and she was mostly doing it to keep an eye on Aidan, knowing Ashlyn would want her to more than anything. “Ever since he came back.” Her head turned over to the window, wondering if Aidan could hear her before looking back at Tommy. “Nothing is worth losing you so if you want me out.. I’m out.”

Tobias shook his head at his words. “You don’t know that.” His eyes lifted up towards him. “Did anyone know you were going to lose Liam?” He asked. He moved his hand over to him, taking his fiance’s hand and lacing their fingers together. “You are not a piece of shit. I just want you to include me in these things, Tris..” He moved closer to him, putting his other hand up onto Tristan’s face. “I’m okay if we stay but you have to tell me everything, Tris… Everything.”

Aidan popped his head out of the front door, turning to look over at Tristan. “I know you guys really have to talk this out but I came here for a reason. We really have to talk, Tris.” He gave him a look before shutting the front door again and moving to the couch. He had already poked his head out and told the other set of lovebirds he had to talk to them. He told Tommy he was more than okay to sit in on it but Aidan had to tell Tristan about Adam and about the fact Danica was missing and was probably already dead.

Tommy closed his eyes, shaking his head. "I don't know...I don't know what I want, I just…" Tommy took her hand off his cheek and kissed her palm. Then Aidan popped his head of the the window and Tommy sighed. "Okay, we're coming." 

Out on the street, tears were streaming down Tristan's face, and he clutched Tobias's hands. "I know, it's all so fucked up and I don't even know why all this is happening…" He nodded when Tobias asked him to tell him everything from now on. "I promise, baby," he said earnestly, reaching up to rub the tears from his face. Then Aidan came outside to get him,  and Tristan nodded at him.  "Yeah, got it." Before they went back inside, Tristan turned back to Tobias and cupped his face to kiss him for a moment.

Lexie let her eyes close for a second when he moved her hand off his cheek to kiss it. She pressed her lips together, biting down on her lower lip as a few tears slipped from her eyes which was something that almost felt impossible lately. She opened her eyes and turned her head over towards Aidan. She had forgotten he even shown up but it felt like the only time she had seen him lately was when he had bad news. She exhaled as she moved towards Tommy again, moving up and pressing her lips against his. She pulled back and brushed her fingers against the strands of his hair on the back of his neck before moving away from him and climbing back in the window. She moved towards the living room and stood in front of the coffee table, folding her arms. “Alright, Walsh…”

Tobias didn’t know how to feel about any of it. All he knew was Tristan had a heart of gold and would do anything for his family even things his twin brother had been uncomfortable with. He knew the majority of what had happened to their mother but he didn’t think to tie it with the family business until Tommy had pointed it out, well, not in actual words but it was a feeling Tobias now had. He turned his head to look over at Aidan, furrowing his brow. It was also weird being around Aidan lately too but he knew the man had been acting the same way towards his best friend as well. He turned back towards Tristan and kissed the other man back, moving his hands to his waist to tug his fiance into him. He pulled back after a second and took his hand, tugging him towards the living room where everyone seemed to be standing now.

Aidan stood up from the couch when Tristan walked in, his hands moving into his pockets as he turned his gaze towards Lexie then towards Tristan. “Adam is dead.” He said, although he was more than sure neither one of them even knew about the hunt for the mole in the family because of what had happened to Liam. He knew Bryan was trying to keep certain people at arm's length, whether it was to keep them safe or keep them in the dark he wasn’t sure but he had gotten the go to come tell both of them everything that was going on.

Tristan let out a breath after Tobias kissed him, murmuring "I love you," against his lips,  before turning back towards the apartment and walking back inside holding Tobias's hand. Once they all sat around in the living room again, Tristan sat next to Tobias on the couch, sandwiched between him and Tommy. 

"Who's Adam?" Tommy asked, looking around for clarification. 

Tristan looked up at Aidan, confused. "He's worked for Bryan since...well at least as long as I've been around...What happened?"

Lexie stood at the end of the couch right next to Tommy, her hand to his shoulder as she started to push her thumb gently into his shoulder blade to massage it. It was a nervous habit, her always having to do something with her hands when it felt like something bad was coming. Her eyes resting on Aidan, trying to figure out his words. It didn’t make sense for Adam to be dead, especially since he was one of the people in the inner circle. “Yeah, what Tris said..” 

Tobias sat there, turning his head over to look at Tommy because he honestly had the same question but now this whole thing felt surreal. At least when he didn’t know how bad it really was, it was something he was oblivious to and now it was something he had to face head on.

Aidan looked down at his feet before looking back up at him. “He was working for the..” He turned his head to look away from them as he played with the usb stick in his pocket before pulling his hands out to get his fingers away from him. “The family that took Lucia and I.” He glided his tongue along his lower lip. “He’s the reason Liam is in a coma.”

"He was a mole?" Tristan blurted out. It seemed crazy, that someone so close to Liam's inner circle had been a traitor the whole time. He gripped Tobias's hand tighter, realizing that he was right, they might not really know the danger they were all in. 

Tommy held his hand up as if he had a question in class. "Um, who the fuck are these people?" He asked, looking pointedly at Aidan. "People that kidnap us and kill us...and what, Bryan knows nothing?" He was feeling furious again but tried to reign it in, feeling some small comfort in Lexie's touch. 

Lexie let out a shaky breath at the confession, thinking about all the nights she spent in the pub, cleaning up and alone with Adam. She turned her head away and let out another breath, pressing her fingers lightly but in a tense manner into his shoulder. “Adam was a mole?” She turned her head even though Tristan had asked the same question. “He has spent the last five years with us, Aidan.” She used her other hand to move it to her stomach. “How does something like that happen so easily?”

Aidan parted his lips to say something back at Lexie but Tommy held up his hand and it only brought confusion all over his face. “They have a hacker or something on their side because we haven’t been able to figure a single thing out.” He would have given up the usb stick but he knew what they were capable of and putting his girlfriend on the line was out of the question to him. He glided his tongue along his lower lip. “He wouldn’t give anything up but he had a girl and she spoke fluent Russian so we know the family is Russian.” He shook his head. “That’s not it though.” He exhaled. “Uh, Lucia went to check on Danica this morning. They found uh.. Mason Hudson shot dead.. Turns out Mason is Hunter’s brother in law.” He pressed his lips together. “And Danica is missing.”

Tobias stared at Aidan for a second before shaking his head a little. “Danica isn’t even involved in the family business.” He had only met the girl a few times but after Julian died, it was like she didn’t want to be near anyone in the family. “Why the hell are they picking up people who have nothing to do with this?” His head turned to look over at Tommy, the twisted feeling in his gut coming up again. His hand moved towards Tristan’s, giving it a squeeze the second he touched it.

Tristan let out a long breath in a hiss, letting the news all settle in.  Someone they'd trusted, who'd been with them for five years, someone he'd been alone with and never thought a thing about it, had betrayed them. "Was Adam working for them the whole time or did they like, turn him against us?" He asked, before realizing that it probably didn't really matter. Tristan’s grip on Tobias's hand tightened, and dread twisted the pit of his stomach. Danica and Mason were outliers in this, not even really part of the family, and it made him terrified for Tobias and Tommy. If this Russian family just wanted to hurt them, it looked like they'd take anyone away from them.

"Danica is Julian's sister," he told Tommy, seeing the confusion on his face. "He was one of ours, pretty high up too, and he'd been with Lucia Winters…" he trailed off, biting his lip and thinking. 

Tommy just shook his head, trying to piece it all together and feeling overwhelmed. "What do we do, Aidan?" He asked. "Would we be safer all together?" He looked over at Lexie, part of him wishing he could just take them all back to California with him. 

Lexie was letting all the news settle in. She didn't realize how bad this whole thing was. She didn't realize anyone could be killed because of this other family and the fact that Adam had been turned because how could they let someone into the inner circle without knowing who they really were. Her head turned to look at Tristan, thinking about what had happened to Julian, of course, none of them knew the real truth of it all. Just that he was killed in front of Lucia. 

Tobias stared in front of him, feeling Tristan grip his hand tighter. He felt kind of numb about all of it. How was he supposed to feel, knowing this was everything Tristan had been tangled up with and the fact it was possible for any of them to lose their lives. Was Danica still alive? He turned his gaze to Aidan. 

Aidan exhaled. "He was working for them the whole time." He could feel the USB stick, burning a hole in his pocket along with the burner phone. He shook his head as he looked down at his feet, pulling the items out of his pocket and putting them on the table. He knelt down in front of the table and shook his head again, staring at the phone and the stick in front of him. 

Lexie's eyes moved to the stuff on the table then up to Aidan. She took a step forward, her hand slipping from Tommy's shoulder. "What is that, Aidan?" She felt a twisting inside her stomach when Aidan lifted his head to look up at her. His eyes were screaming in defeat because this room was full of people he knew he could trust with his life and she could see the pain of not wanting to spill all of his secrets out. 

"I don't know." He said after a second, clicking his fingers against the surface of the coffee table. His eyes moving to Tristan. "This. This is why I pushed everyone away, Tris." He gestured to the items on the table, knowing telling the four of them could lead to anything. "When I was in that room. After I watched the guard kill my father… after the man left me alone to get.." he cleared his throat. "He gave this to me on the last day I was there. He told me he was going to call this phone and he expected me to pick up.. do whatever the task was or he was going to kill Ashlyn." He just kept his eyes on Tristan. "Get out." His voice was soft before moving to Tommy. "Just pack up and leave. Because they hold the vulnerable emotions we all have and I don't know…" he turned his eyes back to Tristan. "I don't know what he wants from me but I can't be the reason Ash is dead."

Tristan leaned in, watching as Aidan took a few items out of his pockets and placed them on the table for everyone to see. He looked from the usb stick and the phone, up to meet his friend’s eyes, all the pieces sliding into place suddenly. “Shit…” he muttered, taking in a breath. “Look, it’s gonna be okay, Aid--”

“Okay?” Tommy cut in, clearly starting to panic. “He’s getting blackmailed to do, who knows what!” Tommy turned from his brother to look at Aidan. “What if they tell you to finish the job with Liam? What if, if they tell you to go after Bryan?”

“Tommy…” Tristan started, but didn’t know what to say, so the rest just came out as a sigh. “Ash was sent away, she’ll be safe wherever they are, right? Maybe you should...just tell Bryan the truth.” Tris looked from Aidan, over to his fiance next to him, letting the advice to just get out sink down into his bones. He didn’t want to leave Aidan, or Bryan, when they needed help the most. But he wasn’t willing to risk Tobias’s life. And it was clear that these people were okay going after anyone, anyone that would hurt the O’Shea family by losing. He let out a long breath and leaned back into the couch, pressing the heels of his hands hard into his eyes, trying to think. “Fuck fuck fuck…”

Aidan went to shake his head because none of it was okay. How could it be? He turned his gaze over to Tommy, knowing it was possible the man would have him do any of what Tommy was listing. He moved his head into his hands and actually wanted to start laughing because of the relief off his shoulders or how much this could get him in trouble. "These people are capable of anything, Tristan. They don't care who they kill as long as they get what they want." He shrugged his shoulders. "We are trusting the Italians to take care of her and Braeden. I'm not really sure how much lower we can get." He shook his head. "and telling Bryan about any of this. I don't know how much this family is listening in on."

Lexie took a few steps towards Aidan and moved down to kneel next to him. "You can't keep this in anymore, Aidan. It's obviously eating you alive." She moved her hand to his shoulder. She couldn't imagine what she would do in his shoes but if this family had threatened Tommy, Tristan, or Tobias.. She would probably feel the same way as him, burying it all in and pushing the three of them away. She turned her head over to look at Tris. "I know I would do the same thing as Aidan if they threatened Tommy.." her eyes moved to Tommy.

Tobias glanced at the stuff on the table before glancing around them. "Well, I know for a fact none of us are Russian." Bad joke to ease the tension. He thought about Olivia and her family, wondering if they could be targets but he highly doubted it. He turned his head over to Tristan, putting his arms around him and turning to look over him at Tommy. "Maybe Aidan's right. Maybe we should leave."

Tristan let out a huff of air through his nose, reaching for something Aidan said that he could reply to, when it all felt so terrifying. “Siding with the Italians is the least of our worries right now,” he pointed out. “The truce has been solid for a while, we’re all in this together--hell, Ash told me that Bryan and Lucia are practically inseparable. So she’ll be fine with them, Aid.” He sighed and shrugged, not sure if telling Bryan about it was the right thing or not. He leaned into Tobias’s side when his fiance’s arm came around him, his mind reeling with thoughts. 

Tommy worried his bottom lip with his teeth, a nervous habit. He didn’t know what to say to Lexie, his heart pounding and his gut twisting. The thought that she could do something he’d never thought she was capable of, if he was threatened...he didn’t want to think about that. He looked over at Tobias, seeing the distress his brother was also in, wondering about just leaving. “I still know people in LA,” he offered. “I could get us settled somewhere, but…” He shook his head, it all sounded so crazy. His thoughts raced ahead, imagining it--he’d easily get a job at his old firm again, make enough money to support them, find them a place, Tristan would protect them. “Tris…” he turned towards his twin, his voice cracking a little, blinking against prickling in his eyes again. “What about your wedding?”

Tristan looked at Tobias, his heart sinking at the idea of putting it all off any longer. “We’ll figure it out.”

There was a silence in Aidan, knowing Tristan had been right when he talked about how inseparable Lucia and Bryan had been. Honestly, the male was waiting for the other shoe to drop, a part of him couldn’t stop thinking about the fact Lucia had probably been in the room next to his and it was more than possible she was given the same things as him or was told to get close to Bryan in order to take them all down but.. He had to admit he was more paranoid than usual. Especially when it came to being close with the people in this room and his own girlfriend. He inhaled as he lifted his head up towards Lexie, shaking his head. “You don’t know the things I’ve done.” He said quietly, thinking about the man he brutally killed a few months ago. 

Lexie turned her head to look at Aidan, there was a part of her who wanted to pull him into her arms and hold him. She wanted him to know any one of them would have caved to the pressures to protect the ones they loved. She turned her head over towards the love of her life, seeing him start to chew on his lower lip which made her stand up from where she was and move over to him, putting herself on his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck. She honestly would never be sure what she would have done in Aidan’s place but all she knew was all those long nights alone with Adam was starting to hit her all at once. She put her head on his shoulder, brushing her nose against the crook of his neck.

Tobias turned his head over towards Aidan. Honestly, a part of him knew how Tristan felt when he came home with bruises all over his face. His fiance would have taken matters into his own hands if Tobias had let him. He moved his hand towards Tristan, giving his hand a little squeeze as he turned his head over to face him. “Let’s go get married now.” He said softly. “We go get married.. Pack up our stuff and leave this crap behind. LA sounds like a good place for all of us to start over and stay out of all this until it’s over.” He knew it would be hard to let Liv know about what he was doing but he couldn’t live without Tristan and if anything happened to him in this town he would never forgive himself.

Tristan pursed his lips at Aidan’s words. He’d been suspecting that Aidan had been into something all those nights he’d asked Tristan to cover for him if anyone asked. He’d done his best to look out for him like Bryan asked, to have his back and protect him, but it was clear now why Aidan had been pushing him away. “Bryan wouldn’t blame you,” he pointed out. “Whatever you did, was to keep Ash safe.” 

Tommy didn’t know what else to say, but when Lexie slipped into his lap he just put his arms around her and bent his head down. All he ever wanted was a quiet, normal life, but his last name always prevented that from being the case. That was why he had tried to run away from it all. The thought of running again turned his stomach, but if the people he cared about came with him this time, it would be different. “We need to take Dad with us, if we go,” he said, turning to Tris. “We can’t leave him here alone.” Colin may not have ties to the family business anymore, but he was still Desmond O’Shea’s brother, and if this other family was going after people close to Bryan, he might be a target. Getting their dad to leave the store behind would be tough, but he had to believe that they’d all come back, hopefully sooner than later. 

Tristan couldn’t help the little gasp he let out when Tobias suggested they just get married. “Babe...you said you didn’t want to elope,” he said, but that was before things were so dire. “We’ve been planning this for a year…” Then he shook his head, a smile blooming on his face. “But, yeah, yes. We have all the important stuff, right? We can do it today if you want.” Grinning, he grabbed Tobias’s face and kissed him hard but briefly. Then he turned to everyone else in the room. “Okay, all hands on deck, we’re throwing a wedding, people!” he said excitedly, before pointing at Aidan, who he suspected might try to escape. “Not so fast, Walsh. You’re on official bodyguard duty.”

Aidan didn't murder the man who killed his father to protect Ashlyn but he wasn't going to say what he did. He was more than sure Tristan had somewhat of an idea of what he had done. "Yeah I don't know." He knew how much Bryan had been 

pissed about the Adam thing he wasn't sure how Bryan was going to say about the information he had in his pocket the whole time. 

Lexie let herself relax against Tommy, pressing her nose against the crook of his neck. Her fingers moved up towards the back of his neck, playing with the strands of his hair. She knew taking his father would be important so she lifted her head from his shoulder and kissed the side of his head. "I'll go wherever you go." She muttered against his ear. "We will convince you father."

Tobias let a little smile come along his lips. "Yeah, well… Life tends to be a little crazy.. might as well join it." He laughed as he nodded his head. "We get married today and run away to Cali." He kissed Tristan back, moving his hand to the back of his head to keep their lips together. He exhaled when Tristan pulled away to face everyone in the room. His fingers moved to his lips and laughed a little, standing up. "Let's do this, people." 

Aidan was planning on getting up and leaving until Tristan pointed him out about staying to be the official bodyguard. "Alright. I have to check in with Bryan but we can have a wedding."

Despite how much was still uncertain and frightening about everything going on around them, Tristan couldn’t help but be filled with a sudden giddy excitement. It didn’t really matter how he married Tobias in the end, as long as they were married. They could always have a big party sometime in the future, but for now it was just about them. “Okay, no one else is invited except who’s in this room,” he said, standing up next to Tobias. “And Dad.” 

Tommy gave Lexie a little squeeze, glad to hear her words that she would go with him no matter what. He’d been worried she might want to stay here and go down with the ship like Bryan, so escaping to LA with her was a relief. He laughed a little at how excited Tristan got at the idea of throwing their wedding that day, and he shook his head in amusement. “Okay, what do you need?”

Tristan opened his phone to the list of wedding things that he’d been keeping and started rattling it all off. “We have the tuxes, just need to pick them up,” he said, glancing up at Tommy and Lexie. “Best Man, you can wear that,” he said, gesturing to the suit Tommy had worn to work that day anyway. “Lex, run a comb through your hair or something,” he teased. 

“Where do you think we should do this thing?” he asked Aidan, trusting his judgement on what would be safest. “We got the marriage license, we just need a Justice of the Peace or something to sign it.”

Eyes going wide, he turned to Tobias. “Shit, rings, we need rings!”

Lexie slid off Tommy's lap when he had asked what Tristan was going to need because all she wanted was to be around Tommy at this moment and maybe find some time to make this up to him. She tugged her shirt down and moved her hands up to her hair, ruffling her fingers through it. "I could always make my hair worse." She flashed a grin at Tristan before winking at Tommy. Her head turning to the door as she thought of where she would go pick up the tuxes. 

Tobias knew Travis and Zooey were probably busy and he didn't want to explain to them why they had to move up the wedding. "Calm down." He laughed softly as he moved to their bedroom real quick and came out with a box. He opened the box, flashing two rings. "I picked them up last week." He smiled up at Tristan.

Aidan sent Bryan a text message about how he was with the gang, shoving the phone into his pocket he lifted his gaze up towards Tristan. "We can just do it. Someone get ordained online."

Tommy laughed at Lexie’s quip to his brother, feeling a little lighter in the wake of this distraction. “We can get the tuxes,” he offered, watching as they all started to scramble to get things done. He leaned up to see where Tobias was running off to until he came back with the rings. 

Tristan beamed, mentally checking one more thing off his list. He leaned in to see the simple white-gold bands then looked back up at his fiance. “They’re perfect,” he told him. Then he turned towards Aidan when he suggested that one of them could just get ordained online. “No, it takes 24 hours,” he said. “We’re gonna have to go to city hall…” He looked back at Tobias. “You know anybody?”

"Tommy and I are going to get the tux. You guys just text us and tell us where to meet you." Lexie wanted to get the tuxes before the store closed because she knew how important it was to get the wedding done that night so they could all rush home to pack up. She reached out and took Tommy's hand, tugging him towards the door. 

Tobias let a smile come along his lips as he nodded his head. "Yeah. I was going to show you later tonight." He glanced up to look at Tristan before turning his head to Aidan. He parted his lips as he turned his head to look at Tristan. "I don't know anyone who could marry us."

Aidan watched both of them. "We could go to City Hall. I highly doubt the family plans on coming to take down a wedding. Right now their main focus is getting back at Bryan and Lucia. And they are using Danica to do it." He shrugged. He knew how horrid it all sounded but he didn't exactly see it being that horrible.

It was crazy to think that Tommy had left work to run home and punch Tristan in the face, and now they were running around to get his brother married. But he guessed it was about par for the course with how crazy their lives had gotten. He took Lexie’s hand and let her drag him out of the apartment. “This is nuts,” he said with a laugh as they made their way to the tailor. Once they were in the back of a cab on their way, he looked over at her. “You really want to come to LA?”

Tristan waved away Aidan’s words, not wanting to think about Danica right now. “Happy thoughts, man. Happy vibes,” he teased. “Okay, we’ll go to City Hall and beg someone to perform a quick ceremony,” he went on, going over to Tobias’s desk where they had the folder with the marriage license. “Do we need anything else?”

Lexie laughed as she nodded her head. "It is so crazy." She couldn't believe the two of them were going to get married tonight. It felt surreal. She got into the back of the cab and turned her head over towards him. She slid closer to him and moved onto his lap, ignoring the mutters of the taxi driver begging her to sit down in her own seat. "Yeah, I do." She leaned down and kissed him, putting her hands on each side of his neck.

Tobias made a face at Aidan with his words, not believing he went all negative on them. He held onto the rings and shook his head. "We can have Aidan film it with his phone so we can show everyone who missed it later." He said as he looked over at Aidan who was standing there and waiting for them to go. 

Tommy blushed bright red when she climbed into his lap and the cab driver grumbled at them, but all he could do was meet her lips and kiss her back. LA was going to be totally different with his little family in tow, he couldn’t help but wonder what his old friends there would think, but they honestly weren’t that important. His hands settled on her hips until the cab pulled to a stop and the driver cleared his throat loudly at them to get out. “Um, thank you sir--” Tommy stammered, handing him the money and a large tip. Tristan had texted them on the way, and he looked at his phone as they walked into the tailor shop. “We’re meeting them at City Hall...I hope they find someone to do it today.”

Tristan smiled and nodded at the idea of Aidan filming the little ceremony for everyone who was missing it. “C’mon,” he said with a grin, gesturing for Aidan to follow them as they hurried out the door with the marriage license and the rings. Tristan chattered in the car as Aidan drove them all the way to City Hall, reminding Tobias of all the crazy ideas they’d found on Pinterest and talked about for their wedding day. “But this is better than all that,” he insisted, reaching over for Tobias’s hand. 

Lexie couldn’t help but grin at the fact he was turning bright red. When the cab came to a stop and the cab driver cleared his throat to get them out of the cab, a chuckle left her lips. She got out of the car off of Tommy’s lap, adjusting her dress to pull it back down so  it wasn’t too high up. She waved to the cab driver and chuckled once again as she turned to look at the front of the store, moving behind the cab and onto the curb as she turned to look over at him. “Have some faith in love, Tommy.” She moved over to the front door of the store and grabbed the handle, pulling it open.

Aidan shook his head as he moved out of the apartment with them, getting into the driver’s side of the car. He started up the car and started driving them to City Hall as Tobias turned his head over to look at Tristan. “I think it’s better to.” He leaned in and kissed Tristan, putting his hand on the back of his head.

“Alright, alright,” Tommy agreed with a chuckle as he followed her into the shop. When someone came up to help them, Tommy quickly told the man that the order was either under O’Shea or Warren and that they were in quite a hurry. The worker went to the back to look, and Tommy glanced over at Lexie with a hopeful look. “Um, sorry for before,” he said. “I overreacted and--Tris makes me crazy sometimes.”

Tristan smiled against Tobias’s lips, kissing him before nuzzling his nose against him for a second. “So...LA, huh?” he asked, making sure Tobias was okay with the idea of packing up and leaving. Tristan wasn’t leaving much behind, he was taking everyone he cared about with him and his job wasn’t even a real job. Tobias was the one who was putting things on hold. Tristan thought of something then, and leaned up between the seats to talk to Aidan. “Hey, you gonna be okay here by yourself?” he asked, not liking the idea of Aidan staying behind but knowing he would.

Lexie walked into the shop and stood there, waiting for them to grab the tuxes. She leaned against the counter, turning herself to look over at him as she lifted her gaze up to his face. She shook her head at his words. “Don’t apologize for having emotions, Tommy.” She moved closer to him, moving her finger through his belt loop and tugging him towards him. “You know.. It was actually kind of sexy.” 

Tobias let a smile come along his lips against the kiss as he pulled back to look at him. “Yeah, LA.” He nodded his head. “I think it would be good for us. Call it a honeymoon. I’m sure Liv wouldn’t mind if I took some time away from here. I’m glad she is no where near any of this because her and her family are finally now on track.. I couldn’t imagine tearing it down.” Aidan turned his head over towards him when he pulled up to the City Hall, he nodded his head as he looked at him. “Yeah, you don’t need to take care of me anymore.”

Tommy blushed crimson again, looking down at her between their height difference as she tugged him against him. “Stop,” he muttered through a quiet, nervous laughter. He leaned down to kiss her briefly, then the worker came back out with two garment bags on hangers and he backed away. “Let’s take a look before we go,” he said, opening one of the bags to see the white tux and smiling. “I still can’t believe my brother’s getting married.”

Tristan nodded, smiling as he laced his fingers through Tobias. “She’d give you a good recommendation, too,” he pointed out. “I feel bad, you and Tommy have worked so hard to build your careers.” He trailed off with a shrug, hoping everything would work itself out in the end. It would be easy for Tris, all he was was a bartender. As they parked, Tristan punched Aidan in the shoulder. “You’re always gonna need me, asshole, so shut up,” he said. “I just mean...you better watch your back, man, or Ash will kill me.”

They all headed inside City Hall, and Tris looked around trying to figure out where to go. They got in the line for inquiries and he bounced on the balls of his feet as they had to wait. When they finally got up to the front of the line, Tristan flashed a smile. “Hi, we need a Justice of the Peace to marry us, as soon as possible, it’s an emergency.”

The lady raised her eyebrow. “A marriage emergency?” she asked in a bored voice, looking at them.

“Yes,” Tristan insisted. “We already have the marriage license, we just need someone to perform it.”

The woman just shook her head. “You need to make an appointment,” she said, tapping her pen against a sign next to her window about appointments. 

Tristan sighed dramatically. “Please, there’s gotta be someone free--”

The lady tapped the sign again, hard, with each word she spoke, “Make. An. Appointment.”

 Lexie let a smile come along her lips when she noticed how red he was getting. "Stop?" She kissed him back as she put her arms around his waist. "I love you," she muttered before turning her head to look at the bags of tuxes. She opened one of the tuxes to make sure it had Tobias written on the tag. "I got Tobias's tux." She turned her head over towards him. "I know I'm still feeling surreal about the whole thing."

Tobias shrugged his shoulders. "I don't mind it. I've liked my career so far." It was true. He enjoyed being the campaign manager for Liv and the fact she won felt even better. He moved to get out of the car, standing there to wait for Aidan and Tristan.

Aidan turned to look back at him. "Yeah, I will be." He would. He would never look at what the USB stick had on it and he just hoped the phone would never ring. He got out of the car and went up the stairs with them towards the window. He stood behind the boys, staring straight at the lady behind the window. 

Tobias moved his gaze to the sign, exhaling. "Please." He pleaded with Tristan. 

Aidan tapped on their shoulders, trying to get them both to part and when they did he moved up to the window, leaning against it slightly. "Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?"

Tommy, still blushing and flustered, felt lit up by her words. He muttered, for the first time in his life, “I love you too,” then pressed their lips together. It’s brief and quite innocent, because they’re in public and he can be a bit of a prude, and the worker is coming back towards them, so Tommy just decides to focus on the suits in their hands while his ears burn. “Well, uh, they look great, sir--” he stammered to the employee, before Lexie grabs his hand to lead him out. “Thank you!”

Tristan was about to lose it on the City Hall lady, when Aidan brushed them aside and he stepped over to let his best friend up to the window, his jaw dropping a little. He’d been expecting Aidan to bang his fists on the table and get all intimidating, Tristan has seen him do it before. Now, he was watching Aidan Walsh seduce a woman about 20 years older than him. 

“Oh, well, this is a new hairstyle,” the cougar-lady cooed, fluffing her hair a little. Her hand came back down to settle on top of Aidan’s with a coy smile. 

Lexie let a smile come along her lips when he said the words back; she couldn’t believe how simple she said it but she had to let him know how she felt especially after everything that had not even an hour ago. She moved back from him, holding the tux in her hand as she lifted her gaze up to the worker, giving him a small smile. “Yeah, they are great.” She took him out of the store and glanced around. “We should have made the cab driver stay.”

Tobias turned his head to look over at Aidan, arching a brow at him because it honestly shocked him as well. Usually, Aidan did everything he could to be intimidating and now he was standing there and flirting with the woman at the window. 

“I can tell. It really works for you.” Aidan muttered, turning his hand so his hand could be on top. He moved his fingertips lightly against her wrist as he leaned in a little closer. “Look.. I know it’s not professional or it breaks the rules but my two friends back here.. We just found out one of them is sick and all they want is a happy and healthy life together before it gets worse.. You think you could break the rules this one time? I’d really…” He brought her hand up towards his lips, giving it a kiss. “Appreciate it.” He looked up at her from under his eyelashes.

Tristan had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing as he watched Aidan work his magic on the lady, catching Tobias’s eye and nearly losing it. He couldn’t even make some comment or pretend to be dying, because he knew he’d ruin it, so he back up a step and put his hand over his mouth. 

“Oh, alright,” the lady said, batting her eyelashes at him and swooning when he kissed her hand. “In the name of love, I suppose. Third floor, he’s on lunch but I’ll tell him you’re coming.”

Tristan pumped a fist in the air and mouthed yes! to Tobias, just as Tommy and Lexie burst through the doors behind them. “Third floor, come on!” he called to them, rushing everyone towards the elevator. Tommy followed them, holding the elevator door open for Aidan. “What…is going on?”

“Thanks sweetcheeks.” Aidan winked at her before moving away from the counter, walking after both of the boys. 

Tobias honestly couldn’t believe Aidan had been able to do it, his hand nudging into Tristan’s shoulder as he finally was able to laugh after they moved a few feet away from the window. “Holy crap, that was amazing.” He turned his head when he saw Lexie and Tommy rushing in. He moved into the elevator with Aidan right behind him.

Lexie turned her head to look over at them, panting as she finally got into the elevator. She glanced around at the boys before looking over at Tommy. “Yeah, what he said.”

“Aidan just seduced an old lady for us!” Tristan burst out once the elevator doors shut. He doubled over in laughter for a few moments, having to actually wipe tears from the corners of his eyes and catch his breath. Tommy just shook his head at the three of them, puzzled but amused, until the doors opened on floor three. 

They followed the signs for the Justice of the Peace office, and everyone came to a halt outside. Tristan hitched a thumb at the restroom across the hall. “We gotta get changed,” he said, holding his hand out for his tux. “Tommy, you’re on ring duty. Everyone else, uh, just tell the dude we’re coming.”

Lexie turned her head to look over at Tristan who bent over and laughing as hard as possible, it actually brought a smile to her face because it had been a while since Tristan laughed like that and the fact Aidan did something that wasn’t dark and mysterious for the first time in months. 

Tobias took his tux from Lex, giving her a one arm hug before moving to another bathroom so Tristan wouldn’t see him in it. Aidan gave Tristan a nod, moving to go find the guy who was going to marry them. 

“C’mon, you gotta help me tie my tie,” Tristan said to his brother, who nodded as he stuck the rings in his pocket. They just locked the door behind them, not bothering with stalls since the twins had changed in front of each other a million times in their lives. Tris handed Tommy bits of his clothes as he got into the white tux, then stood up to straighten it all, the tie loose around his neck. 

“Come here,” Tommy said, chuckling as he balled up his old clothes. Tristan never learned how to tie a tie, because he always had Tommy to do it. Tommy avoided his gaze during the intimate moment of tying his brother’s tie, clearing his throat lightly. “You nervous?” he asked him. 

“Fuck yes,” Tristan said with a laugh. “I’m getting married in like two minutes.”

Tommy shook his head, laughing too. “You guys are great together,” he told him, finishing his tie and then clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m really happy for you.”

Tristan beamed, but didn’t say anything, just stepped over to look at himself in the mirror. He’d never worn a tux before. “I forgot shoes,” he said with a sigh, tipping his regular Converse to the side to look at them with the tux. 

“Yeah, but it looks good,” Tommy assured him. “It looks like you.”

Tristan let out a long breath. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Tobias stood in the bathroom, looking at himself as he tried to tie his tie. Lexie knocked on the door and pushed it open. “Hey you,” she said to him as she walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, moving over to him as she held her hand out to him. “Let me see.” Tobias exhaled as he held out the tie to her, feeling his hands start to shake.

“Someone is nervous,” she teased him as she put the tie on him, tying the tie around his neck as she moved her hands towards the jacket, fixing it as she gave him a little pat. “Yeah, I’m nervous… I never imagined how fast this day would come and all the wedding planning and the family drama..”

“It’s going to be fine. You guys are perfect together.” She moved her hands to his as she gave his hands a squeeze before moving behind him to look into the mirror.  “Are you ready?”

“More than ready..” Tobias said with a smile on his face. “The only sad thing is my best friends aren’t here.” 

Lexie put her hands on his arms and inhaled, moving her gaze up to look at him. “I am no Travis but I’ll stand by you.” 

Letting out a breath, Tristan opened up the door with Tommy right behind him, holding the garment bag with Tristan’s old clothes rolled up inside over his arm. He let Tristan go before him, waiting for the two of them to see each other. Tristan felt a little silly, knowing they picked out the matching white tuxes together so they both knew what they looked like. But it was different, seeing his fiance in it right before they tied the knot. He stopped in his tracks when Tobias came out of the other bathroom, his breath caught in his throat as it all hit home at once. 

“Holy shit,” he muttered, “we’re getting married.” He went towards Tobias, reaching to take both his hands and look him over with a smile. “Baby, you look…” he exhaled again, chuckling nervously, “amazing.”

He looked up as the office door in front of them opened to Aidan standing with the Justice of the Peace that they’d stolen from his lunch break. Tristan turned, offering Tobias his arm. “You ready?”

Tobias exhaled as he walked out of the bathroom, his eyes landing on Tristan almost instantly. His lips parted slightly as he sharply inhaled at the sight of his fiance. He chuckled a little as he moved to meet his man. His hands moving to his as he looked down at them. Honestly, he was so nervous he wasn’t even sure what to do with himself. 

“Holy shit, we’re getting married.” He repeated as he lifted his eyes up towards his face. “I could say the same thing about you.” 

“More than I’ve ever been ready for something in my life.”

“Me too,” Tristan said, a smile growing on his face and his stomach still fluttering with nerves. They walked in, arms linked, towards the officiant who was waiting for them. 

“Keep it short and sweet, I take it?” the guy asked, smiling at them as they approached. 

Tristan nodded. “We can’t wait another second.” He turned to face Tobias, holding both of his hands and looking into his face as the officiant started a brief spiel, using their full names on the marriage license. 

“Would you like to say any words of your own?” he asked them, and Tristan took a short breath. They hadn’t written their vows yet--or at least, he hadn’t, he wasn’t entirely sure if Tobias did his on his own--but he decided to just speak from the heart. 

“From the moment we met, I knew you were gonna be special to me,” he began. “And somehow, I managed to convince you to keep me around.” He chuckled a bit. “You stood by me through the ups and downs, the good and the bad. You taught me how to be patient--well, more patient. And you taught me what it feels like to be loved for who I am. I love you more than I can put into words, Tobias, and I’m gonna spend every day the rest of our lives showing you.”

Tobias let himself walk into the room with Tristan on his arm, his head turning to look over at him as his hand gave his arm a squeeze, the nerves radiating through his entire body and the urge to vomit was almost overbearing. HIs body turned to face his future husband as he nodded his head to what the man who was marrying them said.

HIs lips parted to say no because he was completely unprepared to speak from his heart at that moment but the second the man in front of him took a deep breath, his lips shut and his eyes were glued on the man he loved with all of his heart. 

HIs eyes were completely betraying him at this moment, the tears stinging in them as he cleared his throat with a little chuckle as his thumb brushed along the back of Tristan’s hand. 

“Tris,” he said softly as he glanced down to look at their hands. “You came into my life at a time where I honestly didn’t think I was worthy of more than I had, I was a small town boy in a large city, trying to push his way into the political world and I got a little lost along the way, making some mistakes.. But the one mistake I didn’t make was taking you home that night.” He cleared his throat, glancing at the male who was standing in front of them to marry them. “You dealt with a melt down of mine a few weeks into our relationships and still fought to keep me. I never..” He cleared his throat to keep himself from getting a dry throat because of the tears in his eyes. “I never thought someone could love me the way you do and I’ll never let that go. I’m going to spend the rest of my life, making I’m worthy of the love you give me.”

Tristan’s heart was pounding, in excitement, nerves, and disbelief that this all came together so fast. His hands were trembling a little, and he gripped Tobias’s hands tighter, his eyes fixed on his fiance’s face. Tobias’s words hit home, and he felt everything they’d been through together wash over him in a wave of love. He nodded, his eyes teary, when Tobias wondered aloud if he was worthy of being loved like this. 

The officiant brought their attention back when he asked if they had rings to exchange. From behind them, Tommy cleared his throat, tears flowing openly down his face as he came forward to give them both the rings. 

“You big sap,” Tristan muttered, but his heart was soaring. 

“Shut up and get married already,” Tommy said back teasingly, with a sniffle. 

They each held one of the rings, waiting for their cues. 

The officiant addressed Tristan first. “Do you, Tristan, take Tobias to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

Smiling wide, Tristan slipped the ring onto Tobias’s left hand. “I do.”

Tobias couldn’t believe the day had come, the two of them were finally getting married and everything was going to be right in the world. He kept his eyes on Tristan, doing his best to keep the tears from falling from his eyes but not succeeding whats so ever. He moved his thumb along the back of Tristan’s hand.

His eyes lifted up to look at Tommy, a smile coming along his lips as he turned his head back to look at Lexie who was crying as well. 

“I love you guys.” She muttered as she lifted her eyes up towards him, giving him the ring.

“And do you, Tobias, take Tristan to be your lawfully wedded husband?” 

Tobias let a smile come along his lips as he slipped the ring onto Tristan’s left hand. “I do. I really fucking do.”

Tristan didn't even wait for the officiant to make the official pronouncement, he just rushed in and cupped Tobias's face in both hands and kissed him. It felt like something so simple, and yet bigger than all of them. He brushed the tears from his husband's cheeks and smiled against his lips. When they parted he let out a breath and tipped their foreheads together. Behind them everyone was cheering for them, and Tristan had never felt happier in his life. "I love you so fucking much," he murmured before a giddy laugh escaped him. 

Tobias didn’t even have time to let a grin come across his face before Tristan’s lips were on his. His hand moved towards the back of his head, threading his fingers through his husband’s hair, his lips moving back against his. When Tristan parted their lips, his eyes flickered up to look at him as she moved both of his hands up towards the back of Tristan’s head. “I love you so fucking much.” He muttered. He pulled his head away from Tristan, glancing around at them. “Who is ready to get the fuck out of here?”

[apathbacktoyou]

58. “I can’t stop thinking about you.” + mackelena please!

I’m all kinds of sorry, omg

ao3 or under cut

“Hope, look where you’re going!”

Elena didn’t have time to turn and check who shouted that before something hit her in the back of the leg. She turned to find a girl of maybe three or four looking up at her with wide eyes, lip trembling slightly, clutching tightly onto the handles of her balance bike.“‘m sorry.”

“Oh, that’s okay.” Elena crouched down so she wasn’t towering over the poor kid.“Are you alright, though?”

The girl nodded uncertainly. Just then a man caught up with her, presumably her father.

He crouched down as well, making sure his daughter hadn’t gotten hurt. Once he was satisfied in that, he put on what Elena guessed was supposed to be a stern face.“Hope, don’t race off like that.” He gave Elena an apologetic smile.“Sorry about that. She’s faster than I anticipated on that thing.”

“Maybe you just need to speed up, turtleman,”she returned with a grin, getting up again, as did he. He was tall, and muscular, but there was a sweetness about him, too. Somehow, she was sure he wouldn’t mind the joke.

Hope giggled.“Yeah, daddy, speed up!”

“Any more of that and ice cream’s cancelled,”he told her with an exaggerated wink.

“But it’s my birthday,”Hope whined.“You can’t cancel ice cream on my birthday, daddy.”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before crashing into this nice lady,”he said.

“She could come with us,”suggested Hope, looking at Elena imploringly. It seemed she had taken the threat of no ice cream quite serious.“You can have some ice cream, too.”

Elena waved her off.“That’s okay. Don’t change your plans on my behalf.”

“I think that’s a good idea,”her father said. His smile was a little sheepish.“Unless you have somewhere else to be?”

“I don’t.” But she didn’t really allow herself to become involved with people. Not since she’d found out she was Inhuman. Yet somehow, the next words out of her mouth were,“Lead the way, then, turtleman.”

“It’s Mack, actually.”

She took his outstretched hand.“Elena.”

She had given him her number in a spur of the moment decision, but had not responded when he’d texted her.

The last thing a single dad needed in his life was someone who might at any moment land themselves in HYDRA detention.

She stared at his latest message, thumb hovering over the block button. Sorry if I’m just not taking the hint, you know I’m slow. Turtleman x

Isolating herself hadn’t been easy, but it somehow had never been harder than with this guy she’d only met one time.

With a sigh, she dialled his number. He picked up on the second ring.“Hey.”

“Hey,”she echoed. And then had no idea what else to say.

Luckily, Mack started talking instead.“ Sorry for all the texts. It’s just, I can’t stop thinking about you.” He cleared his throat.“Which I realise comes on a little strong after one date.”

“Getting ice cream with your kid qualifies as a date?” She chuckled.“You gotta step up your game, turtleman.”

He laughed.“I’m a little rusty on the whole dating thing, I’ll admit. I’ve been focussed on Hope. No time to get to know anyone, really. But you - I don’t know, I feel like I already know you.” A short pause followed.“That sounded like the most cliche pick-up line ever, didn’t it?”

“It did,”Elena admitted.“But you know what? I feel it, too.”

“So, does that mean you’ll go on an actual date with me?” She could practically hear his smile.

She bit her lip, considering what to tell him. This was madness. She ought to hang up and delete his number.“Meet you for dinner tomorrow?”

Elena had decided she’d just let him know the whole truth. That way, maybe, she’d finally give up the stupid notion of being able to live a normal life, hoping HYDRA never found her out. She had the number of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent safely tucked away at the back of her sock drawer at home. Once Mack realised she was too dangerous to pursue, she’d give Trip a call and accept his offer of moving to the resistance’s base.

Mack had been somewhat irritated about her choice of restaurant, but hadn’t pressed the matter. She had to admit the place was pretty dingy, but that just guaranteed that there weren’t a lot of people around and the staff knew to mind their own business.

“I forgot the napkins,”she said when they’d barely sat down.

“I’ll get you some,”Mack started, but before he finished the sentence, Elena had already gotten them. He stared at her, perplexed.“How did you - oh.”

“Yeah.” She smiled at him sadly.“That’s the moment where you get up and walk away, by the way.”

“I should, shouldn’t I?”he said, and didn’t.

Elena was absently playing with Hope’s hair, not able to bring herself to properly pay attention to what she was saying, mind occupied with Trip’s text. That he contacted her was rare enough. That he was so cryptic was unprecedented. You have to trust Daisy. Sorry I can’t explain.

What was that supposed to mean? And who was Daisy, anyway?

Luckily, Hope didn’t expect her to add anything, anyway. With her head bedded on Elena’s lap, she was talking to her belly, even though she was barely even showing.

“You better be a girl,”Hope was saying, tone almost conspiratory.“I really want a sister this time.”

“Don’t pressure the little one, Sparkplug,”Mack said lightly. He was sat on the floor in front of them, building a tower out of building blocks that wouldn’t survive much longer.“And isn’t that a little mean towards your brother?”

Alejandro was happily unaware of anything of the sort, pushing over the building blocks as Elena had predicted, clapping his hands as they scattered across the floor.

“Jandro wants a sister, too,”Hope claimed, reaching over to ruffle her brother’s hair.“Don’t you, Jandro? You want a sister, right?”

“Sister!”he screeched his agreement.

Hope gave her father a smug look.“See?”

Mack laughed, already starting on another tower.“He’ll want anything if you say it in that tone.”

Just then, the doorbell rang.

“Are we expecting anyone?”Mack asked, already getting to his feet, picking up Alejandro and handing him to Elena.

Hope sat up, pressing into Elena’s side. Even at ten, she had long learned that surprises were rarely a good thing.

Mack went to the door, and Elena waited with baited breath.

He returned with a young woman in tow.“This is Daisy.”

She heard her own worry in his voice.

“Hope,”she said, trying to sound calm,“take your brother to your room for a bit, okay?”

“You must know how this sounds,”Elena said, once Daisy had finished her explanation.

Daisy nodded.“Believe me, I know. But you have to come with me. We’re getting out of here, and I’m pretty sure we’re only going to get one chance.”

An alternate reality. It sounded crazy. It sounded almost tempting.“And HYDRA’s not in charge, out there?”

“No.” Daisy seemed to relax a little at the hint that she was starting to believe her.“And you two, you’re agents, like me. We’re a team. Family, really.”

“Who’s watching the kids?”Elena wanted to know.“In the real world. Are they okay?”

“They -” Daisy faltered.“They don’t exist. You’re together, but not long enough to have had Alejandro. And Hope -” She looked at Mack, then down at her hands, then back at him.“She’s not alive. I don’t know what happened. I’m so-”

“You need to leave,”Elena cut her off.

Daisy shook her head.“You need to come with me.”

“We’re not going anywhere without our kids,”Mack said. His voice was shaking.

“They’re not real,”Daisy said desperately. Her gaze caught on Elena’s stomach for a moment.“Well, that one might be, for all I know. But this world won’t exist much longer. AIDA - Madame Hydra - she’d rather shut it all down than let us escape. You die in here, you die in the real world.”

“You need to leave,”Elena repeated, and Daisy did, anguish written clearly on her face.

Elena hadn’t truly believed Daisy until the world started disappearing around them.

They were huddled together, Elena’s lips moving in frantic, silent prayer, her children clutched to her, Mack’s arms around them all doing little in ways of comfort.

“I’m scared,”Hope whispered.“I don’t want to disappear. Please, Mama. I’m scared. Daddy, please. I don’t want to die.”

“I love you,”Mack said. His voice was husky with barely contained tears.“I love you all so much.”

Elena pulled the children closer. And suddenly, there was nothing but emptiness in her embrace.

“It’s negative.” Elena had never heard her own voice sound so hollow. She couldn’t even say if she had hoped for a different result. In some ways, carrying the baby Hope had been so excited for would have been worse, perhaps.

Mack wordlessly held out a hand to her, and she sank into his arms, sobbing.

None of it had really hit her until this moment, she had been going through the motions like a sleepwalker, not allowing herself to think, to feel.

Daisy had been in tears when they had woken up from their other life, certain they would not use the exit she had built them in a desperate attempt to convince them after all.

Elena had held her, stroking her hair soothingly, and had tried not to think about the many times she had done the same for Hope and Alejandro.

Mack held onto her as if she, too, might disappear if he let go. She wound her arms tighter around him, trying to ease his pain as he tried to ease hers.

There were years and years of memories, and while none of it had been real, the loss could not feel anymore real.

When no more tears would come, she pulled away just enough to be able to look at Mack, one hand moving to cup his cheek.“How are you holding up, mi amor?”

“I don’t know yet.” He smiled, somewhat shakily.“All those years felt so real. Hope and Jandro - I think they’ll always be a part of us. But it was a glimpse at a life we could have here. Together.”

“A life we could have,”Elena echoed.“I’d like that.”

He kissed her, and when they broke apart, his smile was no longer uncertain.“I life we will have.”

It was a promise.

[wiremagazine]

OUT & ABOUT: ARSHT LIVE @ SEASPICE FEATURING DEBORAH COX

By Michael Bustamante

From hit musicals such as The Bodyguard, Aida and Jekyll & Hyde, get ready to experience Grammy Award-nominated and multi-platinum R&B/pop recording artist and actress Deborah Cox like never before at Arsht Live @ Seaspice. Deborah recently teamed up with legendary director Richard Jay-Alexander to work on a new show for her. On January 31 at 7 p.m., Deborah’s fans will get a sneak peek along with the world premiere of her latest song produced by American songwriter and producer, Desmond Child. Attendees will also get to hear amazing Broadway covers, some of Deborah’s biggest hits, personal stories from her career along with many more surprises. Part of the proceeds of the performance will support the Arsht Center’s arts education programs that help more than 55,000 Miami-Dade children and their families annually. Tickets to Arsht Live @ Seaspice featuring Deborah Cox can be purchased by visiting arshtcenter.org

Wire Magazine sat down with Deborah Cox and Richard Jay-Alexander to preview the intimate performance.

Deborah Cox

Michael Bustamante: You’ve had an incredible career, tell us about some of your favorite high points so far. Deborah Cox: I would say being able to travel all over the world performing my songs – definite highlights! Accolades are great and nominations are great too, but the connection with the audience on many stages becomes some of the most memorable moments. From Mardi Gras in Sydney, Australia to the audiences on Broadway. I’ve been fortunate to be able to still be in this game, doing what I love to do. Longevity has always been my goal and motivation. 

MB: What can Wire Magazine readers expect from your upcoming performance at Arsht Live @ Seaspice? DC: An intimate show, with personal backstories that I’ve never shared publicly. Richard and I are still working through the larger narrative for the full show, but this will give you a glimpse into what’s to come and into what makes me tick. 

MB: I was blown away by your performance in The Bodyguard, will we hear some songs from the musical as well as Aida and Jekyll & Hyde? DC: Thank you! Yes, I plan on revisiting those songs from Broadway. Those were such magical moments for me. Aida was my debut on Broadway and that was the moment that reminded me of why I wanted to be a performer. 

MB: What do you enjoy the most about performing live onstage? DC: I love the connection with the audience. I love exploring different musical styles and seeing the reaction from the audience, especially when they hear their favorite songs.

MB: What have been some of your favorite fan interactions throughout the years? DC: The personal stories from people who have come out to my songs are humbling and serves as a constant reminder of why I should continue to do what I do. There’s a whole generation of people that are fighting against a system to be their authentic selves and they’ve told me that my music has been instrumental in that fight. 

MB: Are you working on any upcoming collaborations or projects that we should be aware of? DC: I’m currently working on a new album. I’m very excited about new music! 

MB: This event supports arts education. Why do you believe access to the arts is important – especially for young people? DC: I think it’s important to continue to give the young people an outlet. It’s also important for us to give them the support they need to thrive. 

MB: Is there anything else you’d like to share with Wire Magazine readers? DC: Thank you all so much for the support!! 

Richard Jay-Alexander

Michael Bustamante: Tell us about your newest project with Deborah, and the exclusive sneak peek to come January 31st. Richard Jay-Alexander: Well, we’re pretty excited. This is a great opportunity that the Arsht offered us to raise money for their program. On the 31st, those who attend will sort of be right in the middle of our work for building this new concert tour we’re working on. You’ll see the Deborah Cox that you want and you’ll see a Deborah Cox you didn’t even know about. So, my byline has been, “If you think you know Deborah, think again." 

MB: What can we expect from Arsht Live @ Seaspice? RJA: First of all, the environment at Seaspice is beyond glamorous. It’s really conducive to this kind of informal Deborah talking about the work, and where she’s headed. And there are going to be a couple of world premiers, I mean real world premiers. A song by Desmond Child, called “Stronger Than a Man” and we’re going to do some fun Broadway and… I don’t know, at this moment, we’re in the midst of it, so even I don’t know. But, it’s going to be a night unlike anything I’ve ever done. So, we’re just going to face it head on, and look for the love from the audience to bless the work that we’re doing so that we know we’re going in the right direction. Sort of like a backers’ audition in New York… only not.

MB: What is a typical day like in the life of a Broadway producer/director? RJA: The typical day in my life is… I guess… bedlam is a fantastic word. Unlike most people who get up and go to work every day, every single day of my life is different. It can change with a phone call, a text, an email, a demand for a conference call… you know, I deal with so many people at so many different levels of the job whether it’s press agents, producers, stars, dancers, songwriters, arrangers. I will say one thing – the time flies – you know, most people have their morning, then their mid-morning, noon, then their mid-afternoon, late afternoon, early evening, dinner time… and my day just gets sucked up and all of a sudden I’m on the couch watching World News Tonight. That’s my life.

MB: Out of all the Broadway productions you've worked on, which has been your favorite so far, and why? RJA: Of all the Broadway productions I've worked on, they each have their own stellar situations. You know in 1978 or 79 at the Winter Garden, I made my Broadway debut in Zoot Suit and I remember opening night with my parents, and getting a limo, and going to Sardi’s, and I just thought, “Well, I can die now.” and I was twenty-something, and of course, you can’t die then, but, you know, I do that – I just think, “Please, God, let me make it to the opening night of Les Misérables!” It’s always something. You’re always asking for an extension, and now I feel like I’m living on borrowed time, and I’m grateful. Having just done Porgy & Bess this week, was extraordinary. It was probably one of the most humbling experiences of my career, musically. The score is beyond classic, epic, defining – just all the elements really move me to my core, and I haven’t felt anything like that since Les Miz. Each situation is different, From doing Song & Dance with Bernadette Peters, doing the Bette Midler tour… It’s hard to explain, but Baby Dickie is always jumping around with joy, just pinching myself. You know, I had the life that I dreamt. I never dreamed of being partnered, or having children, I dreamed of being in show business, and boy did my wish come true.

MB: You've worked with some of the biggest names in Broadway, who would you still love to work with? DJA: Wow! What a great question! I guess I would love to work with Cher on something dramatic, because she’s such a wonderful actress. People might laugh when they read that, but, you know, she’s got something very very special besides being a survivor, and I don’t mean flying in on a helicopter singing “Fernando.” That’s not what I do, but I’d love to work with her.

I guess I would still love to work with Diana Ross. We came close a couple of times and it didn’t happen. Of course, the great thing about my career, is getting to work with so many people that I loved when I was growing up, but I missed them by about a 10-year span. So, I was 10 years off, but lucky, because I could work with so many people that I admired. But, I haven’t gathered any moss. I’ve worked right into current talent whether it’s the Il Divo, Ricky Martin, Debbie Gibson, or even discovering Lea Michele at 8 years old. Something about my timing has turned out great, and I don’t look at it as luck, I know I have a skill set, I know I have gifts, but things have been going way too well, and I’m imagining I’ve got to be hit by a truck sometime very, very soon.

MB: This event supports arts education. Why do you believe access to the arts is important – especially for young people? DJA: I was one of these young people, and you know, if even half of the programs that exist now were around in the little town I grew up in outside of Syracuse, I’d be even more psychotic than I am today. Nothing is more important than the arts, and expression, and in an era of YouTube and all of the ways that people get discovered, training and education are so important. If somebody comes to see an opera or a dance show… all you have to do is spark one fire and they grow up and you hear the story – it’s like the people who tell me they grew up on Les Miz, of course, it makes me want to slash my wrists, because I realize how old I am, but, you know, it affected them. Even my own assistant talks about the Bernadette Peters Carnegie Hall album. You don’t think about these things until somebody puts it in perspective to their life or what it lit up in them, and then it becomes something of great importance, and I’m very proud of that. We just started putting together my career, and you don’t think about it when you’re living it and doing it, but then you see the lists, and the venues, and the photos, and the travel around the world, and it's amazing, and you have to pinch yourself. I’m only just now starting to comprehend my own career, and I think it’s coming right on time so that I can appreciate, enjoy, discuss, and amplify the experiences. But, I’m absolutely sure you can’t rest on your laurels. You don’t get jobs because of your credits, you get them because you keep showing up and delivering.

MB: Is there anything else you'd like to share with Wire Magazine readers? DJA: I’ve had my house in Miami for 26 years and Wire Magazine has always been part of my life. When I see the Wire Magazine boxes, I always grab a copy. It’s always been there for the community. It’s been there for me, personally, for projects, for information, and information sharing. I have a lot of old issues that I was in, and when I look at them, and I look at all of the people that are gone, who have passed on, but were a vivid part of the community in Miami, I’m really happy that there’s this documentation. It’s kind of like Miami Beach’s version of After Dark, which documented an incredible period of life in publishing. So, I’m grateful to Wire Magazine. I’m also glad that Wire Magazine cares about the arts and the things that I’m interested in. So, this is a great time, at the end of this interview, to say thank you because I love it.

[thepageloot]

5 Easy Hacks to Boost Marketing – The Online QR Code Generator

Looking for shortcuts and easy hacks to crush your marketing goals this year?

If you are serious about marketing your product and making sales, then you should look into QR Codes to keep up with the times. This year, all the big brands are taking advantage of these 5 simple hacks you need to know about.

What is this one big secret with the Online QR Code Generator that has led to their success?

Clever product marketing with QR Codes

Back in the day, QR Codes were used for tracking product inventory as an upgrade to the even older barcodes. They can conatin quite a bit of information. Although the initial use was tracking products, nowadays there are so many more opportunities. Everybody is using them in marketing & sales. Let’s dive in to see how the experts are doing it.

QR Codes are back in business, yeah baby!

#1 Build a new target group with QR Codes

You want to start focusing on Dynamic QR Codes. There are so many benefits to these types of codes. Please avoid plain old static QR Codes like the plague. Your bank account will thank you later.

The first and main one is that you can always edit your content later. Maybe you already printed out all your ads, but now you have a new landing page. How much would that cost to replace?

Secondly – this trick is mostly used by the most successful online marketers. Did you know you can actually retarget and create lookalike audiences from physical leads? All you need for this is to get them to an online page you control and Although not many offer this, only the best QR Code generator will allow you to add a Facebook pixel and Google Analytics tags.

This last one is so powerful, yet not too many entrepreneurs or businesses are taking advantage of this clever hack.

#2 Use a custom QR design to drive conversions

Please stop using the black on white QR Codes! We are not living in 1994 (yes, QR Codes were already available then).

It is always sad to see a nice brand with good design that just slaps an ugly boxy QR Code on their products that doesn’t match at all. Nowadays you can customize the colors and shape of QR codes, even add a custom frame with a CTA.

A well designed Custom QR Code that blends with the brand

If the codes blend seamlessly with your brands image, the scanning and conversion rate will be through the roof. An average study shows a shopping 34.6% increase only based on design and CTA alone. You need to sart Calling The People to Action!

Note: Please always take the QR Code size into consideration. It should be big enough, but not horrifyingly humungous. You can learn about the industry’s best QR Code size standards here.

#3 QR Codes are not just for websites and links

Mostly people just use QR Generators online for creating website and URL link QR codes. Boy, are they missing out though (seriously, BIG TIME!).

Did you know you can get people to send e-mails, connect on Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp – even share business cards? All this, only using QR Codes. It’s rather fascinating really how much engagement you can drive with these little bad boys.

How about getting people to sign up for an e-mail list? Not a problem, Maui Moisture here did just that:

Forming a killer marketing strategy to slay your competitors this season

Epic marketing hacks from Maui with QR Codes

Attention is the main currency nowadays. It doesn’t matter whether it is online or offline. The key to success is to create noise for your product and to target your leads in a way that speaks to them. Follow these steps and prepare to bank big!

#4 Market research comes first – ALWAYS

We know that usually marketing begins before the actual launch. But where people usually fail is to start research before marketing. Kind of like driving blindfolded into a brick wall – why would you do that?

The first goal is to determine your audience. What do they respond to? What gets them going? What are they passionate about? Where do they congregate? The second part is mostly about competitor research. How are they doing things? What could you be doing a lot better than them? Where will you probably suck a whole lot more? How can you compensate for that?

Once we have gotten over our procrastination and dealt with this boring part, we can now start the fun part that all digital marketers live and die for.

#5 Sell the story, not the product

Unless you are selling toilet paper and masks amid the coronavirus rage, chances are the consumer will not care about your product because there is just too much noise.

People don’t want what they need, they want what they desire. (Please go read Seth Godin if you already haven’t). Now, to do this, we need to create a story around your product and brand. How can your product make the customer feel? What kind of consumer emotions are you able to trigger? Why should I care enough to scan your QR Code?

At the end of the process, if you did your storytelling correctly – the customers will sell the product to themselves. And that is the best kind of marketing for those epic high conversion sales.

The problem is however, people are always stuck up their phones. Even in the physical world. True story, I saw this girl walk into a street pole just yesterday. Giving the consumer QR Codes to scan, we can connect with them on a digital level. Because that’s where all the attention is nowadays. Why swim against the river when you can take advantage of your physical locations and start engaging with your customers at the heart of their attention spans.

The best way to grab their attention is to follow AIDA. Grab the customers’ attention, pique their interest, create desire, and follow up with a super sweet looking custom QR Code that has a mindblowing CTA frame around it. Get them triggered and angry if you must, as long as you’re able to get a reaction out of them, you are already halfway there.

Putting it all together

QR Codes on Flyers – We are going live!

Now that you are familiar with the benefits of QR Codes and how to properly implement them, I think it’s time to take this theory for a spin. I’ts time to take things to the next level and start planning to go live with our new viral marketing hacks.

You can Google around for some of the best QR Code Generators online. Many of them will be paid and many of them will suck (you out of your time and your money). We’re not the ones to toot our own horn, so don’t take our word for it. Do your research, look around, see what you can find. We imply you to take ours for a spin as well and let us know how you think it compares. May the sales be with you!

If you need to create QR Codes online, be sure to check out this Free QR Code Generator.

Original Source: https://bit.ly/3dR5zvY

[shes-an-oddbird]

Memories They Hold

Its been too long but I've done it, I haven't written anything since the season ended and I missed my FitzSimmons dearly. Thanks to the Friday Prompts I managed to get something out. So here it is in response to the prompt: Comfort for the engineering vs biochem challenge. Enjoy!

Summary: Before fleeing the base at the end of season four, the team gather some of their belongings. Jemma wants to pack as many of her and Fitz's keepsakes that she can reasonably manage but Fitz is hesitant to hang on to anything that brings back happy memories.

She can feel the exhaustion in the room, see it on all of their faces, but in that moment, she felt hopeful and aside from brief glimpses it’s the first time she has since discovering it wasn’t Fitz standing next to her in the lab but an LMD instead. Fitz, the real Fitz, is looking her in the eye and while she can see all the trauma and the pain, she can also see where Daisy’s speech has reached him and she’s so thankful that it has she can’t even think of an adequate expression of her gratitude.

So caught up in the moment, Jemma nearly misses it when Coulson starts speaking again.

“They’ll be here soon, might want to gather a few things, we probably won’t be coming back here.”

Jemma finally pulled her eyes away from Fitz to look around what used to be their lounge. Under the ruble, it was hard to see the room in which so many important memories had taken place. Her feet started to work on their own, leading her out into the hall and towards the bunks slowing as they passed the shattered windows of the lab.

She didn’t know which upset her more, seeing her lab, her second home, in shambles or it having to be used as a refuge for those who needed protection as it had been used in the framework.

A gentle hand touched her back and she turned to see May next to her. “I know you want to say goodbye but we don’t have much time.” She nodded and picked up her pace.

The others had gotten a good ways ahead of her and had already disappeared from the hallway into their rooms except for Fitz who stood outside their shared bunk. Tears started to well up her eyes. It might as well have been yesterday that they had to negotiate their way into shared living space. Just yesterday they shared a kiss on the floor.

“I don’t think its locked.” She stated.

Fitz’s eyes darted to hers and Jemma knew then that he couldn’t be left alone for long without back sliding. As she approached to open the door he averted his eyes back to the floor and backed away leaving a large gap of space between them. For a moment she wasn’t sure he would follow her in.

The room was a mess, structurally sound given the distance from the blast but covered in dust and debris from shockwave.

Their wonderful little room had faired quite well and encouraged her to take on an optimistic tone. “It could have been much worse I think, though it looks like Bridget didn’t survive the fall.” She said, inspecting the fallen device. “We wouldn’t be able to take it anyways unfortunately.” She looked back over her shoulder at him. He’d inched into the doorway and didn’t appear to care in the slightest about the television laying on the ground.

“Why don’t I pack us some clothes and you can gather some of our other things.” The suggestion deliberately referred to them together. A subtle way of telling him she wanted to stick together. She waited for him to nod in confirmation before grabbing both their go bags from the closet and determining what clothes would be needed.

Five minutes later when she had transferred their necessities over to the bags she returned to Fitz’s side. He had taken a seat at their desk with two boxes, one nearly full and the other with barely enough items to cover the bottom. Surprisingly it’s her box that’s on the verge of spilling over.

“Fitz you’ve hardly packed anything.” When she reaches past him to tip the box towards her for a better look he shoves the desk chair back, once more creating distance between them.

“I didn’t know what to pack.” He answered quietly.

“You’ve done a good job with mine I think.” Her favorite books, a notepad she jotted down ideas in, the jewelry box her grandmother had given to her; inside was the necklace he’d given her for their six-month anniversary, though he may not have known that. “What about our pictures?” She grabbed the selfie’s off the back of the desk and placed them gently in the box. “And you’ve got that sketch book in your night stand, the one you draw out ideas in, wouldn’t want to leave that behind.”

In his night stand she also finds the pictures of him and his mom, a gadget whose use she couldn’t determine, a few odds and ends and a post card from the hotel gift shop in Bucharest. She closes the top drawer and bends down to open the next one when suddenly Fitz is in front of her.

“Jemma stop, please just stop, I didn’t pack these things because-be-because I don’t-d-don’t-really need them.”

She instinctively holds the precious items to her chest.

“Why Fitz? You packed all the things so important to me.” She notices his eyes are fixed on that lower drawer and knows there’s something in there that he doesn’t want to see or doesn’t want her to see.

“It’s all just going to be taken away anyways.”

“Technically if it’s in our possession when we’re arrested they’ll have to give it back to us eventually, as long as it’s not evidence or dangerous, I doubt they’ll want to keep any of our things, bottle caps from our first beers we were legally allow to drink here in the states, baby photos, a copy of Popular Science what would they do with all that?”

“I just don’t want to bring any of it Jemma, I don’t deserve to have those memories anymore, they’re-they’re not.”

“They’re happy.” Jemma finishes. Fitz traces the grain of the wood in the night stand with his finger. “Fine.” Jemma took the items clutched in her hands and carried them over to the desk. She placed the items in the half empty box and looked around for other things to add.

“I don’t want them.” Fitz insisted. He tried to sound firm but it came out shaky still.

She spotted the poster from Fitz’s old room on the wall and quickly pulled it down. “I heard, I’m packing them for me.” She said, inspecting the back of the frame. It wouldn’t fit in the box as is, she’d just have to take the poster. “You haven’t got a screw driver in here have you.”

“Why would you pack them for you?” Fitz asked confused by her response.

“Of course you have,” she said with a smile and a shake of her head, that had been a silly question. She pulled open the top drawer of the desk and sure enough the bright green handle of a flat head screwdriver popped right out at her. He always overfilled his designated drawers.

She pried off the back, removed the poster and rolled it neatly into a tube.

“JEMMA!”

“WHAT!” She tossed down the screw driver.

Fitz’s shoulders sunk. “Why won’t you just leave them?”

“I’m packing them because they’re OUR memories Fitz.”

“But why would you want them, you should just toss it all, leave it here to be condemned with the rest of the damn building.”

“I won’t do that!”

“Why not?!”

“Because I don’t want to lose them, I don’t want to lose you!” Jemma shouted finally turning back on him. “I know right now you want nothing to do with them and that you think that you don’t deserve them but I know that we deserve them and I’m not going to let today be the reason that when we finally have our own place we don’t have any pictures for the wall, I’m not going to let today be the reason we don’t have a box of bottle caps and post cards to show our kids and tell them how we met or have your favorite book that your mum used to read to you to read to them.”

Fitz didn't say anything, just gaped at her.

“I know you think that we can’t have that anymore, I heard what you said to AIDA, that this-“ she gestured between them, “is dead, but it’s not.”

“Jemma-“

“Please let me finish Fitz.” She said taking a step closer to him. “I know that you’re going to need time to heal and truly I think I do too but we can do that together, even more I know we can’t do it if we’re apart-“

“Jemma-“

“We don’t have time to argue about this now Fitz, so I’m going to pack anything and everything I might ever want to see again and I want you to do the same.”

“JEMMA!”

“What?”

“You-you’ve thought about all that?”

“About what?”

“About a future and kids.”

“Oh,” Jemma paused in her frantic packing. How he didn’t know when she told him even long before they got together that she only ever saw him in her future. She was reminded of her brief conversation with his LDM and how Fitz had thought about proposing but didn’t know what she would say. “Yes of course I think about it, quite a bit actually.”

“Even after everything you saw me do.”

“Not you Fitz.”

“It was me.” He said sadly.

“Maybe in some other world than, but he’s not the one I want all that with, you are, kind, sweet, wonderful you.”

“I just-“

“I know you’re scared Fitz and it’s hard to discern one reality from the other but you would never hurt an innocent person.” She stepped forward to embrace him. He stiffened for a moment but loosened up after a minute or so, his arms came up to circle around her shoulders. “For the record Fitz,” she said angling her head up to look him in the eyes, “whenever you’re ready to ask, the answer is yes.”

He freezes up again and she tucks her face into his neck. After a moment she feels him press his lips to the top of her head. “What else do we need to pack?”

“I think I’ve nearly got it all.” Jemma said, pulling away. She gave the room another once over, there were a few Knick knacks on the dresser in the corner. She took a closer look, determining only the most recent letter from her parents made the cut. She turned around to see Fitz kicking shut the lower drawer of his bedside table. A few things were discarded on the bed but his hands were shoved into his pockets.

“I think we should check the kitchen to see if any of our mugs made it through the fray.”

“I’m not sure they’ll serve tea in prison.”

“I’ll have to start a riot.” A small smile peaked its way onto Fitz’s face and Jemma felt one creeping onto her own. Fitz scooped up his box and made to pick up hers as well but she beat him to it. “I’ve got it, you’ll need to grab your go bag as well.” Jemma moved to the bed to collect her own. Her eyes lingered briefly on the pile Fitz had dumped out from the drawer to make sure he hadn’t left something he might one day regret. Nothing stood out but she noticed a sketchbook under the pile.

“You should take that with you, it’s got some great ideas in it.”

“What-oh-yeah I guess, I could always pick one up later.”

“Well you don’t want to lose all that work you’ve already started, you’ve got some room there.”

Fitz picked up the hardcover sketchbook, looked it over and slid it into the box. “After you.”

[hepaidattention]

@bolkonskayamary: Hi! Could you do #28 for the fitzsimmons prompt thing? Thank you!! 

Oh dear. This is so late. However, now I’m done with finals and I’m back on the prompt game! So, here it is. Hope you enjoy!  

#28: “Stop apologizing,”

It wasn’t the first time he said it. The first time he said it he said it through a sob, her cheek resting on his shoulder blade, his tears gradually soaking her knee.

It wasn’t the second time he said it. The second time he mumbled it out in one breath, his eyes red from tears, his persistence in avoiding all eye contact pricking her heart.

It wasn’t the third time he said it. Jemma asked him about the experiments in the Framework, and through his first brief explanation he uttered out the word like it was a part of his day to day vocabulary.

It wasn’t the fourth time, when Jemma was battered and bruised, Fitz coming to check on her, knowing there was nothing he could do.

It wasn’t the fifth, on their way home. Or the sixth, as they dragged their sore and healing bodies to their room. Or even the seventh, when they curled up in bed, Jemma curling into his side without any expected resistance from his side – him breathing it out as he kissed her hairline.

No, it was the eighth time. This time he said it with a firmness in his voice, his hand holding his packed duffle bag, tears streaming down his face. “I’m sorry, Jemma, but…” he managed out.

It was this time that Jemma could no longer stand to hear that word used – as if it was his fault, his doing, his intention.

It was this time that she said something in return.  “Stop apologizing.” Jemma wrapped her arms around her ribcage, parking herself right in front of the door.

He shook his head, his neck craning over, as if in shame. “I can’t.” He said in such a hushed tone. “I… I don’t expect you to say you forgive me, or say it’s okay, but I have to –”

“You’re right, Fitz. I’m not going to tell you I forgive you.”

Fitz looked up, his teary eyes meeting hers. He looked thrown off, clearly not expecting this kind of reaction. “Good.” He rasped out.

Jemma let out a scoff then, taking a step closer to him. “I’m not going to tell you I forgive you for something you never did, Fitz. You are not that man, you are not the cause of what happened – and I refuse to give into your self-hatred and tell you I forgive something you were never to blame for.”

Fitz searched her rich, auburn eyes, his soft blue pouring out in his irises. His eyes felt more violent and tortured than she had seen them in a long time, and the emotions emitting from them were crippling. At last he broke their gaze to look down at the bag in his hand, and he let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

He started for the door, but Jemma wouldn’t allow it. She caught his hand and held on tight, pulling him back to her. “You’re just going to leave, then? Just like that?”

“You … You deserve better, Jemma.”

Jemma’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare tell me what I do and don’t deserve, Leopold.”

Fitz might’ve rolled his eyes, if the circumstances were different. Instead, his eyes filled with pity. “Jemma, please,”

“No, Fitz,” she let loose of his hand so she could turn herself to him completely, gripping it again before he thought he could try to leave. “I make my own choices; I make my own decisions. You always told me what you thought was best for me in the end, but I never listened. Why? Because I chose for myself – I always have. But guess what, that changed when we committed to each other. We’re a team if you like it not, Fitz, and not lab partners and teammates of SHIELD, but in life. We promised each other that. So no, you don’t get to make my choices for me, we make them together, as a team. And I for one do not agree with this absurd notion that you have to separate yourself from me because I deserve better.” She let out a whimpered chuckle, her voice choking on sobs. “Fitz, there is no man better than you than … you.”

Fitz watched their hands, linked together, just like the two of them have been for a decade. Tears stung his eyes again, knowing he ruined that, and it wasn’t anything he could have done about it. He demolished a decade of friendship and love in a blink of an eye.

“Jemma … I’m sorry, but –”

“I swear Fitz, if you apologize to me one more time.”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“Anything! Lord, Fitz, anything but sorry. An explanation, a joke, a memory, an ‘I love you’, a bloody ‘I’m hungry’, anything but that. Because no matter how hard you try for this to all be your fault, it’s not Fitz…” a cry escaped her throat, her letting their hands fall limp to their sides, free from each other’s grasp. “I am.”

“W-what?” Fitz took a stumble back; his whole being stunned by her ridiculous confession. “Jemma, how could you even think that-?”

“Because, Fitz, it is. I dragged us out in the field. I pushed you to think beyond your limits. I encouraged you to bond with Radcliffe. I was the very reason you felt the need to build AIDA. I was the one absent when you needed me most, forcing the team to resort to desperate measures like the Dark Hold. Don’t you see? We could have been perfectly content for the rest of our lives, side by side, in a safe lab where we could help people together, through what we know and love. But what did I do? After years of spending all our time together, finding something so much more than just friendship, I ripped us apart – and for what? Adventure? Fitz, I should be the one apologizing, not you.”

“Jemma, you … this … none of this was ever your fault.”

“Sound familiar?” Jemma gave him a roll of the eyes, despite the tears flooding them. “You talk of you not deserving me – but how I see it, it’s the other way around.”

Fitz looked down at his hand again, the handle held on with a tight grip of his fingers. Fitz then dropped it to the floor and sat himself at the end of the bed, his face buried in his palms.

Jemma gently sat herself beside him, saying nothing. They sat there together, in silence, before Fitz decided to speak.

“I don’t…” he mumbled into his hands. He balled them into fists, looking at Jemma to say, “I don’t know how to fix this … Us.”

She shook her head, giving a small shrug. “I don’t either… but … in the past, if there was a problem we couldn’t fix on our own, when we came together we could fix anything. Whether it was damaged or shattered into pieces, we could always work it out.”

Fitz gazed into her eyes, his stare speaking more words than anything they had said thus far. “Together.”

“That’s all I ask, Fitz. Let me in – let me help you. Please.”

Without saying anything else, Fitz pulled Jemma into his embrace. It threw off Jemma, knowing most hugs were usually initiated by her – especially recently. But she never in a million years would resist. Instead she squeezed him tight, holding onto him like he was all she had left.

He didn’t pull away, he didn’t stand up and pick up his bag and leave, he didn’t argue or tell her all of this was never her doing. He knew it was pointless, and Jemma knew that somewhere in Fitz, he knew it was right. She couldn’t help but think of where their life would be now, if she hadn’t coaxed Fitz into the field.

Perhaps they’d be married, baby number two on the way.

Or, perhaps, Fitz would have never had the courage to tell her how he felt. Perhaps he would have never realized his feelings, until it was too late.

Perhaps they would have never been together at all, a thought that made Jemma shutter.

Fitz let out a heavy breath, Jemma feeling the heat of it brushing past her back. His hold on her tightened and he whispered to her, “I love you.”

Everything in Jemma felt relaxed at those three words. Her stress released from her being, and with a content smile she nuzzled her face in his shoulder, whispering back: “I love you, too.”

It wasn’t the first time they said it, and it certainly wasn’t the last.

And from then on, Jemma stopped counting the “sorry’s”, and started counting the “I love you’s” instead.

Send me an ask with a number from my prompt list here!

[dilkirani]

Could you write a fic where their still in the framework and Simmons is captured, and she tells evil!fitz she's pregnant, when he goes to torture her or Aida is going to torture her and that's how he remembers.

Hi, thanks for sending a prompt! I’m afraid I cheated a bit…I just couldn’t handle writing it exactly like this especially after last week’s ep. :/ But there is a pregnancy, haha. I have seen some other fics more in line with your request floating around, and of course anyone else is welcome to write this. Anyway, with that disclaimer, here we go:

++

She sits in the cell, defiant. Like Skye—or Daisy, he supposes—she hasn’t changed her story and she hasn’t flinched from the punishment. Her attitude towards him changes, though. Sometimes she seems truly heartbroken, eyes shimmering with tears she doesn’t even attempt to stop. Sometimes she is angry—at him, at herself, at the world. Sometimes she loses herself and begs, although not for her freedom. For him to remember her, of all things.

The thing is, he does remember her, in a way. Fragments of another life push through whenever he’s in the same room with her, and it inevitably frightens him. Ophelia had warned of fabricated memories implanted from the other world, and prior to this they had all felt false. Hollow, sepia-tinged, like someone has inserted pieces of another life into his brain but not bothered to fill them out with any real detail or emotion. He sees himself doing things that he’s never done, but he can’t feel any of it and that’s how he knows Ophelia is speaking the truth.

But the longer he spends with Jemma, the more these memories take root and refuse to be shaken. He finds that nothing in his life has scared him this much, because if she’s telling the truth (and she’s not, she can’t be), then he is losing control over the narrative. And nothing is guaranteed to destroy a life faster than losing control.

He knows if Ophelia were not bedridden, she would demand he stop visiting Jemma. He’s perfected the Looking Glass; there’s no need to bother with one subversive, even if she is the most dangerous subversive they’ve ever encountered.

But Ophelia is not here, and his father is not here, and some part of him needs to puzzle this woman apart before he can allow himself to escape.

“I know that you’re not my Fitz,” she says when he has come back one evening. He has a glass of water in his hand which he offers to her without thinking. He immediately hates himself for the sentiment. He should knock it out of her hand. He should. He will, later, when the jumbled noise in his head dissipates.

“I know that you’re not my Fitz,” she repeats, after greedily gulping the entire glass in one go. “But I can’t help loving you anyway.”

She says this oddly, as if speaking a truth but expecting nothing in return. It’s different, he thinks, from how Ophelia expresses her love, and he tightens his expression in response to the traitorous thought.

“I always thought you would come back to me, no matter what.”

Come back to me. That is why he hates her and yet is drawn to her—these mind games she somehow plays, these loaded phrases that should mean nothing yet pull at his heart in the strangest way.

His visits lately have been spent just like this—him sitting in a chair while she sags against the back wall. He doesn’t touch her; he hardly even speaks. She says whatever comes to her mind and he tries not to let the effect her words have show on his face.

Today, she stands up suddenly and he immediately stands as well. He should stop her. He should tell her to sit back down, but for some reason he can’t.

“I know you’re not him,” she says, tears hanging on her lashes, “and so I didn’t want to tell you this. It’s not for you to know when he doesn’t. But I need your help, Fitz, please.” Her hand drifts down until it rests against her flat stomach and she shudders through a sob.

“It’s nothing here. I’m just an avatar, and AIDA wouldn’t have known anyway. But in the real world, in our world, we’re going to have a baby. And if something happens to us, Fitz will never forgive himself.”

He doesn’t move for a moment. He wants to scoff. He wants to walk out of the room and leave her here forever. But he doesn’t—he can’t. She walks forward until she’s centimeters from him, and she doesn’t look afraid at all.

“I—” he starts, but his throat is dry and the words catch and crumble. She smiles at him sadly, and there’s something so familiar about it all. Was there a plane once? Another leap of faith?

“…Jemma?” he asks, and he’s not fully aware of what he’s saying, just that there’s something in her eyes that pushes against his heart in a way he’s never felt before.

She smiles again, a real smile this time, and steps even closer. His entire body stills and his lungs struggle for air. He thinks she might kiss him and suddenly everything in him remembers the press of her lips against his and he’s never wanted anything more badly in his life.

He closes his eyes and there’s a buzzing of electricity in the room. He can feel it—he’s right on the precipice of the only revelation that will ever matter. Her lips brush his and he wants to cry, overwhelmed by the intensity of it all. And then her hands are around his neck and when he opens his eyes there’s nothing but hatred in her returning glare.

He should be able to fight her; she’s so weak and he’s so strong, but he can’t. He grabs at her hands, but her grip is a vice and he can’t get traction. Is he drowning? Has he already drowned?

“Jemma,” he gasps. Her fingers beneath his are ice cold and he can’t help the shiver that reverberates through him. “Jemma, please.”

“Did you really think I’d trust you?” she laughs, and there’s something so dark behind her eyes he finds he doesn’t recognize her at all. “Did you really think I’d trust you with a baby? With my child? I know exactly what kind of father you would be, Doctor, and I’d rather die than have you in our lives.”

“No,” he pleads, shaking his head against the sudden onslaught of memories. “No, Jemma, please, this isn’t me. This isn’t me. I’ll protect you. I can save you, please. Jemma, don’t—”

She pushes him, hard, until his back hits the wall, and then she squeezes so tightly he can’t speak at all.

“It’s too late,” she hisses. “I know your heart now.”

Everything goes fuzzy, black blurring at the edge of his vision. He’s about to pass out, and right before he does he hears her laughing, or crying. “Fitz, Fitz, Fitz,” she is saying, and he doesn’t know whether it’s a taunt or a prayer.

++

He comes to with a gasp, drenched in sweat and choking on his inhalations. Jemma wraps her arms around him in a sob, cradling him gently and placing open-mouthed kisses to his face.

“Fitz, Fitz,” she is saying in between kisses, “it’s just a dream. Fitz, please wake up. It’s just a dream.”

He jerks back from her and buries his head in his hands. He can still feel the pressure of her fingers around his neck and despite his dream-pleas, he thinks he deserves it.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, even though she can’t know what he’s apologizing for.

“What was it about this time?” she asks. He looks up at her and he doesn’t have to say anything; he can tell by the devastation on her face that she knows. They have shared a bed for years, and by now they’ve come to recognize that certain traumas have certain looks. He knows the evidence of a Framework-related nightmare is all over his face.

She sits up carefully, breathing through the exertion of maneuvering while this heavily pregnant.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She leans against his shoulder and the reality of her obvious love and trust eases some of the tightness in his chest.

“No…” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, but not just yet.” He reaches a hand towards her rounded stomach hesitantly, as if he hasn’t done this a thousand times. As if she’s ever reacted with anything but a smile.

Sitting here in the stillness, hip-to-hip with his wife and feeling their child somersault, he breathes carefully and tries to ignore the images his brain has chosen to force onto him. He and Jemma had made the choice to have a child; they had talked about the possibility excitedly, they had cried when she found out she was pregnant. He is not the Doctor, and Jemma doesn’t think so, or she never would have agreed to this. Still, he feels slightly queasy. He remembers her words in his dream, and he also remembers knowing he deserved them.

“I know sometimes it’s overwhelming and maybe you won’t believe me right now,” Jemma whispers, placing a hand on top of his, “but I have never once regretted befriending you or marrying you or choosing to raise a child with you. Motherhood is a bit terrifying to me…there are all these variables I can’t control. And as much as I want to be a mother, I also know without a doubt that I would never do this without you.”

Fitz smiles and rests his head on top of hers. “You could, though,” he says. “You’ll be the most amazing mother.”

Jemma shrugs lightly. “I don’t know. Maybe I could, but I wouldn’t want to. I mean it, Fitz. I could never imagine my life without you, even when I was sixteen years old and didn’t realize everything that could mean. I certainly can’t imagine doing this without you.”

Fitz sighs, not saying anything for a moment. Jemma squirms a bit and he places a kiss to her temple. “Your back?”

“Yeah,” she answers. “Sometimes I’m quite ready for this part to be over with.”

He laughs and draws his knees up, and Jemma moves to settle between his legs. She leans forward and he gently massages up and down her spine, carefully working through the built-up tension. His fingers press against her back methodically, guided by her soft sighs.

“There’s so much I wish I could forget,” he whispers, feeling braver now that he can’t meet her eyes. “There’s so much I wish I hadn’t done.”

Jemma wraps a hand around his ankle and squeezes lightly. It’s funny, he thinks, how all these years later her touch is still the most grounding thing in the universe.

“Me too,” she answers, and he unconsciously pulls up the Venn diagram of their traumas, the places where they overlap and the wide expanses where they’ve suffered alone.

“I worry about our baby,” he confesses. “Other parents worry about their children being sick or bullied or only getting one Ph.D., but we know there’s so much worse. I worry that we were selfish to want this.”

Jemma sighs, leaning back against his chest and wrapping his arms around her like a blanket. “I know, but other parents haven’t had the practice we’ve had. If anyone can protect this child, it’s us.”

“Do you really believe that?” he asks. He palms her stomach and wonders if their baby can sense how much safer she’ll be if she just stays there forever.

“I don’t know, I think so,” Jemma replies. He can tell by the way her words are starting to slur that she’s nearing sleep again. “Maybe it was selfish, but I think we deserve this. We deserve to be happy, Fitz. And despite everything, I’m so happy with you. No one will love her more than us, and I hope that’s enough.”

He nods and rests his cheek to the crown of her head. Already he can feel the slight twitching as she settles into sleep and he smiles. Somehow, she is comfortable in this position and he feels infinitely grateful that he can do this for her.

He doesn’t sleep, not really, and his legs eventually go numb, but he’s holding the whole universe in his arms and his heart can barely contain the fullness of it. He remembers his dream, already fraying at the edges, closes his eyes, and lets it go.

[artificialqueens]

The Parent Trap (Biadore) [Prologue] - Henny

A/N:  This is my very first fanfiction ever about RPDR. Be gentle with me. Thankssss and Enjoy

Much love! xx

Being a Drag Queen, it was fairly easy to hide things from the rest of the world. If you wanted to hide things from your family, you can play it off as your character. If you wanted to hide it from your fans, don’t post it on social media. But, even nowadays, if you want to keep something –anything- a secret, just don’t post or tweet about it.

This is how Bianca Del Rio (Roy Haylock) and Adore Delano (Danny Noriega) hid everything about their relationships, more importantly with each other. After Season 6, they remained good friends which eventually developed into something more; they decided to elope six months after. Surprisingly, it was Roy who decided to leave their apartment (formerly Danny’s) in West Hollywood to get married in Las Vegas.

5:36 AM

“Let’s get married right now.”

Danny laughed and cuddled closer to Roy, who pressed his cheek to his boyfriend’s forehead as he looked at the ceiling.

“Okay, sure.” Danny answered, voice dripping with sarcasm. He felt Roy shuffle a bit before opening his eyes. Roy moved lower, so he can talk to Danny face-to-face.

“I’m serious. I have the craziest urge to go to Vegas and make you mine forever.” Roy said, stroking Danny’s cheek lovingly. Danny gasped softly at Roy’s words, still not believing what he was hearing.

“You? You want to get married in Vegas out of the blue; without any plans?”

“Yes.” Roy rolled his eyes which went unnoticed by Danny in the darkness of their bedroom.

“You couldn’t even hold my hand the first week we were dating because you felt bad for ‘not courting me properly’ and now you want to get in a car and drive to Vegas now?”

“Drive to Vegas… Really, Queen? You think that I won that competition and paid for Delta Diamond Membership to drive our asses all the way to Vegas?” Even with the softest voice (if that’s even possible), it amused Danny that Roy can instantly switch into Bianca while he needed more a few hours for makeup and a smoke session to bring out Adore.

“Okay, I get it! You’re probably just tired from all the sex and booze. We’ll talk about it in the morning. Deal?” Danny said against the pillow. To his surprise, Roy sat up a bit and hovered over him, his arms snaking around Danny’s waist to press their bodies closer together.

“No, I mean it. Let’s go right now.”

“What has gotten into you?” One thing Danny will never know was the fact that Roy did have a proposal prepared. It was all well planned and everything was going to take place a month from that night, that was before Roy saw all of the fans raving about Danny as Adore and some guy she had posted on her stupid snapchat. It was all he could see on his feed, and jealousy wasn’t a good color on Roy.

“Danny, I love you and everything about you; I love Adore, your voice, your passion, your music, and I just want to spend my entire life with you in my arms. Please, Baby. Marry me.”

The smile on Danny’s face was blinding as he pressed a kiss on Roy’s lips.

“Okay, I’m down. Let’s go.”

2 hours of packing, 5 hours in the airport due to the delay, 1 hour and 30 minutes flying later…

The time they arrived, a swarm of Drag Race fans who recognized them caught up with them and asked for pictures, which they happily obliged. Roy took a few more pictures before excusing himself and went inside the hotel to check them in. After settling everything, he felt Danny’s chin resting on his shoulder.

“Finally, what took you so long?” Roy asked, slipping his credit card inside his wallet.

“I was talking to this Queen. Her name was Farrah–something. She was just asking tips on how to win Drag Race.” Danny smiled as he helped Roy with their luggage.

“Ha! She asked the wrong queen, didn’t she?” Roy laughed, throwing his head back in mirth. Danny weakly punches the older Queen’s arm, but laughed nonetheless.

When they got to their room, their lack of sleep took over and the two fell asleep faster than Adore gets a joke.

They decided to get married in the morning. Mainly because of the fact that not a lot of people who watch the show or Drag Queens are awake in the morning or are sober enough to remember anything that happens around that time.

They stood outside the small wedding hall in their hotel, both buzzing with excitement.

“God, my dreams are coming true!” Danny giggled, grasping Roy’s hand firmly.

“Aww, getting married to me?” Roy asked in mock giddy, batting his eyelashes at Danny.

“No, have a Fat Elvis officiate my wedding.” Danny rolled his eyes, yet still feeling a sense of pride when he hears Roy laugh.

“Well, that’s one step to forever right?” Roy whispered, bringing the back of Danny’s hand to his lips.

“Forever, Baby.”

After their reception in Pizza Hut, Roy and Danny made a series of calls to their friends and family. Of course, their first calls were made to Aida Haylock and Bonnie Noriega.

“Finally got your ass married, huh?”

“Just remember to use protection!”

After 30 minute phone calls and 13 eye rolls, they made a list of a few friends they were going to tell. Shane (Courtney), Greg (Darienne), Ben (Bendelacreme), Jerick (Jinx), Aaron (Sharon), Justin (Alaska), Brian (Katya), Michelle, Rupaul via Michelle, and a few more personal friends; they all took an oath of secrecy afterwards. All of them had positive reactions upon finding out, even Rupaul sent in a gift basket two weeks later. But, let’s just say Shane wasn’t very happy with the fact he wasn’t invited.

A year later…

Due to Bianca’s tour and Adore’s music, years sped up fast which was huge blessing to the couple. But, for Danny, things have gotten a bit redundant in their lives. He has been scrolling through his Facebook which only showed him pictures of his friends’ babies. With the big eyes and pouty lips,  Danny was hooked on babies. Secretly, he has been doing research about adoption, but the thought of having a baby that looked like him or Roy was too tempting to pass. So, his research shifted from adoption to vitro fertilization.

The hardest part was convincing Roy to have kids, or so Danny thought. Unbeknownst to Danny, Roy has been doing his own research, looking for compatible surrogates online and even called a few clinics who were more than happy to help out. Roy wanted nothing more than to start a family with Danny, he only hopes the younger Queen feels the same.

“I guess I’ll find out tonight…”

3 months later…

Danny was anxious the whole morning. Sandra just called him, telling him that she had news for the couple. Roy finished cooking lunch and set up the tables just in time for Sandra to arrive after her appointment with her doctor.

The doorbell rang and both their hearts sped up at the sound.

“Fuck!” Danny cursed, running to the door to let the woman inside the room.

“Hello!” Sandra beamed sweetly before following Danny to the living room and sat down. She waited for the two men to sit down in front of her before she told them the news that could change their lives forever.

“So, as you all know, this was my first ultrasound after the whole process. And, a while ago, I’m glad to tell you that it’s a success! You’re going to be Fathers!”

Danny didn’t know what to feel but he could feel the scream that ripped out of his throat in happiness. Everything was blur and all he could feel was Roy wiping the tears on Danny’s cheeks, not caring about his own. Sandra was just smiling as she watched the couple in front of her.

“But, there’s one small thing?” She piped up. The two immediately stopped their celebration and looked at her worriedly. She took out the copies of the ultrasound and presented it to the couple in front of her.

“I’m carrying twins. My body accepted both eggs, so these are both yours!” She announced joyfully as Roy and Danny stared at the two little white blobs in the picture with tears in their eyes.

“Yanx, did you hear that? TWINS! We’re going to have twins!”

Without a doubt, this was the happiest day of Roy and Danny’s lives.

Until, it wasn’t.

[jemmafitzsimmons]

His Position on the Team

Written in a frenzy bc I got the idea in the shower (and was peer pressured by Adrienne to write this after spamming her inbox with it), so apologies if this feels rushed as I don’t really have the time to flesh this out more. I also wanted to get this out before the episode bc who the fuck knows what’s actually going to happen. 

Trigger Warning: major character death and a small scene of violence/gore (It’s pretty tame bc I can’t handle gore myself. And don’t worry; it’s neither of our science babies that takes the fall.)

Read on AO3 or below!

~

Fitz struggled with the wiring of the control panel as Jemma stood guard close by at the doorframe. Through his brilliance and Jemma’s constant encouragement, he managed to gain control of the LMDs of his friends by figuring out how to rewire their programming remotely, directing them to retreat from the fighting and lay low until further instruction. He couldn’t shut them down completely, but it was a start. But the Russian’s men were still infiltrating the base, and no one could locate AIDA or Dr. Radcliffe, so this sent worries through the entire team. The plan to destroy the inhuman population was so much larger than they thought, and it was only just the beginning.

“If I can just get the system back under our control, we can power the Zephyr so we can get out of here.”

“Do you need any help?”

“No, just keep watch. I’ve almost got it.”

She turned her head slightly to check on his progress when she saw his eyes widen as he looked past her.

“Jemma, move!”

Before she could manage to turn around on her spot, being a nearly open target for one of the Russian’s operatives aiming his gun at her head, a towering figure moved in front of her, blocking her body entirely. The shot rang out, and Jemma flinched, but she didn’t feel any pain. Clutching her hand to stomach, not from a gunshot wound, but from the shock of nearly receiving one, she turned around to see the figure falling to his knees, blood streaming down his back from the exit wound of the bullet. Fitz swiftly retaliated, taking his own shot and hitting the operative squarely in the chest, and watched as he sunk to the ground unconscious.

It took Jemma a few seconds to recover from her shock, but once her head cleared, she realized the identity of the person that just saved her life. Her blocker.

“Mace!”

Jemma hurried to his side and assisted him to the ground on his back. Mace gasped, struggling to catch his breath as the bullet wound was already soaking his shirt through with blood.

“Fitz! Help me, please,” Jemma called out desperately, pressing her hand to the wound in an attempt to control the bleeding. Fitz was already racing over, pulling off his jacket in the process.

“Here, use this, but let me.” He replaced her hands with his, bunching the jacket together to assist in his efforts.

“Keep the pressure there,” she instructed. As Fitz pressed the fabric firmly into Mace’s chest, Jemma placed her hand gently on the man’s forehead. “It’s okay. Try to breathe.”

“How’d I do?” he managed through a choked breath.

“Are you kidding? You saved us,” she said through a weak smile.

He let out a pained chuckle. “I told you I was the blocker.”

Jemma looked up to meet Fitz’s eyes, her own already misting over. As much as she wanted to sound encouraging, her gut told her that it was too late. They didn’t have access to the med bay or additional medical assistance, and from the look in Fitz’s eye, she knew he was thinking the same thing.

Suddenly, Mace’s breaths became less frequent as his eyes began to flutter. Jemma moved her hand to his shoulder, squeezing it urgently. “Mace, stay with us.”

Fitz increased the pressure on the wound, but saw no response. “Mace.”

But they were right in thinking it was too late. At once, the man released a shuddering breath and became still, his eyes slightly open, unfocused and without light. Jemma slowly moved her hand from the man’s shoulder and brought it up to her mouth to stifle a sob. 

This wasn’t an unfamiliar scene for them, losing a team member they cared about, but the fact that this man, this brave and loyal man, lost his life to save the two of them, it made it all the more painful.

A few moments passed, Fitz closing the man’s eyes and moving to wrap his arm around Jemma’s shoulder as she wept silently, until the sound of footsteps brought their attention to the doorway. Their team members, their real team members, entered the control room. Coulson supported May on his arm, both of them clearly shaken from the day’s events, and Daisy and Mack looked equally exhausted, but they were all alive.

And they were lucky.

Because not all of them were that lucky.

Daisy was the first to step forward. “Is he…?”

A beat passed as Jemma moved her hand through Mace’s hair, fresh tears streaming down her face. She shook her head, more in disbelief than in an answer to Daisy’s question.

Fitz looked up to meet Daisy’s eyes. “He’s gone,” he whispered.

Daisy’s eyes traveled between the two of them, clearing feeling the weight of the sudden loss.    

“How did you escape?” Fitz asked.

“May.” Coulson answered. “She beat the framework. Honestly? We owe her everything.” He looked to the companion at his side, a grateful expression on his face. 

As their eyes continued to linger on Mace’s body, they suddenly noticed a familiar towering figure approaching in the doorway. Jemma’s breath caught in her throat at the eerie sight. They didn’t know the status of the LMDs at the moment, but they figured they would find their way to the team eventually. Unfortunately, this particular LMD’s timing was painfully impeccable. 

Jemma watched, still nearly in shock, as the LMD sank to his knees to take in the sight before him. Somehow, this image was even more haunting. Because no programming could capture this feeling, the feeling of seeing the very person he was modeled after, lying lifeless on the ground. He was not human, but he knew when something was wrong, when something was devastatingly wrong. And there was nothing he could do to fix it.

Jemma felt a hand brush her shoulder and looked up to see Fitz encouraging her to rise. There was nothing they could do now, and they still weren’t safe, so they needed to move. She nodded weakly and stood shakily, reaching for Fitz to maintain her balance.

Coulson moved forward to address his team. “We have to get to the Zephyr.”

“But what do we do with…” Daisy asked as her voice trailed off.

“He comes with us.” Everyone turned to see Fitz looking from the LMD to Mace’s body on the ground. “We don’t have time to find the others.”

Coulson nodded his head. “Let’s move,” he said as he turned to lead his team to the Zephyr.

-----

The team sat in silence as they processed the last few minutes. They were going rogue now, unable to contact any other SHIELD agents for fear of revealing their location. It was a miracle they even got in the air in the first place. 

Surprisingly, the LMD sitting on its own in the corner was the first to break the silence. 

“I don’t really know what’s going to happen from here, but there’s one thing I understand. I know his thoughts, his complete history. But I’ll never be him. So, I believe the best course of action is for me to shut down. Completely.” He paused, noticing Fitz looking down into his lap upon hearing the words. “It’s for the best.”

No one responded, knowing he was right but not wanting to admit it. Suddenly, Fitz rose from his seat to move to another part of the plane. Jemma waited a few seconds before following swiftly behind him. 

She found him in one of the Zephyr’s small labs, pacing back and forth behind the lab table, his hand placed against his forehead. She kept her distance, not wanting to startle him, so she leaned against the doorframe. “I’m sorry, Fitz.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t want you blaming yourself for this.”

He paused to look down at his feet and took a deep breath. “I’m not. I did what I could. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to save everyone.”

She moved forward into the lab and took his hands in hers. Despite the events of the day, and the loss they just suffered, he appeared surprising calm. Maybe he was just used to it by now, the never-ending cycle of tragedy their team continued to experience in the field. So instead of looking upset, he just looked exhausted. 

“I have to be the one to do it,” he said. “Turn him off. I got us into this mess.”

She could only nod, and then moved forward to wrap her arms around his waist in a tight embrace. “It’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”

“I know.”

They returned to the team to find them still sitting in silence. At the sight of FitzSimmons, the team members rose from their seats, having already said their goodbyes and clearly ready for the next step ahead, and filed out of the room. 

“We’ll leave you alone,” Daisy said as she placed a gentle hand on Fitz’s shoulder. 

Once it was just the two of them and the LMD, Fitz walked hesitantly forward, Jemma keeping her distance. He looked into its eyes, and as much as he tried to focus on the fact that this was an android, all he could see was the man that saved the love of his life from a painful death. The control tablet was sitting on the table in the center of the room, but he didn’t pick it up. Not yet. 

Fitz swallowed the lump in his throat. “I know you’re not really him, but it feels like it, so let me say this. You were an important member of this team. We owe you our lives, all of us. And that’s why this hurts so much.” He paused, noticing the LMD’s slight change in expression. Even if it was all programming and mimicry, it was still too real, and in this moment, he conveyed a look of understanding, acceptance. Because ht knew that this was the right thing to do.

Fitz stepped closer to continue. “I need you to know that you saved a lot of lives today, one in particular...that means the world to me, so I’m forever grateful for that.”

At that, he took a deep breath and picked up the tablet. Slowly, he brought his finger down to tap the button. In an instant, the LMD dropped its head mechanically to its chest. 

Fitz turned his head to see Jemma standing in the doorframe, watching carefully. She met his eyes and nodded sympathetically. 

“It’s done.” 

~

Thanks for reading! In my head, this was a lot more emotional (probably bc I originally imagined *ahem* Jemma taking the fall, but let’s not think about that for reasons).