#Part XXIV

[randomfoggytiger]

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part XXIV): Guardian Angels and Inverted Nativities

I was struck with the overt nativity symbolism while combing through this two-parter-- not as a direct religious comparison (a mother to an impossible child), but as a poignant antithesis to Scully, Mulder, and Emily's story.

(**Note**: A deep dive into the Scully family spanning A Christmas Carol and Emily can be found in this post here.)

EMILY, SCULLY, MULDER: A DISASTER IN THREES

When we first glimpse Emily, she is cradled in her father’s arms, silent and expressionless in the wake of her mother’s death. She locks eyes with Scully and refuses to look away, following her movements in that room, during Scully’s second visit, during the arrest of Mr. Sim, after the social worker van drives away, and in her hospital room: an intense, though bland, fixation. Emily, it seems, was beckoning Scully to her; and was perfectly content to be in her company while chaos was erupting around her. Although part of this has to do with Chris Carter’s characterization in A Christmas Carol-- which Spotnitz, Gilligan, and Shiban tone down in Emily-- the germ of that idea remains: in short, Emily quite blatantly chose Scully-- whether because she was obeying a supernatural or biological or other more normal and sacred impulse. 

This is important because of two reasons: 

That inclination sends her biological mother into a spiral of questions and doubts, which culminated in a fight for custody and willingness to leave the FBI to raise Emily. If she had not fought to adopt her, Scully wouldn't have been able to keep her safe during Emily’s final hours on Earth.

That inclination creates friction between Scully's intentions and Mulder's subdued resistance.

To set the scene: Scully has been avoiding the temptation to call her partner up to ask for help-- in fact, she bailed on the only phone call to his apartment and worked around him to get answers (Mulder’s friend Danny at the FBI-- not TLG, not Mulder himself.) On the one hand, we know she is conflicted and struggling with her infertility; but the struggle is greater-- much greater-- than she is letting on. As discussed in the previous part, she nearly breaks down in tears trying to convince the social worker to advocate for her: “--” Scully either found out she was infertile during her cancer treatments (but didn’t have the time or energy to abstract that fact into her reality) or she found out afterward (either before or after Mulder dodged-- intentionally or not-- her cheese platter in Detour.) And yet, she has not shared this burden with her partner nor (until Maggie applied a little pressure) with her family.

If this be the case, of course she would avoid Mulder’s calls: her sister’s voice eerily over the phone? A niece, she presumes, who is involved in a cover-up conspiracy? Everything would point, in Mulder’s mind, back to the Conspiracy; and Scully isn’t allowing herself to entertain that notion. But now, against her first inclination, she is left no choice but to call Mulder: Emily is her daughter, and that means she is a part of the Conspiracy with a capital ‘c’. “Well, how did she come into this world?” Scully asks when Mulder arrives; and avoids a direct response when he replies, “Have you asked yourself that?” Because no, she hasn’t-- hasn’t wanted to. 

And that’s the (not-so-subtle) subtext: everything, to Mulder, is the key to everything, to his quest for the truth. And where does that leave her, newly recovered and ready to let her walls down? She tried to change but he hadn’t: he’s still the same Mulder running after mothmen and trying to find answers about his sister. It’s the endless line again, it’s Never Again again, it’s a preemptive taste of a weekend tossed aside for crop circles.

The next big question is: where does this begin and end for Mulder? 

Over the course of ten days (according to this timeline), Mulder receives two phone calls: one Scully drops and another where she asks him down to be a character witness. But that, of course is not the full picture: his partner asks him down to be a character witness to adopt her daughter whose parents have been murdered and whose case she has been investigating without asking for Mulder's help. In short, he feels purposefully excluded and reduced to the boxes of "partner" and "character witness."

Mulder seemed secure in his brief appearance in A Christmas Carol: Scully was out of town, but she’d be back; and he’d get up to shenanigans in the meantime. 

Mulder shifted to being insecure, withdrawn, and downright fearful in Emily: not only had he, in his eyes, already lost his partner right from under his nose, but he might alienate her further because of the information he’d kept from her-- the fact he’d known about her infertility as far back as her early cancer diagnosis. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, Scully is calling him in as a character witness to win the adoption rights for her daughter; and all the facts he has to give are deemed unworthy of a normal court’s time. 

Lastly, he knows-- he just knows-- that something is off with Emily. If she is a product of Scully’s ova, there is no way on Earth that the Syndicate hasn’t tampered with her DNA. The clones he met in Memento Mori who called her and other MUFON abductees “our mothers” prove that to be the case. 

And he knows that Scully either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know this. 

To Mulder, this spells disaster: Scully dropping out of the FBI and leaving him behind to raise a child that is most certainly half-human, half other. What is even more disastrous is that he doesn’t know how to react or respond to this situation: does he council her against the adoption? He can’t in good conscience. Does he support her decision to adopt, which would mean he supports her transfer from the X-Files department? Does he warn her of the consequences and dangers of trying to raise Emily? Yes. But does that change Scully’s mind? No. His hands are tied.

And how do his concerns and his fears factor into this dynamic? In short, how could a miraculous conception-- quote on quote-- spell disaster and doom for him, Scully, and Emily? 

MULDER ARRIVES

Emily opens on Mulder’s arrival at the children’s foster care center, a lone figure asking directions to where his partner and her daughter are. And that loneliness continues when he finds them: Mulder hangs back, observing Scully’s happiness and Emily’s complacency with dread. Already, Mulder is placed as an outsider-- more precisely, he is placing himself as an outsider by hanging back. 

Why is he hanging back? Why, specifically, is he hanging back from Scully and her daughter instead of embracing this?

Simply put, we know Mulder is bracing for disaster. And we also know that he is in no place in his life to make space for a family, to “settle down, have something approaching a normal life” (as Scully says a year or so later.) Put these two factors together,  mix them up with a child he suspects is the half-human result of his partner’s abduction, and Mulder has already set up sky-high brigades to protect himself. 

This is not new for him, either: after her remission, Mulder put barriers back in place between himself and Scully; and when she tried to explore their boundaries, poke them or topple them with a cheese platter in Detour, he purposefully muted his awareness and ran after monsters. And his decided, purposed avoidance of settling down or having a family or-- in short-- leaving the quest was a decision he’d made before Scully came into his life (one he stated decisively to her in The Jersey King.) It’s not until The Unnatural that Mulder realizes he can have both, that his goals won’t suffer by living just a little normally, enjoying life just a little bit. (And afterward, Scully approaches him for the IVF, post here.) 

Combine all of that together, and it explains why he nearly sags when seeing Scully smiling eagerly at her daughter-- a child, he tells her, that was never meant to be: his guard is up, and he's keeping a distance between himself and little Sim (and warning his partner to do the same) despite his kindness and gentleness, despite chasing leads and yelling threats to save her life. In short, he’s saving this girl for Scully, not himself. And because he loves Scully, truly loves her, he's willing enough to lose her for a child that was not meant to be. 

But Mulder is Mulder, and his partner and her daughter are Scullys: he puts on a brave face when Scully looks up at him from the floor, walks over, and tries to strike up a friendship with Emily. He then proves he’s a natural with kids, particularly shy ones: he asks what Emily what she’s coloring, waits for her answer, and makes an exaggerated Mr. Potato Head face to lower her guard. It cheers her up instantly, and makes Scully smile as well.

Another warning sign lights up for him right after: he notices Scully's cross around Emily's neck. His partner is already attached.

But what a conflicting brew of emotions that would be. He wore that cross during her abduction, while her ova were taken and her daughter-- who is now wearing it-- was created. It's a passing of the baton Maggie did for him in Ascension, one that must have stung a little for her as Scully distanced from her mother to draw closer to the work (and Mulder.) But Mulder is given no choice or prior warning (like the keychain in Alone): it's happened; and that connection between them has been made significant another, different way... for someone else.

When Scully insists, “I can protect her, too,” he persists: “And who’s going to protect you?” Despite his reasoning-- that both the Sims are dead to protect the Syndicate’s interests-- Scully replies, “I know. I-I’ve considered that. But I’ve also considered that there’s only one right thing to do.” Mulder doesn’t seem to agree: silently here, publicly in the judge’s chambers; but he supports her decision both times (just as he supports her decision to let Emily die.) 

“Why didn’t you call me sooner,” he asks, the same edge in his interrogation in Elegy. 

“Because I couldn’t believe it,” she answers, the same response as Elegy. 

Predictably, he is annoyed, irritated: he feels the step backward in their dynamic. When Scully states she called him to be a witness on her behalf, he (quietly) snaps, “And I should have declined.” Off her hurt expression, he softens and clarifies, “If I never want to see you hurt or harmed in any way.” 

Branching off of this conversation, the judge’s chambers reveal a deeply rooted psychological insight into Mulder’s character. He lays out the facts as he knows them-- the dangers and unanswered questions-- but states, in closing, “The fact that she can adopt this child-- her own flesh and blood-- is something I don’t feel I have the right to question and I don’t believe anybody has the right to stand in the way of.” ‘Her own flesh and blood’ and ‘the right to question’/‘right to stand in the way of’ are specifically coded in the language of Fate.

The irony, or serendipity, or fate, really-- and this two-parter is dripping in Fate, be it because of Emily’s miraculous birth or Melissa’s miraculous guidance or the lingering vestiges of Scully’s partner and late sister’s belief in Fate-- of Mulder being completely correct (that Scully will get hurt) and of Scully being completely correct (in the face of her family’s disbelief and her own desire to stay at the FBI) is beautifully tragic; and horribly marred by the Consortium's last spiteful maneuver (a coffin full of sand.) “No matter how much you love this little girl, she was a miracle that was never meant to be, Scully”-- that is the theme of A Christmas Carol and Emily. 

It’s not the first time Mulder has alluded to the concept of fate or its working in his and Scully’s life-- in fact, Mulder builds the identity of his quest on top of that concept of Fate (post here.) He lost his sister because of fate; but his fated, mythical quest will bring her back. His father played with the hand of fate and lost. The Consortium choose to tamper with Fate, taking it into their own hands; and Scully was taken and Emily born because of it. But it was Fate to bring mother and daughter back together; and he doesn’t see it as his right to step in the way of or prevent that fate. 

By contrast, Scully’s own beliefs are in direct opposition to Fate: she argues Mulder out of his own biases and beliefs, calls into questions the lies he chooses to believe in (or tells himself), and points out that she chooses to stay by his side, that she chooses to be his partner. “I wouldn’t put myself on the line for anybody but you” is a choice she made as far back as Season 1; and the FBI a choice she made farther back than even that. 

Emily is a wedge of in both systems: she was not fated to be, according to Mulder; but she is there and must be protected, leaving Scully no choice. The Consortium played with Fate, making themselves god, and created a life that had no purpose other than to die; and the Consortium ripped away Scully’s one choice by robbing her of the peace of burying her own daughter. 

(As an aside: this is why I’m so invested in Scully’s pregnancy in Requiem-Existence: William’s conception and birth was not an act of fate, but an act of freewill and choice. Scully chose to stay with Mulder in all things; and he was conceived that night-- according to Frank Spotnitz, post here. Season 8 played with the confusion of “Is this fate?” from all parties; and all parties were proven incorrect. Mulder and Scully’s baby wasn’t what anyone were predicting-- not some special, magical, or given-by-God-to-save-the-world figure. He was simply, and beautifully, normal. “But that doesn’t make him any less of a miracle, does it?” Mulder asks; and Scully agrees. He’s their miracle that they conceived and worked hard for and angsted over during the long, hard months that Fate tried to rip them apart forever. Free will, then, wins.)

After advocating for Emily’s adoption, Mulder waits for Scully on the Scully family couch, attention caught by the Nativity scene-- the same one that caught her attention in the previous episode (post here.) He fiddles with one of the wisemen-- again, breaking that direct comparison between his own ties to this story-- until his partner approaches; then he turns the figurine around and sits back as she approaches.

As touched on previously, the religious imagery filtering throughout these episodes-- the Nativity scene, Mulder pondering Joseph’s figurine, Scully's face fading out to the Virgin Mary's stained glass image-- serves to invert and pervert the Nativity story. More often than not, this episode is read through a ham-fisted, morally superior, distasteful parallel between Mary the Mother of Jesus and Scully’s surprise motherhood. The reality is, the narrative points of the Biblical story do not at all align with Scully or Mulder or Emily’s journey-- in fact, the latter three serve as its antithesis.  

Mulder is not only a man who feels excluded from this miracle but also one who chooses to avoid becoming a father figure. 

Scully is an expectant mother not through divine blessing for her strength of character but because of ruthless, corrupted, and inhumane interference. 

And Emily is a child who doesn’t see Scully as her mother, who staunchly holds her separate from her own beloved Mommy (“Mommy said no more tests.”) 

The writers themselves said they weren’t trying to set Scully up as the Virgin Mary incarnate, either (post here)-- the parallel was simply a Christmas one-- and I believe them. Because they wrote the true parallel between Tara and the Nativity, showing the display first by her side in A Christmas Carol. From then on, Scully and Mulder separately gazed or pondered or played with the Nativity as an unreachable, almost inconceivable notion-- because it is, for them. (For now, anyway, if you cosign canon after Je Souhaite.) 

“It takes two of us to get my sister-in-law in bed these days,” she says, explaining her length of absence and attempting to lighten the mood. 

Sincerely, Mulder asks, “When is she due?”

“Two weeks ago.” 

(Which means-- if the math maths correctly-- that the Scully family expected baby Matthew before Christmas; and since he hasn’t arrived, Maggie and Scully might have then expected to stay longer and help Tara and Bill transition into parenthood. Or maybe Maggie intended to stay and Scully to fly back. In any case, her almost panicky reaction to the baby kicking (mentioned in a previous post here makes more sense in context.) 

When the phone rings, Scully is almost afraid to answer it (sitting on the couch a few seconds longer than necessary as Mulder stares at her.) This time there is no voice, no “go to her Dana”, which would probably be more unsettling than her sister’s instructions, at this point. 

Emily Sim, they find, is deteriorating (Mulder, in fact, finds the green cyst on her neck); and both scoop her up and rush her to the hospital. It’s bad news after bad news (as he predicted.)

“Now, are you two the parents?” asks the doctor. 

Scully looks from him to Mulder, eyes troubled and almost pleading. When her partner notices, he tilts his head away, sags, and withdraws: this is her child, and her call. For Scully, this signals that he is not ready to commit further-- won't, in effect, join her in these new responsibilities; and feels the rejection like a blow. Although Mulder didn’t mean to reject her-- he thinks that she’s leaving the work (and him) to be a parent, something he can’t do; and now feels outside the circle of her decisions-- his meaning is clear. From now on, Scully feels she must battle for Emily’s life on her own, reliving the struggle and isolation of her diagnosis and treatment in Scanlon’s office. 

“How did you know?” Scully questions Mulder after Emily’s blood has incapacitated a doctor. He continues dancing the thin line between keeping information from her and telling her just enough, and the little he gives his partner weakens her resolve and sends her into a mild panic: “She’s just a little girl. You say that I can’t protect her, but I can’t let this be her life. Just a few days ago she was fine.” 

“She was also being treated,” he points out; and Scully’s eyes widen, more proof she is so rushed that she hasn’t considered this circumstance-- her daughter, the adoption, the Conspiracy-- from all angles.  

As Emily’s condition worsens, Scully keeps watch, knowing she has no real authority to save her daughter but hold onto what little foothold she has. The little girl, however, begins to resist: “Mommy said no more tests.” Again, an inverse of the Christmas story: a child drawing away from its biological mother.

Stung by the reality of their situation, she doesn’t deny Emily's statement, carefully deflecting, “We just want you to get better. That’s what these tests are about.” And with each test and each procedure, she has to endure worse and worse news: a tumorous infection, the doctor proclaims; a possible revocation of rights, the social worker warns. After storming against Emily’s possible removal, Scully relents to a quiet, “What do you want me to tell them you’re doing for her?” Pausing, she admits, “I don’t know yet. But I will”: active choice, Freewill, beginning to assert itself. During her daughter’s last round of tests, Scully gently talks her through the procedure. It seems to work, at first, before Emily starts screaming; and she rushes to try to both help and calm her down.

The last glimpse we have of the two together is of Emily near tears and Scully unable to soothe her completely. 

And where is Mulder while all this is going down? Hunting down and assaulting men that won't “Help that little girl!”, causing havoc and mayhem and disruption… and finding yet another Scully baby submerged, alive, in green goo (post here.) But he does not save this baby or any other baby there-- knows he cannot, now, with so much at stake-- but instead grabs a cure for Emily; and flees. 

Mulder is committed to protecting the innocent; and, though he fears how this will play out, he is willing to stand by Emily’s hospital bed (and Emily’s coffin)-- there for his partner, and for her daughter, as much as he can. It might not be in ways Scully needs from him, but it's the best he can do.

Unfortunately, Emily Sim slips into a coma before the cure can arrive. 

Scully is staring at her body, watching her breathe up and down, when Mulder rejoins. She is gutted, but accepting, knowing without having to ask what he’s thinking: “I’m okay, Mulder.” 

As they stand there together, she shares her resolution: “It’s what’s meant to be,” she says. Paths and purposes, saving a girl to deliver her up to death, guiding her from life into her sister’s arms in the afterlife. She was meant for the FBI, and Emily was meant for her for a short time; but both weren’t, ultimately, meant for each other. 

“But if you could treat her--” Mulder begins; and is shocked by her conviction. 

“I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t do it to her.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mulder, whoever brought this child into this world didn’t intend to love her.” 

Surprised at her stability-- and trusting to it-- he carefully admits, “I think she was… she was born to serve an agenda.” His way of having her back, of saying “I would do the same thing.”

“I have a chance to stop that.” Face crumbling, she mourns, “You were right: this child was not meant to be.” 

Looking from Emily to his partner, he assures, “I’ll stay with you”; but Scully, still remembering his gun-shy distance, feels she must grieve this loss alone-- a loss she knows he sympathizes with, but hasn’t internalized for himself. And, despite Mulder’s growth since the early days of their partnership (post here), she is right.

“I think I’d like to be alone,” she requests, casting her watery eyes up for understanding. And as rejected and dejected as he feels, he understands. 

Mulder retreats without telling her about the cure, sparing her the moral quandary of second guesses-- knowing his partner well enough to know she would doubt herself and revive Emily, only to watch her die a second time. 

Alone, Scully climbs into Emily’s bed, cuddling up against her daughter. The scene transitions to a stained-glass window of the Virgin Mary-- another mother doomed to lose her child to the cruelty of others; one with, however, a happier ending-- as the girl quietly passes away.

Alone, Scully sits in the church, withdrawn. But alone no longer: Mulder wanders in, last but not least; and surprises (and amuses) his partner with flowers he'd bought for Emily, determined to do this right. He may be a man who doesn’t see the value in convention, who remembers birthdays in dog years, and who kisses hands one day and runs off to the woods the next; but he is also a considerate soul who understands these conventions are meaningful for other people-- for his partner, most of all. 

“Who are the men who would create a life whose only hope was to die?” Scully questions, seeking the truth from the only one who will give her that truth. 

“I don’t know.” Seeing the pain in her face, he reassures, “But that you found her… and you had a chance to love her…. Maybe she was meant for that, too.” Melissa would certainly agree. 

“She found me,” Scully replies; and, again, this draws me back to my earlier theory on Emily’s psychic prescience (post here): in each dream, Emily made herself known; in each run-in, Emily sought her out with her eyes; at each step of the way, Emily looked up to her like a guardian angel-- her rescuer. And, in turn, Emily rescues Scully, as well (All Souls.) 

There is no evidence of Calderon’s work, Mulder explains; and Scully quickly realizes, “There is evidence.” Walking up to the coffin, she stands before Mulder’s bouquet, shooting him a shaky last side glance before raising the lid; he, in turn, pivots away, unable to stomach what he suspects she will find. 

And there is nothing but sand; nothing but second guesses. Scully concludes, as the episode’s opener, “It begins where it ends, in nothingness. A nightmare born from deepest fears, coming to me unguarded, whispering images unlocked from time and distance. A soul unbound, touched by others but never held. A course charted by some unseen hand. The journey ahead promising no more than my past reflected back upon me-- until at last I reach the end. Facing a truth I can no longer deny: alone, as ever.” 

Season 5 was, as I’ve previously discussed, a rough season for Mulder (post here), but the loneliness and guilt and indecision that molds to Scully will not be torn from her until All Souls, and then only under more painful, more disharmonious circumstances. 

ALL SOULS AND ALL THINGS

All Souls begins and ends with Scully’s confession, the doubts kicked up from A Christmas Carol-Emily doubled and tripled in the two-fold issue of religious uncertainty and biased doubt from her partner.

This episode, for Scully, does not end kindly: she must make peace with Emily’s loss, and let her go; and she must begin a serious battle with her own abilities-- is she helping anyone? Can she help anyone? Emily died, Mulder’s struggling, her resolve is cracking. Soon The Pine Bluff Variant will play on that distance, and Diana Fowley will swoop in to exploit it. Soon the office will burn; and, in spite of all her efforts, Scully will feel like she failed herself, her partner, and their work. Soon, she will embrace him as he stands in transfixed horror, unable to reciprocate back. 

All Souls is set up to break and subvert the patterns the previous two-parter set up, just as that two-parter set up just to subvert the Nativity scene: Scully calls Mulder for help from the get-go, but he dodges her call; Mulder sneers at rather than investigates other possibilities; and Mulder comforts her about seeing Emily in a vision but believes she is allowing herself to be compromised on a case. At least in Emily, Mulder knew the answers (or suspected them), and advocated for her exactly how and when she needed him to. What she recounted, he confirmed; what she guessed, he affirmed; what she grieved, he comforted with larger concepts like Fate. But here, Mulder is detached-- religion and its religious superstitions and beliefs are such an ugly concept to him that he gave no credence to Scully’s visions and tried to talk her down from her intuition instead of supporting her in crisis.  Mulder is proving, again and again, that he has not changed from the ditch in Detour-- and, moreover, that he can’t: this year, he’s just trying to keep his head above water. Like I’ve mentioned before, Scully has changed, Scully has grown, Scully is working to lower her shields… but over and over, she finds that Mulder is not ready for that vulnerability and avoids it: “Have you ever thought seriously about dying?” she asks in Detour, and chuckles-- at the time-- over his flippant “Only once, at the Ice Capades” response. 

But All Souls also provides an interesting flip in her relationship to Emily-- i.e. mother and daughter reverse roles. Like Scully had last Christmas, Emily is there to save vulnerable children and guide them to a better afterlife. And like Scully, she has accepted, in death, that her role on this Earth wasn’t “meant to be”: she pleads with Scully, “Mommy, please, let me go.” 

It’s striking, then, that Emily becomes the spiritual medium instead of Melissa. I understand why it was written that way-- Scully connects her sacrifice and Emily’s death to the church, and her faith, to bring her comfort. (And I don’t think Melissa Scully would be too keen to dabble around with Catholic mythologies.) It’s even more striking that Emily becomes the only truth Scully clings to or believes in: no one else, be it deeply entrenched priest or well-researched paranormal partner, believes in her eyewitness accounts. (Or, in Mulder’s case, does… but suggests it’s born from outside manipulation.) 

This episode is yet another ouroboros: Scully her only witness, Scully her only source of strength-- a pattern that began in Beyond the Sea and loops back around and around until she puts it to rest in all things. And there's another parallel: Melissa acting as her conscience and guardian angel; Emily acting as her literal conscience and guardian angel. It was Scully herself who spotted the physical similarity between the two; and the narrative continues to connect that similarity to Scully's emotional growth.

“You believed you were releasing her soul to Heaven?”  the confessor asks after Scully admits to a fourth girl's death.

“I felt sure of it,” she says, tears brimming. 

“But you still can’t reconcile this belief with the physical fact of her death?”

“No. I thought I could, Father, but I can’t.” 

“Do you believe there is a life after this one?”

“Yes.” 

“Are you sure?” 

She stops, confused; and doesn’t answer. Second-guesses, doubts, and an inability to know her own conscience: all bubbling to the fore, once again. The ouroboros.

“Has it occurred to you that-- maybe this, too, was part of what you were meant to understand?”

“You mean accepting my loss?” 

“Can you accept it?” 

Tears trickling down her cheek, Scully trembles out, “Maybe that’s what faith is.” 

Her journey of faith has always been fraught (will continue to be so, post here) but Scully is mistaking belief in faith as an acceptance of loss-- a loss which she believes to be a punishment. She is afraid of attaching to others, has been since as a little girl; and that has driven her to and from God in different moments of extremis.  

Further, the struggle to be always in the dark, to never fully understand, is not one she gives much thought to… if she doesn’t have to face it, alone. However, Mulder-- her backup-- has been drifting aimlessly in recent months; and, because her own family can’t completely understand the strange horror of her reality, there is only one person left to lean on: her faulty perception of God. 

Why can’t Scully accept and believe what Emily has asked of her-- to let her go-- when she believed and accepted that truth when her daughter was dying? Because her conviction was shattered when she saw Emily’s coffin filled with sand: a spit in the face to her deliberate choice and hard-won decision. She has lost faith in herself; and the one person who she relies on-- as she admitted in Irresistible and Elegy-- for strength (inadvertently) withheld that comfort and support in All Souls, shattering it further. 

And the reality is, Mulder withdrew in All Souls because he was afraid of her (as he perceived) blind faith. Mulder himself is in desperate straits; and the thought that he could lose Scully-- to adoption (Emily), to a belief in aliens (The Red and the Black), to a wackier belief in God and angels and demons (All Souls)-- scares him to death and stirs up his distance or anger. While they were working towards a common goal in the cancer arc, neither needed to feel out-of-sync in their partnership, or question her nosebleeds, or withdraw from each other (more than their normal withdrawal parameters.) But now? Now, they’re completely out-of-sync-- Scully two steps ahead, doubting her progress, doubling back; and Mulder slouching, slumping, then sliding down a wall. 

THE GREAT CHANGE

What sets them right? 

Mulder’s confession in Fight the Future (post here) is mandatory to the shift from Season 5-- his dissipation and disbelief; her discouragement and lack of self-esteem-- to Season 6-- her assuredness and slow-build to loneliness; his wobbles forward into embracing a life on this planet with his touchstone. (I also recommend my meta on their Season 6 push-and-pull, post here, to understand why both had a lighter tone and higher confidence compared to last season.)  

TLDR: Scully was walking-- “You never needed me, Mulder. I just held you back”-- because she felt useless and worthless. Mulder was forced to battle with his own fear and insecurity or lose her forever; and, clutching his courage, chased her into the hall and tried his best to convince her to stay: by telling her, honestly, how much he truly needed her. 

CONCLUSION

Emily Sim was not meant to be; just as Scully was not meant to leave the files, nor Mulder to set aside his mission and walk away with them. Her birth, her life, and her death were a circumstance forced by a tampering with Fate-- the antithesis to Scully's freewill.

While Mulder rules his life by Fate-- parroting its principles, enshrining his quest and his losses in those terms-- Scully rules hers by choice: it is her choice to join the FBI, her choice to stay, and her choice to leave when she chooses (e.g. Season 8-- to be discussed in future.) Without her, Mulder’s life would become chaotically imbalanced, thrown about on every whim that promised to satisfy, toyed with by every voice that sold him lies; and without him, she would be confused and lose faith in herself and her choices.

This child was not meant to be... but what about those that were? That is a meta for another time~.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

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PRIMA PAGINA La Discussione di Oggi martedì, 17 settembre 2024

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໑ৎ ׁ ׅ♡ ALIBI 🌀

part xxii - masterlist - part xxiv xxiii. bless her heart

bunni speaks — eep!

︶︶ 　 ˚ ᡴꪫ synopsis — you are known for your brain rot anime content on twitter. so much so that you caught the attention of txt’s soobin on his secret stan account and became mutuals. what will become of this new friendship?

when you watched the time hit six on your watch, you let out a deep breath. you were walking to the hotel, and if someone saw you right now, they’d probably thought you were either going to rob a bank or you were back in 2020 during peak covid. you were masked up with dark shades and a hoodie over your head partially because you were knowingly meeting up with a celebrity but also no amount of ice could help depuff your eyes or face from how much you cried the day prior.

the amount of times you were going to shoot soobin a message to tell him that you couldn’t make it should’ve told you to cancel but despite of it, you were curious to what he had to say. although, you could feel yourself walking into another rejection when you see the front entrance. when you step foot into the lobby, your eyes found him instantaneously and his eyes already on you.

you could choke from how he looked at you. he was like a lost puppy scurrying over to you. he definitely looked guilty but your mind was too occupied with other thoughts to notice.

as he got closer to you, him telling you how he liked your letter replayed in your head. was it too late to leave? probably, considering he was leading you to the elevator so the two of you could talk in a more private setting.

“how was your day?” he asked you.

you leaned back at the walls of the elevator, staring down at your feet, “i went to work.”

“y/n… i—“

he was interrupted when another group of people came into the elevator. soobin choose silence until you reached his floor and the silence was deafening. seeing you in person, he could tell you were not in the mood to be here. he’s never seen this side of you. it was clear there was a wall in front of you this time. a barrier that you built just so he couldn’t get through.

reaching his room, soobin let out the biggest sigh. he peeled his mask off, fully expecting you to do the same, but you only stood there… in full gear, not even bothering to take off your backpack.

“you can take off you backpack and be comfortable.”

“oh, i didn’t think this was going to take long,” you said almost too coldly for him to handle before peeling the straps off your shoulders.

soobin felt his lips quivering. the distance between the two of you felt even further than when he was in seoul. he regretted never telling you that he likes you, but it didn’t matter because he wanted to fix it.

“are you avoiding me?”

that’s not… exactly what he wanted to say…

you didn’t say anything. if you said no, it’d be a lie. if you said yes, you might burst into tears… again.

soobin pouted. he felt so frustrated and upset. more so at himself than you. all he had to do was say three simple words two nights ago. how could it have slipped his mind?

“i like you,” he blurted out which was met with silence on your part, but he continued to ramble, “a lot. like crazy. more than gojo. more than anything. i should’ve said it two nights ago. i should’ve kissed you two nights ago. i was so nervous but so happy when i read your letter i completely blanked out. oh my god, and when the guys said i messed up. i had no idea. i didn’t want to move too fast because i thought i’d scared you and—“

“soo—“

“no, i’m not done yet,” he stopped you from saying anything because he felt the need to explain even further, “when you weren’t responding to me, i felt so dumb. when i saw that picture of you and your friend, i was so jealous. just one day without speaking to you felt like torture. i’ll tell you everyday. no, every hour that i like you so you won’t doubt my feelings again.”

“soo—“

“and—“

“hey—“

“i like you so much. i’m sorry if i hurt you. i didn’t mean it. i really didn’t mean it,” soobin’s eyes started to water, “please forgive me.”

he couldn’t see through your sunglasses but your eyes softened seeing how much he panicked and your heart was thumping so fast from hearing his sudden confession.

“wait, don’t cry. i’m gonna cry,” you said as you took a few steps towards him, feeling your own tears about to well up, “i forgive you, okay?”

“really?” his eyes perked up, glistening with his tears and a shear peak of hope, “because i really like you and would love to show you how much i do before i have to leave new york.”

his personality on screen also seemed very on par with who he was in front of you and who he has been for the last few months. you almost felt bad thinking the worse when you two last met; you had believed he played with your feelings by sending you mixed signals, but soobin seemed so innocent and so pure when he spoke to you.

you stared at his eyes through your dark frames and nodded.

“can i please take off your sunglasses and mask? i want to tell you that i like you while looking at your whole face…”

you laughed and broke eye contact to take them off yourself. soobin took a step closer. his fingers nervously swept the strands of hair out of your face, causing you to peek at him through your lashes. he caressed your cheek with his thumb before he leaned down and softly pressed his lips against yours.

your heart felt like it was going to leap out of your chest. the amount of relief you felt knowing that he was reciprocating your feelings had you feeling like you were floating.

“i like you,” soobin only parted from your lips to say those words, but even then, his lips were still gently brushing against yours and you could feel his breath on your skin.

everything about that moment was electrifying. it felt like a 4th of july celebration with the sparks flying around the two of you, and when he reconnected your lips together again, you were actually melting. your legs felt like putty and you weren’t sure how much time you had before you lost their support.

“w-wait,” you tried saying but soobin’s lips couldn’t seem to part from yours, “soo, ple… ase.”

stealing a few more pecks, he finally freed you from him.

“sorry,” he shyly smiled.

you let out a chuckle before wrapping your arms around his waist, hiding your face into his chest.

“i like you too.”

[bengals-barnesbabe]

“Thank You TikTok” Masterlist

~ a series of text imagines between you and Joe all inspired by random TikTok videos ~

Started: 12 September 2024

Last Updated: 21 November 2024

˖⁺‧₊˚ ˚₊‧⁺˖✮✮˖⁺‧₊˚ ˚₊‧⁺˖

fluff - 🌞 smut - 🌚 mix - 🌗 angst - ☄️

most popular - 🌙 newest - ⚡️ request - 💫

i. booktok ~ ever since he downloaded TikTok, Joe’s learnt a lot more about his beautiful bookworm 🌗

ii. say high ~ Joe takes part in some recreational activities and tries (and fails) to hide it from those who know him the best 🌗💫

iii. the real afterparty ~ y/n comes across a TikTok of a bride and groom doing a wardrobe change together, so naturally, she asks her fiance his opinion 🌚

iv. happy weight ~ nothing says a great relationship like two people falling in love while getting fat together, well that’s what TikTok says 🌖

v. pay attention ~ cons to working with your man... he's you're a distraction 🌞

vi. come home ~ it’s been a while since you’ve seen your man, so you left him a present🌒

vii. how that shit tastes ~ they say it's a man's drink so you've never tried it, so you ask your man about his drink of choice 🌗

viii. you like that ~ inspired by another TikTok, Joe compiles a list of things he likes about you🌖

ix. babies ~ you tell your husband about your daughter's supermarket antics, and he gets baby fever? 🌖

x. heroes & princes ~ everyone makes mistakes, even great boyfriends but especially if he has Tee and Ja’Marr as friends 🌞

xi. roses ~ you have a new favorite song and a certain TikTok gives you an idea on how to introduce it to your man 🌚

xii. you're enough ~ you and Joe feel losses hard, so you try your best to make him feel better after this one 🌖

xiii. i can fix her ~ you end up on Joe's fyp for the worst reason possible ☄️

xiv. im a fan ~ Joe finds your secret TikTok account in the best way possible 🌖

xv. it's just a trend ~ you participate in a certain dance trend with a song Joe does not like ☄️ 🌖

xvi. hey shawty ~ you watched a TikTok on how to domesticate your boyfriend, let's see how he does ☄️🌞

xvii. treat me ~ despite always receiving royalty treatment from your boyfriend, you decide to tease him with one of your favorite songs🌚

xviii. ruined me ~ Joe ruined you for all men, this is how he reacts when you tell him 🌗

xix. hey daddy ~ in order to keep your relationship fresh, you do what all couples do... send each other ridiculous pick up lines 🌘

xx. boyfriend blindness ~ your boyfriend becomes a comedian, so you have to show him who he's playing with 🌖

xxi. mini gossip girl ~ your daughter comes home and spills everything about her dad's life 🌞

xxii. daddy duties ~ Joe's left alone for more than a few hours with his boys and chaos ensues 🌞

xxiii. mini gossip girl 2 ~ your daughter is at it again, but this time it works out in Joe's favor🌖

xxiv. talkin nonsense ~ relationships should be fun, especially when you both are on the same level 🌘

xxv. speechless ~ you sent your friend Joe some messages that were not for him to see 🌖

xxvi. mini gossip girl 3 ~ 11.27 🌖

xxvii. just friends ~ 11.30 🌗

updates about twice a week🪷

requests to join this series are open! just send me a quote or link to a video and your fav pic of Joe (along with anything else you desire) to be included!

[moamidzyism]

one for the road (h.kk + k.th)

ʚ♡⃛ɞ another tale of boy likes girl... but so does his best friend.

fluff + angst ౨ৎ ୨୧ huening kai x fem!reader x kang taehyun, rockstar!au, college!au, suggestive featuring all members of txt, all of itzy, wonbin from riize, yunjin from le sserafim, ningning from aespa, and huening lea started. sep 1 ended. status. ongoing posting schedule. sundays, tuesdays, thursdays, saturdays [masterlist • reblogs + feedback appreciated]

event masterlist

profiles: protagonists and friends

i. opening sequence ii. it could be fun iii. the battle begins iv. 365 party girl v. lea's fan club and others vi. party animals (written; 749 words) vii. slut acknowledging viii. score! ix. twice as hard x. ayahuasca in bali xi. sucks to suck! xii. the plot thickens (written; 781 words) xiii. round of eight xiv. relationships r hard xv. the most wonderful time of the year xvi. project partners (written; 1122 words) xvii. which could mean anything xviii. busy busy bees xix. crazier things have happened xx. party of the century (written; 2119 words) xxi. xxii. xxiii. xxiv. xxv.

comment or send an ask to join the taglist for this series! fill out this form to join my permanent taglist! author's note: if you saw the first iteration of this series, no you didn't! this is part of my college au series~ also disclaimer: all depictions of any idols in this are fictional, for story telling purposes only. every idol included in this i love and i do not feel negatively about them !

[faeriekit]

Health and Hybrids (XXIV)👽👻💚

[I can't remember the original prompt posters  for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and the prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]

🖤Chapter navigation can be found here🖤 Click to browse previous updates.

💚 Ao3 Is here for all parts 💚 (now featuring mediocre mouseover translations, only available on a computer)

Where we last left off... PHYSICAL!! THERAPY!! LET'S GET TO IT!! *80s aerobics music is piped in from nowhere* Also Flash numbero two was there.

Trigger warnings for this story:  body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) |  my nonexistent attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.

💚👻👽👻💚

“Green one,” the quickfast one says. The masked teenager groans.

Danny looks down at his cards. He’s got a green eight. He drops the card onto the pile, and waits, perfectly aware that the girl is only down to her last two cards. The card flutters vaguely toward the pile on Danny’s bed cot.

He’s sitting with his legs crossed now, he admires. Holy crap. This is what dreams are made of.

“Bruce two,” the teen in the leather jacket demands, slapping down a—Oh, it’s a green 2+ card. It’s take two. Right.

The blonde girl scoffs, but her two cards bloat back up to four. Quickly though, with a little shuffling, the four become three with a green three slapped down on top of the deck.

Everyone is down to only a three or four cards. Danny is sweating through his medical issue tee and shorts.

Danny has not won a single game yet.

Danny really wants to win.

The masked teen (why is he wearing a face mask?? Like…over his eyes?? Not even his mouth??) opens with a new complication: a red three.

The red-haired quick-kid flicks a wild card plus four down with a smirk, pleased to make this Danny’s problem. “Blue, cnytte four!”

Okay, so what is cnytte?? Danny just got used to ‘take’. What is this new synonym. Why is everyone determined to hurt him like this. Why couldn’t these people just use Esperanto.

Whatever. Danny bites his lip and pulls the trigger: wild card plus four. He quickly points to the leather-jacket teen. “R-red. Br-take eight.”

The kid splutters. “Hey! That’s not the riht!!”

That is for sure how he and Jazz used to play it in after-school. The other kids never complained. “Is.”

“No, it’s not??”

Danny sticks his tongue out. The leather-jacket wearer squawks theatrically; it takes the mask-wearing kid thirty seconds to find the official pdf of the rules of UNO, and a new argument is off to the races.

“Atredde!!” the teen demands, snatching the phone out of the masked teen’s hands to show Danny the screen. “Þær, there!!”

“I can’t read,” Danny points out cheerfully. He can read some things, sure, but not when he refuses to look at the phone.

The phone gets closer and closer to Danny’s face, and Danny looks anywhere else—at the ceiling, the floor, and his bed, all without letting the guy point it out to him.

“Atredde,” the guy demands, the glass of his screen mashed against Danny’s cheek. Danny struggles not to laugh. “Atredde, atreddeatreddelooklooklook, you wearg—“

“No aðs, no aðs!!” the only girl of the group yelps, grabbing the spare pillow from underneath herself to start beating him with. Danny’s assailant shrieks. “Do you want to get in trouble with Wonder Woman?!”

“Wonder Woman wolde take my sid!” the teen hollers. Danny ponders if biting him would solve anything for all of two seconds before the doors smack open.

Everyone looks at Diana. Diana looks at everyone.

“I win!” Danny cheerfully announces, and sets off more yelling.

Danny does not, in fact, win anything other than a late lunch. Still, it is enough that he won, even if he has to sit through a gentle, brow-raised scolding as the nurse cleans his port and replaces his stomach-hole bag.

Lunch is a smoothie with powered vitamins and some pain medication mixed in. Life goes on.

For the first time, though, Danny doesn’t eat lunch alone; since he can, like, keep his bed relatively clean now that he isn’t constantly leaking ectoplasm everywhere, there are four teenagers crammed onto his bed with sandwiches, wraps, and sodas of their own. Danny can phonetically pronounce the brands on the side of the can, he notices. He has no idea what they mean, but sometimes the girl in the blonde bob and the too-fast teen will ask him to pronounce them, and they only snicker sometimes.

The teen in the mask makes a noise. “I want a lið. Wha want anything?”

“Nah,” No,” “Na þancs,” all echo.

Danny sucks on his smoothie straw. It tastes like bananas today. Ew; potassium. “What is… lið?”

The teen holds up a can of soda in his ungloved hand. Danny makes a face. He’d love a Mountainous Dunk right now, but gas in his bag…eugh. More trouble than it’s worth.

“No.”

The teen shoots him a pair of finger guns and darts out the door, leaving the rest of them behind to argue over UNO rules in at least two languages and without any expectation of resolving the issue.

Danny peaceably polishes off his smoothie. He’ll have to get the back done again, but eh. As long as no one’s directly looking at the process while it’s going on, he doesn’t super care whether or not anyone’s in the room, per se? Is that weird? Is this weird??

It’s probably weird. But also. Danny has fuzzy memories of roaming the building and leaking goo the entire time he was out and about, so… Suck it, he can do what he wants! He’s sick!! And maybe even dying??

“What is þæt andwlita??” the blonde girl asks, only for the quick-fast teen to poke Danny in what can be assumed to be a grumpy expression. Danny feigns a bite just to be mean. The other teens don’t even pretend to think it’s a threat—the blonde even laughs.

The teenager comes back and sits on Danny’s bed again, mattress barely bouncing as he makes himself comfy. It takes Danny a second to realize that he didn’t come back empty-handed, though—but instead of sodas, the guy brought back a tablet and a weird expression under his mask.

“…Look,” the teen finally says, and flips the tablet onto his lap so that the screen is visible. The teen clicks on a browser, and types in a word Danny isn’t familiar with, and pulls up a stock photo straight out of a photo frame Danny could buy at the craft store. He points to the smiling woman, the man, and the kid in the picture. “Moder. Fæder. Dohtor.”

Danny glances at the photo, and then at the teen. …Okay…?

The teenager bites his lip, and picks a new photo. This one has two men and a child, but it was basically the same. He points to each person as he named them: “Fæder and fæder, and sunu.”

Danny looks at the photo. He looks at the teenager. He looks at the photo again, and the masked teen backs out of the photo he onscreen to pick another one—with a woman and a man crouched around three kids and a dog.

“Moder. Father. Daughter. Daughter. Son.”

Realization breaks over Danny—oh. These are supposed to be families. These are family titles. Huh.

Danny scrutinizes the image. They…you know. They look happy. Danny used to…

…Mom, and…

It hurts too much to look at the photo for long. He knows that it’s fake, and he knows that models just get hired for show, but even the imaginary families hurt. Happy, loving people exist out there in the world.

Danny was in a box. Danny was in a box.

Danny—

The teen makes another noise, and Danny drags his focus out of his melancholy doom spiral with every tooth and claw. He manages. Barely. The masked teenager switches over to a drawing app and pops a tablet pen out of—nowhere, actually? Where did that come from??

The teen hems and he haws and he fills out a stick figure with some red and black clothing details—and a mask, and a bowl cut, which is how Danny figures out it’s a scrappy little self-portrait. It doesn’t look at all like the oversized tee tucked into the teen’s short shorts, but you know, whatever.

Next to him, the dude draws a giant, brick-wall-broad, no-eyed, man-shaped blob with upright pointed ears.

It’s. Uh. It’s sure…something.

“Son,” the teen labels himself, and then draws an arrow to the giant, colorless blob. “Father.”

…Danny squints. Is that normal? To have a huge hulking entity-dad, and then have a short, shrimpy-looking teen waif?

Like you, imaginary Jazz interrupts, since he was thinking about her.

He carefully bats the thought away before it can make him cry.

“My father,” the teenager adds, since Danny probably looks like he’s mostly paying attention. “Stincende.” And then the guy draws a bunch of stink lines coming off of him, just to prove a point.

Danny chokes more than he laughs. The teen’s friends laugh outright, teasing with words that are a little too quick for Danny to parse and snickering under their breath. The masked teen smiles quietly.

“So mean,” the teen in the leather jacket declares, cackling mercilessly. The orange-haired teenager wheezes breathlessly.

“Stincende hlaford of the trask,” the teenager adds mildly, cheerfully without mercy. “Very boring. Very stif. Very grimm.”

Okay, so some of those words were definitely straight-up cognates. Mr. Lancer gave Danny a C in English last semester, but Danny’s going to guess that, based on how their language is pretty much entirely similar, that the stink lines are more of a metaphor than anything.

“Gross,” Danny decides. He’s not sure if the word actually means gross or if it’s more of a medical-trash-and-waste-disposal sort of word, but his audience of four snicker and bump his shoulder and that’s good enough.

“Mmhmm,” the masked teen agrees. He clicks on an eraser tool, enlarges it, and wipes himself clean off the image. In his place, he puts a little white-haired figure in a white medical gown.

…Oh.

Between them, the artist puts speech bubbles, giving both the drawn Danny equal part in the imaginary conversation.

“Talking,” the teenager says without looking at Danny. Eventually, when the speech bubbles are done, he lifts his head. “Yes? No?”

…Is this a request? Is this a demand? Danny fists the sheets between shaking fingers. Nowadays, they always shake at least a little. There are no perfectly still days.

“Have to?” Danny asks, hesitant. It’s a common enough clarifier to use when he doesn’t want to do something. They try to explain what they can to him here, but the language barrier is thick and impenetrable in many places.

“No. He just wants to.”

“…Why?”

The masked teen frowns. He takes the tablet back from his lap and begins to draw something way more complex.

Everyone else slowly works on their food, but the masked teen doesn’t return until he has, from what Danny can tell, a thickly complicated organizational tree chart.

He recognizes a few headshot photos in the middle. The green guy. The human-looking guy in red that Danny does PT with sometimes.

Towards the bottom are the teenagers—both ones Danny does and doesn’t recognize, and some of the teens around him are photographed in different hats and outfits and masks. The quick-fast-red-haired teenager Danny’s come to recognize used to have shorter hair, apparently? Now it’s down to the teen’s neck. Meanwhile, the blonde girl’s got a haircut; her new look has a shaved undercut and a body too short to prop back up into her photographed pigtails.

The guy in the leather jacket looks the same.

…Danny holds up the tablet to compare to the teenager himself, who kindly poses the same way as he does in the picture in the same way: suns out, guns out. Yep. That’s him alright.

At the top of the organizational tree are three people—a dark-haired guy who Danny’s seen in passing, Diana, who is both a superhero and a super-minder, and some scary lookin’ dude who looks exactly like the doodle Danny just saw absolutely smothered in stink lines.

The tablet falls out of Danny’s hands. He’s not mad or anything, but he tends to drop stuff when holding it becomes too much of a burden.

So.

The masked teen’s dad, is, like…one of several bosses. One boss is the person watching Danny at all times, which is…weird. Danny isn’t sure he warrants, like, constant security from a high-ranking super-someone. He mostly just sits around all day. Sometimes he gets his stretches in. Sometimes he gets wheeled out to look at the stars, and then he just…sits some more.

Danny shifts in his seat. So maybe he. Maybe…

…Okay, so even if talking isn’t good, per se, at least maybe he’ll figure something out? Maybe?

Like. Maybe he’ll be able to figure out, like…why he’s here. Why he’s in space. Why they’re taking care of him.

Danny doesn’t look forward to talking. But it’s. Fine.

Probably.

He nods.

“…Yes?” the teen asks again, double confirming that this is what Danny wants. Danny doesn’t want this, but he wants answers, so he nods again, more firmly. But still. Staring. At the sheets underneath him.

“Okay.” The teen opens up a messaging app, and types something into the address bar. “Now? Or later?”

“Later.” Danny’s got to rest and digest lunch first.

“Okay.” The teen types into the tablet with the little pencil. Danny sees verbatim what the masked teen wrote when he turns it around: very literally, “Yes,” and “Later.”

There’s a little spot for Danny to sign his name. The teenager gives Danny his pen.

…Danny just hits the send button and is done with it.

[rollingsins]

all hers, epilogue

part i | part ii | part iii | part iv | part v | part vi | part vii | part viii | part ix | part x | part xi | part xii | part xiii | part xiv | part xv | part xvi | part xvii | part xviii | part xix | part xx | part xxi | part xxii | part xxiii | part xxiv | part xxv | part xxvi | epilogue

summary: Tara and YN try their hand at some healthier habits.

warnings: (+18), Tara is Ghostface, mention of violence. Smut.

word count: 5.3k

a/n: it's been a wild ride. thanks for all who have come along. all hers is over, but I will still be writing gf!tara drabbles in the same universe - maybe some college oneshots in the drabble files. Until then: enjoy the final chapter! :)) 

As the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months, slowly, the pain subsides.

Your normal? It’s potentially forever gone. It shouldn’t be a surprise, at this point.

Once you’d just been a teenage girl, crazily in love with another girl.

Who turned out to be a serial killer. Who’d somehow turned you into a killer.

Who’d made you cry, and laugh and love harder than you’d ever loved in your entire life.

In the grand scheme of things - the scar on your belly is probably the least of your worries.

But that doesn’t stop you toiling on it.

It always seems to be the way, doesn’t it? Worrying about the things that don’t really matter.

You worry nonetheless.

“It’s pretty,” Tara murmurs in comfort when you’re staring at yourself in the bathroom mirror, shirt lifted slightly, eyebrows pinched in dismay.

It’s not pretty.

It’s wiry and long and stems from the tip of your bellybutton down to your navel.

“It’s hideous.” You say, voice a little fraught.

It’s hideous and permanent.

You’ll never be able to wear a bikini again. You’ll never be able to take your shirt off again without being reminded of it.

Of her.

The woman who had tormented you for weeks.

The woman who you’d tormented for weeks. The woman whose son you’d taken from her. The woman who’d repaid you in mental scars to last a lifetime.

A belly scar to last a lifetime.

“It’s beautiful,” Tara says, pressing her lips to your shoulder, “It means you’re alive.”

She squeezes your hips, then lifts her own shirt.

“And it matches mine,” She says, eyes shimmering, “Matching knife wounds. Like soulmates.”

You snort.

Because of course Tara tries to make stab wounds romantic.

But to her credit - it works.

Your heart sings.

Soulmates.

Because that’s what you are.

“Who needs a wedding ring, right?” You say, biting your lip, insecurities suddenly fading.

Tara entwines your hands, lifts the back of your hand to her lips.

“You do,” Tara says, “And you’ll have one. Soon. I promise.”

You pull back.

“Not before-“

“College,” Tara says, rolling her eyes, “I know, babe.”

You press a lingering kiss to her cheek.

“I just don’t want to be one of those couples who rush into marriage and fall apart the moment they turn twenty-one.”

“That won’t be us,” Tara whines, and then she pouts, “Plenty of high school sweethearts get married right after high school.”

You groan.

“Tara, we talked about this already-“

“I know,” Tara says, voice hasty, “I’m just excited. I want you to be Mrs. Carpenter already.”

“Mrs Carpenter, huh?” You say, ignoring the fluttery rush that blooms through you at the thought, “And what if I want you to take my name?”

Tara cocks a brow and considers this.

“I don’t care, babe, I’ll change my name to garden gnome if you want, as long as I get to be your wife.” She says after a moment.

You smile. Squeeze her hand.

“You’d suit it,” You tease, “But Mrs and Mrs Carpenter has a nice ring to it.”

Tara tilts her head hopefully.

“So, maybe a high school wedding?” She asks, voice sly, “Mrs Carpenter would look good on your college application forms.”

You press a warm kiss to her lips.

“There’s no rush, babe,” You tell her, “And I need to save up. Get you a pretty ring.”

Tara squints.

“I’m proposing first,” She says immediately, “You promised, babe.”

You roll your eyes.

“Yes, you baby, I know.”

Tara tilts her head, seemingly satisfied.

You press a kiss to her lips. She’s cured your insecurity, for now.

But a new feeling gnaws at the bottom of your stomach.

Dread.

As you realize what comes next. You try to keep your voice light. Lighter than the heavy pit at the bottom of your stomach.

“Come on,” You say, trying and failing not to sound anxious, “It’s time for therapy.”

-

Dr Colmann is a five foot woman with long, flowing blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.

Her office is bland. Gray walls. Little decoration.

Like she wants your attention on her.

You’d met her first, a few weeks ago. Like a pterodactyl scouting out a potential nest for her baby.

Your situation is tricky - there’s only so much you can tell her.

And you’re no doctor - but even you know surely it’s impossible to diagnose an illness without knowing all the symptoms.

“I want to get something out of the way,” You’d said after a long moment, clearing your throat.

Dr Colmann had looked over at you, pen tilted and ready to write. With all the intimidation of a woman who was about to change your life.

“I’m aware my girlfriend is…” You had paused, trying to think of the right word, “A little… possessive.”

Dr Colmann said nothing.

“I know that, and that’s why we’re looking for help.” You’d bitten your lip, nervous, “And I’m also sure the first thing you’re going to tell me is to leave her. But that isn’t going to happen. I love her. And she loves me. We’re looking for coping methods. I want to help her feel secure. But I will not break up with her.”

Dr Colmann had just listened.

Her silence, if possible, made you all the more nervous.

“She’s not abusive or anything,” You’d clarified, hastily, “She doesn’t hurt me. She just gets… jealous.”

“And what does she do when she gets jealous?” She’d asked, finally breaking her silence.

“Um-“ You’d said, voice a little high. Memories flashed before you like nightmares and you’d been entirely grateful your thoughts couldn’t be seen.

“She lashes out. Not at me. At other people.”

Dr Colmann scribbled something in her notepad. Long, wiry, black inky marks.

You’d squinted, trying to make up the words, but she’d looked back at you before you’d had the chance.

“Do you have any examples?” Dr Colmann prompted.

You paused.

You had a fair few of those.

None of which you could disclose.

“Little things,” You said, “I used to play soccer. But I had to quit because Tara thought some of the girls might become interested in me.”

You chew your lip.

“And… I was just in the hospital. She got jealous of the nurse.”

“The nurse?”

“She tried to… give me a sponge bath and Tara freaked out.”

Dr Colman stared.

You swallowed. The words out loud somehow seemed even more ridiculous than they are.

“How did she freak out?” Dr Colmann asked.

“She tried to…” You swallowed again, “She didn’t want the nurse to touch me again. Not even to change my bandages.”

Dr Colmann pursed her lips.

“I told her that was stupid,” You’d said, hurriedly, “But when she gets like that, nothing can stop her. She calls it The Rage.”

Dr Colmann tilted her head.

“The Rage?”

You’d nodded.

“Yeah. It’s like… it’s like something takes over her. Like a demon or something. Something she can’t control.”

Dr Colmann had closed her notebook. She’d looked over at you, surveying. You’d blinked back, eyes wide, surely screaming help me, or something to that effect.

Then, she smiled.

“When can I meet her?”

-

You’re no less nervous the second time.

You greet Dr Colmann with a tight smile, draw Tara down into the seat next to you. Your knee bobs up and down, unable to quell the tide of anxiety rising deep within you.

Please, you think, a little desperate, please help her.

As Tara and Dr Colmann exchange pleasantries, you blink. Too many times.

Like you don’t know how this is going to go. The worst case scenario flashes before you: Dr Colmann in a body bag.

Tara in a jail cell.

You in a jail cell.

Never able to touch her, or hold her, or kiss her ever again.

You need therapy, the little voice in your head leers, judgmental, not being with Tara is worse than a woman dying?

“So, Tara,” Dr Colmann says, when you’re all seated. With all the cheeriness of someone who isn’t aware you’re imagining her as a corpse.

“Tell me about The Rage.”

An awkward silence settles over the three of you.

Tara shoots a hesitant look towards you.

You squeeze her hand and nod.

Then, she looks over to Dr Colmann.

“It’s an anger thing,” Tara mumbles, not looking her in the eye, “I’ve seen shrinks before, none of them can fix it.”

Dr Colmann tilts her head.

“And what did these other doctors do?” She asks, “Anger management classes? Medication?”

“Both,” Tara says, “Nothing ever worked.”

Dr Colmann hums.

“I’ve read through your file, Tara,” She says gently, “Fourteen different therapists across the state. That’s a lot of doctors. Especially for such a young girl.”

Tara assesses her. Her face is tight, guarded. Like she’s not sure if she can quite trust her.

Dr Colmann scribbles something in her notepad.

“Lots of kids have problems with anger,” Says Dr Colmann, “But anger is just a symptom, like any other emotion. From what YN has told me, anger isn’t the problem. Sharing is the problem.”

Tara frowns.

“Plenty of children have issues with sharing,” Dr Colmann continues, “Usually, it’s the parents who stamp it out. But not always. I see in your file your sister used to bear the brunt of most of these anger issues.”

Tara folds her arms.

“Not always,” She says.

“But most of the time,” Says Dr Colmann, pointedly. She squints, reading through her notes, “It says here you attacked your sister when you were four years old because she tried to play with one of your Barbie dolls. Then again, later that week for taking a bigger slice of pie.”

“Four year olds are allowed to have boundaries, aren’t they?” Says Tara, defensively, “That Barbie was mine.”

“And YN? She’s yours too?” Asks Dr Colmann, evenly.

Tara blinks.

“She’s my girlfriend.” Tara says, diplomatically. The question is a trap, one she’s determined to avoid.

Dr Colmann tilts her head.

“And you don’t like when other people play with her? Is that right?”

Anger flickers through Tara’s features. You bite your lip, and squeeze her hand. Try to keep her grounded.

“I suppose not.” Says Tara, voice tight.

“YN told me about the nurse,” Dr Colmann says, “And the soccer team. You made her quit? Why?”

Tara looks over to you, a little helpless.

“I didn’t make her quit,” She says, slowly, like she’s being very careful with her words, “I just… suggested it. Strongly.”

Dr Colmann makes a noise of dissatisfaction.

Then returns to madly scribbling on her notepad.

Tara frowns again, looking self-conscious.

Dr Colmann looks up.

“And what if someone on the soccer team had been interested?” Dr Colmann asks, “What would you have done?”

You avert your gaze.

Kill them, is the answer.

It’s already happened.

More than once.

Tara shifts.

“I wouldn’t like it.” Tara says.

“No reasonable person would like that, Tara,” Dr Colmann prods, gently, “But what would you do?”

“I don’t know,” Says Tara, sounding aggravated, “Not let her see them anymore.”

“And do you think that’s an appropriate request?” Dr Colmann asks, “Do you really think you should have control over who your girlfriend associates with?”

Tara narrows her eyes.

“YN would do it for me,” She says, “We’re in a relationship. Relationships are about compromise.”

“That isn’t compromise, Tara,” Dr Colmann says, gently, “That’s you demanding she do something and her complying. Do you not trust her?”

Tara blinks.

She looks over to you, then back to Dr Colmann.

“Of course I do,” She says, voice soft, “It’s other people I don’t trust.”

“And what do you think these other people are going to do?” Dr Colmann asks.

“I don’t know.” Tara says, voice small, as if she’s never really thought that far ahead.

She looks like a little lost puppy. You want to wrap her in your arms and tell her you’ll never talk to anybody else again if that’s what she wants.

You resist.

Healthy wife, happy life, is what you tell yourself instead.

Dr Colmann’s face washes with sympathy.

“Jealousy is pointless, Tara,” Dr Colmann says, voice gentle, “Worrying is pointless. If YN is going to cheat on you, she’ll cheat on you. If she’s going to leave you, she’ll leave you. There’s nothing you - or The Rage can do about it.”

Tara blinks.

“I-“ She says, as if Dr Colmann has just spit in her face “What?”

Dr Colmann sits forward in her seat. Her notebook discarded.

“What you need to do - is trust. Your girlfriend loves you. Clearly. She wouldn’t be here with you if she didn’t.”

Tara frowns.

“You’re afraid of losing her,” Dr Colman says, eyebrows knit, as if Tara is a particularly difficult puzzle she can’t quite get her head around, “But why? We’ve already established she loves you. She wouldn’t be here with you if she didn’t.”

Tara blinks. You soothe a finger across the back of her hand. Resist the urge to press a kiss to her pretty forehead.

You let the doctor do the work.

“Have other people you loved left you, Tara?” Dr Colmann prods, gently.

Tara’s shoulders tense.

Dr Colmann waits a moment.

“Who?” She asks, "Your Mom? Your Dad?”

“Both.” Tara says, voice small, “They both left me.”

Your heart aches.

If you could - you’d sucker punch the two of them right now.

It isn’t an option. Instead - you grip her hand tight, offer her a small smile of encouragement as she speaks.

Tara swallows.

“My Dad tried to fix me,” Tara says, “For years. I was an angry kid. They could never figure out what was wrong with me. Eventually he just… gave up. He walked out on me and My Mom and my sister. Left us, just like that.”

“That must have been very traumatic,” Says Dr Colmann, “How old were you?”

“Thirteen.” Says Tara, “My Mom never left. I mean, she did. She threw herself into work to cope with my Dad leaving. She started going on these long business trips. But she never officially left.”

Dr Colmann offers her a small smile, “And that’s why you get so jealous, is it Tara? You’re afraid YN will leave you? Like your Mom? Like your Dad?”

Tara hesitates.

She looks down at her hands.

“Yes.” She says, after a long moment.

“Baby,” You say, voice hushed. Tara squeezes your fingers.

Dr Colmann hums.

“That makes a lot of sense, Tara,” She says, her voice kind, “That gives us something to work with.”

She closes her notepad, offers the two of you a reassuring smile.

“Your anger - we can work through that. We can figure out some coping methods. But the main problem here isn’t anger, Tara. It’s trust. I know you said you trust YN but you’re still scared. Deep down you’re scared she’ll abandon you, just like your parents did. We need to work through that.”

“Is it something we can fix?” You ask, a tad desperate.

You’d lost count of the amount of times you’d promised Tara you’d never leave her.

And each time it seemed to fall on deaf ears the moment The Rage was invoked.

“We can try,” Dr Colmann says, “I can try. And it’ll take some hard work. But Tara, it’ll only work if you’re open to it. If you’re open to changing. Is that something you can do?”

Tara thinks for a moment.

And then she nods.

“Yeah,” She says, “I want to do it. I want to be different. For you, babe,”

She squeezes your hand. Thinks hard.

“And for me too."

-

You’re silent the entire way home.

Tara too.

She grips your hand so hard you think it might fall off at one point. It’s only when she pulls into the driveway, she speaks.

“I didn’t scare you off, did I?” She asks, chewing her lip as she looks over at you, “With all my… problems.”

“Never, baby,” You say immediately.

You lean over to kiss her cheek. She relaxes.

“I’m going to need a lot of therapy, aren’t I?” She says, sounding worried.

You press another warm kiss to her cheek.

“I’ll be with you the whole way,” You assure, “I'm not going anywhere, Tara.”

You hesitate.

“You know I’m not like your Dad, right?” You say, “Or your Mom. I’m not going to leave you.”

Tara offers you a small smile.

“I know, babe,” She says, “At least in theory, I know.”

You press a kiss to her lips.

“I guess I’ll just have to remind you then,” you say, “Everyday. I love you. You’re stuck with me. I’ll say it until you believe me in theory and in practice.”

Tara rests her forehead against yours.

“Okay,” She says, “And keep saying it after that, okay babe?”

You kiss her.

“Deal.”

-

Your Mom’s still in the hospital.

Her leg had been amputated after the attack, and the procedure hadn’t been easy on her or your Dad. She’d come home after two weeks and then been admitted once more when the wound became infected.

“Are you feeling okay?” You ask her now, chewing your lip, phone pressed to your ear.

Tara finishes up the dishes, setting down the washcloth to nestle in beside you, squeezing your hip comfortingly.

“I’m okay, sweetheart,” She says, “Will you come and visit tomorrow?”

“I’ll be there,” You promise, “Sam is going to pick us up after school.”

“And everything’s alright at the house?” Enquires your Mom.

You were staying at Tara’s place until your parents came back home, a decision that was quickly agreed on, for once.

“Everything’s fine, Mom,” You assure, “Sam’s working now, but she’ll be home in a couple of hours.”

Your Mom hums.

“And Tara’s there with you, isn’t she?” She asks, sounding a little worried, “You’re not alone?”

“Tara’s here,” You say and Tara kisses the back of your neck, “You don’t have to worry, Mom.”

“Is that Tara?” Asks your Dad through the phone, a little gruff, “Can I speak with her?’

“Dad wants to speak to Tara, YN, bye for now,” Says your Mom, “See you tomorrow.”

You barely get out the goodbye before you hear your Dad’s voice once more.

“Tara?” He asks.

“It’s me Dad,” You say, and he makes a noise of vague disappointment.

You roll your eyes.

“We’re fine, thanks for asking.” You say.

“Yes, yes, I heard you speak with Mom,” He assures, “Put Tara on the phone.”

You hand off the phone to your girlfriend and pry yourself out of her grip, busying yourself with playing the leftovers into their containers.

“Hello, Sir,” Says Tara, the way you might speak to the President.

She bobs her head, eyebrows knitting.

“Yes, I did see the 49ers play.”

You huff.

Tara averts her gaze.

“Yes, I did think they played like a bunch of seven year old girls.”

You roll your eyes once more.

Tara’s newfound friendship with your Dad is better than the alternative, at least. You’d lived the alternative.

It hadn’t been much fun.

“We’re okay,” Tara promises, suddenly, “I have every door locked down, alarms set and cameras operating.”

Your Dad murmurs something down the line you can’t hear.

Tara smiles, and then reaches for your hand.

“I’m not letting her out of my sight, Sir, you don’t have to worry,” She says, “I won’t let anyone hurt her. I promise.”

She hangs up not long after.

You should be used to it by now, the flutter in the pit of your stomach every time she gets protective, or calls you hers, but you’re not.

Butterflies cascade through your belly, branching out to the tips of your fingertips where they settle. You curl in around Tara and press your lips to her neck.

She smells good. No perfume, just the tinge of her skin and her coconut body wash.

You squeeze her hips and nip your teeth against the nape of her neck.

“Oh.” Tara sighs as you slip your fingers into the waistband of your jeans. She leans back into your touch, titling your head to capture your lips.

“Really?” She asks, a little excited.

You laugh.

You’d not had sex in a few weeks, hardly in the mood. Your wound aches most days, and the rest are spent really remarkably unsexy, despite Tara’s constant reassurance you’re the most beautiful girl in the world.

She turns in your arms, pressing another kiss to your lips.

“Sam won’t be home for hours,” You murmur against her lips, “Just you and me. The way it should be.”

“Your stomach doesn’t hurt?” She asks, a little soft. Her eyes swim with concern, “We can just watch a movie, if you want?”

You shake your head.

She looks good. Her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. No makeup, her spill of freckles poignant, her pretty lips pouty and red and kissable.

“I want you, baby,” You murmur, nuzzling your nose to the side of her face, “Do you want me too?”

You don’t have to wait long for a response.

She presses a searing kiss to your lips.

“Do you even have to ask?” She says, biting her lip.

“No,” You smile, “But I want to hear you say it anyway.”

“I want you,” She says, immediately. She’s excited again, you can tell by the way her eyes flicker, “I want you all the time.”

“Come take me then,” You murmur against her mouth.

She doesn’t have to be told twice.

She leads you up the staircase, walking backwards. Her mouth fused to yours, her careful hands roaming every span of skin she can get her hands on.

She helps you onto the bed, far gentler than her usual gig of wild hands and wild lips. Instead, this time she touches you as if you might shatter into a thousand pieces.

You make an annoyed murmur as she pulls your jeans down your legs. It feels like an age, the way she softly untangles the button and the zipper. Her touch is light, so un-Tara.

When she finally pulls your legs from your jeans, you almost cry out of frustration.

“Babe, I’m not going to break.” You tell her, but it falls on deaf ears.

She’s pressing her lips to your thigh, tiny, gentle touches as she pulls your underwear down your legs at a pain-stakingly slow pace.

“Don’t rush me, babe,” She says as you reach down to help her, “And lie back. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I feel fine,” You say, tilting up to meet her kiss, “Please hurt me.”

Tara huffs, drawing back slightly.

“It’s not fair to say things like that when you know I can’t.” She pouts, “The things I want to do to you will almost certainly rip your stitches.”

Arousal coils deep in your belly.

Then annoyance.

“Now who's not being fair?” It’s your turn to pout.

Tara nudges her lips to your neck.

“I’m going to make love to you, baby-girl,” She promises, her eyes dark, “That’s more than fair.”

You tilt your head up and press a lingering kiss to her lips.

“Besides. If I rip your stitches I think your Dad will have something to say.”

You wrinkle your nose.

“Let’s not talk about my Dad when we’re getting naked, babe,” You suggest.

She hums in agreement.

And then you reach for her shirt.

“Off.”

If she’s going to spend the entire evening getting your underwear down your legs, the least she can do is give you something to look at, you reason.

Your touch is impatient.

You pry off her jeans like there’s a time limit. Strip her of her shirt and her bra until she’s hovering naked above you, making your mouth water.

And suddenly, what little patience you had left is gone.

You rise up, starling her.

“Babe-“ She protests, but you can’t be reasoned with.

You tilt her around, until she’s lying back on the mattress, nudging her bare legs apart with your thighs.

“Too slow, my turn.” You murmur.

Your lips are hungry.

You kiss her, fierce, groaning slightly as your hands get to work. They work down the curve of her hips, to her thighs. You squeeze her, a little rough, and then move your hands to take her nipples between your fingers.

She gasps, her hips involuntarily jerking up towards yours. You detangle yourself from her lips, leaning down to press hot kisses against her neck.

She threads her fingers through your hair, tugging, tugging, as she moves against you. She’s still holding back, being careful not to touch your stomach.

You can tell by the way she’s groaning it’s hard for her.

And so you make it easy.

Your lips move down from her neck to her breasts. You circle each nipple once, then twice, before you’re taking her in your mouth, curling your arms around each of her thighs.

“Baby,” Tara murmurs, “Baby, your stomach-“

You release her nipple with a wet pop and a frown.

“I’m fine, babe.” You say, and it’s true.

It aches, slightly, but it always does nowadays. No matter what you’re doing.

And if it’s her you’re doing, at least the ache is dampened by the forest fire of arousal surging through your veins.

You return to your pilgrimage down her body.

Your lips graze her belly-button, your tongue slips down over the jut of her hips to the crest of her thighs.

She sighs, seemingly satisfied as you slip down further. Moving your body to settle nicely in between her legs.

Then, she tilts her head up, biting her lip.

Her eyes are hesitant, though encompassed with want.

“Tell me if it hurts,” She says, “Tell me and we can stop. Or…re-adjust.”

You nod, impatient.

“Alright babe, I will,” You say, raising an eyebrow, “Can I go down on you now?”

Her cheeks flush red with arousal.

“Please.” She whispers.

She’s beautiful, as ever.

You press your lips against the soft skin of her inner thighs, grazing your lips just gently. You use your tongue to work your way inwards.

Your breath catches in your throat the moment you taste her. Wet, syrupy, bittersweet goodness.

You lick it up, greedy for more. You press your lips to her folds, use your hands to spread her open for you. You lose control of your tongue.

One minute you’re ready to tease, the next, you’ve worked yourself up too much.

Your tongue moves hot across her folds and then down to her entrance. Your top lip brushes her clit and she sings.

A low moan that vibrates through the room.

A moan that indicates it’s been far too long since you’ve touched her like this.

You apologize with your mouth.

Low strokes of your tongue at her entrance. The quiet murmur of your own moan as your tongue moves up to circle her clit.

Lazy, slow, movements.

Then fast.

Like you’re changing your own mind too quickly.

You settle for writing words with your tongue.

babygirl, is what you spell out against her clit.

Your name. Her name. You connect them with a heart.

And then: mine.

Tara lets out a quiet moan as you take her clit between your lips. Sucking gently until her thighs are gripping like iron bars around the side of your head and her nails against your scalp bruise.

You give up on using the alphabet.

You slip two fingers inside her, sighing as she encases you. She’s tight and wet and begging for more.

You give it to her.

Curl your fingers up in just the right way. Lap your tongue over her clit just the way she likes.

And then she’s gasping as she tightens around you. She cries your name in a breathy moan as she cums hard around your fingers and mouth.

It’s always over too quickly, you think briefly as you reluctantly slip out of her. You need to learn patience. You need to learn how to tease.

But there’s something about her, and you don’t know how she does it. You just have to give her what she wants.

She lets out a happy sigh as you climb up her body and press your lips to her forehead.

She’s still a moment, but you know better. She recovers quickly.

In less than a minute she’s shifting.

You groan as your back hits the mattress.

Her hands slip down to your thighs, gripping you like she has an agenda. And she does. You know it by heart.

First, the gentle touch of her lips against your neck.

Then she’s sliding your underwear down your legs.

She kisses your lips, slips her tongue into your mouth for only a moment. And then she’s trailing kisses down your body.

Your chest. Your breasts.

She pays special attention to your nipples. Her eyes locking with yours as she sucks, ever so gently.

Your body feels hot.

You grip her face, holding her in place.

And then she’s nudging out of your grip, dipping down to press her lips to your navel.

She doesn’t kiss your scar, but you can tell she wants to.

She looks up at you, eyes wide and vulnerable as she squeezes your hips.

“You’re beautiful.” She murmurs. She ducks down and presses a kiss to the top of your inner thigh, “You’re perfect. My perfect girl.”

“Tara,” You say, voice a little gravelly, “Baby, please.”

She doesn’t make you wait.

One moment she’s pressing her lips to your thigh. The next, she’s dipping down between your legs. You lean back onto the pillows with a sigh.

Her lips graze.

She kisses your inner thigh.

Drags her tongue over your entrance and you gasp.

Then, her lips are on your clit.

You moan as she snakes a hand around your waist. The other slips between your legs. She teases for only a moment before she’s slipping her fingers inside you. You gasp at the sudden intrusion.

It’s not as though you’re not ready for it.

You’re so wet you’d give her a snorkel if she wasn’t such an experienced sailor.

But she rides your high seas like it’s her full time job.

Lips on your clit, fingers working in and out. She squeezes your hip with her free hand. Her talented mouth is like fire. Dancing around just where you need it most.

You close your eyes and let out a low moan.

She’s being careful.

Gentle.

Loving you like she doesn’t want to hurt you.

You take back the impatience. You take back the need for more, more, more.

Your sweet, loving girlfriend is all you need.

Gentle mouth. Careful tongue.

Her between your legs, working you into oblivion like sex is just a vehicle to express how deeply she loves you.

“Tara.”

You cum with her name on your lips. Her mouth fused around your lips. You cum feeling safe and wanted and needed.

And when she’s done, she climbs back up your body and presses the softest kiss to your lips.

Nestles herself with her head in your chest. Right next to your heartbeat.

Where she should be.

You close your eyes once more.

Thread your fingers through her hair. Press the softest of kisses to her forehead.

And then she looks up at you, her pretty brown eyes shimmering.

“Love you.” She murmurs. She punctuates her words with a kiss.

Your chest is heaving. You allow yourself the moment. Body thrumming with your orgasm, the love of your life pressed tight to your side.

Tara curls into you. She waits a moment, then looks over at you,

“I’m going to be better for you,” She murmurs, “I’ve put you through hell, baby, and I know that. But it all ends now.”

You frown.

“I’m in heaven with you, no matter what you’ve done,” You say, after a quiet moment, “After what we’ve both done. Right or wrong, I love you. And you love me. And that’s all that matters.”

Tara tilts her head to yours.

She takes your lips in a long, searing kiss.

She says what she can’t with words.

You say it too.

And when you pull back, you know she understands.

She’s yours.

And you are undeniably, irrefutably, entirely:

All hers. 

[solecize]

  ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ  𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 | 𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐤𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘. every summer on your grandpa's farm was real-life magic to your younger self, who left a piece of her heart in amber valley when the years went on and the town became nothing but a faint childhood memory. soon enough, you become rocked by his death and realize the dead end in your bustling city world. this leads to you making an abrupt decision. despite knowing nothing but designer purses and the corporate ladder, you uproot your entire life to take over your grandfather's old farm in the town you were desperately trying to remember - alongside a familiar face from your youth that permanently finds his way into your heart. 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: jungkook/reader 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒. inspired heavily by stardew valley, friends to lovers, childhood friends, cowboy jungkook, small town alternate universe, slice of life, grief, growing up, mutual pining, jungkook as a parental figure 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓. 9k 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒. i don't even know what to say. i normally don't talk a lot and i'm mostly very unserious, but this is the last chapter of the farmouse and honestly, i'm super emotional about it. i'm really grateful for those of you who took the time to read and support this fic, every kind word has meant everything to me. i wrote this fic during a tough time when i needed warmth and joy, so i hope that this fic was able to bring even just a little bit of that for you while reading. (the writing of this chapter was quite literally delayed because my three year relationship ended midway through lol) this was also my first piece of writing in years and it's safe to say that i was able to fall in love with writing again because of this fic, so it'll always hold a special place in my heart. thank you times a hundred again <3 

part ten: the midsummer festivalㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ   ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ   ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ  ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ   previous. epilogue. masterlist

  xxiv. the midsummer festival

squeezing through bodies in the stands, it took all of your focus to not drop the popcorn and drinks wedged in your arms. you should have asked someone to come with you, but you were in such a rush, not wanting to miss a thing. finally, you made it to your seat, plopping yourself in between jiwon and yoongi, and your eyes remained fixed on the lawn the entire time.

  amber valley had the most beautiful days you’d ever laid eyes on and today was no exception. you weren’t sure if it was because of the natural charm in the sleepy town or a biased sense of nostalgia towards the countryside that you carried. the midsummer festival was held at the peak of the season, where humidity was as thick as honey and not a single cloud escaped being casted away from the cerulean of the sky. you had no choice but to throw on a tank top and shorts because anything else would feel like suffocation.

  “i didn’t miss anything, did i?” you didn’t mean to scream, but there was no other way for your voice to beat the crowd amongst yourselves.

  jiwon shook her head, her hair splaying from underneath the baseball hat that she so obviously stole from her brother. “no!”

  the show-jumping competition was one of the newest additions to the fair and it proved to be one of the most popular. not only did the majority of the town come out to observe, but the fair also drew in an impressive number of visitors from elsewhere - some of which attended the fair specifically to watch the show-jumping. 

  “LETS GO KOOKIE!” screamed hoseok at the top of his lungs, holding up a customized poster board with a printed picture of jungkook and leo, depicting the words ‘go jungkook!’

  yoongi groaned, “can you sit down? they haven’t even finished setting up for the jump-off yet.”

  at this point in the competition, it was down to jungkook and another competitor, a man a few years younger named yesung. up until now, they both achieved the same score after the round performance and both cleared nearly perfect showings. the jump-off was a shortened course with tighter turns and higher jumps, intended to break the tie and determine the winner.

  the crowd began cheering when jungkook and yesung reappeared, standing and waiting for instructions. you found jungkook adorable in his outfit, a dark green show jacket and breeches that emphasized his leg muscles. you had to catch yourself from staring too hard at his thighs because it seemed like yoongi caught you, waving a hand in front of your face with a snicker. you only glared at him.

  it was mayor kim with the microphone, explaining the rules to the crowd. “and, to decide the order for performance, we have conducted a random draw. as a result, we will see. . .choi yesung go first!” he proclaimed, eliciting another round of cheers from the crowd.

  from where you stood, you noticed jungkook naturally relax his shoulders. for that, you also breathed out a sigh of relief. he stepped away to where leo was, making way for yesung to complete his round.

  when it was time to begin, everyone rose to their feet. from what you saw and heard of yesung, he was also a well-seasoned equestrian. he wasn’t as decorated as jungkook, but he had the advantage of winning the last show-jumping competition in the spring. you didn’t realize jungkook was out for vengeance, but he was indeed looking to reclaim his name.

  every fraction of a second mattered in the jump-off round and so, your eyes were glued. the pressure was on and you watched yesung charge ahead. he decided to take some risky turns, likely to shave off time. the first one was executed perfectly and you nearly jumped at the second, challenging turn. it was not calculated well, as it resulted in a rail down at the penultimate fence.

  “oh shit!” one of the boys yelped, watching the unfortunate accident. 

  yeung finished the course at a respectable, but flawed time. it was shame, since his speed and ability could have easily secured a victory. he knew it, too, judging by the disappointment in his eyes. you almost felt bad for him, if it wasn’t jungkook off to the side and gearing up for his turn.

  now, it was jiwon screaming as loud as she could. “YOU CAN DO IT!” she screeched, cheering for her brother and you joined in. 

  already mounted on leo, jungkook looked up, right at your section. he gave a small wave and you all went wild - even mrs. oh, who brought her own sign to cheer him on. you guys weren’t the only ones, though, as it seemed that jungkook was a favourite amongst fans.

  “jeon jungkook, jeon jungkook, jeon jungkook,” chanted the boys and you weren’t sure who started it, but you also began chanting, too.

  he readied himself and at the sound of the horn, blasted off. the tensions were thicker, with the stakes at hand and the pressure on a seasoned competitor looking to re-establish himself. you couldn’t imagine the weight of the crowd under the beating of the july sun, considering the heat made you already down your water bottle by the first hour of the competition and were in half the clothing jungkook was in. between you and jiwon was a shared usb handheld fan, as the two of you silently took turns holding it - eyes too glued to the show and shouting jungkook’s name.

  he was fast and sharp, yet every movement of his was so well thought out. at full force was a risky approach, but was so far bearing perfect results. you felt your heartbeat getting louder and louder, making your head pound with adrenaline. the last few seconds, the world became quiet and all you could focus on was jungkook. then, the eruption snapped you back into reality.

  “LET’S GOOO!”

  if someone was somehow not on their feet watching the final round of the show, they certainly were now, as jungkook zoomed to the end with no flaws and an incredible time. even you had to blink a few times, trying to see the time recorded clearly and realize your eyes were not deceiving you.

  “there’s no way that’s not a record!” you heard jimin exclaim and you didn’t doubt him.

  there was a hushed murmur over the crowd, as mayor kim stepped to the podium once more. tapping the microphone a few times, you and the rest of the crowd winced at the feedback that came with it. then, mayor kim spoke.

  “ladies and gentlemen. . .” he begun, loud and clear.

  jungkook was still catching his breath to the side, having yet to even take off his helmet. all eyes were peeled on mayor kim, as he took an extra pause for dramatics. if you weren’t also about to jump right out from your skin, you’d roll your eyes.

  “. . we have a winner AND a record setting time. jeon jungkook, young man, please join me on this stage.”

  no longer holding your breath, you roared along with your friends and the earth practically rumbled. jungkook’s smile was as bright as the day, as he whooped in response and raised his fist in the air. you were filled with nothing but joy. 

  before he stepped up onto the stage, jungkook displayed his integrity by walking towards yesung and enthusiastically shake the other man’s hand. yesung didn’t look too upset, more bewildered at the quality of performance that his opponent put on. they exchanged words, smiles reaching their eyes.

  “that’s my brother!” screamed jiwon, as if no one knew the obvious.

  jungkook then took mayor kim’s hand in one and attempted to balance his new, golden trophy with the other arm. in a split second, your friends, jiwon, and the oh family began filing out of the stands and you could hear hoseok yelling for you to follow. you widened your eyes, shuffling out of your seat as quickly as possible.

  of course, jiwon was the fastest and made it to the lawn first. she squealed, as jungkook embraced her in a hug and spun her around. the cheers didn’t falter and only grew when namjoon and taehyung momentarily put jungkook on their shoulders.

  you trailed behind everyone, nearly stumbling on your way down. you couldn’t see much, tiptoeing as far as you could. the chatter was still loud, but then the small crowd parted as you heard jungkook call out. it was your name. he was calling for you to come to the front.

  “oooooh,” someone said, but you ignored it.

  there was no doubt in your mind that your cheeks were a cherry red, but you refused to look anyone in the eye - even jungkook. you and your friends gathered around the podium with jungkook, as the event photographer asked you to move closer for a picture. everyone made way for you, as jungkook gestured for you to be the one on his right side, while jiwon and mrs. oh were on his left. 

  “congratulations,” you finally said, straining for your voice to be heard over the cheers. you still did not meet his eyes, finding yourself in a kind of shyness that was unknown to your normally headstrong personality.

  that was something that came natural to jungkook, having an innate ability to bring out parts of you that you didn’t even know existed. before moving back to amber valley, you walked around with your chin up, thinking that you knew everything you needed to know. 

  now, at 25 years old, you knew harvesting soybeans and playing cards at the local pub with your new friends. you knew the smell of the ocean in the sweltering summer and you knew riding horses in sunflower fields at sundown. looking at jungkook, you knew what it was like to be slowly, but surely, swept off your feet. the realization creeped up on you, a sneaky little thing.

  namjoon was the one holding onto leo, as your group huddled together for the picture. you instinctively hugged into jungkook’s touch, holding them in front of the camera.

  jungkook spoke, right into your ear. “i’m so glad i was able to have this moment with you.”

  that made you finally look up at his eyes and in that moment, a flash went off. this is when you also snapped out of your daze and despite his stare unwavering, you turned back to the photographer.

  “oh, maybe we should take another -” you started, knowing that neither you or jungkook were looking in the camera, but he waved you off.

  “no, no! this picture came out perfect,” the photographer winked at you and asked for everyone to disperse, before you could argue. something told you that you were going to see a picture of you and jungkook gazing into each other’s eyes on the front cover of the local newspaper.

  he proceeded to take a few more solo pictures of jungkook with leo, followed by some shots with the mayor. jungkook was supposed to be kept busy, but he continued sneaking glances your way.

  it was mrs. oh who gently tapped your shoulder. “now’s the time, honey. come to the store quick before he notices.”

  beside her, sangwoo rolled his eyes. “he’s going to notice, he hasn’t taken his eyes off of her.”

  regardless, you scrambled to follow behind mrs. oh. you weaved through the crowd, who all wanted to take a look at their champion in disbelief of the amazing time jungkook scored. the show began relatively early in the day, too, so the streets were only now becoming more and more full with the midsummer festival in full swing.

  the roads were blocked off for pedestrian access only, as the fair was one of the busiest times of the year for amber valley. today was a day that drew crowds from outside of town, as the festival was an adored regional celebration and served as a tourist destination. you wouldn’t be surprised if you were told that the midsummer festival attracted the highest visitors of any other day in the year for the town.

  carnival games, market booths and amusement rides were already set up since the morning and it was already getting tiresome to navigate through the festival goers. but, of course, you were trailing behind the force that was mrs. oh, who made way with ease with her commanding voice. 

  “time to get to work,” she sighed, pulling out a key from her pocket upon reaching the general store.

  you said, “it’s a shame you can’t enjoy the festivities, mrs. oh.”

  “oh, i don’t mind. i’ve lived in this town all my life, i’ve been here, there and everywhere when it comes to the fair,” she mused, unlocking the front door for the two of you. “business is business, the traffic the store will get is more important.”

  a cool blanket enveloped your skin once you stepped in and you were never more grateful for the invention of air conditioning in your life. she was right, though, as you noticed some people nearby the store and already eyeing it.

  “most businesses are closed today, but not us!” mrs. oh smiled, as she turned the sign by the window from ‘closed’ to ‘open.’

  this is how you knew how much jungkook truly meant to mrs. oh. “jungkook is real lucky for you to open late just to watch him,” you said, examining the front counter and spotting a pair of jungkook’s work gloves.

  “the store opens late every time he has a competition. sangwoo adores him and that young man and jiwon are family to us,” mrs. oh mused, seemingly lost in thought, before blinking back into the moment. “ah, don’t mind me. i almost forgot why you’re here, sweetie - the flowers are in the back room!”

  you thanked mrs. oh, following the direction that she pointed towards. jimin called you corny for getting jungkook flowers for your first official date, but you thought it was fitting, given the competition. it was even better with the results of the show and you could only hope that jungkook liked the ones you picked out. you figured that men deserve to get a nice bouquet of flowers at least once, too. 

  the bundle of fresh sunflowers were actually your favourites, but that wasn’t important. you grabbed them from the backroom fridge, wrapped in cellophane and yellow paper. this was when you felt your phone vibrate in your pocket and your eyes widened, hoping it wasn’t jungkook just yet.

  unfortunately, your hopes disappeared, but the text still put a smile on your face - just because it was him at the end of the day.

  are you at the store? i saw you and mrs. oh lol i can be there in a few minutes. 

  you replied yes and came out to wait. the store already had its first customers within a few minutes of opening and mrs. oh was ringing them out. she met your eyes and winked, mouthing some encouraging words to you. 

  with the same smile on your lips, you mouthed a ‘thank you’ to her. 

  although you would have loved to loiter inside the store for the air conditioning, you were already bashful enough from everyone watching you and jungkook at the show and you would have rather met jungkook away from mrs. oh’s nosiness. she was lovely, but she appeared to be one of your and jungkook’s biggest fans and you didn’t want to act awkward, knowing that you were being watched.

  the bouquet was hidden behind your back, as you patiently waited outdoors. you didn’t know what to expect out of your day, but the longer you waited for jungkook, you grew more and more nervous. it was odd, knowing that the anxiety pooling at the bottom of your stomach was because of your childhood best friend. 

  the thoughts were promptly swept away when you caught sight of jungkook approaching you. he changed clothes from his riding gear, sans his favourite dirty boots that remained on his feet, and was now wearing a plain white t-shirt and denim jeans. you always had to take a moment to admire the definition of his muscles and his sharp gaze that left you breathless, but you were distracted this time by the bundle of golden flowers in his grasp.

  jungkook looked a little bit concerned at your expression, as you were stifling a laugh. you almost felt bad, but the sight was too funny for you to ignore.

  “hey - uh, what?” he furrowed his eyebrows at you.

  you revealed the identical bouquet from behind your laugh and he, too, looked dumbfounded. the wrapping and greenery differed from one another, but it was clear that the two of you picked your flowers from the same field by your houses. it was the same field the two of you rode on the past summer and played in as kids.

  “congratulations again for first place,” was all you could manage to say, offering your flowers towards him.

  jungkook finally broke out into a chuckle, shaking his head. “thank you. congratulations, for uh. . “

  “for what? being jeon jungkook’s date to the fair?” you chided, as you took his flowers in your hands.

  “shut up. am i not original or something?” jungkook asked. “like, come on, we got each other the same thing. i’m already failing at this date thing, aren’t i?” he joked.

  you rolled your eyes and flicked his arms. “it’s been, like, five seconds.”

  “ow!”

  “we’re not just on a date today, jungkook. we’re on a mission to win some prizes,” you declared. 

  jungkook tilted his head slightly with a smile growing. “oh, are we?” he paused. “then, am i allowed to hold your hand during this mission?”

  the idea startled you, but you didn’t shy away. nodding without a word, this was the signal for jungkook to pick up your free hand and interlock his fingers with yours. somehow, it wasn’t a moment that sent ringing sensations in your ears nor was it one in slow motion. it was familiar, almost, and felt. . . right. it felt natural, like it was coming home after a long day.

  you leaned in to whisper in his ear, “and thank you for the flowers. you remembered my favourite.” you weren’t even sure how he knew, but you knew that jungkook would only give you a gift with a well-thought out meaning behind them. 

  this time, it was jungkook’s cheeks who reddened slightly. he didn’t say anything else, only squeezing your hand and leading the way.

  ***

  jungkook was tired. you were tired of telling him to suck it up. you had gone two summers in a row without winning a single prize and you were determined to walk away from the fair with at least one thing. albeit, at this point, you ran out of tickets to play games and you knew jungkook had extra, since he received some from his parents, but your grandfather also gave him some. he was your last hope, as you begged him to use the last of his tickets to get you something.

  “hoseok hyung told me these games are rigged. can’t we just go do bumper cars, bunny?” jungkook groaned, as the two of you walked away empty handed from balloon darts.

  you pouted. “no. i just want one of those big charmander stuffies, i know you can win them!”

  “why don’t you play the games?”

  “because i’m bad at them, how do you think i lost all of my tickets so quickly?” you responded, crossing your arms over your chest.

  jungkook grumbled more complaints under his breath, while you forcibly dragged him towards the ring toss booth.

  “hey kids! giving the ‘ol ring toss a try?” beamed the booth attendant, who was the same every year.

  you weren’t entirely sure what his name was, but you and jungkook collectively agreed on calling him “carnival man” and he recognized the two of you each time the festival was in town. though you were about four feet of fury at the time, you had quiet rage against carnival man. you were convinced he cheated you out of getting the xl sized penguin prize last year and you wanted revenge. 

  “kookie will do it!” you exclaimed, smugly pushing your best friend forward.

  “yeah, whatever, kookie will do it,” jungkook rolled his eyes and handed over a single ticket to carnival man.

  carnival man happily took the ticket from jungkook. “it’s nice to see you kids again. you’re always together, huh?”

  “unfortunately,” the two of you said in unison, only for you two to shoot each other identical daggers.

  at this, carnival man guffawed in amusement and gave jungkook his sets of rings. 

  here, jungkook did not win. in fact, he didn’t win you a single thing that summer and you didn’t speak to him for the following day because of it. only a day, though, since carnival man was right - the two of you were always together. you eventually gave in after the first day of silent treatment and showed up to jungkook’s house with your horse, marshmallow, and convinced him to join you by the sunflower fields. he had scoffed, called you stupid, and then without missing a beat, came outside to accompany you.

  ***

  “kookie! and. . .bunny? is that you?”

  carnival man was a lot older than you remembered, but you weren’t sure if it was just the tricks of time playing a game on you. it seemed like everything was so much more youthful and bright in your childhood memories. however, the brightness in carnival man’s smile didn’t falter and it only widened upon laying eyes on you and jungkook. then, his eyes trailed over to your clasped hands together and it widened even more.

  “you remember me?” you gaped, as carnival man took your hand and shook it vigorously. 

  “of course i do! well, i remember the two of you, specifically,” he exclaimed. “i see jungkook here, but i’ll always remember how you two kids came around together every summer! you’re all grown up now!”

  although lines of age creased his smile and streaks of grey contrasted against his black hair, seeing carnival man again made you feel like you were ten years old all over again. the fair seemed so much more larger than life and this moment was one of those moments that reminded you of why you loved summer so much.

  jungkook smiled, “it’s nice to see you, mr. lee.” he appeared to be a bit shy, as the older man was fixated on the sight of you two holding hands.

  it occurred to you that carnival man was never his real name and meeting him as mr. lee felt like a call to the reality in which you were now a grown up. you realized that jungkook continued to see mr. lee at the fair over the years without you and didn’t feel the same rush of nostalgia.

  the only reason why jungkook couldn’t also shake mr. lee’s hand was the abundance of prizes nestled into his arms. the two of you left your sunflower bouquets at the general store - luckily, it was now busy with tourists wanting water bottles or sunscreen and the two of you avoided any gushing or questioning from mrs. oh - and thank god you did because you did not expect to be carrying around so many things. a mini teddy bear, a sheet of temporary tattoos, a t-shirt, some gift cards, and a larger kuromi plush toy that was double the size of your head.

  thankfully, jungkook held onto everything without complaint and remarked that you had no business carrying anything so long as he was there. the funny part was that you two had barely visited all of the games and the only reason why you’d won so many prizes was because you two were competing at each one.

  “and you know i refuse to lose,” jungkook said at the first game, which was a basketball shootout. 

  with the same competitive spirit, the two of you both did very well at each game and walked away with a prize from almost every one. it also probably helped that you were now adults with disposable income and could pay to participate in as many games as you wanted. jungkook had announced that he was ready to make up for his past failrures, never forgetting the summer that resulted in your silent treatment because of his inability to win you a prize. you didn't think that meant struggling to carry around your prizes within the first hour.

  now, mr. lee began setting up the ring toss for the two of you. “so, you moved back to amber valley, young lady?”

  “yes, sir. i’m running the family farm now,” you replied.

  “congratulations, bunny. that’s some hard, honest work, my best wishes to you!” mr. lee said. “you know, i always thought you two had quite a special bond, even at a young age.”

  jungkook avoided eye contact. “mr. lee, you’re kind,” he chuckled, nervously. 

  “i mean it! it fills my heart with joy to see you two here after all these years.” there was twinkle in mr. lee’s eyes as he spoke. “for some people, their universes are stitched together with unseen threads that will always lead them back to where they belong.”

  it was your turn to squeeze jungkook’s hand and neither of you said anything more, only exchanging a look.

  ***

  jungkook wouldn’t stop pouting and you weren’t sure what to do about it. it really wasn’t your fault, you couldn’t help the fact that, like most young girls, you got your growth spurt earlier than your male friend. you were a few inches taller than jungkook at this point and he was deflated to learn that you were tall enough for the rollercoaster, while he had yet to measure up.

  “sorry kid. maybe next year,” the ride attendant gave jungkook a small smile.

  you were disappointed, as well, as you and jungkook had waited nearly thirty minutes in line. all for jungkook to not be able to ride the coaster. you turned to him, who sighed.

  he said, “it’s okay, bunny. you can go on without me.”

  a part of you did want to get on the ride, especially after waiting for quite some time, but you didn’t hesitate to shake your head. 

  “no. i won’t go on without you,” you stressed, to which jungkook looked at you in shock. 

  he shook his head. “no, it’s okay. just go, we waited for so long.”

  “i said i’m not going,” you said, standing your ground.

  instead, you walked off from the front of the line, ignoring jungkook calling your name until he ran up to catch up to you. 

  “hey! what are you doing?”

  “i said i’d go with you. if you’re not there, there’s no point,” you shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “we’ll go next time. hey, wanna go see carnival man and do ring toss?”

  you didn’t wait for an answer, as you made a beeline for the ring toss booth. jungkook jogged up to you and you noticed that he was trying to hide the smile on his face.

  ***

  “jungkook. . .this is the kid’s roller coaster.”

  everyone else in the line was about half jungkook’s size, unless they were one of the parents giving the two of you a dirty look for getting on the kid’s coaster. there was no explicit rule that adults couldn’t ride the rollercoaster, but it was a very popular ride and jungkook had the privilege of cutting the line, as the two of you were given a free “fast lane” pass by mayor kim for being local small business owners.  the fast lane pass was costly and the majority of fairgoers opted to wait in the long lines.

  jungkook didn’t seem to care too much, though. “yeah, so what? you picked the giant swing and said the next ride was my choice.”

  “you’re pissing off the kids,” you whispered in a lower voice, as the attendant let out the last party from the rollercoaster. you guys were up next. “i thought you would want to do the drop tower or something.”

  “you promised me that we could go on the ride the last time we were here. remember, when i was too short?” he casually whistled. 

  “jungkook, that was, like, seventeen years ago.”

  he continued, “and i wrote it for our summer bucket list! you may have never seen it, but i was dying to go on this ride.”

  and that was how you found yourself crammed into a kid-sized rollercoaster at the very front with jungkook. with impeccable timing, it looked as though some of the boys were passing by. seokjin caught your eye first and tapped taehyung’s shoulder beside him, who then got namjoon’s attention.

  “oh my god,” you groaned, watching the three of them wave wildly at you and jungkook. 

  on the other hand, jungkook found this hilarious. he waved back and you covered your blushing face with your hands. you were already embarrassed from the cut eye given to you by the parents in line, now this.

  “have fun, lovebirds!” called namjoon, as seokjin and taehyung proceeded to take several pictures of you and jungkook from afar.

  ***

  “my tooth hurts!” you whined, shoving your cotton candy into jungkook’s hands.

  at seven years old, it was on the later side for you to lose your first tooth. you’d been wiggling it for weeks, but cried when jimin offered to rip it out of your mouth for you. this happened just a few moments ago, before jungkook yelled at him to go back to his mommy. 

  jungkook didn’t seem bothered and was actually pleased to double fist two sticks of cotton candy. “thanks bunny!” he ignored your complaints and happily continued snacking away.

  this was the first year that you and jungkook were permitted to roam around without adult supervision - kind of. as long as you were in vicinity of ten year old hoseok, who was sitting on a bench and playing on his gameboy advance, the two of you were free to play together.

  “this isn’t fair, i’m not allowed to eat anything,” you huffed. your grandfather warned you that any sort of sweet will just hurt and you were better off enjoying other parts of the festival.

  “don’t tell my parents, they said i could only have one cotton candy,” jungkook said, as he observed your sad appearance. “why do you look like that?”

  “like what?”

  “you look sad. it’s ugly on you,” jungkook mindlessly commented and you flicked his arm. “ow!”

  you glared at him. “don’t call me ugly!”

  “i said looking sad is ugly on you. so, don’t be sad,” jungkook replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  when your expression didn’t change, jungkook sighed and looked over to where hoseok was sitting. the older boy’s eyes were glued to his screen and was now joined by jimin, who was cheering him on in whatever game he was playing. then, jungkook turned back to you.

  “what?” you asked.

  “wanna go watch the magician show?” he asked, grinning. “so you can stop being sad.”

  your eyes widened, as you took your turn to look over your shoulder at hoseok. “your mom said to stay nearby! what if we get in trouble?”

  “i dare you to come with me to the magician show,” jungkook countered, knowing that was the secret word that made you do just about anything. you hated the idea of losing dares to jungkook and had yet to do so.

  you knew you were going to get an earful if you left hoseok’s sight, who was supposed to be watching over you. then, you remembered that, earlier that day, hoseok refused to let you play a level of mega man on his gameboy and decided you didn’t care if you got him in trouble.

  “okay! let’s go!” your features suddenly brightened and you let jungkook take you by the wrist - not the hand because, ew, it was jungkook - towards the other end of the fairgrounds. 

  the cotton candy had already been consumed and jungkook tossed the paper sticks into the nearest trash can, as the two of you quietly giggled about your mischievous sneak-away. 

  ***

  unlike jungkook, jiwon had no trouble tracking down her sibling at any given moment, even with the large crowds gathered for the festival. she also didn’t seem to care that her brother was in the middle of a date, as you were the one to first notice that she was dragging sangwoo by the wrist in your direction. 

  “is something wrong, jiwon?” jungkook asked and there was a tinge of annoyance in his voice at the appearance of the younger girl. the two of you were engaged in somewhat of a flirtatious conversation and jiwon’s premise immediately killed jungook’s mood.

  “hi y/n!” she greeted and then she turned to jungkook wearing a sickly sweet smile. “oppa, may i have ten bucks?”

  “i gave you twenty bucks this morning,” he raised an eyebrow at her. 

  meanwhile, sangwoo was in awe of the amount of prizes in jungkook’s arms. “woah! you guys won all of those?” at this point, there was an addition of a frisbee and a stuffed octopus. 

  “i won most of them,” both you and jungkook said at the same time, resulting in a shared glare. 

  jiwon cleared her throat. “so. can i have ten bucks, please? we wanna get cotton candy!”

  “what did you do with the first twenty bucks?”

  “we went on the teacup ride! oh, and we got rice cakes and funnel cake and actual cake,” jiwon explained and went a little too fast, so you didn’t doubt that the kids did, in fact, consume all that sugar.

  it seemed like jungkook also didn’t doubt it and while you knew he wanted to scold her, you were taken aback to find him letting go of your hand to reach for his wallet in his back pocket. he sighed and, as he was still carrying all of your prizes, merely held it out for jiwon to fish a twenty out of. 

  “only because today is the festival,” he warned and muttered a second part under his breath, “and only so you can leave us alone.”

  you also had the same feeling that jiwon and sangwoo were not going anywhere without their ultimate goal, especially since the former seemed to have the same persistence that her brother had.

  “thank you, i love you!” jiwon declared, handing the wallet back to her brother and planting an exaggerated kiss on his cheek. “thank you, thank you! we’ll leave you alone now!”

  the pair scurried off together, as sangwoo also yelled out his thanks. they ran through the crowd together, giggling amongst themselves. when jungkook took your hand again, you were still lost in thought, watching the two purchase cotton candy from far away. sangwoo handed the first stick to jiwon and the two talked with one another, cheerily enjoying their treat.

  “don’t get me wrong, making sure jiwon is eating healthy is important to me, but today’s the fair. it’s special for her and sangwoo like it was for us, might as well let her off the hook for today.” he noticed you watching them and followed your stare. “they’re cute, aren’t they?”

  “they are. how long have they been that close?”

  “since they were born, basically. they’re always with each other,” jungkook shook his head.

  “do you think jiwon has a little crush?” you wondered aloud, as jiwon shoved sangwoo playfully for whatever joke he might have had made. 

  jungkook asked, “did you?”

  he was referring to the two of you as kids, as it was clear that your shared wistful stares at jiwon and sangwoo were a product of looking back at your own childhoods. two best friends that stood by each other’s sides at all times and grew up together. you had to admit, you saw your and jungkook’s reflections when you looked at jiwon and sangwoo. 

  upon hearing the question, you rolled your eyes. “you wish, jeon jungkook.”

  but, you weren’t entirely sure. adults joked that you and jungkook would grow up to marry each other, just from watching you two play chess or ride horses together. there was a magnetic force that naturally stuck the two of you together, from day one. you cared deeply for jungkook before you could have a comprehensive understanding of what it was like to have love for someone beyond your family.

  “pretty sure i had a crush on you. that’s probably why i was devastated when you stopped coming to the valley,” he casually mentioned, but you turned to him in surprise.

  “were you really?”

  “yeah. you were my closest friend.”

  “i’m sorry,” you said. “you were mine, too. i just thought you would forget about me, i guess. then, i don’t know - “

  jungkook cut in, “- we grew up. that’s what happened, it’s okay.”

  that was the reality of life. it was sad to look back on, but it was overshadowed by the incredible forces that brought you and jungkook back together. never, in a million years, would you have ever imagined standing in the middle of the amber valley midsummer festival with jeon jungkook ever again. 

  “ever since i came back, you became my closest friend again. even with all the weird stuff going on between us,” you admitted the last part with the roll of your eyes.

  although you were just teasing, jungkook’s expression turned serious. “hey, i am sorry about that. but, honestly. . . “ he sighed. “like you said, we became close friends again. and so fast, too.”

  “it got confusing, didn’t it?” you asked, looking at your feet. “when things seemed like it could be more, i kept trying to convince myself that, you know, this is just how we are. we’re friends, this is how we act and nothing more.”

  “you read my mind. you really did,” jungkook said, looking at you with a surprised expression. “i think i always knew, though. from the moment i saw you again.”

  you thought back to the first time you met jungkook again. you remembered how soft his hands were and how he managed to make you smile on one of the worst days of your life. that was just jungkook, though, and his way of bringing sunlight into your life, even when it was raining. 

  “i. . .i think i knew, too. but, i thought you just saw me as the little girl who used to play with you in your backyard.”

  he shook his head. “i thought you had so much on your plate. and, well, i’ll admit, i’ve had trouble even considering a love life since becoming jiwon’s guardian. she’s always come first in my life before anything else.”

  “i don’t blame you, i can’t imagine what the past few years have been like for you,” you said. “but, you were a tad bit stupid. let’s be real.”

  jungkook snorted. “yeah, i know i was stupid. believe me, the last thing i wanted to do was fully push you away. my childhood best friend came back into my life and i had to confront that she was now a strong, beautiful and incredibly intelligent woman that i had feelings for.”

  this was the first time that things were finally being said aloud and it was as if a thousand pounds was being lifted off of your shoulders. you were light, you were flying. 

  “but,” he continued. “i also had to confront that you were still my closest friend, the person who i can turn to when things go wrong. you were my friend who i laughed with and shared things with and i couldn’t lose that. i have the guys, but no one compares to how in sync we are.”

  “i know what you mean. we complement each other in this crazy way. . .” you trailed off. 

  mr. lee spoke about destinies stitched together and things meant to be. holding jungkook’s hand felt meant to be in a way that it was just natural. so did laughing with him and making him dinner and letting him do things for you, simply because he didn’t want you to do it by yourself.

  jungkook said, “do you see why i was afraid of this?” he gestured to the two of you holding hands. “if i fuck this up with you, i’ll lose both my girlfriend and my best friend. if i fuck this up with you, i’ll have let you down during a time where you just moved to a whole new town for a job with all these expectations that everyone has for you.”

  “you don’t have to be afraid of those things,” you murmured, gently placing your free hand on his arm.

  “i’m not. not anymore, when the what ifs and the idea of missing out on something good with you is even scarier.”

  suddenly, you took a look around your surroundings. it obviously wasn’t planned, but the two of you were having quite the intimate conversation just across from the face painting booth and the craft stalls. you tugged jungkook into a random corner, where there was a lone chair in between walls.

  “can you put the prizes down for a second?” you asked.

  jungkook was confused. “huh?”

  “can you put the prizes down so i can kiss you?” you commanded, giving him a pointed look. 

  then, he chuckled and without hesitation, placed your various trinkets down on the chair. you rolled your eyes with a smile and jungkook hooked a thumb on one of the belt loops of your jean shorts, using it to pull you closer. he leaned in, placing his other hand at the small of your back.

  jungkook, too, smiled into the kiss and like everything else, it felt natural. it felt like home. you melted into his arms as you always do, softly kissing back. 

  although you could have stood there forever with him, lost in his touch, you had to pull away. “you scared of that?” you raised an eyebrow.

  “shut up man,” jungkook said, but stole a quick peck from you before he let you go from his embrace.

  you thought you would never stand in the middle of the amber valley midsummer festival with jeon jungkook ever again. the world worked in mysterious ways and you were proven wrong. more so, you weren’t just standing with jungkook. you were a woman standing in the middle of the town that built your hopes and dreams. you were standing in middle of the fair that never shook off its magic, even years later. you were standing with the man who made you realize that home wasn’t just a place.

  ***

  it was safe to say that you freaked out when jungkook showed you what he stole from his dad’s tool box. you were so scared that jungkook had to beg you to not snitch on him and even threatened that he would tell your grandfather that you’d been making him help you complete your chores in the chicken coop. 

  “it’s just a pocket knife, bunny.”

  “it’s sharp! you could hurt yourself!” you hissed, stepping a few feet away from him like he had mad cow disease.

  jungkook sighed and ignored you, walking over to where your sitting spot was. this year, the midsummer festival fell on what was easily the hottest day of the summer. the heat wave was unlike any other you’d experienced so far and you were surprised that the fair was still going on. the two of you had completed just under ten minutes at the bouncy castle before you insisted you needed a break.

  the two of you had found a random tree to sit under, as you split an ice cream float to beat the heat. this is when jungkook said he had “something cool” to show you.

  you had no choice but to leave your grumbles under your breath, finding your place beside jungkook since the ice cream float was in his hand. “you’re hogging it all,” you complained and he handed it over to you.

  “are you done freaking out?” he asked.

  “what are you even gonna do with that?”

  it was as if jungkook was waiting for you to ask the question. “this.” he clicked it open and turned behind him, to the lower part of the tree of which you were leaning on. 

  your eyes were wide, as jungkook began scratching away at the wood. the first letter you could make out was “J” and you nervously looked around your surroundings. it didn’t seem like anyone was paying attention to the two of you, occupied with the festivities or trying to not pass out from the sun. 

  jungkook completed a “K” and moved on to slowly carving out your initials. “so we remember today!”

  “it’s gonna be there forever,” you sputtered. “my grandpa says that trees last forever if no one cuts them down. . .so, since our names are there, we’ll be best friends forever!”

  a toothy grin stretched across jungkook’s face. “yeah! we are. we’re going to be best friends forever.”

  ***

  considering jungkook’s victory earlier in the day, several people stopped to congratulate him throughout the afternoon. he was hard to miss and he was also just a generally well-known person around town.

  that was precisely why you were scared shitless that someone was going to recognize either of you committing vandalism. 

  “you’re covering me, right?”

  “i am, but can you hurry up?” you demanded through gritted teeth, trying to look over your shoulder to see if anyone was looking your way without looking suspicious.

  from the unassuming eye, it looked like you and jungkook were merely engaged in conversation. . .but facing the tree. you were sat cross-legged, turned to the tree as if it was another person talking amongst yourselves. instead, you were trying to cover jungkook carving into the wood.

  you shook your head. “i can’t believe our names are still on this.”

  “we did say it would be forever,” jungkook reminded you and if he wasn’t holding a pocket knife in his hands, you would’ve shoved him over.

  you always remembered that your and jungkook’s names lived on the bark of a random tree in town. there was no way you could forget the scolding the two of you received for defacing town property. 

  “what if they notice? we’re adults now, we could get charged for this,” you said.

  “then we say it was always like this,” jungkook concluded and caught your eye. “what? what are they gonna do, tell my mom and your grandpa?” 

  at that, you did let out a laugh. “i can’t imagine what they’re thinking, watching us from up there.”

  then, jungkook clicked his pocket knife close and scooted over on the grass, as he’d been blocking his work from your view the entire time. he made the initials deeper into the wood, ensuring that it wasn’t going anywhere, and added a heart around the letters. once depicting you and jungkook as friends “4ever,” it was now framed by the heart and shifted its meaning altogether. 

  “they likely made a bet about us getting together and the winner is probably rejoicing,” you suspected and jungkook nodded in agreement, snickering under his breath. 

  your hands grazed over the carved design and you thought back to the moment where the two of you first sat under the same tree. 

  jungkook said, “pretty good first date, huh? scammed some booths out of their prizes, pissed off the entirety of amber valley elementary and we vandalized town property.” he looked pleased with himself leaning against the tree and wrapped an arm around your shoulders.

  with your legs stretched out and the crime completed, you were able to relax underneath the protection of the leafy branches. “mhm, definitely a first date that i’ll never forget,” you laughed, placing your head on jungkook’s chest. 

  the two of you bought an ice cream float for old times sake and jungkook brought it closer to you, so that you wouldn’t have to move. it seemed to be a constant - jungkook doing things for you just because. just because he didn’t want you to do it yourself. just because he wanted to do something for you.

  “i have arms, you know,” you joked, but took a sip regardless. 

  he responded, unfazed, “i know.” 

  the smile the two of you shared confirmed your thoughts. whether you were kids and jungkook walked you home every time just because or you were adults and jungkook wanted to spend his whole day fixing your windows just because. that was just how he was always going to be for you.

  “well, do you know that a first date implies that there’s going to be a second date?” you decided to be bold for once, as all your anxieties evaporated when you accepted that jungkook was both your best friend and a person you held feelings for - a coexistence that you realized was possible and even exciting.

  jungkook scoffed. “second date? did you not see the tree, you’re stuck with me forever.” his joke resulted in you playfully hitting his chest. 

  “did you just curse me with some witchcraft on this tree or something?”

  “rock hard, huh?” he asked, ignoring your accusation and was referring to you hitting his chest. “trust me, i know.” jungkook flexed his arm muscles and although he was kidding around, it was quite impressive and distracting.

  “i’m totally objectifying you right now, by the way. i can admit that now, right?” you smirked. “‘cause i’ve been checking you out for months.”

  at that, jungkook genuinely appeared to be a bit sheepish, his ears first turning pink like they always do. “drink your float, man,” he insisted, using it as a tool to shut you up. you nearly choked from holding in your laugh as you took another sip, which made him laugh, too.

  you sat up slightly, but still mostly laying your body weight on your jungkook, only to crane your neck to see the letters carved onto the tree. the carving waited for you two for years to return. a part of you couldn’t believe that it was jungkook you were stealing kisses and blushing from. 

  “but, for real,” jungkook spoke, now also looking at his handy work. “a second date is nothing when the tree says you’re stuck with me. that means you’re my girl.”

  he held your chin with his free hand so that you could look into his eyes as he declared the last part. jungkook’s gaze was warm and you now understood what it was like to feel butterflies in your stomach. it was always one of those things that you read about in books and couldn’t comprehend. you understood the moon and stars and you understood economics and science. this moment with jungkook was a pair of fresh eyes that opened your heart to a feeling of completeness that felt like it had always been there. 

  “wow, you’re not even going to ask me? this is the worst confession ever,” you managed to tease, your smile failing to fight the happiness spreading throughout your body. 

  jungkook retorted, “i saw it in your eyes, you were about to ask me first. i had to beat you to the punch, you know i hate letting you win things.”

  “i think i won either way here,” you beamed, placing your head back onto jungkook’s chest. you could feel his heart beating loudly, but he didn’t seem to mind and planted a kiss on your forehead. jungkook wanted you to know how much this moment meant to him, too. 

  your first summer back in amber valley was nothing you expected. your grandfather’s last wishes for you were for you to discover nature and what it meant to make real connections with people. it was a head first journey that you embarked on, all by yourself. yet, months later, you found yourself surrounded by a family you found yourself and the beauty of a town that you thought was forever going to only live in your memories and dreams. you found belonging. 

  jungkook taught you that home wasn’t a place. home was the sunday market with friends. home was doing things you would have never imagined yourself doing, like salsa dancing and paddle boarding. home lived in watching your hard work bloom into something greater than yourself, with each harvest and each morning you spent feeding your animals. home was even a person - a horse-riding man who was unselfish at his core and loved breakfast for dinner. 

  you dreaded the end of the night, as it seemed like the midsummer festival was a blissful magic that you never wanted to end. you could have lived in this moment forever. 

  “goodnight, bunny. i’ll see you tomorrow,” jungkook said, as the two of you stood at the doorstep of the farmhouse. he leaned down and met you in a soft kiss, where he murmured a thank you against your lips for the perfect day you shared.

  there, you realized that the magic didn’t have to end. there was always a tomorrow to look forward to when everyday was a new day to fall more and more in love with your best friend. the magic in the air didn’t even have to end when the last of the summer heat turned into the first chill of autumn, amidst the shifting hues of the leaves. the magic kept you warm throughout the winter and blossomed in the springtime. 

  for the first time in your life, you no longer had to walk away from jungkook come the rain of september. when you were younger, it seemed like the magic of amber valley only existed in the warmer months. summer was a special place in your heart and the memories of your youth, but home was something that stood by you through the changing seasons.

𝐓𝐀𝐆 𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓. @shellyyy177 @myseokjinji @teddybeartaetae @jalexad @sstrongstyle @wobblewobble822 @seokout @taiwan0618 @firelcrds @xwniazx

[angel-kyo]

Pay it no mind

Part XXV

In which reader confesses their feelings to Gojo, but it seems these are not returned (maybe?).

Warnings: reader is on the receiving end of rejection (kinda), and the fact that I'm obsessed with unrequited love is a warning itself. Drinking is mentioned, Satoru is ooc and a bit mean. Umm... I don't know. If you think of anything, let me know.

Previous: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI, Part XII, Part XIII, Part IV, Part XV, Part XVI, Part XVII, Part XVIII, Part XIX, Part XX, Part XXI, Part XXII, Part XXIII, Part XXIV

----------------------

“Are you sure you don’t want some company? You look kind of…” Haruki did not finish that sentence, but you could guess what he meant.

Affected? Dumbfounded? Hurt? I am, all of those.

After your argument with Satoru, both of you had returned to the table looking gloom and shaken, and none of you had had the stomach to try the dessert after all.

Out of decency, Satoru had not made any excuses to leave early. But his eyes did not meet yours for the rest of the night, alternating between Haruki, Shoko, and the dessert he would push around over his plate but would not eat. And just like you, he had lost all will to chat with the rest. Then he had said his goodbyes quickly and left you all standing on the street outside the restaurant.

After you accompanied Shoko part of the way in the direction of her house, Haruki had insisted on walking you home.

Now you were standing in front of the closed door to your apartment with concerned hazel eyes trying to decipher what was going through you head.

“I guess I could not impress your friends, could I?” he asked, testing your mood.

You still did not look at him when you replied “You didn’t do so bad. Shoko was quite pleased.”

It was true. Even if the mood had become awkward towards the end of the night, you could tell Shoko had apparently enjoyed herself for a while.

“But Gojo wasn’t… It must have been quite a chat if it let you both that quiet.”

You knew there was no hostility in his tone, but it still reminded you of everything Satoru had told you.

“Is it because…?”

“Why did you have to…?”

Both of you had spoken at the same time, but when Haruki’s eyes connected with yours, he knew the answer to the question he had not finished. “So, it is because of what I said that Gojo got so weird. Am I right?”

He sighed.

It was not like you to look for someone to blame, and in all honesty, you could probably blame yourself for most of what had happened, but…

“He got the impression you and I have something, and now he thinks I was toying with him.”

He figured it had been something like that. He had felt like Gojo was mentally throwing daggers at him when he finally returned to the table and set his eyes on him.

“I’m sorry...” Haruki’s eyes showed genuine regret. “I guess I got petty. The other night, when you told me you felt he actually likes you, and that you wanted to give him a chance…” He smiled sadly. “...I felt happy for you, really. But when I saw him tonight, and the way he looks at you, I realized I would have to let you go.”

He had never seen it up-close, the way you and Gojo orbited around each other; how any of you would say something and immediately look at the other as if waiting for their reaction, the looks and smiles between the two revealing the complicity shared, like a dance you were the only ones who knew the steps of, a synchronized waltz perfected through the years.

You leaned against the door and looked down. “He hates me now though.”

Haruki leaned his side against the wall, looking at you. “You know,” there was a slight change in his remorseful tone from before, “when I was in high school, I was working parttime at this coffee shop, and one day during cashier duty, I spotted this person in the line and immediately felt like I needed to know them. I could have just given them their order and taken their money, but I asked them about the keychain dangling from their bag.”

I remember.

“I’ve never once regretted it,” he said looking into your eyes. “They turned out to be fun and smart, and made me so happy during a time when I was so miserable at home. I even felt a bit jealous of the friends who got to see them every day, and of that Satoru they talked so much about, and who obviously had loved them long before I even met them.”

Right, even back then, you would constantly mention Gojo during your outings. You had thought it was just natural for friends to talk so much about each other, to be constantly reminded of your bond, to see something and wonder if Satoru would like it, eat it, what would he think of it, and the need to share anything you found enjoyable with him.

‘Satoru would say this is not sweet enough.’

‘Satoru likes this anime too.’

‘The other day, Satoru said…’

Looking back at it, maybe you had fallen for him long before your lips touched his.

“I am sure he still feels the same,” Haruki said almost in a whisper as he reached for your face.

Looking at you, Haruki wondered what would have happened if you two had had more time. Would he have had a chance if you had met at a different stage in life? Would you have still drifted apart if your time had not been cut short when you were younger? If only he had met you sooner or maybe later than that hot summer that persuaded you to enter the air-conditioned coffee shop where he was working to escape the heat for a few minutes, would things have been different?

No... It is unfair to blame timing.

Those few minutes making small talk with you stretched into one of the happiest seasons of his youth. He did not want to change it, and hoped you did not either, even if the period when he could hope for anything more than friendship had come to an undeniable end.

“And you and him will sure have many more happy seasons together,” he said before pressing a caste kiss on your cheek and embracing you.

To you and Haruki, this was his way of saying goodbye to the possibility of anything else between you and him, an amicable end to a bright summer.

Unfortunately, to the white-haired man standing farther away in the hallway, who had not heard his words but witnessed his actions, although unnoticed by any of you, it felt like the end of the world he had been living in for the last few weeks.

***

If anyone had told Yaga that hiring two of his own former students as teachers would make his life this hard, he would have decided against it from the start.

Gojo was MIA, and he had had to call a substitute to cover for him. And then, there was you, who while physically present before your students, did not look as focused as usual.

You had taken your class to the training grounds for an improvised training outside, or that was what you were telling to Principal Yaga.

“I didn’t think ‘improvised’ was your teaching style, [name],��� Yaga said while observing your students. “That’s more like Satoru’s.”

“I suppose,” you agreed, trying to ignore the painful feeling hearing his name caused.

Yaga glanced at you from the corner of his eye. Your face was turned to the training grounds ahead of you, but a look into your eyes would easily reveal your mind was somewhere else.

As your former mentor, Yaga usually trusted your teaching methods and knew better than to pry on your personal business, so he opted for letting it is slip.

“Now, about Satoru, you wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you?”

That question seemed to briefly pull your mind from wherever it was, and Yaga saw you focus on the kids running around in the field and shake your head lightly. “No, I haven’t heard of him.”

Nothing since that night.

“What a way to slack off,” Yaga grumbled. “I’ll have Ijichi pay him a visit.”

Despite your low spirits, that thought amused you.

Poor Ijichi; he had been your junior in high school, and while he had become a reliable assistant, still looked up to you and Shoko. You suspected he held some of the same respect for Gojo, and that may be why he put up with his antics so much. That did not mean that Satoru had stopped treating him as his underclassman, though.

Even if he can find Satoru, he will be lucky if he can talk any reason into him and drag him to the school.

“Right, why don’t you go instead?”

Yaga was looking at you, waiting for your answer.

Had you said that aloud?

“Me?" you asked. You? Reach out to Satoru, after everything that had happened? "I can’t.. I mean, I have to watch my students.”

Lame excuse, and by the way Yaga kept his eyes on yours, you could tell he knew it was just that, an excuse.

Of course, he probably was not caught up with all the drama between you and Satoru, so he did not see any issues with his request.

“You mean the students who are about to shot us an arrow?”

“What…?”

You did not have time to finish the question when indeed, and arrow infused with curse energy flew by between you and Yaga followed by the gasps and ‘watch out’ screams of the kids.

You looked at them in disbelief and yelled, “I said no cursed tools for now! Put that away.”

Their obedience probably was motivated by Principal Yaga’s stern watch on them rather that your scolding.

“Sure, you may need to keep a sharper eye on them.” The principal’s expression was a severe as always, but you thought you saw the ghost of a smile on his face. “Check on Satoru later, alright? And tell him that he should pass by my office when he finally decides to grace us with his presence.” Now his tone had been a bit more serious.

With that, Yaga left.

Only once he was out of your sight, he allowed himself to smile more openly, remembering a certain group of students who had done their own fair share of mischief back in the day. Not that he would not give one of them a good scolding for skipping work though.

***

“Hello?” you asked, cautiously stepping into Gojo’s apartment.

You had knocked, many times actually, but there had been no response.

He had missed the whole workday at the school; as far as you knew from the assistants, he not been sent on any missions, and even Shoko had confirmed not having communicated with him at all that day.

He had not responded to your texts or calls, so you did the one thing you had been hoping to avoid all day: going to his place.

After some awkward minutes knocking on his door, you decided the situation was getting concerning and took out the emergency spare key you had to Satoru’s apartment.

When you were finally in, the darkness was the first thing you noticed. The sun was going down and some light still filtered through the partially open curtains.

Maybe he is not home?

“Satoru?” you called.

You walked further into the apartment and saw Gojo laying down on the couch of his living room. You stepped closer and noticed he was asleep.

Carefully, you towered over him.

Is he sick or...?

Only then, you noticed the half-full bottle of vodka on the table. Since when did he have alcohol at home?

“[name].”

Satoru was laying still, looking at you with half-lidded eyes, and you took a step back, straightening up. “You’re awake.”

He sat up. “How did you get in?”

At least he does not look too drunk.

You raised your hand, still holding the spare key he had given you. “You did not come to the school. Have you been here the whole day?”

His focus shifted to his surroundings as if he was disoriented.

“Where is your phone? We have called you a hundred times. Yaga is pissed, and…”

“Can-can you stop?” His brows were furrowed, and he was pinching the bridge of his nose. “I have a headache... Why is it that you are you here again?”

You huffed. “Yaga asked me to come here. Are you drunk?”

You did not recognize the look he gave you and his eyes drifted to the bottle sitting in front of him, the recollection of the last couple of days slowly coming back to him. Him telling you those awful things in the restrooms, him going to your place because he felt bad for saying them, him seeing Ikeda getting all affectionate with you, his blood boiling at the sight and the ache in his chest that followed.

The rest was a blur.

He had bought that bottle and been hesitant at first about drinking any of it. No, he did not like the taste of it nor the burning feeling in his throat, but once the alcohol had settled in, it would numb his senses, and if he was lucky, he would fall unconscious into a prolonged dreamless sleep. At that moment, it looked exactly like what he needed. The only thing he had not considered was the pounding headache he would wake up with.

The place was almost completely dark, but the little light getting in shone too brightly. He closed his eyes.

“Satoru?”

With effort, he opened his eyes enough to see you were handing him his blindfold. He must had left it discarded on the floor.

He took it, and the way his fingers brushed yours did not go unnoticed by either, but he quickened to pull his hand back and cover his eyes as if it had not happened.

You let a soft sigh scape your mouth. “Can we talk?”

You looked at him expectantly.

“I think we’ve talked enough,” he said in a flat tone.

He knew you needed to talk. What had happened in the restrooms that day had hardly been talking. It had been yelling and accusing, mostly from his part. He had felt ashamed for exploding like that, but when he thought of Ikeda holding you in front of your apartment, he could not help but feel hurt and betrayed all over again.

“No, Satoru. I mean, actually talking, explaining, and…”

And telling you I love you.

“I said there is nothing to talk about, [name]. Please just leave me alone.“

You swallowed your words. He wanted alone time. That was understandable.

“Okay,” you agreed almost breathless. “I get you are not feeling well.”

You eyed the bottle on the table in front of him. “Don’t drink more, okay?” Your voice was soft, mindful of the headache he had.

You wanted to stay and look after him, just as you always did when he was not feeling well, but his rigid posture and the way his face was turned away from you, was a clear sign that he would not be receptive to your presence now.

“And call Yaga," you continued. "He wanted to know if you’re coming to the school tomorrow or if he will need another substitute.”

The slight nod he gave you was the only confirmation that he had heard you.

“Okay,” you nodded back and turned to leave.

“[name]?”

You halted at the mention of your name and walked back, hopeful.

Satoru was still looking at some invisible point in front of him instead of your face, and the fact that his blindfold was on, and the room was almost completely dark made it only harder to read his expression.

“I’d like you to please leave your spare key.”

Huh?

You blinked once, twice. Your throat was closing. Why did you suddenly felt like crying?

Was it the foreign courteous tone in which he had request it? Was it because he was asking you to return a symbol of your friendship and trust in each other?

Perhaps, it was the underlying meaning behind such action why your hand trembled slightly when you placed the key on the table in front of him.

If he noticed the tear that landed on his carpet when you bent forward or if he was tempted to stop you and comfort you, you could not tell because you had never walked out of Satoru’s apartment faster.

----------------------

Note: Sorry for any typos, errors, etc. I'll proof-read later... at some point...someday.

For now, I hope you are all well. <3

Thank you for reading!

Next: Part XXVI

@mavs-stuff @witchbybirth @crookedlyaddictedone-blog @tqd4455 @maybe-a-bi-witch @mo0nforme @maliakealoha @zacatecanaaaa @blushhpeachh @astriarose @missesgojosatoru @ba-ks @sukunasleftkneecap @songbirdlully @cole-silas @heijihattorisgf @chokesonspit @hersheyzzz @smolbeanzzz @luciledreamz @avidreadee123 @moonmalice @ratscandaler @sadmonke @allie-jay @username23345 @spin-garden @ashehateaccount @kayzens @blehtotheblehtothebleh @stellasloth @bloopsstuff @cheesemachine44 @tetsuski @rosellerinfrost @catowru @bi-narystars @wondermilka @fortunatelyfurrygiver @shrxui @cc1306 @chili-paste

[tamakigf]

apple cider

XXIV. blobfish

pairing: megumi x gn!reader

warnings: none i think…

series masterlist

previous | next

notes:

ok but blobfish are kinda cute

yuji still flirting like always ofc

inumaki is public enemy #1

this is kind of a filler part LOL

taglist is closed!

🏷️ @kasumitenbaz @satoryaa @al3monkid @kooksmono @hisheadismountfuji @thepup356 @venderretta @arusio @xhxzgn @sarclife @astroswift @akii420 @geombyu @emii4evr @bbysatoruuu @wonugie @yeehawslap @rintarousgirl @nobody289x @m3gitsune @anna-sm1th @sad-darksoul @postmancat @7haze @chocochannie @kiss4kazu @stardusthyuck @sl33pyt1r3 @felixmainacc @becsmarvel @crazychaoticizzy @kilcount @yourmumsthings @pumpkindudeishere @kenmaslittlebrat @ketchupsush1 @anintrovertedechoe @fibrogirlie @bbladie @tar0sw0rld @nineooooo @lucifersidepiece @localgaytrainwreck @iluv-ace @moonlit-mizukage @nymphsdomain

italicized couldn’t be tagged :(

[mika-no-sekai-blog]

Pairing: Tamlin x reader

Summary: Reader lives an ordinary life in the deep forest without name, past, emotions and dreams until one day she saves wounded beast and takes it to her home. However beast isn't a beast at all and everything starts to change. The past storms into her life and turns it upside down. Will Y/N be able to withstand it and heal? And most importantly will she be able to return in time to save the person who matters the most?

Status: completed

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part VIII

Part IX

Part X

Part XI

Part XII

Part XIII

Part XIV

Part XV

Part XVI

Part XVII

Part XVIII

Part XIX

Part XX

Part XXI

Part XXII

Part XXIII

Part XXIV

Part XXV

Part XXVI

Part XXVII

Part XXVIII

Part XXIX

Part XXX

Epilogue

Series taglist:

@impossibelle @sevikas-whore @b0xerdancer @ladylizzieofdarbyshire @tele86 @mybestfriendmademe @nocasdatsgay @yunloyal @nebarious @isabiss @st0rmyt @lilah-asteria @ubigaia @paleidiot @acourtofimagines @harahettania @talesofadragon @ceoofyearning @little-nightowl

[arc-misadventures]

Master Post Of Posts VII

Part I / II / III / IV / V / V.V / VI / VIII

Rebirth

I / II / III / IV / V / VI / VII / VIII / IX / X / XI / XII / XIII / XIV / XV / XVI / XVII / XVII.V / XVIII / XIX / XX / XXI / XXII / XXIII / XXIV / XXV / XXVI / XXVII / XXVIII / XXIX / MFK / ?.V / XXX / XXXI

What Are Those?!

I / II / III / IV / IV.V / V / VI / VII / VIII / VIII.V / IX / IX.V / X / XI / XII / XIII / XIV / XV / XVI / XVII / XVIII / XIX / XX / XXI / XXII / XXIII / XXIV / XXV / XXVI / XXVI.V / XXVII / XXVIII / XXIX / XXIX.V / XXX

Salem

[bunniwords]

໑ৎ ׁ ׅ♡ ALIBI 🌀

part xxiii - masterlist - part xxv xxiv. ungrateful brat

bunni speaks — they’re so cute i wanna cry… this chapter is a bit shorter but hehe

︶︶ 　 ˚ ᡴꪫ synopsis — you are known for your brain rot anime content on twitter. so much so that you caught the attention of txt’s soobin on his secret stan account and became mutuals. what will become of this new friendship?

more under the cut!

“you know, i do like your hair dark too.”

“okay, but you look at me differently with the blonde hair.”

“i think the blonde is definitely sexy but your dark hair suits you too.”

“well, you’re basically telling me i have to bleach my hair every few weeks now.”

your shared laughter filled the hotel room. the last hour or so, you and soobin were getting readjusted to each other. well… the first twenty minutes or so was spent locking lips on the couch and sharing desperate touches to one another, but eventually the two of you started bickering and definitely flirting like how you normally would.

“you know, i’m going to miss seeing your face like this,” soobin said as his finger traces your jaw, “can’t you just come touring with me?”

“i’d be out of a job,” you joked, still feeling tingles from his touches. you couldn’t seem to get used to them.

“i can pay you,” he offered half jokingly, but you had a feeling he wasn’t joking at all.

“i’m not going to get paid to be your groupie,” you rolled your eyes, “plus you only have one more date left in the states.”

“i wasn’t just talking about the usa portion of the tour,” he said matter-of-factly, “there’s still the second japan part of the tour, macau, singapore, and—“

he stopped when he saw how you looked at him. your answer seemed to be written all over your face, guilt and a small pout. although he knew you couldn’t just drop everything here to join him, but just imagining it had him feeling warm inside. 

“i know it’d be so much fun, but i couldn’t possibly do that right now. no matter how much i’d want to,” you giggled, “we’re not even dating so it wouldn’t even make sense for me to go with you.”

“we’re not?” he asked innocently and slightly heartbroken from your statement.

“well, neither of us asked each other to and you’ll be on tour so i didn’t want to hold you down or—“

“would you be my girlfriend?” he abruptly asked.

“huh?”

“you wouldn’t be holding me down,” soobin told you, holding eye contact while fiddling with your fingers, “ i want you.”

“you’re serious?” you needed confirmation. 

“i’ve been committed to talking to you everyday since we started regularly,” soobin spoke lowly before pulling you closer to him by your waist, “please, be mine.”

“o-okay,” you choked, noticing how close your faces were, “yeah.”

“okay?” soobin wasn’t really asking for confirmation. he already had the biggest shit-eating grin plastered on his face before grazing his lips on yours. 

“yes,” you whispered so softly before fully attaching your lips to his.

[bengals-barnesbabe]

#Track 9 Masterlist

Pairing: Joe Burrow x RnB Singer!Fem Reader

Summary: When the secret relationship between a famous singer and a popular quarterback is revealed no one could be happier. But when lyrics to an unreleased song are released, the strength of their relationship is questioned and tested when fans, reporters and exes start coming into the mix. Will you get your happy ending or is this the beginning of the end?

Main Masterlist 🤍

Character List🩷🧡🖤

Warnings: 18+, mentions of sex, foul language.

Last Updated: 20 November 2024

*slow updates*

a/n: #track9 taglist is open! if you would like to be added to my taglist for this series comment 'tag me🧡' and you'll be added. If you want to be taken off at any point dm me -babe :)

* ~ flashback chapter 🩷 ~ social media post

🧡 ~ private dm

🤍 ~ group chat

🖤 ~ written chapter

Chapter I: Valentine’s Day Tease

Pt.1: 🩷 Pt.2: 🧡

Chapter II: Clothes Are So Obnoxious

Pt.1: 🩷 Pt.2: 🧡

Chapter III: Tell Me

Chapter IV: You Love Me

Chapter V: #Track 9

Pt.1: 🩷 Pt.2: 🧡 Pt.3: 🤍

Chapter VI: Crazy 4 Me

Pt.1: 🩷 Pt.2: 🤍

Chapter VII: Kisses 4 My Exes

Pt.1: 🩷 Pt.2: 🤍 Pt.3: 🤍 Pt.4: 🤍 Pt.5: 🩷

Chapter VIII: Real Shit

Chapter IX: #TMYLM

Pt.1: 🩷 Pt.2: 🤍 Pt.3: 🧡

Chapter X: Training Camp

Chapter XI: Press Week

Chapter XII: prayer for the broken

Chapter XIII: ‘i love you, goodnight’ tour

Part1 :🖤 Part2: 🩷

Chapter XIV: Domestic Tingz

Chapter XV: ‘The Reynolds Pamphlet’

Part1: 🩷 Part2: 🤍 Part3: 🧡 Part4:🤍 Part5: 🩷

Chapter XVI: Robbed*

Part1: 🖤 Part2: 🤍 Part3: 🖤

Chapter XVII: Operation Tiger*

P1: 🩷 P2: 🧡 P3: 🤍 P4: 🧡 P5: 🤍 P6: 🖤

Chapter XVIII: Run Joey Run*

Part1: 🩷 Part2: 🖤

Chapter XIX: #WLT*

Part 1: 🤍 Part 2: 🩷 Part 3: 🤍

Chapter XX: Wish I Never

Part 1: 🧡 Part 2: 🩷 Part 3: 🤍

Chapter XXI: Let’s Be Strangers*

Chapter XXII: Messy Gal

Chapter XXIII: Tour Countdown

Part 1: 🩷🤍 Part 2: 🤍🩷

Chapter XXIV: Mr. Perfect

Part 1: 🖤 Part 2: 🩷

Chapter XXV: Showtime

Part 1: 🤍 Part 2: 🖤

Chapter XXVI: Homecoming

Chapter XXVII: Champions*

more coming soon ♥︎

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.* ° :⋆ₓₒ

Misc/Blurbs/Extras

#Mars V Chase

[admiringlove]

the world will be saved by beauty.

hello everyone! i've been wanting to do this for a few years now. but i haven't really gotten the chance. so this year i've taken the initiative. and i'm doing it. i'm taking part in @angstober. obviously, i won't be doing all 31 days. but i'm going to do a few.

this is the masterpost, so everything will be added on the respective dates!

↬ the event.

vii. you still don't get it ; gojo satoru

viii. growing pains ; kageyama tobio

ix. promise ; oikawa tōru

xii. rotten touch ; xiao

xvi. no one else to turn to ; suna rintarō

xviii. falling stars ; zhongli

xix. tear-stained cheek ; alhaitham

xxiv. dark sunrise ; kaeya alberich

xxvi. persuasion ; fushiguro toji

xxviii. perfect ; geto suguru

xxxi. it ends here ; nanami kento

© all works belong to admiringlove on tumblr. plagiarism is strictly prohibited.

[misguidedasgardian]

Wildcats (Part XXIV)

XXIV. O Children

MASTERLIST

Summary: As your relationship with Daryl clicks into place, you have to make sure that your other relationships do too. 

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Zombie apocalypse AU, living dead, zombies, guts, blood, guns, kissing, longing, angst, fluff, heavy kissing, touch starved reader & Daryl, nudity, body worship, NAKED PEOPLE AHHH, smut, a bit of awkwardness, talk about contraceptives (afterday pill), a bit of a breeding kink, unprotected sex (which I don’t encourage), might miss some important warnings, but you know what this is about

+18, MINORS DNI

Notes: I’m giving Carl a bit of Sasha’s plotline from season 5. Also, now that Daryl got to "that point" with reader, THERE'S NO STOPPING HIM! jajajaja I unleashed the beast.

Having Daryl’s hot body right stuck to you is the first thing you felt when you came to your senses again, him caressing your naked leg was the second

“Mornin’”, he greeted huskily, “We have time to make up for”, he purred, kissing your temple, you only smiled, accommodating yourself more on top of him

“Mmmm what have I unleashed upon the world?”, you teased him

“C’mon”, he grunted with a smirk, grabbing one of your legs and passing it over him, making you straddle him, yet your torso was stuck to him. 

His fingers slipped to your pussy, who was already wet for him, you breathed heavily, biting your lips to stifle a moan

“I wanna hear ya”, he said lovingly, teasing you open for him. You moaned into his ear, hiding your face from him. He chuckled darkly, and you raised your head only when you felt his cock in your entrance, your mouth open in a silent moan, and then a quiet pan when he finally bottomed out inside of you.

“Fuck Daryl”, you whimpered, “you feel so fucking good”, you said as you layed your head on his chest, you granned onto him for dear life, as he started pounding into you from under you. it was slow and sensual, allowing you to feel all of him, the thick vein along his shaft and every shape.

The sun was barely shining on the horizon, and you two have had your feelings. He stayed inside of you, and you on top of him, until you heard footsteps and activity on the main floor of the house. You had to start your day, and the only thing you wanted to do.

With apathetic wince you disconnected from him, hissing as you were a bit overstimulated as you stood up

“Need to go to the infirmary”, you said with a knowing look, feeling his cum dripping a bit in between your legs. 

“Need me to go with ya?”, he asked, you shook your head

“It’s fine”, you whispered, “but what I do need, is for you to wrap it up from now on”, you warned he only smiled.

“Course”, he muttered, you leaned in for a kiss, and he stood up too. He wrapped his arms around you. And he whispered in your ear a request a bit filthy and so hot it made you almost faint. 

You were having breakfast with Rick, Michonne, Carl and Judith. Daryl was sort of an early bird, which you were conflicted about, because you weren’t, and had already left to fix his bike to go on another run. 

“What can I help around today?”, you asked Rick, wanted to keep your hands busy

“Someone’s energetic”, he said, cradling into Judith, “you could help set up the garden you promised”

“Not a garden… a greenhouse”, you explained. 

“Well… that”, he said with a smile, “or you could help Carol in the kitchen, see if she needs help”, you’d rather shot yourself in the knee with a shotgun

“Greenhouse it is!”, you said with an apologetic smile, and went away to do just that. You didn’t realize Carol was within earshot, even though you didn’t say the shotgun thing out loud. 

You found Beth and Maggie right there, they were making progress but had trouble with the wooden frame for the big “lid”, the nice man, Tobin, came down to help with that, while they prepared the soil. They chose a place where they laid the foundation for a house that never came to be, so there was a cement frame, with grass and nice soil in the middle, the plan is to set up “lids” above it, supporting themselves on the cement, so it's nice and warm in the soil, and you coil grow things all year long, the tarp allowing it to keep the heat. 

“I’m here!”, you said with a soft smile, “reporting for duty!”, they both smiled at you

“Nice, we are starting with the tomatoes”, Maggie said, as she had already turned the dirt around so it was nice and mushy, ready to plant. 

“Yeah you know, don’t get your hopes up, I killed a cactus once”, you said, and Maggie giggled

“How did you manage that?”, she asked

“Death by drowning”, you said, her and Beth giggled. “Beth I thought you were gonna work in the infirmary”, you said, “Denise seems nice, nicer than Pete, that’s for sure”

“She is training herself before she can train someone else”, she said apologetically, you nodded

“Makes sense”, you mumbled, you grabbed a shovel

“Hey, your shoulder”, chided Maggie, offering you a small package of seeds, you begrudgingly took it, so you in half an hour were knees deep in dirt, planting. Oh gods you missed her so, so much. 

Yeah this was not your favorite duty at all, you remembered with a soft smile how your mom was an excellent gardener, and farmer too, she could grow anything, from flowers to berries. 

“Hey”, called Maggie softly, squeezing your shoulder, “where’d you go?”, you asked kindly

“I was just thinking about my mom”, you whispered, “and how hard she tried to teach these things, didn’t work”. You laughed humorlessly 

“You miss her?”, she asked

“Every day”, you whispered, “I think the worst part is that I will never know… what happened”, you said finally. “I’ll never be able to grieve properly”, she looked at you sadly, caressing your shoulder, you wiped your tears before they descended your cheeks and smiled, “cultivating isn’t like cooking right? we are not going to have a “Like water for chocolate” situation?”, you laughed. She laughed back

“Nope, I actually think farming is therapeutic, it's what this is for”, she said. 

You got a new sense of purpose from that little talk, you smiled, you were farming, you were building something, you were here, you planned on being here for a long time… 

“I’m pregnant”, Maggie said with a wide smile, you gasped, raising your head to look at her, at first not really believing her, but then she smiled so widely you had nothing to do but to hug her tightly

“I’m so happy for you both!”, you said, happy tears already jumping to your eyes

“It’s very new, only Glenn and Beth know”, she says with a dreamy smile and eyes

“You should have told me a bit sooner! I could have grabbed some things”, you explained, she only smiled and nodded

“You brought back prenatal vitamins, that’s enough for now”, she said and you chuckled in relief. “I thought you could use some… hope”, she said

“We all could”, you said with a wide smile, you couldn’t help but hug her again.

Oh! a baby! another baby, the future!

You still had that silly smile on your face when you were called for lunch. Daryl was nowhere to be spotted, but Carol was serving the gardening tem, a chicken that looked delicious. You saw her grab a plate with each hand, and then trade them to make sure you got one in particular, you found it odd because she had to pass one arm over the other to make sure.

“Thanks Carol”, you said with a soft smile, “need some help?”

“No, it’s fine”, she said with a smile that creeped you out a bit.

You dug in when you made sure everybody was seated, oh gods, Carol was a great cook, she might actually. 

You actually saw stars in your next bite, as a sharp pain erupted in your mouth. you tried to be as discreetly as you could when you took out of your mouth a piece of chicken bone

A sharpened piece of chicken bone

“Is everything good dear?”, you looked ahead and you saw Carol, with the same creepy smile, looking back at you

“Everything is perfect, the chicken is great, you should teach me how to make it sometime”, you said, feeling the tangy flavor of blood inside your mouth.

“I heard you prefer gardening”, she said, unbothered. Well, shit.

“Chicken’s great Carol”, said Daryl by her side, oblivious to everything going on between the two of you, he kissed her on the cheek, surprising everybody.

You finished your plate until it was clean, and then you helped clean everything until there was no sign of a lunch for 15 happening in the house. You didn’t even look at Carol the rest of the afternoon.

People started leaving after you assured him you were fine by cleaning up by yourself, but you were actually surprised when Daryl came back, sitting on the stool on the other side of the kitchen bar, smiling at you as you finished drying some utensils. Maggie was called to a meeting with Deanna, so your gardening was postponed until tomorrow.

You felt the small wound from the chicken bone on the left side of your upper gums, near your hard palate. the metallic taste still lingering in your mouth, it wasn’t deep, it didn’t hurt anymore, but still. . 

“How’s that you dun wanna’ spend time with Carol?”, he asked, that took you by surprise, dropping your wooden spoon.

“What?”, you asked him, this certainly took you by surprise, “who blabbed?”, he looked at you, asking you for answers, he looked discouraged, is this because of what you said to Rick this afternoon?, “is not that I don’t want to hang out with her, is just that I prefer to garden than to cook”, lies

“Ya love to cook”, he said, “ya hate to garden, ya killed a cactus”

“Just trying to gain more skills”, you tried, but sounded like a question

“Look”, he said, he looked like he was about to chide you, you had never seen him like that, “I want ya to spend some time w’her”, he said, he looked all serious

“Why?”, you asked, in your face there was panic

“S’important ta me”, he said, you took a long breath… Your first impression of Carol was that she seemed… badass, she had just taken down Terminus, single handedly, she was covered in dirt and walker blood… then when you got to meet her, you didn’t like her, she didn’t like you, too judgemental, she got this “Yeah I’ve been through stuff so that made me like this deal with it”, thing going on. And then when you got to Alexandria you were just point blank scared of her… she was pretending to be this whole other thing so good you didn’t even know she was pretending or not. But she was so important in Daryl's life. “Hey, where'd ya go?”, he asked, he was sitting there, hoping to gather two important women in his life

“Daryl, I understand it's important to you”, you said slowly, “but I have the feeling she doesn’t like me, therefore she also look like the kind of person who doesn't want to be bothered by people she doesn’t like”

“She gets it”, he said, like it was the easiest thing in the world, “she gets its important to me too”

“Why do I feel like this is some sort of test?”, you asked, concerned. You really didn't want to do this. You were awkward around other people, it's a wonder you made Maggie and Rosita your friends… Let alone being forced to bond with someone else. 

“Ya got nothin’ to worry ‘bout”, he said simply, but with hope in his beautiful eyes

“Alright”, you said, smiling softly, “if I get an opening, I’ll use it”, you offered, and he seemed pleased because of it. He nodded, standing up, he surrounded the kitchen bar and kissed you on the cheek, he gave your hips a squeeze

“M’gonna go with Beth in a run”

“Beth?”, you asked him, he chuckled

“Yeah, Denise asked us to get some meds in a spot she saw, she wants to go”, you smiled at him, he never took you out there again, but you were “injured” so, you shook your head with a smile.

“Be safe”, you said with a soft smile, he leaned in and kissed you

“See ya’ tonight”, he said teasingly, you smiled back at him

“See ya”, you said. With a shaky breath. This is the only thing Daryl has asked you, and you wanted to please him, although his request seemed a bit childish, and no matter what he said, he did seem like he was testing you… Hell, what? if Carol decided she didn’t like you? What if you decide you didn’t like her? What if you go from dislike to HATE? what then?

You could live with it, she met Daryl way before you, they were friends, but could they both? Would she get rid of you?

You were pondering, really pondering, so lost in your own thoughts that when you finally adjusted your eyesight through the window, you actually saw Carl, climbing over the wall.

“Gods”, you murmured, you ran, actually ran, grabbed your ax and Pentagon gun with a silencer and ran after him. After Reg, Deanna let you carry inside the walls. You climbed the wall right behind him.

You didn’t even know how you managed to drop from the wall on the other side, but you did. It took you time to track him, but eventually you did found his tracks, you had a good visual memory and you had seen Daryl track a bunch of times, he actually tried to give you tips.

You found ultimately dead walkers in his trail, leading you straight to him, until you finally saw him ahead between the trees, taking down another walker

“Hey! Carl!”, you called, drawing the attention of another walker who was near, you grabbed your ax and with a single swing you took him down… but… you pulled a muscle making you wince, oh c’mon! It was a single blow!

“Get back to Alexandria”, he commanded. You deadass laughed

“Excuse me?”, you mocked, “you do not command me”, he looked at you over his shoulder with a look that made you tremble, it was like resentment. 

“You take orders from everyone else”, he said simply, “what’s one more?”, that actually made your mouth open with indignation

“Alright”, you chuckled, “I get the whole… “adolescence” thing, but you are crossing a line dude”, you said, not knowing if you should take this seriously. He relaxed his stance, you saw regret in his features, he turned around and kept walking

“Join me then”, you did, you could use the walk, your knees still resentful from your farming, you caught onto him, starting walking right by his side.

“What are you doing out here?”, you asked calmly, as you had advanced at least a kilometer.

“Taking down walkers”, he said simply, “like you used to do, remember?”, you did, you had told him about “the exterminators Inc” and the mission you had. 

“It’s dangerous”, you said, “to come out here, alone”

“I have a gun, and a knife”, he said matter of factly. 

“Well, but they sneak up quite easily”, you explained simply, “and they tend to horde up”

“I'll take down those too”, he said. You understood it. 

You see, the way you saw walkers is that they are some sort of monster, they are no longer humans, their souls, essence or whatever made them who they were is not there anymore. You still cringe every time you see one freshly turned, too human for your taste, but the rest? where a threat and you had to eliminate it. And it did make you feel better when you eliminated one, because it meant there was one least threat in the world. 

So yeah, you understood the need to eliminate them, even those who were trapped, even those who couldn’t even move anymore, they had to go, all of them. 

Now with a smile you went with Carl, there was no way in hell you were going to leave him alone, and you could use the practice, you barely saw walkers in DC. 

“This is reckless”, you said, “for how long have you been doing this?”, you asked him

“A couple of days”, he said, “my dad found something out here”

“Something like what?”

“That’s what the meeting is about”, he said, “he found something, bad, and I’ve been trying to figure out what it is”

“Why? He is going to tell us eventually, right?”, you asked him, three walkers were coming your way, you shot the first one and then it was one for each, a swing of your ax and a stab from him, and they were gone.

“You know how things are now”, he said, “everything has to go trough people who isn’t like us, weak people”, he explained

“Carl…”, you called, “that was the deal”, you said, “we promised to make an effort, they invited us in, we follow the rules, that’s it”, you said simply. 

“Their rules are bullshit”, he said

“They see it now”, you said, “it had to take some death for it, but they do see it now”

“Is that’s what happening?”, he asked you, angrily, “are we changing them? or are they changing us?”, he asked, and you felt like you were getting to the root of his icy demeanor towards you.

“What do you mean?”, you asked him, as you took down another walker. 

“It’s happening to all of us, to dad, to Michonne, to Daryl…”, he said, “To you… this place is making you weak!”, you stopped on your tracks

“Is that what you think?”, you asked him, truly surprised

“I know it is!”. he said

“What do you want from me, Carl? From us?”, you asked him then. 

“Where is the woman who shot someone in the head because she was protecting the people she cared about?”, he asked, “who took all those walkers in Atlanta?”

“You are disappointed I haven't shot anyone in the head recently?”, you asked. “what? you want us to go on killing sprees? to make ourselves strong?”, you asked him. You actually couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“It’s only a matter of time until another group, or something worse comes our way!”, he said

“And when the time comes, we’ll fight them!”, you said

“It’s not only that”, he said, “you love being out here, I know you do!”, he said, “now you let Daryl, my dad, anybody telling you to stay inside!”, he said, “all of you think that I don’t notice things, that I’m here concerned about kids stuff, but I see things, I had never seen you so happy like the time I saw you coming back from that trip with Daryl and Aaron, or when you came back from DC”, he said, “and now you are there gardening, talking about cooking, you should be out here, taking down walkers, until there is nothing left”

“There’s a lot of them”, you said, “more than people alive, I’m certain, and even so, I chose to be led by your father, so when he says something, I listen to him”, you said

“Even if it goes against your instincts? about what you want to do?”, he asked. “What about Daryl?”

“Well, my shoulder does hurt like a bitch”, you said simply, “but yeah, I listen, and Daryl…”

“Yeah I saw you with Daryl”, you felt your cheeks heated

“Doing what!?”, you asked, alarmed 

“Are you gonna stay locked inside those walls now?”, he said, “for him? Are you gonna be a housewife, cook for them, garden? have Daryl’s babies?”

“Dude!”, you called, that did sounded like a nightmare, “No!”, you said, and then you regretted it, “well… maybe”, you mustered, but that didn’t sound right either. “Not right now”, you said then, even you were confused now. So you shook your head to clear your ideas first, “look Carl, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and someone who sneaks out and doesn’t listen, is a weak link”, you said strongly, looking at him. He looked regretful of the things he had said.

“I don’t want what happened to my mom, happen to you”, he said, and you frowned. 

“What do you mean by that?”, you asked him. 

His face of disappointment broke your heart, and you were about to answer, when a soft wind carried… a mix of… ugly things, first was the horrid smell, and then, it was a sound, a haunting sound, hundreds of moans that created a macabre melody.

“What the…?”, you both stood still, and started to run towards it. You have to grab onto Carl because soon the floor just stopped and you were in the edge of a freaking cliff

“For fucks sake”, you whined, it was a huge quarry, filled to the brim with walkers, occupying every single space there was. 

“Holy shit”, said Carl, you slapped his hat, as reprimanding him for cussing. 

“Well, we found what Rick’s been keeping from us”, you whined. 

Could there be a thousand walkers? you truly believed there was, you even saw more of them on the other side, falling and sliding right in.

“Is this tough enough for you?”, you asked him, he only gulped as he looked at the scene. 

Yes it was irresponsible, but you went into the possible scaping points, there was two trucks preventing the walkers from getting out with just a tiny crack in which walkers were scaping, ripping themselves in the process, but on the other side, there were also two trucks, one of them, dangerously close to collapse

“We need to get back to Alexandria”, you told Carl, and you were thankful he actually nodded and obeyed you. 

You hadn't even realized how far you had come from Alexandria, a couple of miles even, and it got dark as you were coming back. But you weren’t afraid, the night was clear and the moon was lightening the way. You took too long going around the huge quarry and back, that thing was huge. 

It was barely afternoon when Daryl and Beth exited the gates on his motorcycle

Denise had given them directions to a palace she believed could hold some medicina, after Daryl determinately said she wasn’t coming, instead he took Beth. It's been a while since they haven’t been together. 

Beth never got the chance to become as strong as he knew she could be, and being behind Alexandria’s walls might never give her the chance, so he needed to take every opportunity to teach her, how to improve het 

“Here”, he said, helping Beth jumping out of his bike.

“You are… different”, said Beth with a soft smile

“Uh? different how?”, he asked, checking the surroundings for coming walkers or something else

“Softer”, she said, with a smile

“Very funny”, he said, “knife up”, they saw the store Denise told them about, they placed themselves on each side of the door, Daryl leaned in and opened it, it was quiet inside, there was nothing there. But still he went in first.

“I like you both, together”, Beth kept going, “I think it’s sweet”

“Sweet?”, asked Daryl, raising an eyebrow

“Yeah”, she said softly, “I like her”, it was clear, no walkers, but, the space had been closed for so long, the inside was barely breathable. 

“Ya’ think she is making’ me soft?”, he asked, frowning

“You ask it as if it was a bad thing”, she offered. She jumped over the counter, and started grabbing the meds, “but I see you smilin’ when nobody’s watching”, Daryl only mumbled an answer, as they started to fill the bags with everything they could get their hands on

“It’s like sayin’ she makes me weak”, he said, doubtful

“No”, she said softly, “Having someone you care about, like Maggie with Glenn, I don’t think it makes you weak, I think it makes you stronger”, she said with a soft smile, “you are never going to know what you are capable of doing for the person you love”

Daryl and Beth returned at sundown, Daryl looked for you immediately, his first stop was the garden, you were not there, then the house, you weren’t there either.

“Hey, have you seen (y/n)?”, he asked Rick, who also looked like he was looking for someone. As Daryl asked him that, he closed his eyes, like he just realized something

“Carl is gone too”, he said, “they are probably together, out there”

“What?”, asked Daryl. “how?”

“Enid told me Carl has been sneaking out”, he said, “I thought it was harmless”

a thousand things passed through Daryl’s mind, because going out there with people, on a mission and a direction was one thing, but sneaking out, with only another person with no known direction or not knowing if you even had supplies with you? was another thing entirely 

It was already dark when they could say for sure that Carl and you were not inside Alexandria’s walls. And every minute, they were more worried.

“We can’t look for them in the dark”, said Rick, “we’ll have to hope for the best, they are strong, they know how to handle themselves”, Michonne looked as worried as the rest of the family that Rick gathered, but then, the door opened. And you and Carl entered like nothing was happening

“We were looking for you!”, said Rick, truly alarmed, when he saw you both, “what were you doing out there, uh?”, oh but you were not going to take his or Daryl’s angry looks. 

You looked at everybody gathered there

“I’m sorry guys, we walked more than we expected, our way back took us far long than we expected”, after apologies and wishes of good night, only those who slept in the house remained. 

“Where were you?”, asked Rick angrily. 

“I don’t know Rick”, you said, “is there something you need to tell us?”, you asked him, “something smelly, moany, a thousand strong something?”, then Rick paled, he searched the eyes of Michonne, who also knew

“You went there?”, he asked

“Yes”, you said simply

“Where the hell were you!?”, asked Daryl, oh he looked pissed

“Rick?”, you asked him, he was looking at you with sorry eyes

“How could you not tell us?”, asked Carl

“I was delaying to tell you this, because we deserved a couple of days to relax, and to enjoy”, he said slowly, “but days ago when we went to bury Pete’s body over the bridge up north… Morgan and I found a Quarry… filled with walkers”

“WHAT!?”, asked Daryl, “how many?”

“Uncountable”, you’d venture, “a thousand?”

“Tomorrow we will discuss it with Deanna and the rest”, promised Rick, “let just give them tonight before we have to be in fighting mode again”, he said. You barely nodded

“Sorry for worrying you all”, you said with a soft smile, you playfully ruffled Carl’s hair and then you tried to go to your room, but Daryl grabbed you gently

“Let’s go to mine”, he said huskily, uh, you knew that voice.

You went down to the basement, you thought you were in for something… and as soon as the door closed behind you, he was on you

“Ya’ scare me”, he said, “we didn’t know where ya’ went!”

“I followed Carl, didn’t want to leave him alone, didn’t have the time to warn anybody”, you said calmly, “how did you run with Beth went?”

“This isn’t about me”, he said angrily, “why can’t ya stay put?”

“I’m not some dog”, you said, “this was a special occasion”, you muttered, “Daryl I’m gonna go out there, you know? I know the risks, but you cannot keep me in here”, you muttered. He smirked

“Can’t I?”, he said with a smirk.

As you said this very morning, you unleashed something out to the world, something seemed to have snapped inside of Daryl since the very first time you had sex, and now? he had this predatory look on his eyes every time he looked at you.

He grabbed you by the hips and kissed you roughly

He had you naked under him in record time, so quickly it made your head spin, and you were so willing he didn’t even doubt it for a second. You moaned when he entered you. 

“I fucking love ya”, he grunted, as he buttoned out inside you

“Love you too”, you whined pitifully, he retreated, just to thrust into you, rougher than he had been fucking you both times

“Don’t ever scare me like that”, oh gods you got wet just by hearing his husky voice. “Did ya’ take that pill?”, you shook your head, you barely could string two sentences together, “Answer me”

“No”, you whined

“Good”, he grunted, thrusting into you, “maybe…”, he thrusted into you roughly, making you moan like a whore, “...I’ll give you a good reason”, another thrust, “to stay home, uh?”

“Oh, Daryl!”, you whined

“I’m gonna knock you up”, he grunted, you have never seen him like this, this primal, fuck, that made you closer to cum that you’d care to admit. You grabbed onto him, while you just took it, you couldn’t think of a moment in which you were as turned on as you were right now. He made you cum easily, and he followed closely, inside you, deep, deep inside you. 

He released you, and he dropped on his back beside you

You both were panting, looking at the ceiling, trying to wrap your minds about what just happened

“Are ya’ alright?”, he asked, truly concerned, “was I too rough?”

“No”, you assured him, “no, no it was fucking amazing”, you whispered, as he was used to do by now, he grabbed you and accommodate you by his side. 

“Daryl?”, you called

“Uh?”

“You didn’t mean the last part, right?”, you whispered. 

“Yeah… didn’t”, he admitted, you sighed with relief

“Because the thought of having kids scares the shit outta me”, you chuckled, “tomorrow I’ll take the pill”, he barely nodded, scooping you up and placing you by his side. He kissed the top of your head. “We really should use those nice pajamas”, you laughed, as this was the second time you slept naked. 

“Yeah, we should”, he said, as he fell asleep. 

PCN: I don't know what's gotten into me, three days, three chapters, this one was like eighteen pages long in my word... so... well... those few who are reading this, enjoy.

@crazyunsexycool @capricxnt