#They were very much a cryptic for a long while considering they were trying to survive an hostile environment without their implants

[askthesmoltitans]

First Encounter of who would eventually join the Alliance; Galaxy "Mini-Speaker"

[theguyinthemathexamples]

Opportunity Awaits None

— sahsrau/sahsr fic based on my pookie aventurine for good luck (⁠＠⁠°⁠▽⁠°⁠＠⁠)⁠ᕗ ♡

— C/W : 2.1 trailblazer quest spoilers, sillies stealing the show first, ooc pookies, VERY self indulgent, new fic style?, slight aventio/raturine??, a lil angsty in some parts?? (tell me if i missed anything 💝)

Claiming oneself to be adored by an Aeon would be a bold, and otherwise egotistical way of getting attention. But with his friend even being heard mumbling to himself for being discarded as of late, not to mention the light whispers he's been hearing lately... the Doctor might not blame Aventurine for describing himself as going nuts.

While he was investigating things about that Emanator, and a few strings pulled later... he accidentally came across a lovely piece of information that she felt her own strings being pulled long before he made his grandest performance yet in Penacony.

It was taught, then loosened, and then forcefully yanked in a never ending cycle, she said. There were long periods of time that she began to wonder whether or not this feeling finally disappeared, only to be hit by another harsh pull. As of late, however, these harsh tugs haven't been felt after she finally remembered to pen a letter to the Astral Express's Conductor that both refused their offer to arrive at the Express, as well as making someone else bite the bullet.

As for who this was was insignificant to him— he'll find it out himself eventually. But the whispers? The tugging? The feeling of being watched? That letter? Aventurine knew all too well what these meant. The Aeon of Creation's manifestations in the mortal realm.

This wasn't all new news, though, as such a phenomenon had already happened to others before. But for him to hear them? That was certainly a surprise.

To be fair, he's heard them a bit before. The whispers arrived just a bit after he stepped foot in the Planet of Festivities, and he initially mistook them for crowds outside being too loud as they were more quiet back then.

Though, these whispers have been getting louder and louder the past few days. He's almost embarrassed to confess that this was worrying him. They varied from promises vowing to make him "come home" to them, to absolute hysterical laughter akin to the Aeon of Elation's ones. Who knows what that Aeon was thinking. Not him, surely.

And a few too many deep dives into rabbit holes led him to a reasonable conclusion of that Aeon taking an interest in him. ... By the Amber Lord, no, Veritas, he swears he's not succumbing to insanity.

Aventurine had asked the Doctor about this, knowing he had a good amount of experience with this sort of thing for a good while now. Unfortunately for him all of the answers he got were "You'll know in due time." and "Perhaps if you willingly offered yourself to the Aeon maybe those whispers would disappear faster than you bothering me about them."

Rarely does he get more cryptic responses like, "A reach too far shall become an embrace at a moments notice for you, gambler," Veritas mumbles beside him, getting up not too long after saying such without so much as another word. Not before giving him water when he complained about getting too overwhelmed by them and sought someone more familiar, one who bore experience and knowledge of such things firsthand.

Sometimes, Aventurine wondered if it was all some sort of joke that even the highest of the divine beings of this universe were playing on him, but some of the voices were almost quick to reassure him. Often he heard of music playing, words he seemed to partially understand ringing in his ears as he signed one document after the other.

Maybe he'll finally get the freedom he's yearned for so long if he devoted his whole being to THEM instead of the Amber Lord. ... Maybe he'll consider such an act of heresy at a later date.

Note : Try Not To Froth At The Mouth Looking At Aventurine Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE ‼️‼️) (I BROKE MY KNEE‼️‼️‼️)

On a lighter note, tho: my interpretation will unfortunately be published later in the month and im just speedrunning this for good luck on my pookie wookie patootie gookie nookie bear aventurine pulls 🫶

Am i sane for this man? Have i been delulu about him for the past few days?? Mmm,,,, who knows :3

[lampochkaart]

Day 5: Healing

"You shouldn't exist."

Kaito turns his head sharply at those unexpectedly cruel words. Small leader's face is blank, he's looking straight ahead, not sparing a single glance to the person he's talking to.

"What?" all Momota manages to say in responce.

Ouma closes his eyes for a second, sighing, and tilts his head, leaning it on the window frame. "People like you shouldn't exist in the real world. You shouldn't be real."

He stays quiet for a while. Kaito frowns, trying to piece together the meaning of those words. The offended anger that flared up in his chest when he heard this unexpected claim slowly settles down. As much as the astronaut wants to yell at the guy for saying shit like that, and he feels his hands instinctively clenching into fists, something is making him pause. Ouma is an infuriating bundle of contradictions roughly in the shape of a man, and it's very easy to dismiss what he's saying as a lie or some cryptic bullshit, but... Kaito hesistates, deciding to think about his words this time. He feels that if he'll turn away now he will lose something very important. Something that he will never have a chance to get back.

He wants to figure out what Ouma means this time. Kaito... never really listened to him, had he? Even when the words were literally shouted in his face, he still didn't. He heard him. But never listened.

After a minute of silence Momota hesistantly prompts for more info, "What do you mean by that? «People like me»." He shifts on the edge of the bed and glances up at the smaller boy sitting on the windowsill, one leg straightened along the sill, the other half-bent, almost like a barrier to cover himself from the other boy.

The small leader opens his mouth to say something, but then quickly closes it, pursing his lips in a thin line. His eyes dart to Kaito for a second, then straight ahead, going back to pointedly staring at nothingness.

After a couple more seconds of silence, "Unreasonable optimists. Who continue believing that everything will turn out fine not only when things are shitty, but even when everything is trying to prove to them that it will only get worse." His pupils are moving ever so slightly almost as if he's looking at something intently, even though he's staring at a blank wall. "People who believe without a reason. Who blindly trust anyone they meet. Who think that it's not trust that must be earned, but doubt. And who can live for a pretty long time without getting stabbed in the back for this. People like that only exist in stories."

Ouma slowly turns his gaze to Momota, and watches him, face completely devoid of emotion. Astronaut tries to decifer his expression but fails yet again. He turns away, musing on his words for a while.

"Well, I can say the same about you. Before I met you I was sure that there are no people like that. You know, like, so cynical and suspicious. Who consider everyone an enemy unless proven otherwise. Who think the worst side of person is their «true colors» or whatever. And who want people to think the worst about them." Kaito runs a hand through his hair, letting out a tired sigh. "And I don't get it at all. I just..." He winces. "I just don't understand you. I feel like I should, like I have all the puzzle pieces. But I still can't figure out how to put them together. I feel like I do, but then it falls apart and once again I'm left with nothing."

Silence fills the room once again.

[apothe-roses]

I Wanna Ride

Modern Aemond Targaryen x Reader

Part 3

Previous Part | Next Part

Summary: the deal is struck between you and Aemond

Warnings: none, really

A/N: Sorry this took so long! I’ve been really busy with work, and this part was kinda hard to write. That’s also why this is shorter

Word Count: 1.6k

“And he didn’t tell you what he wanted?” Aly looks over at you while adding a slice of turkey to the sandwich she’s making? You shake your head. It had been a few days since everything went down, yet you were still trying to wrap your head around it all. The fact that Aemond would consider helping you at all—foreboding debt aside—just didn’t make sense to you.

“Why does he have to be so cryptic and spooky,” Aly asks, adding a generous amount of mayo to the sandwich.

“Beats me,” you reply. A shout startles you both out of your conversation. You and Aly turn your heads to the living room area. Benji Blackwood and his two friends Kermit and Oscar Tully—“the muppets” as Aly likes to call them—are sprawled across Aly’s couch, cursing at a video game they’re thoroughly engrossed in.

“Oi! You tryin’ to wake your dad up?” Aly calls to them. Currently, Aly’s brother Sam was down the hall, trying to sleep off a migraine. The boys cringe slightly.

“Sorry,” one of the Tully boys stage whispers back to Aly. She sighs. “Anyways, lunch is ready.” In a flash, the boys were on their feet, making their way to the kitchen. Aly pushes the sandwich with the mayo mountain towards Benji.

“Would you like some sandwich with your mayo?” She teases. Benji scowls back, but his expression quickly morphs into a grin. The boys make their way back to the couch. Aly turns to you.

“Listen, if he tries to pull anything with you, just say the word and I’ll kick his ass. Then I’ll call Cregan and he’ll also kick his ass.” You laugh in response. “What’s his deal with them anyways? Are they friends?”

“Acquaintances is more like it. They get along well enough, but Creg’s friendship with Jace sorta puts him on thin ice.”

“…Yeah, I still don’t get it.”

“Look, rich people friendships are weird, okay?” Aly explains. “Sometimes it’s better if you don’t ask questions and just go with it. I find the truth usually comes out on its own time.” She starts resealing containers and putting them in the fridge. You follow suit, deciding to take her advice. You two clean in silence for a couple minutes, until your phone buzzes. You look at the name on the screen, suddenly feeling very nervous.

You show the conversation to Aly. Her eyebrows raise, and she notes the tense expression on your face. “You know you don’t have to do this right? I’m sure I could find some time to give you lessons.”

You think about it for a moment. Aly would certainly be a nicer teacher than Aemond. But her Raven is much different than your Meraxes. Plus, you’d be lying if you said you weren’t looking for an excuse to learn more about the enigmatic, handsome Targaryen.

“I don’t want to cut into your time with your family. I know how important it is to you,” you tell her. “Besides, we’re all adults. I can handle a little tough love.”

“Alright then. Lemme know if you change your mind,” Aly relents, leaving the kitchen. You turn back to your phone to text Aemond.

Saturday morning comes far too soon, and you find yourself heading back to Aemond and Aegon’s shop in the passenger seat of Aly’s truck. One of the doors is rolle up, and you can see Aemond working on a bike. He lifts his head when he hears the engine.

“Well,” you breathe, “here goes nothing.”

“Remember, I’m only a text away,” Aly reassures you. You grin then exit out the passenger side door. Before you turn away, you see Aly glare at Aemond, pointing at her eyes then at him before making a u-turn and driving off. You take a deep breath, then walk over to Aemond. By now, he’s standing and wiping his hands with a cloth. He’s wearing the same outfit as when you two first met, only this time the coveralls are unzipped with the sleeves tied around his waist. The white singlet he’s wearing does nothing to hide the definition of his chest or arms. A few streaks of grime decorate his body, along with a few tattoos. He’s not overtly bulky, but he’s definitely in shape. His biceps flex slightly as he cleans his hands; you try not to bite your lip.

You both stand in awkward silence, waiting for someone to break it. You decide to bite the bullet yourself.

“Where’s Aegon,” you ask, peering into the garage, but there’s no sign of Aemond’s brother.

“He doesn’t typically come in on weekends,” Aemond answers. “Prefers to sleep in.”

“Oh.” You’d hoped he’d be here; his easygoing nature could’ve served as a good mediator.

“So I take it you’re interested?” It takes a moment for you to realize he meant the training.

“Oh I’m yeah. But I want to know what exactly you’re hoping to get out of this,” you reply quickly. Get your shit together you mentally chastise yourself. He’s not worth it.

“Hmm, yes. I’ve been going back and forth on what I want from you,” he starts, setting the rag on a nearby workbench. He turns his back on you.

“And you’ve decided on…” you prompt. He drums his fingers on the table, silent. Then…

“The Conqueror’s Gala. I need someone to go with me,” he states. That’s it? He needs a date to some fancy event? You thought you’d have to do something like clean his house or shine his bike for a month. Not this.

“If you want me to pretend to be your girlfriend, Targaryen-“

“No. Gods no. Nothing like that.” Aemond hastily replies. “My mother is always on my as about bringing a date. Normally, I’d just go with Helaena, but this year she’s decided to side with mum. They want me to prove that I’m capable of spending time with people I’m not directly related to.” His mouth presses into a thin line, and he averts his gaze. He starts drumming his fingers again. It looks like that’s something he does when he’s agitated. You let the silence simmer, silently enjoying the way his jaw clenched.

“Hmmm. I suppose I could spare one evening to get all dressed up and rub elbows with the Westerosi elite,” you sigh in pretend annoyance. He gives you a disgruntled look. “Trust me. It’s not the fun time you think,” he says sharply. Of course a cryptic like him wouldn’t enjoy social events. You try not to laugh at the thought.

“Well, fun or not, I’ll take it,” you tell him. His shoulders relax a little.

“Good,” he says stiffly. “Shall we?” he gestures his hand towards the bike. You realize it’s his own, the bronze coloring of the Vaghar catching the late morning light. You make your way over and take your seat. The bike has the same controls as your Meraxes, but his has extra side mirrors affixed.

Aemond leans over you, one hand on the handlebar and the other on the seat behind you. It takes all your willpower not to gawk at his arm.

“Alright,” Aemond says softly. “Now I want you to start the engine.”

You turn and look at him, incredulous. “You think I don’t know how to start a bike?”

Aemond levels a flare at you. “I’m just being thorough.” You scoff and roll your eyes, but you do as he says.

“Good,” he muses. He’s inches from your ear. The soft timbre of his voice sends a shudder through you. “Now what?” You choke out. You hate the effect he has on you.

“I want you to shift to first gear,” he instructs. All you can do is obey blindly.

“Good. Good,” he praises. He has you go through all the gears and how to break, giving a little praise each time you do something correct. It’s all painfully easy, and you should be insulted he’s making you prove such basic knowledge. Instead, you silently relish the rush of warmth you get with each praise. Hell, you’re almost tempted to get something wrong on purpose just to see how he’ll react? Would he gently explain the correction, or would he go back to being rude and insult you?

“Well then,” Aemond says, pushing off his bike. You mourn the loss of his warmth on your shoulder. “It seems you really do know the basics.” He drawls the last part. Oh yeah, that’s what it’s like when he insults you. You get off the bike, and he starts to wheel it into the garage. “But the Dragon Rally isn’t for the feint of heart. You’ll need to be able to ride long distances in potentially rough weather. You need to be adaptable, ready to make a decision at a moment’s notice. And that’s not even including the Rally itself.”

“What happens at the Rally?” you ask.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Aemond replies, turning his back on you. You scoff. “Yes. I would. That’s why I asked”

He smirks. “All you need to know is that you need to build up your endurance. I’d like to take you on a ride through the Kingswood when you’re next available. Once you’re comfortable, we’ll take more challenging treks. Sound good?”

You nod your head. At least you won’t have to have weird conversations with him when riding.

“Good. Check your schedule, and give me your next available date,” he says before pulling the garage door closed in your face.

You stand there in stunned silence. What the fuck is up with this guy?

You text Aly, and a few minutes later her truck pulls up to the sidewalk.

“Well that was quick,” she observes as you put on your seatbelt.

“You’re telling me,” you reply, looking back at the garage as Aly pulls away.

You were confused. You were intrigued. Something told you this was only the tip of the iceberg that was Aemond Targaryen.

Previous Part | Next Part

Taglist: @valeskafics @carriellie @let-love-bleeds-red @wintrr13 @queenofshinigamis @seabasscevans @fangirlninja67 @toodlesxcuddles @almostpurplelady @goldenpanda16 @aemonds-fire @yentroucnagol @tssf-imagines @n4tforlife @mooncalvin @julczimozart @kezibear

Bold means I couldn’t tag you

[nudgeling]

I've had a resurgence of listening to First Aid Kit recently so I decided to pair up a bunch of their songs and lyrics to traffic characters and ships. I'm surprised they’re not more popular in fandom spaces since they’re pretty similar genre-wise to both Crane Wives and the Oh Hellos, so consider this is my community pitch (+ commentary cuz i wanna)

Fleeting one - BigB

"My love is a fleeting one / My man could be anyone / And our love is a setting sun / My life is fleeting one / My work is just a web I've spun / Oh, my life is a setting sun / Baffled by the lives we were lent / We met the end too soon / I was honest when I told you / We're as cryptic as the moon"

BigB has a bit of a history with wavy loyalties. The secret soulmates with Grian, betraying Cleo, and most recently tricking Skizz (I know that was resolved but a pattern is a pattern my man). And well, not that I have any clue what the man's up with all the cryptic gaslighting but I feel like that applies as well.

The lyrics outside the chorus seem to be about a couple falling out of love, but I like to apply it to him and Cleo, which still fits fairly well. Angst galore ofc.

Wolf - Pearl

"When I run through the deep dark forest long after this begun / Where the sun would set, the trees were dead, and the rivers were none / And I hope for a trace to lead me back home from this place / But there was no sound there was only me and my disgrace"

Scratch this being the most Pearl-like FAK song, this is the most Pearl song ever. It's basically what started this whole project. All the lyrics and all the vibes just screams DL Pearl. The song is also a bop, one of my personal favs, if I were to recommend just one of these to listen to then this is a strong contender.

Josefin - Martyn

"You go home with feet bare in the snow / You raise up your head to the dead / You seek of such magical things / And nobody knows where you've been"

This smells of watcher lore guys. Don’t have much more commentary than that, it’s just watcher lore straight up.

King of the World - Lizzie

"I keep running around / Trying to find the ground / But my head is in the stars / And my feet are in the sky / Well I'm nobody's baby / I'm everybody's girl / I'm the queen of nothing / I'm the king of the world"

The lyrics is giving Last Life Lizzie, but it’s also one of the more whimsical-sounding songs on the list which feels very Lizzie in general.

I'll admit the rest of the lyrics isn’t particularly easy to tie into the life series since there’s a bunch of specific modern references like going to the airport and traveling through states, but I love the song way too much not to include it. Might be the personal favourite.

Rebel heart - Desert duo

"You told me once I have a rebel heart / I don't know if that's true / But I believe you saw something in me that lives inside you too / Now I all I hear is the wind / There’s a storm coming through / Did I misplace or forsake my love now that I gave it to you?"

Picking just one lyric section from this song was difficult. Every single word, top to bottom, fits Scarian like a glove. It also slams in a "But I know you truly saw me / Even if just for a while" which just MMMM. Makes me wanna bite someone.

I Found a Way - Treebark

"We play the game with skillful hands / And so I asked for your demands / "Give me your love, give me your gun" / And you traced us back to where we begun"

Tbh this song could apply to a lot of traffic dynamics but it had a lot of loyalty themes which is why I put it at Treebark specifically. That being said: man. It works so well. Specifically Martyn POV. The gun in the lyric above would ofc be the beheading, plus the song later mentions the protagonist having a lot of guilt and being prone to running. It's got C!Martyn all over it.

My Silver Lining - Skizz

"I try not to hold on to what is gone / I try to do right what is wrong / I try to keep on keeping on / Yeah I just keep on keeping on / I hear a voice calling / Calling out for me / These shackles I've made in an attempt to be free / Be it for reason, be it for love / I won't take the easy road"

This is another one where it just is Skizz. He’s probably been the most consistantly loyal and good-natured person in the series, doing anything and everything for his team. I feel this especially with how he was in Limited Life, being determined to spread some light into the world despite the game they found themselves in. When making this list I found that most of these songs could fit multiple dynamics/characters, but this is his song, full stop.

Stay Gold - Flower Husbands

"The sun shone high those few summer days / Left us in a soft, wide-eyed haze / It shone like gold / It shone like gold / But just as the moon, it shall stray / So dawn goes down today / No gold can stay / No gold can stay"

👏ANGST👏GALORE

Another one where I just want to quote the whole song. The song is all about grieving time periods and memories you can’t get back, to which I'm thinking late-game 3rd life, post-3rd life divorce or s1 empires characters having weird nostalgia. I go feral for all of it.

Bonus empires:

Heavy storm - Sausage

"I saw, I saw, I saw, I saw an old photograph / And the picture that appeared / Well, it took me back to the times / When she was around / She used to play that old mandolin / And the moon and the sea invited her in / I wish that I had told her by then / What she knew deep down / That she only wished that time would come back"

S1 Sausage angst my beloved. Or s2, could work either way, but I'm partial to s1. "She" could be either Pearl or Gem, however there is a "he" in the first chorus which is very much Fhwip. Like Stay Gold it’s all about grieving old times, so I like to imagine a post S1 Sausage grieving his old family :D

[nextstop-fixationstation]

Personally I think that the temples were written in a very clever way with how obvious and yet cryptic they are, because there are multiple meanings to take from their lessons. You have humility and persistence from the temples of wit and strength, which are the only two lessons that are kept rather purposefully obscure (as Valeriana seems to only address Anne directly, for whatever reason).

(This got longer than i thought it would, so i'm putting it under a readmore)

Humility has strategic benefits, as knowing when to throw battles to win the war is often key. Marcy is actually already very good at that, as shown when they play their game, but this is not true humility. At first brush, the idea of being "humble enough to lose" sounds like it's referring to only losing a game, but it actually refers to being wrong in general. "Lose" can mean being willing to lose something of yourself in order to maintain the relationships you have or accept new viewpoints. Loss itself is not a bad thing in this situation, and avoiding it can actually have dire consequences. Marcy's real trial actually technically ends when they accept that they were wrong about Andrias and about, specifically, wanting to cling so much to Anne and Sasha that they'd hurt all of them in the process. They were also wrong to view their friendships with so little faith, which is technically the crux of their insecurity. Insecurity and fear are the way that Marcy and the Core act as foils for one another as well. In this case, Marcy basically loses their life and potentially their friendships to save them, and that seems to be the actual culmination of the temple's lesson. Insecurity and pride are closely linked as opposites and as things of the same basic nature.

When talking about persistence, we also already know that Sasha is already persistent. We see it with toad tower and with the fact he takes over Newtopia, and the statement, "End of discussion," denotes a certain amount of stubbornness. He forges forward with his plans regardless of what his conscience might tell him throughout the series, until something changes in Turning Point. In that sense, it's not the idea of relentless persistence towards a goal that the temple refers to. Rather, the temple here is referring to persistence in change or becoming someone different. People make mistakes while finding their way. Sasha constantly makes them on screen, and that's why he loses Braddock and Percy. He nearly loses Anne completely. When he finally does turn around, he's persistent in trying to make things right. Something that I wouldn't consider a mistake but rather just an instance of reasonable hesitation is that conversation with Anne about how he's not sure he can forgive Marcy after this. It's a small interaction, but it shows just how persistent and dedicated he is to change. A previous Sasha wouldn't have put down his front long enough to even have the conversation. There's a lot of growth that's very apparent by the end of the series, and this "true strength" is what allows him to say with confidence, by the end, that he's "not that person anymore."

It should then be noted that these double meanings come from the fact that the aspect of the Heart, Anne's aspect, is what links all three of these traits (Wit-Stength-Heart) together to form, essentially, the power of a hero. Anne is the only one of the three to have any tangible feedback from a character to detail what the point of the trial is, and what worthiness actually means. In the end, Anne is worthy because 1) she admits she's wrong and has flaws, and 2) also tries every single day to be better. If you take those two statements into consideration, she already fulfills the other two criteria from the temples of Wit and Strength -- humility and persistence. Thusly, Anne Boonchuy is the most worthy of all three of the Calamity Trio. Perfection and embodiment are not required -- such a requirement would be antithetical to the series' thesis. Instead, Anne embodies the idea of metamorphosis and change, and that makes her a hero to everyone who loves her.

[madamebaggio]

Notes: Previously...

It's been a long while here as well, but we're back on the game, babe!

***

Chapter 3

“Lothíriel, my love.”

The princess smiled at her father as he entered her room. Annail greeted the prince and left so they could talk.

“Father.” Lothíriel hugged him, because she loved the man dearly. Her father was -in her eyes- the best man in the world, and no other could compare.

He was wise, kind and just. Imrahil was a fierce warrior, but he wasn’t arrogant or cruel and she’d always imagined that all men ought to be just like him.

Her brothers were good too, but they were annoying as brothers were supposed to be. She liked to believe they’d mature at some point.

Maybe.

“Have you eaten something?” She asked him.

“Yes. And I’ve also bathed, thanks to you.” He kissed her forehead. “You’re so thoughtful.”

Lothíriel snorted. “Father, you don’t need to flatter me. Just tell me what you want.”

Imrahil chuckled good-naturedly, then grabbed her left hand. “Fine, fine. You are way too smart for me.” He teased. “But I have a feeling you might know what I am about to say.”

“Does it have anything to do with the King of Rohan?” She offered dryly.

Imrahil sighed and patted her hand. “Come sit with me.” He asked.

She didn’t know why her father was being so cryptic about it. Why not just come out and say he wanted her to marry Éomer?

However, she decided to play along. She took her father to the sitting room connected to her chambers and sat down and waited.

“You are my pride and joy, Lothíriel.” He finally spoke up. “You are the daughter of your mother and every single time I look at you, I see her.”

Not knowing what to say to that, Lothíriel just nodded. Mentions of her mother always made her feel a bit choked up, since she’d never met her. Her mother died when Lothíriel was barely four years-old, so she had no recollection of her. She was constantly told how much she looked like the woman, and she felt happy that she had something of her. Even if it was just the looks.

“If it were up to me, I would keep you by my side forever, but I don’t think that’s fair to you.” He sighed. “You deserve a family and a home of your own.”

“You mean that’s my duty.”

“It’s not only that.” He assured her. “You have spent too much of your life taking care of us. Now that your brother is married, it is expected of his wife to take on your duties. You are going to be left with very little to do, and I know you aren’t the type of person who will enjoy doing nothing. You might enjoy your days by the sea, but you aren’t an idle lady.”

That much was true. Although Lothíriel enjoyed coming to the Crystal Palace and playing around the beach and the gardens, she knew those were breaks from her real life. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life doing that.

“You need more.” Her father told her firmly. “And you deserve more.”

“Like a crown?”

He narrowed her eyes at her tone. “Like a good man that will be a good husband.”

“We are talking about Éomer King, aren’t we?”

“We are.” Her father finally decided to get to the point. “As I said, you are smart, and you know I brought him here to meet you because I have hopes for you.”

Lothíriel opened her mouth, but Imrahil raised a hand for her to wait. “I’m not saying that the marriage contract is ready to be signed on my desk.” He told her. “I would never make the choice for you, Lothíriel, especially because Rohan will have a hard time in the next few years after everything they went through. Becoming the Queen of a country in such a condition won’t be easy.”

Lothíriel frowned. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me now.”

“I want you to consider Éomer.” He told her. “He is one of the best men I’ve ever met, and he’ll be a great king. I believe he’d make you happy and take care of you. However, I want you to consider the situation of Rohan as well. Exactly because I know you wouldn’t be the kind of queen who’d sit back and wait for her King to rule the country on his own.”

“So you want me to marry him, but you want me to think seriously about what that would entail.” Lothíriel summarized.

“Not only in the political aspect.” Imrahil said. “I want you to get to know him and decide whether you could come to care about him and be happy with him.”

“Father.” She sighed. “Are you being romantic?”

Imrahil chuckled warmly. “I would like to see you well settled, Lothíriel. But more than that, I’d like to see you well loved.”

***

Éomer fixed his clothes one more time before leaving his room. They were to have dinner soon, and it had sounded like it’d be a bit of a formal affair.

Having time to bathe and rest earlier on had been a blessing. It’d been some time since Éomer had been afforded such a luxury with such calm. Even after the war had ended and they were in Gondor, there was so much to be done and discussed. There were always more things that needed to be done.

Relaxing in hot water had felt like an indulgence.

As much as Éomer didn’t like to waste his time in such ways normally, he could admit -at least to himself -that it’d felt good. More than that, it’d felt like he’d earned the right to have one peaceful afternoon, where he had no concerns.

Reality would come sooner rather than later, and then he wouldn’t have moments like this anymore. It might be a bit selfish to steal such moments, but he wouldn’t linger on these concerns.

Éothain was waiting for him in the hallway. “My king.”

Éomer nodded to his friend. “Let’s go.”

They started walking side by side. “So… The princess.”

Éomer threw the other man a side look. “Yes?”

“Very pretty.”

That was an understatement. “I didn’t notice.”

Éothain’s snort expressed quite well his friend’s disbelief. “Sure you didn’t.”

“She’s Imrahil’s daughter.” Éomer pointed out needlessly.

“Yes, and the man would love to see you two married.”

Of course his friend would say it bluntly like that. “Perhaps.”

Éothain arched an eyebrow. “Perhaps?” He snorted. “What do you think?”

“It’s too early to think anything.” Éomer said diplomatically.

Éothain couldn’t contain yet another snort. “That pretty, uh?”

Éomer finally sighed. “Yes. Let’s go with pretty.”

[popjunkie42]

Hate Me Instead - Chapter 8

An update for you!

There is 🌶️🌶️🌶️! Pillow talk! It’s ridiculously long. It took me a while. Rhys is in his happy place.

Hate Me Instead Chapter 8 - Remember on AO3

I’ve updated and there will be two more chapters after this!

Summary: Rhys and Feyre take advantage of her second visit to the Night Court.

Snippet:

My fingers were tangled in her hair, gently working out a knot that had formed sometime during the night. My other hand rested idly on her hip.

I had forgotten how surprising it was with a new lover, to have them offer their body so completely. I knew mine was hers for whatever purposes she desired.

But once again, Feyre was thinking. I supposed she had endless questions, and now that she had me here I was her captive audience.

“Do you really think I could help with Hybern? That I could make a difference?” She asked quietly.

Once again here she was, not realizing her worth, her selfless bravery, the power that slept beneath her skin.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t think so,” I assured her. “You took down one of his top generals. He’s probably afraid of you even now.”

Incredulous eyes found mine. But I meant it. In his situation, I certainly would be at least very, very curious.

“And you want me to catch the Suriel?” She asked.

“That could be a start. They’re powerful creatures, and incredibly rare. Accounts say they can be fickle and cryptic, but even a few answers could get us closer to what we need.”

She was lost in her thoughts again.

“How did you catch one to begin with?” I asked.

Feyre shrugged.

“I set a snare near moving water, like Lucien suggested. And I took a slaughtered chicken from the kitchen. The hardest part was convincing the kitchen staff,” she said.

I couldn’t help but smile.

“You caught a Suriel with a bit of rope and a dead chicken?”

“I told you, it wasn’t that hard. What did you try?”

“Not that.”

I finally got through the knot in her hair, combing my fingers through her curls from the nape of her neck.

“What was it like?” I asked.

Feyre considered, remembering.

“At first it was…terrifying.” She admitted. “But I was desperate. I felt trapped at Spring, and no one could tell me anything because of the curse. I didn’t even know Tamlin was a High Lord until the Suriel told me.” She sighed. “I felt a little like…I guess I felt it was kind. In all my time in Prythian the Suriel is the only one who really told me the truth about everything.”

Including me. My fingers stilled at that. Feyre, once again, curious and stuck between High Lords and all their secrets. I had my reasons but I felt some guilt at that, at being just another confusing hindrance to her.

“I guess I felt at the end that we had a kind of…understanding. And I was very thankful for the answers it gave. I don’t think it wanted to hurt me.”

A flash of a thought - did the Suriel choose to visit Feyre? Did the Suriel…like her?

I couldn’t help but smile at that. My mate, friend to the monsters.

“What did it tell you?” I asked.

She scrunched her face a bit, remembering. “It told me it was older than Prythian. It told me about Hybern, sending out generals and spies across the world. Tried to tell me about Amarantha, before we were…interrupted. Told me if I went meddling, looking for more answers, that she would devour me. I guess I didn’t listen.”

I returned my hands to her hair, wrapping a finger around one of her curled locks. I thought again of Feyre’s sacrifice, how thankful I was to be free and home, but how much that freedom had cost her, still was costing her. I wondered, not for the first time, if it was worth it.

“What would you ask the Suriel, if I caught it?” She asked.

Give her something real, Mor had said.

“Between just the two of us?” I asked, not knowing how she would feel about keeping more secrets from Tamlin.

Feyre considered for a moment and then nodded.

“I believe that Hybern may be seeking magic objects, old objects of great power, in order to win this war. Something to destroy the wall, destroy armies that may rise against him. I’d like to know what he may possess, and how we might nullify those objects to prevent his plans from ever coming to fruition.” I told her.

Feyre was silent, staring at the ceiling. I wondered if she was thinking about the wall, and the danger to her family. If she was fearing the possibility of war, and how she might face it, in what capacity.

“What would you ask, if you met it again?” I asked after a moment.

She frowned at that, looking away. She was silent for a while.

“I don’t really know. I…” she was still so reluctant, to be vulnerable around me. “I guess I don’t really know what the future holds now. So I don’t even know what I don’t know.”

I thought for a moment. “You don’t have to have everything figured out right now. Or tomorrow, or the day after. You’re fae now, and you should take time to figure out what you want for your new long life. There’s no need to rush into decisions or feel like you need all the answers.” I toyed with her hair a bit more. “I’m 537 years old, and sometimes I’m still figuring things out day by day.”

No need to rush into a wedding , I thought. I hoped I wasn’t being too obvious.

But her eyes took on a playful spark. “I wonder what the Suriel would tell me about you , if I asked.” She wondered with a small smile.

Mother above.

Read the rest on AO3.

[kandyrezi]

Kurotsuno + Sullivan + Kcalb [thesis + general observation]

I know there have been a lot of speculations before about how the three of them could possibly be related to one another, but I was thinking about this while washing the dishes and it wouldn’t leave my head until I gave it my own two cents & wrote this all down. I’ll probably come back to this post in… five or six years when we finally get a TGG prequel/any Obsolete Dream chapters past the 9th, so I can check case by case how spot-on this was or how many mistakes I made.

This is mostly just for fun, so read this with an open mind, and pardon me for any potential inaccuracies - if that’s the case, then I implore people to point them out so I can… try and fix any inconsistencies there might be.

This is partially a theory post, partially a headcanon post, because there are just too many big gaps in the events to make one, straight, linear timeline to tie everything - from cryptic hints to subtle signs - together from beginning to the end, so a lot of it is really just my charitable speculation.

(rest of it is under the cut, 'cus this is quite long, trust me~)

So, Sullivan has some obvious relation to Kcalb, as they do share noticeable physical similarities (eyes/black sclera + horns), though it is unclear if Kcalb is a blood-related parent to Sullivan (because then, y’know, who is the other parent?), if they are very distant blood-relatives, or if Sullivan is just one of his creations - much like how Ivlis created Vendetto/Poemi from his flames - though I’m not certain how far his capabilities in terms of creation go, because of this line Kcalb says at some point in The Gray Garden.

‘Repair’ is kind of a subsection of ‘creation’. Either way, Kcalb clearly has more than enough loyal subordinates, so how did Sullivan even come to be?

"His upbringing was way too complicated." is one of the sentences used in this specific art to describe Sullivan, so that's enough of a hint already that he isn’t that 'ordinary' in the slightest.

If he was created by Kcalb or born from someone else, the devil would, either way, have required the involvement of another individual (’Raven’? AKA The mysterious figure speaking to him on the train in the ‘bonus room’ video? The red-eyed figure “Fate” who appears in Etihw’s memories of the past in the ‘Normal End’?) in order to do so in the first place. If we assume Kcalb even knew of his existence or was with him at any point, then Kcalb would have used Sullivan for his own gain; a kind of a host or placeholder body if his powers were to be diminished or taken from him, his fundamental connection to Sullivan would allow him to ‘borrow’ his powers back, or someone to lead the war if he would be gone.

Whether or not Sullivan actually possesses the same abilities as Kcalb is unclear, though similarly to Kurotsuno, he is seen with the exact same asymmetrical symbols (the same ones visible when Kcalb renders Ivlis powerless) in some artworks.

Addressing one of the many elephants in the room first and foremost; I don’t believe Elena is Sullivan’s mother or has anything to do with him at all, for that matter, considering she is Zigzag’s sister and doesn’t really seem like a special being - meaning she doesn’t stand out from any of the other demons from the Pitch Black World/Ne-No-Kuni in her art LOGs. She hasn’t been hinted in any way to have possible connections to the Gray World either. The physical similarities (blond hair, black/green retina) are likely just re-used design choices. A very ironic statement considering I used this exact argument with the aforementioned Kcalb/Sullivan’s relation to one another, but their relationship actually has more than just one subtle similarity connecting to one another.

The reason Sullivan might look sickly in a lot of his artwork is because he doesn’t handle these devil-given powers well mentally or physically, since they were thrust onto him forcibly and he has been described as ‘weak’ by many of the characters.

He might be Kcalb's descendant, but he clearly isn't as powerful as the devil is, with his poor physical health and all. Whatever Kcalb’s plans with him might’ve be, it ended up fruitless (for now). Kcalb was quite terrible during the war era, so he probably didn’t treat Sullivan very well. At some point, Sullivan might have been whisked away by someone (possibly ‘Raven’ from the ‘bonus room’ video), or he himself escaped the Gray World to go and live in Neo-No-Kuni.

He’s seen wearing a gyakuan and has been classmates with Gyakuten since their school years, so his departure/upbringing already happened over there when he was quite young. [1]

In the distant future, he meets his wife to-be at some point and they get married, but she dies due to unknown causes [2] when Olivia is at a young age, so Sullivan is left to raise her by himself.

I am, personally, a big fan of the “Olie is Kurotsuno’s mother” theory for many reasons which are stated below. They do indeed have some notable similarities, which have already been brought up before by some other people, such as:

• Similar hair + eye color

• Similar sounding names (+ Olie's last name used to be Kurokuro)

• Olie has been seen interacting with Reina, meaning she’s in the Obsolete Dream universe

• Kurotsuno’s mother was stated to be dead, and Olie correspondingly has strong ties with death/mourning

• Olivia is clearly stated to be human (or at least, partially [3]), so she would need a human parent, and Olie looks quite human enough

• Olie used to be listed in the ‘dead’ category in the funamusea(.)com/characters/ page, not with the youkai (Reina & Jianshi) she has been seen with thus far, despite the fact Olihana is also based off of a youkai. Before DSP changed the layout of the character page on the official website, Olie was actually placed within the ‘undead’ category, which supported the theory of her being dead--

[Image retrieved from the internet archives!]

--but now she’s been put into the ‘youkai’ category (which is visible on the new design of the website), so I don’t know if it’s a retconned idea DSP previously had, or if it’s to hide Olie’s true identity for now, but we also don’t have a lot of information about the youkai characters to begin with, where they reside, where does the youkai world connect with Neo-No-Kuni, or what their role is in the overarching story.

[1] if Sullivan has been in Neo-no-Kuni since his school years, then there is a distinct probability Kcalb has never even met Sullivan face-to-face, and Sullivan may have been raised by someone else from birth/creation.

[2] alternate possibility is, she might not have died and is currently residing in the youkai realm as Olihana?

[3] Olivia might not even be fully human, considering her father is a demon, so there’s that chance she might be a cambion (half-human/demon hybrid, which originates from as far back as 19th century European mythology).

There is very little known about who Olie is, but she is an interesting character and there seems to be more to her than meets the eye, judging from some of the deleted official artwork of her. I want to look at them a little bit further, see if there’s anything interesting to be found.

Oh, hey, would you look at that! Olivia & Olie together in the same pic! The kanji above them is just their names. (Kurotsuno, Kurokawa, and Olie’s old surname - Kurokuro)

Translation: “The grief of the deceased does not reach.”

Is the “deceased” in question alluding to herself, or someone else?

The most interesting picture of her so far, if not the most cryptic and somewhat confusing. It’s worth at least mentioning them; do these objects in the image hint at her character, or backstory - or are they just meant to be decorative? It has a clock stopped at 3:00, a painting, unknown letters scattered about, and a gramophone with many different items (flowers, masks, a radio) inside of it.

The closest visually similar flowers like the ones in the art I was able to find is the Morning Glory.

It has a lot of different allegorical meanings, depending on its color. A blue Morning Glory, in particular, usually alludes to feelings of trust and/or respect - which might be a connection she shares with her other self, Olihana.

Buried in the flowers are two masks. One is the Hannya mask ( 般若 ) which is usually worn by Olihana in artworks, a mask representing a female character drawn to madness by jealousy/resentment. The other one closely resembles either the Wakaonna mask or Ko-omote mask ( 能面 小面 ), which is mostly worn by young girls, and meant to convey the idea of innocent beauty. The latter mask could in theory belong to Olie.

Any connection I could find with the painting in the background is the fact it is a little reminiscent of Mori Ippô’s 1871 painting, “White Fox”. It might just be there in DSP’s art for aesthetic purposes though, so I’ll leave it at that.

And now, onto the timeline.

((A lot of text below is heavily headcanon/speculation based, while trying to stay true to currently known canon information as much as possible.))

Olivia and Sullivan have a big fight at some point, which ends with Sullivan losing his temper and possibly locking up Olivia into her room. She would have either snuck out, or Hanten would have shown up at Rapunzel’s Olivia’s window and helped her out of there. This is Sullivan and Olivia’s last meeting for a very long time.

When she meets up with Hanten and tells her what had happened, the latter would definitely know of the ‘reason’ behind her ‘rebellious streak’ - as the many characters in OD point out is prevalent in her behavior.

Hanten even makes a remark about Sullivan in chapter 4.

The implication seems almost emphasized here; the second panel is zoomed in closely to Hanten, and she's posing somewhat of a rhetorical question with the "Right, Kurotsuno?" as if the latter would know about this first hand. Kurotsuno is seen being physically violent with Sullivan or verbally degrading him in nearly all of their artworks together, yet not once have we seen him losing his temper with her for her behavior, so he might feel some guilt over his past actions and keeps his temper under control, as sort of a vow because he knows what happened last time he didn’t listen to her.

Olivia might have chosen to run away from home altogether, and Hanten might or might not have gone with her, but I won’t mention her too much in this post for the time being.

Either someone takes her back to the Gray World, or she goes there on her own.

She meets Kcalb at some point and the two of them develop something of a friendly bond. Kcalb likely didn’t know about Oliva being Sullivan’s daughter since she’s a human and looks quite a bit like her mother, bearing almost no similarities to her father.

At some point, a bigger war breaks out and Kcalb has to leave, so he doesn’t see Olivia for quite some time.

It’s during this time when ‘Raven’/’Train Guy’/’Fate’ from Etihw’s memories swoops in and finds Kcalb to tell him about Olivia’s relation to Sullivan, making the devil to a complete 180 and come to the conclusion of using her for his own gain to turn the tides of ongoing war in his favor.

Both Kurotsuno and Kcalb have a connection to the moon [1], so it’s during the full moon when he goes back to Olivia after a long time of not seeing her, she’s likely excited to meet him again, except Kcalb will only use her for his own benefit, with Olivia possessing Sullivan’s blood, and to that extend, also Kcalb’s.

Etihw drained Kcalb of his powers, but he can use Olivia to activate them, but since Olivia’s powers are essentially useless/non-existent as a human, Kcalb turns her into a demon, which was (as canon seems to allude to this) a very painful, agonizing process.

Hanten might have found Olivia and gone into a state of grief to find and think her to be dead, only for the latter to finally wake up. When she does, all of her memories are gone and she doesn’t remember any of her time spent in the Gray World, or whom Kcalb even is, or why is she laying in a barren wasteland.

Except for the argument and how he locked her up – then it’s everything else in between is a blackout in her memory – up until the point when the agonizing pain Kcalb put her through begins to take form.

Because of their outward physical similarities, she concludes it was Sullivan who had hurt her in such a painful way.

Oliva decides her name is no longer ‘Olivia’ but Kurotsuno, which is a name she chose to give herself, because of the asymmetrical, mismatched horn on her right side of the head. She wants to cut ties with the past and what had happened, hence the new name.

It’s likely Hanten did not go through the same transformation Oliva did at that exact time, and became a lookalike with Anten at a later point, hence this image here.

Hanten’s arm is cut off and it’s transforming into the black one she has currently, instead of the normal, beige colored one with red nails she did before. Also, not to mention, the horns are also becoming different - as such; both Kuro & Hanten’s transformation took place at different times and different places, Hanten’s not until much later on.

Haten & Olivia both had their memories erased, hence why Hanten has no bitter memories of their time, whereas Olivia (now Kurotsuno) does, considering Hanten doesn’t take Kurotsuno’s hatred of Sullivan seriously and refers to it as “rebellious phase” much like the other characters, such as Maekami. Otherwise she would actually know the real reason why Kurotsuno is in her demon-equivalent of a ‘rebel phase’ and moody all the time?

Sullivan probably went looking for Olivia at some point during when all that took place but couldn’t locate her since he had no idea where to look, that’s why there’s a note in Mogeko Castle and his reasons for being there in the first place.

[1] Olivia’s transformation might have happened during the full moon. That’s why Met says this, because that’s when her memories of that time become more vivid.

Kcalb has a conversation about the distant past with Yosafire when they’re looking at the moon, in one of the bonus room videos. Here’s a transcript of it:

Kcalb: “There are some people I’d like to meet again. The first would be difficult to meet now. As would the second. The third... I’ve never met face-to-face.”

Yosafire: “Why not?”

Kcalb: “I’m simply not worthy of meeting them.”

Yes, he could be talking about his former-now-dead subordinates, but surely he’s met all of them face-to-face. Surely. An alternate interpretation of this speech is the possibility of the first mentioned person being Sullivan, and the second one being Kurotsuno/Olivia. I don’t really know whom the third person might be. Place your bets in my askbox now! The winner gets… nothing, except crippling, soul-crushing depression, sorry.

Also, you kinda need eagle eyes for this, but look at Sullivan holding that black/white diamond handkerchief in chapter 7.

Coincidence? I think N—

...actually, who knows. might just be a coincidence after all this thorough analysis after all.

Okay, now, THERE IS A LOOOTTTT MORE which I did not deep-dive into, such as Kcalb’s conversation with the unknown ‘Raven’ on the train, the ‘???’ bonus room video dialogue, “THE PAST” official artwork with the smiling guy with the knife and the bleeding-from-mouth Olivia, the flashback images that Ivlis shows to Yosafire, etc etc. Because this post is quite long already, I think I’m alright to leave it as it is.

Haha, If you made it this far…. wowie thanks for reading my new and improved thesis! <3

(I also named this ‘daddy issues the theory babey’ as a word document on my computer... u _ u

[sissytobitch10seconds]

The Second Most Influential Night of Kaz Brekker and Matthias Helvar’s Lives

Fandom: Grishaverse: Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone Summary: Many nights could be considered massively influential to the Brekker-Helvar household, the ones where they lost their family probably serving as the nights that changed them the most. This one serves to have the same kind of function to their family- but in reverse. Warnings: Mpreg, pregnancy, graphic birth, premature birth, and cryptic pregnancy Word Count: 14,129 Ship(s): Matthias Helvar/Kaz Brekker

Archive link!

A/N: I think those of you that knew me saw this coming from a mile away. For those of you that don't know me: I really loved the show I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant when I was younger, so now I've made it my business to write as many fics inspired off of it as I can. I do want to make sure that people head the tags before going into this, it's not going to be one of the super happy stories where everything turns out fine as soon as the baby is born. I wanted to highlight the more difficult struggles people can go through with cryptic pregnancies and surprise deliveries. I hope that you guys enjoy! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

Matthias always knew that he was in for something horrible when he woke up with his back aching. He tried to take care of himself and he succeeded more than any of the other people in their friend group, but it didn’t mean that he was successful every single time. He watched what he ate, he worked out more than he probably should have to build up his muscle mass, and he made sure that he drank plenty of water.

The problem was that it was hard to keep up that kind of lifestyle when one’s husband was on a business trip. Matthias usually worked at a local animal shelter while Kaz ran an empire with their close friend Wylan Van Eck. Every so often, a trip to a place that they both desperately wanted to travel to would come up and Matthias would go with his husband. While they were out of their home they would eat whatever they wanted and Matthias would let himself slip. 

He had known pretty much as soon as their plain landed back down in their native city that he was in for a rough ride for the next couple of days. He had always had a touchy system, but during the past couple of months it had been even worse. A change in diet and habit as well as him going off of a medication that he had been on for years was bound to mess with his system.

The blond tried in vain to ignore it for as long as he could. He curled forward in bed so that his forehead was resting on Kaz’s shoulder and then let out a little grunt if discontent when the pain remained just as steady as it had been for the last hour. He let out a sigh that was probably too loud based on the fact that it was very early in the morning and then scooted to the edge of the bed. 

The cold of the night air bit at his limbs and made him wish that he was back on the sandy beaches in Novyi Zem where they had been just a few nights earlier. He wondered if that was what Jesper felt like every time he had to put up with the constant, ankle-biting cold of the Kerch winters. It didn’t even snow and give Matthias something nice to look forward to like the winter months in Fjerda had.

He carefully stepped over Trassel so that the dog didn’t have to rouse as well and then shuffled to the bathroom. The nightlight they had as a security precaution, and a Jesper precaution, was attached to the wall and emitting a hard enough glow that he didn’t need to turn the light on. He knew that if he woke his brain up more than the pain had he would never get back to sleep, and after being severely jetlagged that sounded like the worst thing that could happen to him. He shut the door behind him with a soft click and then went about his business trying to relieve the discomfort in his intestines.

Nothing happened but he noticed a couple of dark patches in the front of his boxers that hadn’t been there when he had showered earlier that night. He leaned over the counter so that he could flick the light on and get a better look, the white from the wall plug-in no longer cutting it. He squinted when the harsh overhead from the mirror took over the room. Once he had adjusted, he swore under his breath in Fjerdan.

Dark blood had pooled in the crotch of his underthings and stained them more than even a wet dream would have. He shucked off the clothing item and then reached into the cabinet next to the toilet where they kept all the pads and tampons. He had to get around the sizes that they had stocked for Inej and Nina when the other two were visiting so that he could get the couple of old ones in the back meant for him. He found a clean pair of underpants even if they weren’t his preferred cut and then slipped them over his legs.

Once he was sure that he wasn’t going to get blood all over the rug, he grabbed his boxers from the ground and then flicked the sink’s plug on. He filled it up with cold water and left the garment to soak for a while, too tired to remember the exact steps and not caring that much about a single pair of black boxers. He turned the light off before he opened the door in the hopes that he hadn’t actually woken his husband up with all of his antics.

Matthias knew that he should have known better. Even though he had been on the straight and narrow for a very long time, there was no way that someone could take all the street out of the boy when that boy was Kaz Brekker.

The man in question was laying supine with his head tilted towards the ceiling. The only tell that he was awake at all was the twitching of his left hand and the gentle brush of his eyelashes against his bottom cheek. Matthias slowly lowered himself down onto the bed next to him in the hopes that they wouldn’t have to talk about it, but the left hand jerked over to his arm to get his attention. 

“Are you alright?” Kaz asked.

“My cycle started, that’s all,” Matthias sighed as he laid back down against his pillows. They still smelled of Kaz, which was enough to soothe some of the tension in his shoulders even if the cramps were persistently bothering his back.

“This is good,” Kaz informed him in a soft voice. When they had first met, Matthias had been convinced that there was no way for a man that sharp to be soft, but Kaz had systematically proven him wrong as many times as he could.

Matthias opened his mouth to speak again but was quickly silenced by a pair of lips on his. That made a rush of endorphins leak out through his body because he knew that meant that Kaz was dealing with his phobia better than he had been before and the day would be easier on them both. On the other hand, he was still frustrated with what his body was doing and very unhappy about it.

His mind was cloudy with thoughts about how wrong it was for him to be going through this again when he had worked so hard to make it stop. He remembered all the mornings and late nights that he had stolen away from his family and then his foster father so that he could bawl his eyes out over the fact that it felt like every fiber of his being was rebelling against him. He felt the uncomfortable tightness in his back, thighs, and around his front. The bulky feeling of the pad between his legs was another small reminder that he wasn’t shaped the way that he should have been. Everything felt wrong and off in a way that it hadn’t since before he had married his husband.

The husband in question tilted his head forward so that it was resting against Matthias’ forehead, which somehow worked to clear away the thoughts that he was fighting. “I know that this is painful, but this way we can actually start trying to have a baby,” Kaz breathed. Despite the usually stoic expression that haunted his near-gaunt features, a smile now stretched over his pouty lips.

“I know, I know. We’ve wanted this for so long and Djel is finally cooperating,” Matthias smiled back. It was hard to not be infected with the joy that his partner was exuding even if he was uncomfortable and unhappy about the fact that he was actively menstruating again.

A year after they were married they decided that they wanted to have children and the next three years after that had been spent in a mad scramble to try and find a way to do just that. Jesper and Wylan had adopted a little boy a couple of years before they had decided to have children and tried to guide the other couple down that path, but Kaz’s background check had never cleared. Nina and Inej had gone through a sperm donor so tried to work with the same fertility clinic to get Kaz and Matthias a surrogate, but the same black marks on Kaz’s ledger stopped them from getting anywhere that way. Neither of them wanted to have to use one of their friends as a surrogate, so they had decided that the best way for them to have a baby was naturally.

That, of course, meant that Matthias had to stop taking Testosterone. It was a hard decision and Kaz had been adamantly against it because he remembered meeting his husband at the crisp age of eighteen, four years before they had gotten married. Matthias had been an absolute wreck back then because he had only recently gotten away from his abusive foster father and discovered that he was a boy. The struggle that he had with his body was permanently etched into the front of his husband’s forehead, even though he knew how to deal with the feelings of unhappiness and dysphoria far better.

“Djel, or perhaps what you meant to say was science,” Kaz murmured as he stole another kiss. “If you’re not feeling too poorly then we should try to get some more sleep.”

Matthias only hummed as he fell back against the bed. He wiggled forward so that his head was tucked against Kaz’s shoulder and he was protectively against the body of his lover. Even back then they had been teenagers, Matthias was taller than Kaz. The hormones and his constant workouts meant that he was also broader and more muscular despite his husband being, for lack of a better word, ripped. It was nice to feel like he was the smaller one when he was feeling as vulnerable as he currently was.

---

He didn’t sleep for the rest of the morning. The pains in his lower back wrapped around his front like they were trying to put his entire abdomen in some kind of vice. He had forgotten how bad his period cramps were in the years that he hadn’t had them. He stayed in the bed despite his sleeplessness, if only to enjoy the feeling of his lover wrapped around him. 

When the first rays of the dawn began to peak through the blinds and pour down onto their bed like honey into warm tea, he knew that his efforts were futile and he might as well do something worthwhile. So he slowly slipped out of his husband’s arms and then woke Trassel so that the two of them could go on their morning run. 

He didn’t bother to go back into the bathroom to change out the water soaking his boxers or change his pad, he didn’t want to think about his period more than he had to. He instead went right to the kitchen so that he could eat one of his protein bars and find his dog’s collar. Trassel was a special type of dog that was very close to a wolf but with the domesticity that came with thousands of years of selective breeding. They were almost native to Fjerda and it was very rare for them to be found elsewhere, but Kaz was a magician and had secured a pet for his husband to the exact wishlist Matthias had made.

The pup eagerly danced around the front entryway while he watched his owner pick which leash he wanted to use. Usually, Matthias went for the one that attached to his waist so that they could run together. Today, though, his midriff hurt something fierce so he went for one that he could hold in his hand. He attached the leash to Trassel’s collar and then wound the lead for it around his hand so that he wouldn’t lose his dog.

They slipped out into the world after he shut the door securely behind him. He knew that Kaz would have his head and a half if he knew that Matthias was leaving it unlocked, let alone if he had left it open.

They lived in a nicer part of town, but not nearly as nice as where Matthias and Jesper lived. It was a gated community with an HOA, something that both he and his husband despised. Thankfully, they had lucked into one of the only gated communities that wasn’t full of bigots and houses that looked exactly the same. They had a smattering of Craftsmen and victorian homes alike, as well as some of the blockier new builds. Their own home was a cottage tucked back behind three very large old-growth trees. The way that they always told people to find them was by recommending that they follow the large pride flag that they had staked out next to their mailbox.

No one was awake at that time of morning, so Matthias was able to do his quick jog around the block and then back get back into the house without much fuss. He usually would have gone much faster and for far longer than he managed that morning, he really was feeling very poorly. 

Trassel immediately rushed through the house and then demanded to be let into the backyard so that he could do his business, which Matthias facilitated. While the dog was busying himself on the grass and the smells of the tree, he worked on getting himself something substantial to eat for breakfast. Usually when he got back from his runs he only spent a second or two squaring everything away before he was in the shower. He didn’t want to deal with what he would find in his underthings that day, though, so decided not to.

“Good morning,” Kaz rasped about ten minutes after he had returned from his run.

“Godmorgen,” he replied affectionately. He got a glare for his troubles, but he couldn’t bring himself to actually care about that. Kaz liked to pretend that he hated it when Matthias spoke in Fjerdan, but he knew better than that. Kaz had begun learning his native tongue almost as soon as they had met in the bottom of the Barrel. Nina had told him so not long after they had married.

Kaz walked up behind him and then wrapped his arms around his husband’s waist to bring them close together. “When should we start trying for a baby?” he asked.

He groaned and nearly slammed the spatula that he had been using to make eggs with down onto the counter. “Kaz, I do not even want to think about that right now, I feel awful.”

It had been an impulse to say that and he knew that it had been the wrong thing as soon as the words had left his mouth. He bit the insides of his cheeks as he felt the way that Kaz’s hands held tighter to his chest and how tense the muscles of the other man’s chest had gotten. He was able to reach out and turn the burner to the stove off just in time for him to be turned around. Kaz grasped his chin and then turned his head left and right so that he could get a full look at his husband. “Now that you mention it, you do look poorly,” he clicked his tongue.

“It’s just my cycle, I always used to feel like this,” Matthias shook his head. He wasn’t trying to be dismissive, but he knew how much medical stuff and sickness was a trigger for Kaz. He knew what the fear of something that had killed a loved one was like, on his worst nights he couldn’t even look at a candle or a match. Kaz had it so much worse with his sickness-related fear than Matthias did with fire. Kaz had to watch his brother suffer, alone without any family to help him through it, for days until Jodie had finally passed. That by itself would have been enough to make him anxious about people he loved falling ill, but then he had also gotten sick and no one had been gracious enough to take him to the hospital.

“I don’t remember your period affecting you this much when we were teenagers,” he clicked his tongue like he didn’t quite believe what Matthias was saying.

Matthias didn’t really blame him this time. He had been feeling poorly on and off in bouts since he had stopped taking his Testosterone. He had assumed that it was just his body adjusting to another dose of hormones like it had when he started or when he went through puberty, but he was getting more and more worried the longer that the morning went on. “I watched my cycle like a hawk when we were teenagers because we couldn’t afford birth control for the whole month. I made sure that I was taking painkillers before it began. Since my cycles hadn’t started again, I didn’t have anything to go by this time.”

The shorter man made a worried noise in the back of his throat, which made Matthias take a half step forward. He looped his long arms around Kaz’s waist to bring him into a protective, loving hug. “I promise that I’m alright. Would it make you feel better to have Nina come and check on me during her lunch break or when she goes home tonight?”

“Yes,” Kaz replied into his shirt. Kaz and Wylan would be working late with a business dinner in the evening since they had to cancel their last board meeting. That meant Matthias would be alone for a lot longer than he was used to.

“Then I will,” Matthias leaned down and connected their lips in a gentle kiss. It was all he felt up to doing when he was as poorly as he was. He knew that having at least one menstrual cycle was crucial to the conception of their future child, but that didn’t mean that he was enjoying the process.

---

He and Kaz finished their breakfast and then went their separate ways. Kaz had to get ready to go to work and Matthias was going to rest for a while longer since he didn’t have to work. It was hard when they had schedules that didn’t match, but neither of them would give up their careers for anything in the world.

The first thing that Matthias did once his husband was gone was shove himself into the shower. He didn’t really know why he had to wait until the other man was gone to do it since Kaz had seen him naked even before he had gotten top surgery, but it felt almost too intimate to do anything in front of him. He kept his eyes squeezed shut as he rolled up the pad that was barely spotted with anything and then got into the shower. The water was cold when he first stepped in, which was the shock that his muscles had been aching for the entire time he had been eating breakfast. It warmed up and then soothed the aching pains that he had in his back. 

He stepped out of the shower and then dressed in something that felt affirming. He usually didn’t wear his jeans when he was at home by himself with no plans to go anywhere, but the way that the belt clung to his hips always made him feel like a man through and through. He complimented it with a comfortable sweater that Jesper had ordered off the internet. It was meant to be for the Zemini but when it had come, it was the wrong size so had gone to Matthias instead.

He occupied himself with Trassel for the rest of the morning until he decided to take a nap. The aches and pains in his back were still making him uncomfortable, but it was nothing that a couple of painkillers and a heating pad couldn’t help. When he woke up around lunch, however, everything had gotten so much worse than it had been before.

He jerked awake from the rather pleasant dream that he had been having surrounding himself and his husband with a sharp pain rocketing through his back. He was powerless to do anything other than lay there with his eyes pointed up towards the ceiling. It crept like a thousand tiny knives digging into his vertebrae all the way up his spine before it spread out over his hips. He felt tense and wrong, like he needed to pop a joint but all the way across the bone instead of in one specific point. He thought that it was going to last forever before it wrapped around his abdomen like a vice and he felt a rush of the most intense pain that he had ever encountered in his entire life. His entire mind whited out and he felt his breath get stolen from his lungs, making it impossible for him to even cry out.

Something that his husband had brought up earlier in the day came back to him when the pain had finally released him. Kaz mentioned that he had never seemed like that when he was menstruating before, which made Matthias worry that there was something more going on.

He had already promised his lover that he would contact Nina. It was something that Matthias had already been planning on doing since she was his best friend. The two of them had even tried to date before he had started his transition. They had taken a break and then both fallen for other people, but their connection was still there and strong. They would be best friends past the end of time, he was sure of that. There was no one else that he would want to talk to about the horrible ordeal of having to remember that his body had been created wrong.

He grabbed his phone and sent a quick text to her.

Matthias to Nina: Are you awake/available?

She replied to him almost immediately, which was a rarity for her nowadays. He had been with her through every step of her life, including her lowest moments when she was battling her addiction. Now she was a proud doctor, mother, and wife, but that did mean that she had far less time for Matthias than she did when they were teenagers with no prospects.

Nina to Matthias: for u love? 

Nina to Matthias: always!

Nina to Matthias: whats wrong?

Matthias to Nina: Do you remember how Kaz and I were going to start trying for a baby as soon as I started my cycle again?

Nina to Matthias: course i do

Nina to Matthias: what do you take me for a bad friend?

Matthias to Nina: Well it happened. I’m uncomfortable and Kaz is very worried about me.

Nina to Matthias: course he is

Nina to Matthias: idk how ur expecting to be parents if he gets worried about cramps

Matthias to Nina: Therapy is how we’re going to deal with that. And he has gotten a lot better. You remember what he was like when Jesper and Wylan brought the flu back to the Slat and he was the only one not to catch it.

Nina to Matthias: omg

Nina to Matthias: i thought he was gonna DIE

Matthias to Nina: He wants you to come check on me when you have the time. Maybe you could bring Nilu? I miss her.

Nina to Matthias: she misses u toooo

Nina to Matthias: actually

Nina to Matthias: shes three

Nina to Matthias: so she mostly misses trassel

Matthias to Nina: Well he’s here too.

He startled and stared down at his phone like something was wrong with it when the screen flashed and came up with Nina’s caller ID. Matthias came back to himself a moment later and then flicked the answer button before he held the device to his ear. “Hello?”

“Sorry, I wanted to keep talking to you but it looks a lot more professional if I have my phone against my ear instead of in my hand,” Nina explained with that ringing laugh of hers. “I almost ran into a patient, which really isn’t a good look for a doctor.”

Matthias was suddenly so relieved that he had decided to talk to her and ask her to come and visit him. His best friend really was the only person other than his husband that could help him feel better no matter what was happening. “I guess that’s true,” he chuckled.

“So what’s going on that has Kaz so concerned?” she asked.

“Are you going to decide to be a doctor on me or are you asking me this as your best friend?” he asked, unsure what the answer was going to be. When Nina was no longer in her white coat and her scrubs it was easier to talk to her about what his body was doing without her coming at him with actual answers. That was what he wanted from her at the moment, not the diagnosis and treatment that would spring from her mind now that she was walking around her work.

He grunted as he felt another growing pain in his spine. He let out a low breath when he felt it wrap around his front just the same way that it had before. It felt like it was trying to rip him totally apart. 

He had apparently been too quiet for too long because his best friend asked, “Matthias?”

“Sorry, I’m having a lot of pain,” he grit out. He could tell that his accent had gotten a lot thicker with the pain, which meant that it was going to be harder to hide it from her. He was overwhelmed with a sense of relief that Kaz wasn’t home because he knew that his husband would have been nearly petrified with fear about it.

“What kind of pain?” she asked. He had gotten his answer through that sentence, she was going to diagnose him. He was just glad that Nina had practiced her bedside manner since they were teenagers and he had first started to get bad cramps.

“I think that they’re because of my period,” he sighed. “They start on my spine and then wrap around my belly.”

“That doesn’t sound like the kind of cramps that you used to have before you started hormones,” she commented. “Do you have any other symptoms?”

Matthias let out a low breath and tried to think about what his body was feeling. He had been ignoring it for most of the day because he hated the fact that he was on his cycle again. He knew that it meant he and his husband would finally, eventually have a baby, but he didn’t really want it to be happening. “I have a bit of a headache but I haven’t had a lot of water today.”

“How much bleeding have you had and what did it look like?” Nina asked. She sounded every bit the mother and doctor that she was, which made a swell of warmth rush through him. He had seen her come so far and he was so proud of his best friend.

“I didn’t check. I have my boxers in the sink in the bathroom, I could check that.”

“Are you soaking them?”

“Yes. Why else would they be in the sink?”

“You and Kaz are weird, why would I know that?” she scoffed. “I’m just asking you these questions because for you to suddenly have cramps that are far worse than what you used to have is worrying.”

“Maybe I gave myself PCOS,” he joked. His mother had the condition and had talked to him about it when he had gotten his first period, to warn him that he might have inherited it. It was why he and his sister had such a huge age gap, because it had been hard for her and his father to conceive another child. 

“You can’t give yourself a condition that you don’t have. Plus you’re closer to your thirties which means that if your body was moving all the way back to what your hormones used to be, you would technically have less testosterone than you did before you started HRT,” Nina explained haphazardly. He could hear more voices around her than he had moments before which meant that she was likely walking through the lobby of her building.

Matthias whimpered as another one of the pains began to creep up his back. He felt an overwhelming rush of warmth and then his stomach flipped like he was going to vomit so he darted for the sink, only to feel something wet drip down his legs. “Nina, you have to promise not to laugh,” he mumbled. He was so shocked and ashamed that he wasn’t even sure that he was speaking in Kerch any longer.

It didn’t matter with Nina, thankfully, because of her gift for languages. Her voice was soothing and near placating as it rang through the phone and into his panicked mind, “I won’t laugh at you, Matthias, I’m your best friend and a doctor. Nothing you tell me will be any weirder than what I heard the in ER yesterday. What’s going on?”

“I think that I just peed myself. I… there’s something all the way down my legs and all over the couch. It hurts,” he slowly lowered himself onto his knees so if the pain overwhelmed him he wouldn’t hit his head on the way down.

“I’m going to tell one of the ambulances to come and get you. You need to come to the hospital now,” she said. 

“What? Why?” Matthias asked. He had already been trying to push down a feeling of panic when he realized that his body was doing something very abnormal than what he was used to during his cycles. Hearing his best friend get that worried about what he had just told her only made it ten times worse. He felt his heart beating up in his ears and his lungs struggling to take in the air that they needed to keep up with the rush of his blood. He had seen Kaz go through more panic attacks than he could count and yet he had very rarely ever experienced them himself, but it was still a sensation that he was never going to forget

Nina’s voice cut through the panic in his mind as she said, “It’s going to be okay, Matthias. I want you to stay on the phone with me while we wait for the ambulance to get there. I’ll be by your side the entire time you’re at the hospital and we’ll even call Kaz.”

Despite the haze that was clouding his thoughts, he knew that was a bad idea. He already felt like his entire world was crashing down around him and he didn’t need his husband to be an absolute mess on top of that. Something was still leaking out of him and into the pad that he had trapped in between his legs, making the cotton soaking wet. 

He let out a small gasp as he collapsed down next to the couch, his knuckles white around the edges while he tried to push the pain out of his mind, “N-no, he will just get worried.”

“Matthias, if what I think is happening actually is happening then you’re going to want him by your side,” she said. “But that’s something that I can worry about when you get here. Have I ever led you astray?”

“Yes,” he let out a little laugh. Another pain had crept up his spine and wrapped around his belly while she was talking to him so he wasn’t able to give her any kind of example.

She laughed along with him. She asked him more questions about their time together and what he was experiencing while they waited. It only took about ten minutes before the ambulance arrived at his doors. He had to haul himself up to his feet so that he could get it for them, limping along so that he could unlock it. His fingers trembled as he grasped the deadbolt and then slid it over so that he could wrench the door open. 

He felt a breath of relief wash over him for the first time since he had felt that horrible pain after waking up from his nap. He couldn’t recall their names, but he knew that the EMTs that had been sent to him were close friends of Nina. He always worried when he had to go to the hospital that it was going to result in him being misgendered and absolutely miserable the entire time. With these two people, he knew that he didn’t have to worry about that at the very least.

“Let them have the phone so that I know you’re not lying to me,” Nina said. He knew that there had to be another reason that she was doing that but he wasn’t willing to fight with her. 

“Alright,” he mumbled as he handed the phone over to the one on the left. The one on the right reached for his hand and then carefully led him down the step so that they could close the door behind him. While her partner spoke to Nina, the EMT holding his hand got him laid down on the gurney and then began to roll it back to the ambulance.

Matthias tried hard not to think about the fact that their neighbors all knew that something had happened to them and were watching his shame. He hated the fact that they were all aware of something that he didn’t even know the full details about. His pain and condition, whatever it was, felt too personal for strangers to be prying on.

“What’s your name? Do you have something you’d prefer that we call you?” the EMT asked once they were safely locked away in the back of the ambulance.

“Matthias,” he gasped out as he got a pain.

“Time it,” the one on the right said. They had finished the call and then slipped his phone into a bag full of personal belongings that they would be able to get him once he was at the hospital.

“What’s wrong with me?” he grit out as he tried to overcome the massive wave of pain and the pressure that was echoing with it. The pains were only coming about seven minutes apart and it felt like they were over almost as soon as they had started, but it was still overwhelming.

“We don’t want to make a diagnosis until we have some more information,” the other EMT said. They checked his vitals and then wrote them down, holding his hand and guiding him through breathing while they sped to the hospital.

Matthias placed one of his arms over his eyes when the doors to the ambulance opened to reveal the ER loading dock. He had been there once before, when he had broken his leg at fourteen thanks to something that Brum had done to him. It brought back so many memories that he wasn’t entirely prepared to deal with given how much pain he was in.

He shifted his arm down to his side once they had finished lowering the gurney just in time to see Nina push her way through the crowd. “How are you doing? Were they good to you?” she asked, his native language rolling off her tongue like she had spoken it her entire life.

“I feel like shit. They won’t tell me what’s wrong with me,” he grit out. 

“That’s probably for the best if it turns out that what I think is wrong actually is,” Nina replied. She reached over the edge of the gurney and then took his hand while they quickly wheeled him through the ER. On any other day the entire place would have been packed with people, but it seemed like the gods were smiling on him for once in his miserable life. Instead of having to wait or being placed out in the hall, he was moved into a room made of more than a couple of curtains strung up from the ceiling.

Before he could clock anything else about what was happening to him, his mind whited out with pain again. He wrapped his arms around his belly and leaned forward just as he felt a hand slip against his palm, letting him grip as tightly as he needed.

“Woah there, you’re alright,” someone said through the haze of anguish that his brain was floating in. “We’re going to get you something to deal with the pain, but we need you to relax a bit first.”

“I cannot relax when I hurt that badly! I would like to see you try it,” Matthias growled. He felt immediately bad when he saw the kind nurse that was helping treat him shrink back into herself. He was sure that she had endured worse in the past, but he didn’t like being part of the verbal abuse that medical staff had to get as part of their jobs.

He collapsed back against the gurney for a moment and tried to blink away the tears that were already collecting on his lashes. Nina brushed them away with the thumb of the hand that wasn’t against his own. “Shh, shh, it’s alright,” she soothed.

“Don’t leave me, Nina, please don’t,” he whispered. He was more scared than he had been since he had sat as a witness at Brum’s trail all those years ago.

“I promise that I’m not going to. Come on, we need to get you into the bed and then changed,” she said. She jerked her head towards the door and the other nurse quickly left. Nina had changed out of her usual red scrubs into her day clothes, which today happened to be a pair of comfortable corduroy pants and a loose t-shirt. Matthias knew that she had likely been getting ready to go home to her wife and child when he had called her, but he couldn’t think of anyone else he would want by his side when he was going through something that terrifying.

Once the door clicked shut and they were finally left alone, Matthias slid to the edge of the bed and then stood with Nina’s help. He removed his shirt and his pants so that he could place the hospital gown over the top of them. As soon as he was no longer dressed, Nina helped him lay down on the bed and then brushed her hand over his head. “I promise that we’re going to figure out what’s going on with you, okay?”

“I trust you,” he whispered. He caught her hand and gave it a squeeze before he released her so that she could return to get the other nurse. He meant what he said. Even though they hadn’t ended up working out together romantically, he was sure that she was something of a soulmate to him. He couldn’t imagine his life without her and he knew that she would be there for him no matter what happened to either of them.

The gurney was removed from the room and then the nurse from earlier placed an IV into his arm. They began to administer a safe pain medication so that he could be eased into something akin to comfort without hurting anything until they figured out what was going on with him.

“We’re going to perform an ultrasound, alright? That will let us know if there’s anything wrong with your uterus like a cyst,” the nurse said. Nina had returned back to his side, though her green eyes were focused on her coworker instead of flitting down to Matthias to comfort him about the ordeal. That made him nervous.

They rolled up his hospital gown after placing a blanket over his legs so that he couldn’t catch a chill. They then lathered his stomach with the gel and placed more of it on the wand. He had been surprised to hear that it wasn’t going to have to be a transvaginal one like it had been when he had gotten his IUD placed and then later taken out. He supposed that they didn’t want to have to deal with him kicking them if he got another one of his pains.

It was as if thinking of the pain had summoned it to come back to him. Nina had already been holding his hand while the other nurse was doing the prep work, so when the creeping up the base of his spine started, he leaned into her. She pet his hair and murmured into his knuckles until it had subsided.

He was out of breath from the action and the pressure in his abdomen, so he closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He felt the wand touch his stomach and spread the gel around before the movements got slower. He knew that the nurse was looking for something but he couldn’t bring himself to stare at the screen and try to decipher the gray blobs of his organs on a monitor he could barely see.

“You were right, Dr. Zenik,” the nurse said. “I can see the head here, it’s already engaged with the cervix but the fetus only looks to be about thirty three weeks.”

“Early but not the end of the world. Get the OB on call and let the ER staff know that we have to move him up to labor and delivery,” Nina said. She was using her doctor voice.

Matthias felt like they were both speaking underwater, the sound waves traveling to him slower than they were moving and sounding murky. He knew that his mind was growing foggy with pain and confusion. What they were saying was something that he had half dreamed, the realization of a child that was half him and half his husband, but it didn’t make any sense. He had never begun to menstruate again and they weren’t even sure that Kaz would have been able to reproduce given the massively high fever he had caught when he was a child.

His breath caught in his throat as he began to cry.

If he were completely rational and part of himself he would be able to admit that he didn’t quite know why he was crying. He just knew that he was upset and he had to let it out. The entire world felt like it was crashing down around him and he had no idea how to stop it. It was worse than when he had the crushing realization that the new father figure in his life was hurting him, or why he had always felt so out of sorts in his body, or that he was never going to get to see his family again. Back when all of that was happening, he had been unstable so had been ready for more shaking to come bring things in his life down. Now, he had been stable and happy in his marriage for years and it made everything feel so much worse than it actually was.

The whirlwind of the hospital didn’t stop just because he was crying. They ushered him up to an actual room in a ward that he hadn’t caught the name of and then several people breezed in and out of the room. He was given a couple of sets of shots, both into his IV and into the muscles of his ass. By the time that they had all gone and things had returned back to a waiting game, he had two bands around his belly and his vitals were happily ticking away on the monitor next to him.

The tears had long since stopped and he had started to stare resolutely up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what had happened. He knew that no one was talking to him because he was so emotionally wound up but it was drowning him now. He had to find something that would help him float so that he could be the rock his husband would no doubt need now that he had been admitted. “Nina, I don’t understand what’s going on,” he said hoarsely.

She tilted the bed up and then sat down beside him. She looked tired and worn out, but the kindness that was ever-present in her eyes shone out on him just like he needed it to. “You stopped taking your hormones several months ago, right?”

“I did,” he nodded.

“Right,” she breathed. He could tell that she was collecting her thoughts before she admitted what was going on. He had seen the same look on her more times than he could count when they were young, stupid teenagers. “There’s something called a cryptic pregnancy, where the pregnancy can go undiagnosed until either right before or during labor. That’s what’s happening to you right now.”

“I-I’m pregnant?” he asked. It felt like the best news that he had ever received and the worst at the same time. He and his husband had been trying and failing to have a child for so long that they almost felt like it would never happen. Him stopping his transition so that they could do it naturally had not been a decision that either of them had made lightly, so to know that it had happened without him having to suffer through a visible pregnancy was a kind of blessing. On the other hand, he was terrified that he had done something to hurt their unborn child without realizing it.

Nina brushed her hand over the long blond hair struggling to stay back in the braid she had done while people were giving Matthias his shots. “At some point, likely around thirty three weeks ago, you got pregnant. Your body was still trying to sort out hormones and you work out a lot. Some people just don’t have any symptoms and can only tell because they stop having periods. Since you didn’t have any, I’m guessing you had a symptomless pregnancy and that your uterus is sitting pretty far back. We already know that the baby is around thirty three weeks and the placenta is on the front, right about here,” she traced her finger over his belly close to his pelvis.

“What does that mean?” he asked. He remembered seeing some of the flickery black and white images on the screen when he was down in the ER but he had been too out of his mind with pain and fear to really clock what that meant. He sucked in a hard breath as his body began to shake through a massive contraction, but it was almost easier now that he knew what they were.

“It means that you didn’t feel the baby move because there was too much in the way,” she explained. “We saw them moving on the monitor and were able to get a good heartbeat, see?” she pointed to a line on the screen next to him, which he stared at the entire time he was dealing with his contraction.

They were quiet for a while longer before she let out a low breath and then said, “I think that you should call Kaz. You’re going to want him here when the baby is born.”

“I don’t want him to worry,” he shook his head. He knew that she was right but he was scared and confused, which left him irrational.

“You’re going into labor, not even,” she sighed. Her green eyes flickered shut as she processed what she wanted to say and got all of her words in order. “Matthias, I want you to listen to me. We’re not going to be able to stop your labor since your water has already broken. We gave the baby steroids to help develope their lungs so that when they’re born they can have a better chance at survival, but with chance there’s always the flip side. Not only is birth very traumatic for even a parent that has a full time baby and a standard pregnancy, but your little one is going to be kept in the NICU for weeks or maybe even months. You’re going to want your husband to hold your hand throughout all of that.”

He knew that she was right and that she had needed to say it that way so that it would actually permeate his thoughts, but it still made his heart shatter. He had only just wrapped his brain around the fact that he was going to be a parent soon, so the idea that his newborn baby was going to be whisked away from him as soon as they were born shattered him again.

“Alright, can you please get my phone for me?” he asked. He was rapidly blinking so that he could keep the tears at bay and he had to swallow down a sob every time he took a breath.

She brushed back his hair and then kissed his forehead as she said, “Of course I can. All you had to do was ask.”

She disappeared from his room as she went in search of the items that they had to remove from his person when he was in the ambulance. That left Matthias alone and he was suddenly drowning in the horrific reality of the situation that he was in. He was pregnant but he hadn’t known it, which meant that he could have done something that would warp the wonderful blessing that he and his husband had been given. He was also in labor far earlier than he should have been and was preparing to deliver a preemie. So many things could go wrong when a baby was born early, even three weeks.

Before he had the time to really spiral, he was overwhelmed with pain. He rolled onto his side despite the fact that the bed was elevated so that he had already been sitting up. It was more comfortable to have his legs bent and towards his chest than straight out, and it alleviated a strange pressure on his hips when he was tilted towards the wall. He was also able to reach out and grasp the plastic handle of the bed, his knuckles white with the force that he was exerting.

Nina returned with his phone. She waited long enough for him to work through his contraction before she handed it over. Matthias didn’t even debate about whether or not he wanted to tell Kaz what was going on before or after he arrived at the hospital. There were no words on his mind, only the I need you that repeated over and over again on the tip of his tongue. 

He flicked through his contacts until he found his husband and then dialed it while placing the phone against his cheek. He breathed in through his nose and then out through his mouth in even measures at Nina’s careful instruction. She had moved onto the edge of the bed and was running her carefully clipped nails up and down over his back. She had done that once when he had gotten the flu back when they were eighteen and living in the shittiest apartment they were able to find for their highest budget.

A sob broke through his lips when he heard the man that he loved ask, “Matthias? What’s going on?”

“You’re not going to lecture me for calling you while you’re at work?” he asked. He knew that he would have to get down to the real issue eventually, but he wanted to drag it out while he worked through all of the mess in his mind.

“You were sick when I left this morning and then you never told me that Nina cleared you. What’s going on?” Kaz asked again. His voice had the bitter sharpness to it that it always did when he was stressed or worried about something. In any other situation it would have been something that Matthias melted over, he loved being adored in the way that Kaz cared for people.

It wasn’t any other situation and he still felt like the riptides were pulling at his legs. He could feel the cool tears leaking down his heated cheeks as he said, “Is Jesper there with you? Or Wylan?” 

“Bear, you’re scaring me,” Kaz said. “Yes, Jesper is here with me. What’s going on?”

“I’m in the hospital,” he breathed out. “I’m not dying, I promise you that I’m not dying.”

He heard the heavy sound of Kaz collapsing down into a chair and then clattering as his cane fell to the floor and then rolled away from him. “Thank fuck. I can’t lose you. What’s going on, then, if you’re not dying?”

“I want you to leave your keys with Jesper and then have him drive you to the hospital. Wylan can get them from him and then drive your car home. We’re going to be here for a while yet,” Matthias said instead of answering him for the second time. It was suddenly too hard to think about the baby inside of him and the labor wracking his body.

He let out a low breath and then scrunched forward again as he got another contraction. Nina cooed lovingly at him like she did to her child and continued to rub the tenseness out of the muscles in his hips. “Love, what’s wrong?” Kaz asked, the worry unable to stop from bleeding into his words.

“I can’t tell you over the phone, it’s too much,” Matthias managed to bite out around another massive wave of pain. He wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to have to do this for, or how much longer he was going to be able to tolerate the aggressively high amounts of pressure wracking his body every three minutes.

He felt bad for not being able to tell his husband what was wrong with him over the phone, he knew that it would have assuaged at least some of Kaz’s fears. He was half worried that the other man was going to faint when he found out what was going on and half worried that he would demand to take his own car to get their quicker despite his mind not working. So Matthias left his explanation as what it was despite the flicker of upset that he could hear through the phoneline. “I’m going to get there as soon as I can,” Kaz informed him.

The line went dead and Matthias passed his phone back over to Nina. Not a second later, the door opened and another person walked in. She had a kind smile and her hair was plaited back against her head, which contrasted with the ruffled look of her red scrubs. She was obviously another one of Nina’s coworkers instead of the nurses and residents that had helped Matthias get settled. “You must be Matthias Brekker-Helvar. I’m Dr. Koh, the OB on call. I’ve heard that you had quite the scare when you came in today. Is now a good time to talk or would you prefer I come back in ten or fifteen minutes?”

“Now,” he grumbled as the pressure of his most recent contraction finally dissipated. Nina threaded their fingers together even tighter than they had been before so that her thumb could trail over his knuckles. Her hands were nice but they didn’t have the callouses on the tip and down the forefinger like Kaz’s, which made Matthias miss his husband even more.

The OB sat down on the stool in the corner of the room and then wheeled over to the side of the bed. “I want you to know that at any point if you start to get overwhelmed or want to hold part of the conversation for later, you can just let me know and we’ll do it another time,” she said. Her smile was kind and it relaxed Matthias at least a bit. If she was acting like this when Kaz got here then there was a chance that he could avoid his husband losing his mind with overprotectiveness. 

“The first thing that we should talk about is what you, and our team, should expect from this delivery. You’re already in labor and your waters have broken, which means that this is happening now and we can stop it until we have more information. From the look of the ultrasound that we got while you were down in the ER, we think that the baby is around thirty three weeks. I noticed on your chart that you don’t know the date of your last menstrual cycle, so unfortunately the only thing that we can use to get the date is the thigh measurement, which isn’t always reliable. The baby could just be small or closer to date, but we’re going off the information that we have right now. Thirty three weeks is premature by about three weeks if we’re doing last menstrual period instead of conception date. That means that the baby will be small because they’re not finished baking, but they’ll also have trouble regulating body temperature, breathing on their own, digesting, jaundice, and may have some vessel problems as well.”

Matthias felt like his entire world was crashing down again. He may have only known about his unborn baby for a couple of hours, but he didn’t want to lose them. It felt almost more cruel to know that he could have his baby die before he ever really knew them than to get attached to a child and then to lose them. Nina leaned down and kissed his had when she saw that tears were already beginning to well in his eyes, “Matthias, keep listening to her. This is just the risks, it’s not definitive.”

He flicked his eyes open in time to see Dr. Koh flash Nina a smile of appreciation. She then turned back to Matthias and continued explaining to him in the blunt way that he needed if he was going to digest the information properly, “If this baby was born even twenty years ago the moderate preterm would have been a very, very high risk. Fortunately now, we have jaundice beds and incubators. We’ll be able to do everything in our power to help the baby grow up nice and strong so that they can be discharged from the hospital in a few weeks. Which brings me to my next concern, who will be assuming custody of the little one when they are released?”

The idea of giving away the child that he already loved so much combined with another contraction made Matthias let out a wet sob. He leaned forward and held tightly to his best friend and the side of the hospital bed as Nina gave him a couple of encouraging words. “They’re our baby,” Matthias said immediately after the pain had let up enough that he could speak. “My husband and I wanted a baby, we were trying for one. It-it was an accident that we didn’t realize that I was pregnant.”

“I just wanted to make sure. You’re not my first cryptic pregnancy,” she chuckled warmly. “Now, I would like to do a cervical check so that I can see how dilated and effaced you are, but I understand if that makes you uncomfortable.”

“I don’t care about me, I want you to do whatever is going to keep the baby at their best,” he replied.

Dr. Koh shared a quick look with Nina and the latter of the two women took over the conversation. She leaned over the rail of the bed and pet his forehead, “We want to make sure that you’re comfortable and mentally prepared for when the baby gets here, so make sure that you’re actually taking these questions seriously.”

“I want to make sure that my baby is okay over my own comfortableness with my body, it will only distress me more if I tell her no,” he explained in his own language.

Nina nodded reassuringly and then let the other doctor know that she was okay to continued. Dr. Koh washed her hands in the sink and then put on a pair of rubber gloves as she sat back down on the stool beside his bed. “I want you to put your feet together and then press them as close to your bottom as you can, that will give me plenty of room to check how you’re doing.”

He nodded and then did as he was told. He had to flip over so that he was on his back again, but he adjusted so that he was holding the other rail to the hand that wasn’t clinging to Nina. He wanted Jesper to be safe as he drove Kaz to the hospital but he also very much needed his husband to be by his side while this was happening.

Dr. Koh carefully inserted her fingers and then felt his cervix, which felt invasive and wrong. When she withdrew her hand, she gave him a pleasant smile. “I trust that Dr. Zenik has already asked that you call the baby’s other father?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. He squinted his eyes shut and whimpered. Something about the contraction after she had checked him felt different than the one before had, but he wouldn’t have been able to describe just what about it that it was. “What’s going on?” he breathed.

“You’re very close to full dilated and I can already feel the baby beginning to engage. You’re going to be a parent very soon.”

“Gods above,” Matthias whispered, squeezing his eyes shut so that he could wake up from the nightmare around him. He knew that this was reality, that there was no escaping the life that he was in, but he wished that he could. He wished that he could enjoy all the wonderful things about a pregnancy that Nina had gotten to when she had her daughter, or the excitement of knowing that it was going to happen like Jesper and Wylan had. Instead, the arrival of his child was met with panic, confusion, and outright fear.

Eventually, the OB finished telling Nina the information that Matthias wouldn’t be able to process and then left the two of them alone. She had just passed through the door when Kaz came barreling in, walking so quickly that the stick of his cane was grasped in his hand instead of the head. “What’s going on? What happened, Zenik?” he demanded as he stepped inside of the hospital room.

Jesper appeared in the doorway, looking frazzled and out of breath. “I got him here as quickly as I could and without him falling to pieces for you, Matthias!” he gave a thumbs up and then disappeared from the doorway, leaving the three of them alone.

Matthias slowly hiked himself into a sitting position despite the near constant pressure in the base of his belly. He reached out and took Kaz’s hand in his own so that he could focus on the slowly growing warmth of the leather against his callouses. “I want you to promise me that you won’t freak out.”

“It’s a bit late for that, treasure,” Kaz replied. His voice had the bitter snipe that it had when they had first met, which let Matthias know that he was struggling to get over his flashbacks and anxiety. He knew that would have happened regardless of how they were able to make a baby, but it was likely worse because of the surprise nature of it.

“I’m pregnant,” he breathed.

“What?”

“I’m pregnant,” he repeated. He kept his voice as level and calm as he could so that he didn’t spook Kaz, but he was unable to stop another wave of tears rushing from his eyes.

The other man had turned into a statue, his coffee black eyes wide with shock as he leaned forward. He wrapped his arms around Matthias and then held him there as he looked to Nina for help. “Are we losing the baby? He said that he thought his cycle had started this morning.”

He had never been more grateful for his best friend than when she took over and began to explain the situation to give him a much needed break. “Matthias never had a full cycle. You got him pregnant the first time he ovulated after he stopped taking the T. It’s called a cryptic pregnancy and it actually happens more often than you think, so he’s pregnant right now and has been for months. He’s in labor and we think that the baby is going to be born premature. There’s nothing that we can do to stop it and the baby will have the best possible medical care and a very high chance of survival for preemies,” Nina explained. “If you’re going to throw up please don’t do it on him.”

That got a small laugh out of the taller man. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t tell you over the phone, I’m very scared,” he whispered. 

“This shit is so fucking scary,” Kaz muttered. He pulled his husband back and then cupped Matthias face with both of his hands. He really had to be struggling since he hadn’t removed his gloves when that was something he usually did before touching Matthias post their marriage. “I’m going to be with you the entire time. If we lose them we’ll do it together. I promised that I would be with you for the rest of your life and that counts now.”

He nodded, desperately trying to keep the rest of his tears at bay. He bit his lip to prevent a whimper from escaping as he bowed forward to try and help deal with his contraction. Nina pushed her body against the rail of the bed and then began the same soothing motions that she had been making the entire time that they had been together. “What’s going on?” Kaz panicked. 

That was what Matthias had been worried about, but thankfully his best friend appeared to have it under control. “He’s having a contraction. It’s his body getting ready to deliver the baby. It’s a bit painful but it’s more uncomfortable than anything. Matthias and I have already found a couple of ways that help him work through it.”

“Well, what are they?” Kaz demanded like she had just stolen away his favorite toy.

He and Nina had been friends for less time than Matthias and Nina had, but they still knew each other very well. She wasn’t offended by his tone or the fact that he was already beginning to bat her hand away with his gloved one. She knew that he wanted to be able to help Matthias because he felt helpless to fix the situation and wanted his partner to be as comfortable as he could be. So, she showed him what to do instead of arguing with him, “Rub his back, right along here.”

Kaz shuffled around so that he was sitting in a chair beside the hospital bed. Nina had put down the railing so that he could reach his husband better without having to stand. Kaz ran his hand, now bare form the glove, along his lover’s back to try and soothe some of the tensed muscles there. “You’re doing wonderfully, this is going to be fine. We’re going to make it through this,” he murmured. The words were as much for his mind as they were for Matthias’.

It only took about another ten minutes for the OB to return. She had Matthias get in the same position that he had been in before and then let him know that it was time for him to start pushing. He didn’t have as many options as he would have had it been a normal labor and delivery process. There was also a whole team from the pediatric wing of the hospital prepared to take the baby as soon as they were born.

He had just gotten his legs into the stirrups so that he could push when he had the sudden realization about what was going to happen. He had already been working through the idea of giving birth while they were trying to get pregnant and there was one part he knew he couldn’t go without. He could deal with the room full of strangers, the house completely unprepared for his babe, and the dog that didn’t know he was about to get a brother. He could deal with not having a name and the hours of time that were soon to be spent in the hospital NICU, but he had to have the one thing that he had always dreamed of. “I want to touch them, please, when they’re born. I don’t know if we can do skin-to-skin like a normal delivery, but I have to touch them when they’re born before they’re taken,” he said quickly.

“We can do that. Does your partner want to cut the cord?” Dr. Koh asked as her eyes flickered over to where Kaz was standing.

Kaz looked down at Matthias, who was only able to give him a brief nod before he had to focus on pushing. Nina was on the other side of the bed and whispering encouragements to him as she held his hand, giving him the strength that Kaz was too scared to lend easily. “I do,” the other man finally got out. “Yes.”

“Alright, we’ll make sure that we can do that. Right team?” the OB asked the room. There was a chorus of confirmation back which sent a shock of warmth through the couple, reassuring them that they were in good hands.

The entire world went gray as Matthias focused on the pain and pressure. The pressure would finally be relieved when he pushed, but it was still painful and the sensation of the baby descending inside of him was one of the weirdest that he had ever experienced. He could hear Kaz and Nina speaking to him, the instructions from the medical team, but everything else had fallen away. The only thing that he could focus on was getting through this horrible process so that they could start their new journey as parents.

He felt like he was being split open as the head began to crown. Another thing had passed that should have been in his birth plan if he had only known that he was going to have a baby. He wanted to feel their hair, their head as it was born into the world, but there was no time for that. He pushed again and felt himself open as wide as he had ever been, his nerves going red with it.

Dr. Koh gave a triumphant noise as she said, “I’ve got the head, I want you to stop pushing. Just pant and look at your husband, focus on him and not what I’m doing.”

He did as he was told, leaning his head back against the pillows. His chest was heaving for air and his neck was dripping with sweat, all from the exertion of giving birth. He turned towards his husband and saw that Kaz was tilted down towards the baby instead of looking back at him. His near-black eyes were wide with shock and held a reverence that Matthias had never thought he would get to see. This was something that he had wanted and thankfully had gotten despite the extreme circumstances.

He panted and tried to keep his body from pushing despite the near-irresistible urge that was fluttering through his system. “You’re so close, Matthias, so close,” Nina whispered as she pressed his knuckles to her chapstick-covered lips.

He didn’t want to hear that he was close, because that meant that his baby would be a step closer to being in the world. If his baby was close to being born then he couldn’t keep them safe where they belonged inside of him. His baby would be out in the world, where they would be hurt if something happened to him or Kaz, where they could get sick or hurt themself. If the baby stayed inside of him then they could continue to grow instead of coming out too small and sickly. When they were born, he wouldn’t be there to share his body with them and help them grow.

He let out a whimper as Dr. Koh said, “Alright, Matthias. No cord around the neck and the shoulders have turned now. I want you to push with the next pain, alright?”

“Okay, okay,” he breathed. There had been no stopping his labor and the delivery of their little one when he was admitted to the hospital, there was no way that it was going to happen now. The head of his baby had already been born so he might as well continue through the process so that he could see the beauty that they would bring with them.

He grasped hold of Kaz’s hand tighter than before so that he could give himself a bit of extra strength and then pushed with all his might. The nerves in his vaginal canal and legs had gone a bit numb from the constant pain and pressure that the birth was causing, but he was still able to feel the rest of the baby slip out of him and into the waiting hands of the doctor. As soon as it was all over, his body was flooded with endorphins and he collapsed back onto the bed. 

Matthias tilted his head upwards despite not being able to life the rest of himself so that he could see his baby. The doctor had caught them with one of the blue towel-blankets and was rubbing their back as she held them up so that he could see better. As she continued the motions, she stood from the stool and took a step forward. With a single fluid movement, she had placed the tiny baby down on his chest

She had been working with the baby while another member of the medical team leaned over and began to tie off the cord in two places. Matthias could barely pay attention to the or his husband as he focused on the tiny face of his baby. He could see that they could have gone with a couple extra weeks of growing and developing, but they were still the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen in his entire life.

Their brow was basically pulled from Kaz’s forehead and then shrunken down so that it lay underneath grimy red skin. Their nose and mouth held a shape that was reminiscent of Matthias’ mother, but he wasn’t sure if that would last. He remembered that his sister was basically identical to his father when she was born but then had grown to look like a combo of both their parents.

None of the time that he had gotten felt like enough and he was sure that it never would. Even if he had gotten days to stare down at the life that his body had made and birthed in secret, it would have been over too soon. The babe was lifted from his chest and whisked away to the warming station and NICU team in the corner as soon as Kaz had finished cutting the cord.

“What did we have?” Matthias asked, exhaustion raging in his body now that the contractions had dampened down and the adrenaline was beginning to flood from him.

“A little girl,” Kaz said. The way that he was speaking reminded the other two of when they were teenagers had he had faced his abusive foster father for the first time since he was nine. He was quiet and lost in his thoughts, plotting something that neither of them would be privy to for some time. 

“Go with her,” Matthias urged. “I’ll be fine here with Nina, don’t argue with me. I want you to go with her so that she doesn’t feel alone. If she doesn’t make it then she has to know how much her fathers loved her.”

The tears choked his throat before they all came pouring out of his eyes and down his face. He was shaking slightly in his bed as he stared at the warming station being rushed down towards the NICU so they could help the baby, who had only just begun to cry. “Are you sure?” Kaz asked. He only left his husband’s side when he was met with a quivering nod and Nina’s chiding.

---

Matthias would have gladly welcomed a much longer labor compared to the wait that he had to do afterwards. He had delivered the afterbirth and then gotten stitched up from where he had torn. Then he was moved into a recovery room where he would be watched to make sure he didn’t hemorrhage or develop any post-birth conditions. Nina had come with him, and Wylan was able to bring them some of the things that she had asked of him after an hour. It was nice to enjoy their company, especially when it was in addition to the food that his friend had brought with him. The only person that Matthias really wanted, however, was Kaz and his daughter. 

Guilt was swirling low in his stomach every time that he thought of what was really happening. She didn’t have a name and he didn’t even know her status. He wanted to be the one that had been allowed to go with their daughter so that he could see how she was doing. He wanted to be the one to see her first moments, to hear the doctor give her a prognosis no matter what it turned out to be. He was glad that he had sent Kaz so that she wasn’t alone, but his parents had always both been there for him and he couldn’t help but feel them judging him for not being able to do the same for his own baby.

Luckily, Nina was by his side the entire time. She held his hand and pressed her lips to his forehead to try and soothe the anxiety that had made itself at home in his heart. He was so grateful that she had chosen to be his friend when she easily could have had anyone. He leaned on her like she was a crutch, his head against her shoulder and their fingers together. It reminded him a little bit of when he had found her after her first OD, though he was the one in the hospital now.

“It’s going to be alright, Matthias,” Nina repeated every time she noticed the spike in his heart monitor. The only thing that he could do was nod in agreement with her. The idea that things could be bad, that he could be on the way to losing the daughter he had barely known that he was going to have, was simply too much for him.

Kaz was able to find him after about three hours. He looked frazzled, his hair a mess over his forehead and his eyes wild with stress. He slumped down into a chair on the other side of the bed from Nina, taking a deep breath before he leaned forward in search of his husband’s other hand. Matthias eagerly reached out for him while trying to keep his millions of questions behind his teeth. 

“She’s alright,” he started. “They had to get her on a feeding tube and they’re going to start bottle feeding her as soon as they can. Her lungs are developed thanks to the steroids that they gave you when you came in. She has some jaundice but apparently that’s more common in babies than we first thought it was. She’s going to have some time on the sun beds or whatever they call them.”

Kaz’s voice broke and he tilted his head down. Nina slipped off of the bed and then out of the room so that the duo could have some privacy, which Matthias was eternally grateful for. He scooted to the edge of the bed as easily as he could with how damaged he was from the birth. He took both of his husband’s hands and then kissed Kaz’s knuckles to try and accentuate his affection. Kaz leaned up and caught his lips in a wonderful, deliberate kiss. 

It was a shock but certainly not unwelcome. Matthias had expected Kaz to be in the throws of a panic attack the entire time that he was hospitalized. That was why they were looking into therapists before they actually became parents and thinking of healthy ways to do exposure therapy, after all. Usually when Kaz was anxious or stressed about something, it was a lot harder for him to touch people. Matthias understood that and loved him no matter how well they could physically show it to each other. He was pleasantly surprised, though, that he could get that touch-related affection from his spouse when he was aching for it.

Kaz broke the kiss and then pressed their foreheads together, his entire body quivering because his bad knee had too much weight on it. Matthias had just opened his mouth to tell him to sit when the other man began to speak, “Bear, she’s absolutely wonderful.”

“I wish that I could have gone with you to see her,” Matthias whispered. His heart was mourning that, he had always had some kind of idea that a parent would hold their baby and coddle them after they were born. He had seen those beautiful moments when both of his friends had their children, but he knew as soon as the reality of his situation had sunk in that it wouldn’t be happening for him. He had tried to make peace with it, but he wasn’t sure that it was really working all that well.

“You’ll go soon enough. She-she needs a name,” Kaz cleared his throat. “You made her, you need to give her a name. I can’t think of anything.”

“Kaz,” Matthias laughed. He knew that his husband was going to be awkward and nervous about becoming a parent, but this was more adorable than he could handle at the moment. “I don’t have any names right now.”

“We’ll figure something out eventually,” Kaz said. He grabbed his cane and began to pace around the hospital room with the face that he had used for scheming when they were dumb teenagers. “She’s small, so we’ll have to get some preemie baby clothes on top of taking the remnants of Machiel’s newborn clothes that Jes and Wy offered us. We’ll also have to get a carseat just for her, I know that Nina and Inej still have the one from Nilu but it’s kind of trashed and my girl needs to have something better than that. What color nursery do you want?”

“Kaz,” Matthias sighed as he relaxed back into the bed. He was sore and tired, he had just been through something incredibly traumatic for someone that knew they were pregnant, let alone what he had just done. “Whatever you pick will be good. When you’re finished ordering and panicking will you come lay down next to me so that I can sleep with my head on your shoulder?”

“Of course,” he replied like it wasn’t even a question. Matthias was glad to see that even though she was a surprise, Kaz was already fiercely bonded with their daughter. He could only hope the same would be true for himself.

---

Their entire worlds had changed many times before. They had both become entirely different people when they had lost their families. That was what had made them what they were now, what they would always be. It was something different to have the slow progression of love and healing that had led to their marriage. While only Kaz had lost the last tie to his humanity in the walls of a hospital, they were both handed a new life and a different way of being that day. Ida Delilah Helvar-Brekker would be the most cherished child in the entire group, even if they had to wait another three months to get to bring her home from the hospital.

[mjw-creature]

Hi! Can you explain the concept of "Ancients" in Danny Phantom? Meaning that these creatures are ancient in age, or like creatures that existed originally in the phantom zone?

Thanks for the ask! I'll try my best to answer, but there's not really one solid answer here.

The only mentions of the "Ancients" in the canon is in the episode Reign Storm. These were a group of powerful ghosts who sealed Pariah Dark (the ghost king) away and stopped his reign of terror. According to this info, the Ancients would have existed back in the time when Pariah was reigning, and while we don't have an actual timeline for this, it's safe to assume it was a long time ago.

That doesn't tell us much about the ages of these ghosts though, considering that we have no idea how long these ghosts existed or if they still exist at all.

Fanon has a lot of different takes on what Ancients actually are and who qualifies as one. Since there's so many different headcanons for this, I'm not gonna be able to outline very much except the ones I know offhand.

The general take I've gathered on what Ancients are, according to fanon, is that they are very powerful ghosts, and probably also very old in terms of age.

Also, when speaking about Ancients in terms of fanon, I don't think it's referring to the specific group of Ancients that took down Pariah, rather a more general group of ghosts that fit similar criteria.

Some of the ghosts that people headcanon as Ancients include: Clockwork, Pandora, Nocturn, Undergrowth, Vortex, and even Frostbite.

These ghosts all are extremely powerful, and while we don't have ages for any of them, it's safe to assume that at least Clockwork and Pandora have existed for a very long time, given that Clockwork maintains the timeline as a 4th dimensional being, and Pandora is literally THE Pandora, who in myth is the first woman on Earth.

The other thing they all have in common, minus Pandora and Frostbite, is that they each represent or are defined by an element. Clockwork=Time, Nocturn=Sleep/Dreams, Undergrowth=Plants, Vortex=Storms.

We don't know the origins of these ghosts either, but the only one who is similar to other ghosts that are implied to be humans (Ember, Johnny, Kitty, Desiree) is Pandora, especially when you consider her myth. The others, well, it's arguable since their backstories are never given. But it would make a lot of sense for these ghosts to have come from the Ghost Zone rather than the real world, given how much their elements define who they are, rather than their personalities.

What's most interesting is that these ghosts have very godlike/mythological qualities. Obviously, Pandora is literally mythological. But these characters' powers, personalities, and motivations, tend to come directly from what they represent. Clockwork is cryptic because time is. Undergrowth wants to grow as much as possible because, well, guess what plants like to do. Vortex is destructive and volatile, because that's how storms are.

So, long answer short, there's not really a solid answer to the fanon concept of "Ancients." But the running theme seems to be ghosts that are extremely powerful, represented by an element, and/or have mythological qualities. These are ghosts who are very similar to mythological gods.

[transingthoseformers]

Back on my Optitarn asks.

So basically their relationship has changed a bit with this and Optimus's long soul searching mission.

-

Tarn is a Mentor now. A Mentor to Amp (who Tarn betrayed killed) who is wide eyed and sweet and so very new. It makes Tarn feel strangely raw and he winds up using some of the calming techniques SG Soundwave taught him. 

Tarn swears to himself that he will not make the same mistakes and he will make certain Amp and Tarn himself doesn't falter. At the same time he feels how approvingly Optimus watches him and there's a slight shift because Tarn recognizes that this was an unspoken apology, a demonstration of how well Optimus has been listening, and an offer for what he would give Tarn.

His division back and protected. Tarn feels a wild jealous urge to track them down, find their fates and make sure none of them are left in Megatron's hands, this weaker counterfeit copy, to destroy and abandon again. Optimus when he comes to Tarn's rooms, their rooms given how they are linked, does not try to hide what he is doing, and lets Tarn see information and the search for the other members with the information Tarn provided.

An offer for Tarn to take but he still doesn't know the strings that come with accepting and starting to notice how much of a place he’s made for himself with Optimus’s nudging. Ratchet, who was the one who went with Optimus on his trip, is casting Tarn, who has developed a not quite skittish but cautious reaction to Optimus with obvious amusement and keeps making cryptic answers when Tarn demands answers about getting some advice.

Especially given that Optimus is being pointedly gentler with him and following his lead on how to interact with Amp and still keeping up their dates, but now Tarn is noticing the touching, which is much more careful and limited, not propriety and whenever Optimus wanted anymore. Worse Optimus is asking questions about his philosophy and beliefs and the Cause without a mocking edge but rather a thoughtful one. He makes a point to bring Tarn to his meetings and sentencing at least once a week.

And the scar. Where Tarn had hit him across his nasal ridge. He’s allowed it to scar and most of the time it is covered by the battle mask, but he leaves it open and visible in their rooms now.

And his lips. Tarn knows what he looks like when he smiles now.

All this added to his already presenting Tarn with luxuries, power, and companionship is working.

Tarn is vaguely horrified.

-

Optimus basically tracked down the only person he knows who managed to have a healthy romantic relationship in the Autobots: Zeta/Sentinel who’d been “retired” to an estate Optimus keeps them in because of something like sentiment. They both consider him a great mistake since he was their shared protege. Sentinel is like his first iteration, just a guy, and Zeta was a young giving idealist. They both struggled to try and reform Cybertron and felt they were failing. Sentinel didn’t accept the Council’s nomination after Nominus died, refusing to lie to the public and instead sought to do away with the Primacy and reform the government.

Optimus (Optronix) offered to go find the Matrix while his mentors tutted over him and said they didn’t need it, but he convinced them finding the real Matrix was a way to make up for the lie of the Primes and it would be a way to help those who were religious feel more comfortable. They supported him and he came back a Prime and doing a peaceful coup to remove them and the Council who he killed first, knowing they were planning to kill his mentors. He presented the murdered Council to them like a kitten bringing their owner a dead mouse and they were horrified. They realized suddenly the streak of violence in him especially when he started gently explaining how they would rule together and make Cybertron great like they dreamed.

Sentinel and Zeta rejected him and he couldn’t forgive that considering it and Sentinel’s attempt to stop him to be a betrayal. He threatened the lives of Iacon’s citizens to get Sentinel and Zeta to peacefully announce his rule and then they “retired” to a nice mansion he keeps under tight lock and key, as they no longer wanted to be “in public eye”.

He told them everything about tarn, including his feelings and their behaviors and how he hadn’t wanted to hurt him like others and what sort of relationship he wanted. Zeta and Sentinel smell weakness and wonder if encouraging genuine love might help mitigate some of his more destructive habits. He considers them “experts” and proceeds to follow their instructions exactly on how to have a good relationship.

He isn't perfect at it, but he is trying now because he has decided Tarn and he are perfectly compatible and it wouldn't work unless Tarn agrees. Optimus cannot brute force his way into this.

Jazz, his favorite spy, has been a great help in getting the information he needs due to the relationship he developed on Optimus's ordera and securing Tarn and further securing his powerbase are turning out to be complimentary. So he plans.

Oh this is long

Ohhh aww. Yeah. He cares about SG Amp, and he doesn't want to make the same mistakes he had before. Plus... He misses his DJD. He misses them and they're gone, and he regrets killing Kaon

Strangely enough that's half-kind of SG Oppy

And, also, that's oddly protective of Tarn. He's still thinking about his trauma more, even if he's with the SG autobots now. He doesn't trust SG Megatron

Aaaand there's the catch. Of course, SG Optimus, of course.

Oh that manipulative bastard, and it's working.

Okay but yes there's so much symbolism behind scars and I wanna go into a whole thing but wounds that seem "fine" or trivial can scar if you aren't careful in their care or if you let them. I've been thinking about that for the tfp au and Megatron's bite mark. There's exactly a chance he let it scar on purpose (or if not on purpose by being a shithead when it comes to wound care.) And we KNOW SG Optimus has done similar before in keeping his cracked titty window. Sorry for going on a tangent about scars.

So Tarn knows what sg Oppy is doing, but it's working just the same. Damn, that hurts.

Optimus basically tracked down the only person he knows who managed to have a healthy relationship in the autobots

Weirdly that made me laugh, like of course they mostly all suck at relationships.

Hmmm, cool depiction of SG Sentinel and SG Zeta

Of course SG Optimus of course. What is with you and going "look what I did :D" with corpses

damnnnn

Damn.

Zeta and Sentinel smell weakness and wonder if genuine love might mitigate some of his more destructive habits

Also made me laugh, ohhhh boy wait until they find out who the "suitor" is

Nopeee. He cannot brute force this.

SG Jazz is exactly a beautiful option here

[qqueenofhades]

Since you mentioned that you may be taking requests and also that you did that Dreamling oneshot the other day, I would like very much to humbly request an “every one of my family members is an eldritch abomination myself included however I should very much like to just go to uni and hopefully not destroy the entire world thanks” girlfriends, Rose and Nile?

It goes without saying that there are many things about this whole situation -- uprooting her life, moving to a new country, becoming her brother's legal guardian, helping him adjust while still feeling horrendously guilty about not saving him from his previous abusive situation sooner, sorting through her wealthy and late great-grandmother's extensive estate, and trying to start a graduate degree, while the mellifluous tones of Yakety Sax echo constantly through said country's government and she's not sure if the whole place is about to explode in a puff of clown-car smoke -- which are very, very stressful. Rose has always been good at making up more things to worry about, but even she doesn't need to search for ways to whet her anxiety, because it's already there and then some. Not to mention the whole part where she nearly destroyed the universe, became a dream vortex and then un-became it, inadvertently helped her friend have a baby with her dead husband, and almost agreed to let her creepy immortal great-uncle murder her for the greater good, before calamity was averted at the last minute and she turned out to be something called a Child of the Endless. Surely that won't be a problem again. Right?

In any event, amid this whirlwind of chaos, change, anxiety, and effort, Rose is very grateful to have met Nile Freeman, and they've taken to spending more and more time together. They have instantly bonded as young black women from America (or rather, Rose thinks Nile is from America, but she hasn't actually said) who both live in London and have endured the headaches of obtaining graduate degrees in history. Nile finished her PhD at KCL a few years ago, and is now doing that oh-so-fun early-career-researcher shuffle as she decides what she wants to do next, though she's made several cryptic references to wealthy parents who live in Malta and send her enough money to make sure she doesn't sleep under a bridge. "I appreciate it," she says as they walk through Bloomsbury, en route to Senate House so Rose can use the University of London's main library. "And considering all the disasters happening back in 2018, I was lucky to survive, truly. But sometimes I still want to do it on my own, you know."

"Mmm-hmm." Rose looks at her curiously. "What exactly do your parents do, by the way?"

"They..." Nile pauses. They come to a halt at the crosswalk and wait for the light. "You know, this and that."

Rose finds this answer rather vague, but maybe it's a sensitive subject, or Nile just doesn't want to talk about it yet. After all, they've only known each other for a few months, and Rose can't deny that she's very keen to impress the older girl. Nile is so gorgeous, so self-assured, with a strange eerie sheen to her skin and eyes that sometimes looks almost unearthly, but she's definitely the most normal person that Rose has recently met, and their interactions are the most refreshing part of her life. She has a bit (or maybe more than a bit) of a crush on Nile, but is too shy to see if that is actively reciprocated. As the light turns green and they cross, Rose says, "Are you from Malta, then? I thought you were American."

"Ethiopia," Nile says. "I was born there, at least. My parents adopted me a... a long time ago."

There definitely seems to be something she isn't saying, but Rose decides to let it pass, and they spend an enjoyable afternoon working at Senate House. Afterward, they trek off into the Bloomsbury streets in search of dinner, select a charming underground restaurant, and sit down in a candlelit corner. Nile orders her steak rare -- rare enough, in fact, that it's still practically mooing on the plate -- and Rose says jokingly, "Don't tell me, let me guess. You're a vampire."

Nile, who has just taken a sip of some indeed rather blood-red wine, chokes, starts coughing, and takes several minutes to compose herself, as Rose apologizes profusely. But she isn't laughing or treating it like a joke; she looks deeply startled. "How did you -- "

"Wait." Rose frowns. Oh no. Not her nice, normal, lovely friend who-she-kind-of-wants-to-be-her-girlfriend. Not in the one relationship and/or person she foolishly thought was not at all magical, creepy, supernatural, insane, or otherwise weird. "Are you...? I was just joking. I didn't..."

There's a very, very long pause. Nile seems to be weighing something up. At last she says, "If, hypothetically, I was... well, something like that, would you be upset?"

"I, uh." Rose considers what to say. After all, her horizons of what is possible have been recently and drastically broadened, and she's certainly not about to claim out of hand that vampires don't exist. "I don't think so?"

"I'm..." Nile looks around shiftily to make sure that all the other diners are happily absorbed, then lowers her voice anyway. "Technically half-vampire, half-djinn. My dads are one each. Nicky's a vampire and Joe's a djinn, and they sired me together, so it's... a long story."

"Okay." Rose blinks several times. "So your parents are...."

"Magical creatures, yeah." Nile eyes her. "You're taking this very well. Wait, are your parents also some kind of...?"

"My biological parents are both dead, but it turns out that I'm descended from something called the Endless." Rose feels awkward saying it, but there it is. "Do you, er, know what those are?"

"I don't think so. I could ask?"

"My great-uncle is the King of Dreams," Rose confesses, in something of a rush. "Lord Morpheus. Do you know him?"

"Maybe. It's been a long time, I can't remember everyone we've crossed paths with over the centu -- years." Nile nods her thanks as the waiter sets down a fresh basket of bread. "But again, I could -- "

"Wait. Centuries? How old are you?"

There is another long and deeply awkward pause. Then Nile says, "Technically, nineteen. But I was sired in 1104, so that means..." She calculates, then ventures, "Nine hundred and eighteen?"

"I knew it," Rose mutters. She is apparently just a magnet for every ever-living (literally) eldritch weirdo in the Western Hemisphere, and this isn't even touching the fact that her likewise-seemingly-nice-and-normal history professor/thesis supervisor is evidently also an ageless immortal and her aforementioned creepy King of Dreams great-uncle is valiantly attempting to not only date him, but ask Rose for advice. Truly. Her life is ridiculous.

[ginnsbaker]

Im backkkk i was so pleasantly surprised to see a new chapter its the best thing to wake up to. You already know this is gonna be long so apologies in advance and i’ll try keep it short (I probably won’t succeed)

Wanda’s therapy. Just wow. The way you wrote it felt like i was having a therapy session (but like a genuinely good one cos ive had 6 therapist who weren’t good and most of them took notes and I love how you specifically mentioned that). I also think the way wanda has changed in just a few chapters has shown so much maturity and personal growth I mentioned it after the last chapter but it shows here as well. I think she’s getting better at making peace with her decisions and becoming more comfortable with herself. I like how the therapist reassured her that one night doesn’t negate all her progress it’s something i wish mine told me but its very true and its important otherwise you end up in a vicious cycle. To sum that up i love her i love her growth and the way you’ve written her is just perfect.

When i read these quotes and sometimes song lyrics pop into my head a lot and two came to me through this part i may have quoted these before so sorry if i have 💀. The first goes “if you see yourself in the correct way you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water the flickering of fires, the arrangement of the stars and the form of the galaxy. You are all just like that and there is nothing wrong with you at all”. I think it sums up wanda quite well because if you really consider it we are extraordinary we are made from stars with features so unique to us like how no one has the same fingerprints and things like that really are crazy things caused by nature that are beautiful and amazing and if you see yourself in that way that imperfections aren’t something to be frowned upon that past decisions are learning experiences then it okay and you’re just fine. The other one basically says you should regard yourself as a cloud because no one looks at a cloud and says its the wrong shape or anything and by doing so you develop a new level of self confidence which i think is something wanda needs and thankfully is working towards.

Next Agatha. I adore her. She’s protective of wanda and really giving it to reader and im here for it. On one hand im glad she didn’t say what happened cos that would be betraying wanda but im so ready for reader to find out and shit to hit the fan. I just loved the conversation her sass and cryptic comments she was basically toying with reader and it was perfect chefs kiss nothing more to say.

Reader and wandas conversation I actually think wanda handled this better than reader did just in the sense if you were an outsider looking in on the conversation wanda seemed more put together than reader did which is a shift from before when wanda seemed like the lost puppy in conversation. Speaking of puppy i hope sparkys okay i love dogs and if anything happens to him it will be the saddest thing in the entire serious minus wandas overdose. Wanda reassuring reader about sparky was adorable

Im having to take breaks while writing this cos im in a waiting lobby for an appointment 💀

Finally yelena reader and kate. My first thought is reader’s reaction is totally out of proportion they slept together sure but its in the past and yelena clearly has no interest in kate anymore id understand if they were really close with a flirty relationship and there were feelings involved for both parties but its not and yelena has stayed with reader even when she arguably shouldn’t so there is nothing to worry about, but i do get the fact that reader has been cheated on before so that worry is there. Correct me if im wrong but i think reader is more upset yelena didnt tell her more than it happened, but in all honesty I don’t think they’ve really talked about their past in that way not to mention reader was sleeping with wanda so im not sure why they’re so mad. And to ruin yelenas night is a bit shitty not gonna lie. I genuinely don’t think kate meant to create a problem but as a proud member of team wanda i kinda like it 😂. Also thank you for having reader realise they don’t know yelena that well. I touched on it after the last chapter that both of them had changed since college and i said i felt yelena was more in love with who reader was then and the idea of them than who they are now and the fact they got away from her then. I think this chapter shows its also true for reader, its easy for them to fall into a relationship with yelena cos of the past but they don’t really know each other anymore. It just seems like they’re settling both of them too lost in thoughts of what could’ve been and its not right for either of them.

I still think reader needs therapy but i think that goes without saying now 😂

And i adore wanda #teamwanda

-🧃

I'm gonna have to bullet point my replies lol

I'm glad my research paid off. The detail though about therapist just taking notes while you're talking.. that's a personal observation for me. I think it's quite rude. I think a good therapist's priority is to listen to you. I hope more and more will be just attentive, cause I think at the end of the day, we just want to feel like someone's really listening to how we feel.

i'm gonna bookmark just the whole thing about being made of stars. you should consider giving writing a try if you haven't :) and im on my way to googling those lyrics right now

Agatha-i wrote her to be thoroughly loyal to Wanda cause she needs that

Sparky will be okay and I swear I will never kill an animal in any of my fics :)

Correct me if im wrong but i think reader is more upset yelena didnt tell her more than it happened - Yup, you got that right.

genuinely don’t think kate meant to create a problem - correct once again. she's just clumsy and awkward. kinda like the kate bishop we know from Hawkeye

Also thank you for having reader realise they don’t know yelena that well - which is also a basis for her reaction when she found out about kate and yelena. and it's going to be explored more in the next chapter

Your insights are gold as always. I find myself nodding a lot to a lot of your observations. I'm glad that you always catch the little details i subtly include in the narrative. Well done.

Oh, Wanda. (yeah i adore her too)

thank you for reading the latest chapter and sharing your thoughts. love love love hearing from you as always

[raspberryconverse]

IDK why, but for some reason I decided to read my old Blogger blog and just read the tagged posts about the boy I dated when I was 21.

Oof.

I do see why that one person was team [him], even when I started blogging again on LiveJournal 2 years ago. He'll always be the one who got away.

Don't get me wrong, I am so fucking happy with my spouse. I honestly don't know if he hadn't left for grad school that we would have fared better. I just got to the point where we actually broke up (even though we were trying to make it work long distance) basically because his family didn't like me. I mean, they didn't dislike me, but they most certainly didn't want their son to marry me. And considering parents usually love me (my in-laws do, for sure), it was such a blow.

He actually described it as we were a good dating couple, but not a good courting couple. We're obviously not talking fundie-level courtship, but southern religious vibes for sure. His dad was a Methodist pastor (I used to say he was a WASM - white Anglo-Saxon Methodist as opposed to a WASP, though I guess Methodism is technically Protestant, but hell if this atheist knows how any of that shit works) and they were from the Atlanta suburbs, so it was a very different world from my Midwestern divorced agnostic upbringing. I mean, his sister wrote him a multi page letter expressing her disdain for us taking a nap together when I visited him at his parents' house whereas my mom let us take her bed when we visited my family one weekend. We came from very different worlds, that's for sure.

I actually forgot what kick started our relationship. We had met a month or 2 prior while volunteering at The Neo-Futurists. Oddly enough, I kinda got to know him one night after some event when he, my college best friend, my soon-to-be ex and I ended up at a table together (I've been trying to find the context, but I honestly don't remember other than it was something Neo-Futurist related) Then, a fellow volunteer called me because his car broke down and he couldn't make his volunteer shift and asked if I'd be willing to cover. So we ran into each other again. It was his first time volunteering for Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind and afterwards, I made an offhand comment about being hungry and only having Easy Mac at home, so we went to IHOP.

A few weeks later was my 21st birthday. I had invited him to my birthday gathering, but he had to decline because he had to finish some stuff up at work. Then, he surprised me. After we left the bar, he suggested we get booze at the grocery store and drink at his place instead. My college best friend told me later that she was going to suggest going to another bar so she could basically pull a Stevie and leave so we could have a chance to connect.

Eventually, we need to go home, so he walked us to the el. Before I went though the turnstile, he hugged me goodbye.

And kissed me.

I think this is why I have to watch this part of "Grad Night" every night before I go to bed. It was my birthday and it wasn't supposed to end up this way. He wasn't supposed to be there. But then he was.

It will never not be magical. That moment of, "I'm feeling something here, so I'm just going to go for it."

It has literally been over a decade and a half (yes, I'm still being cryptic about exactly how old I am because this site makes me feel really fucking old sometimes) and I still get butterflies when I think of that night.

One thing that is kind of helpful when I get nostalgic is look at his Facebook and notice he did not age well. Shallow, I know, but aside from being so much heavier than I was then (it's actually pretty disgusting how disordered my eating/weight management was back then, especially when I would complain that I had gotten up to 140lbs and I'm at least 50lbs heavier than that now) and a few gray hairs (and I was dying my hair back then too so that's not really a thing), I look pretty much the same.

(obviously rounder face because I'm significantly heavier, but I don't think I've really aged that much)

And FWIW, I'm definitely happy with how my life turned out.

It's nothing like I thought it'd be, especially reading my old blog, but I don't think I'd have it any other way.

[e1igius]

the world isn't black or white. he'd learned that long ago , no matter what seemed to occur around them the world never seemed to agree. but he hadn't ever learned to think that way , people in huckleberry experience were always black or white. good or evil. nothing in between. but places often seemed to be a little bit of both , places were just a collection of the people that inhabited them and maybe that was why he couldn't seem to figure out which or what way to feel about hawkins , indiana. the longer he stayed there the more it felt like the town had it out for him , the more he tried to run away the more he could feel in his chest that he was meant to stay there. and the feeling had grown stronger when strange things had started happening around the town that otherwise was so middle of the road no one would have blinked twice if it disappeared off the face of the earth.

he knows things are bad when even he is in the library trying to find information on a creature he's seen in a dream , or he thinks he was daydreaming , there's no way he saw a dog with a venus fly trap for a face and it wasn't a dream. it has to be some sort of cryptic fairytale he read about once forever ago , maybe an overheard fantasy creature from a nerd game , maybe an old campfire story... whatever it is he's mulling over books trying so hard to concentrate and be able to get through the sentence ( if he's being perfect honest he might have read the same word four times getting a different understanding every time ). sometimes he wonders how he managed to graduate. but as lost in thought as he is , it doesn't stop him from hearing the sudden chaos that seems to have erupted from the other side of the building.

screams of terror aren't exactly per the course in a building who's entire purpose is to be silent. eyes look up to find men and women rushing past the table he's seated at toward the exist. eyes catch the girls across the table , recognition fills blue eyes instantly, he knows her. he hadn't realized when she'd sat down at the table , nor had he noticed the giant pile of newspapers that the girl had sprawled out in front of her. the high school senior's face isn't nearly as terrified as the hoard of people rushing towards the exit. no , nancy stands up the look on her face screams a determination huckleberry is familiar with. he has it in his bones. he knows exactly what that feels like , the ache in his bones to do something. but it's then that he hears the noise that they all seem to be running from. he's heard it once before , just once , and it was exactly the reason he was in the library that day. maybe it hadn't been a strange daydream when he'd come across the creature eating a nest of kittens. he didn't exactly want to stick around and find out. something told him they weren't going to fare very well without a plan.

the reaction is instantaneous , a hand reaches across the table grabbing the younger teens wrist to stop her , from doing what he didn't know but she was going to do something , that much he was sure of. there's a pause and the texan's giving her a look of equal determination. he wasn't about to let her go run towards the danger unprotected. what was she going do do ? throw a book at the thing ? and before he knows it he's pulling her away from the table and through the rush of panic up a flight of stairs. if he knew anything it was that the axe kept next to the fire extinguisher was most likely their best bet considering the single exit to the darn place was about to be overrun and impossible to use. and the only one he knew of was upstairs somewhere. at some point while they rush up the stairs and are looking for something , anything , that could actually be considered a weapon , his hand had slipped into hers. fingers gripping the smaller hand tightly he wonders if she can feel the heartbeat in his grip , his hearts racing in his chest. a real life monster wasn't exactly what he had thought was going to be the center of his wednesday afternoon.

eyes spot the axe and creature at the same time and he stops rushing , body growing cold. it's standing in front of it. on its hind legs like some sort of demonic entity. a thumb brushes over the back of nancy's hand , as if trying to reassure her. though he's really not sure if he's trying to reassure himself or her... he's never seen anything like it before. the one from the walk home hadn't been nearly that big , he can hear his grandfather's voice in his head god had forsaken them. he takes a step forward placing himself in between the thing and the girl , after all that was the point of him wasn't it... it's then that he feels the little squeeze of his hand. eyes dashing over to see nancy pulling something out of her bag with the one free hand she has... exposing a small revolver go the light.

@rebelcliche ! sent: “*holds your hand*”