#a labour of love made over hours days weeks

[coline7373]

On fanfics and all fanworks.

[norikuna]

r/AsksReddit | Help! I think I accidentally summoned the King of Curses ! ⌦ part one of ?

💬 hi reddit, i know this sounds fake but i swear on my life it's true. i was just messing around with this prank book my friends got me last christmas and it had some 'ancient' summoning spells in it. i didn't even think it would work but there's a 7ft demon looking guy sitting on my couch and i don't know how to get rid of him.

Sorry, this post has been removed by moderators of r/AsksReddit. MOD: Please ask real and serious questions, thank you.

💬 update! the mods removed my post but i'm genuinely telling the truth here. anyway, it turns out that by summoning him, i think i bound us together for eternity. sukuna (that's his name) isn't that bad and he's kinda like a big, lazy cat.

u/9to5exorcist : Ryomen Sukuna? Are you quite sure? u/tenshadowsanimalcrossing : You're joking, no way u summoned sukuna lmfao. u/you : not joking! i took him grocery shopping today! u/SixEyesSensei : dm me asap!!!! please!!!!!!!!!!!!!

inspired by @kasukuna and the most amazing dumbass boyfriend!sukuna fics 🤎

absolutely refuses to use your furniture properly. sukuna insults your apartment for at least 2 whole days and calls it a sad, little domain. he has no idea what paying rent is like in this economy. lounges across the couch with all four arms spread, sits on the kitchen counters, and insists on rearranging your entire living room spread so he can move around it easier.

now you're constantly sleep deprived by having this deadbeat, massive behemoth of an awful flatmate. sukuna keeps telling you that he's a medieval sorcerer, someone who flattened entire clans and mountains but it's hard to take him seriously when he keeps hitting his head on your low ceilings. he's always so loud around the apartment, complaining about how boring it is for him to be stuck and bound to you forever. if you're a university student or just someone who's employed, he thinks he's being helpful by offering to curse your professors/employees.

you have to beg him to get some real clothes. you're slowly getting used to the anatomically strange sight of a 7ft man with four arms, but you know that others are going to call the police. he's usually wondering around your apartment and loitering in his loose, wide pants. nothing else, not even a shirt. occasionally sukuna will drape a cloak around his torso but you have to basically wrestle a baggy shirt over his head. and he bites you, at least thrice.

refuses to help clean, and claims he's very much above menial labour. one day, you threaten to leave sukuna hungry if he doesn't contribute for at least five minutes. he begrudgingly starts picking up after himself, but not before bestowing you with the ugliest death threats of all time.

sukuna is the very definition of a lazy freeloader. well, you told him to be useful and get a job, but then the idea of him causing more problems and insurance paperwork later made you break out in a cold sweat. so he usually spends his hours just loitering around your apartment, and draining your resources. never puts dishes in the sink and still doesn't grasp the concept of a fridge so he's always leaving the door open.

but he is very curious about modern day life. seems like the world has really moved ahead in the one thousand years that sukuna hasn't walked the earth. asks a million questions about wifi, the internet, a phone, streaming services and so on. he will be the last to admit it but he loves trashy reality television, and he enjoys watching 'pathetic humans squabbling over pathetic things'. has an ugly, evil-ass laugh that wakes up your neighbours at 3am.

after weeks of being cooped up in your apartment, he starts complaining. loudly. stomping around and getting even nastier, to the point where you have to give in. he tells you that he is no house pet, and if you don't let him outside, he will go anyway and have his own fun. god help you, sukuna's idea of fun in the big city will involve blood and destruction so you relent and prep him with a million rules that he ignores.

has a beef with a bunch of birds that sit outside your apartment every morning. definitely the type of weirdo that glares back at birds and throws rocks at them. backfired, because the entire swarm started flocking around him. but you did promise him that you'd let him go outside, so you decide to start with somewhere easy. grocery shopping.

already impressed with the idea of grocery shopping and parking lots. has no clue why humans would cram their 'carriages' in one place, and has no concept of traffic laws. you try patiently explaining that these cars weigh tonnes of metal and they can really injure a person. sukuna's pretty confident that no car could ever even scratch him. cue the big delivery truck that almost runs him down.

completely fascinated by sliding doors. it's already embarrassing enough being outside with a loud, rude tank with pink hair and tattoos. but now he's holding up gruntled customers trying to figure out what enchantment allows glass to move so smoothly on its own. keeps stepping back and forth in front of them to watch them open and close. almost breaks them with the strength of just one cracked fingers before you plead with him to keep moving.

sukuna encounters an escalator for the first time and refuses to step on it, and vows to bash in the head of the little kid who gave him a big side eye. after five minutes of arguing, he finally steps onto the moving belt and almost tilts off-balance, but he's got a tattooed hand practically gripping the side for dear life.

literally the biggest hater when he's inside properly. makes snarky remarks about how this flashy bazaar can't possibly be for real merchants who respect the trade. you try to show him the different types of stores, but he's more interested in people watching. loud people-watching. you almost go home when sukuna asks another man why he's swallowing wet balls. hint: it was an innocent guy having bubble tea.

entirely interested in new fruits and vegetables that he's never seen before. but he'll pretend he doesn't give a flying fuck. has taken a deep liking to tomatoes, and comments that these delicious, tasty red globes were not around during his era. sukuna thinks colourful cereal boxes are the worst things to ever happen to mankind, and you fear that you gave him too much internet access when he sneers at you for picking up a box of froot loops - suddenly muttering things about artificial and fake foods with fake flavours.

baffled by the concept of frozen food, and wonders what sort of jujutsu keeps the meat cold and fresh? practically wide-eyed when he reaches the butcher's stand until you tell him that 'no, sukuna. you can't buy steak and eat it raw here. we have to get home and cook it.' he's just happy to see the deli. he opens the freezer and fridge doors for too long and lets all the cold out.

he has no concept of modern money or a credit card. insists that there is no need to trade for these goods, and he can just take what he wants. you believe him but you're trying to avoid the mall police, but he just stands behind with his arms crossed, while you sigh and take out your credit card to pay at the self checkout.

sukuna refuses to sit still at the food court, and towers over the poor workers. demands to know how the food is made, "is it poisoned? who are your chefs?" the poor teenager working the kebab store has to call the manager to get this fiend of a man to back off. he's able to polish off a doner kebab in two, nasty bites. refuses to carry any of your shopping bags and claims that he's not a mule. you remind him that he put in five tubs of ice creams and two watermelons, and he begrudgingly slings the lightest bag over his shoulder and leaves you to haul the rest up.

but who knew the key to keeping your local king of curses happy was to just simply take him out for a walk? sukuna seems more energised (while you feel like death warmed over) and he's already tearing open a bag of your favourite crisps, insisting that next time he will be able to conquer this 'shopping centre' properly and rule it with ease.

[theonottsbxtch]

PREACHER’S DAUGHTER PT5 | MV1

an: AND WE'RE BACK!! WHO MISSED OUR FAVOURITE LITTLE FAMILY! can't wait to hear what you guys think of this part, i've loved being with them this week, this is a shorter chapter but i've got ideas for what might happen next! lmk if y'all wanna see anything in particular

wc: 3.2k

Theo was four when his parents welcomed his sister, and Max very nearly missed it, if not for Danny.

It had been a normal day at the garage, Max elbow-deep in an engine rebuild, grease staining his hands and his focus entirely on the task at hand. His phone, forgotten on the workbench, buzzed furiously with calls and messages. It wasn’t until Danny came barreling into the shop, panting like he’d just run a marathon, that Max looked up.

“Max! Man, what the hell are you doing?” Danny wheezed, clutching his knees.

Max straightened, wiping his hands on a rag. “Uh, working? What’s wrong with you? You look like you’re dying.”

Danny shot him a glare, pointing accusingly at the phone vibrating incessantly on the workbench. “Your wife is trying to call you! She’s in labour, man! She’s having the baby!”

Max froze, the rag slipping from his fingers. “What?”

“She’s at the hospital! Her aunt’s with her, but you need to move! Now!”

Max’s heart lurched into overdrive. Without a word, he sprinted to the workbench, grabbed his phone, and bolted out the door. “Danny, lock up!” he shouted over his shoulder as he jumped onto his bike.

Danny shook his head, muttering, “You owe me for this one, man.”

Max arrived at the hospital in record time, still in his grease-stained shirt and boots. His wife was mid-contraction when he burst into the room, panting, his face a mixture of guilt and relief.

“You’re here,” she said through gritted teeth, her eyes narrowing slightly before softening at his frazzled appearance.

“I’m here,” he confirmed, rushing to her side and taking her hand. “I’m sorry, angel. My phone was on silent—”

“Save it,” she hissed, squeezing his hand so tightly he thought his bones might break. “You’re here now. Just don’t let go.”

Max didn’t. Not for a second. Hours later, they welcomed a healthy baby girl into the world. Max cried as he held her for the first time, the tiny bundle swaddled in pink resting against his chest. He looked at his wife, her hair damp and her face radiant despite her exhaustion.

“She’s perfect,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “You’re perfect.”

Their daughter, Mary-Ann, came home a few days later to a little house with a white picket fence that they had purchased not long before her birth. It was a modest place, but it was theirs, filled with laughter, love, and the chaos that only a toddler and a newborn could bring.

Theo was adjusting to his new role as a big brother with enthusiasm and curiosity. He followed his parents around, always asking to hold the baby or show her his toys. “She likes dinosaurs, right?” he would ask, clutching his favourite plastic stegosaurus.

“She loves dinosaurs,” Max assured him, grinning as he ruffled Theo’s hair.

Max had seamlessly embraced fatherhood, splitting his time between the garage and his family. He spent his evenings teaching Theo how to kick a football in the back garden and his nights rocking Mary-Ann to sleep.

The house, with its picket fence and flowerbeds lovingly tended by his wife, was the picture of the life Max had never imagined for himself. Yet, here he was, living it and loving every moment.

The day of Mary-Ann’s baptism dawned clear and bright, the kind of perfect day that made everything feel just a little more magical. Their little family was dressed in their Sunday best, Theo proudly wearing a bowtie that his mother had wrestled him into after much negotiation, and Mary-Ann bundled in a delicate white christening gown.

They arrived at the church to find her aunt, Danny, and a few close friends waiting for them, just as they had for Theo’s baptism years ago. Her aunt immediately swooped in to coo over Mary-Ann, her face soft with affection.

“She’s the spitting image of you at this age,” her aunt said warmly, brushing a soft curl away from Mary-Ann’s forehead.

“Let’s hope she doesn’t inherit my teenage rebellion,” she joked, glancing at Max, who chuckled.

The service itself was intimate and beautiful. As the pastor spoke, Theo sat on Max’s lap, squirming occasionally but staying quiet enough to earn whispered praise from both his parents. When it came time for the baptism, Max and his wife stood together at the front of the church, Theo holding onto his mother’s hand while Max held Mary-Ann close.

The pastor asked Theo if he wanted to say anything, and the boy puffed out his chest importantly, his tiny voice ringing out through the quiet chapel. “We’re all gonna be... um... part of Chris-tain-ity now!”

There was a soft chuckle from the congregation, but Theo frowned, frustrated by his own mispronunciation. His brows knitted together, and before anyone could stop him, he muttered under his breath, “Damn it.”

Max’s head snapped around, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at his son. “Where did you hear that, Theo?”

Without hesitation, Theo turned and pointed to Danny, who froze mid-grin. “Uncle Daddy says it all the time.”

The entire room dissolved into laughter, but Max’s expression darkened. “His name is Uncle Danny. Not Daddy,” he corrected firmly. He handed Mary-Ann to his wife with exaggerated care and then fixed Danny with a dangerous look. “Uncle Danny also has five seconds to run.”

Danny’s eyes widened as he stammered, “Now, hold on a second—”

“Five.”

Danny bolted toward the back of the church, nearly tripping over a pew. Max didn’t miss a beat, stepping around the altar and charging after him. Theo laughed hysterically as he watched his father chase Danny out the door, and his mother shook her head, trying to stifle her own giggles.

When Max returned a few minutes later, slightly winded but victorious, Danny trailing behind him with a sheepish grin, the ceremony continued. The pastor, who had been struggling to keep a straight face, resumed his blessing, and little Mary-Ann was baptised without further incident.

As they left the church, Theo clung to Max’s hand, his face lit with excitement. “Daddy, can I chase Uncle Danny next time?”

Max ruffled his hair, smirking. “Not until you’re faster than me, kid.”

The two of them loved the life they had built together and sometimes when Max woke up he had to pinch himself. Just under half a decade ago he was eating dry hotdogs and drinking stale beers in a rundown trailer. Now he was helping his wife. His wife. In the kitchen with his two kids. Not one, two. Max was a father and everyday he woke up he couldn’t really believe. it.

The smell of cinnamon and vanilla wafted through the house as she stood at the counter, carefully icing a tray of perfectly golden cupcakes. Mary-Ann was nestled in her baby chair nearby, happily chewing on a soft toy, and the kitchen felt like the warm, beating heart of their home.

Out in the garage, Max had Theo standing on a small step stool by the workbench, his tiny hands gripping a wrench that was far too big for him. Max crouched beside him, guiding his hands as they worked on an old oil pan together. Theo giggled every time Max made a joke, his high-pitched laughter filling the air.

She wiped her hands on her apron, grabbed a glass of iced tea, and wandered outside to watch her boys. Leaning against the doorframe, she crossed her arms and smiled. “Teaching him how to change oil already? He’s four, Max.”

Max turned, his grease-streaked face lighting up when he saw her. “Hey, never too early to learn the basics, right, buddy?”

Theo nodded enthusiastically, smearing a streak of oil across his cheek as he waved the wrench triumphantly. “Mama, I’m helping!”

“I can see that,” she laughed, walking over and kissing the top of his messy hair.

As her gaze wandered around the garage, it landed on their old motorbike, tucked into the corner, its polished chrome gleaming even in the dim light. Her smile turned into a smirk, and she gestured toward it with her glass. “You know, you’re going to have to sell that death trap.”

Max froze mid-laugh, a look of horror crossing his face. “What? No way. We’ve got so many memories with that bike.”

“We have two kids now, Max.”

He frowned, standing up and crossing his arms. “But what if Theo wants it when he grows up?”

She raised an eyebrow, placing a hand on her hip. “He’s not stepping a foot on that thing.”

Max threw his hands up in exaggerated protest. “Oh, so when it’s us, it’s fine, but when it’s Theo, it’s a problem?”

She grinned, completely unbothered. “Yup.”

Before he could argue further, Danny strolled into the garage, a familiar plastic container in hand. “Alright, where’s the good stuff? I heard there’s baking going on in that kitchen, and you know the deal—Danny gets dibs.”

She laughed, pointing toward the house. “I’ll bring you some in a second. Just made a fresh batch.”

As Danny leaned against the workbench, Max glanced at him, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Hey, Danny, you wanna buy that death trap over there?”

Danny raised an eyebrow, glancing at the bike. “How much are we talking?”

Max grinned. “Fifty bucks.”

Danny’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What’s the catch?”

Max smirked, holding out a hand. “You buy it, but I still get to use it whenever I want.”

Danny laughed, shaking his head but reaching out to shake Max’s hand anyway. “You got yourself a deal, man.”

Max turned to her with a triumphant grin, wiping his greasy hands on his jeans. “See? It’s sold. Problem solved.”

She rolled her eyes, shaking her head but smiling as she headed back into the house. “You two are impossible.”

As she disappeared into the kitchen, Max knelt back down beside Theo, who looked up at him with wide, curious eyes.

“Daddy, what’s a death trap?”

Max chuckled, ruffling his hair. “It’s something fun that your mom doesn’t like.”

From the kitchen, she called out, “I heard that!”

While she packed up some of her baked goods for Danny she too thought of how lucky she was. How all her prayers had been listened to. How she finally made it out of that house. How she was going to witness all her own kid’s life milestones with joy and love, not hatred and jealousy. 

The morning of Theo’s first day of school, the sunlight streamed through the windows as the family bustled to get ready. Theo stood proudly in his brand-new school uniform, his backpack almost as big as he was. Mary-Ann, her curls tied up in tiny pigtails, was toddling around in her nursery outfit, clutching her stuffed bunny like it was her lifeline.

Their mother, however, was a whirlwind of emotions. She double-checked Theo’s lunchbox for the third time and nearly forgot to zip Mary-Ann’s coat, all while blinking back tears.

“I can’t believe they’re both going,” she murmured, her voice trembling as she fixed Theo’s collar for the tenth time.

Max, leaning against the counter with a cup of coffee, tried to hide his grin. “Sweetheart, they’re not moving out. It’s just school and nursery.”

She shot him a glare. “Don’t start with me today, Max.”

He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, alright. Come here, buddy,” he said, crouching down to Theo’s level. “You ready for your big day?”

Theo nodded, his little chest puffed out. “I’m gonna make so many friends!”

Max ruffled his hair. “That’s my boy. And you,” he added, turning to Mary-Ann and lifting her into his arms. “You take care of those nursery teachers, alright? Show ‘em who’s boss.”

Mary-Ann giggled, planting a slobbery kiss on his cheek.

After a bittersweet drop-off that left her sniffling the entire car ride home, they returned to their now eerily quiet house. For the first time in years, it was just the two of them.

She walked into the living room, glanced at the toys still scattered around, and sighed heavily, sinking into the couch. “It’s too quiet.”

Max sat beside her, pulling her into his side. “I told you this morning was gonna hit you hard.”

She swatted his chest lightly. “It’s just… I’ve never been in the house without one of them here. It’s so empty.” She buried her face in her hands, her voice muffled. “What if they need me? What if Mary-Ann gets scared? Or Theo forgets his lunch?”

Max chuckled softly, rubbing her back. “Sweetheart, Theo’s got this. The kid’s practically running for class president. And Mary-Ann? She’s gonna have the nursery wrapped around her finger before lunch.”

She peeked at him from behind her hands, her lips twitching into a reluctant smile. “You think so?”

“I know so.” He leaned in, pressing a kiss to her temple.

For a moment, she leaned into him, letting the comfort of his presence soothe her. But the silence of the house pressed in again, making her sigh.

Max pulled back slightly, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “You know, we’ve got the house all to ourselves now.”

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Max…”

He grinned, running his fingers lightly up her arm. “I’m just saying. We’ve got a whole empty house and a few hours of peace.”

Despite herself, she laughed, smacking his shoulder. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m practical,” he countered, leaning closer. “We might never get this chance again, angel. Think about it.”

She shook her head, rolling her eyes, but her cheeks flushed. “I can’t believe you’re suggesting this right now.”

“I’m just trying to make the most of the quiet,” he teased, his hand slipping around her waist. “And besides, you’re way too stressed. Let me help you relax.”

She laughed despite herself, the weight of the morning momentarily forgotten as he kissed her neck, his stubble tickling her skin.

“You’re ridiculous,” she murmured, tilting her head to meet his lips, her heart finally feeling a little lighter.

And if she counted the exact weeks, that day was how she ended up pregnant with her third and final child.

Nine months later, their family grew again with the arrival of a boy they named Daniel. It was a tribute to Danny, their ever-reliable friend who had, over the years, become less like a buddy and more like an honorary member of the family.

Daniel came into the world with a loud cry and a shock of dark hair, immediately staking his place in the chaos of their household. Mary-Ann, now three and brimming with sass, had proudly declared herself the "boss" of her new baby brother. She often toddled around after him, dragging her favourite stuffed bunny in one hand and fussing over Daniel like a miniature mother.

Theo, at five, took his role as the eldest sibling very seriously. He loved showing off to Mary-Ann and anyone who’d listen about how he could hold his baby brother “without dropping him” (a feat Max closely supervised with a hovering hand). Theo also began peppering Max with endless questions about how cars worked, proudly announcing that he’d take over the garage one day.

The house was louder now, bursting with life and love in every corner. Daniel’s cries, Theo’s endless chatter, and Mary-Ann’s theatrical storytelling meant there was never a dull moment.

Max had learned to juggle bottles, bedtime stories, and car repairs, often collapsing into bed with her at the end of the day, marvelling at the whirlwind their life had become.

On quieter days—though “quiet” was a stretch—she’d watch Max play with the kids in their backyard. Mary-Ann would climb all over him, Theo would ask a million questions about the engine of a toy car, and baby Daniel would sit in his lap, chewing on whatever he could grab.

Sunday mornings had become a cherished tradition for her. Dressing Theo in his little button-up shirts, coaxing Mary-Ann into tights and her favourite frilly dress, and cradling baby Daniel in his soft onesie all felt like sacred rituals. She loved sharing her faith with her children, teaching them the hymns, and watching their faces light up during Sunday school.

But as much as she loved church, there was always a weight to bear. Her parents still attended the same church, their presence lingering like a spectre of the past. While most of the congregation had embraced her family with warmth, her parents had not. They’d sit on the far side of the pews, casting disapproving glares, and every so often, there were whispers—cutting, cruel words spread by those who believed her parents' version of events.

Still, she focused on her children. Theo beamed when he memorised Bible verses, Mary-Ann proudly showed off her colouring pages, and baby Daniel giggled at the choir. Sharing this part of her life with them felt like reclaiming something pure.

That afternoon, the church hosted a children’s Bible study, and she stayed to help with crafts and snacks while Max wrangled the baby. Daniel was perfectly content napping on his dad’s chest while Max sat in the corner, earning approving glances from the other parents for his patience and attentiveness.

As they packed up to leave, her father appeared, stepping out of the shadows like a storm cloud. His eyes were cold, his expression a mask of disdain. He walked past her, close enough that she could feel the venom in his whispered word:

"Whore."

The word cut through her like a knife. She froze, her heart pounding, the air sucked out of the room. Before she could even react, Max’s voice broke the moment.

"Angel, hold Daniel."

She turned to him, startled, as he handed her the baby with a calmness that belied the fire in his eyes. Then, without hesitation, Max spun on his heel and marched toward her father.

The sound of Max’s fist connecting with her father’s jaw was thunderous in the quiet room. Her father staggered back, clutching his face, as gasps rippled through the remaining churchgoers.

Max stood tall, his voice steady but cold. “Don’t you ever call my wife that again. You lost any right to speak to her the day you hurt her and abused your power. She’s a better person than you’ll ever be.”

Her father glared up at Max, but he didn’t dare rise. The weight of his disgrace was palpable as the onlookers murmured, their judgement no longer directed at her but at the man who had insulted his own daughter in a house of worship.

She stood rooted to the spot, Daniel cradled in her arms, her cheeks flushed. She could feel every eye in the room on her, but the only one that mattered was Max’s. He turned back to her, his expression softening, and strode toward her.

Max placed a gentle hand on her back, his touch grounding her. “Let’s go, angel,” he said quietly, his voice carrying none of the anger from moments before.

She nodded, unable to form words, and followed him out, their children close by. As they left the church, she glanced down at Theo and Mary-Ann, both wide-eyed but clutching each other’s hands tightly.

When they got to the car, she took a deep, shaky breath. “Max—”

He cut her off with a kiss to her temple. “Don’t. You don’t owe him anything. Not even your anger.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and she leaned into him, Daniel squirming lightly in her arms. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Max tilted her chin up so she was looking at him. “You and these kids are my family. No one, not even him, gets to treat you like that.”

taglist: @sinofwriting @le-le-lea @vanicogh @iamred-iamyellow @rayaskoalaland @spookyanamurdock @iimplicitt @hellowgoodbye @maximuminfluencerstarlight @lottalove4evelyn @piceous21 @ladscarlett @leclerc13 @linnygirl09 @labelledejourr @cmleitora @fortunapre @felicityforyou @isagrace22 @bookishnerd1132 @formulaal @mastermindbaby @daddyslittlevillain @inmynotes63 @litllefox @hollstopia

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

Hal congrats on the 5k you absolutely deserve it.

I have a request for the 5k event so here it is

The reader is John's wife who's 9 months pregnant and basically about to burst. Reader goes into Labour while John is out on the field.

Again congratulations on 5k you absolutely deserve every single follower since your Storys are just chefs kiss. I'm very glad i found your blog when i did!

—Here Now

⇢ ˗ˏˋ 5k Drabble Masterlist ࿐ྂ

╰┈➤ ❝ [He nearly misses one of the most important moments of your lives together.] ❞

You had told him you would be fine, and, of course, John knew he could take your word—even if over these nine months he’d been more worried than he had been in his entire life. It would have been difficult for you to say how you were truly feeling about being home alone two days past your due date with no one but the birds outside to give you company. 

He had been up at arms about being with you through this, and the man’s stubbornness about that fact had made your face go soft with love. John was the most loyal man you’d ever met; add in a child on the way and he became no better than a hound baying at the scent of a fox. But this had apparently been so important that he’d asked you about the idea of being away for a day—a single day, the man had emphasized, even if the others had to stay wherever they were going for longer. He’d take the red-eye back the second after the time was up, a whole military Heli and all.

One day was far better than one week—far better than one month. So, you’d agreed albeit a bit reluctantly as the man reassured you he’d be back safe and whole. He’d be back for the birth. 

Yeah, that was a load of bullshit. 

You lay in the hospital room, panting and trying to keep your eyes open as the contractions hit once more; a whimper hidden as you bend your neck forward to let your chin hit your chest. 

“Shit,” you breathe, the nurse moving out of the room quickly to grab more water and the doctor for you. 

This had been going on for a good four hours—levels of shaking pain that lasted upwards of a minute and had been increasing in frequency more so in the last sixty minutes. They’d finally had you lay back on the bed only a little bit ago, and you knew at that point that John would be unable to make it for the birth of your first child.

The thought terrified you. 

You place a hand on your stomach and blink down at it, the raised half of the bed behind you and the chill of the room making you shiver. The buzz of the lights—the closed windows. Your heart is running not only from the thought of this, of all that could go wrong, but also because you now lacked the most steady rock you’d had in your entire life: John. He’d know what to tell you to make you calm down, to make your mind stop with all the panic. 

But he’s not here, and that alone makes you want to—

The door opens so quickly it nearly busts off of its hinges.

Your heart sputters, head jerking back as you wince from another contraction, this one far more painful and promising to stay for longer. Closer now. But your eyes blink on something more important. 

“I’m here, Love.” As if a phantom, John hurries through, a gaggle of wide-eyed nurses behind him before the door to your room is shut by firm hands. “Fuckin’ hell, Sweetheart, I’m ‘ere, it’s alright.”

He’s still in his gear—lacking weapons as those had probably been tossed away on Base—but vest and hat are present; the large boots with tucked pants and that compression shirt. You watch in shock as he speeds up to the side of your bed, taking your hand in his large one and squeezing. His other grabs the motion-less chair and drags it over with a grunt. 

“Now,” John says, shaking his head at you as you simply stare. “You squeeze my hand as hard as you well please then, yeah? Don’t care if you break a few fingers, Love, I’ve been through worse.” 

“How…” You mutter, tears welling in your eyes. “How did you…?”

He blinks those tiny blues at you, twitching his nose as his gaze darts down your body. 

“Had a feeling,” is all he says. 

You laugh through a sob and he presses his forehead into yours, hand on the base of your skull. 

“I’m here right now,” he utters. “Gonna have to have a few words with the little Muppet when they’re out about timing. Nearly made me bloody miss it.” 

“John Price,” you scolded lightly, laughing. 

He only hums and tries to hide his wide grin, eyes shimmering. 

By the time it’s all over, he holds the both of you to his vest-less top as he leans back beside your bare dewy skin, the small bundle kept to your chest with its gripping hands. John’s arm was around your shoulders, drawing you to him. You had fallen asleep not minutes prior, and the soldier kept watch as he always had when his girl was needing him. 

Well, girls now. 

He watches, not speaking, barely breathing, only pulling you closer to him as you sigh and shift. The baby, his and yours baby, gargles and kicks her little feet until he shifts a hand to assist your own in cupping her higher. His smile is uncontainable, just like the sudden glossiness to his eyes at such a tiny weight in his grip.

John watches, and he comes to a conclusion as he presses a deep kiss into your scalp, his thumb taken into the smallest grip that has ever held it. 

There was never a more beautiful sight than the one right in front of him. 

[daisyblog]

Birthday Twin

Our Story Masterlist Summary: YN and Harry welcome their baby girl into the world.

Warning: labour, delivery, child birth, gas and air

11th of April 2024

35 weeks and 5 days pregnant

The Tomlinson family had all travelled to Doncaster for a few days of celebrating YN turning thirty. 

“Your last couple of days of being twenty nine Kiddo!”. Louis gently ruffled YN’s hair as he walked by her in their grandparents kitchen. Both filling their plates with some more food from the buffet spread their Nan had made. 

“Don’t remind me!” YN groaned as she reached over and put some extra sandwiches on her plate. 

“Fookin’ ‘ell, is baby girl hungry tonight?”. Louis joked as he watched his sister continue to fill her plate that was already slightly full of food. 

YN laughed as she looked at her plate compared to Louis. “Your niece is a foodie, what can I say?”. She naturally ran her hand over her large bump. 

“Can I?” Louis gestured towards her tummy, his way of asking if he could touch. When YN nodded, Louis placed his hand over bump. “‘ello little one, are you gonna come and meet us soon?”. 

“You’re going to spoil her rotten aren’t you?”. YN couldn’t help but smile at the small interaction. She had witnessed her brother as a brother, dad and uncle already and she could tell how much love he already had for her little girl. 

“Uh obviously, I just hope she comes before tour starts again.” 

---

12th of April 2024

35 weeks 6 days pregnant 

8:30am

YN suddenly woke from small niggles in her lower stomach, something she had been experiencing for a few weeks. She tried to ignore the dull ache and go back to sleep, but after tossing and turning, she gave in and got up. 

As she entered the kitchen she noticed her grandmother sitting at the table with a cup of tea in her hand. “Morning my love, you’re awake early!”. 

YN began to make herself a cup of tea, as she sat beside Jen. “Morning Nan, yeah braxton hicks again!”. 

“You’ve been having them a lot haven’t you darling?”. Jen had a concerned look on her face as she watched her eldest granddaughter stir her tea. 

YN only shrugged her shoulders. “Apparently it’s normal at this stage, I just didn’t realise how painful they could be”. 

11:00am

As the morning went on YN noticed how the niggles only continued and become a tad more painful. But not wanting to draw attention or to cause everyone to worry, especially Harry, she suggested her and Harry take Teddy for a walk.

They were walking through the quiet field, Teddy running just a bit in front of them, when YN stopped suddenly and held her tummy as a sharp pain caught her off guard.

“What’s wrong babe? Are you alright?” Harry immediately went into panic mode, worry evident all over his face. His hand protectively wrapped around her smaller frame. 

“Yeah, just cramp that’s all”. YN noticed Harry’s worried look, his eyebrows in a tight frown and tried her best to hide how much pain she was really in. “I’m fine, it’s braxton hicks again.”. 

Although Harry wasn’t fully convinced, they continued their walk before heading back to the house. 

2:00pm 

Within a few hours, the pain had gotten worse with YN baring her weight on anyone or anything to try and ease the pain. It was when YN cried out in pain, as she grabbed onto Louis’ hand, that Harry decided to take matters into his own hands. 

“I’m phoning the hospital, this can’t just be braxton hicks!” Harry announced as he began to dial the number on his phone. 

“Harry’s right Tiny, you’re in far too much pain for this not to be real labour”. Louis agreed with Harry, taking note at how much his sister was squeezing his hand. 

After phoning the hospital and explaining everything to the midwife, Harry was told that it sounded like YN was in early labour and they needed to monitor and time how quick she was having contractions. 

At this news Daisy, Phoebe and the other men decided to take Lucky and Olive to Phoebe and Jack’s house to give YN some space before she had to go to hospital. 

“Ahhhh!” YN cried out in pain as she held onto Harry for support. “This hurts so fookin’ much!”.

Harry rubbed circles on YN’s back, trying to comfort her as much as he could. “I know baby…but you’re doing so well.”.

“You’re doing so well YN”. Lottie praised her sister from where she sat next to Louis. “All the pain is worth it in the end, trust me”.

“Lottie’s right Tiny…just think you’ll be holding your baby sooner than you thought”. Louis gave Harry a small smile, knowing how special that moment will be for them both. 

5:30pm

With her contractions lasting around a minute and only being five minutes apart, YN found herself in the hospital with gas and air being her new best friend. 

YN was lying down on the bed, the gas and air attachment in her mouth as she breathed through another contraction. Harry sat on one side of the bed telling her how proud of her he was and saying how it wouldn’t be long until their little one would be here. 

“Harry…baby…I can’t do this!”. YN’s head hit the white plump pillow behind her, as the contraction ended. “I’m so tired already.”.

“You can do it and you are doing it”. Harry brushed some of her away from her face. “You’re making me so proud!”. 

“YN, you’re doing amazing and just remember nothing worth having is easy”. Lottie encouraged her sister, having been through labour and birth herself, she what to say. 

“Listen to your birthing partners YN, you’re doing amazing”. The midwife smiled proudly at how supportive and calm they both were. “How about trying to the birthing pool?”. 

Harry helped YN into the pool and instantly YN’s once tense body was now relaxed. In between contractions she began to make jokes about how she’s glad she had shaved her legs before that day. 

When the next contraction hit, Harry was quick to kneel down beside the pool and hold onto YN’s hand as she took in the gas and air to numb the pain. “That’s it, keep breathing through the pain, you’re doing so well love”. 

8:00pm

“So how did you two meet?”. The midwife began to make conversation with the couple as another contraction ended.

YN was back sitting on the bed, the attachment still in her hand whilst her other one held Harry’s. “He was my brother’s best friend”.

“Oh how interesting!” The midwife leaned forward in her chair, eager to hear more. “How did that go? You know breaking the news to him?”.

“Not well but he came around pretty quickly”. Harry explained as YN worked her way through another sharp pain. 

“I wouldn’t have listened even if he didn’t come around”. YN allowed the gas and air to do a little bit of talking. “Couldn’t resist the charm”. 

Before anyone could respond, a gush of water surrounded YN and turned the blue sheet below a darker shade. “And that’s your water breaking!” The midwife announced before she helps YN to clean herself up. 

11:45pm

The contractions were coming thick and fast, YN was attached to the gas and air more than ever and Harry tried to hide how hard she was squeezing his hand. 

“YN I’m going to exam you, is that alright darling?”. The midwife stood at the bottom on the bed, gloves covering her fingers ready for the examination. With YN’s permission, the midwife began to see how far YN was dilated. “Oh darling, I can feel baby’s head, do you feel like you-“.

Before the midwife finished; YN let out a small groan as she bore down and began to push. Harry was overwhelmed with joy, excitement but also nervousness that any minute now their whole world was about to change. 

“Keep listening to your body YN, you’re doing amazing my darling” the midwife encouraged as she continued to watch the baby’s head begin to crown. 

“Aww I can see her head!”. Lottie’s excited voice could be heard as she took in every moment of watching her niece being born. 

YN took a rest in between contractions before she needed to push again. “I love you  “. Harry placed a peck to YN’s forehead. 

“I love you too!”. 

0:01am

After several more pushes, Harry and Lottie were in awe as the tiny little baby appeared and was placed on YN’s bear chest. The tears streamed down YN and Harry’s cheeks. 

“Hello baby girl!”. YN held her daughter tight, and kissed her head gently. Despite all the pain YN was still in, a large smile covered her face as she looked down at the small version of herself and Harry.

“Baby girl born one minute past midnight on the thirteen of April, weighting six pound exactly”. The midwife announced to the three of them. 

Harry smiled down at his wife and newborn daughter. “Happy birthday baby!”. It was in that moment that YN had realised that their little girl was born on her thirtieth birthday. 

---

13th of April 2024

6 hours old

“Thank you.” Harry spoke into the quiet and calm room as he held their newborn in his bare arms. “You’re a real life superwoman for doing all that and bringing our girl into the world!”.

“I’d do it a thousand times again because she was totally worth it”. YN watched as Harry’s hand held onto the tiny newborn fingers. “I couldn’t have done it without you or Lotts though.”.

“She’s your double”. Harry smiled as he observed the little’s one features, all resembling her mother’s. “She looks like your Mum too!”. He gave YN a sad smile. 

YN didn’t want to get too emotional at the thought that her Mum wasn’t there to meet her daughter, so she tried to remain positive. “I think me Mum sent her as a birthday gift and it’s the best gift I’ve ever had”. 

---

Instagram Reel:

Made by Lottie

The black and white video begins, the sound of Heartbeat by James Arthur playing over it. 

YN is sat on the birthing ball, her hips moving slowly, in her grandparents living room. Harry kneeling down in front of her, holding her gently and whispering how well she’s doing. Louis is sat to her side, holding onto her hand and being a support whilst he can. 

In the hospital corridor, YN has her neck tucked into Harry’s chest as they stop to allow her to breathe through a contraction. Harry places small pecks to the top of her head. 

Sitting crossed leg on the bed, YN takes in the gas and air that she’s holding up to her mouth. Her eyes are closed as she’s breathing through each contraction. 

YN is in the birthing pool, the gas and air still attached to her hand has she takes in another breath, Harry is kneeling down by her side. She holds onto his hand, he looks on with a slight frown on his face as he watches his wife work through another contraction. 

Now lying on the bed, YN cradles her new born daughter to her chest, tears running down her and Harry’s face as they meet their little baby for the first time. Grace Johannah Robyn Styles had stolen their hearts and YN couldn’t have asked for a better birthday gift. 

---

ynstyles

liked by annetwist, lottietomlinson, and 5,634,543 others

ynstyles Grace Johannah Robyn Styles🤍 View all 15,788 comments

niallhoran Aww my little bestie❤️Can’t wait to meet her xx ⌞ ynstyles Little Grace is excited to meet her Uncle Niall!!

gemmastyles I’M AN AUNTIE🥰❤️Thank you both for blessing me with the most beautiful niece xx ⌞ynstyles AUNTIE GEM🩷

annetwist My family grows and my heart is so full❤️Congratulations my darlings! Grace is a beautiful little girl and I love you all very much xxx ⌞ynstyles We love you😘🥰Thank you for being the best Grandma already❤️

lottietomlinson Our beautiful Grace!! What a magical moment watching her come into the world. Love you all ❤️ ⌞ynstyles Thank you for being there every step of the way Lotts!! I’m so glad I got to share that special moment with you. Love you lots🩷

louist91 Can’t wait for more cuddles!! Proud of you both!! Grace is amazing!!xx ⌞ynstyles Grace loved her snuggles with Uncle Lou xxx ⌞harryfan3 Uncle Louis🥹 ⌞louisfan7 I bet Louis is the best uncle!!!!

zayn congrats guys! So happy for you. Big love x ⌞ynstyles Thanks Z! Hope to see you soon xx ⌞1dfan6 OMG!!! WE’RE GETTING A REUNION!

louteasdale 🥹🥹🥹Congratulations babes, can’t wait for a cuddle xx

liampayne Congratulations both. Can’t wait to meet her!

the.daisytomlinson Another precious niece to love🩷 So proud of you sis xx

thephoebetomlinson Olive’s little bestie🩷🩷

marktommo1111 Beyond proud❤️Another chapter begins!xx

mrlewisburton Congratulations to both of you. Welcome to parenthood❤️

sallietommo A precious baby girl! So proud of you beautiful girl❤️❤️❤️

perrieedwards Congratulations babes🩷Welcome to motherhood xx

pillowpersonpp Wow! What a cutie🥹

daniellepeazer Beautiful name🤍Can’t wait to meet her☺️

ryan.viggars ❤️

jefezoff Congrats guys! Very happy for you both!

j_corden A huge congratulations. Can’t wait to meet the little one

jack.varley7 Congrats guys!!

brianasrealaccount Congratulations Auntie YN and Uncle Harry. I can’t wait to meet baby Grace. I love you so much, love from Freddie❤️ ⌞ynstyles We can’t wait to see you Fred! Grace can’t wait for cuddles from her big cousin. Love and miss you soooooo much😘

Tag List:

@pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy @harrys-flower @platinumbarbie143 @frickin-bats @harrysbbyh0ney @chronicallybubbly @goldensunflowe-r  @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @kaverichauhan @peterholland04 @panicattheuc @or-was-it-just-a-dream @hittiesontour @bunnyharold @fanfictioncafe @lilfreakjez @iamahallucinationnn @theekyliepage @indierockgirrl @buckybarnessimpp @ashleighsss @jerseygirlinca @fake-coolbeans @itsmytimetoodream @treehouse-mouse

[y123345]

Hard pregnancy scenerios

I kind of love when pregnant people are doing things they shouldn't do at the places they shouldn't be in the first place. Love it more when they try to hide their labour and push the baby back in when crowning.

1. Heavily pregnant general still wearing the armor that was made when they were 6 month pregnant. Now they are 9 months and the armor is too small for their twin filled pregnant belly to fit in but they have no choice but to squeeze in painfully squishing their big belly everyday and fighting in war

2. Pregnant and working at a moving company. Doctor suggested you to rest? You don't care. You kept on lifting and moving heavy funitures which triggered pre mature contractions. Even better if you tripped and fell on your stomach while carrying a washing machine on your back

3. Being forced to carry someone bridal style when you are 38 weeks pregnant with triplets. The preson's whole body weight is pressing on your hefty stomach and put you into labour

4. Actually pregnant stunt double doing dangerous action scenes in place of a non-pregnant actor/actress who is acting in the role of pregnant character. Then getting punched/ kneed and stomped on their belly during fighting scenes triggering labour but they have to keep going until the shooting is over

5. You are being forced to run on a treadmill while heavily pregnant. You can't keep up with the speed and fall really hard on your belly and skid onto the hard floor

6. Super rough sex grinding on your pregnant belly sending you into labour

7. A very passionate gym trainer who always works out together with each client everyday even after getting pregnant with twins. The nearer their due date, the more clients they get and finally ended up working out, doing cardio, lifting weights with different clients almost 10 hours a day. Excessive doing of jumping jacks, plunks, crunches, squats, push ups and sits up which all these exercises squish their belly repeatedly the whole day and triggers their contractions.

8. A pregnant stripper accidentally made the bad spin and smash their own stomach against the pole and went into labour. But tried to igmore the water breaking and painful contractions to perform through the night to earn more money for the babies.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

It’s been twenty years since my Microsoft DRM talk

On THURSDAY (June 20) I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. On FRIDAY (June 21) I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On SATURDAY (June 22) I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel and a keynote at the LOCUS AWARDS.

This week on my podcast,This week on my podcast, I read my June 17, 2004 Microsoft Research speech about DRM, a talk that went viral two decades ago, and reassess its legacy:

https://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt

It's been 20 years (and one day) since I gave that talk. It wasn't my first talk like that, but at the time, it was the most successful talk I'd ever given. I was still learning how to deliver a talk at the time, tinkering with different prose and delivery styles (to my eye, there's a lot of Bruce Sterling in that one, something that's still true today).

I learned to give talks by attending sf conventions and watching keynotes and panel presentations and taking mental notes. I was especially impressed with the oratory style of Harlan Ellison, whom I heard speak on numerous occasions, and by Judith Merril, who was a wonderful mentor to me and many other writers:

https://locusmag.com/2021/09/cory-doctorow-breaking-in/

I was also influenced by the speakers I'd heard at the many political rallies I'd attended and helped organize; from the speakers at the annual Labour Day parade to the anti-nuclear proliferation and pro-abortion rights marches I was very involved with. I also have vivid memories of the speeches that Helen Caldicott gave in Toronto when I was growing up, where I volunteered as an usher:

https://www.helencaldicott.com/

When I helped found a dotcom startup in the late 1990s, my partners and I decided that I'd do the onstage talking; we paid for a couple hours of speaker training from an expensive consultant in San Francisco. The only thing I remember from that session was the advice to look into the audience as much as possible, rather than reading from notes with my head down. Good advice, but kinda obvious.

The impetus for that training was my onstage presentation at the first O'Reilly P2P conference in 2001. I don't quite remember what I said there, but I remember that it made an impression on Tim O'Reilly, which meant a lot to me then (and now):

https://www.oreilly.com/pub/pr/844

I don't remember who invited me to give the talk at Microsoft Research that day, but I think it was probably Marc Smith, who was researching social media at the time by data-mining Usenet archives to understand social graphs. I think I timed the gig so that I could kill three birds with one stone: in addition to that talk, I attended (and maybe spoke at?) that year's Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, and attended an early preview of the soon-to-launch Sci Fi Museum (now the Museum of Pop Culture). I got to meet Nichelle Nichols (and promptly embarrassed myself by getting tongue-tied and telling her how much I loved the vocals she did on her recording of the Star Wars theme, something I'm still hot around the ears over, though she was a pro and gently corrected me, "I think you mean Star *Trek"):

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=4IiJUQSsxNw&list=OLAK5uy_lHUn58fbpceC3PrK2Xu9smBNBjR_-mAHQ

But the start of that trip was the talk at Microsoft Research; I'd been on the Microsoft campus before. That startup I did? Microsoft tried to buy us, which prompted our asshole VCs to cram the founders and steal our equity, which created so much acrimony that the Microsoft deal fell through. I was pretty bitter at the time, but in retrospect, I really dodged a bullet – for one thing, the deal involved my going to work for Microsoft as a DRM evangelist. I mean, talk about the road not taken!

This was my first time back at Microsoft as an EFF employee. There was some pre-show meet-and-greet-type stuff, and then I was shown into a packed conference room where I gave my talk and had a lively (and generally friendly) Q&A. MSR was – and is – the woolier side of Microsoft, where all kinds of interesting people did all kinds of great research.

Indeed, almost every Microsoft employee I've ever met was a good and talented person doing the best work they could. The fact that Microsoft produces such a consistent stream of garbage products and crooked business practices is an important testament to the way that a rotten organization can be so much less than the sum of its parts.

I'm a fully paid up subscriber to Ronald Coase's "Theory of the Firm" (not so much his other views):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm

Coase says the reason institutions exist is to enable people to work together with lowered "coordination costs." In other words, if you and I are going to knit a sweater together, we're going to need to figure out how to make sure that we're not both making the left sleeve. Creating an institution – the Mafia, the Catholic Church, Microsoft, a company, a co-op, a committee that puts on a regional science fiction con – is all about minimizing those costs.

As Yochai Benkler pointed out in 2002, the coolest and most transformative thing about the internet is that it let us do more complex collective work with smaller and less structured institutions:

https://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.PDF

That was the initial prompt for my novel Walkaway, which asked, "What if we could build luxury hotels and even space programs with the kind of (relatively) lightweight institutional overheads associated with Wikipedia and the Linux kernel?"

https://crookedtimber.org/2017/05/10/coases-spectre/

So the structure of institutions is really important. At the same time, I'm skeptical of the idea that there are "good companies" and "bad companies." Small businesses, family businesses, and other firms that aren't exposed to the finance sector can reflect their leaders' personalities, but it's a huge mistake to ascribe personalities to the companies themselves.

That's how you get foolish ideas like "Apple is a good company because they embrace paid service and Google is a bad company because they make money from surveillance." Apple will spy on you, too, if they can:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Disney and Fox weren't Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers making goo-goo eyes at each other across the table at MPA meetings. They were two giant public companies, and any differences between them were irrelevancies and marketing myths:

https://locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-doctorow-tech-monopolies-and-the-insufficient-necessity-of-interoperability/

I think senior management's personalities do matter (see, for example, the destruction of Boeing after it was colonized by sociopaths from McDonnell Douglas), but the influence of those personalities is much less important than the constraints that competition and regulation impose on companies. In other words, an asshole can run a company that delivers good products at fair prices under ethical conditions – provided that failing to do so will cost more in lost business and fines than they stand to make by cheating:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification

Microsoft is a company founded and run by colossal assholes. Bill Gates is a monster and he surrounded himself with monsters, and they hired monsters to fill out the courts of their corporate palaces:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/14/patch-tuesday/#fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again

To the extent that good things come out of Microsoft – some of its games products, the odd piece of hardware, important papers from MSR – it's in spite of the leadership; it's the result of constraints imposed by competition and regulation – and that's why Microsoft pursued such an aggressive program of extinguishing its competitors and capturing its regulators.

In retrospect, I think one of my goals in that talk was to convince those people doing good work for a rotten institution to go elsewhere and do other things. Certainly, that's one of the goals I pursue in the talks I give today. At the time, some of Microsoft's highest-profile technologists were publicly resigning over the company's war on free/open source software, so it wasn't an unrealistic goal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030214215639/http://synthesist.net/writing/onleavingms.html

What I did not expect what that publishing the talk on my site and blogging it on Boing Boing would spark a wave of public interest that would get its message in front of several orders of magnitude more people than I spoke to at Microsoft that day. Partly, that was because I released the talk into the public domain, using the brand-new Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration (which was later replaced with the CC0 mark, due to legal issues withBu its drafting):

https://web.archive.org/web/20100223035835/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/

Some mix of the content of the speech, the spirit of the moment, and the novelty of that wide open license sparked a ton of interest. Jason Kottke recorded an audio version that Andy Baio hosted:

https://kottke.org/04/06/cory-drm-talk

My brutalist ASCII transcript was quickly converted to beautiful HTML by Matt Haughey and Anil Dash:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040622235333/http://www.dashes.com/anil/stuff/doctorow-drm-ms.html

For people who needed a hardcopy, there was Patrick Berry's printer-friendly stylesheet:

https://patandkat.com/pat/weblog/mirror/cory-drm/doctorow-drm-ms.html

Multiple people recorded (and sold!) audio versions, and then there were all the fan translations, into Danish, French, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (both EU and Brazilian), Spanish and Swedish. I stayed in touch with some of those translators, and they helped me translate the position papers I wrote for UN WIPO meetings. Those papers were so effective that ratfuckers from the copyright lobby started to steal them and hide them in the UN toilets (!):

https://web.archive.org/web/20041119132831/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/002117.php

Re-reading the speech for my podcast on Sunday, I expected to be struck by the anachronisms in it, and there were a few of those to be sure. But far more clear was the common thread running from this talk to other talks I gave that took on a significant life of their own, like my 2011 "War On General Purpose Computing" talk for CCC:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

And my work on Adversarial Interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

And my most recent work, on enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

In other words, I've been saying the same thing – in different ways – for more than 20 years. That could be depressing, but I actually found it uplifting. Two decades ago, I was radicalized by a fear that the internet would be seized by corporations and governments and transformed into a system of surveillance and control. I found my way into a job at EFF, where I worked with colleagues across multiple disciplines – coders, lawyers and activists – to fight this force.

At the time, this was a fringe cause. Most of the traditional activists I'd come up with in the feminist, antiwar, antiracist, environmental and labour movement viewed digital rights as a distraction and dismissed its partisans as sad, self-obsessed nerds who mistook fights over the management of Star Trek message boards for civil rights struggles:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell

I thought I was right then, and I think history has borne me out. The point of waging these fights – both in the wide public sphere and within political movements – is to get people activated before it's too late. Every day that goes by is a day when the internet becomes more inhospitable to political organizing for a better world – more surveillant, more controlling. I believed then – and believe today – that the internet isn't more important that the other fights I waged as a young activist, but I think that the internet is fundamental to those fights.

Saving the planet, smashing patriarchy, overthrowing tyranny and freeing labor are all fights that will be coordinated – Coase style – on the internet. Without a free, fair and open internet, those fights are infinitely harder to win.

The project of getting people to understand, care about, and fight for digital rights is a marathon, not a sprint. When I joined EFF, it was already 12 years old. There were six people in the org then (I was the seventh). Today, there's more than a hundred of us, and we're stretched so thin! The 30+ year old idea that internet policy will intersect with every part of every fight has been utterly vindicated.

Back in 2004, I asked Microsoft why they were willing to fight the US government to the death over antitrust enforcement, but were such wimps when confronted with the entertainment industry's demands for DRM. 20 years later, I think I know the answer: Microsoft understood that DRM would let them usurp the relationship between creative workers, entertainment industry companies, and audiences. Their perfect instincts for seeking out and capitalizing on opportunities to seize monopoly power drove them to make deliberately defective products, in the belief that their market power would let them cram those products down our throats:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/01/27/protect-your-investment-buy-open/

Here's a link to the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2024/06/16/my-2004-microsoft-drm-talk/

And here's direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_470/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_470_-_My_2004_Microsoft_DRM_Talk.mp3

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

https://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

[slytherinshua]

FOR A MILLION YEARS

genre. fluff. established relationship. warnings. a bit suggestive cause a lot of kissing (making out). seunghan's so flirty skdjks. not proofread cause written in a rush and posted in a rush 😭😭 pairing. seunghan x fem!reader. wc. 1k. request. for @blue-jisungs my baby who forced made a deal w me so i would write this for her <3 a/n. i wrote this in like an hour wow i'm delusional and i miss seunghan sdkjskd.

You and Seunghan had always been perfect for each other. Soulmates, as the other members would say. You were so in tune with each other, as if your very souls were made to fit together, moulding with the other without a single impurity or flaw. Many times before, your brains would already be thinking the same thing before either of you said anything. The same was the case for that night.

It had been a few days since you had seen Seunghan thanks to SM keeping him captive in their basement, as you often put it, frustrated at the distance that the agency forced you through. But he was able to come back to your apartment finally that day, planning to stay for a week or longer. He already had the key and number combination for the lock on your door, but he still rang the doorbell regardless, wanting you to come and open it for him. 

And when you did and were met with his dizzyingly handsome smile, eyes shining brightly just for you, your brains were again already thinking the exact same thing. You moved at the same time, Seunghan stepping in while you pulled him back into your arms, crashing your lips together with an urgency that would suggest you hadn’t seen each other for years instead of mere days. Days apart from him might as well have been years; at least, that was how it always felt.

Seunghan pushed the door shut with his shoe, spinning you around to pin you against a wall, getting better access to your lips that way. You let out a sigh of pure relief and love as you tasted your boyfriend’s lips, the flavour of mint gum washing over your mouth as he slipped his tongue past your lips. It was urgent and passionate, yet delicate enough to take your breath away in an instant. And it just never seemed to be enough.

The first time you broke off for air, you didn’t waste any time cupping Seunghan’s cheeks, guiding his forehead to meet yours as you shared laboured breaths, always the after effect of passionate kisses. He always caught his breath faster than you— something about breath control from singing lessons or stamina from dancing helping him regain it. And you despised the fact that your lungs were slower, still yearning for another taste of him.

He could tell how impatient and needy you were as you tried to pull him forward by his shirt. Although he was much stronger than you, he let himself fall from the force, his face resting in the crook of your neck. The smell of your perfume was intoxicating to him, and he immediately started kissing and nipping at your neck. His lips turned up in satisfaction as he heard you suck in a breath, the feeling of his lips pressed against the skin of your neck causing your heart to race and your brain to turn to mush.

Seunghan liked to tease you, letting his lips travel up close to your ear, his breath fanning over it softly before he dipped back down, biting your skin gently. Although you would gladly have his lips on you forever, your patience was running thin, and your boyfriend could tell. He lifted his head, making eye contact with you as a smirk took over his features. You could only stare at him with love and awe in your eyes. Compared to your past partners, there were many things Seunghan undoubtedly excelled in compared to them; just one of which was kissing.

The second time his lips crashed with yours, he was gentle and soft, savouring the feeling slowly instead of devouring it. His hands, which had been resting on your shoulder and the wall, slipped down to your waist, stroking the skin with his fingers in a way that caused goosebumps to rise. Seunghan’s touch was featherlight, carefully holding you and kissing you as if you were the most precious thing in existence to him; because you were. As much as he could never get enough of you or your lips, slowly drowning in the moment— in the taste of them— was just as enjoyable.

Seunghan pulled away first for a change, immediately resting his face between the joint of your shoulder and neck, eyes falling closed again as he relaxed into the hug completely. You stroked his back as he held you tightly, hand slipping under his shirt, feeling the warmth of his skin underneath.

“Are you tired?” You asked, always checking up on him whenever he had been away for a while.

“No, I just missed you like crazy.” He answered, giving you a reassuring smile.

“Me too.” You whispered, cupping his cheeks for yet another kiss. He giggled at the short peck you gave him, tilting his head with a look of fondness in his eyes.

“Did I not kiss you enough before?” He teased, an effortlessly flirtatious smile on his lips. God, did he even know how attractive he was without even trying?

“Even if you kissed me for a million years, I don’t think I’d ever get enough.” You said honestly.

“Well, I’m not sure about a million years, but maybe I can make at least 50 happen. 60, even? It depends how long you plan to live.” Seunghan responded, grinning at your lovesick expression. 

He had never spelled it out that directly, and you were a little more than obsessed with how spending the rest of your life by his side sounded. He was yours and he’d always be yours. Your heart raced with excitement at that prospect. 

And suddenly you wanted to kiss him again— the previous kisses not nearly satiating your longing for him. Seunghan certainly didn’t mind when you crashed your lips on his again, nor when you steered him in the direction of your bedroom, falling onto your bed with your lips still tasting his. You had always been and would always be perfect for him; the only person he wouldn’t ever grow tired of, for even an eternity with you would be too short.

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[wileys-russo]

manchester is saved II m.earps x reader

manchester is saved II m.earps x reader

"mumma!" you looked up from your phone, pocketing the device with a wide smile watching your almost six year old son sprint toward you, backpack comically almost as big as he was.

"well hello! someone's had a good day then hm?" you laughed at the huge grin on his face as he waved goodbye to his friends, you sending a smile to some of their parents you knew quite well.

"the best day!" mason beamed, and you couldn't help but melt at how much he looked like your wife when he did so. he had your eyes and the same dirty blonde hair that ran deep in your genes, but his sloped nose, rambunctious laugh and cheeky smile was exactly alike your wife.

"well don't hold out on me, tell me all about it." you demanded as you took his bag from him and he grabbed your hand, swinging it to and fro as the two of you began to walk home, not living very far from the school both you and mary took turns walking him to and from each day.

he began to happily ramble on and on about his day, which you knew he would enjoy given the fact they'd run a sports camp for the kindergarten class for half the day, you having give him very very strict instructions not to lose the permission slip you'd tucked away securely into his bag last week.

"then we have sports day next week! are you and mama coming?" he asked hopefully, looking up at you as you affectionately ran a hand through his shaggy blonde hair, moving it out of his eyes. "of course my love, we'll both be there." you promised as he cheered happily, hugging your leg.

"oh! can i go get mama some flowers?" he gasped, seeing a few wild daises growing in a clump on the nature strip, sprinting off after you nodded. you leaned against the front gate of your house with his backpack in hand, watching on carefully as the five year old squatted down.

you couldn't help but laugh quietly to yourself at the way his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth, eyebrows knitted into a frown exactly mirroring mary's own concentrating face as his eyes wandered the clumps of flowers in front of him.

you and your wife were both fiercely protective over the boy ever since he'd blessed the two of you coming into the world. you'd tried IVF three times until finally on what you'd both agreed would be the final run you'd fallen pregnant.

it wasn't an easy birth with mason coming out feet first, and a grueling ten hour labour had you demanding any and all drugs they'd give you, snapping your wifes head off anytime her lips curled up in amusement, cursing her out over and over as you'd almost broken her hand squeezing it so hard.

but you'd done it and the moment you both laid eyes on him felt a surge of love different to anything you'd experienced before, and in that moment you and your wife made a silent promise that no matter what you would never let a soul harm so much as a hair on his head.

though mary had always been the more over protective out of the two of you, especially since mason had always been quite soft spoken and sensitive, taking after you in that sense.

he was a perfectly happy child, always with a beaming smile on his face and refusing to let either of you cut his hair meaning it hung down just past his shoulder blades, often tied back into a loose bun to keep it out of his eyes.

but as much as he loved to run around and climb trees, scraping his knees and coming home covered in dirt or leaves, he also found immense joy in letting you paint his nails, or allowing one of his aunties to braid his hair, and you and mary made no move to discourage any of it.

though you did have to step in when he decided he wanted to wear his underwear outside of his clothes to his school one day and you'd made him change. taking the bad cop role that day your heart broke as afterwards he ran crying to mary, the older girl sending you an empathetic smile as she rocked him back and forth.

but his soft and caring nature had meant once he was old enough to talk mary had made sure to constantly affirm and build up his own self confidence, making sure he knew how to stand up for himself despite your fussing that he would be fine, your wife forever worried he would be picked on for being that little bit different.

the goal keeper was a nervous wreck his first day of school, overthinking every little possibility that something would happen. you did everything in your power to try and assure her that though he took after you he was still her son, and had her same hard headed determination to any task he set his mind to.

to your collective relief even if more shy in nature, school brought him further out of his shell, turning him into quite the little social butterfly, you and mary needing to get him his own calendar for the fridge to keep track of the multitude of birthday parties, play dates and outings he was invited on.

"come on mase!" you called out, shaking your head with a smile as he struggled to choose which flowers to pick, the boy glancing over to you and sending a thumbs up, quickly pulling out a small handful. you laughed as he also grabbed a fistful of weeds, tucking them in with his little bouquet and racing back over to you.

"i couldn't choose what ones, didn't want to hurt the other flowers feelings." he huffed as you smiled, opening the gate as he ran past you and up the driveway. "careful please!" you warned as he took the front steps two at a time, your breath catching as he stumbled but fixed his footing, waiting for you patiently by the front door.

"bang your shoes please babe." you nodded as he stomped his feet, shaking off the excess dirt and you unlocked the door. you took the flowers from him and hung his bag up as he sat down on the floor and pulled his shoes off.

mary's car not yet in the driveway you knew she wasn't home, much to masons disappointment as he ran a lap of the house calling out for her until you reminded on tuesdays and thursdays she arrived home after he did, the boy nodding with a sigh.

knowing the way to his heart was the same as your wife you proposed some food, tilting his head back and kissing his forehead as he sat at the table and you placed a colouring book in front of him.

placing his flowers in a cup of water you busied yourself making him a sandwich, waiting patiently as he ticked over and over trying to decide what he wanted. "half and half? mama can have the same when she gets home." you offered as he nodded happily, attention dropping back down to his colouring.

making two sandwiches, one ham and cheese and the other with turkey you cut them in half, placing two halves aside for your wife. "bbq or prawn cocktail?" you asked holding up two packets of crisps, your son pointing to those in your left hand.

placing a handful onto his plate alongside some cut up strawberries you put everything away, mason asking if he could watch some tv as you nodded, helping him down and following after him. setting his plate down on the coffee table you clicked onto his favourite show and left him to it.

you glanced to the time with a slight frown, mary normally home no later than four. with a shrug you helped yourself to the sandwich you'd made her, placing away everything you'd used as you heard her keys in the front door.

"only me!" she yelled out letting herself in, a thump telling you she'd dropped her kit bag by the door making you roll your eyes at the small habit you were constantly telling her off for. "in here!" you called back, mason's head shooting up as he hurried to his feet.

"you're home!" he launched at mary the moment she rounded the corner, the tall girl grunting as his body rammed into her legs and she stumbled for a moment before catching her balance. "hello handsome, i missed ya!" mary grinned, pulling him up into her arms and kissing all over his face as he whined and tried to push her off.

"yeah she's gross isn't she mase." you teased sticking your tongue out making him giggle as your wife let him down and he raced back off to finish his show. "forever the charmer aren't you darling." mary rolled her eyes playfully, moving to press your body against the fridge, just out of sight of your son.

"stuck with me now." you grinned holding up your wedding ring as your wife pulled you into a kiss, mumbling that was exactly how she wanted it. "you're home late?" you questioned as she let you go, pecking your lips a few more times and pushing off of you.

"had to drop tooney home her car shit itself again!" mary rolled her eyes as you smacked her shoulder and nodded to the five year old within earshot. "sorry gorgeous." the girl smiled guiltily, you forever warning her about her language in front of mason, who was in the phase of repeating everything and anything.

you'd both found that out the hard way the other morning.

"good morning beautiful." your wife had sauntered into the kitchen, playfully smacking your bum as she breezed past you toward the coffee machine. "watch it earps." you'd warned playfully, flipping over the pancakes as she stuck her tongue out at you.

"good girl mumma!" your head snapped down toward your son who now stood beside you, looking up at you with his disheveled bed hair and a smile, hugging your leg.

"what did you just say love?" mary frowned as he climbed up to sit at the table across from her. "good girl! mummas a good girl." he repeated making your eyes widen as they locked with marys, which only twinkled with slight amusement.

"why do you say that mase?" mary asked, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to de-tangle it. "you said it mama, heard you this morning when you and mumma were wrestling." he chirped, busying himself playing with one of his toy cars, driving it along the table and making noises with his mouth as you choked on air in surprise at his words.

"i'm going to kill you." you mouthed seriously toward the smirking older girl, who'd been insistent your son wasn't awake when she'd had her way with you this morning, far too eager to get up and lock the door despite your worries.

dumping masons pancakes onto a plate you moved to place them in front of him once you'd cut them up, gently removing the toy car from his hand and giving him a fork.

"thanks sexy!" the boy grinned, repeating marys exact words she'd just spoke as you handed her her coffee a few seconds prior. "mase no, thats an adult word okay? you do not say whatever mama says." you'd warned sternly as he'd only shrugged, too busy devouring his pancakes.

safe to say you and mary hadn't wrestled for quite a while after that, much to her utter displeasure.

"oh thank you." you smiled as your son ran into the kitchen and handed you his now empty plate which you stacked in the dishwasher. "mama! those are for you, i picked them." he beamed pointing to the daises on the counter, marys entire face melting.

"oh mase, baby they're beautiful. thank you!" mary grinned, affectionately touching the flowers before bending down to wrap him in a tight hug. "tell mama about your day mase!" you nodded encouragingly as mary picked him up and sat him up on the counter.

he gestured his hands around wildly as he spoke making you smile as you watched on, mary over-acting her facial expressions to make sure he knew she was just as engaged in his story telling, taking a quick photo with your phone and tucking it back your pocket.

you stepped out of the room for a moment, retreating to your bedroom and changing, taking off your bra and sighing in relief as you swapped from jeans into a pair of joggers, tugging one of your wifes england hoodies on over the top.

though as you returned to the kitchen it seemed your timing was somewhat perfect to hear the one sentence you never thought you'd hear uttered in the earps household.

"and i was striker! and i'm gonna be striker on wednesday for sports day." mason beamed as you stopped in your tracks, watching marys face fall for a moment before she slapped a fake smile on, nodding through the pain in her eyes.

"hey mase? can you go and tidy up your toys on the floor of your room please." you called out, your son nodding as mary helped him down, slumping against the counter as he disappeared and you checked he was out of earshot.

"oh my love." you held back the urge to smile, opening your arms as the taller girl collapsed into them, chin resting on your shoulder as she let out a deep and troubled sigh. "a fucking striker. my own son!"

"mary." you warned, rubbing her back and feeling her huff. "there is goal keeping trophies, gears, posters, all around this house! and now he wants to be a fucking striker." mary unwrapped herself from you, pulling herself to sit up on the counter with a scowl.

"at least he wants to play?" you tried, moving to stand between her legs with your hands resting on her knees. "i'd rather he not play than be a bloody striker! no son of mine isn't going to follow in his mothers footsteps." mary shook her head firmly, a smile curling onto your lips.

"baby you can't force him to be a goal keeper." you laughed as she only scoffed. "i can and i will! just you watch." mary challenged, pushing you away with her foot and jumping down, calling out for mason.

"mary alexandra earps, you leave him be." you warned, your wife waving you off as your son appeared. "shall we go to the park and kick a football?" mary offered, mason nodding happily before he ran off to grab his shoes at her request.

"you are unbelievable."

~

you sat on a picnic blanket watching on with your arms crossed as your wife tried any and every way she could to sway masons mind.

"isn't this more fun?" mary cheered as she softly kicked the ball toward mason, makeshift goal set up using a few sticks to mark the posts as he shook his head, refusing to even move and try to stop it as it rolled past him.

"i wanna kick it!" he huffed, stamping his feet and flaring his nostrils, alerting you he was dangerously close to a meltdown. "mary!" you called out, raising your eyebrows as she waved you off.

"you do kick it! but only if you stop it, like i showed you before. try again!" she raced over to grab the ball, pausing to re-tie masons hair which had slipped out of the loose bun it was tied back into given the amount of times he'd furiously shaken his head at her.

you sighed with a shake of your own head, flopping down onto your back and closing your eyes, the warm rays of an impending sunset bathing your face. "yeah! like that." mary cheered as mason stopped the ball, but not before he kicked it hard as he could in the other direction and raced over toward you.

you grunted as he landed on top of you, tucking his head into your neck. "mama won't let me kick." he mumbled as you moved a hand to rub his back, sitting up and shooting your wife a stern look as she huffed and kicked at the ground like a scolded child.

"okay, sit up for me please mase." you gently pulled him away from you, setting him down to sit in your lap as he looked up at you with a frown. "don't do that, if the wind changes your face gets stuck like that forever!" you teased, smoothing out his eyebrows with your thumbs.

"can you do something for me?" he nodded at your words and you glanced over his shoulder to see mary lost in thought, staring away into the distance with a troubled look on her face. "you know how we go and watch mama play football yeah? in the big stadiums." he nodded again.

"well mama is a goal keeper. so strikers are like her bad guy, like how all superheros have a villian." you started. "like batman and riddler?" you now nodded at your sons words.

"but only when she's playing! its like pretend, all a big game. like when aunty lessi kicks the ball at mama and tries to get it in the goal? mama and aunty lessi are still best friends after the game right?" he nodded again.

"so why don't you ask mama if she'll take turns with you? you be the striker and then it's her turn, but you can't let her score when she's striker! otherwise the bad guys win." you smirked, tickling at his sides as he giggled but nodded, jumping off and running back toward mary.

you watched on as mary squatted down beside your son, holding his hands as the boy did his best to recount what you'd just told him, the smile returning to her face as she nodded happily at his words.

you knew this was only the start of a very long battle, knowing your wife well enough that this was only a band aid solution to the inevitability she would do anything in her power to have mason earps be the next big goal keeping name.

you laid back down in the sun grabbing your wifes sunglasses where they sat on the ground and slipping them on, the sounds of your families laughter causing a soft smile to curl onto your lips.

however your lack of watching had meant you'd missed mary call over your son and whisper something in his ear, the two of them growing bored of football and advancing toward you. "get her!" your eyes shot open at that as you pushed the sunglasses up onto your head just in time to see mason jump on top of you, mary following suit.

"no! no no no please." you begged as both your wife and sons fingers jabbed into your sides, your body thrashing as mary held you down with a grin, your laughter filling the air as masons own little giggles joined in.

"manchester is saved mase, bad guy defeated!" mary high fived the blonde as the two of them finally ceased their attack, mason running off to kick the ball as you struggled to catch your breath.

"never gets old." mary grinned cheekily, hovering over you and sweetly pecking your lips a few times as you shook your head and flipped her off, still trying to recover.

"just you wait till i call less and let her know her godsons choosing to follow in her footsteps instead of his own mothers!" you teased once you could speak again. "don't you dare." mary warned as she sat beside you, a beat of silence falling between you before you grabbed your phone and jumped to your feet.

"traitor! get her mason!" mary yelled after you as your son dropped the football in his hands and chased after you with a grin, mary quickly packing everything up into a bag.

"mama!" she glanced up as mason gestured toward you as you darted past her, mary easily grabbing you by the waist and tossing you over her shoulder.

"mary!" you laughed, smacking her back as she slung the bag over her free shoulder, taking masons hand as you shook your head, accepting the fact you were being carried home.

"manchester is saved once again!"

[megalony]

That's my Wife

This is an Eddie Diaz imagine based loosely on an Anon request. I hope you all like it.

Taglist: @lunaticspoem @butlegendsneverdie @langdonzvoid @jennyggggrrr @rogmeddows @radiob-l-a-hblah @rogertaylorsbitontheside @chlobo6 @rogertaylors-lipgloss @sj-thefanthefan @omgitsearly @luckytrashgooprebel @scarsout @deaky-with-a-c @killer-queen-ofrhye @bluutac @vousmemanqueez-blog @jonesyaddiction @milanosaurus @httpfandxms @saint-hardy @7-seas-of-fat-bottomed-girls @mrsalwayswritex @rogerina-owns-me  @hellsdragon @im-an-adult-ish @crazylittlethingg @allauraleigh @onceuponadetectivedemigod @ceres27 @avyannadawn  @noonenuts @sleepylunarwolf @coverupps @justagirlthatlovedtoread @musicistheway

Masterlist

Summary: While Eddie is at work, (Y/n) takes Christopher to a birthday party. Things don't go as planned when she goes into early labour.

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Now you know I can't go on the slides and stuff with you like daddy does, right?" (Y/n) grabbed Christopher's backpack from the footwell and slung it on her shoulder as she leaned against the door and looked down at her boy.

"Yeah. You take picture for daddy?"

"I will baby, don't worry."

When Chris held his arms out, (Y/n) rolled her eyes but obliged and looped her arms around his waist so he could hold onto her neck. He was so used to Eddie lifting him in and out of the car that he didn't dare jump down on his own and it meant that (Y/n), although eight months pregnant, also had to lift him and carry him around.

Something Eddie wouldn't approve of if he knew (Y/n) was still carrying Chris while she was pregnant, but he didn't need to know that.

She set him down on his feet and handed him his crutches before they started their short walk.

Chris had made a lot of friends in his new school and it was Adam's birthday party today. He was having his party at a play centre in town and he had very sweetly asked (Y/n) if Chris would be able to join and go round the centre. He wanted to include Chris but he wasn't sure if he did this sort of thing. It was something Chris loved to do, especially when his parents climbed into the play area with him and helped him down the slides or flop into the ball pit. But he could do this fine on his own as long as he knew (Y/n) was nearby.

Eddie would have been off shift and here too if Hen hadn't of gone off sick this week so Eddie picked up her shifts to help out. He knew once the baby was born he wouldn't be picking up any more extras for a while so it was worth it doing them all now to get the extra income.

(Y/n) rubbed her hand up and down Chris's shoulders as they walked into the reception and looked around for Adam and his mum.

She felt bad for Eddie, he had done a night shift straight into a day and when he got home tonight he was going to be dead on his feet.

"He's there mummy," Chris waved his crutch over towards where at least five tables had been pushed together for the parents to sit around. The drill was for the kids to run off and have a play for an hour or so, then they would sit down for food and cake and then another play before they went home.

"Let's go then,"

When they reached the table, (Y/n) put her and Chris's bags down on a free chair before she used the table as leverage to bend down on her knees in front of Chris. She silently held onto the crutches and he took the hint, letting her move them and he curled his arms around her neck and let his head fall on her shoulder. A big smile plastered to his lips.

He hadn't been anywhere like this in a while, probably not since before (Y/n) was pregnant. It had disrupted his day yesterday when Eddie had to sit him down and tell him he wouldn't be able to go and join him but because Chris knew he still got to go to the party, he wasn't too unsettled.

"Now you have fun and please be careful, do not go on the slides alone. If you need me to walk around and watch you just shout me, okay?"

"You come in too?" Chris nuzzled his face into (Y/n)'s neck until his glasses bumped and rubbed against her skin.

"I can't come in, I'm too big I'll get stuck."

"Mummy, please?"

"Baby, you know daddy will tell me off if I try. I can follow you round the outside though, are you gonna try go in with Adam first?" She could feel him laughing into her neck which was a good sign.

Part of (Y/n) worried that he wouldn't go in without her but she was hoping he would because he would have at least three other kids from school that he got along well with and Adam was glued to Chris. They would stay together so it wasn't as if Chris was totally alone in there.

If she wasn't pregnant or was less than six months, (Y/n) would be right in there with him going up the levels and waiting at the bottom of the slides for him. But Eddie had given her strict instructions before he left last night and he made her promise not to overdo herself and not to go down the slides or go too far if Chris asked her to. Chris didn't quite grasp that (Y/n) couldn't do as much with him while she was pregnant and it worried Eddie because he knew (Y/n) would give in and push herself to do stuff with Chris, it was endearing but worrying for Eddie.

"Okay,"

"Good boy, go have fun." (Y/n) pressed a sloppy kiss to his cheek and helped him take off his shoes before she gave him a nudge and watched Adam wait patiently for him.

From where (Y/n) sat down at the table, she could see most of the large enclosed play area in front of them.

There were a lot of slides, three levels to climb up, tunnels to get lost in. Foam stairways to climb, ropes to swing from and rollers like a car wash to squeeze through which she knew Chris loved. He could do almost all of it but (Y/n) didn't want him going down the slides alone just to be safe. Eddie always did everything with him ever since Chris was a toddler and they went to places like this.

She didn't want Chris thinking he could do something alone and then getting stuck high up on a level or burning himself on the slide or not being able to get back down from somewhere. As long as he had one of his friends with him he would be alright.

"He's a good little climber, isn't he?" Andrea, Adam's mother leaned over the table to smile at (Y/n) and nod her head in the direction of the boys.

They could see all the kids drifting off in groups of two or three and Chris was with Adam and a young girl called Sasha. They were climbing up a set of foam stairs and Chris was laying on his stomach, using his arms to pull up and scuffing his feet on the steps to give him an extra boost. He wasn't good on stairs, that was where Eddie would usually carry him if they couldn't find a lift.

But this was different, this was somewhere Chris could let loose and mess around. He could crawl and shuffle and climb and no one would say anything or stare or laugh because all the kids didn't care what he did. He was here to have fun and that was what he was doing.

"He is, he's very determined."

"Is Eddie not coming?" Andrea did a quick sweep around but she couldn't see him among the throng of kids and adults all bustling about.

"He had to work, so I have to take a lot of pictures for him." (Y/n) had her phone in her jacket pocket and she was waiting until Chris got close enough or went down one of the slides so she could capture the moments. That way Eddie wouldn't feel so bad or feel like he missed out.

"That's good, he was telling me you're close to your due date now… he even remembered the exact date. He was very excited."

Andrea's brows quirked and her smile showed she was impressed while (Y/n) pursed her lips to stop from smiling. Either Eddie hadn't explained it very well or Andrea hadn't been listening properly but there was a clear miscommunication somewhere along those lines.

"Uh, no, we're having a C-section, it's booked in for four weeks from now."

"Oh, that does make more sense considering he was very certain about the day."

(Y/n) couldn't help but laugh. It showed how endearing and sweet Eddie was at heart. He would do anything for his family and when they had been expecting Chris, Eddie had been just the same. Excited, anxious, walking on egg shells. If it hadn't been for the rather traumatic birth everything would have been a lot easier and it would have been a perfect pregnancy.

Chris's birth had been anything but plain sailing and because of how badly (Y/n) had haemorrhaged and the complications she had afterwards, the doctors thought it would be best to have a C-section this time. Save the panic and calm all their nerves and ensure nothing went wrong.

They had the date all booked and Eddie had it circled in red pen on the kitchen calander. His last shift was two days before the birth and his Abuela would have Chris for them while they went to hospital. Eddie had three full weeks off work for after the birth if everything went according to plan and he was counting down the days.

When Andrea got up to go and get a drink from the bar, (Y/n) dug around in her jacket which was really Eddie's denim jacket, and found her phone. She needed to start taking some photos, Eddie had promised to show Buck the pictures and let him know how it went since Chris was attached to his 'Uncle Buck'.

"Mummy!"

With one hand on her stomach, (Y/n) got up and slowly trudged over towards the entrance to the play area and looked up. Chris was leaning against the mesh, pressing his face so close his nose was pushing through and his smile was slightly obscured but it made for a perfect picture.

"We off down the slide," Chris pointed towards the dark blue curved slide at the front corner and (Y/n) nodded.

She pressed record and tilted her phone up, following the boys as they padded across the foam mats. Chris was in fits of giggles when he went down on his stomach and shimmied under one of the foam rollers and (Y/n)'s face beamed as she watched him. Part of her worried if he got stuck, there was no way she would get up there to get him out but he did it with a big grin on his face that she got on camera.

When they reached the slide, Chris sat down first and Adam sat behind him and (Y/n) moved to the end of the slide and waited for them to come down.

"Well done baby!" She put her phone back in her pocket and reached down to lift him up by his underarms. She set him back on his feet with a kiss on his head but did her best to hide her wince when her back twinged. Maybe Eddie was right, lifting Chris and carrying him as well as the baby was a bit too much after a while.

***

"Chris, are you coming?"

"No."

A frown pulled at Adam's lips and he held his hand out to see if it would make Christopher feel a bit better but he still shook his head.

Chris brought his hands up to cover his ears and started to shake his head before he moved and flopped down to the floor with a thump and sat down. There were too many kids and adults at that table. He wasn't sitting there with everyone shouting and screaming and throwing things. He wasn't eating his dinner in front of that many people.

He was very particular, being in the classroom at school was fine because they had less than twenty children per class, it was more concentrated and people were spread out. Eating dinner was different too because the teachers gave Chris his own little corner in the dining room where he could sit alone with hi back to everyone and eat his dinner in peace. And sometimes if he was very unsettled, they let him eat in the classroom which was always empty at lunchtime.

The only people Chris would eat around were his parents or the team at Eddie's station because they were more like family. He didn't like eating in front of strangers or other kids at school, he always felt like they were watching him.

"Oh, (Y/n)…"

Turning her head, (Y/n) looked around before her eyes landed on Chris and she quickly got up, ignoring the dull throb in her lower back as she tried to hurry over to Chris.

"Mummy… mummy, don't want to,"

"Baby, it's alright, come here." She rubbed her hands up and down his arms and pulled him closer until he could bury his face in her chest and wrap his arms around her waist instead of holding his ears. "We don't have to sit with everyone, we brought a pack up anyway, didn't we? Don't get upset, they can find us a table out the way. No one will mind."

She slowly rubbed her hand up and down Chris's back and kissed the top of his head. He had been doing so well and she wanted to finish the day on a high, not a low.

She had made a pack up this morning before they arrived and told Andrea Chris wouldn't eat any of the food they served here. He was specific, there were only a few places he liked to eat out at and he wouldn't eat party food, only food that his parents bought. Bobby was the only exception, Chris loved his food.

"No, not hungry yet."

"Five more minutes of play, then pack up, okay? We want to watch Adam get his birthday cake, don't we?"

Chris nodded his head and tilted his head back enough to press his chin into (Y/n)'s chest so he could look up at her. If either of his parents smiled at him it was an instant calming mechanism for Chris, he knew he wasn't in trouble and that it was okay for him to have a little panic.

"Come on then." A little longer playing would calm Chris down but (Y/n) didn't want him playing too long because he needed a rest and he needed to eat. They had to eat soon so they would be in time to see Adam get his cake and sing happy birthday to him.

He pulled back and let her lift him up to his feet before he grabbed her hand and held her arm to his chest when they started to walk.

The pair of them walked through the entrance and (Y/n) waited patiently for Chris to decide what he wanted to do. He knew he had to stay close enough for (Y/n) to walk beside him at the bottom, she couldn't climb up with him and she didn't want him wandering around on his own.

(Y/n) could see Chris had a frown on his face, he was still unsure about going back to eat with everyone. They were all being loud, throwing food and squabbling together, it was a sensory overload. At least in the play area all the kids bypassed him and didn't stay so close they were shouting in his ear.

Her eyes followed her boy closely as he shuffled up the steps and she took slow steps below him as he slowly shuffled along a rope before he looked down at her.

"Slide,"

"Okay, go along then baby."

"You meet me at the bottom," (Y/n) craned her head to see where the bottom of the red slide was but she frowned when she realised it was in the middle of the ball pit. She knew Chris wouldn't go down that slide unless she was waiting for him, he liked the ball pits but he couldn't get out of them properly.

"I'll wait at the side of the ball pit."

"No! Mummy you wait at the side."

"Baby-"

"Mummy!" Chris dropped to his knees and dig his fingers into the mesh rope protecting him from falling. He started to lean back and forth and swing on it as his frown deepened. He was getting unsettled, if Eddie were here it would be a lot easier.

"Do I have to call daddy and uncle Buck?" (Y/n) put her hands on her hips and straightened her back for a second before she leaned back down when her stomach cramped. She watched Chris start to whine her name over and over until she sighed and walked towards the ball pit.

It was going to be easier to go along with Chris than try and coax him to a different slide or go down it without her at the bottom. And ringing Eddie would only upset Chris further because it would mean he was in trouble.

If she got Eddie on the phone he would give Chris the stern talk, tell him he had to listen to his mum and if he couldn't then Eddie would have to come down there and sort him out.

(Y/n) walked over to the ball pit and peeked in before she sighed. At least Eddie wasn't here to see her doing this. The opening into the ball pit was a small oval gap in the mesh and (Y/n) had to sit down on the foam wall, carefully swing her legs over and then lower herself down. It didn't do her back any good to wade through the plastic balls that felt like a sea overtaking her and pulling her down.

"Chris, come down baby."

It was a relief to hear him giggling and banging the walls when he shuffled down the slide. She reached her arm out so that when he came out the slide, he could grab her hand and pull himself over to her.

He smacked his arms out and flung some of the plastic balls away from them and started to kick his legs like he was swimming and it was a relief to (Y/n) to see him finally settle and smile again. She knew getting him out of here was going to be the problem though. He had been playing for over an hour and now he was tired and needed food but he didn't want to be with everyone else. She might end up taking him home.

"A-are we going…" (Y/n) trailed off and turned her head to the side so Chris couldn't see her grimace when her stomach tightened. "Dinner time," She managed to grumble out before she turned and grabbed the foam edge to steady herself.

"Not yet mummy."

"Ooh no…"

Fuck. Not yet, not without Eddie!

Her water broke. In the ball pit. In the play centre. With Chris right next to her.

This was not part of the plan. The plan was all laid out and simple and agreeable, Chris was going to have a movie night with them the night before and then he would be up ready and early to go stay with Abeula. Eddie would be with (Y/n) right by her side and they would have this baby different to last time.

(Y/n) didn't want to go through labour again, she wasn't ready for this. She wasn't ready for the panic and the blood and the complications and screaming out to hold her baby while Eddie pinned her to the bed when she tried to snatch Chris from the midwife. She didn't want to watch Eddie blur before her eyes and fall into his arms when her heartrate started to drop and she started to bleed again.

Fumbling in her pocket, (Y/n) shakily grabbed her phone and scanned down for Eddie's contact. He said he would try and keep his phone on him in case she needed to call today, he would do his best like he always did.

No answer.

"Eddie, baby c-call me… my water broke, fuck, call me back please." Her voice barely raised above a trembling whisper son she didn't scare Chris.

"(Y/n), there you are, we're going to cut the cake soon, would Chris like to have some?" Andrea bent down on the other side of the mesh and smiled at the pair of them but her smile faded quickly when (Y/n) looked up and she saw the tears on her face.

"My water broke,"

"Oh god… let me tell someone and we'll get you out-"

"No. No I- I'm not moving until I c-can get hold of Eddie…" (Y/n) braced her elbows on the foam edge and clenched her hands together to try and think. She wasn't able to move very far now and she couldn't go anywhere without Eddie. That wasn't an option. "Can you tell t-them to keep kids away from here, until he comes, please?"

She couldn't move but she couldn't have any other kids coming down the slide and messing about in here when she was like this. It wasn't safe nor conventional and Chris was settled, (Y/n) couldn't risk him having a meltdown or getting upset right now when she couldn't get hold of Eddie.

"Of course, I'll go now and they can section this bit off I would think."

(Y/n) managed a feeble thank you before she felt Chris grabbing her arm and tugging gently so she would look at him.

"Okay?" He asked quietly, smiling despite knowing there was something amiss with her.

"Just a bad back baby, daddy will c-come soon and get us. We need to stay in here for now."

She felt her heart calm just a little when Chris started to giggle and clap, he wanted to see Eddie. He thought Eddie would play with him once he got here but (Y/n) would let him think that and deal with the consequences later, as long as it kept him calm and happy.

As soon as Chris shuffled a little bit away from her to dive back into the middle of the pit, (Y/n) picked her phone back up. When Eddie's phone went to voicemail for a second time, she changed to dial 911. They could get hold of him, they would have to because (Y/n) wouldn't let anyone else near her unless they were in the 118 team.

"I- I need help, I'm in the Cromwell play centre a-and my waters broke… I can't move I'm in the ball pit."

"Can you tell me your name and roughly how far along you are? Paramedics are being dispatched to your location."

"No, I need you t-to get…" (Y/n) bowed her head on her forearm and groaned through a contraction. This wasn't fair. "Get the one-eighteen fire station team dispatched here, now. My husband is one of the firemen, Eddie Diaz, I need him here."

***

"Okay everyone, we have a woman in pre-term labour stuck in the ball pit, dispatcher said she was very anxious."

Eddie's heart dropped to the pit of his stomach when he climbed down out the truck and realised where they had parked. He could never make sense of the speakers when a call got announced and Bobby was the one who got the main details of their calls, the rest of them were told on the journey or when they got here like right now.

The play centre. Specifically the one where (Y/n) had brought Chris for a friend's party. Eddie could see her car parked up front and unless it was a very big coincidence that this was the same place his wife was at who wasn't at her due date yet, Eddie couldn't imagine it being anyone else. He knew (Y/n) would be panicking if it was her, she had been over the moon when they said she could have a C-section to reduce any risks.

The plans had changed if this was his wife.

"Mate, what's up?" Buck patted Eddie on the shoulder when he saw he wasn't moving and looked rather pale but Eddie stumbled over to Bobby in a frenzy.

"Cap, cap I think it's my wife. Fuck, if it's (Y/n) Christopher will be here!"

Eddie barely managed to tangle his fingers in his hair before he waved towards Buck and set off into a sprint. He had to calm himself down, he had to find out if this was his family or not and if it wasn't he could breathe deeply and be relieved that their plan could still go ahead.

He could hear Buck close behind him when he rampaged through the doors and towards the reception where one of the staff was waiting for them.

"She's this way,"

They took off in a sprint after the young girl but Eddie could feel his heart rocketing up into his throat, constricting his breathing when he saw Andrea bent down in the path beside the ball pit on the left. It had to be (Y/n) because he could see the utter relief in her eyes when she clocked eyes with him.

"Eddie! (Y/n), love, he's here now." She waved him over and got to her feet, patting his shoulder before she took a step back. Andrea knew (Y/n) had begrudged anyone walking down here to see what was going on, she didn't even want the staff coming to ask if she needed anything.

"Fuck, mi amor it's me I'm here I'm here."

He crouched down to look in and assess the situation but he didn't like what he saw. (Y/n)'s lower half was submerged in the plastic, her arms were folded over on the foam edge and her forehead had been pushed into her arms until she heard his voice. When she rose her head, her face was flushed, covered in sweat and tears and she was breathing in short huffs.

This brought back too many memories for Eddie. He thought they would get peace of mind with this pregnancy, no scares, no frantic worries about labour, no Eddie screaming at the doctor to help his wife and tell him what was wrong with his newborn son.

Before they were told they could have a C-section, Eddie had cradled (Y/n) in his arms one night when she started to cry, worrying what would happen if history repeated itself again.

"Daddy!" His head tilted up and a small creased smile pulled at his lips when he noticed Chris was sat on the foam edge next to (Y/n). He was patting her hair away from her face and kicking his legs out into the sea of plastic.

"Hey bud. We're coming in,"

He rounded the side and leaned forward to climb through the gap and drop down into the ball pit with Buck following behind. Bobby rounded to be in front of the mesh near (Y/n) for reassurance and Chimney waited near the exit to the ball pit for help when they tried to get her out.

"How we doing?" Eddie gritted his teeth as he waded through towards (Y/n), he had done this countless times with Chris but it never felt slower to get through than it did right now.

"You're here! I can't d-do this, we need the hospital," She felt his hands on her shoulders and the light kiss he pressed to her neck.

She knew calling 911 would get him here if he couldn't answer the phone and here he was, right when she needed him. (Y/n) didn't want to do this, she didn't want to be stuck here. She had thought about pre-term labour and she wished that if it happened she would be home with Eddie and still be able to get the C-section. There was no way that was happening now, it was far too late but she wanted to be at the hospital in the very least.

If she started bleeding out there wasn't much the team could do for her and Chris was here, (Y/n) didn't want her baby boy here to see her in pain.

She was just relieved he didn't understand what was happening.

"I'm here, you're fine, we've got this. Chris, bud are you gonna go and stay with Chimney so me and uncle Buck can get mummy out of here?"

"You here to play?" His head tilted to the side and he picked up one of the balls and started to pat it and tap it against his knees. He was assuming someone would get (Y/n) out and then he could play with his dad, he thought Eddie was here to play with him. And it was an added extra that Buck was here too.

"No buddy, no more play."

"Play!"

Chris dropped the ball and went to cross his arms over his chest, the smile slipping from his face when he saw his dad's stern expression. This wasn't the plan, something odd and strange wasn't supposed to happen and Eddie was always supposed to come here and play with him. He didn't want this to go a different way.

"You are not in charge, I am and daddy says you are going to wait with Chimney. Off you go."

There was no time for Chris to argue, Eddie picked him up and turned round to Buck who happily grabbed him and waded over towards the exit where Chimney was waiting with a smile for the little boy. Chris couldn't argue with Eddie and if he tried, Eddie would tell Chimney to put him in a time out. As long as Chris was out the way but cared for and safe, Eddie could keep his focus on (Y/n) and neither of them had to worry about him witnessing anything or hearing anything he shouldn't.

"Do you want to tell me why you're in the ball pit when I specifically told you to take it easy and not follow Chris into the play zone?"

(Y/n) reached her hand out and curled her fingers tightly around Eddie's hand when she felt him press up to her side. His lips smothered the top of her head and his free hand moved to her lower back and when she tilted her head back to look up at him, she tried to smile despite the guilt written across her face.

"He wouldn't come down unless I w-was in here," She could feel his hand tense on her lower back and he shook his head.

"These kids are gonna be the death of me." He muttered quietly while Buck came over to stand on (Y/n)'s other side. "Do you think you can shuffle out of here?"

She nodded, she would do anything to try and get to the hospital, she didn't care what she had to do. (Y/n) would crawl or swim through this stupid ball pit if it got her to a hospital.

"Good girl, Buck you go in front and I'll stay behind,"

"Come on (Y/n), you got this. I'm so pumped to meet my nephew." Buck held his arms out steady and let (Y/n) dig her nails into his lower arms when she turned round. He didn't think he would be around when she had the baby, Buck thought he would be either working and keeping his phone on him ready or he thought he might be looking after Chris. He had offered to take Chris on the evening after the C-section so Eddie could stay with (Y/n).

This turned out more in Buck's favour so he could actually be here when his Godchild was born. And he was so sure it was going to be another boy. The team had placed a few bets on the gender.

Rolling his eyes, Eddie kept his hands on (Y/n)'s hips and stayed close behind her. She leaned forward and pressed her head into Buck's chest and arched her back out. The three of them made a slow shuffle through the ball pit towards Bobby who moved so he was waiting near the exit for them in case they needed another set of hands.

"You ready?" Eddie whispered in her ear when Buck let go of her hands for a moment so he could climb out and stand next to Bobby.

"This won't be graceful,"

Eddie smiled despite himself and shook his head, at least she could make some light of the situation.

"Lean back into me, I'll lift you up."

(Y/n) nodded but kept her eyes tightly closed, she didn't like this one bit. She didn't like anyone but Eddie seeing her in a situation like this when there wasn't a lot of dignity left. As if her friends, Eddie's close friends and coworkers had to see her like this.

She felt Buck and Bobby take one of her hands each and grip her elbows and she let her legs go floppy so her weight was pushed back onto Eddie's chest. He had carried her around hundreds of times even while she was pregnant so she knew she wasn't putting any strain on him but it didn't feel right to do this in public.

She could feel his hands squeeze her hips before they travelled down her bum to grip the back of her thighs and it was comforting when she felt his face tuck into the crook of her neck. He kissed the junction of her shoulder and neck before he slowly lifted up her legs and pushed forward so she was sitting on the ledge. All she had to do was let them ease her forward and she would be out.

"Here we go, steady we got you," Bobby and Buck took her weight and helped her slide down onto her feet but as soon as her feet hit the floor, her knees caved.

(Y/n) coiled her arms to her stomach and dropped down to her knees, leaning forward to push her head into the floor as a horrid groaning scream left her lips morphed with Eddie's name.

"Hospital… w-we need to go- fuck, Eddie!"

"We have to see how far you are before we think about moving you (Y/n), let's get you sat down."

"No, I-" She stopped when she felt Eddie's hands on her waist and he slowly reeled her back up.

"Mi amor, I'm not risking moving you anywhere until we know what this baby is doing. You're safe, we're all here and Cap knows what he's doing." Eddie moved back a little and sank down on his knees before he carefully pulled (Y/n) with him and leaned her backwards. She relaxed in his hold and let herself sink into his firm chest while his arms coiled around her waist so she could grip his arms.

"Buck, grab the medic bag, I'm just gonna have a quick look, okay?" Bobby took off his overcoat and placed it over (Y/n)'s knees that were hunched up. There was no one around but he wanted her to have some sort of dignity.

He knew what everyone was praying for, they all wanted (Y/n) to be one or two centimetres dilated so they could get her in the ambulance and ship her to the maternity ward and have this baby in a hospital. But when Bobby looked up and saw (Y/n) crying out with her hand reached back and clawing at Eddie's shoulder, he wasn't so sure that was the outcome they were going to receive.

(Y/n) didn't have the will to care that Bobby was about to see a more intimate side to her. She didn't care that her leggings and underwear were now around her ankles, she just wanted to go.

"(Y/n)… I'm afraid you're already crowning, this will be the first kid born in a play centre so we need to get you set up." Bobby hid his frown when (Y/n) screamed and Edie tightened his arms around her when she started to sob and her chest heaved. This wasn't fair, but at least the team had gotten here at the right time. She had everyone surrounding her, they would look after her and make sure she and the baby were okay.

"Wow, really?" Buck knelt back down and put the medic bag next to Bobby but when he leaned to look, he found Eddie's hand in his chest shoving him back and (Y/n)'s leg move out towards him.

He was their closest friend, but (Y/n) didn't want him looking until the baby was born. It wasn't exactly an intimate thing the couple wanted to share.

"What-"

"That's my wife!"

"Buck keep a check on (Y/n)'s vitals. Miss, we need towels over here please. (Y/n) I'm sure you know what to do, push on the next contraction."

Buck moved to (Y/n)'s other side and made quick work of checking her blood pressure and he didn't make a face when she clenched his hand in hers and gave a sharp squeeze.

As if she was having her second baby here of all places.

"Fuck! A-am I bleeding?" All of them could hear the panic in (Y/n)'s voice and she tipped her head back on Eddie's shoulder to look up at him with terror in her eyes. She barely managed to crown with Chris before she was bleeding and as soon as he was born after getting stuck, that's when the blood flowed.

Whimpers and sobs bubbled past her lips and she pushed back into Eddie as if she wanted to disappear but he held her tighter and moved his legs so he was sat down instead of kneeling which was making his legs ache. He pulled his knees up and pressed his thighs tightly into (Y/n)'s sides, just like they had been sat when she had Chris.

"You're perfectly fine (Y/n), I promise. Just keep going you're doing great."

"Almost there mi amor, I've got you and cap's got the baby, we're all good. Come on you got this." Eddie whispered in the shell of her ear and tilted his head down a little more when (Y/n) reached her free hand up to cup the back of his neck. A shiver rocketed down his spine when her nails scratched against his skin and the hairs at the back of his neck and he kissed her head when she turned to bury her face in his chest.

His shirt smothered her scream and they both prayed Chris was far away enough not to hear what was going on.

"Head's out, one more push (Y/n)," Bobby grabbed one of the towels from the pile the lady shakily dropped down next to him. He spread it out over his lap and grabbed another one to hold beneath the baby, she was almost done.

"I love you so much," Eddie leaned over (Y/n)'s shoulder and he felt his heart jump into his mouth as he held his breath when she screamed into his chest.

"It's a girl!"

"You've done it mi amor, you've done it."

The brightest smile (Y/n) had ever seen lit up Eddie's face and she could feel his tears falling down onto her skin. Her head felt fuzzy and her body was trembling in his arms which he was soaking up and he held her so tightly she felt comforted and protected.

"Fuck (Y/n), well done! You've lost me the bet though," Buck rubbed his hand up and down her arm, smiling brightly as he looked across at Bobby. He gently let go of (Y/n)'s hand, seeing her grab Eddie's arm for reassurance before Buck grabbed the clamps and cutters from the bag to hand across to Bobby.

"Here's your daughter," Bobby carefully placed the small bundle into (Y/n)'s shaking arms and laid her on her chest.

She trembled so much Eddie had to move his arms and coil them around hers with his hands resting on top of (Y/n)'s to keep their daughter stable on her chest. Eddie brushed a finger across the newborn's cheek and despite the chuckle he let out, he moved to kiss (Y/n)'s cheek repeatedly. This wasn't how they were expecting to have their daughter, but it had gone much better than Chris's untimely birth.

"S-she's here," (Y/n) brushed her nose against Eddie's cheek and kissed him shakily.

"She couldn't wait to meet us."

[hoedamn-eron]

shut up, kid

You awake to your first Mother’s Day with baby Bateman.

Warnings: Nathan is honestly the only warning you need. I suppose some hints of breastfeeding too (a fed baby is a happy baby, whether bottle or breast). Actually proofread for once, but probably still mistakes that I missed. Word count: 750 F!Reader, no use of Y/N.

This was written VERY last minute (by last minute, I mean at 9:30pm on Mother's Day in the UK 😂). Anyway, happy Mother’s Day to all the parents out there! 😊 I’ve recently been very broody and very Nathan oriented, so I created this mostly self-indulgent fic (loosely based on this post from a few weeks ago).

I struggle to write Nathan, I feel like I can't get his personalty, or his demeanour right, so please let me know if I can improve anywhere! I want to write more Nathan!

It was the sound of a loud, high-pitched, excited squeal, that woke you up.

“Hey,” came the voice of your boyfriend, sounding distant and muffled as the sweet caress of sleep called back to you. “I know we came to wake up your mom, but that’s not the way to do it. You want to deal with the dragon before she’s had her morning coffee? No? I fuckin’ thought not. Shut up, kid.”

“You shouldn’t swear at your son,” you muttered into your pillow, knowing now that sleep was just a distant memory.

“Ah, shit.”

You grin into the pillow before you look up, your eyes blurrily settling on your boyfriend, who had a mug of coffee in his left hand (in your favourite mug – one you got from a Blue Book convention back when you were in college, long before you met Nathan...Nathan hated it), and his other hand was occupied supporting your seven-month-old son, Silas, who was happily sitting on Nathan’s hip, still in his footsie pyjamas, chewing on his pointer finger. It was sickening how you carried the kid for nine months, and going through a 36-hour labour, sacrificing your body and your boobs (your nipples will never be the same again), for him to look exactly like Nathan.

You still love the bones off him anyway.

“Kid doesn’t know what I’m saying, it’s fine,” Nathan continues, coming over to you and holding out the mug. You take it, smiling up at Nathan as he leans down to you and presses a kiss against your lips, murmuring a ‘good morning’ to you before he straightens up.

He’s so hot. Even now, he’s just wearing some old sweatpants and a t-shirt (it even has a stain of old baby throw up, which you just couldn’t get out), but it’s the way he’s holding your son...it does things to you.

“Good morning,” you greeted back, taking a sip of your coffee. You nod at Silas as he continued to chew on his finger. “Lost another pacifier?”

“I don’t know what he does with them,” Nathan said, shaking his head, gesturing with now free his hand around the room. “Spend all my fuckin’ spare time trying to find that blue one that he refuses to nap without.”

“Language,” you tell him, take a sip of your coffee.

“Sorry,” he says, almost on autopilot. “I’ll request more for the chopper next week. Think 50 will be enough? Obviously fuckin’ not, he’ll lose them all within a week.”

You laugh as you shake your head at him before looking at Silas. “Is your dada silly?” you ask him in your most annoying baby voice.

The kid loves it. He smiles widely at you and kicks his legs in excitement.

“Anyway,” Nathan says, adjusting Silas in his grip as he looked back at you, evidently choosing to ignore your comment to your son. “Happy Mother’s Day, or whatever. I made you breakfast, your favourite. The kid had some, he loved it, so now we’ll probably have to make it for him every day. I’ll run you a bath and by the time you’re finished it should be ready. While you’re being a lazy ass in the tub and skirting your duties as a mother - “

You go to swat Nathan on the thigh, but he dodges you swiftly and carries on like he was never interrupted.

“Me and this one,” he nods to Silas. “Will work on some tummy time, see if we can start crawling today.”

“Not all kids start crawling at seven months.”

“Not all kids are mine.”

“Debatable, regarding all the sex you were having before we met.”

“You’re reaping all the benefits from ‘all that sex’.”

“You pig.”

“You love me.”

You do. God, you do. So much. But you’re not going to tell him that.

You take a gulp of your coffee, hiding your smile.

“Get your pretty ass out of bed,” Nathan said, already turning away from you, grabbing Silas around the tummy and tossing him lightly in the air and catching him, causing Silas to laugh that cute baby giggle he has that melts your heart. “Come and celebrate your first Mother’s Day.”

He leaves the room, and you laugh to yourself as you distinctly hear the sound of Nathan giving Silas a raspberry on his belly as he walks down the corridor, the squealing sound of laughter from your son following right after.

It sends a warm feeling of joy and happiness through you.

[axelsagewrites]

Hey, how are you? Do you accept request for Otto Hightower?

I wanted something for "marrying Otto Hightower and being the younger sister of the late Queen Aemma Targaryen." Aemma's sister came to court her lost, however, things go wrong and Aemma ends up passing away and her baby also dies hours later. Otto Hightower, widower, hand of the King, with no heir (here, Otto and his first wife had no children, so Alicent was not born yet) and with the stain of his wife's terrible reputation hanging over him, Otto needs a second wife. What happens when he finds himself attracted to the late queen's sister?

Come on, it's supposed to be something light, where Otto doesn't have all that sick ambition to see his blood burning on the throne and having true friendship and loyalty towards Viserys and, of course, having sincere devotion and love for his dear wife. I hope this request reaches you well ❤️ (If I made you uncomfortable, let me know, i'm sorry)

Otto Hightower*My Honour

Pairing: otto x targ!f!reader

Word count: 1628

Warnings: mentions Aemma and her sons death, grief, praying to cope, angst

A/n: alicent doesnt exist in this one

Often times you wondered if staying in kings landing was worth it. it was here you lost your sister and nephew not to mention all the previous children she had to mourn and never hold. You had come a week prior to her labour and eventual death to help but after you felt useless. Perhaps if Rhanerya had not begged you to stay you would have left these haunted halls. After all she was only eight when her mother died.

It was hard to even walk through the halls most days. Every stone, every path, every flower a reminder of her. the sting only grew deeper when Baelon died. A son, an heir, all for what?

You could see the grief etched into Viserys’ face but that did little to comfort you. It was hard to even look at the man you previously considered like a brother. most days the only one you spoke to was Rhanerya.

If people said hello in the halls, you bowed your head and smiled and walked on. When they approached with sympathies during dinners you did the same. Very few words escaped your lips especially since each greeting was met with a sorry look from the lords and ladies who didn’t even truly know your sister enough to mourn her. You weren’t the only one to have suffered a loss recently, however.

On your near daily trips to the sept to pray for your sister, nephew, and niece, you would see Otto Hightower deep in thought. He’d come to Kings Landing with his wife a few years ago to serve Viserys however she had died only weeks earlier.

You’d met her only once and while she was kind enough, she was not the typical wife of a lord.  She tended to walk a fine line of what was acceptable at court and if the rumours and what daemon himself had told you see it was rare that her husband was the one to share her bed.

The marriage had been arranged, like they all are. You understood his position. You had tried to love your first husband though you did not cry when he fell out the moon door during a joust. Still, you mourned like Otto did. Now even more so.

This morning was like all others. You ate with Rhanerya, helped ready her for her lessons, then walked to the sept. however, as you walked something different happened. “Good morning my lady,” Otto greeted as he caught up behind you.

You jumped a little having not heard his soft footsteps. “My lord, sorry I did not see you,”

“It is quite alright. The fault is mine,” he gave a tight-lipped smile you’d seen a few times from him. “Good day my lady,”

Otto went to increase his pace, assuming your silence was a want for absence, but you found yourself no longer able to be quiet, “My lord,” you called. Otto paused, turning to listen, “Would you care to walk to the sept with me this morning?”

A small smile quirked on his lips, “It would be a joy my lady,”

Each morning from then he would join you on your way to and from the sept. at first no words were spoken. Then only a few. Never about death though. It was refreshing as selfish as it sounded. A time when you didn’t have to think of those you lost. Soon it was hard to end the conversation.

“You must ride on the back of her one time. You’ll get to see all the fun,” you laughed after recounting a story of your dragon’s adventures.

Otto laughed but you could see a little green in his skin, “No I think my feet shall remain firmly on the ground, but your offer is very kind my lady,”

As you arrived the sept a small smile found its way on your lips, “You don’t have to call me that. I have a name you know?”

“Really?” he teased, “I must’ve forgotten it,” you rolled your eyes, feigning shock and ignorance as you told him your name like it was a scandal, “What a beautiful name. much better than a name like Otto,”

“You’re so right. Only a cruel person would name their son Otto,” you teased before quickly hiding your smiles when the septas walked out.

As you were both leaving the sept Otto was inspired by your previous affection to return the same, “It may not be as exciting as a dragon but perhaps you would like to join me one night for dinner?”

You stayed silent for a moment as you walked and Otto could feel the sweat gathering on his forehead, “Would this be one of your dinners with the king and other lords or a private affair?”

“Which ever you preferred,” he said, swallowing hard.

A small smile on your lips put him at ease, “I’m free tonight,”

Soon you were laughing in the halls again. Stopping to talk to people again. Having conversations again. Viserys took joy in this, glad to finally see you back to your previous state. Though he could not help being sceptical of Otto.

He trusted him with his life, but he did not know if he could trust him with yours, “Have you seen much of my wife’s sister of late?” he asked one night after all the other lords had left the high council meeting.

Otto swallowed the lump in his throat, “No more than usual. Why my king?”

“No reason. Her condition seems much improved as of late,” he mused, watching his friend’s reaction carefully.

“Grief is a wild beast,” Otto said, revealing as little as he could.

Viserys however needed to know more, “My wife made me swear when we married. ‘if we become family then mine becomes yours and yours becomes mine’. Ever since I’ve seen her as a sister figure of sorts.”

“You’re very kind to her your grace,” Otto shifted in his chair.

Viserys sat back in his, “I’ve had a few lords ask me about her hand since her fathers and husbands passing you know?” Otto went stiff, “all arrogant, obnoxious lords, Aemma didn’t even like when she was alive,”

“She was always a good judge of character,”

“I like to think I am as well,” Otto went to speak but Viserys didn’t stop talking, “I imagine the offers will stop when the rumours spread further,”

“What rumours- “

“Please Otto I am not blind!” Viserys almost barked making Otto go still, “if your attentions are anything but pure, if you think you can use her as something to breed-“ Viserys tirade went on though if anyone else was in the room you’d see his guilt was wrapped in the speech, “then you have lost your mind. She is not something for me to sell, I wont do it, I wont let history repeat. So Otto I swear to whatever gods may exist don’t think I will not replace you,”

The room went eerily silent and was only broken after Otto painfully cleared his throat, “I would like an heir yes however,” he spoke up quickly when he saw Viserys face harden, “However it is not my main desire. I wish to marry, marry someone I care deeply for, someone who I picked and who picked me in return, and to have a child, a child as beautiful as your own daughter who I could bond with like you have. I wish for a family Viserys but only with her. and if she does not want me then I shall leave her be. I don’t wish to cause more harm,”

The hardness washed off the kings face, “If she does not want you? Have you not been courting her?”

“Not officially your grace. The topic it hasn’t came up,”

“What do you even do?”

“We talk,”

“Talk?”

“Yes. Talk,” he said, shuffling forward to gossip like they did when they were younger, “about anything and everything. About the flowers in the gardens and historical figures. Or the moon the night before or the sunrise that morning. We talk and talk and the conversation never dries up. She is charming and witty and more brilliant than any man- any person I’ve ever met,”

Viserys sat silently for a few moments, “You love her?” his words made Otto pause.

“I do. Even if she does not love me,”

“Then I think its about time you find out if she does,”

The walk around the castle gardens was only made better by Otto’s company. He listened as you told him about Rhanerya’s improvement in needle work and what you’d seen on your recent flights. However, his mind seemed to be wondering with each word. “Are you alright my lord?”

Your words snapped him from his thoughts and his mouth had never felt dryer, “May I ask you a question my lady?”

“You just did,” you teased, something he’d usually roll his eyes at, “but I will allow another,”

You expected a joust back but instead he took a deep breath making you pause in your tracks, “I was wondering if you’d attend the king’s birthday celebration with me?”

“I already told you I was going?” you said, head tilted to the side in confusion.

Otto took another deep breath. There was no going back, “I’m not asking if you are going. I’m asking if when we both attend, we attend together. As a couple if you will,” he stayed silent waiting for your response.

The blank look on your face made him panic but a small smirk slowly crept on your face, “Are you asking to court me lord Otto Hightower?”

“I suppose I am,” the smile returned to his lips.

“Then it would be my honour,”

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[great20sworld]

LIVING THE DREAM 

A Viktor x Reader fanfiction 

Author's note: Chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 9, chapter 10 and chapter 11 along with summary are available in my Tumblr page. 

⚠️ Content warning ⚠️: Character death (not major character)

Chapter 12: Reverse!

__________________________

“We could've calibrated it better”

You said for the umpteenth time and Viktor didn't honour your exclamation with any comprehensible response, choosing to simply hum in acknowledgement. You put your head in your hands, forefingers pushing back the strands of hair falling over your eyes and thumbs gently applying pressure on your temples as you supress the weight of your eyelids gaining weight as each hour passes. An owl looked at you from the branch curiously extending to the lab, as if it also wanted to partake.

The lab was empty of human presence save for you and Viktor, the latter seemingly immersed in page turner resting in his lap, filled with equations. Though his eyes (much more vigilant than yours in the hour) were torn away from the book every once in a while, to rest momentarily on the dimly glowing line of crystals attaching itself to circuitry. It had taken almost another week or so to actually proportionally raise the charges to match the supposed output you predicted via modelling, and several hours before, your little team had convinced yourselves that the ‘portal’ was almost ready, and as soon as the crystals reached the charging point at a particular scale in the energy it generated, the phenomenon can be observed, granted that there would be a controller.

You remembered wearily how sceptical still Jayce had looked right before being pushed to the conclusion, running a gloved hand through his dark auburn hair and sighing. However, to your delight and surprise Viktor insisted and made a deal that if this “last attempt” failed, they would return to normal property analysis research and the unwilling labour had left Jayce tired, so he was definitely not going to be there to control it. Viktor had volunteered (very eagerly) and Sky also did, seconds before you also volunteered. 

Your gaze met Sky’s and you swore you saw something flicker behind her gaze, only momentarily though, as she quickly schools her expression to a cheerful smile, and saying something about needing to visit the green house anyways, before she thanks you for taking initiative. 

You try to shake away the small doubt already beginning to creep behind your head, as you had watched her leave with Jayce, for the day, leaving you with the tall lanky scientist with the lovely accent. 

Coming to terms with the hopeless fool trapped inside your struggling intellectual brain, you accepted to yourself that this was a moment you had been craving for. You two had gotten closer, ofcourse. With more time to talk, and more time to stress over your work with mutual headaches and late nights, it's been...nice, you presumed.

To spend some precious time with the man, where no other soul could bear witness to the "stolen moments" or so the foolish romantic in you chimed when he came closer, and closer, his beautiful fingers guided by the arm not supporting the cane extending forwards, (aiming at your hand at your side, you hoped).

Until...

You feel a soft flutter of paper being taken from the table you leaned against; his notes which he had compiled throughout the weeks, as he moves away, already ruffling through them, mumbling to himself.

You could've burst out laughing if it weren't for that tiny romantic blushing embarrassedly, clutching at its pearls making you quickly turn away, your gaze darting to the experimental setup. He had settled down next to it, and you, opposite to him, observing idly. When the silence got oppressive, you attempted to make conversation but were met with objective answers, not wandering far into what lay beneath his exterior. 

It didn't put an end to your silent study of his countenance, however. Only fueling it. In the shadows cast by the glow of the crystals and the milky white moon peeking in through the curtains, he resembled a sculpture with golden eyes moving gently in its sockets, made of the stars themselves, you swore. The lines over his cheekbones almost seemed intentionally crafted for beauty.

Then again... wasn't he?

The skilled fingers turned pages, as shoulders leaned back on the chair. It always startled you whenever his voice cut through the artificial silence to instruct you to check the controls.

Although...

Were your eyes deceiving you or was there a gentle tilt on his soft lips upwards whenever you made haste to adjust the systems or struggled to stay awake? 

Surely a play of the whimsical moonlight.

After the owl flew away, leaving you nothing else to make funny faces at, when your human companion wasn't looking, you sighed and looked away to the far end of the table, where your eyes linger on Viktor's workstation. There's another book over there that you hadn't recognised before. You sauntered over to his desk, unoccupied right now as the man sat at the main setup table to get a close look.

"In search of the sun", the title read. 

Ah, you have seen this before- just not up close as it were. You've observed at times when the scientist seemed to scribble away in this one, during moments of respite from calculation rechecking.

You flip through the old tattered thing, looking like one wrong tug at its spine would bring the papers down loose at your feet. It was handwritten, with crude but curious illustrations and erasure marks at most points. The recognition of illustrative depictions showing Zaun was instant, the fissures, the alleyways, and the descriptions. You didn't recognise the handwriting, but there were some scribbles at the sides of some pages, with arrow marks. That one, the sweeping letters- too illegible to be beautiful, but too pronounced to be ugly, you recognised instantly. 

The man's voice suddenly shakes you from your analysis, as he says, "She didn't get time to finish it."

You almost stumble when you find him standing next to you, but you make an effort to stay put. 

"Who?"

"The author."

"Who is the..." You try to flip to the back of the book, but his hand rests on top of yours, rendering you motionless.

"You won't find her name there. She never...got the time to put in her name."

Silence reined for a few seconds before vulnerable eyes met yours.

"It was...written by my sister. She...she used to write, about the undercity and the parts of it where we lived." 

 "Oh..." You breathe, looking at the book again with a newfound admiration. You don't remember coming across much authors from the undercity, much less someone who wrote about it, not without ironing out many wrinkles and smoothening out sharper details about zaun, that is. Viktor had mentioned that himself, in one of the conversations you had with him. Considering this one seemed, rather descriptive based on some of the sentences you caught sight of, what you saw now wasn't a tattered old thing anymore...

"She passed away a few years ago... Couldn't... couldn't finish writing it..." You don't miss the strained waver in the soft tone, it makes your chest ache and mouth part in shock. 

“Oh Viktor…” you murmur gently, hands clutching the book securely. “...I'm so sorry”

“It's in the past. She made a great effort though. But, it's not very comprehensive or fact oriented, more on experience…” he looks away.

“It's perfect.”

“What?” Viktor looks back at you, brows slightly raised. 

“Let me guess…” you say, your eyes trained on the book, once held by a beloved soul. “Some old critiques from up here, from the topside turned this down from being published, for all the reasons you just said.. and...you believed them.” 

Viktor was left speechless.

“Viktor… it is not detail orientation which moves hearts. This is not a documentary about zaun. It is not trying to be. It will not be happy to.” Your thumb traces the front cover. “I haven't read it yet, but from what I've gathered, this is a documentation of its people. Of a zaunite’s wishes, dreams, life. Moreover, what would a topsider know of that life? Know of the undercity?” You lift your gaze. 

“I…” Viktor’s voice quivered.

“You're no fool. You know this. You had been convinced. Viktor…why?” 

The shadows of loving sorrow came over the handsome face, you bearing witness to the past unfolding before those eyes, knuckles tightening around the cane supporting him. 

“My sister… Atira, was the kindest soul, who believed in the people, in hope, all in its own form amongst my people…our people, down beneath. Whatever she wrote, she wrote with emotion, differing entirely for whatever I stood for. She… O Janna, she loved the undercity. Loved it for what it was, believed and understood.  But, it all came to a startling close when one of the chem leakes happened. It happens always, we are usually able to foresee it sooner but…” 

His throat constricts.

“...She asked me to keep this, do whatever I must with it. Trusted me with everything that happens to a book, she believed I understood, because I was always the sharper mind in her eyes.” He sighed deeply.

“I went looking and searching for every publication sectors I could, sadly only available up here, but… none of them saw what…she had seen. What we had seen. It was never enough… I…” 

“I failed her…” 

The tilt of his head away from your view was something you hated with a passion, you own eyes filling with emotions so rough, you felt it in your heart. His sister had sought out the light. She was in search of the sun. You could almost see it. A woman, about Viktor's age, in the Undercity, eyes golden like the rays of the sun she sought after...

Seeing its brilliant rats in curtains over the crevices and cracks of Zaun, Atira might have wished to come up to the topside, but fear and prejudice may have stopped her.

A lover of nature, a lover of people...

If only she, and many others could have reached the safer side sooner in the time of the chem spills…

The sight of the ring of portal you had created in your table made you stop. A teleporter. Something that could connect and transport…

So that is why Viktor had insisted.

You take Viktor's hand, making him look at you.

“So much of the undercity…searches for the sun. Searches for safety…” you murmur. “Viktor, you haven't failed her! What if, what she desired was not the publication of the book, but the liberation of the undercity? She's smart, I have no doubt- if she has needed her book to get published, she would've sugar coated so much, but no- this is raw, this is true. What she wished, was the need of freedom, to seek the light. Somehow…” 

Viktor's eyes widen, his lips parting in shock. “Y/N… that is…”

“You can do it Viktor! You haven't failed… you have just started! ” Your hand, holding his, shakes it with excitement, as you see hope dancing in his eyes. In unison, your gazes darts to the ring set up the crystals almost charged up.

You smile and it gets wider when you feel his fingers closing around yours, face turning back to you, beautiful and hopeful, as he whispers:  

“We can do this.”

He's not alone...

“That's my boss!” You laugh, playfully patting his shoulder, as if long years of camaraderie had passed between you. 

Well, who needed long years when a part of your soul was standing before you?

Your eyes are blessed with the sight of him smiling, as you speak. 

“Why stop here! We can make a water filtration system!”

“And a heating system!” He adds.

“And an air cleaning system!” You grin.

He laughs, and the twinkle in his eyes when they meet yours makes your heart pick up pace. 

"Ah, you laugh now, but believe me when I say- this will change lives. So many. Both of undercity and piltover." You reassure, already up in the clouds with your visions.

“You are a lot like her.�� He opines.

“I’m like your sister to you?” You ask slowly, a smile in your lips as you hold her book close to your chest, securely.

“My sister? No, no! You are not like a…sister to me.” 

A shy silence lingers between you, as the obvious reaches out from the top of your tongue.

“Who am I to you?” your question. More silence, his gaze darting everywhere except back to you.

“Your assistant…”

“Not just.”

“Acquaintance…?”

“More.”

“Friend…”

“More.”

“Best friend!”

“...”

“M-more..?” You blush.

Twin roses bloom on his alabaster cheeks, and a small strained breath from his countenance before his tender lips quirk upwards. Suddenly, you felt like a Victorian woman, a shy and quiet thing, before someone handsomely shy, yet, bolder. You gaze fixed on your shoes, as you see him stepping forward. 

“Y/N…” the quietness of his voice makes you lift your gaze up, met with the angel’s gaze, sweet and tender.…

Beep! Beep! Beep!

You and Viktor jump apart at the sudden beeping noise from your wrist, gasping softly. The chronoporter was going off, interrupting the sugary sweet moment, making you want to throw the thing right outside the window and be done with it.

"Dimensional drifts detected!" Chimes your mechanical companion, as your struggles to hide the dial of it from under Viktor's gaze proves faulty. 

"Is your watch...talking?" He asks, one eyebrow raised and lips slightly parted in bewilderment.

"Uh? N-no no no! It's, umm just I... I was saying that!" You laugh awkwardly, shifting your wrist wearing your watch out of his line of sight, pressing the mute button frantically as it resorts to angry text mode, indignant at being quieted by a mere human again. 

"What did you say?" Viktor asks skeptically, but you are once again interrupted by an ear splitting sound of metallic doors being squelched against one another and broken to pieces like rubber, the floor getting tremors as seemingly a giant's footsteps come by. Both yours and Viktor's head snap up the lab entrance, as you make out the figure of an old familiar face, now doused in purple hues, veins bulging and almost popping in the way muscles ripple beneath skin... 

"...."

"Oh thank God, you're not dead!" Were not the words you expected from your companion, but he has his ways. You look at him, your lips stretched incredulously in a thin horizontal line. Absolutely unbelievable.

"What! I was worried I had murdered him!" Viktor says back, frowning. You sigh, waving your hand dismissively before flinching as you see the goon pick up a huge table and throw it towards Viktor. Moving swiftly, you skid over to him just in time to splinter the table into pieces with your punch, Viktor cowering behind you, his eyes screwed shut. Before he could get in harm's way, you push him behind the huge board and the wall, as you step forward to face the goon, your blood rushing to your head in anxiousness. 

"How are you still doing this? Didn't you learn your lesson last time?" You say as you dodge away from the trajectories of whatever objects are being thrown your way. But you are answered with rageful screams and growls and maniacal howling laughter.

"Wait...wait wait! That's the voltmeter! No not the soldering set! Ahhh! The circuit board!" You say as the mindless man throws things at you, things you know are quite expensive, even up here in this functional universe. The monster of a man lunges at you and you roll away once more, jumping and galloping away, praying for an exit- but to your shock you see that the entrance is blocked with how much metal and rubber which used to be doors and walls piled against it. Viktor cannot save you anymore either, because if he threw the crystal again, the whole lab will explode- and you already had a sample of that.

Oh gods, what have you done?

You accidentally get hit by a wooden bench, making you see spots in your vision as you shake your head from disorientation. Your eyes lift up to meet the malicious ones of the man's, raising his whole torso to end you...

"Dimensional rift probability- calculated. 1.”

The room momentarily goes still, no life, no motion, until the next moment where it is bathed with the incandescent breathtaking sapphire hues wraps its curls around every crevice of the lab, pulling in itself, warping and twisting magnetically, with symbols flashing before your very eyes. Your feet lifts off the ground, as you defy gravity once more, the goon before you also airborne, to his dismay. However, the ring of charged arcane symbols rotating over and over, powerfully humming and thrumming over the atmosphere catches your eyes, mesmerizingly. 

“LOOK OUT!”

The sudden push towards the right as Viktor's whole body weight propels you out of the way of the beam of pure energy which surged through the middle of the room, made you dizzy, making you cling helplessly onto him, as he pushes you to the pillar, his cane holding you both in place. The screams of the brute maddeningly ringing around the lab, and vanishing all together- all in a staggering moment where you held him close. 

The light dies out, making everything clatter to the ground, including the two of you, as you tumble and fall, your fall made gentle by the low height you were at. 

Frantic gazes look around. No brute. 

The hextech crystal ring was glowing…

Deep breaths. Panting, hyperventilating. 

Your gazes meet, only inches apart, your arms thrown over his shoulders and his around your middle, cane pressed to the back of your leg. 

“It…it worked…” he whispers, eyes searching yours, in search of what- he didn't have a clue. 

“We…we did it…”

“WE DID IT!” 

Laughter fills the air as you both embrace, faces giddy, smeared with dust and dirt, eyes misty with unshed tears of joy and relief as you feel his hands shaking with nerves, holding you. The laughter gives way to soft giggles, and then chuckles as the tension loosens its grip on your throats. 

You pull away just enough to press a sweet kiss to his cheek, before hugging him again, not brave enough to face his gaze. You could feel him gasp, warmth spreading to the tips of his ears but you weren't sure if it was his, or yours. 

"Oh, and I saved Atira's book..." You say shyly, patting the inside of your cost pocket, the soft this of the book against fabric.

You feel rhythmic, almost symphonic beats of hearts against each other, this close…

Then…

A soft tender, chaste peck on your cheek by him…

You would have fainted. In his arms. Gladly so. 

The rest of the night felt like a dream, though you had simultaneously vague and pronounced memories of him helping you stand back up, asking you tenderly for permission to walk you home, passing by enforcers who were rather shocked to see you both unscatched, his hand in yours until you reached Gina’s house…

Another sweet kiss to your cheek before you watched shyly from the window as he walked away, grinning and smiling to himself stupidly as well, soft cheeks wearing blushes.

What a night…

Almost made you forget about the warning signal from your Chronoporter informing you that the portal you two had accidentally conjured up, had lead to your home dimension, and that Silco's goon had been dropped right before a location you recognised as a rehabilitation center. 

Good for him, you hoped.

Somewhere back in the academy, in the greenhouse, Sky Young prepares to tell you something.

Something concerning her heart.

_________________________________

Chapter 13 coming soon. Stay tuned.

[joekeeryswife]

Steddie x reader when y/n goes into labor while one of the boys 💖💖 are out the house and the other is helping y/n get through her contractions while she is panicking over one of the dads missing the birth

Home birth ?

Panic - s.h & e.m

hello angel! thank you for your request (this is adorable what🥹). i love dad! imagines they just always melt my heart. kinda hate this because i feel like i’m repeating it over and over but oh well (also hate the ending lmfao). it’s pretty long. enjoy 🤍 set in 1993 (reader is 24, Steve is 26 and Eddie is 28)

taglist (feel free to add yourselves🤍) @eddieamoremio @loverboy-poems @ladyapplejackdnd @alexxavicry @lovurry @bibieddiesgf @plk-18 @Heyyimmissunderstood @m-rae23 @adaydreamaway08 (if there’s a line through your name i can’t tag you xx)

you were in the last few days of your pregnancy, leading up to the 39 week mark and to say you were relieved was an understatement. the past few weeks had been awful from back pain, braxton hicks, swollen ankles, heartburn, headaches, nausea. the list went on and on. you, Steve and Eddie had moved a few hours outside of Hawkins wanting a fresh start in a new house and it was absolutely perfect.

with it only being a few hours away from Hawkins it meant you could still visit your friends and family and vice versa. as you were pregnant you didn't like sitting in the car for the almost three hour drive, it hurt your back and Steve didn't like stopping the car every ten minutes so you could get out and walk around to try and ease the pain. so they usually opted driving to your house.

today, Eddie had to drive back to Hawkins to help Wayne at the garage with a few cars. Wayne hated calling Eddie to help him and Eddie hated leaving you with you being so close to your due date but you insisted you were absolutely fine and he'd left in the morning before both you and Steve woke up.

you had woken up around nine with intense back pain and cramping. you had been having braxton hicks for the past few days and that's what you usually put it down to but not this time, this was painful. so painful it made you groan slightly which you never did. after the pain subsided you sat up in bed, Steve no where to be found making you sigh and get out of the bed.

you could hear the radio playing quietly and Steve's humming to enjoy the silence by Depeche mode making smile softly. you tried make your steps as quiet as possible trying to to disturb his 'party' whilst doing the dishes and he luckily didn't notice you. his back was facing the door as he hovered over the sink, cleaning the few plates that had been left in there from the night before.

you walked towards him and wrapped your arms around his waist trying to hug him as best you could with a huge bump in the way. "morning honey" he put the plates down and turned to face you, wrapping his arms around your shoulders. he placed a delicate kiss on your head and smiled when he felt your arms tighten around him.

"you sleep okay?" he asked as you pulled back from the hug to kiss him and nodded. "i had a really bad ache this morning, it was so painful it woke me up" you said like it was nothing, walking to the other side of the kitchen to grab a bowl to make some cereal but it made Steve's heart race. this could be you going into labour and he was here without Eddie who was adamant on being here for your labour.

you had all decided to do a home birth, the pool set up in the middle of the spacious living room ready to be filled when you went into labour. you'd always wanted to try a home birth, being in your own home made you feel so much more comfortable than thinking about being in a hospital. if something went wrong you were only twenty minutes away from the hospital so there was always that option if you decided to change your mind.

after making your cereal you walked to the living room, sighing as you sat down to finally be off your feet. your legs ached all the time and walking made you out of breath. you rested the bowl on top of your belly, slowly eating as you watched some random tv show but after a few minutes you felt another pain shoot through your lower stomach.

this time the pain was like a period cramp but way more intense. you lent forward to place your bowl on the coffee table and delicately place your hands on top of your stomach, closing your eyes and breathing through this pain as best you could. as luck would have it Steve walked into the living room so he could relax but that thought went completely out of his head when he saw you.

"baby, what's the matter?" he sat down next to you and stroked his hand up and down on your back. when the pain finally stopped after thirty seconds you sighed feeling relieved that it had finally stopped. it felt like it was going on forever. "i think i'm having contractions and Eddie's not here" you looked at him. his eyes went wide as he listened to you talk.

he knew how much it meant to you that both of them were there. you were all becoming parents and you really didn't want one of them to miss it. Steve knew some days the shop was so busy that Eddie couldn't physically answer the phone and most of the guys that worked there were assholes and let the phone ring. but he prayed that these were false labour pains.

"it's okay. we need to be sure that they're contractions honey and if they are we will call Eddie. he'll be here" Steve kissed the side of your head and continued to run his hand up and down your back to try comfort you as best he could. "what time did you wake up?" he knew from the many books he read that he needed to time your contractions.

with you saying you woke up with one he needed to make sure he was being precise about this. "i think it was nine" he looked down at his wrist watch and saw it was 9:14- fourteen minutes apart. "you tell me if you have another okay? i just need to make sure these are contractions" he said as the both of you got comfortable on the sofa.

Steve wrapped his arm around your shoulders bringing you into him as the two of you watched the tv, well you were, Steve was sneaking glances at you every so often just making sure you weren't having contractions but after he finally settled down after ten minutes you sucked in a breath and sat up. another contraction. he glanced down at his wrist watch again and realised they were getting closer together.

you were definitely in labour. you grabbed hold of Steve's hand and squeezed it tightly as the pain was almost unbearable. your mum had told you contractions were painful but you didn't realise they would be this painful. you moaned in pain as the contraction continued. "breathe sweetheart, that's it" you heard Steve say as you squeezed his hand tighter.

"could you get me some water please? i feel really hot and i need to cool down" you asked fanning yourself with your hand as the pain from the contraction subsided. "of course, do you need anything else?" with a shake of your head he got up and walked back to the kitchen to get your water.

whilst waiting you felt a popping sensation before water gushing out of you, soaking your pyjama pants. "Steve" you shouted as you slowly stood up, hearing his footsteps quickly approaching you. he looked at you then looked at the sofa which was soaking wet with clear fluid. his eyes widened he honestly felt like he could throw up. this was it.

"holy shit" he whispered walking towards you. "you have to call Mary" Mary was your midwife and would be with you at home whilst you gave birth. she had told you at your last appointment that you needed to alert her as soon as your water broke. he nodded, his eyes still wide "i will but let's get you into something clean, do you think you can walk up the stairs honey?"

his right hand went to your back once again, trying his best not to freak out in front of you. he saw you nod and held out his left hand this time so he could help you walk up the stairs to change. once the two of you were in the bedroom Steve walked to your draws, pulling out a new pair of pyjama pants.

"do you need help changing?" he asked as he walked toward you with the new pants. you shook your head and took the pants from him, whispering a small thank you before you felt a kiss on the side of your head. "i'm gonna go call Mary then i'll call Eddie. shout to me if you need help okay?" you nodded this time and watched as he left your bedroom.

after a few minutes of you changing into your new pants you felt another wave of pain through your stomach making you sit down wincing. the pain was almost unbearable. "i've phoned Mary. she's on her way but i couldn't get ahold of Eddie." Steve said walking into the bedroom.

Steve saw your pained expression as he stood in front of you "another contraction?" you only nodded. he held his hands open so he could help you stand up. "you need to keep calling him. he can't miss it" you squeezed Steve's hands as you pulled yourself up off the bed. "i will honey don't worry. he'll be here" he kissed your cheek reassuringly.

-

"where the fuck is Eddie" you said as you bent over the kitchen island, trying to relieve your pain in any way you could. Mary was behind you massaging your back as you breathed through your contraction. "he didn't answer. he might be really busy-"

"Steve they have people who answer the phone. keep calling" you cut him off. it was now 2pm and Eddie still hadn't answered the phone. your labour was going slow and Mary had told you that you were only at 4cm. that meant you had another 6 to go. "y/n sweetheart try not to stress. it's not good for you or the baby" Mary said as she took her hands off your back.

Mary was old, it may be rude to say but she was. however when she saw you in the hospital for your first midwife appointment with both Steve and Eddie sat next to you she said nothing and just smiled. many people judged your relationship but to be honest you all didn't care. you all loved each other and that's all that mattered.

"but what if he does miss it, he promised he'd be here, he wanted to be here" the last thing you wanted was for Eddie to miss the birth of his daughter. it was special and you'd never forgive him for not being there- he would never forgive himself for not being there. "and he will be, i'm gonna call one more time and leave another message if they don't answer. after that i'm not gonna call again, i gotta look after you honey"

Steve walked to the phone which was in the living room and after a few beats of silence you were met with Steve leaving yet another voice mail. your heart sunk. you couldn't understand why they wouldn't answer the phone. Wayne had two people who sat by the phone all day talking to customers about their cars or if they needed help with their cars but they never answered.

"i'm sorry. they didn't answer but i'm sure they're just really busy, Eddie will be here" Steve said as he came back into the kitchen, a sympathetic look on his face. "but what if he isn't? he wanted to-" you were cut off by another strong contraction, this one hurting so much more than the others you had been experiencing all day. Steve rushed to your side, holding your hand tightly as you groaned in pain.

you could feel your eyes filling with tears as the painful contraction got a bit more intense. after a minute it finally stopped but this contraction was a lot closer than the others. it meant your labour was moving along quickly and you would be pushing soon. you wrapped your arms around Steve's waist hugged him tightly.

"what if he doesn't make it" you whispered to Steve, tears threatening to spill over any second with the crazy amount of hormones running through your body. Steve wrapped his arms around you and hugged you back "he will honey i promise, if not i'll give him an earful don't you worry" he joked as he kissed your head, trying to make the situation better. but it didn't work. it just made you anxious. you just hoped by some miracle that Eddie would make it in time.

-

"hey guys" Eddie said as he walked into the office. he had finally gotten a break after working so hard. he sat down in front of Adam, a 20 year old who had been working with Troy to take phone calls for the garage. it was a system that meant Eddie, Wayne and the rest of the mechanics didn't have to leave their work to answer the phone and so far it had worked.

"it's been so busy today, crazy amount of people just brining their cars in for random shit that don't even need fixing" Eddie said rubbing a hand through his hair. he had a good few hours left before he could leave and come home to you and Steve and to be honest he was counting down the hours.

"did that Jerry guy bring his car in? i swear he comes in every week for the same thing" Troy said as he sat on his desk which was right next to Adams. "yeah he did. i mean he's old, probably doesn't remember bringing it in. i just pretend to fix something and he's on his way within ten minutes. never charged him though. can't make him pay for something that isn't actually real"

Adam and Troy were the only guys who were younger than Eddie in the garage, Troy being 24, meant that he could speak to them about the same sort of thing, he couldn't really speak to the older guys in the garage because he never understood what the spoke about. they spoke about stuff that happened years before he was born.

"anyway, anything happened with calls today? i heard the phone going crazy" Eddie said in a happy tone, he thought it was customers that were calling in for their cars which meant more money in his pocket for you guys and the baby. "don't be mad" Troy said scratching the back of his neck as he spoke. "we didn't actually answer any of them" Eddie rolled his eyes, a little bit of anger filing his body.

"c'mon guys that isn't cool. some people might be stuck of the side of the road and you've left them there" Adam nodded "we know, we just got a little bit bored but i'm sure it's nothing to worry about. i think they've left a few voicemails, the last call was ten minutes ago so we can listen to them now if you want?" Adam was always the mediator, he hated arguments and never wanted to get on anyone's bad side. it was obvious this was Troy's idea and not his.

Eddie only nodded, bracing himself for the many many voicemails from the different customers who were all probably angry that they didn't answer the phone. the first few were of customers only wanting to book in for a routine check of their cars but after those Eddie felt his stomach drop once he heard Steve's panicked voice.

"hey, uhh this is Steve. i really need to speak to Eddie about something so please call me back. it's urgent."

"hi it's Steve again, i know the shop must be busy for you guys to not answer the phone but this is really serious and i need Eddie to come home. please call me back"

"okay i don't know if this is a prank and you guys are not answering because you think it's funny but Eddie needs to come home. if you listen to these please get Eddie to leave the shop. thank you"

"i've called so many times i can't even count but Eddie needs to leave work now. his girlfriend is in labour and is probably going to give birth in a few hours and he can't miss it. she needs him here and so do i so please stop ignoring these calls and get him to come home"

Eddie stood up, ignoring the shocked looks on Adam and Troy's faces. he picked up the phone which was in front of Adam and dialled your home phone number. he heard it ring a few times before an out of breath Steve answered. "hello?" Eddie could hear you crying in the background as it seemed another contraction had hit you as he called.

"Steve-" "Eddie. you need to get home now, she's at 6cm and i can't speak for long, she's contracting but you need to get here fast. we need you, she is scared you're gonna miss it and i am to" Eddie could hear you call out for Steve and he felt his heart break, you sounded like you were in so much pain. "im coming sweetheart don't worry- just get here quick" and before Eddie could even say anything Steve had ended the call.

both boys looked at Eddie with guilt and sadness as they realised their little prank had gone way to far. "i am so sorry" Adam said as Eddie started making his way out of the office door. he turned around with the angriest expression on his face "this never happens again because look what's happened. i might miss the birth of my daughter because of you guys" he walked out, calling out to Wayne that he needed to leave and with that he got into his van and started making his way home.

-

"10cm finally" Mary said as she pulled her hand out of the warm water. your were sat on your knees facing Steve who was stroking your cheek comfortingly. you felt sad. this wasn't going how you wanted it to and now you weren't even happy that you were going to finally bring your own daughter into the world.

yes one of her dads was here and it should of been enough, but it wasn't. this moment was special, it might be something you never got to experience again and Eddie still wasn't here. it had been almost three hours since Steve spoke to him and your labour had gone pretty quick after that.

"i know it's not how you wanted it but i need you to start pushing" Mary said as she put on some new gloves and sat next to you beside the pool so she could watch you push your baby out. you took your shaky hands and grabbed Steve's holding onto the so tightly. "i want you to start pushing when you feel the next contraction y/n" after a few seconds of waiting you felt the now familiar pain of your contraction and started pushing.

"that's it, we'll done" you could hear Mary counting up to ten and you let yourself relax when she told you to stop. this pain was terrible. a lot worse than what you anticipated. "well done sweetheart. you're doing amazing" Steve kissed your cheek as the grip on his hands loosened slightly.

"and again y/n push with your contractions" you pushed again with another contraction, at this point they were about a minute apart. "keep pushing, keep pushing, well done" you could faintly hear Mary say as you focused on pushing your baby out.

after you finished pushing for another ten minutes you heard the front door slam closed and heavy boots running through the house. "i'm here" you could hear Eddie say and you felt all the sadness fade away. you had both your boys here now and you felt relieved. Eddie rushed to you, hands finding your face as he kissed you quickly, tucking a loose piece of hair behind your ear.

"i'm so sorry. the guys were being assholes and didn't answer the phone. i'm sorry baby" he kissed you again before giving a quick kiss to Steve. "you almost missed it" you pulled one of your hands away from Steve's and laced your fingers with Eddie's. he nodded "i know, but look, Steve took great care of you and i haven't missed her being born. i've probably broken a few laws to get here but it's okay"

you wanted to laugh but you couldn't. another contraction made you cry out in pain "push y/n. you're doing amazing. i think you'll have her in the next few pushes" Eddie's eyes widened as you pushed, he was defiantly not ready for this. both Steve and Eddie hated seeing anyone in pain, but seeing you in pain made them feel awful. "a few more honey then she'll be here and all the pain will go away" Steve tried his best to console you as you cried.

if they could take the pain and give it to themselves they would but now there was nothing you could do. i mean, they were receiving some pretty hard hand holding, both of them wincing silently as you squeezed their hands harder with each push. "keep pushing sweetheart you're doing amazing" Eddie held your hand tighter and used his free hand to stroke your cheek.

"i can feel the head, keep pushing. well done" Eddie looked at Mary who was next the pool with her gloved hand in the water. "one last big push y/n and you'll have your baby" both Eddie and Steve looked at each other, their hearts beating fast, this was it. they were about to become dads.

you cried in pain one last time, face scrunched up as you pushed then it all went away. "5:48pm" you felt your body relax into the water as your pain finally stopped. you reached down and pulled your baby from the now murky water to your chest. you felt kisses all over your face as tears of happiness and relief poured down your cheeks.

you could hear the many praises Eddie and Steve were saying to you as you hugged your baby close. after a few seconds she started crying letting the whole world know that she'd finally arrived. "wow you've got a set of lungs on you haven't you" you heard Eddie say making you laugh through your tears. "look at her, she's beautiful" you said looking down at your daughter.

-

you were sat in your bed, sleep almost consuming you as you watched Eddie holding Penny with Steve stood right beside him, a small sleepy smile on your face. both boys were infatuated with her. she was wrapped in a baby pink blanket knitted by your mother with a matching pink hat on top of her head of thick brown curls.

Steve's hand moved to stroke her cheek making her grimace slightly. "she's perfect, i can't take my eyes off her" Steve whispered not wanting to wake up Penny. both boys couldn't believe that you were all parents now and neither could everyone back in Hawkins. Steve had phoned everyone to let them know Penny was finally here and they all couldn't believe it. they had all waited like you guys and it was exciting to finally get the call that she was here.

Steve had even phoned his parents and was surprised to get an answer. they were never in Hawkins and he expected the phone to just ring into the empty house but his mum answered and was actually happy for you all. she had even cried a little bit hearing that she was now a grandma which shocked him even more.

"her nose is so cute. exactly like her mama's" Eddie lent down to place a small kiss on her nose which looked identical to yours. she was practically your twin. "can you believe she's here. we've waited for so long and now shes in your arms sleeping"

"no. its crazy. we are actually parents now and we have this tiny human to look after" Eddie's eyes looking over her face trying to take in his daughters beautiful features. "i was so close to missing it. i'm sorry i wasn't here to help you guys" Eddie looked up from your daughter to look at you and Steve, eyes darting between the two of you.

“it’s okay Ed’s. you got here just in time” you reassured him, the smile never leaving your face. Penny woke up out of her sleep, face scrunching up as she cried making Eddie quickly make his way over to you. you were all still trying to figure out her cries but he assumed she was hungry and he was right.

she latched on to breast feed pretty quickly and her cries died down. Steve and Eddie were on either side of you watching your little girl with pure adoration in their eyes. the three of you were silent just watching the small baby in your arms. she was just utterly perfect. “thank you for making us dads y/n. we definitely couldn’t do it without you” Steve said kissing your cheek and Eddie hummed in agreement, kissing you before kissing Steve. you now had your own little family and you couldn’t be happier.

[lovelykhaleesiii]

hi! will you write (chubby) aegon x reader imagine where aegon melt everytime reader interact with their child please?

ugh chubby Daddy!Aegon for the win 😫 this made my heart melt, hope you love this nonnie <3

Sweets, Treats & A Princess.

PAIRING: chubby!Dad!Aegon ii Targaryen x fem!Reader

WORDS: 1,680.

WARNINGS: nil.

A/N - forgive me I added some more little kiddies to the fam cause I couldn’t help myself😫 We all know he’s a family man!!!

“Mother! Please, please can I hold the baby!” Your youngest son, Aerion, excitedly yelled, eagerly tugging at your sides as he tried miserably to balance on his tip toes. Desperately hoping to catch the slightest glimpse at the settled babe in your arms. He'd refused to attend breakfast with his Grandmother, the Queen Dowager, Alicent, racing to your's and Aegon's shared chambers, as soon as he had heard you'd all arrived in the dark hours of the night. The poor boy could no longer wait, bursting in his seams, as he was desperate to see you and the babe first. He'd even gone so far as to suggest to his Grandmother, of flying himself out to you and the babe on his young, silver dragon, Aeraxes, upon hearing of the birth.

“Aerion, not until you calm down, my love-” You heartedly laugh, as you scoot your son over by the lavish couch, carefully seating yourself down on the cushioned, red fabric.

“You can sit by me, and introduce yourself to her.”

The quiet babe nestled comfortably in your arms, was peacefully sound asleep. Only stirring in the slightest as you readjusted her in your arms, pulling down the soft, white sheet that enveloped around her tiny body, for her brother to see...

You’d only given birth just over a week ago, whilst Aegon and yourself were completing the final yards of travelling on a royal tour across the North. It was perfect timing, as you'd attended the last visits of the tour, before making camp along the way to return home, did your water break, just a mere, few days earlier than anticipated.

The birth, inevitably, was painful. Although the babe came without a fuss and swiftly, thank the Gods. Born in the midst of a cold winter brewing in the North, you'd just returned in time for the babe to acclimate to the warmer, summer climate of King's Landing. Aegon remained dutifully by your side from the moment you'd announced you were yet again with child, till the moment her tender cries shrieked throughout the royal tent, in which you endured your labours.

This was his and your's first born daughter, and he was infatuated with her already. The travel to return back to the castle, was heavily prolonged, for Aegon ordered the accompanying camp to take extra rests and stops, as to not exhaust yourself nor the babe. Sunfyre would fly above as Aegon remained with you in the carriage. You'd tried convincing him to take you and the babe on flight, although he firmly refused.

"Aegon she is fine, we're fine!"

No matter how frequently and desperately, you begged or pleaded for your husband to continue on without all the unnecessary pit stops, Aegon remained set in stone with his ways... He was King, after all.

"Aerion, this is your little sister, Aelora. Aelora, this is your older, cheekier brother, Aerion."

The younger boy, a split image of his father, beamed gleefully up at you with rosy cheeks, before refocusing his attention onto the little babe. He was closely mesmerised by her tiny features, that unsurprisingly enough, mimicked her father's Valyrian traits, although her nose and plump lips was a clone of yours.

"She looks like an-an angel, Mother." The younger son stuttered, at a loss of words, as he remained in sweet awe of his newborn sister.

You'd softly nudged your forehead towards Aerion. Instinctively, this encouraging him to lift his head up as you took the moment to plant a tender forehead kiss, exchanging sweet smiles with one another, before you both returned your longing gaze down at the babe.

"Mother!" Another familiar sound of your eldest son delightedly boomed from the doorway.

Shushing him immediately, as to not abruptly awake the babe, you panned your sole attention towards him, gesturing him to seat himself by you. A wave of relief apparent on his bright face, of your much anticipated return from tour, all in good health.

"And who is this?" He softly whispered, as he plopped himself on the arm rest of the sofa, a hand stretched out behind you, as he balanced himself over the edge of the couch.

"This, my sweet Aemon, this is-"

"Aelora!" Aerion impatiently spat, before his small hands promptly reached over to cover his mouth, silencing himself as if he'd spoken a swore. Your youngest son, bashfully gleamed up at you, his cheeks blushing red even more so, as you half-heartedly smile down at him, as he remained clinging to your side. You never could grow angered nor tiresome by his silliness.

"She's precious, Mother, truly. A beautiful name fit for a beautiful Princess." Your eldest quietly exclaimed, as you both exchanged a fleeting look of bliss towards each other, before all eyes locked and pondered over the unstirred babe.

You all had been so deeply immersed in soaking up the tiny newborn still cradled in your arms, as you whispered amongst yourselves, that neither you nor your sons noticed Aegon's sudden presence. He silently stood, thick arms folded firmly over his growing, round belly [all the years of drinking and feasting, especially from this tour, finally catching up], as he rested against the door frame, not wishing to disturb your peace just yet. He wanted to cling to the precious scene at hand. It warmed his heart so vividly, he could've sworn his eyes felt watery, as they glistened at the loving sight before him, a bright smile beaming on his face, as he tried to imprint the image of you all in his mind for eternity.

Aegon's upbringing was not one that he wished to dwell on nor speak about. You knew the endless scrutiny and torment he had endured in his youth, until he became King. With the added neglect of his father, he struggled with the notion of fatherhood. And yet, from the moment you were first confirmed pregnant with Aemon, he willingly refused to shadow the figure his father had set. Aegon became a present and devoted father in the years to come: many would've thought impossible, and yet he excelled at graciously proving them wrong. He was uncertain of having a family, let alone a large one, for he had always initially deemed it more a responsibility and duty, than an actual desire or want.

Although things changed: you happened, and eventually Aemon. From there, he had no doubt that he strongly wished to expand, siring children with you alone. Seeing how naturally you fell into motherhood, your maternal side oozing from you, it intoxicated him and even inspired him.

Caught in his own doting thoughts, the sudden, thrilled shout of his youngest son, calling for his father, snapped Aegon back to reality, as he noticed all your familiar, comforting eyes were now on him.

"Come here you!" Aegon groaned, as his youngest son excitedly raced towards him, leaping into his father's strong arms, as Aegon lifted him up to a longing embrace.

"Father, the baby! Have you chosen a dragon egg yet?!"

"No, no we haven't-" Aegon exclaimed, with a fake weary look strewed across his face, toying with his son, as to match Aerion's evident disappointment that the newborn remained eggless.

"No, actually, your mother and I were hoping you boys would be able to pick one out for your little sister. What do you say?" Aegon's sudden demeanour shifting to pleasant one, as you both exchanged a cheeky grin, as though approving one another in granting the boys this responsibility. Aerion looked over to his brother eagerly, as Aemon keenly nodded in agreement to his father's bargain, whilst Aerion squirmed and jolted ecstatically at the news, before Aegon made sense to let the boy roam free.

As Aerion rushed over towards his elder brother, urgently discussing what type of egg to select, Aegon found his way over towards you. Seating himself down, slowly, as to not startle the babe with any sudden movement, before his youngest made his way over towards him, Aegon lifting him up effortlessly onto his dense lap.

"So Kepa [Father], mother went away pregnant and came back with a babe, are you to be expecting now?" Aemon wittingly joked, brows raised, as his dark, violet eyes lingered over his father's wide, protruding centre.

You pathetically tried to stifle in your laughter, unable to turn to Aegon, as your gaze remained locked with your little girl. Aerion relished in his elder brother's antics, brazenly giggling in his father's close proximity, before he'd realised Aegon's stern gaze fixed on him, frightening the poor boy into silence.

"I can assure you, Aemon, there will be no other babe in the months to come. Surely, I have not grown that much." Aegon sulkily reasoned, you immediately noticed him dishearteningly eyeing his softened figure beneath.

"Well I, for one, quite like how your father is. Rest assured he has an appetite only fit for a King," You softly reassure, as you momentarily rest your head on Aegon's broad shoulder, a relieved smile glowing on his face, before planting a tender kiss on your head.

"Besides-" Aegon interjected, pulling Aerion closer, as he readjusted his youngest son, who laid comfortably sprawled against his father's broad chest.

"All the feasts, sweets and treats fed during the tour will melt away eventually, once we start training you boys again-" He glanced between each son, as they each exchanged psyched looks.

"And as soon as I can take my little princess out on her first flight with her Kepa." Aegon softly whispered, intentionally dialling down his volume, as he leaned down closer towards the newborn: ever so carefully lifting her tiny, weak hand to plant a small, faint kiss on her palm, before resting it back down her side. She remained unstirred, cooing at her father's familiar touch, before drifting deeper into sleep.

No words count amount to the content you held dearly in your heart, in that precise moment. Nor could you ever thank Aegon enough, for the blessings he had provided you. Your heart was full, and all that mattered was now...

[xxsp3llb0undxx]

Barely Breathing

Tommy Miller x Reader [726 Words]

Request from the lovely @pancake-lovy so sorry it has taken me this long to post this, I really hope you enjoy :)

Disclaimer: Please do not repost my work to other sites or claim as your own, this is purely written from my imagination and from the help of the series. All rights of the main storyline goes to the writers and producers of The Last Of Us.

Summary: Reader is known to have really bad anxiety, so when Joel and Ellie come knocking on the gates of Jackson looking for Tommy; it kicks off an anxiety attack. Tommy helps guide reader through it, comforting her through the whole thing.

WARNING: DESCRIPTIVE ANXIETY ATTACK // TOMMY BEING WHIPPED FOR READER // FLUFF // SWEARING // TLOU AU // UNEDITED

Jackson, Wyoming 2014 - Their first encounter

Y/n and Tommy had met 8 years ago when she was stumbling around the forest surrounding his settlement. Snowflakes tucked themselves into her hair, like glitter you could never get rid of; her gloved hands holding onto a rifle too big for her to carry. Tommy was shocked that the random woman had made it this close to the settlement without anyone seeing her or at least the dogs barking to let them know someone was near by. Tommy stood there, watching her walk through the snow, slowly nearing his position. When she had finally stumbled upon him, her once carefree demeanour turned into one that could only be described as perturbed - in simpler terms, Y/n was freaking the fuck out.

The young woman preferred the comfort of being alone, sure it got lonely sometimes but it saved her the hassle of her anxiety attacks creeping up on her at any given chance. She stared at the man in front of her, trying to ignore the nagging feeling of her chest tightening. Her breathing had become laboured as she clutched at her chest, the organ encased in her ribs was hammering at an unusual pace. Tears stung Y/n's eyes as she tried to control her breathing the best to her ability, the lack of oxygen had started to get to her; black dots pooled her vision as she fell to her knees. With a thump, the young woman's smaller figure had slumped to the ground, snow blanketing her body. Tommy stood there in shock, he didn't know what to do or how to handle this situation. He slung his rifle over his shoulder as he bent down to pick up the now unconscious woman, she was as light as a feather - no surprise to him though, food was hard to come by and by the looks of her, she hadn't eaten a proper meal in a good while.

He had carefully got on the horse, still holding the stranger close to his chest, as he headed back to Jackson. He knew Maria would definitely question him about picking up another stray this week but he just knew she had to be apart of his community - she was special.

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Jackson, Wyoming 2023 - The other Miller

Tommy and Y/n have now been together for 5 years, they happily resided in a small house hidden behind the walls of Jackson. Tommy would be on patrol most days and if he wasn't, he could be found fixing up one of the of random buildings in the centre of the community. Today was one of those days. Tommy was on a scaffold as he continued to fix a few loose bricks on the side of one of the buildings, Y/n was hidden away in a small library Tommy had renovated for her; she didn't like being out in the town amongst everyone, just thinking about the crowds made her heart slam against her ribs. She was inside sorting out the kids reading area, making sure it was nice and tidy when they were dropped off by their parents in the afternoon. The sound of hooves hitting the concrete floor drew the attention of the towns people, their heads looking over to the group that had went out a couple hours ago. There were two newcomers, an older man in his mid fifties and a young girl, no older than 15.

The older man had shouted Tommy's name, his head snapped up to look at who was calling him. He looked around before his eyes locked onto his brother, a grin spread across his face as he jogged over to the older Miller. "What the hell are you doing here?" Joel brought his younger brother into a hug, small tears pricked at the corner of his eyes. The pair broke away when the younger girl coughed, making the older Miller turn around and scowl at her slightly. Tommy had led Ellie and Joel to the mess hall, along side Maria, when the group had bumped into Y/n along the way.

The young woman practically slamming into Joel as soon as she exited the big oak doors of the library. Joel's big, calloused hands reaching for her arm to steady her as she stumbled over her feet. "Careful there, darling." Joel chuckled, it was light-hearted but Y/n could already feel the warmth enveloping her skin as embarrassment sunk in. She gently pushed herself away from Joel, trying to create as much distance as possible as she felt that all familiar constricting feeling pull at her chest. Joel tried to reach for her again, only for Tommy to stop him. Telling Maria to take Ellie and Joel to the mess hall while he sorted this little problem out.

Y/n's form was slumped against the side of the library, arms hugging the side of her head as she tried oh so desperately to breathe but it seemed like wishful thinking. Her skin grew clammy, cold sweats causing her body to shiver. Tommy softly pulled her arms down from her head, gently cupping her face in his hands.

"Hey.. Hey.. its okay, just focus on me." His voice was barely above a whisper, it was filled with care as he spoke to her. His thumbs rubbing her cheeks as he stared into her eyes, searching for any sign that she was okay but he knew, he knew she wasn't. Gently picking her up, Tommy carried her back into the library and set her down in the reading corner she had made for the children in the community. Grabbing one of the softest blankets there, he wrapped it around her and pulled her snug against his side.

"You're okay, doll.. We're just gonna sit here until you feel better." Y/n burrowed further into Tommy's side, muffling her panicked cries with the check shirt that clung to the love of her life. The pair were sat in the library for the rest of the day, snuggled up to one another even after Y/n's panic attack calmed down. Tommy stayed with her through every last second of it, holding her close as he ran his finger's through her hair, kissing the crown of her head tenderly as she drifted off to sleep. He continued to stay by her side, only leaving to go grab some food for the pair of them, even going to the extent of begging Maria for her hidden stash of chocolate because he knew it would brighten Y/n's day. His love for her goes beyond anything he has ever felt for another person, beyond his love for life itself.