#abroad with two yanks

[brailsthesmolgurl]

"Where's Mummy?"

A oneshot fluff, entirely headcanon based, featuring all 3 of the LNDS men being a father. Requested by a lovely follower of mine. Hope this is an enjoyable read for you all. The names of the kids are based on my take, but if you want to include names of kids you had thought of with your husbandos, you may slot that in on your own will!

Want some angst? Go with this series of mine, tears guaranteed: Damnation

Warnings: Fluff as per usual however, there shall be suggestive themes for this, soooo let you imagination run free :)

RAFAYEL - FATHER TO A GIRL

"I'll be fine. Stop worrying would you?" Rafayel groaned with a smile. "Our daughter will be alright." He walked beside you, accompanying you towards the front door. "I am more worried about you with your work instead. So take care of yourself, please? For our sake?"

His concern made you rolled your eyes playfully, leaning in to give him a long kiss. "I will be home by evening, I promise." Your eyes stared into those mauve purple eyes of your husband's, only to have him yank you back into his arms and pressing his lips to yours again. Provocating you into a minor makeout session. Breaths becoming heavier by every passing minute.

You bit your lip the moment he pulled away, reminiscing the feeling of his soft and tender lips against yours. "Don't want you to be late, unless you want to call in sick for the day, hmm?" He winked, a hint dropped for you to decipher. "You know I can't Rafayel." Your answer made the man pout, arms crossed, but eventually surrendering to the reality of your situation. He press a small kiss against your cheek and sent you off on your way. He stood at the entryway, watching you get onto your bike and rode it out of the front yard and onto the empty streets.

Heading back in, he sat at his usual thinking corner, eyeing the piece of artwork he had yet to finish. Thomas was expecting this piece to be done by two days ago. But an artist's work should not be rushed, Rafayel being an advocate for quality over quantity. He sighed, walking over to pick up his palette stained with an array of colours, before sitting himself in front of the artwork and continued working on his piece.

Hours had passed since then, the strokes of the painter finally stopped when his artwork is finished. He grabbed his phone off of the coffee table and called Thomas. "Rafayel, where the hell is the piece of---"

"It's done, you can come and collect it tonight once it is all dried up." Rafayel spoke, then Thomas started to inform him about the upcoming interviews that he has to attend, one for the local magazine, one for an exhibition taking place abroad... Pitters and patters of feet across the marble floor made Rafayel lost his focus. He turned around to find his daughter, Mariela awake. "Daddy duty calls."

The phone call ended abruptly, with Thomas ending his note on 'There was also an artwork you have to---' Call ended. Ever since Rafayel had taken on his duties as a father, he made sure his works are delayed long enough just so he could spend time with his own family. Recently, you had been called on for many more missions as there has been a shortage of deepspace hunters.

Rafayel and you had discussed about the delegation of responsibilities while being parents to a newborn. Rafayel insisted that you should quit your job so that you could stay at home with him and Mariela. Money not being any concern to your family to begin with. But you could not, you could not abandon your duties as a deepspace hunter, especially when there are not a lot of new recruits coming in.

So you both settled on a solution that meets both ends. Rafayel would delay his paintings and take care of Mariela if you happen to not be at home, but your sacrifice would be to not work past evening times. Him not wanting you to overexert yourself and still being able to spend time with you as a family. The miniature version of you and Rafayel clumsily walked over to him. Small and chubby hands rubbing her cheeks in circles.

"Good morning my little fishie." Rafayel knelt down and gave her a hug, a usual greeting for morning and night. "How was your sleep?"

"Good." She replied, arms curled around her father's neck as he carried her up in his arms. "Where is mummy?"

"Mummy has to work so today, you will hang out with daddy, yeah?" Rafayel sat her at her baby chair by the dining table. He took a plate of ready-made mini pancakes and poured a cup of warm milk into a cup. "Mummy even made you your favourite breakfast." The idea of having his kid eating such sugary stuffs in the morning is unfavoured. But since y/n had woken up extra early today to prepare the breakfast for her daughter, Rafayel will let it slide for this once. but we all know he too soft of a father to reject that if it ever happens again

Watching his child dig into the pancakes, Rafayel started allowing his mind to wander. Mariela's name came about while his wife was pregnant, and you had both agreed on wanting your child to have names related to the sea to remind the child's origins of being half-Lemurian. Rafayel was thrilled to have their names being related to the waters he used to live in and so the naming process is entirely within his control. Both of you settled on Mariela eventually, the name a direct representation of the star of the sea.

...

When y/n rode past the main gates and towards the yard, you found you husband, with your daughter standing next to him, waiting for you at the front of the door. Mariela the size of a toadstool next to her 6' tall father. But her big, doe-like eyes took the shade of Rafayel's, a mirror of his lilac-blue mixture. "Hey there!" You greeted excitedly, quickly pushing yourself off of your motorbike and rushed over to hug your daughter tightly in your arms.

"Mummy!" The brunette toddler giggled, arms wrapped around her mother and head tucked into your neck. The hug between the two was interrupted with Rafayel hugging both of them. Three of them within a circle of a hug. "Hi, mummy. I missed you."

"I missed you too, so so much." A big kiss was given to the toddler's cheek and they all walked further into the house. "What did you do with daddy today?"

"Daddy taught me how to draw fish and he taught me Wewuma." She spoke, a wide grin evident on her cherubic cheeks. This made y/n confused and you turned to look for Rafayel for an explanation but sees him being on the phone. Assuming it is Thomas on the other end of the line.

"That's good darling." You held her close to you, legs directing towards her bedroom. "But I think it is nap time for you okay? Mummy and daddy will make dinner and then later we are going to have pasta!" Mariela's eyes lit up at the word 'pasta', for she is a huge lover of carbs just like you. No doubt you two are of the same bloodline.

Once you had laid your daughter to nap, you started prepping the ingredients in the huge kitchen. Rafayel came by your side and hugged you from behind, breathing in your scent deeply. "I missed you wifey." He mumbled into the crooks of your neck and drew circles on the side of your hips.

"What is wewuma?" You turned over slightly, the question directed towards your husband. But his expression matches yours, confusion written all over his face. "Our daughter said you taught her wewuma today."

That sentence made Rafayel laughed, releasing you from his embrace and with him smacking his hand against the marble counter a couple of times. "Wewuma!" He continued his laugh, but mellowed down when he noticed that you became more confused than ever. "I taught her how to speak Lemurian." He said, the wide, cheeky grin not leaving his face anytime soon.

"Oh." Realisation hits you about his lesson for the day and you shake your head, chuckling at how your daughter had the word pronounced earlier. You can't blame her, as she is not a preschooler yet. Rafayel attached himself to your back again, his lips pressed a kiss to the shell of your ear and you blushed. Despite being married for quite some time, his intimate actions never failed to make you feel like a giddy teen girl.

"Lemurian is already a dying language. So, wifey..." He nibbled your ears lightly, whispering his question quietly. "How about we make one more little us?" His arms tightened around your hips and you felt something pressed against your bum, making you gasped in teasing pleasure. He turned you around forcefully and pushed you up onto the kitchen counter effortlessly, spreading your legs. "Right here. Tonight."

˚ · • . ° .

ZAYNE - FATHER TO A PAIR OF TWINS

"Thanks a lot, my love." You leaned forward to hug your husband, after knowing that he had planned an itinerary for you to get yourself pampered for a whole day. That includes making the necessary bookings and paying for all of the expenses. Not to mention the extra money he had given you so you may use it to buy anything you please from the mall you would be visiting later in your itinerary. "You deserve it. Given how much you had cared for the kids the past few days as I was busy with work." He leaned down slightly, pressing a kiss to your forehead as a loving gesture. "In return, I shall take care of the kids today."

Zayne fetched you to the middle of Linkon city, where all of the activities planned out in the itinerary are located before he headed back. Not wanting to go home to his toddlers being awake from their sleep. When he arrived home, he heard the creak of a door as he was placing his shoes on the shoe rack. Lumi and Iver, hand in hand, facing their father.

"Daddy?" The both of them spoke in sync, given their connection as twins. Fraternal twins, a rare occurrence for any mothers in life. They are considered a miracle given the statistics whereas out of 100 births that happen, only 2 mothers would end up with fraternal twins. And the percentage of getting fraternal twins are way lesser as compared to conceiving twins of the same gender.

Short way to put it, y/n and Zayne have a very special family, in fact they may be one of the few families within Linkon city to have a pair of fraternal twins. Hence, they are very lucky indeed. Both of the twins were named after snow or winter season, with Zayne's evol being the main inspiration. Zayne's daughter Lumi, carries the meaning of snow and light, while Iver's name means winter in French.

Contrary to their names, none of them have any features that are pale as the cold weather, except for their milky white skin. There had always been a debate on which child inherited the looks of which parent, in this case, Lumi looks like her mother and Iver takes on his father's looks. And it could easily be differentiated from their hair and eye colour.

"Both of you just woke up?" Zayne's voice was gentle, going over to both of his kids and bending down to their eye level. They are both 3 years old, so you can imagine how tough it was for him to lower his height just to meet their eyes. "What do you want to eat?"

"Daddy, can we watch you make eggs?" Iver asked, his hazel green orbs twinkled under the sun rays shining in through their sky light. "The ones that are flat?" He even used his hand to draw a line in the air, to demonstrate the word 'flat' to his father.

Zayne smiled, nodding his head and walked towards the kitchen with the two toddlers bobbing behind him. Their standard breakfast had consisted of nothing but nutritious food which are vital for their growths. For their father is a doctor afterall. Zayne sat them both into their respective baby chairs and put on an apron, not wanting to dirty his outfit, and he started to cook, with the twins watching his every move. A few 'wah' and 'daddy, daddy, do it again!' slipping from their mouths every once in a while when Zayne does something out of the blue.

Half of the day passed, Lumi and Iver sat in the living room after Zayne had given them a bath and a change of clothings. They will be heading out soon for dinner. Zayne has never been a huge fan of cooking, but only does it out of necessity. The same rule applies even now, breakfasts can be done at home but for dinners, if time allows for both of the parents, Zayne would much rather eat out with his family.

"Daddy, time! Time!" Lumi shouted from the living room when they heard the cuckoo's chime, hailing from the handmade wooden clock that you bought a while ago. Although the toddlers had yet to enter pre-school, they are both surprisingly fast-learners. 9 months in, both of them had already started learning alphabets, and by now, their vocabulary has expanded beyond the age of usual three year olds. You strongly believe Zayne's genes are the cause behind this.

Zayne appeared from the room, a long-sleeved black turtleneck clad to his well-built physique, his iconic black slacks makes yet another appearance, and his hand held a dark grey coat. The weather was getting chilly and he decided to bring along a coat for you, the colour identical to his.

"Lumi, Iver, get your coats and I will help you to wear them." Zayne instructed, picking his car key off of the key holder on the wall. He had decided to go with the Maserati Levante i am not sponsored by them but the cars does scream his taste today, a comfortable SUV for his family of four.

"It's okay daddy. Iver will help me." Lumi responded, arms held up horizontally as Iver put on one of the sleeves for her light grey coat, then running over to the other side to help her to put on the remaining sleeves. "My turn." Lumi did the same for her sibling. When they are both done, they walked over to Zayne and held their arms up in sync again, urging their father silently to help them to tie their coats.

Zayne did just that, hair as dark as the night cascading in front his face when he bent down to help his kids tied a knot to secure their coats. Satisfied at the way their knots turned out, he gave each of them a kiss on their cheeks. "Are you both excited to see mummy?"

"YES!" Both of the kids shouted, arms raising, a sign of elatedness. Zayne held onto both of their hands, one on each side and slowly walked them to the car.

...

Zayne had chosen a western restaurant for dinner, reservation timing marked at 6pm. Now, here he sat, with both of his kids secured tightly behind in baby car seats. He was parked temporarily at the valet parking, patiently waiting for his wife. Soft piano music was played in the car to ease the silence as the kids were sound asleep in the back.

Seeing a familiar figure closing in, Zayne got out of the car and walked towards the passenger side, greeting you with a warm hug. "I could not have asked for a better day to pamper myself." You sighed contently, face flat against his chest, inhaling the scent of his cologne. A scent he would only use whenever he is out with you, a soft mix of pine wood and oakwood as the top notes, vanilla as the middle notes and cinnamon as end notes. A scent you are all too familiar with.

"Then I shall plan more of this for you." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your lips. "You must be hungry, I had already booked us a table at one of the nearby restaurants." He opened the car door and you got into the car. Getting into the car, he added. "The kids are sound asleep behind, I will wake them up once we arrived at the restaurant."

"Hello my babies." You greeted once the car door to the back was opened, watching your twins stirred in their sleep, before eyes slowly fluttering open.

"Iver..." Zayne cooed to his son, standing on the other side of the door, unbuckling the baby seats for the twins. "We had arrived at the restaurant. Let me give you a lift, alright?" You had never imagine Zayne with kids, given how cold he is of a person. Not mean and ignorant, but just, monotonous, quiet and calm. Having kids with him was unexpected, but him asking for kids was even more shocking.

The young man lifted his son into his arms, smoothing the back of his son's coat to make sure he is fully covered from the brazen cold wind and he headed in after locking the car. With you, holding onto your half-awake daughter behind in, walking swiftly into the restaurant.

The dinner was enjoyable, with the twins munching on to their kids meals and with you sat next to Zayne, having a delectable meal based on the waiter's recommendation. "The food here is good." You commented and your twins looked up, Lumi smiled and nodded, while Iver, with his face stuffed, nodded as well. "So what have you kids been doing today?"

"We watched cartoons." Lumi said, eyes mimicking your eye colours radiating her giddiness. You assumed the cartoons would be more educational rather than entertaining as Zayne does prefer the twins having to gain some form of knowledge from the cartoons. For him, the method is practically killing two birds with one stone. "Daddy also read some storybooks for us." Iver added in, still chewing onto his food, which made Zayne leaned forward to wipe the boy's lips clean with the napkin. "And we took a nap on daddy's chest."

"Be careful of choking, Iver." Zayne warned, his tone soft, giving him son's cheek a soft pinch. Zayne's lips tugged upwards, there is no way he could be mad at his own twins. That is how much he loves them.

"That is good to hear. Sounds like an eventful day for today. And I think daddy did a great job." You happily stated, resuming your meal. A hand on your thigh made you jerked slightly and you looked over, your husband's smile had exchanged for a smirk.

"It is my responsibility to take good care of the kids." He eyed the twins, and facing back to you, his orbs turning a shade darker. "But, it is also my responsibility to make my wife feel good. Mentally..." He trailed off, hands smoothing up your thighs till his thumb glided slowly over your intimate area. The table cloth a good disguise as Zayne's fingers worked his way to pull your panties to the side, collecting the wetness that was pooled there.

You shot daggers towards your husband as this is a public area but he paid no mind to you. The tip of his middle finger, the one adorning the wedding ring, slowly pushed its' way inside of you, pumping an agonizing pace into you. "And physically, of course." pls do this to me too Zayne, i want more babies too

˚ · • . ° .

XAVIER - FATHER TO A SON

"DADDY! DADDY! DADDY!" Lucian came bursting in through the door leading to his parent's room, causing Xavier to stir in his sleep. Eyebrows furrowed at the loud sounds of his son's voice at the early start of the weekend. The copy of Xavier jumped onto the bed and grabbed ahold of his father. "Wake up daddy!"

"Yeah, yeah I am awake now." Xavier yawned, rubbing his eyes with one hand and the other coming up to secure his son on him so he don't fall off. "What's the matter?"

"Mummy said you can take me to go get ice-cream today." His light blue eyes just a tone lighter than his father's when he propped himself up on his father's chest, patiently awaiting for a response. "Daddy please?"

"Okay okay." Xavier chuckled, hugging his son tight in his arms and the young boy laughed. With that, Xavier got out of the bed, with Lucian in his embrace. The hallways outside of the room wafted the smell of noodles and he knew immediately that you are still within the house.

But he was wrong, when he saw you being all dressed up, in a white t-shirt and blue jeans, sitting at the front of your door when you are tying the shoelaces to your sneakers. "Where are you going?" Xavier asked.

You turned at the sound of his voice and watched as Lucian was placed onto the floor by his father and the little boy came running to hug you. "I am heading to the mall with Tara for a little while. She needed me to help her pick out a dress." Standing up, you checked your outfit in the standing mirror for one last time. "At the meantime, you okay with bringing Lucian out for ice-cream?"

Xavier smiled and nodded obediently, taking long strides to press a loving kiss to his wife's lips and he sees her off. Lucian waving his small hands to say bye-bye to his own mother. "Have you eaten yet kiddo?" Xavier asked his son, only for the toddler to shake his head. "Alright, come on, let's have breakfast together. Then we will go for ice-cream later."

Xavier placed Lucian into the baby seat at the dining table and he took off the lid of the pot that was on the stove and he noticed that you had made tomato soup noodles. A dish that you had recently learned from social media. Your first try at making this dish however, was a failure. With Xavier finishing the tasteless noodles and struggling with diarrhea for the next few days. This time, he had his fingers crossed, hoping that the soup would be edible and not cause any unwanted effects.

Before giving the bowl to his son, Xavier tasted the soup base first, to taste if it would be too hot for his son to ingest. To his surprise, the soup was sweet and tangy, which marks a win for your cooking this time. He hungrily filled up his own bowl, before scooping a few spoonfuls of soup and noodles into Lucian's bowl. He also made sure to cut the noodles short enough so it would not cause Lucian to choke on his own food.

"Did mummy made this?" The 3 year old asked, eyes wide, moving in between his father's lips, and to his bear-shaped plastic bowl. Lucian have had a fair share of his father's cooking. The experience of watching his father cook was just as traumatic as eating the food his father had made. There was even this one time, Xavier nearly set the kitchen on fire because he added in some cooking wine into a very hot pan filled with oil and that made Lucian cried for the whole night.

"Yes, your mum made this." Xavier ate his noodles, slurping onto it like a champ. "If she asks me to make breakfast for you, we can just skip breakfast and go for ice-cream instead." Xavier acknowledges his incompetence when it comes to cooking, and it is the only one thing he would not dare to compete with you. he just cant cook anything that deals with fire or electric, just admit it with me boys and girls

...

"Daddy, what do you want?" Lucian asked his father, looking at the flavours that was on display. "Do you want the blue one? Or the green one? Or the red one?" He swung his short legs back and forth, all the while sitting on Xavier's shoulders. The little one did not feel like walking earlier on and that was why Xavier gave him a lift on his shoulders.

"Which one would you like kiddo?" Xavier smiled politely at the waitress behind the counter and the waitress returned the smile, a blush coming onto her face. Who would not blush at the sight of a good looking young man with a son that looks just exactly like him? "How about the blue and red one?"

"Okay!" The young boy excitedly agreed, watching the process of the ice-creamed getting scooped out of the canister and placed onto a cone. Xavier slowly lowered his son down and held onto the hand of the young boy before making the payment at the counter. "Thank you!" Lucian spoke to the cashier when the ice-cream was handed to him and they both took a seat by the window in the store, facing the streets.

Xavier had always wanted a boy, the sole purpose being he could train the son well enough so you can be protected. You were not buying into his idea to begin with but the moment you found out that you were pregnant with a boy, Xavier could not be more than glad. He was so happy to the point he said. "We should name him Lucian, as he shall be the light in our lives." Xavier's words touched your heart and since then, Lucian has been the light in both of your hearts. just like you are the light in OUR HEARTS hello?

The young boy took a lick out of the blue ice-cream, then switched to the red ice-cream and took another lick. Seeing his tongue turning purple, Xavier pointed at his son. "Your tongue is turning purple because of the ice-cream, kiddo." Taking his phone out, he took a picture of Lucian with his purple tongue hanging out of his mouth. He then sent the picture to you, with the caption 'Brain Freeze'.

"Daddy, here." Lucian stretched his arm out, the ice cream in hand and held it in front of his father's face. Xavier took it as an invitation and he took a big bite out of the ice-cream. His action made the young boy flabbergasted, mouth forming an 'O' when he realised that his father just bit off a whole chunk and now he is left with a few more lick of ice cream.

The son's intense gaze at the ice-cream made Xavier felt guilty that he took such a huge bite. His son was not much a naggy child, but he still would not want to upset his little boy. "I'm sorry kiddo, I can---" He wanted to offer to buy the boy another ice-cream but Lucian only laughed, his tone amused.

"That is so funny daddy, when you go AHHH---" Lucian mimicked the way Xavier bit the ice-cream, mouth widely opened and face all crinkled up to show just how big of a bite Xavier had conducted. His son's reaction made Xavier laughed as well, Never knowing his son has such a sense of humour.

The door opened, chiming of the bells at the door could be heard and Xavier looked up, seeing you walking in with a bag in your hands. "Hey boys!" You called out and Lucian turned in his seat and called out to you, arms opened and waiting for you to hug him. Xavier took the ice-cream out of his son's hand so he would not dirty your shirt and he stood up, taking his place to stand next to you.

"How was the outing with Tara?" Xavier took the bag from you and pulled a chair over from the other table as you set your son back down onto his chair. The ice-cream that your husband was holding previously was returned to its rightful owner.

"It was eventful. We only managed to find the dress she wanted at the highest floor." You fanned yourself, sweat beading at your forehead. Your husband took a piece of tissue out of the tissue holder and he dabbed it across your forehead, not wanting to ruin your makeup since you are still on an outing with him. "Thanks a lot."

"No problem." Xavier purposely avoided your gaze, hiding his smile. "The tomato-based noodle soup you made this morning is very good by the way. I enjoyed every bite of it." He complimented, looking over to his son and noticing the young boy, staring out of the window, in the direction of two kids playing by the park, chasing one another.

"Daddy, mummy." Your son's voice beckoned the both of you to turn your heads to face him. His stubby little fingers pressed against the window, pointing towards the two kids at the park. "Can I have a brother?" The way he phrased the questions sounded like siblings could be bought off of a shelf. Your jaw dropped.

But Xavier was expecting this, expecting the fact he would not just settle for one child. He loves you so much, not only as his lover, but he also loves the way you look, with your stomach bulging during the days you are pregnant, carrying a miniature version of him inside. And not to mention, he enjoys the process of giving you a baby. Just the thought of seeing you pregnant again, his cerulean eyes catch yours, similar to a gaze of a predator awaiting to jump onto its prey. He reached his hand out to take yours on the table, giving it a small squeeze of comfort.

"Of course you can." Xavier's gaze darkened, hungry for intimacy. He dragged his fingertips up and down your arms, and stopping right at the back of your hand to draw mindless circles on it. Doing all that without getting his eyes off of you. "Daddy will not stop until you get a brother."

Sorry this took wayyy longer than expected, the toughest part was to find the pictures that would match the faces of the kids and also having to do research for their names and figuring our scenarios that would make the fathers take care of their kids. Other than Rafayel, Zayne and Xavier are going to be out most of the time due to their work!

But I had fun creating this piece, hope you guys enjoyed this! Lots of love <3

[sugar-omi]

had a brain worm about when there was talk about like cove reacting to mc having sex toys lmao and i thought about how in some play throughs that i have my mc go abroad for college, so theyre away from cove for long periods of time. 😭 and if at one point either just before generally leaving for college they went all the way or impulsively just did it when mc was visiting for the holidays for a couple of weeks or something because like the distance has made both of them even more needy for each other - how they would handle not being able to be physically affectionate or intimate after mc has to go back for college

and i thought about mc getting a dildo that they just tried to get one that was very similar proportion and/or shape wise to cove specifically lmao cove would probably lose his mind if he heard that part of their reasoning of getting that specific toy

(the desperation with which those two probably go at it after being apart for months and months though is a good thought also just in general too sdflkjsdf) - 🕐

no nc the sex would be crazyyy

you'd come back and it'd be a little awkward bc it's been so long, but you have a fun day n hang out w your families for a bit before going back to cove's place

n you go from looking around his apartment, having a laugh at some of the mess n odd decorations. but when you make it to his bed, bringing cove into a kiss, you're both tugging each others clothes off faster than you can think about acting more civilized instead of like horny animals

bur with his lips trailing down your neck, hands grabbing your hips and yanking your underwear down your legs and nearly tripping out of his own, you don't think abt that

and when he's sinking into you, your nails dragging down his back.. neither of you are thinking about much except tangling yourself in each other, combining your souls and bodies in this moment, releasing months of built up tension after being apart for so long...

yeah cove wakes up so dazed. he's staring at the ceiling w you tucked into his side and he's so flustered but also very very happy

imagine sending him a pic or video of you using the toy you bought w a msg "I miss you<3". it's so random so he can't help the squeak that comes from the base of his throat

further dies a bit if it's either one of his favorite colors or his skin tone.

can't deny he's turned on though and it makes a certain part of him blaze up in pride that you missed him so much you needed smth to comfort you this way...

it's on his mind for days omfg

[thepilotanon]

Hi hi sweetheart I saw you have Draco for your characters and I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on him with a fiancé, like different schools but she visits him on weekends.

Oh, this sounds like it would be interesting!!

I think it would be something Narcissa would arrange when you were young children, and would have you two spend a lot of time together. It's not necessarily childhood friend-to-lovers type, but you two would gradually grow to love each other over time? Maybe after graduation or during the Second Wizarding War, where Malfoy was struggling with himself.

I want you two to be the best pen pals, always sending letters back and forth to the point that you probably write to each other more than any parent known in the world (sorry, Mrs. Weasley). Malfoy writes a lot during the night, or in a hidden nook of the library. You two write about anything and everything, and Malfoy always feels his chest tighten with excitement when he notices your owl pecking at his window. You sometimes add in flowers or candies to your letters, and it's something Malfoy pull out whenever he's stressed and focuses on it. Lilacs and honeysuckles are his favorite.

I think majority of Hogwarts knew who you were whenever you visited Malfoy. You don't go out of your way to cling to Malfoy and announce you're his fiancé/e, and you two are pretty casual in your open affection, even as you grow to actually love each other. People notice how much happier Malfoy is around you, though, and doesn't hesitate to spend time with you. You openly tease him showing off and he laughs, or you yell at him when he's about to taunt a First Year and he immediately stops and apologizes to you (you can't make him apologize to the kid until you yank his ear hard and threaten him). At meals, he lets you pick where to sit and eat and he listens to you talk or watch you interact with the other students, as if you've been a student at Hogwarts the whole time.

Malfoy probably catches himself thinking of you at your wedding or you as his spouse in the future. He likes to think of himself getting you lilacs and honeysuckles to surprise you when he comes home. Bringing you on surprise dates out in the sunshine, somewhere in the country or abroad where you two just have so much fun and pretend you don't come from high society, or expectations of parents. He won't tell you about any of these daydreams until you are "offical", meaning by you two develop feelings, and just gives you a written list that he hopes to complete with you after you're married.

[m-jelly]

Undead honeymoon - Chapter 1

Pairing: Husband!Levi x Wife!Reader

Genre and tags: Modern AU, married life, honeymoon, zombies, gore, survival, fluff, romance, suggestive materials, mentions of blood.

Concept: Levi and you say goodbye to your family before getting on the plane and going to an island to have the second part of your wedding with friends only. With a few worries about a sickness going around, you still go. While there you share romantic moments in your honeymoon hut in the water. Your wedding day seems perfect until all hell breaks loose. You and Levi escape together and set up your survivor base and begin your talks about what to do next.

No tagging due to zombie fics not being for everyone.

Ao3 link

Part 2

You held back a laugh as Kuchel held her son so tightly and wiggled him a little. You looked over at Levi’s father, Sebastian who was a stunning hunk of a man. Sebastian smirked and started laughing with you. You laughed a little more when Kuchel cupped Levi’s face and covered it in kisses. You looked away from the sweet scene and watched the news reporting on the new illness going around that made people zone out, the news stated that it was under control and to follow the advice. You knew you’d be safe because Levi kept things very clean.

“It’s not that high! Please, let me through.”

You turned a little and stared at a man arguing with security who had just checked his temperature. You nibbled your lip as your anxiety started to fill you. You started playing with your wedding ring and zoning out from the world around you. You started to calm yourself by thinking about your wedding a week ago. You and Levi had gotten married in front of your families a week ago and now you were going abroad to party and have a second marriage in front of friends before staying there and having your honeymoon. You did it this way because Levi wanted to spoil you, loved the idea of marrying you twice and the sickness restrictions as well.

You flinched a little when you heard someone call your name and touch you. You zoned in and saw Levi gazing at you with a loving smile and a knowing look in his eyes. You smiled back at him and shuffled closer. “Sorry, I zoned out. Everything okay?”

Levi kissed your cheek. “Yeah. Mum just wants to say bye.”

You smiled a little at Kuchel. “We’ll miss you.”

Kuchel threw herself at you and hugged you so hard the air left your lungs. “I’ll miss you so much! My sweet daughter.”

Sebastian laughed. “In law. She’s your daughter-in-law.”

Kuchel pouted at her husband. “Daughter.”

“It’ll be a bit weird saying your son is married to your daughter.”

Kuchel whined. “You’re so mean to me.”

You hummed a laugh. “Just like Levi.”

Kuchel released you. “Well, you’re family to me.”

Sebastian hugged you. “You enjoy yourself on your holiday, okay? Enjoy your month away. Contact us if you need us and send plenty of photos.”

You smiled. “Promise.”

Levi yanked you against him. “Okay, no more taking my wife from me.”

You hummed a laugh at how protective and possessive Levi was of you. “Levi.”

He picked you up making you squeal with laughter. “We’re going to get our flight now. Say bye.”

Sebastian waved as he laughed. “Bye!”

Kuchel welled up and waved. “Bye! I love you!”

You waved goodbye to them as Levi carried you away, you’d already checked your bags in, so you were heading to security. “Levi, you have to put me down for the security checks.”

Levi put you down in front of him and held you from behind as you moved together. “You know, those alarms we go through should go off for you.”

You frowned. “What? Why?”

Levi nibbled your neck. “Because you’re so beautiful you should be illegal.”

You snorted a laugh. “You goofball.”

He took your left hand and admired the two rings there, one was your engagement and the other your wedding ring. “You look so good with these on.”

“Are you getting turned on by my wedding ring and engagement ring?”

Levi growled at you. “Mine.”

You put your things in the tray and pulled Levi’s arms off you. “I gotta go through the scanner.” You walked through the detector as nerves bubble inside you, but the detective did not go off. You sighed in relief and gathered your things. You looked over at Levi as he walked through the detector and set it off. “Oh, dear.” You giggled as he pouted at them checking him only to indicate his belt was what set it off. “Naughty boy.”

Levi walked over to you and whined. “I set it off. Don’t tell our friends.”

“Promise. I know Hange will wind you up about it.”

He let out a long sigh before pulling you against him. “I’m a good boy. I’d never do naughty things at an airport.”

You hummed a laugh. “Yes, you’re a very good CEO. Ten out of ten good boy.”

“Thank you.” He led you to the duty-free section. “Pick anything you like.”

You gasped in delight before looking around and selecting a new perfume that you knew Levi would love. “This please.”

“Of course.” He rubbed your back. “Anything else? What about snacks?”

“We’ll have food on the plane, right?”

“True, but snacks.”

You stared at him. “You have a valid point.” You let out a long sigh. “Mm. I think I’m good.”

He led you to the jewellery section. “What about something pretty for my pretty wife?”

You smiled as Levi hugged you from behind. “I think I’m okay.”

Levi nuzzled the crook of your neck and saw you looking at a delicate silver necklace with small pearls and small sparkling stones. Levi pointed at it and spoke to the seller. “This one please and she’ll wear it now.”

You felt your cheeks burn. “Levi.”

He took the necklace from the seller and put it on you. “You deserve all the pretty things, my love.” He clipped it in place and kissed the back of your neck. “Perfect.”

You lightly touched it as Levi paid. “Thank you.”

Levi kissed your forehead. “You are very welcome.” He walked with you to the area with lots of places to eat and drink. “We should find out friends and eat with them.”

You nodded. “Sure. We gonna have a few drinks?”

“Well, I do think the occasion calls for it.” He twirled you and pulled you close. “We’re married!”

You giggled with delight. “Yes!”

Levi pulled you along and noticed Erwin with your maid of honour, the two of them were getting really close to the point it was likely they’d end up dating. He pulled a chair out for you and let you sit. “You lot ready to eat?”

Erwin smiled. “Sure thing.”

Mike let out a long sigh. “We are starving. You’re so mean to us making us wait. Bet you two were having a quickie.”

Hange smirked. “No doubt about it.”

Levi sat next to you. “I don’t do quickies.” He put his arm over the back of your chair and massaged the back of your neck. “I take my time and savour every inch of the woman that is my wife. She is a goddess meant to be worshipped.”

Hange blushed. “So honest.”

Mike’s eyes were wide. “I can’t believe he admitted that.”

You looked at the menu. “I’d love a cocktail. Oh, and I’d love to eat this.”

Levi ordered his stuff and yours before letting his friends order. You chatted as a group and joked around together. You had a few drinks and ate a delicious meal. You and Levi cuddled up together as you enjoyed the company of your friends. You kissed Levi’s cheek and got up from the table, but he held your hand and looked up at you like you were leaving for good.

You kissed Levi and smiled. “I’m just going to the bathroom, okay?”

“Miss you.”

“Miss you too.” You waved to him and made your way to the bathroom with your bag. You went to the toilet before washing your hands up. You smiled a little at a lady who joined you. “Hi.”

She grinned. “Hey love, you okay?”

“Yeah, you?”

She checked her makeup. “Sure am. You going on holiday?”

You blushed a little. “Second wedding. We married in front of family and now we’re going to marry abroad in front of friends.”

“Oh, so cute! It’ll be stunning.” She jumped when a woman slammed the bathroom door open and ran into a cubical. She raised a brow when she heard vomiting. “Either she drank too much, is nervous or it’s that new sickness going around.”

You dried your hands and hummed. “Let’s hope it’s one of the first two.”

“You can say that again. Enjoy your wedding and honeymoon.”

You waved to her. “Thanks, enjoy your holiday.”

“I will!”

Levi pulled you closer as soon as you reached him. He kissed you and looked over at the lady. “Who was that?”

“Just some lady I met in the bathroom.”

“Cute.” He hugged you close. “Come on you lot, we need to get to our gate and board.” Levi pulled you along to the gate and noticed you were a little upset. He kept quiet for a bit because he needed to time it. He boarded the plane and took you to first class. He helped you into your seat by the window and sat next to you. He took two drinks and settled into the huge comfy seat, but you were still stiff. “Honeybun?”

You looked over at Levi. “Huh?”

He took your hand from your mouth. “You’re anxious about something.”

“I’m good.”

“You were nibbling on the skin around your fingers. I know you. You don’t need to tell me right away. Take your time telling me your troubles.” He kissed your hands. “Just know I’m right here for you.”

You cuddled up to Levi. “A woman ran into the bathroom and threw up. I also saw a man get denied entry to security because his temperature was too high. Plus, the news said things about this sickness.”

Levi massaged his fingers into your hair. “I understand. I’m worried about it too, but they said it is contained. They also wouldn’t let anyone on here if they were sick. It’ll be okay. Besides, you know how clean I am.”

You giggled. “Yeah, you’re right.” You gazed at Levi. “We’re going to have a wonderful time and everything will be just fine.”

He kissed you and hummed. “That’s right. Now, shall we watch a movie or nap?”

You leaned up and looked for your friends to see they were all in their first-class seats. “Looks like everyone is doing a mix of things.”

Levi pulled you down to sit. “Focus on you. What do you want?”

You hummed a bit. “Nap.”

“Then we will nap, my sweet honeybun.” Levi kissed your neck. “I love you, little honeybun.”

You snuggled up to your man and let him turn the lights down in your little area. You loved that you could snuggle together. You felt your troubles quieten down as the man you loved held you. You drifted off into a deep sleep and slept on the plane which was unusual for you. You were thankful for Levi.

Levi pulled you along as he sang a love song to you making you giggle. He twirled you and bent you backwards before kissing you. He picked you up and carried you along to the check-in desk to see the bags were there waiting for you. Levi put you down and smiled at the receptionist. “Mr and Mrs Ackerman and our wedding party.”

The man gasped. “Yes! Hello! Welcome!” He typed away on his computer. “I will sign you all in, I just need your passports.”

Levi handed over yours and his as you cuddled him. “Here you go.” He looked over at his friends handing their things over. He looked down at you and kissed you. “You excited?”

You nodded. “Yes. I’m looking forward to getting to our room and relaxing. I want to swim.”

Levi held you against him. “We’re going to be staying somewhere special.”

“Special?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

The man handed a keycard over. “Here is the card to your honeymoon hut. Our attendant will take you to your hut.”

Your eyes widened in delight. “A hut?”

Levi winked at you. “I love you. I want to spoil you. Everyone is in a hut in the ocean, but we have a special one.”

You hugged Levi’s side as you blushed. “You spoil me too much.”

“I need to spoil you more.”

“Stooop.”

Levi chuckled as he walked with you. “Never.” He walked with you as he followed the attendant. “Have a look where we are.”

Your eyes widened at the large hotel complex you were on. You sat in the buggy and clung to Levi as you drove away from the main huge hotel and went through the streets past huts around pools. You kept going until you drove down to the white sands of a beach. The island you were on was perfect. The hotel you were at was like a whole town with little groups of hut homes, huts in water and large hotel buildings with normal rooms. There were plenty of bars and staff and possibly over 100 pools. It was incredible to see.

Levi kissed your cheek. “We’re at the huts.”

You gasped in delight at seeing the white sands of the beach and the clear waters. “Fuck.”

Levi chuckled. “Glad you like it.”

You grabbed his arm and shook him as you gazed at the huts in the shallow water with a bar and a little restaurant. “It’s like our own little world.”

“That’s right.”

“This is amazing.”

Levi climbed off the buggy and held your hand. He reached for the bags, but the attendant grabbed them. “I can help.”

The attendant shook his head. “No need. I’ve got this.” He bowed his head and walked up the wooden steps and started moving down the decking over the water. “These waters are perfect for relaxing in. They are safe. We have a special netting in the water to stop anything bad from getting in.”

You whispered to Levi. “He means sharks.”

Levi chuckled. “I know.”

You blushed a little. “Mm.”

“You’re cute.” He led you to the last hut on the water by itself. He handed the card over to the attendant and tugged you inside. “Have a look around, okay? I’ll sort everything out.”

You kissed Levi before running off. “Yay!”

The hut had a little kitchen for you and Levi to store any food or drinks from the hotel. The bathroom was grand and open, so you could see your lover take a shower or bath from the bedroom. The living space was cosy with a tv to watch a few things. You had a pool that was partly inside the living room and went outside onto the decking. The bedroom had perfect views of the edge of the island that curved around and the mountains upon it.

You smiled and felt your body relax as your husband wrapped his loving arms around you. “Hi, Levi.”

Levi kissed your neck. “So? What do you think?”

“It’s stunning. I love it so much.”

He squeezed you. “I’m glad.”

You let out a long sigh. “It’s so peaceful.”

Levi kissed the side of your head. “We should get some drinks ordered.”

You grinned. “Sure! I’m going to change and swim. I gotta decide if I want to swim in the pool or the sea.”

Levi chuckled. “Well, I guess I’ll see what you choose when I get back.” He moved to the tablet for ordering and added a few drinks and food to the list. He walked into the bedroom and saw you’d put all the clothes away. He smiled softly at the shorts you’d left out for him so he could swim with you. “Cute.” He pulled on the shorts and made his way to the pool to see you swimming around. “Look at you. You’re adorable.”

You swam over to Levi and leaned on the side. “Hi, handsome.”

“You are so cute.”

“Cute huh?” You stood up and showed off your wet breasts. “Am I cute now?”

Levi stared at the water trickling down your breasts. “Boobs.”

You hummed a laugh. “That’s right.”

He knelt. “Wet boobs.”

You cupped Levi’s face and kissed him. “And they’re on your wife.”

Levi blushed. “Wife. You’re my wife.”

“That’s right.” You pulled away from Levi and moved backwards in the water. “Why don’t you come and join your wet wife in the pool?”

Levi dove into the water and swam right up to you. He chased your lips for a kiss making you giggle. He smiled at your teasing, he loved how playful you could be. He cornered you against the wall and put his arms on the side to cage you. He tilted his head a little before pressing his loving lips against yours. He let out a long sigh through his nose and hummed in delight. He pushed his body against yours so you could feel all of him and him all of you.

You wrapped your arms around Levi’s neck as you pushed your tongue into Levi’s mouth. You tangled your fingers into Levi’s soft hair as your body heated up. You moaned at how passionate your husband was being. You pulled from Levi’s lips and looked over to the door as someone knocked. You hummed as Levi squeezed parts of your body.

You panted as he kissed your neck. “Levi, the door.”

Levi pulled away from you. “Drinks! Stay here.”

You smiled as he climbed out. “You don’t want him to see my wet body, huh?”

“Tch, maybe.”

“You’re adorable!”

Levi grumbled and went to the door. He gave the attendant a tip before bringing everything over to the pool. “Cocktail?”

You gazed at Levi’s crotch. “I am very hungry for a cock…”

Levi sat down. “Tail.”

You giggled. “That’s what I said, cocktail.”

“Uh-huh.” He leaned closer and bit your cheek. “Naughty girl.”

“Aren’t naughty girls supposed to be punished?”

Levi handed you a cocktail. “Do you want to be punished?”

“Maybe.”

Levi slipped into the water and chased you. “Come here then.”

You squealed. “You have to catch me first!”

He chuckled as he chased you. “Careful with that drink.”

You chugged some of your cocktail and stopped. “Oh shit, this is so good!”

“Yeah?” He stopped chasing you and sipped his drink. “Mm, this is good.”

You downed some more and put your glass down. “This is amazing.”

Levi drank more before putting his cup down next to yours. “Now, time for punishment.”

You gasped and started running through the pool to the outside part. “You’ll never take me alive!”

Levi caught up with you quickly. “I’m coming!” Levi grabbed you and lifted you making you squeal. “Got you!” He held you against him and purred. “The ideas I have for you.”

You giggled in delight. “I can imagine.”

He gripped your ass hard making you moan. “I love you so much.”

You tangled your fingers in his hair and tugged making him grunt. “I love you too.” You leaned down and kissed him. You squealed when Levi lifted you out of the pool. “Levi!”

“Punishment.”

You pressed your hands against Levi’s wet back and tried to push yourself up. “Levi.”

Levi threw you on the sofa making you squeak. “I told you, it’s punishment time.”

You gasped when he rolled you onto your stomach. “Levi.”

Levi sat down and dragged you across his lap. He rubbed your wet behind slowly with his left hand. He smiled at how your plump bum moved against his hand and how his wedding ring fitted him so perfectly. “Perfect for punishment. It’s like your bum desires spanks.”

You purred. “It does.”

He reached with his right hand and grabbed the top of your bikini bottoms and pulled on it slowly so the fabric went between your pussy lips and your cheeks. “Be a good girl and stay still.”

“But not being good let me get this.” You cried out in pleasure as Levi spanked you. “Levi!”

He rubbed where he spanked. “Naughty little bunny.”

You moaned in delight. “I am.”

He rubbed your pussy and lightly spanked you there. “So wet.”

You felt like you were drooling at him lightly spanking your pussy. “Levi, more.”

He lightly patted your pussy over and over before spanking you hard on the bum and leaving a handprint and a small print of his wedding ring. He purred in delight at seeing the ring. “Mine.”

You let out a long sigh as your heart raced in your chest. You shook your arms as you fought your tears. You sat down at your makeup table and tried to control your breathing. You knew you wanted to marry Levi with everything inside you, but you were just nervous about being in front of everyone.

You and Levi had gotten married back home in front of both your parents. However, you wanted something separate with your friends because you had a lot. So, Levi thought it'd be fun to do something abroad for you to get married again in front of your friends, celebrate and then have a honeymoon right after at the same place.

"Honeybun?"

You flinched and looked up to see Levi standing in the doorway in his perfect summer suit. "Honey."

He walked over to you and placed his hand on your upper back. "You look incredible."

"Thank you."

He crouched at your side. "Like a Queen."

You turned and faced him. "Sorry, you were called to come here and see me."

He held your hands and kissed them. "Don't be sorry. I enjoy being with you and I know you don't like being the centre of attention. This is hard, but just remember I love you."

You smiled and kissed him. "Love you too."

Levi pulled you to your feet. "Come on." He led you outside into the hall. "After this, we'll go to our lovely hut together. I can't wait to have you all to myself for a month."

You hugged his side as you walked with him. "I can't either. It'll be so romantic."

Levi shifted you and him closer to the wall as a man stumbled down the hallway. "I'm looking forward to it too." He pressed you against the wall to hide you from the drunken man. He watched him go and stop a moment before throwing up. "Tch, idiot. It's only ten and he's shitfaced."

You looked back at the guy and frowned as he twitched a little. "He doesn't look right."

Levi stared at the man as he stood there twitching now and then. He squeezed you as the man growled a little. Levi was worried about the sickness back home and he was sure there was a chance one sick person made it here, but he has never seen them act like this before. "We should get going."

You stumbled behind Levi as he pulled you down the hall. "What if he needs help?"

"Leave him be, okay?"

You hummed and walked with Levi. "Odd man."

Levi carried on walking with you until you were both outside. He smiled at your friends waiting. He led you down the path and released a long sigh as he got ready to marry you for the second time in front of his friends.

He smiled as he held your hands and got ready to declare his love. He leaned closer but paused before kissing you when he heard screaming in the distance. He lifted his head and looked out as your guests noticed more and more screaming.

You reached over and clung to Levi's shirt. "What is it?"

Levi held you against him. "I don't know." He frowned a little as he saw someone stumble towards you both and pause. "What the..." His eyes widened when he noticed the blood on their shirt and the discolouration in their skin. "Tch, shit."

The man screamed at you both before sprinting towards you both. You hurried forwards and grabbed a chair that a guest fell out of. You twisted your body in your light summer wedding dress and put all your weight into your attack. You slammed the chair into the charging man causing the chair to obliterate and the man to be sent flying to the floor.

Levi pulled you back. "The fuck is this?"

You panted a little. "Honey, I know this sounds weird and you might call me a nerd but" you pulled from Levi and grabbed a splintered leg from the floor before standing over the man, "I think we have zombies."

Levi flinched when the man woke up and screamed at you, his veins were black, eyes empty of life and teeth discoloured. He reached for you but you were quick to plunge the wood through his head causing it to stop moving and flop back.

"Shit!" Levi yanked you away. "Love, we have to go." He cupped your face as everyone ran around you both trying to escape the infected racing towards your event. "We have to go. I need you to stick with me and then teach me everything you know about how to survive this shit, okay?"

You nodded as you held your husband's hand. "Yes." You kicked your heels off and started running with Levi.

As you both raced away from the event you saw infected people tackling, biting and clawing at people. Cars crashed against walls, buildings and other cars. Your hearts were racing as you just thought about keeping up with Levi as he held your hand tightly.

Levi pulled you against him and twisted you both before crouching behind a car as another car crash happened. "Are you okay?"

You nodded and gazed at Levi. "Levi, don't let one bite you, okay?"

"Promise." He moved away from you and peaked to see if there was a chance to run. "Other tips?"

"Head. Always go for the head. You can cut off limbs to slow them down, but going for the head stops them."

He hummed in response as he watched an infected race after someone. "So, we need weapons."

"We want things that make little noise. If we make noise, it could attract a swarm."

He let out a long sigh. "I can't believe you learned all this from video games." He smiled at you. "I fucking love you."

You crawled over and kissed him. "I fucking love you too." You looked up and gasped. "Levi!"

Levi grabbed the zombie and slammed its head into the window of the car over and over again until the glass smashed. He unlocked the car door, put the head of the zombie between the door and slammed the door hard until its head popped sending blood and brains everywhere.

You clapped your hands. "Amazing."

Levi wiped the blood off his face and smiled. "Come on, we can run now."

You grabbed his hand and ran with him down to the beach. "Our hut will be safe. We have food and water and we can block the path to us!"

Levi scooped you up into his arms and sprinted faster. "Tch, I hope everyone made it."

You saw parts of the white sand you loved had been spattered in blood. "Levi."

"Focus on me, okay?"

You gazed at Levi and felt your heart flutter at how handsome he was. "You're so handsome."

Levi smiled a little. "Thank you." He ran down the long decking and past huts until there were none for a bit and yours was a lone one. He put you on your feet and scanned the keycard for the hut. "Go inside and find some weapons. I'll put some bins and benches in the path to make a barricade."

"Be safe."

Levi kissed you before hurrying down the decking and moving bins, benches and anything he possibly could to make a wall so nothing could get to you both. He backed up and built a second wall. He looked his work over and strongly believed that you were going to be safe.

He hurried into the honeymoon hut to see you sitting on the sofa and looked at your shaking hands with blood on and tears running down your cheeks. “Honeybun?”

You cleared your throat and pointed. “I made a few weapons. I would have done more, but I don’t want to rip out the pipes or anything because this will be our base.” You sniffed. “I made Molotovs with our booze and some fabric.” You lifted a pole. “This was the really nice umbrella that was outside. I removed everything so it’s a pole. It could help.” You looked over at Levi. “We need to go out and get better weapons.” You nibbled your lip. “If we have a knife we could tape it to the end of the pole. As for other weapons, melee weapons are best because they’re quiet. We should plan an outing to go to the staff-only maintenance place around here. There will likely be a fire axe in there, along with other vital things.”

Levi walked over and crouched in front of you. “Honeybun.” He held your hands. “Talk to me.”

You shook a little more. “I’m okay. I think I’m in shock.”

He pulled you to your feet and led you to the bathroom. He turned the shower on and checked the water. He turned to you and really looked at you. Your perfect and sweet wedding dress was dotted with blood and dirt along with your arms and face. He eyed your bare feet and noticed they had dirt, blood and little cuts. He moved closer and helped you get out of your dress and then your underwear. He ushered you under the water and gathered your clothes up.

Levi placed your dress and things in a corner in the kitchen and would deal with them another time. He pulled his suit off and saw the blood on them. He let out a long sigh before joining you in the shower. He helped clean you up and started cleaning himself. He saw you shaking again and you were crying. Levi felt tears burn the corners of his eyes and the lump in his throat form. He wrapped his arms around you and you clung to him. You both pressed your naked bodies together and cried a little.

You sniffed and pulled back. “Okay, I’m focused.” You looked up at Levi. “Thank you for letting me cry with you.”

Levi showered your face in kisses. “Thank you for letting me cry with you. We both needed it. This is pretty fucked up.”

You leaned against the wall in the shower. “Zombies…actual zombies…this is insane. Do…do you think it’s the illness going around?”

Levi pushed back his wet hair and leaned against the other wall facing you. “I think it is, but I think it’s different.”

You hugged yourself and watched the water trickle down Levi’s naked form. “You think something on this island changed it? So, it’ll be isolated. Our families are safe back home.”

Levi opened his arms to you. He wrapped his arms tightly around you and squeezed you. “I love you. I’ll protect you and we’ll get off this island and go home. I’m sorry our honeymoon turned out this way.”

“You had no way of knowing this would happen, if you did I would be very impressed.”

Levi chuckled. “I guess you’re right.” He cupped your face. “We’ll make it through this, I swear. With your zombie knowledge and my fighting skills, we’ll do just fine. So, what’s our next move?”

You sighed. “Better weapons. We’ll go to the staff-only maintenance and grab things there. Once we have good weapons, we can get supplies and make sure we have enough to turn this room into a good base for us.”

“And after?”

You smiled at Levi. “We hunt our friends down. I know our friends and I am certain they got away and are planning similar things.” You laughed a little. “Erwin likely has a survivor community forming, you know what he’s like.”

Levi smirked. “You’re right. I know they’ll be just fine.” He walked out of the shower and helped you out. “We need to eat and sleep.” He dried you off before drying himself. “I think our wedding meals are here. I asked the staff to stock our kitchen ‘cause I didn’t want us to be disturbed.”

You pulled on a shirt as Levi yanked on his pj bottoms. “Cute.”

He walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge and checked the cupboards. “We are fully stocked.” He laughed. “We’re going to be just fine.”

You smiled at Levi. “You’re the best. My handsome survivor.” You walked up to him and kissed him. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He held you and sighed. “It’s going to be a whole other world out there tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“Almost like people just up and left plus a few walking dead, though I don’t think they are undead. They’re infected with something.” You patted his chest. “Let’s focus on the here and now. We need food and sleep.”

“Yes.” He kissed you and sighed through his nose as he enjoyed the kiss. “A romantic dinner for my wife, coming up!”

[stillalittlelostngl]

Chiloé

Part 1

You weren't sure what to expect from your first meeting with the cult's leader. Perhaps a miracle if you were to believe what your friend said was true. Even still - the encounter went differently from all of the scenarios you'd prepared for in your head.

Midterms passed by in a blur just like they always did and before you knew it you’d been dragging yourself out of bed far too early to make it to the airport on time.

Unlike Hisoka, you’d never been on a plane before. The whole song and dance was entirely overwhelming. It certainly didn’t help that everyone had the same unoriginal idea to travel for spring break. You had a damn near white knuckle grip on Hisoka's sleeve as the two of you made your way through the airport, clinging to her like a lifeline since you were almost certain you wouldn’t be able to find her in the crowd if the two of you got separated.

The wait for boarding had been its own special kind of hell too - you’d convinced yourself that the gate for the flight would be switched so every few minutes your head would swivel around the space like a hyped up owl to make sure that all of the screens displayed your flight’s information. It hadn’t been until you were on the plane and the flight had taken off that you’d been able to breathe easier.

The well seasoned traveler and patient saint that was by your side through it all never made any outward comments about your nerves, likely wanting to spare your poor ego from the embarrassment, but every so often her lips would quirk up at their corners and you’d be able to see the laughter in her eyes as she reassured you that ‘Yes, airports made everyone stressed. It wasn’t just you’. A bold face lie but you appreciated it nonetheless.

Japan, or Tokyo more precisely, was different…but not in an entirely unfamiliar way. Which was strange. You’d heard of folks feeling terribly lost or homesick when they first traveled abroad and your patron saint of travel had even mentioned a time or two before how the differences were overwhelming when she’d first arrived in the states. You’d been certain you’d experience the same but walking the bustling streets of the city and all of its different wards just left you with an intense déjà vu that scratched at the corners of your mind urging you to remember…something.

You decided that your brain must���ve been confusing the present moment with what it was like when you immigrated from back home to the states. Memories of a child’s mind that couldn’t understand exactly what the difference was between ‘home’ and ‘elsewhere’ so the two places ended up blending together to create a disjointed tertiary that contained both and neither.

Thankfully, for those first few days you never had much time to think too hard on it. Hisoka was dead set on doing all of the ‘touristy’ things she hadn’t done since she was in elementary school while the two of you were in the heart of Tokyo. The days were long and nights even longer. There hadn’t been a single day where you’d made it back to the room before the early hours of the morning or left later than 10AM. The liveliness of the city was captivating but when Hisoka had announced that you both would be heading to her family's place out in Hachioji the following day you were a little relieved.

A few lazy days exploring a, relatively to Tokyo, quieter city sounded like just what you needed.

___________

Unfortunately, Hisoka had some kind of personal vendetta against a restful night’s sleep and you woke to hands roughly shaking you awake far too early for your liking.

You didn’t bother holding back a miserable groan as you tried to roll away from the offending limbs, curling in on yourself and wrapping yourself tighter into the plush hotel blankets in a feeble attempt to ward off any further annoyances. You were only given a few moments to appreciate the far too expensive bedding before it was yanked off you entirely.

The chill of the spring air sent a shockwave through your system and you hissed as you slowly sat up, every muscle in your body protesting at the action.

“What?” you mumbled as you rubbed the last remnants of sleep from your eyes.

“What do you mean ‘what’? Get dressed!” Hisoka hissed as she hauled your overnight bag up onto the bed and began flinging random articles of clothes at you, “We’re going to be late!”

“Late for what?” You knew you both were heading to Setagaya but didn’t recall making any early morning plans for the trip, “Is the metro even running right now?” you asked, eyeing the artificial light filtering through the window’s curtains with disdain. If you listened closely you’re sure you could still hear the low and steady hum of the street lamps. Any other day you might’ve appreciated the white noise of the city, but today it was just a reminder of the hours of sleep you were missing out on.

“It will be when we get there.” It takes all your willpower to keep from rolling your eyes. The answer was so..maternal.

“What’s the rush?” you question as you start looking through the clothing she’d thrown at you, trying to determine if you can make a reasonable outfit out of it or if you’d be forced to dig through your luggage yourself, “Are we really going to make your folks get up at the crack of dawn to pick us up?”

“It’s Saturday.” It’s said as if that was supposed to mean anything to you. When she was met with nothing but a blank, glazed over look in your eyes she continued, “Weekends are an all day thing at the temple so we’ll be meeting them there. No pick up needed.”

“Oh,” you offer oh so eloquently. You tried racking your brain to try and remember any time she might’ve mentioned that bit of information. You’d heard of some religious sects doing all day services but it was never an idea that seemed personally all that appealing. “That’s today?’

She gives you a very unamused look, “Of course! Everyone is going to be there from sunrise to sunset.”

“And everyone includes me?”

“Today it does,” she glanced down at her phone to check the time and let out an annoyed huff, “we’ll be a bit late but it shouldn’t be too big of an issue considering you’re an outsider - the elders can be hard asses but I’m sure they’ll understand.”

“How considerate.” your comment is rewarded with a pillow to the face and you dramatically fall back into the oh so inviting mattress. Your fingers grip the pillow and you’re so thankful that you let Hisoka make the hotel arrangements - you’d never thought to care about the thread count of a pillow case but she prefers the finer things in life you’re starting to understand why.

“Look,” you feel the mattress dip under her weight as she settles beside you, “I get you’ve had some bad experiences in the past with religion and all that.”

“To put it lightly," you huff. There'd been several times throughout your childhood that you'd been sent off to some religious congregation to be 'cured' or prayed over and whatever else when it became evident that doctors and medical professionals couldn't fix whatever it was that was so utterly wrong with you. You tried not to let it color your perspective of other groups and reasoned with yourself that they'd only been well intentioned. It was incredibly difficult though.

“But this won’t be so bad,” she insists, “The day will go by a lot quicker than you think.”

You don't believe her but 15 minutes later you find yourself rushing out of the door all the same.

_______________

It hadn’t been a terribly long journey, though long enough for you to fall asleep on the rail line and need to be shaken awake by Hisoka (you doubt it needed to be as violent of an awakening as it was but she’d just feigned innocence when questioned about her methods). When you finally arrived, the temple and the surrounding buildings that made up the compound were bathed in the golden hue of the early morning. The sun had begun to rise above the horizon and you observed the view from the bench Hisoka left you on as the light danced between the leaves and cast shadows along the engraved gray stones that made up the buildings.

It was a beautiful space, that much was undeniable. The temple seemed to be created to give the visit the most picture perfect view of the local scenery and the expanse of forest made it feel like it was entirely secluded from the outside world. It was as if they’d created their own little Eden here.

You do your best to hold back a yawn as you scuff at the earth beneath you. Your shoes kick a few small pebbles a short distance from you as you try to think of anything to do besides twiddling your thumbs while you wait for Hisoka to return. She’d left some time ago to check in with an elder and get changed or something. You truly hadn’t really been able to listen to what she’d been saying.

Outside of the beautiful scenery and ornate structures decorating the landscape, there were just so many of those creatures here. It was like something you’d never seen. When you’d first arrived at the courtyard you’d felt like the wind was knocked out of you. There’d been people rushing about, all in the same outfit that was the same deep shade of blue, and all with one of those things either clinging onto them or following closely behind. In your day to day you may see one or two people with those things clinging to them but usually they lived in the shadows or in lonely corridors and alleyways. Seeing this many just roaming about leeching off of people in the open like that was surreal.

Hisoka had just thought it was your nerves and had offered small words of reassurance as she pulled you into the shared space. You were fighting every self preservation instinct you had to remain calm and collected as she rambled about this and that - her voice lost in the chorus that the creatures created. Some had voices that warbled half sentences or singular words and others who imitated human sounds. A crying baby or a shrieking woman - the mimics, as you personally dubbed them, were perhaps the ones you disliked the most. The sounds so animalistic and innate that it tapped into some baser instincts and made it difficult to remain composed. There was a moment where it was all becoming too much and you felt as if you’d go mad but, thankfully, some kind of bell had chimed and everyone began moving to the entrance of the main structure. Hisoka had rushed out some long winded explanation before telling you to stay put and before long the once deafening sound of the courtyard was filled with silence.

You’d nearly cried tears of joy at the newly found silence but now, what you imagine was probably half an hour or so after everyone had left, your nervous system had regulated and you were becoming antsy by the lack of people or any real stimuli to speak of.

You were just beginning to suspect she’d forgotten you when you heard your name being called.

Your head whipped up as you searched for your friend. When your eyes finally landed on her you noted that she wasn’t alone - she was with an older woman you recognized from a few video calls and photos over the years.

You’d thought it on a few occasions but seeing them both in the same space really cemented it in your mind - Hisoka was a damn near copy of her mother. From the soft features on an elegantly rounded face to the willowy build and measured steps that spoke to the dancer background that Hisoka would go on and on about, there was no doubt she was her mother’s daughter.

You’d had a handful of interactions with Junko Nomura over the years. From what you could tell, and what you’d learned from Hisoka, her mother was a kind but stern woman and a bit of a busy body. She was always worrying about her daughter while she was away for school, texting and calling at all hours to check in and give a lecture about something or another. You could empathize, your mother called every now and again too and she lived on the same continent - Mrs.Nomura must’ve felt like she was a world away.

Her mother was the reason the family had joined the religious group to begin with. She’d been sick for a very long time and the way Hisoka tells it she may very well have been on death’s doorstep. One day, she’d been approached by a member and brought before the leader where he simply waved his hand in front of her and she’d experienced an instantaneous and miraculous recovery. She’d been a devoted follower ever since and what the matriarch does, the rest of the family follows.

Truthfully, you’d never been able to make heads or tails of the story. You believed Mrs. Nomura was sick and now she wasn’t. How one got from point A to point B, though, was up in the air in your mind. Faith healings weren’t unheard of but neither were the stories of false prophets and scheming leeches who faked them to line their pockets. But, you also knew the human mind was an interesting and powerful thing. If someone felt better after having another person pray over them or do whatever else then who were you to judge or say that isn’t divine in it’s own way?

You rose to your feet to greet the elder Nomura and were caught off guard when the elder woman enveloped you into her warm embrace. You knew you had a good rapport with the woman but didn’t know she was this fond of you.

“How good it is to finally see you, dear,” Mrs. Nomura said before leaning back, your forearms still held in hers as she took stock of you, “Has Hisoka been a good host? You know you’re allowed to remind her of her manners from time to time, correct? She’s always been such a bossy girl,” you couldn’t help the small laugh at Hisoka’s cry of protest at her mother’s words, “When she was younger and had friends over she’d always be so caught up in directing their play that I was concerned those other girls weren’t having any fun.”

“That’s enough,” Hisoka insisted, pulling you out of her mother’s grasp and giving the woman a pitiful glare.

“Old habits die hard,” you shoot a teasing glance to your friend who could not be any less amused, “but she’s been good to me.”

“As she should be.”

“If you two are done bullying me,” Hisoka huffs before directing her attention towards you, “I got assigned services to attend to this morning so I’ll have to get going. Mom can keep you busy in the meantime - she was wanting to show you around the garden.” “Services?” She’d never mentioned she worked at the temple during all of your conversations about it. You also weren’t expecting to be left alone with the older woman for a prolonged period of time. It wasn’t that you thought poorly of her - it’s just that new people stressed you out a bit and you were worried with her years of experience she’d be able to tell something was “different” about you too. You’re not sure what the outcome would be if you made a bad first impression here - it could ruin the trip or worse could shake the foundation of you and Hisoka’s friendship. She always talked a big game about not caring for her mother’s lectures but you knew she was deeply affected by her mother’s opinions on any and everything. You couldn’t imagine Hisoka sticking around long if her mom said something about you being a bad influence or too strange.

You couldn’t help the small frown that tugged at the corners of your lips at the thought. Not only that - this one-on-one time with her parent wasn’t factored into the itinerary that Hisoka had painstakingly crafted. She also wouldn’t be one to forget if she had an important obligation til the day of. She was winging things today and it was so very much unlike her that it made you itch.

“Oh, don’t look so put out,” she scolds, after noticing your bleak expression, “I’ll be able to meet back up with you after lunch.”

“I’m sure you’ll find I’m not such bad company,” Mrs. Nomura said as she took arm and looped it through yours and giving you a soft smile that you couldn’t help but to return. The warmth reminded you so much of your own mother’s that it made a hollow pang ring sharply in your chest and you made a mental note to text her before going to bed that night.

“Try not to miss me too much,” Hisoka teased before heading back towards the entrance of the main building and leaving you alone with the Nomura matriarch.

As it turned out, her mother wasn’t bad company after all. You hardly had to worry about saying the wrong thing either as she seamlessly fell into the role of tour guide - and a captivating one at that. She spun a story of the religious group and the sacred space that the two of you found yourselves in with an enamored passion that had you hanging off of every word.

It wasn’t long before she led you to a lush shakusui-en. The rolling landscape was covered in light-dappled greenery and light whites to deep, almost violet, pinks colored the scenery thanks to the blossoms in full bloom. The light perfumes of the flowers mixed with the hinoki cypress and earthy moss that coated the structures in the pond in a way that had leftover tension melting from your body. It was a sanctuary within a sanctuary.

And, thankfully, not a very popular one according to Mrs. Nomura. It was one of the more secluded gardens within the compound grounds that didn’t see as many visitors. A ‘if you know then you know’ sorta deal. She explained the history of all of the garden’s elements, everything from the flow of the landscaping that crafted pathways towards enlightenment to the stone lanterns that helped visitors overcome the darkness held religious significance.

It wasn’t until you were sitting with her on the pond-side pavilion that she decided to change the course of the conversation.

“I’m glad you and Hisoka have gotten so close,” she speaks softly. You weren’t certain if it was due to reverence for the space you both occupy or so as to not disturb your viewing of the colorful koi that were lazily drifting through the water, “ She talks about you all the time when she’s here or during our calls. It means a lot to her that you came.”

“Of course,” because you couldn't imagine things being different from what they were. Because there was no alternative where you and Hisoka hadn't gotten close or grown to care for each other. It just couldn't have been a possibility - you knew it just as much as you knew the sun would rise, “She’s a good friend.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” You and her share a small smile but yours grows strained as you recognize an emotion that's reflected deep within her eyes. You've seen it so often in your own mother's eyes and like then, you're not sure what to do with it.

“She worries about you,” it’s a simple statement. One that you already know to be true but it is enough to have a wave of guilt and shame wash over you. “She’s not very forthcoming about it but even now you seem…troubled.”

You’d never meant to be a source of worry for Hisoka. You tried your best to keep your issues to yourself but she had poked and prodded over the years until confessions you hadn’t told another since you were a child came spilling out. It was only natural that she was worried, really. Anyone else would be after hearing the story you spun - hell anyone else would probably be more concerned about their own safety than with your wellbeing and you couldn’t very well blame them.

You’re unsure how to respond to Mrs. Nomura as she stared at you expectantly, waiting for you to confirm what she already knew. You let out a small sigh and slight shrug, “It’s not so bad.”

“But bad all the same,” her eyebrows furrow and her tone is filled with equal parts concern and an insistence, “You’ve taken such good care of my girl, let me help you with this,” she reaches a hand out to take yours,“I want to set up an audience for you with our Star before you leave. I know you’re not the religious sort, my Hisoka wasn’t either, but I really do think he can be of some help for the troubles you’re carrying.”

She must’ve seen the apprehension written across your face because she cuts you off before you can protest. “Even if it’s just words of comfort - it would put Hisoka and my mind at ease to know we did what we could.”

Hisoka had mentioned something about you finding help while you were here but you hadn’t imagined that it would be from having a chat with some elders in her religion and having them pray over you or something. You toy with the idea for a few moments, weighing the pros and cons before determining that you really didn’t have much to lose. Maybe a few minutes of your life but that really wasn’t such a bad trade off for the Nomura family’s peace of mind. So you agree. Mrs. Nomura’s face floods with relief as she gives your hand a slight squeeze, “I’ll put in a request with the council.” You’re startled when she makes to stand.

“Now?” you nearly squeak as you reach out and grab the sleeve of what you assume is the religion’s uniform of sorts.

“There’s no better time,” she gives your hand a small pat in reassurance and you slowly release her, “It will only take a moment and I’ll be right back”

“Right…,” you say with a sigh as you find yourself once again abandoned by a Nomura. You’re concerned that it's becoming a pattern with them. You watch her figure disappear beyond the winding path and the deep green foliage before returning your attention to the koi.

Everything today has felt like it had happened much too quickly and all at once - you find yourself feeling a little off kilter. You hadn’t been prepared for any of this and now you’re going to meet the head honcho of the whole operation. Or the figure-head? You weren’t really up to speed on the structure that the religion took but you figured if he was important enough to be called ‘our Star’ then surely he’d be too important for you to just get a same day session with him. So, you could breath easily and mentally prepare for whatever would be coming your way in the next few days.

It wasn’t until Mrs. Nomura arrived with Hisoka in tow that you found that you couldn’t have been further from the truth.

If what Hisoka said was true then he cleared his calendar just for you.

How fortunate.

__________

Suguru’s fingers tapped a light pattern against his cheek as he considered the sudden turn his morning had taken.

He’d been intending to spend the day with Nanako and Mimiko - his girls had been dropping not so subtle hints here and there that they wanted to go outside of the temple grounds. He wasn’t fond of the idea, any time spent around monkeys made his skin itch so he liked to avoid it whenever possible and he usually stuck to their wing of the compound when he wasn’t performing his ‘miracles’. Unfortunately, the two eight year olds knew what buttons to push to get him to do what they wanted. He had to catch himself on occasion from being too agreeable lest he give them both a princess complex. Nanako was already so willful as it was…

He only hopes the little foreigner proved to be worth the trouble.

He had been on his way to the morning briefings with the council when he’d heard whispers among the flock that there was one wandering the grounds. Visitors and new faces were becoming less common these days but from what he heard your complexion and thick accent gave you away and his interest had been piqued. He’d never had one brought to him before and, according to the council’s discussion, foreigners were never a part of the original group's make-up either.

You would be the first, but certainly not the last.

Not if he was going to secure a future for curse users.

It was a problem that he’d been delaying dealing with for some time. Suguru was anything if not pragmatic. While Japan was crawling with powerful curses and drawing in pitiful monkeys had been no great challenge, looking abroad for resources would be an unfortunate necessity in the near future.

Higher grade curses occurred less frequently abroad, similarly to the rate of curse users that could be found outside of Japan, they did exist. The Japanese shaman had been called on from time to time to help the locals deal with them. He’d never personally gone on assignments abroad but he’d heard enough to recognize the underutilized potential.

It would be far more difficult than just finding lost souls - those were a dime a dozen. Giving them a reason to stay, however, proved to be a more complicated matter. As much as he’d prefer to dispose of them as quickly as possible and wash his hands of them, he knew such action would be short-sighted. The money-making monkeys needed to stick around to continue to fund his efforts and he’d found that a handful of the curse-making monkeys could produce multiple high-grade curses when the right pressure was applied.

He’d learned quickly that keeping them close was just a matter of telling them what they wanted to hear. They were simple minded creatures in that way. They only wanted to hear their own thoughts and desires regurgitated back to them and in return they’d do whatever was asked of them. You would be a good trial run for what sweet words the monkeys abroad may like to hear. He doesn’t suspect it’s all that different from the typical script, however, there had been a foundational cultural understanding that his lines had been developed from. Some things would be universal but he would have to improvise here. It was a discomforting thought initially. Perhaps he’d been getting too used to routine and order lately.

He remembered a lifetime ago where he was thrilled to have some sort of challenge.

His thoughts were interrupted by the shoji door of the hearing room being abruptly slid open and the source of his wandering mind entered the room.

He couldn’t help but to sit up straighter as the cursed user’s signature filled the room and practically rolled off of you in waves. Bergamot and calone lapped at his senses, demanding recognition and acknowledgment.

You were inexperienced. Undeniably so if your output was anything to go off of. It was more contained than a monkey’s but lacked the refinement that came with training. More similar to the girls’ output than what an adult should be producing.

It seemed whatever small cluster of curse users you belonged to had misplaced you or had never been able to find you to begin with.

But the lost lamb had found its way home at the end of the day.

And you certainly were a lamb. All soft features and wide eyes as you examined the room.

The script would need to be thrown out. Before he’d been prepared for revisions, but with you as a scene partner it would need to be scraped entirely.

He motioned for you to take a seat before him. His eyes following your swift movements, practically gliding across the floor before settling into place. You had that feminine thing down. Shoulders and back straight, never slumping. Your eyes staring back into his without wavering or lowering your gaze. The only thing that betrayed your nervousness was the twitch of your fingers as they sat in your lap. Unfortunately for you he could recognize a fellow tradesman.

The lamb was the first to break the silence.

“I’m not really sure how these things usually go,” you offered an apologetic, but strained, smile as you shifted your weight.

“An introduction is usually a good place to start,” he offers, a light tone teasing through his words as he watches you squirm. You’re very clearly feeling like a fish out of water and it’s nearly endearing.

As expected, the name you give is foreign. “Soto,” your last name coats his tongue as he tests it - and finds that he doesn’t particularly mind it. It’s familiar even, “what is it that’s brought you a world away to see me?” Like he’d heard from the whispers, your accent betrayed your origins. While he couldn’t decisively name it, you certainly weren’t from anywhere on this side of the globe. Western, for certain.

“My friend thought you could help me,” you say after a few moments, careful intention with each word evident as you do, “She seems to be under the impression you’re in the business of performing miracles.”

“Well I suppose that entirely depends on the type of miracle,” your face falters for a moment, the comment causing a slight downward twitch of your lip as you find yourself utterly unamused by his vague response.

“She says you can heal the sick.”

“You don’t look sick,” his eyes trail over you, searching for visible evidence of a sickness he already knew you didn’t possess, “or all that convinced of what your friend has told you. You’d come all this way to ask a miracle of someone without believing it possible?”

“Desperate times and all that,” it’s a murmur but it fills the quiet room as you glance away with him and off to the side, wrestling with how much truth you were willing to part with, “I can see things that shouldn’t be there.” When your eyes return to his, there’s a depth to the emotion in them - fear mixed with a begging to be believed that is so tooth achingly familiar.

He’d seen it in the mirror a thousand times that lifetime ago.

It’s the same look he had when he was younger and ignorant of the world of curses and shaman. The same one that was filled with a shame that would gnaw at him and threaten to swallow him whole. each time he overheard his parents’ hushed tones arguing at night after another one of his ‘episodes’. But then he’d been scouted.

And you hadn’t.

And unfortunately for you the world was filled with the tragedy of monkeys, both big and small, and the curses that they leave behind. How lonely it must’ve been to see it all alone and be made to doubt your own senses.

You’d taken his silence as room to continue. You filled the void with descriptions of the curses and of your childhood. Of a life filled with hauntings and fear that no child’s body was meant to hold. Of doctor’s poking and prodigy, of diagnoses and medications that never seemed to work.

Suguru listens but only through a fog as he has to choke down the bitter laugh that wants to crawl out of his throat. Of course they’d try to disguise their own shortcomings and fill your head with nonsense of a sickness that was theirs alone.

It was a special kind of hell -to be a child surrounded by non-sorcerers. A miracle born to those too ignorant to appreciate it. But you were home now.

It would be sick to send you back, afterall. The monkeys had not taken proper care of you - not that they could ever know how. He couldn’t let you go back to them, not after you’d found your way here. Or worse, with you being in Japan and so close to the technical schools there was a very real possibility you could be recognized and brought into the fold of sorcerers. They’d waste no time in seeing to it that you were burdened with misery that the monkeys created.

He couldn’t stand to see another body crushed under that weight.

So you’d need to stay. He wasn’t unhappy at the prospect of you making the compound your home in the same way it was Nanako and Mimiko’s.

It was truly only a matter of how. How much information to give you and how soon. What to tell and what to save for another day. What breadcrumbs to leave to ensure you stayed.

He could, of course, go the far simpler route. He could put all of his cards on the table in a display of blatant barefaced honesty. The preferable and less complicated of the two options, without a doubt. But there was a chance that it would be overwhelming. To learn that the world you’d known was false was no simple matter.

While Suguru would not want you to stay in the dark, as he’d never believed ignorance to be a virtue, he needed to be gentle in his delivery and that required time.

With his decision made, he returns to the conversation only to find the room void of noise and you eyeing him cautiously. He’d been too caught up in his internal turmoil to process all of what you’d said - but he’s certain he understands enough and what you came here looking for and he’s more than willing to provide it.

"So…,” you draw the word out, apparently too uncomfortable with the silence to let it continue for any longer.

"So…," he mimics and is rewarded with a small frown forming on your lips and your fingers tightening in your lap.

"Do you think you can help me or not?” you are frustrated and Suguru supposes it’s fair.

He’s been a very poor host these past few minutes.

"Well that all depends on how you want to be helped.” He’s learned a few things about the psyche being in the position that he is and having the time to reflect on his actions as a student. About how the world of shamans is able to grind so many young bodies into dust just to have more replace them the following year.

The illusion of choice is a powerful thing - especially those born into a life with limited options and a curse user all alone in the world has very limited options indeed.

There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that you’d choose his help but he still felt a warm, and perhaps misplaced, feeling of pride fill his chest at your response.

“I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” you were filled with a determination that cast all doubt of what was to come aside.

Suguru brought his thumb and forefinger to his chin, pretending to think on your statement, “I’m familiar with many stories like yours. I’ll have to understand your situation better than we have time for today to be certain,” your eyes practically light up at his words. Eyebrows raised and mouth slightly ajar in disbelief, “but it will require no small effort on your end.” He watches as the information processes. He’d cast the first breadcrumbs, and he has no doubt that you’ll follow.

“Well,” you offer a small shrug, “I guess it can’t hurt none to give it the ole college try.”

“I’m glad you agree,” Suguru says as he rises to his feet and makes his way over to you, “You’re welcome to stay at the shrine seeing that we have to extend your session.”

You make an attempt to scramble to your feet, caught off guard at the prompt ending to your hearing, but he’s offering his extended hand to you before you can manage. He pretends to ignore the look of trepidation that crosses your features before you finally rested your hand in his own.

“I wouldn’t want to be a burden,” you weekly protest as he pulls you to your feet.

"No burden at all,” he reassures smoothly before leading you to the door.

You still look uncertain as you remove your hand from his, “My things are still with Hisoka.”

The name is unfamiliar but it takes no great effort to conclude that it’s the name of the one who brought you here. He figures he should instruct the council to offer some kind of reward for such an act. He’d found that keeping the monkeys in line required conditioning of their behavior - a carrot and a stick and the knowledge of when to use which. Use one too often and the beasts become troublesome.

Hopefully, it would encourage similar actions from the others as well. He wondered how many other lost curse users there were to be found and brought home. “We can have someone go and get them for you,” he dismisses and he watches as you internally struggle with how to respond.

"If you're certain..."

"I am,” it’s definitive and leaves no room for further hand wringing. You mulled over it for a few more seconds before conceding and giving a nod in acceptance.

He leads you away from the hearing room and can’t help but think of how lucky he is that his lamb is so agreeable.

[gatutor]

Dennis O´Keefe-Helen Walker-William Bendix "Abroad with two yanks" 1944. de Allan Dwan.

[wooahaes]

skz versions PLEASE

while im waiting for pasta sauce to thicken up a lil...

my immediate thought for 'older brothers best friend' is aussie bros being actual (adopted) aussie bros. reader is chris's best friend and felix is in love with them but has 0 idea how to talk abt it. where like... the seokmin-chan dynamic was "i'm worried abt how seokmin will respond :(", the chris-felix dynamic is "chris can never find out because he has so much dirt on me and i'll never live"

i like the idea that reader n chris meet in high school and just click together rly well lol and felix starts crushing on them after reader shows up to a swim meet a few years later while felix is a freshman. reader's cheering on chris and felix because they wanna be supportive and reader hugs felix afterward and he's like omg (flustered). he doesn't act on it for a while because he thinks the crush will go away, esp after reader goes abroad for school, and then they come back and felix's crush comes back in full force. all of his friends (the rest of the 00z + jeongin) know the lore by now and have been sworn to silence. there's just some sort of rekindling of things, both have matured a bit, and its kind of a "im getting to know you again and oops we're falling in love" while reader and felix scramble to keep their relationship hidden from chris (bc reader, like felix, also knows how much dirt chris has on them. neither part of this relationship will get to live with chris around)

i like to imagine that eventually it leads to a big fight because i live for the drama in fiction lol where chris finds out and he's hurt because two of the people he loves most have been hiding this from him and he feels horrible because why wouldnt they trust him??? reader calls things off with felix because they feel guilty for hurting him, felix is upset and feels guilty for hurting chris as well, and the three start to avoid one another fully after the fallout. it 100% takes the rest of their friends to trick them all into the same room and being like 'ok work this shit out because ur depressing us.' they work things out, probs w chris admitting he never wanted them to hide their relationship and he def didn't want them to break up as a result, he just wishes they had talked to him, etc. and they work things out and happy ever after :)

sorry u can tell i was thinking abt this while i was cooking sdkfhdsf

fake dating but the guy needs it instead of the reader... hmm..... god, who is the funniest option for fake dating.... my heart says seungmin if im honest because like. he feels like the type who's like "i would never get myself into that situation"

and then he turns around to reader and hes like "i need you to pretend to date me. don't ask questions." and reader (his friend and coworker) is like. uh. my guy, i kind of have to ask questions rn. and seungmin starts telling this long story about how he saw his ex out in public and they're dating someone new and they were kind of a shitty person when they dated and turns out they're still shitty bc they saw the chance to put seungmin down because ohh ur not dating anyone? of course ur not :) and hes like ACTUALLY I AM (pulls up picture of him and reader when they were hanging out) they're hotter than you :) and now he's invited to some party that he knows his ex will be at and he needs reader to go with him. readers like whats in it for me tho other than showing up ur bitchy ex. and seungmins like idk ill cover one of ur shifts.

thats not enough and he ends up promising to take u out for whatever food afterward and covering one of ur shifts as soon as u need it (barring him having any personal emergencies/being physically unable to cover it). reader is 100% the one who kisses seungmin's cheek while at the party...

and probably also the one who yanks seungmin in to make out with him in a bedroom when they hear seungmin's ex wandering around for him. they absolutely pull away and are fine right after its all over. the two probs keep up the fake dating for a while w the PDA becoming more and more common until seungmin just looks up one day and hes like

holy fuck. we're just like... actually dating now arent we.

they r idiots together <3 mwah mwah

[moonxvxsun]

so I don't really have anywhere else to talk about this, but I genuinely have had the most amazing week (but also the worst week) and I just need to share :)

so feel free to ignore my story.

I'm being harassed by the management guy in my apartment building. now, I live abroad and am not fluent in the lanaguage. so I didn't know what to do, so I met this guy on bumble and we've been chatting and became good friends and he told me if I was scared I could spend the night at his place if I could get a bus there because he lives an hour and a half away. I managed to get a bus and he took me in and took care of me because I was so freaked out. the next day he helped me call my work and we went to a cafe and did work together and held hands walking through a park. we even shared a waffle as we walked, he was feeding me.

I go home and he tells me if anything happens he'll drive down and get me. even though it's far and I took the bus home already. luckily nothing happened.

two days later I'm in severe pain from something period related I don't even know. so I ask him if he knows any hospitals that would be in a bigger city he used to live in that would be open. (it was a holiday weekend that's why we were both off this whole week.) he then tells me a hospital in his city and I make an appointment to go and I thank him for the recommendation.

he texts me and asks me where I am and if I'm close to the bus terminal, I said I don't need him to come because I can go to the hospital alone and I don't want him to have to sit there bored. but he insists and picks me up and brings me to the hospital. he talks with everyone and helps me and we end up having to go to the emergency room. he sat there with me for 5 hours. (now keep in mind this is a guy from bumble I met one in person before this shit show of a week.) I kept telling him he could leave but he refused, he helped me talk to the doctors because he's a native from Korea and can speak it fluently (obviously.) he then took my card and paid and picked up my meds for me so I didn't have to walk.

the doctor wanted to keep me in the hospital for two nights to see me again his next work day since I travelled from a different city. but this guy told me it was a waste of money and offered to let me stay at his house. I told him he's done more than enough for me but he told me that I'll just stay with him and he told the doctor that.

over the next two days we just spent time together. he made sure I ate three meals a day (which is a struggle for me) because I needed to eat before taking my pills. he still held my hand when we walked and he started to tease me more. he's been tickling me and hitting my butt, even at the store.

I have a very obvious crush on this guy and I'm so dense I can't tell if he likes me too lol.

he loves to help people and always says 'im glad I could help you' so I can't tell if he likes me or not :(

also, he won't let me carry my own bags. like no matter what he's always holding it. in the car it's in my lap and when we get to our destination he yanks it from my lap before getting out of the car so I can't hold it.

anyway, that's my little story hehe

[bloodcandied]

Death Addiction 亡瘾 Chapter 3

[Timeskip]

I hated flying on long haul airplanes.

The dryness of the cabin was uncomfortable for the eyes, and after more than five hours, the nose would begin to pick up awful scents.

The last time I went back home was a year ago, to see my mom during Chinese New Year. Usually, I couldn't go back twice a year because I had to study and work part-time. But even once a year, a long-haul flight made me feel like I should never fly again.

I landed at 1am. Because of jet lag, I was drowsy. Even though I had taken a sleep aid on the plane to force the jet lag, I almost stepped off the bridge when I got off.

I waited for my two big suitcases at the baggage carousel. The wait was too long - two connections on a flight from Atlanta - even if I had been told I had dropped a suitcase it wouldn't have been much of a surprise.

I yawned and switched to my domestic cell phone card and sent my mom a message that I had landed. She was already waiting outside the airport, but judging by this, I was afraid it would be a long wait.

Twenty minutes later, I finally picked up my luggage. We agreed on the terminal parking lot, which was about a ten minute walk. I went to the restroom halfway through and washed all the skin I could that was exposed, trying to wash off the weird airplane smell.

It was 2:30 a.m. and there weren't many flights taking off or landing at domestic airports anymore.

I was the only one in the restroom, and as I wiped my hands clean and prepared to leave the place, the door to the cubicle behind me suddenly opened, and a hand yanked me inside, choking me hard-

I could smell the familiar odor of death.

The murder lasted less than ten seconds. I sat down on the toilet lid with my neck covered and coughed for a while. He was about to speak when I kicked him in the middle of the shin of his calf, and he jumped away with a hiss covering his leg.

"Graduated from college, how people have changed?" Xu Tuo jumped over on one foot and ruffled my hair, "hair stay so long, also wear glasses, you myopic?"

I made a move to kick him again, but he opened the door to the cubicle and fled.

--After Dad died, Xu Tuo continued living in my house. He occasionally went out of town for a few days in the name of a business trip, and only I knew what he was there for.

Every year, when I went back home to visit my family, I also stopped by to see him. It was still the same as before, going to a convenience store to buy some junk food, going to an Internet cafe to hack, or exchanging information about the guy he had recently tracked down in my bedroom. I thought he only liked to hunt down murderers who didn't get caught, but then, I learned that his hunt was much wider than that.

The most boring part og all this was hacking games with him. His game playing sucked. "The setting of blood volume is already very unscientific, why is the monster still not dead after being stabbed so many times by the knife ......"

"Because it's a monster."

"Our characters didn't die even after being slashed so many times."

"Because that's just program data."

He probably still thought it was more fun to slash monsters in the third dimension.

My mom had always been an indecisive woman, but after dad's accident, she decisively used her pension to arrange for my study abroad. I hesitated then instead, considering whether to refuse to go abroad and stay here to take care of her.

Xu Tuo however told me to go out and look around, "Anyway, the problem of tuition was solved with the pension ......"

"You have one more chance to speak like human before I call the police." I'd said.

"-Young people should go outside more often."

----

The day I was sent to the U.S., Xu Tuo and my mom drove me to the airport. When I graduated and returned home, it was still my mom and him who came to pick me up.

My mom sent me a message in advance, she drove to the parking lot to wait for me, and Xu Tuo came to the arrival level of the airport to wait for me.

This guy really didn't wait at the exit.

We each pushed a suitcase down the elevator and went to the parking lot to find my family's car. My mom complained that my hair was too long, "You should fix it before the interview. You're not nearsighted, why are you wearing glasses? I'm worried that Xiao Xu won't recognize you."

"I almost didn't recognize him, I was worried that I caught the wrong person." He sat in the back row and laughed lowly.

I glanced at his hand. There was a cut on the back of Xu Tuo's left hand, like a knife wound.

"What happened to your hand?" I asked softly.

"-Work injury." He said, "The client was agitated and tried to cut me when we couldn't fulfill the demand."

"So." I sneered, "Then why don't you just treat the customer like God and fulfill his needs?"

"Business is business but we can't force what cannot be done."

"Tomorrow Uncle Zhou will come to our house after work right?" Too lazy to continue to talk to him, I asked mom about tomorrow, "It seems like it's about helping me with my resume."

Mom was about to drive and didn't look back, "It's okay to tell him not to come. I vote for a technical position, the kind that doesn't go out into the field."

"It's better to go into a regular business like Xiao Xu." She said, "Mom can get an old classmate to help you inwardly push into a joint venture ......"

I pushed the flat lens on my nose, hiding myself behind it to avoid her words. Dad's death had made her as uneasy as a scared bird about my future career choices.

Xue Tuo was also uneasy. He gulped three times when he saw the post graduation wishes on my notebook.

"Is this uncomfortable?" I jerked the notebook back.

"No... but when did you become interested in the study of forensics......"

"When I was in college, ah, purposely changed my major. It just so happened that Uncle Zhou was able to help me send my file to the research institute, what's wrong with a stable job and income."

I didn't know if it was an illusion, but I'd seemed to have grown a bit taller in the past few years, and I was finally about the same height when I walked with him.

The first thing that happened when I got home was the move - my mom decided to bring my grandmother in to take care of her, while I moved directly upstairs with my own stuff to the place that Xu Tuo had rented. This was something I had decided to do before I returned home, and Xu Tuo's rent could be cut in half.

Xu Tuo had rented my place for many years, but I hardly ever came up to his flat. I was worried that if I opened the door, I would see something bloody, but it turned out that the upstairs room was surprisingly clean.

There were no unnecessary decorations or furnishings, everything was neatly arranged, the large suitcase was by the window, and the wallet and ID holder were on top of the suitcase. Even in a blackout environment, one could memorize where each item was placed.

"This is how people who are always ready to run would live." He said, "You should be careful if you see anyone else's house like this in the future."

I pulled two sports posters and a couple of male-oriented magazines out of my own luggage and threw them at him, "You'd better clutter up the house tomorrow when Uncle Zhou comes over to talk to me about joining the force then."

-----

Uncle Zhou was my dad's superior and had been preparing for his retirement for the past two years.

The old cop's intuition was as sharp as a shark's. I was going to make an excuse that I was now living elsewhere and change the place of conversation; but then I thought, a lie is likely to snowball into more trouble because Uncle Zhou was too smart ......Might as well mess up the room a bit and make it look like a regular bachelor pad.

Before the appointed time, Xu Tuo and I purposely messed up the living room by putting a few posters on the wall, a pile of fleshy male magazines in the corner of the coffee table, and a few coats thrown over the backs of the chairs.

After doing all this, I waited for Uncle Zhou with peace of mind. And Xu Tuo brought us ice coke like a warm friend.

"I'd like to arrange for you to go to the third institute in the new district." Uncle Zhou said, "Not counting the old institute, it's a newly established unit in the hall. Engaged in trace science research, your specialty is more appropriate there, and they are in urgent need of new people. The public sector, the average education requirements, and everything else in your resume is beautiful, the people there also want you to go."

"Uncle will arrange it."

"Then next Thursday, you go to Henan Road and New District Road over ......," he recalled the address, his eyes fell on the magazine by the coffee table. I don't know if I was just being paranoid, but Uncle Zhou's eyes changed - was the magazine cover too hot? If I had known, I would have bought a more conservative one ......

Immediately afterward, he turned back to look at the jacket thrown on the backrest of the sofa. In a flash, my heart crashed hard - in the middle of summer, we took a fall cardigan and threw it there.

While cardigans weren't as anticlimactic as down jackets, very few young men still wore long-sleeved cardigans in the summer.

This room was full of incongruity. I purposely aged the magazines and rolled up the edges, but unfortunately, I was not skillful in doing so and could not withstand a closer look. There wasn't a scrap of paper on the coffee table, and the trash can was clean ......

"What are you hiding from uncle?"

When I came back to my senses, Uncle Zhou was sizing me up, as well as Xu Tuo, who was looking at his laptop at the dining table behind him. Xu Tuo's face was blocked by the screen, and I was worried about how he looked right now.

"Don't do anything to bring your father's breath back to life, Xueming." There was a long silence before Uncle Zhou said this.

I heard Xu Tuo choking in the back and he couldn't help but laugh.

I didn't have the guts to stay here. It was a nice night, so I said "Uncle Zhou, let's go out for a walk."

There were quite a few places to walk at night downtown, and there was a green park right next to the house. We passed a bunch of square dancers, chatting hard over the earth-shattering music.

The conversation was still about my dad.

My dad chased down an armed robber back in the day and ended up not coming back from his accident. Uncle Zhou would look blank when he talked about it. He and my dad had been partners for many years, and we had all agreed on where to buy a retirement home after we retired, but suddenly he was gone.

It happened so suddenly that it didn't yet feel real. Grief, like a misloaded bullet, didn't stay long, passing by in the blink of an eye.

"Then we went to get the guy," he said, referring to the robber who had stabbed my dad, "and got word that he was going to take the train and flee out of town."

"I know, and then he committed suicide in fear of his life."

"We only told you he died. After all, you were young and preparing for exams, and didn't dare to tell you many details. The arrest location was set at the train station, he couldn't bring a weapon with him if he wanted to enter the train station, so the difficulty and danger of closing the net wasn't too high, we planned to hold him on the platform, so as not to start a conflict in a crowded place like the waiting hall."

Next, Uncle Zhou told me the hard-core version of the story. The interceptors surrounded the platform from both sides, basically destined to catch a turtle in a jar. The man probably felt something was wrong and wanted to leave the platform and take the overhead walkway above back to the waiting room.

That's when the train was coming. They were going to make their move too. As a result, they unexpectedly saw their target drop down toward the tracks out of the blue and instantly get churned up by the train.

Half of his body was run over by the train, but he didn't die for a while. He was screaming and shouting, "Someone stabbed me in the leg and made me go down!

Whether someone really stabbed his legs and forced him to fall down the platform was impossibleto tell since the lower half of his body had been crushed. There was no way to find out.

By the time the engineer's team came in a hurry to saw off the platform, the man was dead.

"This is only said in private, but everyone thinks it's retribution." Uncle Zhou smiled bitterly, "That death was tragic enough. Later, there was a department that organized psychological counseling to comfort the other passengers who were on the platform that day ...... How could someone stab him down with a knife? That's a train station, you can't bring a knife through the inspection ......"

I twisted my head and threw the contents of my pocket into the trash can. Now I knew, why before I boarded the plane, Xu Tuo gave me a pen that could not write to keep as a souvenir. Its nib was sharpened to a very sharp point, and I'd thought it was a special style of handmade fountain pen.

-----

The job was finalized. When I went back, Xu Tuo had already tidied up the house.

I told him I'd thrown the pen away, but he still felt pity: "Maybe it would have been useful in the future."

"Waiting for whoever finds that pen that can't write ink and realizes that what's congealed inside the nib is blood, then a lab test, exciting."

"You're so bad at enjoying the uncertainty of life."

"I wouldn't have the hobby of dying if I could enjoy that."

I then fished out my newly purchased rope from my bag, a high yardage German-made climbing rope of uniform thickness that wouldn't hurt my skin, which I'd brought back from the States on purpose.

Life after returning to China was calm and stable. I went to and from work every day on time, no overtime, and of course no bonus. When I got home, I cooked on 1, 3, 5, and Tuo cooked on 2, 4, 6, 7. It was a verbal agreement. But the guy often came home late.

"I looked up a soon to be released prisoner." He said, "-Extensive record of brawling, three times causing serious cranial injuries to others, lots of other petty thefts, a regular at the police station since he was fourteen, thirty-one years old this year. Come see my treasure boy."

He held the laptop up in my direction. I was currently hanging myself from the doorknob, staring dead ahead.

"I wish you all the happiness in the world." I choked out.

"Anyway, I may not be back for the next two days. He's got a friend from the next city to pick him up from jail."

"Why don't you go wait for him at the prison gate." I let go of the rope and dropped down, "Maybe he's in jail again for fighting and assault while you're buying a train ticket."

"I'm an activist, Xueming."

-----

The proactive Xu Tuo went to the train station early the next morning to chase his treasured prey. I went to work as usual, and when I passed by my coworker's workstation, he was entering photos of a new case -- the body of a young woman with strangulation marks on her neck.

"Suicide." He noticed I was interested and he handed me the photo, "But the rope marks are special, we'll enter them into the system for a record."

I touched my neck, "Suicide?"

"Well, there are no signs of struggle, there are no abnormal drug indicators ...... In short, it meets the criteria for suicide, and the case was closed in accordance with suicide."

By the time these photos were taken, the body had already begun to show visible body spots. There was a bright, well-proportioned purple mark on her neck, like the blossoming flower.

Perhaps I was the only one who realized that this was not a suicide.

To be continued

[moderndayathena]

I am from the Midwest in the US, and the first time I was referred to as a Yank was during my semester abroad in England when I was in college. It completely threw me for a loop at the time!  It’s funny, because I was recently in England with my two kids for a long planned vacation, and at one point, I referred to us as yanks and my kids immediately argued with that description! I guess, being in England made me think of myself that way again, but it is the only time I ever think of myself as a Yank. 

yank poll incoming

Bonus points if you reblog and tag where you're from and your answer. thank you kisskiss

[amidst-wonderland]

{random modern!nora + michael headcanons / snippets}

michael grew up going on trips to centre parcs, seychelles and casablanca, nora grew up with haven, blackpool and benidorm. so when she drags him on a brits abroad, all-inclusive with the in-laws to alicante, it goes as well as expected.

“george, where’s the suncream?”      “granda took it ‘cause ro was using it on blue albert.”      “where’s rosie now?”      “at the snack-bar with granda.”      michael groaned, disinterested in the thought of having to interact with his father-in-law halfway across the pool, which also meant having to sightsee the rolodex of bargain holiday-maker brits who’d gone as red as lobsters in their drunken morning afters or as his wife dubbed it, “hivving the fear.” nor did her want move from the sun-lounger and wake up his hungover wife who'd began to burn in his arms. though he could really use a smoke.      “mum.” the six-year-old calls, and again.      “she’s sleeping george,” michael sighs as nora begins to stir, her back against his chest. “what’s wrong?”      “lost my tigger sunglasses and my eyes are stingy.” george whines, rubbing at them.      carefully, he peels his arm from across nora’s stomach pulling off his own sunglasses. “here, have these until we go back to the room. don’t loose them.”      george puts on the laughably too big designer shades and peers down at his parents. “mum’s really red.”      “i know.”      “hair matches her face,” he snorts.      “doesn’t it?”      “looks sore.”      “i’m sure it is.”      “do you want me to go find ro and granda?”      “sling yer hook georgie and get me the big towel out of auntie edie’s bag.” nora murmurs, turning into the warmth of her husband trying to ignore the hard plastic scraping against her skin.      “you said she was sleeping!”

☆—☆

“you wantin’ a drink hen?”      “naw.”      “‘mon trouble, free bar – all-inclusive." he states, watching nora grumble and pull her shades back down. "the offers going in…"      “if you're not here to give ma weans their chips then you can piss aff back to yer ain." she warns, getting more aggravated now that alec was blocking the sun. "push you in that bloody pool if ye don't shift."      “christ, that gin hangover’s really getting tae you.” alec smirks, bending down to pinch her toes sticking out from the beach towel. “yer auld noo, tellin’ da his wee-yin can’t hack it at the disco anymair.”      nora squeals into her husband’s chest, “michael make his stop! s’not fair!”      he continues to yank at her toe, nora attempting to kick him away. “fragile are ye? running aff tae yer man. no a scheme-wean in ye anymore. where's the lassie that used tae get up on the bar-tops at three in the 'morn! singing 'er we heart oot." the redhead swiftly turns, grabbing the sunscreen and aiming it at her brother, "you've got aboot two seconds-" "-right fine!" he surrenders, "an here ah thought you'd gone saft."

wrote this back whilst i was binge watching benidorm and sitting by the pool in albufeira, totally forgot about them so enjoy.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Even when asked to address nonviolence in the context of labor disputes, marital woes, and other issues, Bayard Rustin reported, and even when specifically instructed not to address the war, audiences inevitably asked him “to present our views on the world struggle in light of the principles I had outlined.” But in addition to talking of peace, he spoke passionately about discrimination—and in the view of biographer Jervis Anderson, “came to be recognized as probably the most militant civil rights advocate in the United States.” Topics included “Racial Exploitation in America” and “Can Nonviolent Non-Cooperation Win Freedom for the American Negro?” Especially incendiary was his tendency to note the ways in which our own country and its allies, while condemning our enemies, were themselves guilty of some of the same moral failings. The Dayton, Ohio, Journal, reporting on a speech Rustin delivered at a local Baptist church in 1943, gives some sense of how provocative his message could be in a time of war:

While he emphasized that he was not in sympathy with Germany, the speaker said Hitler has been more honest than President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill. For instance, he explained that Hitler does not pretend friendship with the Jews on the one hand and punish them on the other…He said that Churchill does not intend to bring racial equality, but rather intends to retain the status quo. He stated that much is said about equality in this country, yet the government, even in the armed forces, is one of the worst offenders.

Rustin was certainly aware of the ambivalence toward the war in black America, where segregation in the military and persistent discrimination on the home front had bred profound resentment. “Many Negroes have little faith in the present struggle,” he reported in a FOR [Fellowship of Reconciliation] memo dated September 8, 1942.

I have heard many say they might as well die right here fighting for their rights as to die abroad for other people’s. It is common to hear outright joy expressed at a Japanese military victory. For thousands of Negroes look upon successes of any colored people anywhere as their successes.

David Dellinger, in his memoir, reports being taken with Benedict and Dallas to an all-black jazz club where the three of them were celebrated by patrons for having refused to fight. “The general bitterness,” Myrdal reported, “is reflected in the stories that are circulating in the Negro communities: A young Negro, about to be inducted into the army, said, ‘Just carve on my tombstone, Here lies a black man killed fighting a yellow man for the protection of a white man.’ ”

Around the same time as An American Dilemma was published (the spring of 1944), the army weekly Yank published an anguished letter from Rupert Trimmingham, a black corporal who discovered that the country he was fighting for could treat its enemies better than its own soldiers.

Here is a question that each Negro soldier is asking. What is the Negro soldier fighting for? On whose team are we playing? Myself and eight other soldiers were on our way from Camp Claiborne, La., to the hospital here at Fort Huachuca. We had to lay over until the next day for our train. On the next day we could not purchase a cup of coffee at any of the lunchrooms around there. As you know, Old Man Jim Crow rules. The only place where we could be served was at the lunchroom at the railroad station but of course we had to go into the kitchen. But that’s not all; 11:30 A.M. about two dozen German prisoners of war, with two American guards, came to the station. They entered the lunchroom, sat at the tables, had their meals served, talked, smoked, in fact had quite a swell time. I stood on the outside looking on. And I could not help but ask myself these questions. Are these men sworn enemies at this country? Are they not taught to hate and destroy…all democratic governments? Are we not American soldiers sworn to fight for and die if need be for this our country? Then why are they treated better than we are?

Americans knew this was wrong. Yank was inundated with mail from G.I.s, “almost all of whom were outraged by the treatment given the corporal,” the editors wrote. The original Trimmingham letter even became the basis of a short story in The New Yorker. In a subsequent letter published on July 28, Trimmingham reported that he was heartened to receive 287 letters in response to his own, including 183 from whites in the armed forces, most from the Deep South. “It give me new hope to realize that there are doubtless thousands of whites who are willing to fight this Frankenstein that so many white people are keeping alive,” Trimmingham wrote. He was one of 1.2 million blacks who served in the armed forces during the war in spite of their second-class status.

While blacks were concerned first and foremost with discrimination at home, there was also rising consciousness of race and imperialism elsewhere. Rustin’s memo goes on to say that

No situation in America has created so much interest among Negroes as the Gandhian proposals for India’s freedom. In the face of this tension and conflict, our responsibility is to put the technique of nonviolent direct action into the hands of the black masses.

- Daniel Akst, War By Other Means: How the Pacifists of World War 2 Changed American for Good. New York: Melville House, 2022. p. 183-185.

[cocktailsfairytales]

#CurrentlyReading

For the past five years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. The car door ripping open. The crushing blow to the head. The hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend Ali’s piercing scream as she is taken.

With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He’s put his past behind him.

Until, on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali’s car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me...

Then, halfway around the world, the unthinkable happens: Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night.

As Ryan races from the rolling hills of Tuscany, to a rural village in the UK, to the glittering streets of Paris in search of the truth, he has no idea that his salvation may lie with a young sheriff’s deputy in Kansas working her first case, and a mobster in Philadelphia who’s experienced tragedy of his own.

https://www.bookbub.com/books/if-something-happens-to-me-by-alex-finlay

[loose-and-goose]

ways to say i love you

Grandma says,

“Hold your ear”

As she lifts the pressing comb from the hot plate

And my curls become flat the night before Easter Sunday

Under her shaking hands

Mom twists

My hair tight and wraps a ballie around the end

She taps my shoulder to say,

“All done”

And I get up from the floor between her legs 

For the first time in two hours

As my younger sister takes my place

And mom leans forward to start the process a third time

My crush

Fiddles with the bantu knots on my head

As we do homework together 

And I am sure he doesn’t understand what it is

To be the first person outside of my family

To touch there

My older sister asks,

“Does it hurt?”

When I flinch and blink back tears

As she yanks the crochet hook, inexperienced

In and out of the cornrows my mother planted

Before my first spring break with friends

My cousin says,

“You got enough hair on your head for three people!”

As she steps away from my chair

And welcomes another client into her salon

A break from installing the faux locs

Before I go abroad 

To a place where no one can help me

My new friend’s mother laughs

“Girl, you got a lot of hair!”

As I sit between her legs, months later, six hands untwining the locs on my head

My new friend’s mother

Who flew thirteen hours to spend a few days with her daughter

Pulling synthetic hair from between the cornrows my cousin planted,

Letting me sit between her legs

And feel something familiar

My younger sister sighs,

“I forgot how much hair you have.”

She grabs another rubber band

Wraps it around my roots and the bundle of Kanekalon

Carefully braiding down to the ends

For the fiftieth time in four hours

Because we’re in a pandemic, the salons are closed, and I have a plane to catch

My white friend laughs,

“I have never done this before!”

He’s only seen it in YouTube videos

I should be grateful

As he dips the ends of my hair

Into boiling water

Resealing loosening strands

I should be grateful

But I am angry to the verge of weeping.

Wishing my mother and sisters were not thirteen hours away

Loathing the pale palms bracing the scalding pot

All while knowing they are just trying to tell me that they love me

My loctitian wipes

Her hands on a towel

After seven hours of washing, parting, twisting,

“You look so good!”

She says it and she runs her fingers through the neat rows she created and I 

believe her

My baby cousin texts,

“Can someone help me?

I don’t think I can finish my hair in time for school.”

And the three of us pack into the car and drive

Across town

To let her sit between my older sister’s legs

While eight hands tell her that they love her for hours

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil’s Surprise Oil Tax Puts $20 Billion in Investment at Risk

Shell and other drillers have sued to block the levy, which effectively yanks the welcome mat for oil majors.

When Shell Plc’s new chief executive officer, Wael Sawan, landed in Brazil last month on his first official trip abroad, the reception was warm. He received assurances that the country’s new leftist leadership would respect the status quo in the oil industry, people familiar with the visit said, and he left confident that business would keep chugging along.

The camaraderie was short-lived. Two weeks later, Brazil surprised drillers by enacting a temporary tax on oil exports. In response, Shell and a group of foreign oil companies filed an injunction against the levy, risking a public legal battle with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration. The clash could damage Brazil’s hard-won reputation as Latin America’s rare petroleum-rich nation that welcomes foreign oil producers and respects its contracts with them.

Should this credibility erode, it might well chill $20 billion a year in oil industry investments in Brazil at a time when there are already serious questions about where the world will find its next font of fossil fuels.

Continue reading.

[qualityempathshoebear]

2022, a crashing rollercoaster

Hey you,

its been a while. Ok yeah, maybe a little more than "a while". The year is over, and i think its time to reflect. But first, let me catch you up on everything thats happened since I last came on here.

Im still in Leeds, and will realistically stay here until I leave for University. Youre probably wondering what happened, why im not in Singapore. Well... my dads job didnt think he had enough experience, so what was supposed to be a delay, turned into a cancellation. So I have basically had to go to a school i wasnt supposed to be at in the first place, for a whole half-year. It was absolutly horrible and I had no friends. There were three (sometimes four) nice girls who I would sit with during snack and lunch. But it was almost always just us sitting in silence or me going on the computer in front of me, so I didnt look like an absolute fucking loser. I would go on VG and read the news every day and must have looked like such a loner to the people behind me. The girls were nice, but I didnt feel like we ever got to know eachother, I felt so fake the entire time.

And dont get me fucking started on the morning forms. I fucking hated coming in there just to sit in awkward silnce while staring ahead. And those horrible meditation sessions that the form tutor would do. I would just sit there with my hands in my lap, hoping for it to end. The girl sitting next to me was nice tho. I think she could tell I wasnt enjoying myself. I can honestly say I had no friends in that place, and that it was single-handedly the worst school experience I had ever had. And I know parts of it was my fault. I wasnt willing to make friends because everything felt so temporary. Even being in England still does. But wait, why are you talking in past tense? Im happy you asked. You see, I begged my dad to send an email to IB headquarters and ask to get the official copy of my diploma so I can apply directly into college (Englands equivalnce to highschool), without having to take their middle school exam (because fuck that!). And it luckily arrived on the last day of chistmas break... so I dropped out.

The plan now is that im going abroad to stay with my aunt until september, because I honestly just cant deal with staying in this horribly sad country. Everything about it is sad. The weather, the food, the disgustinly chlorinated water, the people, the buildings, even their fucking buildings are sad. I just cant fucking deal with it, It so similair to back home. No, its ven worse here. What was even the point of moving.

I have been so incredibly stressed because of the whole situation and its really taken a tole on me. I have had so much anxiety, to the point where I cant even sleep at night without panicking. Im constantly tired, I have lost so much weight, I have a breast infection in both my breasts (to be fair, I did have it before coming here), im depressed, and honestly, a little sui*idal.

To make matters worse, my parents have become religous freaks. And its definelty not helping that my mom has befriended some super religous woman, with the same background as us. Theyre making me do some weird post-menstruation shower ritual every fucking month (yes, theyve been tracking my period, gross!). Dont get me wrong, I dont actually end up doing them. I protest for a while and then I lie and pretend like ive done it. Around two weeks ago my dad came to my room to tell me to do the ritual, and I told him I couldnt because I was sick (and i actually was). Long story short, he didnt believe me and started yelling at me. I told him he was pressuring me into becoming religious. He freaks out and basically threatens me and pushes me (at some point even yanking my phone out of my hands, saying hes going to take it from me). All this while my mom watches and doesnt do anything besides saying my dads name and grabbing his arm every now and them. She even left at some point, but made sure to come back to gaslight and guiltrip me. I told her that if anyone touched me ever again I would call the cops immidielty. I havent really spoken to dad since. Its honestly really strained the relationship with my parents, and its making me realise that we will never have a normal relationship. In some ways I wish I could just be religous so I could save myself the anger, stress, and constant fighting with my parents. But whenever I give the idea further thought, I cringe. Even religion is ruined for me because of them. I feel that I shouldnt be religous, as revenge. The only way I could ever see myself becoming religous, is if I married a muslim man, and he helped me heal from all this fucking trauma. But I dont think I will do that. The only upside is that he wouldnt leave me, because of the stigma of divorce in muslim communities. But heck, I honestly just want to be loved. As gross and sappy as that sounds.

This year was supposed to be filled with laughs, new starts, new frienships, money, and much more. And instead I got none of it. I dont know, maybe this is what I deserve. Its safe to say that 2022 was my worst year yet. There were some highs, but mostly lows. Real fucking lows.

Im honestly just happy that I get to leave this wet-red brick country (even if its just temporarly), and hopefully in the meantime, my dad will get a job somewhere else so we can leave. If not, University is my only way out.

Now youre pretty much all cought up with whats worth to be cought up on. Before I leave, Ill share my new years resolutions and what I hope to focus on in 2023.

New years resolutions:

-Drink 2L of water a day, Gain weight, Workout once a week, Grow finger and toe nails, start daily journal, Grow hair and repair hairline, Get a new hobby, Grow eyebrows and eyelashes, Read 3 books, Solve Cains Jawbone, Clear skin, and to watch a musical live.

And in 2023 I hope to repair (as much as possible) my mental and physical health.

That would be all for now, until next time! <3