#and immediately have to leave for AN HOUR AND A HALF LONG CAR APPOINTMENT

[boomerang109]

everyone applaud for past boom’s sense of time

[gloomwitchwrites]

Tattoo Artist Simon "Ghost" Riley x Female Reader

Chapter Specific Warnings: swearing, trauma, therapy, unprotected piv, oral sex (female receiving)

Word Count: 4k

A/N: Part Twenty-Eight of Ink & Needle

The aftermath of Kit’s actions influences your daily life. You proposition Simon with the hope of moving forward.

Chapter Twenty-Seven // Chapter Twenty-Nine

ao3 // main masterlist // ink & needle masterlist

Three Months Later

Healing isn’t linear. It is not kind or forgiving. The strangeness of therapy is how it resembles a spiderweb, beautiful at a glance but a lie. There is nothing beautiful in facing what you wish to leave behind. Sticky and lethal and pure carnage rehashed over and over again until talking it out becomes a numbing dullness.

Hope therapy goes well today. Love you.

Evie’s text stares up at you from the phone screen. She’s been a good friend through all of this, giving you space yet standing by your side. How the roles have reversed, become opposite from where it all started.

Bravo’s wet nose pushes into your palm, forcing your attention away from the phone screen.

“Hello, Bravo,” you croon softly, scratching the underside of his chin. “You good boy. Best boy!” His tail whips around in a circle, kicking up a breeze.

Simon’s dog has attended every therapy session with you. At first, you thought is strange that Simon insisted on it, but now you can’t imagine not having the German Shepherd there. Nearly all of your appointments occur during 141 Ink’s business hours. Simon cannot join you in person, but he can send a piece of himself along.

“Where’s your dad?” you tease. “Do you see him?”

Bravo stretches his neck, glancing around for Simon. It lasts only a moment. He is clearly far more interested in the attention you’re giving him.

“He is right here.”

Simon’s voice wraps around like a warm hug. You went without it for so long that now it’s a treat every time you hear him speak.

Bravo pivots out of your touch, taking a step forward to situate himself between you and Simon.

Simon’s eyebrows rise slightly as he crosses his arms over his chest. The body language stands in stark contrast to his massive grin. “Protecting her, are you? Even from me?” Bravo half-whines, half-barks. Simon chuckles. “That’s my boy.”

He gives Bravo a quick pat on the head before stepping around the dog. You immediately lean into Simon, one hand pressing into his chest as he cups the side of your neck, his thumb resting on the front of your throat. There is a protective, nearly primal quality to the way Simon’s features shift as his attention turns to you

“Am I late?” he asks.

You shake your head. “No.” Presenting your mouth, Simon descends slowly, meeting you with a serenely sensual kiss.

All the quiet, simmering anxiety that sits in the back of your mind melts away like a last snow, leaving behind a plethora of green grass that reaches for the sun. Simon is your beacon in the dark, the candle flame that lights your way.

One kiss is not enough. You need a second. A third.

The old flame of desire snakes upward, slithering between your bones to settle in your chest. It is asking for the thing you’ve denied yourself the last three months—an intimacy you had with Simon before everything happened.

A fourth kiss. A fifth. Desire tightens its languid body, constricting until your breath catches.

“Get a room!”

The voice of a passing stranger breaks the enchantment, the building desire retreating to hide amongst brown leaves and sticks.

Your cheeks grow hot just as a scowl appears on Simon’s face. Shoulder’s straightening, Simon is gearing to tell the interloper off, but you grab at Simon’s hand the second he begins to turn. A light tug is all it takes. Just your touch, and Simon’s scowl recedes to a soft smile that he only ever gives to you.

With a quick shrug of his shoulders, Simon clears his throat and takes Bravo’s offered leash, wrapping it around his tattooed knuckles. He places his hand low on your back, ushering you toward his parked car.

“How was therapy?”

Simon asks every time—a loaded question.

You exhale through your nostrils, briefly glancing away from him because telling the truth is fucking hard, especially when it involves him. You settle on a half-lie.

“Fine,” you reply. “Productive.”

Fine? Yes. Productive? No.

Simon’s head tilts slightly, gaze assessing like he doesn’t entirely believe you. “Up for company today?”

This you can appreciate it. Simon may always ask how therapy went but he never pushes further than you’re willing to give.

“Not really,” you answer, this time truthfully.

Evie’s unanswered text is as much a reminder as Simon’s questions. Things are different now. Normal cannot be what it once was. There are fractures you hold in your heart, memories that you wish you could erase with a quick snap of the fingers.

Simon nods, apparently content with your answer. “Then we’ll go home.”

It’s a short walk to the car, but you savor every second, leaning against Simon with each step. He talks your ear off about nothing, filling the air with what he did at the shop today, and the customers he had even as he helps you into the car.

It’s a lovely distraction. Which is why Simon is doing it at all. He knows. He understands. Simon is not a chatty person, he’s usually blunt with his words, more to the point than anything else. He prefers fewer words than long-winded nothings, and him keeping you distracted like this goes against everything he’s comfortable with.

But Simon doesn’t know what you talk about in those sessions with the therapist, and you refuse to share it with him. He also doesn’t ask, and for that, you’re fucking grateful. You’re still coming to terms with it yourself, shuffling through the two and a half months you were gone.

Sometimes, you think things would be easier if Kit had just hurt you. That’s the expected thing, to be mutilated in unforgiveable ways. You think about his choices often, what was going through his head, and why he never raised a single hand to you. The silence you received instead is almost worse somehow. Kit refused to speak with you, and the only other person who saw was the man that brought you your meal. He refused to say anything to you—refused to even glance in your direction. It wasn’t until the coffin that you heard the first human voice other than your own in two months.

And the voice was Simon’s. Not Kit’s. Simon’s.

Today, you talked about the coffin.

Not that you actually remember it. You only saw it after you were released from the hospital. Simon took you to some military base because Captain Price thought that seeing it in person might trigger a memory. He was firmly against it, insisted that you didn’t have to do this, but you pushed back, wanting to see what that monster put you in. Simon backed down, but setting your gaze on the thing that you nearly died in turned your limbs to stone and your mind to smeared jelly.

Simon was fucking furious. You’ve seen him upset—and you thought you knew what anger looked like on him. How wrong you were. Kyle stepped in and escorted you out of the room. You might have been on the other side of the wall but it only damped the screaming match that happened. Their words were heated, the exchange loud, and though you didn’t catch all of it, you picked up pieces.

Don’t involve her again.

This is my price to pay.

She’s suffered enough.

Kyle, while leaning against the wall next to you and fidgeting with his watch, had given you a solemn smile, an attempt to reassure but only left you feeling hollow.

“Don’t fret over it,” he had said. “Simon loves you is all. Price knows that.”

“They’re screaming at each other,” you murmured.

Kyle shrugged, the smile becoming more sincere and genuine. “Price will hug him after he’s done yelling. Simon will grunt.” He winked. “All good, love. Promise.”

Simon never brought you to another military base or anything to do with what happened again. If anyone reached out to him to insist, you never heard about it.

But of what you do remember, it’s of what happened before the coffin, how Kit smiled when he brought you your meal. You didn’t know it was drugged then. He hid it well, disguising the taste and texture. You should have known something was wrong when Kit sat on the floor across from you and watched you gobble up every bite. But you had been hungry, and having another person near felt so comforting in the moment.

“Movie sound good?”

You inhale sharply, turning toward Simon’s voice. He’s standing next to you, passenger door open, the middle of the brow creased with concern by your reaction. The two of you are already home.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur. “What did you ask?”

The corners of his lips turn downward. You’ve slipped off again—left reality for a bit.

“A movie,” repeats Simon. “After dinner. Thought we could stay in tonight.”

Bravo shoves his face between the front passenger seat and the interior of the car. His dark eyes dart between the two of you, impatience clear in the way his tail thump thump thumps against the backseat.

“Great,” you reply, slipping out of the car.

Simon’s gaze remains impassive, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he takes your hand, Bravo trotting along behind the two of you.

Inside, Simon takes your coat, hanging it up next to his before heading into the kitchen to start the kettle. It’s April now, but the weather is still chilly on occasion, and you could go for a tea.

“The new visa should arrive soon,” says Simon, flipping the tap on the electric kettle. “Price made a few calls.” Grabbing two mugs from the cupboard, he sets them down on the counter before turning around to face you. “Could get you a different one. A longer stay.” He pauses, a hopefulness twinkling in his eye. “Citizenship even.”

With everything that’s happened, Simon still wants you here, with him. Hands clasped in front of you, you meander into the kitchen, almost sauntering in the way you approach him. Simon’s eyelids grow heavy, that earlier desire forming in his gaze. The two of you have touched and kissed, but the few times any further intimacy has been initiated, it’s been by Simon. You weren’t committed then, still confused and dripping with a sense of being unclean.

When you’re ready. No rush.

Respect for you outweighs his desire. Simon made you aware in other ways—subtle glances and touches, gentle compliments—but never pushed, never made you feel like sex is an expectation. He handed you the ball and bat with the only request that you swing when ready.

“Is that what you want, Simon? For me to stay?”

As you draw closer, Simon’s hands instinctually reach out to you. You do not shy away but step into his embrace. Those large, tattooed hands of his clutch your waist, pulling you closer until you’re nearly flush against him.

“There are few things I want more.”

“Only a few?” you tease, and you’re greeted with a warm smile.

“Nothing, then.”

The kettle starts to boil, but Simon ignores his, all of his attention focused on you.

“I don’t want to watch a movie. Think I’d like to do something else.”

Simon shrugs. “Course, love. Whatever you want.” He shifts slightly to plop a teabag into each mug and then carefully pours the water over the top. “We can watch the next episode of that show—”

“No,” you interject, and Simon sets the kettle down. “I mean—” You lick your lips, unsure of how you want to approach this. “I want to…try.”

Simon blinks. “Try,” he says slowly. “Try…what?”

It takes every ounce of control to not laugh at Simon’s confusion. Placing your hand on his chest, you slide it lower, and lower still until the confusion on his face melts away and realization dawns. Without breaking eye contact, Simon grasps your wrist and draws your hand away as it falls dangerously close to brushing against his groin.

“Only if you’re ready,” he murmurs, though you hear the hunger. “Don’t do it on my account.”

“I miss you.”

“I’m right here, love.”

As you press into him, Simon’s resolve splinters. Your face is upturned, lips slightly parted in offer, and Simon’s mouth is just shy of connection. You breathe him in just as he does you. There is nothing you want more, to be consumed by him, to reconnect in the one way you’ve been without.

Simon lightly grasps the bottom-half of your face. “After dinner,” he says, and the curling need pooling low in your belly squirms with discontent.

“Now,” you breathe, a demand.

Simon’s eyelids flutter. Close. He takes a deep, steadying breath before opening them again. “If I sink inside you right now, I won’t last.”

The admission only enflames the already burning embers. You desperately need to cross this hurdle, to find this intimacy with Simon again. With one hand free, you gently cup him through his jeans, rubbing, finding him hard and wanton.

Simon growls, and then you’re being lifted. He shoves everything out of the way, hot water spilling into the sink and onto the floor. The tea is forgotten, the bags briefly floating in the sink before the water disappears down the drain.

“I’m not taking you like this,” says Simon, forehead pressing against yours. “We’re having tea. Dinner. And only after will I indulge you.”

“Think the tea is ruined, Simon.”

“Fucking hell,” he mutters, closing the distance to seize you in a fierce kiss.

Everything about it is honey-drenched. Sticky. Slightly sweet. You open for him, and he goes for a taste, his hand on your throat like a collar. This is the passion you remember; the wanton need you crave.

It is not gone. Only buried.

As your hands roam, the kissing only becomes more desperate. Your thighs trap his waist, but he makes no move to retreat. Not like you could stop him. He’s far stronger than you, and even in that strength he’s aware of it, not grasping too tightly.

Fingers delve, and in seconds you have the front of Simon’s jeans open, slipping your hand inside to find his warmth. As your fingers brush his skin, Simon breaks the kiss, nearly choking on his next breath as he draws back.

“Dinner first,” he groans, grabbing your wrist and forcing your hand from his pants. “Food first.”

“You’re a tease, Simon Riley,” you whimper.

He chuckles, low and knowing. “Like making you squirm.”

Dinner is a much longer affair than you’d like, as if Simon has an eternity to feed you. Every time you try to help, he shoos you off, telling you to relax and enjoy your cuppa. You eventually give up, curling up with Bravo on the sofa watching reality television as Simon putters about.

When he finally hands you your plate, you scarf it down in record time, promptly setting it aside to stare at Simon longingly.

“After,” he repeats.

“Buzzkill.”

Simon reaches over and squeezes your thigh, returning to his meal, gaze locked on the television. You try to refocus, but your mind is locked on a singular goal like you’re a man thinking with his dick and not his brain.

With a final scrape of his fork across his plate, Simon clears it, sighing with contentment. Reaching for your plate, he starts cleaning up, still insisting that you don’t move from the couch at all. This time, you don’t put up a fight, deciding it is better to snuggle with Bravo.

“Bed, Bravo,” snaps Simon. The German Shepherd grumbles as he lifts his head from your lap and dramatically slides off the couch. “To think you used to sniff out bombs,” mutters Simon, shaking his head. “Off with you.”

Bravo disappears down the hall, and then Simon is turning to you, holding out a hand in offering. “Come here to me.”

The delivery in his voice leaves no room for denial. Pushing off from the couch and reaching for his hand is easy. You want this—need this.

Simon’s arms go around you, holding you close. That soft smile returns and you answer it with one of your own.

“Still want to do this?”

“I’m sure.”

Simon’s thumb lightly grazes the line of your jaw. “Tell me if you want to stop. Promise me.”

“Promise,” you murmur.

“That’s my girl.”

With your hand in his, Simon walks backward into the bedroom. He pulls you in as he shuts the door, teasing a kiss but not giving it to you. You try to steal one anyway, but Simon knows you too well, leaning away at the last second as he slips his hand from yours.

There is no mask. No anymore. Haven’t seen it at all unless he’s at the shop, working. His sweatshirt goes, followed by his shirt, leaving him bare from the waist up. Even in the dark with a just a hint of moonlight, you can glimpse him.

Corded muscle. Endless tattoos.

Your hands copy his movements, removing an article of clothing one at a time. All this time you’ve been rushing, and now that you’re here, the undressing is slow. Languid. Simon is done before you, and even in the dark you notice the way his hands clench and unclench with the anticipation of touching you.

You barely have your socks and pants off before Simon is grasping for you, hands groping ass and hip, mouth coming down on yours with desperation. In this, you feel utterly wanted, as if there is nothing he requires more than to be one with you.

Simon’s erection presses into your lower stomach, an insistent thing that both of you ignore. His kisses are your favorite, you want them forever, and that is all you can focus on even as your grow slicker between the thighs.

You drape your arms over his shoulders and then connect them behind his neck, clinging like he’ll disappear if you don’t. Simon’s hands slide over your back and down to your ass, filling his hands as squeezing. Angling your hips up a bit, he rubs himself against you, a low groan leaving him as the base of his erection brushes the side of your clit.

Forget slow. Forget the fact that Simon admitted he wouldn’t last.

Unlocking your arms from around his neck, you reach back and grab one of Simon’s groping hands. Bringing it between your bodies, you guide his fingers to your pussy, desperately needing him to touch you. His thick fingers slide easily over your sex, your arousal apparent.

You shiver from the contact, but Simon? Simon growls, low and feral, and utterly primal. Flattening three fingers against your sex, Simon parts you, the middle finger teasing your entrance with a soft caress. It hovers, and then starts to slide in.

Simon’s lips move away from your mouth and to your chin, then to your jaw, and then your throat. More of his finger enters.

“I missed you,” you whimper as he settles to the knuckle. Simon’s teeth graze your neck as his finger begins to slide back out. “Every. Day.”

Simon adds a second finger, pumping both in perfect rhythm. “I’m here now, love. Right here. Not going anywhere.”

“Oh, fuck,” you gasp as Simon’s palm rubs against your clit. “I—love—”

“Love, what?” coaxes Simon.

“You. I love you.”

Simon’s teeth no longer graze but they don’t bite down. They trace a line up your throat before taking a nip at your bottom lip. His fingers begin to retreat again but you grasp the back of his hand, pressing, urging him back inside.

“Don’t be gentle with me,” you murmur, rocking your hips, fucking yourself on his fingers. “Fuck me the way you want to. Please.”

Simon’s head tilts to the side. “You sure about that, love?”

You whimper, nodding, pussy clenching around his fingers as his palm lightly rubs against your clit again. It’s lovely—slowly building that orgasm you so desperately crave. But then Simon’s fingers are gone and in his mouth, sucking them clean.

Your brain short circuits, unable to comprehend the change until Simon is guiding you onto all fours on the bed. He places a hand on your upper back, urging your front into the mattress as your ass stays up in the air. Guiding your legs apart, you expect him to settle between, to mount you and rut.

His mouth finds you instead, tongue parting your pussy from clit to opening then back again. You press back against his mouth and Simon makes a feast of you. The orgasm is a slap in the face. It doesn’t arrive slowly but as a thunderous force, nearly smashing you over the head with its intensity.

Thighs quiver. Legs shake. You cry out so loud you think Simon might stop. He doesn’t. He only continues through the ordeal, urging toward another and yet another until there are tears in your eyes. Only then does he draw back, wettened lips kissing the backs of your thighs and the curve of your ass.

His strong hands rub up and down the length of your back. Soothing and comforting at first, but then demanding, helping you turn until you’re facing him. Limbs like jelly, you allow Simon to draw you into his lap, to ease your legs to fall on either side of him, to help guide you to and then onto his cock.

“Want me to stop?” he asks, voice gruff.

You vehemently shake your head. “No. Want you. Always.”

With a final effort, Simon rocks his hips up just as he presses down on your hips. Every inch is inside of you, stretching, filling. You’re full of him, but it’s not enough. You need him to move.

“Simon,” you beg.

Shifting his arms, he supports you with his hands and forearms as well as his thighs. It forces your legs up and open, ankles and feet dangling. A slice of moonlight cuts through the room, highlighting the space where your bodies meet. With your forehead resting against his cheek, you watch as Simon guides you up and down his length, disappearing and then reappearing with a shine.

Keeping one arm hooked behind his neck, you reach between your bodies, fingers finding your clit. You create a v with index and middle finger, parting your pussy to open you up more, to capture the place where Simon’s cock penetrates you.

He’s hardly keeping it together as you tease the base of his cock with a fingernail Simon’s whimper instinctually has your pussy tightening around him.

“I want you to come inside me,” you whisper, breath brushing over his cheek. Simon’s hands tighten, fingers digging into your flesh as he ceases sliding and starts thrusting. “Please,” you add with a hint of longing.

He cannot say no. Simon never does.

In seconds, Simon has you on your back, flattening you against the bed. With one hand above your head, fisting the sheets, he rests the other on the inner thigh of your left leg, holding it wide and open for a better angle.

Simon’s first thrust is brutal. He buries his face against your neck, and doesn’t fucking stop. Every time your bodies connect, he grunts loudly. The muscles in his back bulge beneath your palms.

This is not healing. This is carnage. This is a burial.

Simon is digging your grave but not to leave you to rot. You are to be wholly submerged, wholly undone in the dark, to be thread unspooled. You will linger in this grave, in Simon’s arm, to know only of him. And then, only then, will you be unearthed from the dirt.

In the morning, with the light, there will be a calmness that smothers all. A closing of a door that will never be reopened. There is no definition in past, only a resounding future, and you must take it—seek it.

“I love you,” groans Simon.

His words are what does it, that breaks the flood, and shows you the way forward.

“You’re mine.”

These words are not a groan, more a plea. You’re mine because he wants it so, and all you need to do is agree.

Mine.

Mine.

“Love you.”

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[honeyedmiller]

A Blissful Feeling | Javier Peña

pairing: husband!javier peña x wife!reader

rating: 18+, minors dni.

warnings: fluff, established relationship (marriage), smut (grinding, fingering, rimming [don’t look at me lol], f oral receiving, one (1) smack on the ass [if i remember correctly], unprotected piv, consensual choking, spitting, praise), small uses of spanish with translations at the end, uses of pet names in a loving manner, teasing, no use of y/n. please let me know if i missed anything.

word count: 4.1k

synopsis: You find out Javi is having a bad day at work, so you pay him a visit at the office.

divider by the wonderful @saradika-graphics

It was mornings like this that Javier wished he could stay in bed with you. Tangled in the sheets, bare skin against bare skin, soft lips brushing pulse points, and satiated grins adorning your lips as you stared at each other with pure love and awe. 

But, reality was an unwanted, cruel thing that wrapped herself around perfect mornings like ones like this. Ones where Javier is almost late to work because he can’t get enough of his beautiful wife, leaving him to rush out of the door with his thermos of coffee and a chaste kiss to the lips as a see you later, mi amor to you. 

That left you standing in the middle of the kitchen, bare feet on the cold tile floor as you leaned over the counter to make a list of all the errands you had to run today. Your silk robe was tied securely to your body, recalling that the material almost made its way off of you, courtesy of your husband’s needy hands. 

As much as you almost gave in to temptation, you didn’t need him to be chewed out by his coworkers for being late. They all loved and respected him at the Laredo sheriff's office, but to save him the humiliation, you mustered up more willpower than you wanted to and ultimately swatted his hands away. 

You knew he had a long work day ahead of him, though, and you missed him already. You loved your husband so dearly and being away from him for most of the day tugged at your heart. Some might call it clingy. You just call it being in love. 

You decided to get to work on your list anyhow, hoping that these errands and few chores would give you the perfect distraction from missing your sweet Javier too much. 

First up: tidy up the house. You put some music on and got to work, having the house cleaned in about an hour. You upkept with cleaning pretty well, so your intermittent cleaning wasn’t as tedious. Once you were done you showered and got ready for the day, sporting a cute christmas patterned sweater with some leggings Javier always said looked good on you. You smile faintly at your husband’s words, relishing in the recollection of them. 

The rest of the to-do list was pretty easy, considering it was mundane tasks like washing your car, putting gas in it, and grocery shopping. You also had a nail appointment lined up today, which you were excited for. You were feeling festive, so you wanted to go with something more Christmas themed. 

You decided to save grocery shopping for last, knowing it would take at least an hour and a half. The list you and Javier made last night was long, knowing you needed to restock on essentials and your favorite foods. 

You got washing your car and filling up the tank out of the way in twenty minutes, leaving you to head to the nail salon. While you were sitting in the chair mindlessly watching your nail tech paint your nails, your phone pinged with a text from Javi. 

Hi mi amor. How’s your day going so far? I miss you. 

You couldn’t help but smile foolishly at his text, making your heart flutter as you read the words over again. Six years together and two years married, and yet, he still made you feel so special—like the only girl in the room that mattered. 

Hi baby. I miss you too. It’s good, just got some stuff done off of my to-do list. How’s work? 

You respond as fast as you could with the hand thats nails weren’t being painted. 

He responded almost immediately to you.

That’s great, cariño. Work has been shitty today. Tipped my fresh coffee over by accident in the break room, and I couldn’t make myself a new cup since we ran out of coffee grounds. Nobody around here seems to know how to do their job today. Wish I was back in bed with you. 

Your smile falters at his text. You hated seeing him so stressed, wishing you could take it all away in an instant. 

Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, amor. I’ll make you whatever you want for dinner tonight and give you a nice back massage. How’s that sound? ;) 

You’re hopeful your offer lightens his mood a little bit, but another idea skimmed your mind. You looked at your watch-clad wrist, seeing it was only eleven thirty. You decided you’d try and brighten his day sooner by surprising him with lunch at his job. 

Part of you wanted to go anyway just to see him and kiss him, telling him the stress of the day will go away when he comes back to a nice clean house and a home cooked meal waiting for him after he gets off of work. 

Sounds great, baby. Can’t wait. 

You heart the message and finish up with your nails, paying your tech and tipping her for doing an incredible job. You contemplate where to get lunch, and you ultimately decide on this Mediterranean spot you both love. It’s down the block from the sheriff’s office, so it was perfect. 

Within twenty minutes, you were heading down the road to see your husband. You pulled up to the sheriff’s office, greeting the familiar receptionist with a smile. 

“Doreen! How are you today?” You smile, and her grin reflects yours. The sweet older lady always enjoyed chatting with you, loving when you paid the office a visit. 

“Mrs. Peña! What a nice surprise. I’m good dear, how are you?” She asks, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. 

“I’m great, thank you. Glad you’re doing well. Is Javi busy at the moment?” You ask, hopeful that he isn’t so you can actually spend time with him and enjoy your lunch together. 

“Nope. Go right ahead, doll. Should I call him and tell him you’re coming?” 

“No, no,” You stop her with a sweet smile. “I wanted to surprise him with lunch today.” 

“Well aren’t you two just the cutest. Enjoy your lunch.” She winks at you, and you can’t help but laugh. You just absolutely adored her kind soul. 

“Thank you Doreen. See you in a bit.” You wave, heading off to Javier’s office. You turned a couple of corners before stopping at his door, knocking on it twice with a smile stretched on your lips. 

“Come in.” You heard him say, and you opened the door. 

He doesn’t look up from his paperwork until he hears the bag of food rustling, and his head shoots up. His big brown eyes gleam with joy as he takes in the sight of you. 

“Mi amor,” He whispers, getting out of his chair to make his way to you. “What are you—”

“Surprise.” You say and hold the bag of food up, and he chuckles as he wraps an arm firmly around your frame to pull you into him. You softly yelp in surprise, your free hand landing on his chest. 

“You’re the best, cariño. This is exactly what I needed.” He grins as he leans to kiss you tenderly, hand making its way under your sweater to splay out against the skin of your back. The coolness of his wedding band shot a shiver down your spine, and you moved your hand from his chest up to the back of his neck, pulling him in closer. 

He groans softly and pulls away before he gets lost in the art of kissing his beautiful wife. 

“What’d you get for lunch?” He mumbles against your lips. 

“Mediterranean.” 

“Mm, thank you baby.” He kisses your cheek before fully pulling away. 

“Thought I could join you today, if that’s okay.” You grin at him. 

“Of course mi amor, I wouldn’t want it any other way.” He kisses you chastely once more before closing his office door behind you all the way. He makes his way back to his desk chair and grabs your hips, silently asking you to sit down on one of his legs. You laugh at the gesture before taking the food containers out of the bag, the aroma of chicken kabobs and basmati rice instantly filling the office. 

Javier keeps one hand wrapped around your waist as you both eat, savoring the delicious food. Halfway through the meal, you feel his lips brush your neck with a ghost of a kiss that has you clenching your thighs together. 

Javier always had a way of arousing you, even with the simplest of actions. Sometimes it wasn’t fair how easily he could turn you on. He didn’t care though. He fucking loved it, and loved teasing you until you were squirming and whimpering for him. 

“Javi.” You whisper, leaning your head back on his shoulder. It could’ve also been the way that you two didn’t get to finish what you started this morning, so the anticipation has been building and brewing deep in your belly all day. 

“My wife is just the sweetest,” He whispers against your neck, “Just wanna thank her for a wonderful surprise is all.” He teases, hands caressing your curves underneath your sweater. 

Goosebumps rise on your skin from his touch, and you put a hand on his thigh to steady yourself. He stops his movements momentarily and brings one hand out from under your sweater, lifting your hand up to his line of sight. 

“Got your nails done, baby? They look real good,” He compliments, kissing your hand. He admires your red nails with a holly design on your ring finger. 

“Thank you, baby.” 

“Did you use my card to pay for them?” He asks, and you shake your head no. He groans, shaking his head. “Baby, you know I love to pay for your nails. Why won’t you just use my card?” 

“I feel bad, honey, you don’t need to pay for everything I need maintenance on all the time.” 

“Uh uh. Don’t ever feel bad. I’m here to spoil my wife as I please, and if I wanna pay for her nails, I’ll do so,” He chastised, but it wasn’t condescending. He chuckles after, and you turn to give him a confused look. “Besides, I love seeing what color and design you always pick out. Can’t wait to see how it’ll look wrapped around my cock you love so much.” 

He’s snickering like a school boy, and your jaw drops in pure shock. 

“Javier Peña!” You swat his arm, “You’re so bad.” He laughs at your scolding, putting both hands on your thighs. 

“You know you love it, baby.” He teases, rubbing his hands up and down your thighs, taking notice that you’re wearing his favorite leggings on you. 

“Do me a favor, mi amor,” He says, and you turn to look at him. “Lock my office door for me.” He nods his head towards the door, and you look at him in confusion. 

“Javi, what—?” You begin, but he shakes his head and gives you room to get up. You rise slowly, making your way over to the mahogany door to twist the lock shut. You turn to look at Javier again, and the lustful look on his face startles you. 

His sweet brown eyes are now nearly black, full of so much desire and neediness and—fuck—you were so turned on by it. There’s just something about the way he looks at you that silently screams possession, like he’s proud that you’re his, that turns you on so much. 

You needed to ground yourself back to reality though, because doing anything here would be too risky. 

“Javi, baby, we’re at your job. We can’t—we can’t do this here.” 

You begin to walk closer to him and he turns his chair to the side so he’s no longer facing his desk. He makes a ‘come here’ gesture with his index finger, and you want to fucking salivate with how delicious your husband looks right now. He’s got that carnal stare locked on you and your figure, legs spread wide with the fabric of his slacks straining against his thick thighs, and a devilish smirk on his face as he tugs you by the waistband of your leggings to stand before him, tucked between his legs. 

“But that’s where you’re wrong, baby. Wanna finish what we started this morning,” He tugs you down gently so you’re straddling his lap. You feel his bulge through his slacks, and it takes everything in you not to moan. “Just gotta keep that pretty little mouth of yours quiet.” 

His large hands cradle your ass, giving it a squeeze as he kisses you. Your first instinct was to card your fingers through his dark locks, but you had to remind yourself that you were in his office—you didn’t want to leave any evidence of your insatiable endeavors behind. You opted for the lapel of his suit instead, tugging him closer to you. You moan breathlessly into his mouth, instinctively grinding your hips down onto him. 

A deep groan rumbles from his sturdy chest, like the neediness and desire to have you right now was life or death. 

He pulled back from you for a second to trail kisses down the warm skin of your neck, tongue poking out to trace over your pulse point. 

You gasped and grinded yourself into him harder, your arousal slowly seeping through your panties and leggings. Your core was aching to be touched at this point, only merely teased this morning by your husband’s skillful fingers. 

You wanted more, more, more, but responsibilities outweighed desires. 

One of his hands traveled down to rub at your core over the fabric of your clothes, cock straining tighter against his slacks to find you’ve already soaked through your panties and leggings.

“Does my beautiful wife want me this badly?” He murmurs, and you nod frantically. 

“Please, Javi. Need you so bad.” Your voice sounded desperate and whiny, but you truly couldn’t care at this moment. All you wanted was for your husband to take everything he needed and wanted from you. 

“Stand up, sweet girl.” 

You obey instantly. He was so easy to submit to. Everything with him was just so easy. He was safe, he was gentle, he was home. 

He turned your body so you faced his desk, and he bent you downward so your body was at a ninety degree angle. 

He easily peeled your panties and leggings off of your ass, shimmying them down to your mid-thigh. He kicked your feet further apart, relishing in the sight of your ass on full display for him. He rubbed the supple flesh lovingly, giving it a smack before he sank to his knees behind you. 

You turned your head back to look at him, eyebrows threading together at the sight of him kneeling behind you. 

“Baby, what are you do—oh, fuck.” You cry, hand clamping over your mouth. Javier had taken it upon himself to eat you out from behind, delving his expert tongue through your slick folds. 

He hummed against you, licking up everything you gave him as your arousal dripped down your thighs, and now, his face.

It was rare when he ate you out from behind, but when he did, it was a fucking treat. Before him, nobody else had ever done so, so the first time he did it with you, it had you coming in less than five minutes tops. 

He usually liked to eat you out from below, just so he could see your pretty face contort into pure pleasure as his tongue fucked you rhythmically. 

Your hand did a half-assed job at muffling your moans as Javi’s tongue circled your clit, all the way up to your entrance, and past that to your other hole. You choked on a gasp as he greedily licked you, reaching your other hand back to grab one that dug into the meat of your thigh. He intertwined his fingers with yours, giving your hand a squeeze as he removed his mouth from you. 

He chuckled darkly as he spit onto your hole, saliva trailing down to your entrance. He got back to work immediately, licking your entrance before moving back down to your clit. He unlinked his hand from yours, prodding two fingers at your entrance. He pushed in slowly and with ease, slick instantly coating his thick fingers. 

You whimper at the sensation, that low burn of desire that’s been pooling in your belly all day completely awakened, licking a flame up your spine and waiting for a chance to engulf you wholly. 

“Could eat this pretty pussy all day, baby.” Javier mumbled below you, and you couldn’t help but clench around his fingers. 

The lewd sounds of your wetness reverberated off of his office walls, hoping to god none of his coworkers could hear any of this. 

You felt the internal flame in your body get hotter and hotter, traveling down your legs as they shook with pleasure. 

“That’s it, mamas, there you go. Doing so well. Let it go, baby.” Javier’s words launched you over the edge, gushing around his fingers and all over his mouth. You squeezed your eyes shut as you bit your lip hard to try and keep quiet. The obscene sounds of him slurping every last bit of you up nearly made your knees buckle. 

Your body went limp against his desk, breath uneven and shaky. 

“Fuck, Javi.” You breathe, eyes closing in pure bliss. 

“Worth the wait?” He asks. 

You nod mindlessly, mind too fuzzy to conjure up a proper response. 

“Good. Not done with you yet, though, cariño. Turn around for me.” 

You muster up all the strength you have in your body to turn around and face him, and your eyes immediately move down to the straining bulge in his slacks. You lean against his desk, pulling him to you by his belt buckle. You deftly unbuckle his belt and pop open the button of his slacks, sliding down the zipper in one go. 

You move to drop to your knees, but Javier catches your elbow before you fully sink down. You look up at him with glossy eyes and a confused stare, and he moves to cradle your jaw in his large hand. 

“Mm mm. Let’s save that for tonight, mi amor. Wanna be inside you now.” 

Before you can even register his words, he’s lifting you up onto his desk and pulling his slacks and boxers down. His painfully erect cock springs free, and you reach forward to give it a few tugs and swipe your thumb over his slit to collect the pre come that gathered at his tip. You pop your thumb in your mouth, sucking on it while staring into your husband’s beautiful brown eyes. You let out a satisfied hum, licking your lips after you remove your thumb from your mouth with a ‘pop’.

Javier hisses through clenched teeth, expression painted with neediness and agony. You tug on his cock a couple of times, biting down on your lip as you look up at your handsome husband. You bat your lashes up at him and you feel his cock twitch in your hand. 

“Need you, baby.” His voice is gravelly, nearly pained.

“I’m yours.” 

And he’s on you. He leans down to kiss you fervently, sliding the tip of his cock through your folds before pushing into you. You both swallow each other’s moans; the fullness he provided you each time was something you’ll always be mesmerized by. 

He starts off slow, testing the waters of his thrusts to see if his desk would creak too loud or if it would scrape too much against the thin rug beneath it. Once he found he was in the clear, he picked up his pace immediately. 

He relentlessly thrusted in and out of you, the tip of his heavy cock kissing your cervix. You cried out his name and he shushed you with praises that only made you more aroused.  

Sh sh sh, I know baby, I know. Taking my cock so well, hm? Such a good fucking girl for me. My pretty wife. All mine, he babbled. 

He looked down at you as he relentlessly fucked you, the sound of skin slapping on skin much louder than your moans. Javier couldn’t give a shit anymore, though.

His tunnel vision was locked in, only wanting to make you feel good. One of his hands gathered your wrists and held them above your head, flashing you a wicked smile as his other hand traveled up to your throat. Before he could squeeze, he waited for your consent. 

“Please.” You squeak out, and he wraps his fingers around your throat to squeeze the sides. 

“Open your mouth.” He says, and you oblige, sticking your tongue out for good measure. He spits directly into your mouth, and you swallow without hesitation. You grin up at him as he squeezes your throat a little tighter, a euphoric type of bliss overcoming your whole being. 

He’s fucking into you so hard now that various items on his desk start to rattle. Pencils are being knocked over and the framed photo of you and him on your wedding day plops down onto a pile of papers. His hand moves from your wrists to your breasts, squeezing them generously over the soft fabric of your sweater. 

He couldn’t wait to give the entirety of your body all of the attention it deserves when he got home from work tonight. The thought of you squirming beneath him as you tugged on his hair, moaning as loud as you wanted without a care in the world, had him fucking panting. 

You were canting your hips up to meet his thrusts as best as you could, the sensation of his wiry hair at the base of his cock causing a delectable friction onto your already sore and puffy clit. He moved his hands from your throat and breasts to skate them down your figure, finding home on your hips. 

“I’m close, Javi.” You were breathless, the rumbling fire in your core slowly overtaking your body once more. You needed only a single match to light your fire, and Javier was it. He was your match. He slid you against the matchbox and lit your whole body aflame, engulfing you in everything Javi. He was all-consuming. 

You let the feeling of that familiar euphoric bliss overcome your body once more as you convulsed, legs shaking as they locked around Javier’s waist. Feeling you clench around him with such force had his hips stuttering, knowing he wasn’t far behind from release himself. 

His lips enveloped yours once more, hands flying up to cradle your face as he spilled every last drop of his come into you. Your moans met in a harmony that not even the most skilled choir could compete with. 

His hips stilled completely, waiting a few seconds to relish in your warmth before sliding out of you slowly. You whimpered at the loss of fullness, wishing you could curl up next to him and enjoy his warmth for hours. Reality trickled back in as he bent down to pick up his boxers and slacks, readjusting himself to make it look like he didn’t just fuck his wife relentlessly on his desk.

He leaned down to kiss your forehead before helping you stand, kissing your thighs before sliding your panties and leggings up your legs again. The fucked out look on your face was one of his favorites, and it’s one he knows he’ll never get tired of seeing. 

“I love you, baby. Thank you for two meals in one.” He winked, and you felt your body get hot. 

You quirk an eyebrow at him, taking a step forward to close the gap between you both. He mindlessly wrapped a hand around your waist, and you rested a hand on his chest—right above the strong, rhythmic beat of his heart.

“You’re very welcome, Mr. Peña. Hope this made your day a little better,” You give him a chaste kiss, hand sliding down his chest to his abdomen before separating your lips from his as your gaze meets his once more. “And I can’t wait for mine tonight.” Your fingers tease the waistband of his slacks, and he grabs your hand to move it lower, resting over his already half-hard cock. 

He closes his eyes in pure bliss as you rub him through the fabric slowly, and you kiss his neck before huffing a small laugh. 

“Mine.” You say, stepping away from him, heading for his office door. You wink at him and blow him one last kiss before unlocking and opening the door, leaving him dumbfounded, turned on, and pondering what you had in store for him at home that night. 

But, for now, he had reality and her greedy ways to tend to before he could submerge himself once more in this blissful thing he called home—

You. 

translations:

-> amor: love

-> mi amor: my love

-> cariño: honey

-

tag list: @party-hearses ; @ilovepedro ; @nostalxgic ; @tinygarbage ; @bastardmandennis ; @amanitacowboy

[f4iry-bell]

Stained shirt and two seats for one | part 3

a bit short and kind of meh, istg it was fun when i was playing this scene in cai. ANYWAY

← previous part

It has been over a month since Arya went to London and had an almost perfect day with a stranger she met. She can still remember everything about that day, the places, the food, the conversation. She wanted him to ask Arya her number badly, so they could stay in touch. Something about that man was attractive and it's not just the way he looks. While he was showing her around she saw him actually chuckle and laugh, it was a sight to behold. For weeks Arya thought about that day. But as time went by she realised she'll never see him again and concentrated on her work.

She was in her agency’s work place looking at some articles about their client. She had to stop her work because one of her co-workers told her someone was here to see her. Her family doesn't live in Singapore, she has very few friends who have their own work to do during this time. She wondered who it might be.

Her brows came together when she saw who it was waiting for her in the lobby.

“Grayson?” She was extremely confused. How is he here? And why? “What are you doing here?”

“It’s nice seeing you again as well, Arya” He says with a calm smile. 

“Well yeah. Answer my question” She asked, he can tell that she's freaking out by the look on her face.

“A friend of mine needs a good PR team. And I thought about your agency” He said with his hands in his pocket.

“Okay. How did you know where I worked?” She asked.

“I looked it up, you mentioned your agency’s name that day” He replied casually.

“I did, didn't I?” She let out a chuckle. They talked too much that day, she probably told him the name. “Anyway, follow me. I'll take you to my boss” She told him and started walking inside.

Grayson talked to Arya’s manager for about an hour. Too long to be honest, she wondered what he could be talking that long. Finally he came out and walked to her.

“Well?” She asked.

“Your boss agreed to appoint a team for my friend.” He said.

“That's good. Hopefully I'll get a rise since I’m the reason the agency got a new client” She smiled.

“Maybe, maybe not. Anyways, when will you get off work?” He asked her.

“I can leave in like half an hour?” She checks the time.

“Alright, I'm going to be in Singapore for a while, for business reasons. I thought maybe we could spend time together. I really enjoyed our time in London” He told her

That made her smile which made his heart flutter “I’d love to”

After she got off work, she went to the lobby to find Grayson waiting for her. Once he saw her come out he immediately got up from his seat. 

“Where do you think we should go?” He asked her.

“Oh I know! I know a perfect place, just follow me” She said out of excitement and grabbed his hands leading him opposite to the parking lot. Grayson didn't mind where she was taking him, as long as he gets to spend time with her.

They both were walking on the pavement when she realised “Wait, you came by your car?” She asked as she stopped walking.

“Yes”

“And your car is still in the parking lot?” 

“You'd be right” 

“Why didn't you stop me from dragging you! Now you have to go all the way back to get your car.” She said.

He just shrugged. “It's fine, I'll have someone pick it up for me”

“Rich people,” She mumbled.

He just chuckled in response.

Once they reached the metro station she started walking fast. 

“We have to hurry, come on.” She said.

“Why?” He asked, keeping up with her.

“Have you travelled in a metro before?” She asked.

“No”

“Figured. If we don't stand right in front of the train door we might not get a seat! And we'll have to stand!” She told him as he chuckled.

“What's so wrong about standing?” He asked.

“What is good about it?” She asked and they stood right in front of where the train door would be. They both got in and saw that the seats were full. 

“Sad” 

“It's fine,” Grayson said.

Grayson heard her talk about this place she is taking him, and how pretty it looks. Like before she used her hands to talk and did not hold onto the road for support, when the train stopped suddenly she lost her balance and held onto Grayson's arm.

“Sorry about that” She chuckled and grabbed the road.

They finally arrive at the small restaurant which was painted in baby blue and yellow. As they walked in he noticed that even the chairs and tables were in blue and yellow. The place wasn't big, but it had so many photographs and paintings hung on the wall. She chose a table and sat down, Grayson sat opposite to her.

“I swear they serve the best pasta here” She tf him with such confidence.

“We’ll see” 

“Do you not believe me, Grayson?” She let out a fake offensive gasp.

“Of course not” He chuckled. They both ordered their food and talked more.

“So you have four half brothers and two half sisters. Same mother with brothers and different fathers each, and your hand twin sisters same father different mother, did I make any mistake?” She asked. 

Grayson chuckled. “You're right” His family is complicated. He quickly changed the subject because he doesn't like talking about his family, it'll involve talking about things that he isn't proud of. All he wants to do is have a good dinner with a pretty girl. And that is what he is doing.

They had a small argument when it came to paying the bill. Grayson wanted to pay for both but she didn't let him.

“You just can't pay my share,” She said.

“Why is that?”

“You just can't”

“I need a reason”

“Because this isn't a date”

“Okay, you pay your share this time.” He sighs and adds “Next time, I'll pay for both of us”

“Nuh uh” She said.

“I said what I said, end of discussion. When can I see you again?” He asked. He is surprised by himself because it has been forever since he took an interest in a girl. And he doesn't act this way, this was desperate. But he doesn't care. 

next part →

[autisticlancemcclain]

prev chapter

———

Seven in the morning on September 8th, the mourning doves gently cooing as the sun rises, the walk to the minivan is as silent as a graveyard.

“C’mon, guys,” Luis tries, but not that hard. “Let’s try for a good year, okay?”

To her credit, Veronica does her best to muster up a smile. Marco manages a nod.

Rachel does nothing. She hasn’t so much as spoken a word since the accident.

The half-hour drive to where everyone needs to do is completely silent. Luis tries initially to put on the radio, but he hears Marco’s sharp inhale when he averts his eyes from the road to change the station and stops immediately.

It’s been three months since Mamá and Papá passed. Sometimes Luis feels like none of them are ever going to be okay again.

Rachel and Marco are dropped off first.

“Remember to check in with your guidance counsellors,” Veronica says. “Luis and I talked to them last week. They’re aware of the…situation.”

Not that it did much. They’d made an appointment to talk to the school administration as soon as the high school opened, just before classes started, but they’d made it to the office and neither of them knew what to say. ‘Hey, there’s a very good chance that both of these kids are going to have extreme drops in performance or even fail because they both just lost their parents in one night?’ No, of course not. ‘Please be aware that Rachel has regular panic attacks at the sounds of car horns and brakes squealing, and that Marco sometimes just gets up and leaves and you don’t hear from him again for hours?’ Probably, but still. How the hell were they even supposed to breach the subject? Luis and Veronica aren’t fucking guardians. They’re barely even legal adults. Hell, neither of them can fucking drink, yet!

But there was no one else to do it. So they mumbled their way through an explanation — parents dead, kids traumatized, go easy — and high-tailed it the hell out of there. Both of them have been hanging up the phone whenever the school calls.

“Love you guys,” Luis says as they wrench open the side door and hop out of the van, slinging their backpacks on behind them. Veronica repeats the sentiment. Marco mumbles something in return, Rachel says nothing, and then they’re both off.

Before they can fade completely out of sight, Veronica calls Marco’s name.

“Watch out for your sister.”

Marco hesitates for a moment, eyes shining like broken glass, and then he nods. He turns back around without another word and disappears into the crowded mass of teenagers.

“We knew today was going to be rough,” Luis mutters, starting the car and carefully navigating out of the parking lot. “We expected this. That’s what all the parenting books said.”

Veronica’s silent for a long moment.

“Doesn’t make it any easier.”

It takes them a little farther to get where Veronica needs to go. Her apprenticeship is entirely dependant on whether or not she can find a welder willing to take her on — it’s 2003, for fuck’s sake, it shouldn’t be that hard, but some people suck. Some people will be completely incapable of seeing her as valuable as she is, and they won’t even bother. It’s a shit reality, and frustrating as hell, but it’s their best bet for money in the long run. Veronica’s always been good with her hands, and with Luis already eating up funds in tuition and God knows how much savings they have left with Mamá and Papá gone, Veronica working as she’s learning is their best bet. The trades pay well, too, and they’ve got three more kids to save up for.

Luis swallows the lump in his throat. Marco has always wanted to go to Juliard.

How the fuck are they gonna afford that?

“Drop me off here,” Veronica says, pointing at a shop just down the road. Luis slows to a stop in front of it, peering through the windshield.

“…That place?” he asks skeptically. “You sure?”

If it weren’t for the two people arguing just inside the garage doors, Luis would assume the shop is abandoned. The sign’s paint is so faded and scuffed up that it’s impossible to read, and several windows are boarded up. The walls are more graffiti than brick.

“I looked it up online,” Veronica explains. “They don’t have a website, but I found a couple blogs mentioning it. Apparently it’s the most competent shop in town, and it’s run by a woman.” She shoots him a small smile, grabbing her bag and opening the passenger door. “I’ll be fine, you big loser. Or have you forgotten that I’ve kicked your ass in every fight we’ve ever had?”

Luis snorts. He has not forgotten. He’s pretty sure he has minor brain damage from the time Veronica slammed his head into a side table when they were fighting over a girl in middle school (who didn’t like either of them, go figure).

“Believe me, asshole. I didn’t forget. Keep your cell on, though, okay? Call me if things get weird. I’ll be here, you know I will.”

She smiles at him again, and seeing some genuine happiness and excitement bleed into her expression for the first time in months is more relieving than Luis has the words for.

“I will, Luis. Now get lost. You’re gonna be late for class.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He waits until she’s inside the shop and talking to who he assumes is the owner before carefully peeling off, mindful of the early morning traffic around him. Once he’s well on his way and a little more comfortable behind the wheel, he adjusts his rearview mirror slightly to see the baby seat strapped tightly in the back.

“You and me, now, huh, Lance?”

Lance grins at him around the thumb he’s got stuffed in his mouth, babbling happily.

“Yeah, that’s right, buddy. You’re going to be the first college-educated baby, because we sure as shit cannot afford daycare.” He grimaces. “Sorry. I shouldn’t say shit around you. The parenting books say you pick up on bad language and are more likely to be using it when you’re older.”

Lance does not seem to be too terribly offended, continuing to stare back at Luis through the mirror, brown eyes big and wide and knowing.

The parenting books say that he will have just barely gained a sense of self and awareness in July — 7 months — but Lance has always appeared so knowing. He’s ten months old, now, and sometimes Luis is convinced he already knows how to speak in full sentences and just doesn’t feel like it.

Babies grow at their own rate, Mamá had said years ago, when Luis asked why Rachel wasn’t walking yet. She’ll get there, mijo. Don’t worry your pretty head about all those milestones your textbooks tell you about.

It hurts to remember her words. Even now, months after the accident, thinking of his parents makes something like bile rise up in his throat.

But he’s never known anyone wiser than his mother. And certainly no parents better than his own, so he might as well get used to thinking about them.

He pulls into the first available parking spot he sees, in what has to be a fifteen minute walk at least to the main buildings on campus.

Oh, well.

He turns off the car, running through the checklist in his head — windows up, lights off, no check engine light, keys in pocket, seatbelt off — before getting out and opening the back door.

“Alright, Lancey-pants. You ready to come sit through Calculus III with me? Huh? Yeah, I bet you are, you little nerd. Let’s go.”

Lance’s carseat is big and clunky and heavy most of all, and combined with the diaper bag and his own backpack he feels like a fucking packhorse. He feels like a freak, too, with all the stares and giggles from other students he walks by.

He swallows, ignoring the burning of his cheeks, and walks on.

He just barely makes it to his class on time, sliding into one of the only available seats just as the lecturer starts speaking. He keeps Lance strapped in his carseat, rocking him gently with his foot as he takes out his notepad. He prays that Lance falls asleep so that he can get through the next couple hours without incident.

“…and hopefully you’ve all read the first chapter of your textbooks, and we can dive right in…”

———

They almost make it.

They get so close.

For the first two hours of the lecture, everything is fine. Luis is paying as much attention as he can, scrawling down notes to keep up with his rapidly-speaking professor. Every so often someone shoots him a dirty look when Lance says something in baby-talk, but they can fuck right off. Lance is being an angel, by baby standards. He’s almost completely silent, brown eyes wide as he observes the world around him, vastly different from the home he’s been confined to for the entirety of the summer. Any sound from him is no louder than the occasional whisper of any confused students. He’s fine.

And then the sniffling starts.

Luis isn’t quite sure what sets him off. He made sure to feed him just before they left, so he shouldn’t need anything else for another two hours. He’s obviously not sleepy. It might be a diaper thing, but Luis doubts it. He took care of that before he left, too.

Regardless, Lance begins to sniffle, and then he begins to cry, and no amount of desperate shushing and cooing from Luis does anything before Lance truly begins to wail.

Like a scene from a nightmare, the professor stops what she’s doing. Every eye in the classroom turns to him.

“Is everything all right?” the professor asks.

“Fine,” Luis chokes out. He doesn’t even take the time to gather up his bag, he just scoops Lance from his seat and flees as quickly as he can. Hopefully he can come back for his stuff when the lecture ends.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Luis soothes, gently bouncing an inconsolable Lance as he walks the campus grounds. Numerous people give him nasty or pitying looks as they walk by, but Luis ignores them. They’re not his concern right now. “What’s wrong, huh? You miss your parents? Me too, sweetheart. Fuck.”

Lance gets like this, sometimes. He just cries and cries, like his heart is breaking. Veronica thinks his heart is a little broken, and he needs time to heal, like the rest of them.

“It’s okay, Lancito. Let it out. Let it out.”

By the time he sees his class file out of the lecture hall, Lance has finally calmed down to hiccups and sniffles.

“Let’s go get our stuff, yeah?”

Luis tries to slip back inside as inconspicuously as possible, making a beeline for his seat and is relieved to find his stuff untouched. Thank God.

Lance protests when he tries to rebuckle him in the carseat, so he just dumps all his books into the seat and holds Lance instead. It’s fine. If Lance wants to be held, he can hold him. It’s the first day of classes, after all, so he probably won’t miss too much, note-wise —

“Excuse me, young man.”

Luis startles at the voice, whipping around to face whoever’s approaching. His professor stands a few feet away from him, straight-backed and tall, orange saree almost reaching the ground. Luis turns to face her, setting down the carseat and holding out one hand.

“I’m so sorry for interrupting the lecture earlier, Professor. I’m Luis Sanchez.”

“Sarah Lee,” she says. “And no need to apologize.” She smiles kindly, letting go of Luis’ hand and extending hers out to Lance. “And you, little one? What’s your name.”

Lance giggles. He doesn’t remove his hand from his mouth — thankfully — but leans forward to bat his head gently against her hand.

“This is Lance.” Luis pokes him in the stomach, making him giggle again. “He’s noisy. I wouldn’t usually bring him to class, I swear, but I had no other option and I already paid tuition —”

“Walk with me,” Professor Lee interrupts, and then she’s out the lecture hall without so much as a glance behind her. Luis frantically throws the rest of his stuff into the carseat and scrambles to follow her. She doesn’t speak again until they reach the campus gardens — the projects of fourth year environmental science students.

“You’re nineteen, yes? Twenty?”

“Twenty,” Luis affirms.

She hums. “Thirty years ago, I was in your exact situation.” She leans forward and plucks a sprig of mint from the garden, holding it towards Lance. “Good for digestion,” she explains, at Luis’ wary look. “And soothing the mind.” Luis nods once, and she hands it to Lance, who immediately shoves it in his mouth. He makes a face initially, but seems to decide that he likes it, gnawing on it slowly.

“You were in my situation?” Luis prompts. This is…not what he expected, but he’s so lost and the professor is speaking so kindly that Luis is willing to take any helping hand, at this point. Plus, Lance seems to like her, so.

“Yes,” she continues. “Twenty years old, freshly married with a newborn baby, desperately trying to get my degree so I didn’t throw away everything my mother sacrificed to get me where I was. Not an easy task.”

“Oh.” Luis feels horrible for misleading her. “Lance isn’t…he’s not mine. He’s my brother. My parents —” his voice cracks — “my parents passed, early this summer. I have no one else to watch him. My other siblings can’t take him right now and it’s not ideal, but I figured university has other adults, you know? People will be mature about it. I just — I dunno. It’s — I’m sorry if I implied our situations were the same. I can’t imagine what you had to go through.”

“Luis,” she says gently. She stops, facing him fully. “I am so, so sorry for your loss.” She considers him carefully. “You are carrying a lot on your shoulders right now, child. You don’t need to carry unwarranted guilt, as well. True, our situations are not identical, but they are very similar, no?“

“I guess,” Luis says weakly.

“I’m trying to offer my help, child,” Professor Lee says, reaching out and squeezing his hands. “Just like I was helped when I needed it. Accept it.”

Luis shudders, then nods. This is almost too good to be true, and he’s in no place to refute it. He’s not sure exactly what she’s offering, but anything is better than dragging poor Lance to class every day and hoping for the best.

“Good. Now, thankfully there are much better systems in place now than there were in the seventies. Did you know the university offers on-campus childcare for reduced rates, to help train the student educators? Come. Let me show you where to sign up.”

[solarbird]

First: Kamala Harris is doing an interview on Fox News today. That’s important. Every Republican not deep, deep, deep into the cult has given other Republicans permission to vote for her. Watch for how it goes. Early votes are skewing real hard Democratic; we can only hope this starts an avalanche.

Now, back to the shitgibbon:

This wtfery happened a few days ago. Repeatedly. They’re all here. Watch his markov chain generator malfunction.

This 39-minute-long what-is-even-happening happened Monday. He stopped his town hall and decided just to hang out on stage and listen to music for half an hour. (More video.) Most of the time he just stood there, then occasionally he’d dance a little.

Even the Russian propagandists made fun of it. They normally puff him up as serious and important and this was too much even for them. It felt very much like a “look at this clown we’ve put into power. Look at him. Isn’t it hilarious?” victory lap.

He didn’t do much better yesterday, cancelling an interview with CNBC before keeping his appointment with Bloomberg News and the Economic Club of Chicago, where amidst his many lies he also said everyone in the world ever is and has been totally wrong about tariffs being bad for the economy (Smoot-Hartley turning the Panic of ’29 into the Great Depression be damned) and also that children could do the jobs of auto workers.

Get out on the assembly line, kids. Build some more gas cars. Maybe we’ll buy you an ice cream before the ocean floods the coastline some more.

Where, oh where, are the New York Times’s “too old” people now? Where is the drilldown? Where is the baited breath, watching for the stutterer to stutter a little again and declare him senile, broken down, and infirm? Ah, but they want him in office – so why would they do that?

People on TikTok were mostly “he is so high.” I think they might’ve messed up his dosage.

The argument that the real plan is to get him into office and then immediately trigger the 25th Amendment in favour of Couchfuker Vance still doesn’t quite hold up to me – they’ll Weekend-at-Bernie’s this motherfucker until he literally falls over dead, since he’s the God Emperor, and also since that gets Vance a de facto third term without changing or ignoring the Constitution. And he’s not continually breaking down, he’s okay enough a lot of the time. Not all of it, maybe. But enough.

But I have to admit, the Vance idea sounds less unreasonable every day.

The problem of course is that when he’s not having a McConnell-esque stall-out, he’s promising to us the armed forces against his political enemies and making it illegal to say things he doesn’t like, all while his fascist friend Mike Flynn keeps rhapsodising about executing anyone who opposes him.

That’s the hard, ugly reality. They don’t even need him to do that, or really, any of the work of Project 2025. He’s never given a single fuck about policy, just about power and hurting people, and they’ll deliver that for him in spades, all while they end secular government in the United States.

That is Vance’s agenda, after all. And that of his backers. All they need from Trump is the occasional scribbled signature.

He’s signed a lot of autographs. It’s all muscle memory at this point. He’ll do that just fine.

And that’s absolutely all they need.

So. I’ve already given you all the arguments I have to reach anyone who might be reachable. People on the fringes of the cult, people who “don’t like politics” and “think politics is boring” so refuse to pay attention. Trump here himself is destroying the idea that he’s the “vote for my wallet,” given what tariffs will do to prices and the economy, but here’s a bit from Rachael Maddow with more thoughts on that whole nonsense. Maybe you’ll find some good arguments in there.

We’re very much in the home stretch, team. Don’t hold anything back, because as I keep saying, this one is for all of the marbles. Bring everything you’ve got and leave it all out there on the field…

…’cause we’re gonna need it.

20 days remain.

[tomboyjessie13]

Sorry if this took over a week to finish, I had some distractions and bad writer's block.

Sequel to this: "Now, let the Fun Begin!" — Library, DIO's Mansion Half hour later (tumblr.com)

Downtown Cairo, Egypt The next day, 10 AM

Medea finally booked an appointment with one of DIO's Agents to collab with, she looked at the address on the assignment sheet as drove though the roads of Downtown until she arrived at a decently built 5 floor apartment building. 

Medea: *Leaves the car and enters the building* ........ *Sees a middle-aged woman standing by the entrance* You're the landlady here?

Landlady: I run a clean building here, yes. You looking for a place to rent?

Medea: No, I'm here to meet someone. *Takes the photo off the assignment sheet* Do you know any tenets who look like this? *Shows her a photo of the Agent.*

Landlady: ....4th floor, D7. 

Medea: Thank you, ma'am. *Goes to the elevator*

Apartment floor 4th Floor

Medea walks to the door labled "D7", she immediately felt cold the second got close to it, something was wrong with the air, so much so that [Molly] jumped out to defend Medea.

Door: ゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴ 

Medea: ...........*Deep breaths* It's just for the letterman jacket...... *Knocks on the door*

???: Who is it?

Medea: It's the pizza man, who do you think it is?......*She sees the door opened by itself, giving her chills*......*She cautiously walks in, immediately she notices that the apartment is fairly nice, the furniture is a mixture of both Western and Egyptian styles and is decently arranged, there's also a couple of potted plants hanging and laying around.* ...... *She sees a trail of black smoke coming out of one of the rooms*......

???: *In the room* Hurry up, I don't have all day.

Medea: *Follows the smoke in the room, the door reads: keep out*...... *She enters the room and sees what appears to be a witch's room, being decorated charms, trinkets, books, and equipment that belong to the occult, this amazes her* Whooooa......

[Molly]: *Senses something dangerous and goes into defense mode, they growled at a woman by the door* Kiruuuuuuuuuu......

???: *Reading what appears to be a Necronomicon while dressed in black with silver jewelry, a bluish green mesh top, a black bowler hat, and purple make up and nails* So......You made it. *Looks up* Took you long enough.

Medea: Yeah, I know, sorry, Eris, I had to finish up a few morning chores before coming here, and Enyaba wouldn't shut about the damn oven breaking down.

Eris: Tch, that hag always has something to complain about.

Medea: Tell me about it. *Looks around*..... Anywaaaays, I knew you were a bit of a goth chick, but I never realized that you're a fan of all this witchcraft-y stuff, I thought that kind of practice was banned in Egypt.

Eris: It isn't, but lots of people still see it as taboo here, especially the religious fanatics. *Points at doorknob with a keyhole* That's why I've invested in locks that's usually reserved for front doors, to make sure no one but me see my wares unannounced.

Medea: *Shrugs* Totally fair. 

Eris: *Looks at her book* Anyways, I'm just glad that you finally showed up, I was just about to perform a ritual with this Necronomicon.

Medea: Necronomi-... Wait, isn't that a fictional spellbook by H.P. Lovecraft?

Eris: Yes, but there's been rumors of it being connected to Egypt's book of the dead *closes book*, I was planning on sacrificing that goat over there to test it if you didn't show up.

Medea: *Sees the goat in a cage in the corner of the room* WHAT THE HELL!? OoO

Eris: *Nonchalant* But I guess my afternoon plans have changed now that you're here. *Puts book away*

Medea: THAT'S A LIVE GOAT!

Eris: Relax, you big baby, goats are permissible. So what has our Lord have in store for us?

Medea: B-but, oh forget it, *gives her the mission sheet* you're one of the few agents on standby for a mission in Egypt and it says you got a "clean up" job. 

Eris: *Takes the sheet*......I see, my target's one of Lord DIO's former business partners trying to run off with his delivery. Oh, and will you look at that, he lives in Suez

Medea: Where?

Eris: Suez, a seaport city by the Canal under the same name.

Medea: Oohhh, that's the large waterway separating the mainland from the Sinai Peninsula, right?

Eris: That's right, and it takes an hour and 30 minutes by car to get there. *Starts getting ready* That really makes the whole thing easier for me, I just get in and get out, maybe make his death look like a suicide.

Medea: What's all this you stuff? I thought this was a partnership?

Eris: Yes but I'll be doing most of the heavy lifting, you're just my back up.

Medea: That means I won't get a chance to shine.

Eris: No no, you'll still get a chance to shine, just not in MY spotlight.

Medea: Dude what? I took the damn job so I can get paid like you and the other agents, I can't get paid if there's no equal treatment.

Eris: *Rolls eyes* Tch, fine, fine, we'll share the spotlight, just don't get into [Nephthys] line of fire. *Grabs her coat* And you're doing the driving. *Puts on sunglasses*

Medea: Fair enough. 

Eris: Just shut up and let's go. *Opens the door* We got a long journey ahead of us.

Medea: *Exits* Alright, alright, quit shoving.

Eris: *Leaves and locks the front door*

END

[jodilin65]

MONDAY, APRIL 30, 2018 I’m deeply disturbed by the caravan of immigrants in Mexico trying to seek asylum in the US. Again, why must it always fall on us to pick up the pieces when some other country has a crisis? I could be politically correct or I could be realistic, and well, I know most people are politically correct and therefore would consider me heartless, and while I do realize that there are some totally innocent victims caught up in this mess, our country doesn’t need to take on any more responsibility. We have enough responsibility taking care of our own and we don’t need outsiders draining our resources even more, many of which will simply laze around on welfare while getting into who knows what kind of criminal activity. It would be my husband’s hard-earned tax dollars that will help pay for that, free medical care, and all kinds of other freebies. And your tax dollars. So for both economic and safety reasons, we need to just look out for ourselves for once.

Yesterday we glue-hemmed a couple of pairs of my pants. The purple sweatpants that I got in size medium and my jeans.

I know this is life in 98% of the country and if you’re not in that 2% you’re lucky, but I’m tired of hearing car stereos thumping in this house. Most of them aren’t from inside the park, but it just gets old year after year and seeing no laws enacted to control it.

Went to Dairy Queen yesterday after deciding we would simply order the oven online that we want from Best Buy even though it won’t be here until early June, and splurged on Blizzards. Today I have been paying dearly for that mistake but I think my stomach is finally over it, LOL. I’ve always been sensitive to dairy and even a small Blizzard has quite a bit in it and I ate the whole thing.

Ironically, however, changing the time of day I take my meds is causing me to lose weight because it takes 4 hours to empty out the stomach, then I have to wait another half hour after taking my pill before I can eat. So that 4.5-hour haul without food is a long one. In the final hour last night, my stomach was growling like crazy.

Still treating my ear and still lightheaded. I’ve only done a few treatments so far, though, and anything is better than anxiety. Since switching back to my old brand I haven’t been anxious, but I’m sure it will be back to torture me sooner or later. Let’s just hope that this time it’s later instead of sooner.

By the middle of next month, I will make a decision as to whether or not I want to switch doctors. I like the idea of a doctor that’s closer but I don’t know if they would help me any more than mine has, and I kind of didn’t want to have to start over with a new doctor until we moved.

Gotta order groceries at the end of the week. We find that different stores are good for getting different things. Stores like Sam’s Club and Amazon are good for bulk items, Walmart is cheaper, and Raley’s is most convenient.

I resurrected my old Ask account just for fun and got asked a question about some comedian being accused of racist comments, as is everyone’s obsession these days. It’s just fucking ridiculous but rather than go on a rant about it, I immediately thought of Andy because that’s something he would ask me, knowing it would bother me. But when I Googled his question I found it was asked of others as well, so now I’m thinking it probably wasn’t him because last I knew, he never had any interest in using Ask to keep in touch with others. It was just our playground like my main Twitter account is just to keep in touch with Aly and Kim.

The only thing I remember from dreams last night was that I made an appointment with Dr. O for some reason and then I was trying to take a dump in a toilet stall that was less than private as the door was too small.

SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2018 LOL, my neighbors are so funny at times. I stepped out yesterday to bring in the recycle bin after it was dumped. Jon and Carolyn were leaving at the time and Jon goes, “Can’t you wheel that thing any quieter?”

LMAO!

Got him back this morning when the four of us were leaving. I don’t know where they were going but we were going to Walmart, and I called across the street to him, “Can’t you close those car doors any quieter?”

Haha. :-)

We grabbed a few things from Walmart that Raley’s didn’t have or that I forgot to get from them and Tom’s out whacking weeds now.

He pulled the oven out a bit because we needed to know if it was plugged into an outlet or if it was hardwired. There’s an outlet. Now we need to find out if we have to buy a new gas hose or if the installer’s going to have one. We still haven’t picked the oven out yet. We’re going to Best Buy tomorrow to look at ovens but the one we want may not be in stock. That’s fine, though. The thing has been here for 35 years. Another month won’t matter.

It seems I’ve traded in anxiety for lightheadedness upon returning to my old brand. Anything is better than anxiety but can’t I just have nothing for a while? Just a little while?

Tried acupuncture for it which is basically pressing what they call the third eye for a couple of minutes but it didn’t help.

Last night I dreamed I was swimming in the ocean in Hawaii. Now that’s a dream waiting to become a reality! :-) Yes, next year or the year after we will be returning to Hawaii for what will probably be the last time.

I also dreamed that I happened to walk into Andy’s place. In the dream, he moved to the area and lived in an apartment on the ground floor of a large building. I was in the neighborhood, saw his door wide open, and walked into his place. He glanced up at me from the desk chair he sat in by his computer and said, “You’re making my dream come true.”

I took this to mean he had been hoping I would re-enter his life because he missed me. I told him we had plans to move to SoCal and then we began walking somewhere and chatting as if no time had passed since our last chat.

In reality, I’d leave the country before I moved to SoCal. Also, while I do miss Andy, I don’t miss the problems we had.

FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 2018 I got the cool idea to add a touch of color with some old fake flowers in a large pot outdoors that contains my cactus plant (as well as tons of weeds) and it looks kind of cool.

Yesterday I exchanged hello’s with Bob while I was at it. He said he hasn’t seen much of me. With the weather warming up, he should see more of me as I’ll be out and about more often.

Then I was invited over for a while this morning when I took a post-it over with the answer to Bob’s question. He was dumping some trash when I spotted him and said hello to him yesterday. He walked over and we started talking and then he asked me what kind of tree was one of the ones growing towards the middle of that side of our property. I had no idea, so this morning I took a picture of it, uploaded it to Google so I could hunt for similar images, and I’m pretty sure it’s a Lauraceae from the Laurel family. Sometimes it has berries on it and other times it has these tiny little white flowers.

Bob is pretty quiet but Virginia is a very chatty person. We were talking about health issues and she said that she has a daughter-in-law with some kind of colitis problem (I don’t remember the word she used in front of colitis) and she too, had way more problems when they switched brands on her. She said until then they would never have thought brands would make a difference. Yeah, neither would I until all hell broke loose a week after the new thyroid pill brand.

Virginia cracks me up. When I said the anxiety, yes, but I wasn’t sure that the lightheadedness and going from hot to cold was connected to my medication, she goes, “You’re going through menopause.”

OMG, really? LOL

We were talking about how I prefer to resort to natural remedies for anxiety since prescription drugs have side effects, stop working, or make you want to kill yourself. She laughed when I told her, “Don’t take Prozac unless you want to kill yourself four days later.” It may sound funny, but true even though it typically doesn’t do this to adults. Prozac thought I was a kid. ;-|

We talked about some of the neighbors and they said this is the third or fourth time the “Twenties” have had work done on their roof. Yeah, I think they’re project junkies of sorts, but the roofing project turned out to be a lot quieter than I expected. If anything, I heard loud vehicles a lot more than I heard anything else. The automated ramp they use to haul up the equipment was kind of cool, and I was remembering what a disaster it was when Tom did our roof down in Arizona in 1999. I wondered if a new garage was next, but like ours, their carport is too narrow.

So I described them as a bit conservative but with a great sense of humor, and Virginia was remembering when they had their Trump sign up and all that (she wanted Hillary, too) and then, not wanting to stay too long and keep them from whatever, I teased her about visiting the rats and said I was going to do laundry.

Then Bob looks at her and goes, “Have you figured out what we’re going to do today yet?”

Haha.

Virginia said they’ll be planting tomatoes on the corner again and to help myself if I want any. That’s nice of her but I prefer cherry or grape tomatoes that I don’t have to cut up.

I had a hilarious dream involving Aly and Kim. It was a refreshing change from nightmares and a mishmash of senseless mumbo-jumbo. Aly got a kick out of it but I haven’t checked in yet today with Kim.

I went to visit Kim and then Aly arrived a little later. We were all to have one big slumber party and sleep in Kim’s bed in her bedroom. The only negative thing was that Aly didn’t seem too happy to see me. There was someone else present that she was chatting to and she seemed annoyed by my presence. I wondered if it had something to do with my appearance, even though I know she wouldn’t judge a friendship in real life based on someone’s looks. But I was self-conscious as I realized I had my hair pulled up in a high ponytail which made my face look fatter and showed off my ugly ear. I also forgot to put any makeup on.

When bedtime came I found Kim in the middle of the bed and Aly to the left. I was a little dismayed because I would have preferred to sleep next to Aly instead of Kim. Having barely half a foot of space on the bed, I wondered if I should sleep on the floor. Better yet I wondered if I would get any sleep at all because they said they were getting up in just a few hours. A woman appeared (Kim’s sister?) and said she was going to the airport and would be happy to bring me there so I could see about going home early if I wanted to. I agreed to go but then Tom was suddenly there and he fell asleep on their couch.

Then it was back to quick snippets of senseless dreams. Me leaning back on a public toilet and putting my feet up on toilet paper holders and sanitary boxes so I could masturbate, me running at night in an upper-story apartment to the edge of it (it had a slider but no balcony) to watch a helicopter land.

Then I held a piece of paper up over my head and lost my grip on it. Instead of the paper falling to the floor it got swept up in the breeze from the ceiling fan and then thrown down behind a dresser. Tom went to move the dresser and I was worried and then relieved Joy, who was standing on it, didn’t fall and break. I picked the doll up and held it on my lap as I sat watching him fetch the paper and then replace the dresser.

Then I was walking into what I guess was my bedroom as some people who were in their 20s were leaving. As they exited, one of them placed a few pieces of scrap paper with gibberish scribbled on them on my bed.

“These are yours,” I said as I picked them up.

“No, yours,” some guy said.

Sarcastically I said, “Oh, yes, I need these.”

Another day of whiny blacks who see racism in everything like this statue that suddenly has to go after 100+ years. When blacks say jump, we do. Isn’t it time to put our foot down and say enough is enough already? What do we do when they cry racism over the oceans? Run and suck them up with giant straws? Enough is enough of this bullshit!

It’s about time someone black and famous was convicted of the crimes they were guilty of, quite unlike O.J. Simpson, Chris Brown, Michael Jackson and others. Hopefully, this will send a message letting famous black criminals know that the courts aren’t going to give them a break simply because their ancestors were discriminated against years ago. But will he do a day’s time? I doubt it. This is still a start, though. I’m tired of blacks being favored!

THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018 I’m back on the Sandoz brand that has the oblong pills. It says it’s generic for Levoxyl. I took it before bed yesterday and right now I feel what I would describe as borderline.

I had trouble falling asleep yesterday because I had so many unanswered questions running through my mind. What other drug can I take to treat my condition without making me anxious? How much of it is the medication as opposed to perimenopause? Should I get a new doctor? Should I ask about having the gland removed so it can’t throw T3 parties on me? Is there ever an end to this shit either way? I totally cannot take another 4 years of this shit. I just can’t! Sometimes I’m feeling great and other times I’m being stabbed in the chest with waves of anxiety. There are other things I don’t understand, too. Why did some of the side effects of this drug stop while others started so late in the game? Why did the booming heart stop and then why did I start getting waves of anxiety in the chest a year and a half ago? Even the “butterflies” in the stomach stopped after a while, and when I’m anxious these days, my heart isn’t usually racing, believe it or not.

I think if worse comes to absolute worse, and it might, I’m simply going to have to stop the medication altogether. This is no way to live. The hypo symptoms themselves were much more tolerable than the anxiety. I may gain a million pounds and shorten my life, but I would rather a shorter more comfortable life than a longer life of suffering. The only way to end this may be to stop the medication altogether if there isn’t any other alternative that will work for me. All I know is that I’m very susceptible to side effects and I usually get most of whatever side effects a drug has to offer. As Stacey said, you can still have feelings of anxiety with psych meds, and as the shrink said, many of them stop working after a while. So I still don’t see any point in adding additional side effects for a temporary calm. I would still rather get rid of whatever is causing my anxiety in the first place. If I’m wrong and it’s mostly on the perimenopause, obviously I can’t just “get rid of” my hormones, but I can get rid of the medication if need be. For some of us, medication isn’t always the best answer. That’s why I’m not on the cholesterol medication I need and the blood pressure medicine I might need.

Although it was with much distraction because of how shitty I’ve felt on and off, I managed to win CampNano but not by much. I just busted over the word count but once I get it fleshed out and edited it will probably add more to the word count. If I had decent publishers I doubt I would submit it to them because I’m not sure I like how it came out.

Oh wow. Just wow! All of a sudden the anxiety released its grip like someone hanging from a rope that snapped and I feel a wonderful calm now. Please let it last for more than five minutes! Taking proactive steps anyway with a cup of chamomile. :)

I had a dream that Paula called and I seemed to be talking to her while sitting in a parked car that might have been abandoned or simply not used. It was very windy out and leaves were blowing against the windows of the car.

Then I had a dream I was walking down a street where a guy was working on a car in the middle of the street. Then a large van or truck came by and ran over his foot. Ouch!

I was running some of the Oregon journals through Grammarly when I burst out crying at one point. We may have lived in a shitty climate, rented shitty places, and our lives may not have been perfect, but I do miss some aspects of our lives there and the perspective I had on life back then. Some things were still a bit new and exciting, I didn’t need any medication, I wasn’t so fucking fat (even though most still describe me as “tiny”), I had so much fun winning things before social media came and ruined it all, I wasn’t as blind, I couldn’t keep a schedule but could sleep a little better, I didn’t know what real suffering was, I didn’t have the fears and insecurities I have now, I had a libido, I had hope and could see more possibilities for the future, etc.

It just seemed that life was a bit simpler back then. The town was so small you could walk or take the bus everywhere and we didn’t bother registering the truck we had. Tom had just a six-minute walk to work even if he would fall on the ice and nearly kill himself with his shitty balance, LOL.

Well, I would never want to go back there because things wouldn’t be the same and I still hate extreme cold and snow, but in some ways, those may always be some of the best years of our lives.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2018 Yesterday I ended up feeling wonderfully normal after a few shaky hours at the beginning of my day, mostly because I was afraid of what I might be in for.

Today I’m doing okay with very faint traces of anxiety so far. As funny as it may sound I almost wish I would get hit with it hard so it may help convince me that maybe Tom’s theory is right and that it really is mostly on the perimenopause. But I can’t make it be caused by what I want it to be caused by. It is what it is, and I totally believe the bulk of it is on the meds. What I’m feeling is residual traces of it because it’s not a short-acting drug. It doesn’t leave the system in 12 to 24 hours. That’s why it took a few months for me to recover when I got really bad.

The only thing that doesn’t make sense is the changing symptoms. Why did this particular type of anxiety not start until a year and a half ago? What made the booming heart stop?

The racing, booming heart stopped, the butterflies in the stomach stopped, and I would like to think this will stop too, but it’s been going on too long to be very hopeful.

The frequency of high BP readings isn’t good but oh well.

The bulk of my problems yesterday was all the fucking noise. I still can’t believe that a retirement community could be this fucking noisy! Noisiest place I ever lived in the West. Well, it’s about as noisy as the apartments but in some ways, it’s noisier than the house in Phoenix. The dogs, brats and car stereos there weren’t as consistent as the steady stream of daytime noise here is. I think it really helped to be on concrete and have brick walls too. Being elevated and having wooden walls really allows the loud vehicles to rumble and vibrate throughout the place. At least the last time around I was only woken up once instead of twice but still…

So the Twenties, who are regular little project junkies (they just hire people to do their projects for them), are redoing half of their roof. I don’t know why the last lady would only do half of it, but only half of it is newer. So they’re redoing it before they get leaks. It’s a company called Thompson Roofing that has a good reputation. We’ll keep them in mind if we decide to do our roof. What’s weird is that they only worked during the morning yesterday. They have another day or two of work to do, though.

I didn’t know this but after I mentioned us possibly going to Hawaii next January, Carolyn said she was a travel agent and to let her know if we need brochures.

I was actually more annoyed by the cable company than by the Twenties. If they stayed up the hill doing whatever it was they were doing there, it wouldn’t be so bad. But they had this thunderously loud truck going back and forth like crazy and it’s totally annoying as fuck. Didn’t see any evidence of what they were working on during our walk, but I’m sure they’ll be back for many days to come. There is always, always something going on here. Projects in the street, projects by the park, home renovations, landscaping galore. God, it gets old! It’s so distracting and some days I just want to hear nothing at all and to live my life in peace without all the damn annoyances. But I know that we’re just going to get the same shit no matter where we go and I just have to remind myself that like it or not, this is how it’s going to be for the rest of my 20 to 30 years.

Tom didn’t get a chance to pick out an oven because he had to work super late and today he’s going to be stopping at Walmart to pick up our prescriptions. Not sure if I’ll be back on my old brand today or tomorrow because I don’t know if I’ll be up when he gets in. Maybe he’ll get a chance to look on Thursday since Friday we’ll be getting groceries delivered.

I think I’ll go make a board on Pinterest dedicated to Keisha Castle-Hughes. She’s between boring and hot. She actually reminds me of one of the fictitious characters in one of my books.

With less than 1000 words to go, I should win CampNano today.

TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2018 In doing more and more research on Levothyroxine, I’m learning two things. One is that my being led to believe it’s a very safe drug with no side effects is total BS since it DOES indeed have very real side effects. The other thing is how blind the doctors are. Or at least how blind they pretend to be. I still don’t understand their ignorance and refusal to address these side effects when every single site that lists the side effects of drugs says the same things, some even more than others. Do they think these things are there for decoration? The fact that thyroid medication is the number one prescription dispensed is another indication that all these doctors can’t be that stupid.

Some of the side effects I read up on are ones I didn’t even know were side effects, and now it makes me wonder. I’ve noticed I’ve become more heat intolerant, for example, but wrote it off as just being fatter, older, and no longer used to the blazing desert heat. But now I don’t know. This is listed as a side effect along with vision issues and even lightheadedness. So now I’m even more confused as to what could be causing what, and I also realize that this drug may be messing me up more than I realized. It may be doing a lot more to me than just making me anxious.

I love how it says that if you think you’re having any of these side effects, tell your doctor. Why? So they can say it’s not the medication? What’s the point of reaching out to doctors for help if they’re not going to help you? The only so-called help you may get in this case is a referral to a shrink so they can give you drugs to mask the side effects rather than deal with tackling the problem at the source. Yet psych pills can only make things worse if they don’t stop working altogether at some point.

Tom and I both agree that the JSP brand they switched me to has been making things worse. It’s too coincidental that a week after I start the shit, things go to hell after I had been doing the best I’d done in a long time and was about to break records with the anxiety. I went back and combed through last year’s journal and found that I only made 3 skips since the end of August. Tomorrow I will have my old brand back, Sandoz. I will still have some problems on it, just not as ferocious as I have been having. God, I sure hope not anyway!

I appreciate the person who recommended I ask my doctor about Liothyronine, another form of this drug that I’ve never heard of that comes in pills or injections, on an entry I made a few days ago. I see it has some similar but fewer side effects.

I will definitely mention it to whatever doctor I see, and I still don’t know if I’m going to see a new one or not. A part of me thinks it would be a waste of time to keep my old one since I’m not getting anywhere with her, but I figure a new one would just pull the same shit on me. Especially if I’m right about them having this little protocol and it does seem like that’s the case. Therefore, why bother breaking in a new doctor? I would prefer not to do that until I leave the state if I can help it.

I was surprised but glad to hear that Tom’s coworker is doing better. So she may have been anxious for other reasons.

I doubt it but I sometimes wonder if the occasional headaches I get and my rash might also be caused by my meds. Lichen planus is likely a separate thing though, and it actually began before I was even diagnosed.

But do I get light-headed because of my ears or the perimenopause or is it something else? We know my carotid artery isn’t blocked so I don’t know what to think anymore. I just know that this medication has turned my life inside out and upside down and made it a living hell given the physical and psychological torture I’ve endured on and off for the last 4 years, and yes, that’s along with real perimenopause symptoms as well.

Yesterday I had my first obvious hot flash in a while. What’s weird was that I hadn’t had my medication yet I still became anxious for 4 hours after I’d been up 8 hours. If that trend continues I’ve got about 45 minutes of calm left. Going to take some preventive measures by downing a cup of Sleepytime tea. So as I was saying, I had a few hours of anxiety yesterday, took my pill at the end of the day, and then I slept shittily. Not because of the pill but because fucking traffic woke me up twice, and then the neck knockers woke me up because I forgot to do my ear so I had to get up and do that. Initially, I had trouble falling back asleep after the first vehicle woke me up and I took a baby Benadryl to help me sleep better.

The speed bumps are part of the reason traffic is such a nightmare here besides the fact that I’m so close to such a busy road in such a massive park. Fucking UPS crashes right into the speed bumps without even bothering to slow down. But the world is a noisy place. Not going to sleep much better anywhere else.

Today I was afraid to wake up not knowing what kind of torture awaited me. But I dragged myself out of bed and was borderline until Tom got up. We enjoyed pork chops together which has tryptophan in them. Then I had a cup of Sleepytime tea and I’ve felt good ever since. But like I said, I’m about to hit that 8-hour marker. The meat situation sucks because I want it for the calming tryptophan that’s in it, but the cholesterol isn’t good for me. If it’s going to help keep me calmer then I don’t give a shit if my cholesterol goes through the roof.

Before bed yesterday I took a whole pill. It would be strange (though wonderful) not to get anxious after a whole pill after getting anxious from half a pill, but the anxiety can be a bit unpredictable at times.

I read that recent studies show that taking the medication before bed reduces side effects. I have my doubts about that but if anything, it will keep me from eating as much because I have to stop eating a few hours before I take it to empty out my stomach. I’m not going to bother taking one more from this brand since my regular brand will be back tomorrow. Now that I know there are about half a dozen brands of this medication and that some may be worse than others, I can’t help but wonder… What brand, if any, might make me feel even better and less prone to side effects than my usual brand?

I’m really getting as pissed as I am frustrated with this situation. I want to strangle any possible God that may exist and is either making this happen to me or at least allowing it to happen. I see a very scary pattern when I look back in my journals. For years I went on and on about not being able to have this baby I thought I once wanted. Then for years, I went on and on about how broke we were. Now it’s all about how anxious I am with no light at the end of the tunnel for me. Like I said, if this ever does end someday, my next long-term problem is either going to seem like nothing in comparison or it’s going to kill me if it’s any worse than this. When can I go back to my worst problems being noise and shitty sleep? I’d even struggle financially before I continued to feel so bad so much of the time.

Tom will be stopping to look at ovens on the way home from work. Because we don’t cook much and we’re not going to be here forever, we decided to get the cheapest self-cleaning oven we could find. We’re looking at one that does have a fan in it to blow the heat around so that the food cooks evenly like it does in our air fryer. White, silver or tan are my first color choices. Dust shows up on black too easily even when you keep up on things as I do, and colors like brown or olive are ugly.

Last night I dreamed I got a video call from my father who was playing bocce in this really nice-looking park or resort somewhere. I never saw him, just the park.

Then I dreamed we were staying at Miss Perfect’s place and I could sense that she wasn’t too happy to have me around though I pretended not to notice. She walked into the guest room I was changing in while I was topless and I was embarrassed at first until I realized she could have fun being jealous of my full and perky tits, LOL.

MONDAY, APRIL 23, 2018 I ended up blocking Palma yesterday. She just started to get a little too weird for my comfort. I checked her page for the first time in a while out of curiosity to see what she was up to and saw that it was her 16th anniversary. So I sent her a message congratulating her and asked how she was doing, not expecting a reply since she didn’t reply to the message I sent last month, which was my second message. I doubt I would have ever looked in on her or sent her any additional messages if she blew me off again.

Then I noticed I missed a call from her on Messenger. So I sent a message asking if she meant to call or if she just hit the call icon by accident, letting her know I was now by my phone.

Then she takes 20+ minutes to write a reply. Before she could hit ‘send’ I noticed that she downvoted the message I sent last month but didn’t react to my congratulations message. I didn’t even know Messenger had these message reactions until then.

Figuring that if she could give a thumbs down to my message from over a month ago, then she probably didn’t have anything nice to say, assuming she actually meant to call and was really typing this long drawn-out novel to me. That’s when I decided to block her, not wanting to risk giving her a chance to provoke me into a reaction I may regret, as much as I’d like to think she wouldn’t be worth it. But you know how it is. When I get a reaction from someone that may not be good, it’s okay. When I react to someone’s shit, it’s not okay. Again, I’m not saying she would have said anything nasty or made any kind of threats or ultimatums since I wasn’t even remotely close to doing anything wrong, but I guess I will always have some traces of paranoia when it comes to anyone connected to the legal vendetta committed against me, however indirect a connection it may be, that’s in a state that shit on me in a very big way.

I have no idea why she would downvote my message and why she waited over a month to do it. Or why she may have tried to call me and what she may have wanted to tell me. I mean, why not just ignore or block me if she didn’t want to hear from me or didn’t like my message?

I went through it a few times and the only thing I can think of is that maybe she didn’t like me mentioning names of former inmates and DOs that I knew. Nothing I can think of makes sense. Sharing how I found her on Zabasearch? Remembering a joke I once told her? Saying that I felt hated by God and later became more agnostic?

Maybe she thought it was too long or maybe it’s her that’s paranoid. Maybe she thinks I’ve got some deep dark hidden ulterior motive.

Gotta laugh at how frustrating it must have been when she went to send the message and found she couldn’t reply. I looked in from Tom’s account since it’s been a while since I’ve checked his account anyway, to see if she might have left a note on her wall and she didn’t. What I found weird was that I still appear as “liking” her anniversary cake picture even though I blocked her. I thought blocking undid that but maybe not.

If she’s checked out my blog, she’s doing it in hiding. I’m very careful what I say anyway. But yeah, no clue why she would do that and I didn’t want to find out either since while she may have left the sheriff’s department, she still has connections. I have more important things to do. Like cleaning the house, winning Nano, and hoping not to be anxious.

Good news and bad news where that’s concerned. The bad news is that 8 hours after the first half of yesterday’s pill, I had three or four hours of anxiety. Nothing after my second half, though.

The good news is that Tom found out that the Walmart Pharmacy carries a few brands of my medication, including the oblong pill brand. They’re out of stock and won’t have them until Wednesday, but I still have some evil round ones. Coincidence or connection? I may never know for sure. I just know that I’ve had way more anxiety since starting the round ones. I’m mixing things up a bit and today I’m not taking my pill until the end of my day. I’m going to take the whole thing at once. As of yet, I’ve never become anxious 8 hours after taking my pill, so if I take it a couple of hours before bed and then I sleep for 8 hours, maybe I’ll be okay the next day. That’s what I’m about to find out. The oblongs are plenty capable of causing me anxiety as well; they just don’t seem to do it nearly as much as the round ones. At least not in the way of waves of anxiety moving in and out of my chest.

He can’t get his blood pressure meds refilled until the 25th.

Spam, spam, and more spam! These people just don’t give up no matter how obvious they are. It’s that fucking Nigerian crap as usual. I still don’t understand why there isn’t a block button like there is on Facebook and most sites. It should be a simple one-click ordeal to block any email address just like I can block any user on Facebook. Instead, I have to go through several steps to apply “rules.”

The weather is nice in the daytime now but slightly chilly in the mornings. Not chilly enough to put the heat on, though.

On Saturday Tom saw what he thinks was the cable company digging with a shovel on the corner of Jon and Carolyn’s place. They had cables in hand, he said. Fortunately, I didn’t hear anything, but I’m sure they’ll be digging up the road with loud obnoxious jackhammers and or tractors soon enough.

The fire truck was here again in the middle of last night and I think it went to Lawrence’s house. Really, really hope that house doesn’t sell while we’re still here! Even though it’s just across the street it’s higher than our place because of the hill. There’s a retaining wall and most of the front yard is fenced in, possibly enticing anyone who might move in with a mutt. The “footless” lady who just moved in doesn’t seem to have any dogs, so I guess this is the good part of Western culture and the belief that dogs shouldn’t be pets.

Tammy said she was doing better and still regaining her strength but didn’t go into detail. Still get the feeling that she and my nieces are pushing me away and would rather have little to do with me. It’s probably better that way anyway as we don’t seem to have much in common.

We didn’t do much this weekend since I didn’t feel well on and off. We did go to Walmart together early in the morning yesterday and I got a couple of cute new bamboo plants. One is in an O-shaped lavender vase with a clear tube in the center of it which the stalks of the plant are in. Another is in a green ceramic pot in the shape of a watering can. The one in the purple vase has purple orchids. Fake, of course, but they add a nice touch of color. The other one has a ladybug.

SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 2018 Doing another entry but I’m doing it for myself. I like to keep the darker stuff private.

Good news and bad news on the first day of breaking up the pills. I had anxiety for the first 4 hours after taking the first half. It probably would have been closer to 10 hours had I taken the whole thing. Taking the last half after being up for 12 hours. So at about 7am.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s any truth to those who believe living close to a cemetery brings bad luck. I researched it a bit and came up with mixed opinions. I don’t think I’ll ever know for sure but if I move away from here and suddenly feel better more often, it might make me wonder. A lot.

I tortured myself during yesterday’s misery. Yes, I was worse yesterday than today after taking a whole pill. I didn’t think I would be that anxious since I didn’t take anything the day before but I was for quite a while. And then I tortured myself some more by watching a horribly botched execution on YouTube done in Arizona 4 years ago by lethal injection. When I saw that man suffer all I could think was wow, I really hope this guy, someone I never heard of before that I guess killed his ex and her father, really deserved the suffering he got in the end. I hope he was an abusive asshole that totally deserved to be tortured to death as he was.

Even though I’m all for the death penalty, I’m appalled at how executions are handled with regular prison staff carrying the sentences out. This should be done by trained medical doctors and they should simply be put to sleep in the way a person is put to sleep for surgery, or animals are put to sleep. There’s no reason to make it such a long drawn-out ordeal unless it’s meant to be that way because torturing the condemned prisoners is the primary goal. Well, torture this guy they did. I guess they missed his vein and shot the stuff into his tissue instead and at that point, he was mostly paralyzed but still able to shout out in agony.

I couldn’t believe it when one of the guys patted him and said, “You’re going to be okay, Joe.”

Yeah, you’ll be okay as soon as we figure out how to kill you successfully.

Anyway, what should have taken minutes took 2 hours. The only good thing is that 2 hours of suffering is better than days, weeks, months or years, and the guy certainly won’t have to live with the PTSD that something that traumatic would certainly bring.

Saw that I had a bottle of grapefruit oil in one of the drawers for the diffuser. Yuck. I’ll sic it on Kathleen in September since I don’t expect to see her before then. Oh, the games women love to play with me.

Thyroid pill experiment update: after taking the first half of my pill yesterday, I felt anxious for about 4 hours. That was better than 10, but still a bit disappointing. When I took the second half at the end of the day, however, I was fine.

At this point, I would have to go over 6 months, preferably a year, without anxiety before and if I ever felt confident enough to say I’ve beaten it. Personally, I don’t think I ever will. After 4 years of dealing with this shit, I have no reason to think it will ever go away unless I stop the medication altogether yet I can’t do that. It sucks being a slave to something that can cause so much misery but until and if I ever find an alternative, I don’t think things will ever go back to the way they were before 4 years ago. For me, it’s going to be a case of finding a way to take as much of the drug as I can stand and basically adapt or die. That saying about nothing lasting forever isn’t quite true. Sometimes things really do change and never go back to the way they were before. One day I got fat and I’ve remained that way and I will continue to remain that way. One day I became farsighted and I always will be. One day my thyroid crapped out on me and it’s never coming back. It’s always going to require the only medication available for it, anxiety-inducing or not. There really isn’t any getting around it.

The only other things I have are fatigue, lightheadedness, and that vibrating sensation in my head. My blood pressure and pulse numbers were amazing yesterday, though. BP was 129/80 and my pulse was only 79. That’s definitely a low HR for me, LOL. BP was the lowest I’ve seen it in a while, too.

Definitely not as awake as I was yesterday even though I slept okay. I didn’t quite sleep eight hours, though, and was up almost 18 hours.

Enjoying the weather in the low 80s. With May right around the corner, this should be it. The rain should be done until the fall and we shouldn’t have any more cold spells.

I have three reminders set. One for Amberen, one to stop eating, and one to take the other half of today’s pill. They’re at midnight, six and eight.

FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2018 First they turn the water off for half a day and now they want to turn it off again for 4 hours on Monday? Argh! Yeah, I’d love for them to lay him off, even though I don’t want to leave with unresolved health issues. Then again, I’ve lost hope that this is fixable. I’m anxious for life just like I’m fat and blind for life. I get that. I’ll have some good days but for the most part, I’ve got a rough life ahead of me no matter what. And besides, I’m not going to sleep any better no matter where we go. Some weird smell woke me up at 12:30 (I fell asleep after 10) but I don’t know what it was. Was able to get back to sleep quickly, though.

There may be a new loud car on the circle but I knew there would be sooner or later. This one’s white.

Overall I’m a little more alive and “normal” feeling today so far. Took half a pill and was slightly anxious but feeling calmer now. I tapped while I was waiting for the timer to go off. Will make myself stick to this regimen as long as I can absolutely stand to even though I don’t think this is anything I’ll ever “get used” to. I just can’t believe anyone takes this drug, gets anxious from it, keeps taking it, and then one day finds they’re no longer anxious. If side effects don’t dissipate within a couple of weeks, they’re likely never going to. But I’m going to tough it out the best I can.

I actually started feeling better when Tom got up yesterday. I know I said I wasn’t going to bother working out since I can only do it part-time, but we walked down to the lake just so I could stretch my legs and get out of the house. He’s sleeping now and I just went down to the lake myself. Now I’m doing laundry.

And missing my old life. I totally miss the days of not having any clue of what it’s like to truly feel anxious. I still have every reason to believe that as long as I’m on this medication I’m going to have some here and there and that it’s not just a bad case of peri or anything else. Come on, no one has it this bad when they’re going through peri, do they?

As much as I don’t miss being a kid, one of the things I do miss is believing everything people tell me. When the grownups told me I would be okay and that everything was fine, I believed them. Now, no matter how many times I try to tell myself these things, I don’t believe a word I say.

If there is a God out there, first it took my dreams. Now it’s taken my health. Sometimes I swear it’s going to take my life. Like before I hit 60.

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2018 And yet again traffic wakes me up, and again I am feeling shitty. Tomorrow will be no different because the loud trash and green waste trucks are coming. Since I took my pill today I’m not as fatigued, but I’m definitely not bursting with energy either. Heart raced a bit too, but that was probably cuz I ate a lot.

I’m still very stressed out about what to do about my situation. Tomorrow I will begin the pills splitting experiment, but I don’t hold out much hope of ever being able to fully treat my disease in a way I can tolerate. Not if I’m still going through this shit after nearly 4 years. What I don’t get is why I’m so up and down. Why has it been such a roller coaster ride for me all these years? Just when I’m doing well and I think I might finally stay that way, it’s like something up there reaches down with a bat and knocks me right off course.

If there is a God up there and if it does pick and choose what happens to us, why the hell would it give me a disease it knew damn well I couldn’t treat? Really, why would it do that? I mean how hateful is that?

A part of me wishes he would get laid off so we would have an excuse to get out of here, but I’m just going to sleep shitty elsewhere, too. The world is a noisy place and each decade it only gets noisier as the population climbs and people get less considerate of others. If it isn’t landscaping, it’s brats. If it isn’t traffic, it’s mutts. If it isn’t planes, it’s more car stereos than I hear here. Florida has more storms so thunder would probably wake me up there more than the traffic does here. I would only gain in that I would be in a warmer climate that was cheaper. I’m still ready to go, but now that he’s been at this job for over 5 years, I’m beginning to have my doubts that he’ll be laid off before he retires.

Oh, how I wish to hell he was retired! I’m tired of having to be alone so much and having to put so many things on hold due to his job. While I doubt it will kill me, as much as I sometimes wish something would, I worry that waiting until June to see a new PCP and my ENT may be a bit long as I don’t want my ear to get infected and I’m tired of suffering in general, but that’s the tentative plan is to hit those two appointments, plus his own PCP appointment during the week of June he’s taking off.

I can’t believe how much I’ve suffered when I could be and should be enjoying life with my worst problem being the noise and sleep disturbances. Instead, I go back and forth between fatigue and anxiety with no end in sight, and when I think I see one, it turns out to be a joke.

Sometimes side effects go away in time, but I don’t think the anxiety is a side effect so much as something I’m very sensitive to that’s put into the synthetic drug itself. Still, I wish I knew if it would ever go away if I forced myself to take it every day, not that I could stand to, and not that I would try when he was still working. No way to know how bad it might get. I’m learning that we can’t believe everything we’re told, even if it’s from a doctor.

The 30 chokers I ordered for the doll came today. Good variety and quality for the price. Yet another thing I would have loved 20 years ago. So many things are available today that would’ve better suited me back then and that I could have used then.

I was worried yesterday that we had a new loud car in the neighborhood, but hopefully the bastard was just visiting.

I am now officially an unpublished author. Some things just weren’t meant to be no matter how good you may be at them.

When traffic wasn’t waking me up, and I wasn’t waking up for no reason, nightmares were waking me up. I had all kinds of horrible dreams, one of which Tammy may have been in but I can’t swear to that.

Something about a stuffed panther coming to life, and then I was looking out the window of an apartment that wasn’t on the ground floor but I don’t know that it was a high-rise either.

There were so many other dreams I can’t remember. The night before last, I dreamt I was inside the house I grew up in at night. I was curious to snoop around and see what it looked like while the owners were out. After I used the bathroom, which was on the wrong side of the house, I went to explore but this tremendous wind soon drove me out of the house. It was a wind so fierce that my hair stood straight up.

So I went out of the house and began walking up the street. A woman was watching me from the house across the street, trying to get a good look at me as I walked up the street, hoping no one would notice me.

Then I was locked up somewhere in this strange kind of jail that didn’t actually have cells but these partitions with these double doors that parted in the middle and “roofs.” I was with some girl and as much as we seemed to get along and I liked her, I wished I could remember people’s phone numbers so I could call and let them know where I was.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2018 Too tired to live? Yeah, I think I might be. Every other day I have horrible fatigue and I want to scream with frustration. I feel so stuck and helpless. Just totally caught in a hopeless situation. If I can’t ever find a way to take enough of this medication to keep me functioning and the alternatives aren’t suitable for me, then what does that leave me with? If there is a solution out there I’m afraid it’s going to be like finding a needle in a haystack.

Furthermore, traffic woke me up today… Again. Well, I’m never going to be a heavy sleeper, vehicles aren’t going to get quieter in my lifetime, and I very well may never be able to fully treat my disease. So again, what does that leave me with? Half a life spent bedridden because I’m too tired to live that life? Seriously, my mind and body are at such odds! My mind thinks of all the things I would really like to do, but my body is simply too tired to carry these tasks out. What do I do then? Take the meds and suffer the anxiety they bring and that could escalate to epic levels too scary to imagine? Or only take it sometimes and be drained? Drained to the point that I can’t work out more than once or twice a week any more than I can win NaNo with a word count as low as I’ve got mine set to once I finally get ideas as I have.

No wonder I’m losing my motivation to work out. I hate doing things part-time. I either like to do them regularly and consistently or not bother, especially things like working out. Why bother if I can only do it some of the time? Every time I get back on track something leaves me too tired to work out. So when I have the energy to work out I’m probably not going to, knowing that the next day I likely won’t have the energy and therefore I’m not going to benefit much from such a half-assed workout routine.

Each question leads to another question. This fatigue seems a bit extreme for disrupted sleep and I’ve even had it when I’ve slept well. I don’t think it’s all on the traffic waking me up but it doesn’t make sense to be low thyroid either because I once lived with zero medication and wasn’t nearly this tired. Yet as far as I know, my thyroid shouldn’t be any deader than it was to begin with, and if it is, it certainly isn’t by much. This makes me wonder if there’s anything else going on with me I don’t know about like maybe low iron or something that could be making me so fatigued. I haven’t stopped my vitamins or the Amberen, so I don’t know what the fuck is going on. All I know is that I’ve struggled with my health for almost 4 years now and have had more problems in that time than in the entire time I’ve known Tom.

TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 2018 Did a small Amazon order. Getting a bunch of chokers for my Asian buddy, a pill cutter, and ointment for my lichen planus.

I don’t know if the ointment will help but I think the chokers will look nice on Suki/Gia.

The pill cutter is for the idea I got that probably won’t work, but hey, I’m running out of options and ideas to try. The plan is to cut my pills in half and take half in the morning and the other half at the end of my day after I let my stomach empty out.

I’ve noticed that on days that it makes me anxious it has a timeline of sorts where the anxiety kicks in within an hour or two of taking the pill, sometimes a little later. I also noticed that it tends to stop about 10 hours after taking it. Well, if I stop eating after I’ve been up for 8 or 9 hours and then I take it a couple of hours later, maybe this will prevent me from getting as anxious. Remember, I’ve got two problems. One is whatever’s in the synthetic version of the stuff that makes me anxious, and then when I go flaring. This may help with the anxiety caused by the medication itself but I don’t know if it will do me any good when I’m flaring because I’m eventually going to have the same amount in my bloodstream if that makes any sense. Again, I highly doubt it will help but I’ve got to try whatever I can think of otherwise I’m looking at going through life only being able to treat my thyroid in a half-assed way. I really would like to give my body as much of the hormone as it thinks it needs or close enough to it. I’m just glad my T4 has always been normal no matter what. Hope it stays that way! It’s the fucking TSH that’s the problem. If my pit gland keeps screaming at my thyroid it’s going to possibly cause it to enlarge.

Treated both ears and am less lightheaded today and I have more energy today as well. These symptoms may not just be a matter of low thyroid but I could be lacking in potassium. One of the side effects of the ACV shots is that they can lower your potassium levels. I’ll have bananas delivered with our next grocery order. It might have been my ears too, so I’m treating them more often.

The only pisser was that the water was off for 6 hours and that’s only that I know of. It was off when I got up at 3 so it might have been off longer. Didn’t come back on till 9. I asked Carolyn if hers was off just to make sure there was nothing wrong with our water, which Tom also went out and double-checked, and she confirmed their water was off, too. Tom also drove around the park to see if he could spot them working because I was a little worried they forgot to turn it back on after they worked on it, but he saw them working on one of the mains at the other side of the park.

I left the kitchen and master bath sinks on so I could hear it when it came back on, and right after my chat with Carolyn, we both notified each other at the same time that it was back on, LOL. So the shower I took felt good and we won’t have to go to a hotel tomorrow after he gets off work, which I would have deducted from the rent for damn sure.

Someday we’ll live where this doesn’t happen and where there isn’t such busy traffic so close to the bedroom. Someday. Still may hear lots of other shit, but that much is going to change. Been a quiet night so far, though. Not much freeway noise or planes.

Even though I know it’s not going to do me any good, I gave Amazon a final piece of my mind once again on their official Facebook page, even though it will just have to be flagged in my friends’ feed as if it’s any of their business what I said to them. Oh well. It’s part of why I seldom use Facebook other than to share links and check for messages. I just told them like it is. I’m not getting credit for my work and I’m not getting help when I reach out to support. Therefore, I’ll be pulling my books off their shelf and will find a more reliable publisher that actually cares about its authors. I’m in no hurry, though.

MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2018 Last night I was pretty anxious. OMG, I’ve had enough!!! I’ve so totally had enough! Something needs to change. Something. But what? I don’t have many alternatives and the few I know of seem pretty shitty. Do I stop the meds altogether, change brands and or doses, or switch to another drug? Get a thyroidectomy?

The tentative plan is for me to go back to taking my meds every other day and change PCPs. Don’t know that a new one will help me, but at least they’ll be closer to home, whoever they are. Might have Tom make me an appointment with his doctor when he goes to reschedule his own appointment for the week in June that he’s taking off. This is the week I see my ENT and I was going to see Dr. A. If he can help me then I don’t care that he’s male and Muslim.

Amour and Cytomel don’t seem like very good alternatives. Therefore, the question is what brand and what dose can my body best tolerate of Levothyroxine so I don’t have to deprive it altogether? I am SO stressed out and SO frustrated with this same old shit year after year after year. When oh when will it ever end? When will there ever be a solution to this problem and what will it be?

Tried reaching out to Amazon Kindle on Twitter but they’re ignoring me, not surprisingly, while they’ve replied to other tweets. Books are still KUable, too. Definitely “firing” these so-called publishers. I’m not going to write to make THEM money. Therefore, soon I will be an unpublished author. Maybe someday I’ll find a better publisher but for now, at least I’ll have the freedom to write more freely with less censorship and editing.

As far as what to do about the roof, the answer hit me like a punch in the gut the other day. It’s simple. I wish all things could be as simple like how to give my body the medication it needs without suffering from side effects that are worse than the hypo symptoms themselves. Every single fucking site that lists the drug’s side effects lists anxiety as one of them, yet the doctors want to try to tell me it’s not the meds when I know my body best and don’t have a history of anxiety? And there ARE some suspected deaths from this drug as well. I don’t know if I would blame the medication on the 300-pound guy who had a stroke, but the woman who killed herself? Maybe. Trust me, when I get that anxious my thoughts do tend to get dark. It’s not as safe as the doctors lead you to think it is. It may be safer than some drugs out there but I don’t think anything is ever perfectly safe.

I was surprised that some of the other side effects I saw listed when I did some research last night mentioned fever, fatigue and sweating. I thought I sweat easily because I’m fat and older but maybe not. It also mentioned rashes but I doubt there’s any connection between my lichen planus and the medication because it started before I was diagnosed. I’ve definitely been having a lot of fatigue lately and that could be due to anything from low thyroid, the meds, stress, or going into menopause. It’s rainy today and rainy days make me feel kind of groggy, so I don’t know.

Back to the roof, we’re not going to bother unless we need to. We’re just going to keep money set aside for an emergency patch if it leaks in the winter and money to have it redone in the summer. Hopefully, this will mean getting out of having to deal with it and leaving it to the next owner(s).

Tom said I never told him how Tammy was recovering. That’s because she never told me. She takes weeks to pick up messages so I don’t like to send much. It seems I hear less and less from her but I know she has a lot going on.

Tomorrow Aly turns 37. She’s suffering too, just in a different way.

SUNDAY, APRIL 15, 2018 I’m seriously considering pulling my books off of Amazon and hanging up that adventure altogether. I took off the lending function yet they’re STILL available for KU. Fucking Amazon! I’ll give it a few days but if my book page doesn’t reflect the changes by then, then these so-called “publishers” can go to hell. I’ll just pull my books off their site at that point. Thank God I didn’t sign any contracts! But that’s part of why I went with them in the first place.

I’m tired of their shit and how worthless they are when I try to reach out to them for help. If they think they’re going to make money at my expense and continue to get paid for my hard work, they’re in for a surprise.

I was meant to be a homemaker and a hobbyist. Nothing else. I can still write for fun whenever I get ideas and I can still edit old stuff. If I write just for myself, though, I don’t have to be as picky.

Feeling a little anxious, Sunday night or not, and again I question the medication and whether or not I can really handle 5 doses a week instead of 4. There’s definitely something about the drug itself, especially this brand. It just sucks knowing I may never be able to find someone who can help me. I mean really help me. I’ve got a doctor working against me and no other real alternative, which is probably part of why she’s working against me. If I can’t take the only drug available for my disease, then how can I treat myself? And if things happen for a reason, why would whatever’s up there want me to be unable to take the medication my body needs? To keep me fat? I don’t know about that because there have been numerous people who have no problem with it, get their numbers normal, but still can’t lose weight. I’m sure the weight is just an age thing.

Started watching Manhunt on Netflix. I see Chris Noth is in it. I loved him on the original Law & Order.

Had some weird dreams after sleeping a long time for the second time in less than a week. I slept 10 hours. After I got up we went to McDonald’s.

I’m also trying another cleaning schedule where I do bathrooms and the kitchen every week, bedrooms bi-weekly along with light dusting, and then a very thorough dusting once a month.

Okay, so in one dream Tom was driving super fast to get around some erratic driver and I was worried about crashing into speed bumps but he went over them as if they weren’t even there.

Then I was walking a bike with just one handlebar and finally, I decided I could ride it okay after adjusting some kind of strange music player and its memory card.

In another dream, I was on a “potty chair.” This was a plush chair that was also a toilet of some bizarre kind.

Next, I dreamed that my dentist was looking to replace Kathleen. Or was it herself?

In the last dream, there were these 150-foot-tall stone doors between the US and Mexico. It was decided that since they couldn’t curb the immigration problem they would simply say fuck it and just let people come and go between the two countries as they pleased.

SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 2018 As I’m being told by one person and then another and another that they downloaded my book via KU, I’m sitting here wondering why nothing is showing up on my sales reports. Doubting that all these people were lying, I started to suspect Amazon may be ripping me off. Well, in a sense my hunch is right, thanks to new devices.

It’s no wonder! This really pisses me off, too. It’s like I’m literally writing stories and then paying Amazon to sell them. I always did feel like something put me here to be an asset and a profit to others and all at my expense. Well, no more! Amazon gets most of my book sale money as it is and so I edited the pricing of each book and disallowed for lending. Now people will have to buy my books. I still may not be paid fairly for what few sales I make but at least I’ll get something. I thought of jacking the price up to where I’m pocketing more of the sales than Amazon but wonder if that may lower my chances of making any sales. Everyone wants stuff for free or close to it. I almost never pay for the books I read. I’ll keep it at $.99 and see how I do without allowing for lending for a while and then I’ll try jacking up the price to maybe $4.99. If that doesn’t do me any good I may hang it up altogether. If I’m going to work this hard for virtually nothing then I may as well do it just for fun only rather than have to be so overly picky about editing and things like that. I really don’t think it was meant to be. It would’ve taken off by now if it was but I certainly can’t say I didn’t try. It’s like with the weight; if your body doesn’t respond to diet and exercise then the extra weight was probably meant to be there.

This explains why the order of books listed on my reports has changed a few times yet no sales or reviews appeared. Maybe “M” really wasn’t Maliheh, though that’s not what my gut tells me. Guess I’ll never know for sure, but like I said, it really pisses me off even though I probably only lost a few dollars. Wonder if Kathleen was any of those borrowers?

Despite not getting paid for my work, a very special thanks to my new beta reader, Aly, for acting as a secondary editor! At first, I didn’t want to bother her by asking if she’d read for me, but she said she’d gladly do it during her downtime and I assured her it wasn’t like I’d be emailing her a manuscript every week or anything like that. Even editing novellas is a HUGE job that takes time.

Tom and I chatted with the Twenties yesterday. They verified that it was the Internet company that was out but they don’t know what or if they’re going to do anything at all.

I was discussing heart rates with other people and I realize that everyone has their own normal HR. It’s no real cause for alarm for me if my HR goes a little over 100, but I can see where even the 80s would be a concern for some people with HRs much lower than mine.

Although I’m still not as used to the heat as I used to be when I was younger, skinny and living in the desert, I noticed I was more tolerant of it when out walking yesterday, again suggesting I could be very close to menopause and through the worst of the peri. It’s going to cool down and rain a little again, though.

Told the McClellan Sacramento airport on Google+, for whatever good it may do, that if they’re the ones flying around so much of the time, especially at night, it’s annoying as hell. Really hope we don’t live next to a small airstrip ever again. I’d rather commercial planes even though they’re louder. Small planes have an annoying buzz to them like a mosquito or a fly buzzing in your ear.

After four or five hours of crashing, something loud drove by and woke me up at 8 AM. I lay there for a half-hour and then I got up and made coffee. Still tired, I took a baby Benadryl to relax me enough to fall back asleep. Got back up at 1 PM and have been a little groggy ever since. I started off feeling like I felt Wednesday. I’m tired of this up-and-down with the energy. Lately, it’s hit or miss as to whether or not I’ll have the energy to work out. Hopefully, going up to five doses a week instead of four as I plan to do in a week will give me more energy without making me anxious.

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018 I’m really coming to distrust doctors as much as I distrust the police. Tom’s Indian co-worker who was put on Levothyroxine a few months ago is now having the same symptoms I had with a booming heart. And of course, her doctor dismissed it and said she’s “just anxious,” even though we know what’s normal for us and what’s not and the fact that our intuition is almost always accurate. God, I want to slap some of these doctors!

I feel so bad for her even though we never met. Next comes the psych drugs and then the suggested trips to the shrink and therapist which will end up costing her hundreds of dollars and tons of wasted time because these damn doctors don’t want to deal with the root cause. From my own personal experience and what I’ve heard from others, these doctors obviously have a protocol and are obviously instructed to automatically shift the blame away from the meds despite its known issues for some people. Even the nurse I talked to said so without me bringing it up first.

Goes to show that doctors are often more interested in doing what’s easiest for them instead of what’s best for the patient. The question is why they do this. My only guess is that it’s because there are no other real alternatives and it would be bad for the patient not to take the medication at all.

I don’t think Tom mentioned what happened to me so as not to scare her since most people don’t have any problems with this medication, but someone’s got to tell her the truth. If they don’t, she’ll likely suffer needlessly before realizing that no matter what her gut tells her and regardless of the fact that she doesn’t have a history of anxiety, she needs to lower her dose. She’s only on 50s because she went from a TSH of 4 to 2. Why they would even bother medicating her at 4 is beyond me because that’s so close to normal, and 50 seems way too much to drop just 2 points. She’s likely to minus as the drug accumulates.

Hopefully, Tom will tell her that yes, it really is the medication and yes she really does need to cut back when no one else gives her any straight answers. If she’s smart enough she’ll do her own research as well and find enough complaints online that prove she’s not just “anxious” or imagining it. Meanwhile, until she realizes all this and is better informed, she’s just going to continue to get the runaround from the doctors.

I totally resent the hell out of the doctors that cost me so much time and money when it all could have been prevented! I knew that very little of my problem was due to perimenopause, and this woman is only around 30. I think the only thing I would have experienced from the peri was hot flashes, a slightly elevated heart rate, and my heart racing me awake like it used to when I would overheat in my sleep. Not an HR that was often 130+, feeling like I was going to die, and being terrified out of my mind.

I may not like the woman because she’s pretty religious and they tend to be rather hypocritical but no one deserves to suffer like that. No one. Its symptoms are the worst feeling in the world. I totally believed that without a doubt. Nothing I could ever experience could be that bad. If I knew I had to go through it all over again and there would be nothing I could do to stop it, I would probably kill myself.

Good news for me, though. It’s not looking like those “neck knockers” I’ve been complaining about and the other symptoms are due to my bad ear being clogged. I have the fake ear canal cleaned regularly. This is the first time I’ve gone a year instead of 6 months and when Tom looked in there with a flashlight he could see all kinds of build-up since it can’t shed dead skin like a normal ear canal. It’s easy to see into it, too. It was created with a laser drill. Normal ear canals are wavy so you can’t see straight into them. But they drill artificial canals straight through, of course, haha. I started oiling it which I admit I’ve been slacking off on and that seems to be helping. I really should throw baby oil in it a couple of times a week regardless.

The neck knockers have to do with conductive hearing. When the ear gets blocked you hear the pulse easier. I still have high blood pressure, mind you, but the lightheadedness and other symptoms are most likely from build-up.

I’m still cutting back on sodium and a byproduct of that is that I definitely shouldn’t gain weight on the 1000 to 1200 calories I’ve been having. I won’t lose in my case since I am still older and I do still have thyroid issues but I definitely won’t gain. Good enough for me!

Because I still felt a little off yesterday, we started planning our next vacation and that was a wonderful distraction. We’re thinking of going back to Hawaii one last time before we leave the West for good. We looked at first-class flights to other countries and while the prices aren’t that much more expensive, the flying time is insane. I love to fly but don’t want to be stuck on a plane for 15 to 24 hours. Maybe when we’re retired and living in Florida we’ll shoot on over to Europe and hit a lot of the countries there.

Not sure if we’re going to go next year or the year after, but we’ll probably rent a condo for a week in Maui because it’s actually cheaper than a hotel. We’re thinking of possibly going parasailing but we’re definitely going to do our share of snorkeling. I don’t expect to do everything we did the last time. The luau wasn’t that impressive anyway, and we’ve already been down in a submarine. Catamaran sailing and snorkeling were the best part of the trip, actually, and we must return to Lulu’s at least once for their fabulous steak and eggs. Then there’s the Whalers Village, of course. Damn, do I wish we could live there!

Been rearranging my picture files and backing everything up on Amazon Prime so I can kick some off my computer even though I still have a lot of space.

Tom gave me a little scare yesterday when I was watching him follow his route home and he appeared to get stuck at a busy intersection for a while. Traffic was heavy so he was 10 minutes late.

An older lady who’s a friend on both PB and FB and seems pretty honest said she got one of my books through KU but nothing shows up on my reports. Mitch, who says he doesn’t share or borrow any of his books, says it should show up. Is someone working for Amazon that has a grudge against me or are they just that fucked up? Either Kindle isn’t crediting me for everything or some people are liars. Maybe Maliheh isn’t really Maliheh and whoever it is really did buy Campus Games and I never got credit for it. Either way, maybe I oughta disallow for sharing and lending in the future and see if that brings more sales.

THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2018 If I was psychic in a way that was actually useful for once I would know how many more years the roof would hold up before it actually began leaking water down into the house. If it were to take another 10 years then we wouldn’t need to do it at all. Instead, I get to have a series of worthless dream premonitions and the mood-influencing thing I’m not even going to get into.

Because I felt so crappy I didn’t finish writing about the day I talked to the workers. I still don’t know what’s going on and when because the Twenties haven’t replied to my message. I saw Jon talking to Ray and as always Ray turned away as if to avoid me. He later looked right at me and although I couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, his mouth was set in a firm tight line of both hate and anger. I still don’t know what his problem with me is and I don’t give a fuck but I really wish just the same that his house would hurry up and sell and that he would get the fuck out of here. It’s really too bad he didn’t have the balls to tell me to my face what his problem with me is instead of going to the Twenties about it instead. I fucking hate gossipers! Oh, the Twenties never said anything, of course. He gave himself away when he explained to Jon instead of me that he accidentally sent me the messenger invite and his little thumbs-up emoji.

I will be the one avoiding him as much as possible until he’s out of here so he doesn’t go saying the wrong thing and cause me to lose my temper. If you’re that rude to me, I don’t care how damn old you are. But of course, if I were provoked, even though we live in a time where we’re responsible for everyone’s behavior but our own, I’m the one who would take the fall.

Back to the main point; I talked to one of the workers who had a map with different colors for different roads and he said something about seeing if they could do it in the first place. Oh, I’m sure they can. If I can hear it, they can do it. The project is going to take months but he said they would only be working close to the house for a day. Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it. I’m sure I’ll be tortured for a week or so. And then a week to 10 days later there will be something else. Some kind of home improvement or something the utility company or park will do.

Anyway, instead of working out outdoors yesterday, I stuck to the treadmill. The weather may have had a hand in how tired I felt. Cloudy, wet weather can make me feel sluggish, though it didn’t rain until the evening.

Today they picked up the bulk trash as they do every few months.

I may drop CampNano as I’m simply out of ideas for the story I’m working on.

I have a little more energy today but started off a bit shaky. Today my blood pressure is 155/84 if I can believe the reading. Only went out walking for five minutes and in that five-minute walk, I saw two or three houses for sale. Again, I’ve never lived where so many houses are sold so often around me.

Aly was in the hospital as I suspected when I didn’t hear from her yesterday with an eczema flare-up. The doctor thinks she may even be low on thyroid. I’m honestly not surprised at all. She’s been exhibiting symptoms of that and it seems those cursed with AI’s don’t get just one. I said I know I’ve told her some pretty scary stories about Levothyroxine but don’t let it scare her because most people don’t have problems. She said she isn’t worried because she knows three others on it who have never had a problem.

Yeah, if anyone has to have a problem with meds it’s me. That’s why I am afraid to go on BP meds, but if it’s responsible for some of the lightheadedness, worsening vision, and fatigue like I read it may be, I may not have much choice. The worse I feel, the more I might be tempted to try meds. The neck knockers alone are annoying and a bit scary. I’m not going to decide until Doc A’s nurse tells me what my numbers are because I can’t believe they would happen to be normal there if I’m really having regular problems like I seem to be. Sometimes I feel almost weak and my head vibrates, too.

Beginning on the week of the 23rd, which will put me six weeks away from labs, I’ll skip two doses a week instead of three and see how I do.

I just wish I could stop worrying about things so much! It seems I spend more time worrying than anything else and that does a number on my body and mind, especially my mind. I don’t want to suffer until I’m actually dying but I seem to do an awful lot of that these last few years. If only I could know how much more suffering I have to do in my life, what dying will be like, and what the afterlife is like if there is one, as that may take a whole lot of stress off me… Or not. I hate not knowing what I’m in for during the rest of my life and then possibly afterward, but again, I’m just not psychic in a useful way.

I have thousands of pictures on my computer, most of which I’ve collected over the years around the net, and think I might get rid of most of them, particularly the ones I can’t use as avatars or backgrounds. I still sometimes like to decorate blogs with them and I use them on Bubbly, too. I’ll also keep some for wallpaper. After storing them on Amazon Prime, I’ll delete some picture files. Or maybe I’ll use them to decorate Tom’s emails and on Skype before I delete them.

I almost wish voice blogging was the norm because it’s definitely easier to talk than to write but then that’s harder to search and edit. I still think it will become the norm at some point.

Not remembering much in the way of dreams. Something about watching a music video and thinking that the guy singing looked like he was wearing a wig.

Then I was being “punished” for some reason (the black freeloaders) by being made to stand in something that looked as small as a phone booth. I got fed up at one point when I realized I had no incentive to behave and cooperate since they weren’t giving me time off for good behavior or anything.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018 I’m not feeling too well now despite feeling great the last few days and continuing to sleep well. I’m just lightheaded and fatigued for some reason. I Debroxed my ear but that didn’t help. Maybe I just lost weight too fast even though it was only a few pounds. But yes, even Miss Hashimoto can lose a few pounds when she turns 80% of her diet into veggies.

I’m now starting to get a little concerned about my blood pressure. I know they call it the silent killer and that it doesn’t usually have symptoms, but sometimes it does, such as noticing your pulse in your neck, fatigue, and lightheadedness. I could be tired and lightheaded for a number of reasons but is it really normal to hear and feel my pulse in my neck like this every time I lay down? This is the first time it’s really started to worry me but with my medication phobia, I’m kind of stuck. I guess I will just wait and see what the numbers are on a more accurate device in June. Wrist and thumb cuffs aren’t as accurate as the arm cuffs. He has an electronic arm cuff but I hate those things and I won’t use it. I would have thought my upper number was in the 140s and my lower was pretty normal, but I don’t know about that or if cutting back on sodium is going to help as much as I hoped.

I’m very relieved to learn that Tammy is cancer-free! I figured as much and I’m not really surprised because of the lack of dreams. I almost always have bad dreams about someone when they’re headed for trouble, and like I was telling my nieces when we were chatting on Facebook, sometimes it’s what I don’t see that’s most important.

Mark called and we spoke briefly and he told me they were able to verify that there was no cancer by looking at the sample under a microscope but they’re still going to send it to the lab, of course. They’re thinking infection.

Now, maybe she can get on with her life once and for all. She’ll never be problem-free as is the case with most of us when we get older, but I think she’s had more than enough.

My worries are now on a friend. I get that sometimes we get busy or we’re just not in the mood to socialize but I must admit it’s a bit weird not to wake up to a text from her. We chat pretty much every day, and sometimes we leave each other voice clips and pics, along with texts.

I sent a message to Christiane because I was worried about her being in Leipzig with all the shit she’s got going on there. She said she’s okay but she’s worried about her granddaughter. I don’t know where her granddaughter is but despite the savage beasts running around her country, she’s unharmed.

Yesterday was one of those days where I almost wished we decided to get the hell out as soon as we could or that they’d lay him off and give us an excuse to go. That would be a real incentive, all right. Funny too, seeing that for years we worried they would lay him off and now a part of me wishes they would. Most jobs will lay you off eventually, so I’m surprised he’s still there. Especially since the company has laid off several others in the past and has been struggling for some time now.

It was noisy here from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. with landscaping racket on and off all day. First it was the park doing one section, then it was one house, then it was another house, then it was the park doing another section, then it was another house…

To make matters worse we can’t even go a week without some distracting project here that’s totally annoying as hell. Now they want to tear up the roads to add more fiber optics to speed up the internet. I’m actually not sure if it’s the cable or the phone company that’s going to be doing this because I didn’t see the vehicle the workers were in. Just about half a dozen workers themselves. It would suck for us if it was a phone company because it would be difficult to switch phones and all that. I swear, as soon as you get an ideal setup, someone goes and fucks it all up for you. I’m tired of listening to shit around here, and of course, my sleep is always threatened depending on my schedule.

Not sure if a faster Internet connection would even help us. It’s fast enough as it is and having a fast connection wouldn’t do us any good if you go to a site with slow settings.

Never before have I lived anywhere where landscaping was done more than once a week or less or where I heard so many projects and saw so many houses sell. I realize that the constant selling of houses has to do with being where old people live since the people that come here don’t stay here for 40 or 50 years.

TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018 They recommend no more than 20g of sugar a day for women and 36g a day for men. Not sure if this means natural sugars only as opposed to refined or if it’s counting all sugars.

Also, no more than 300 milligrams of cholesterol and no more than 1500 of sodium.

Ironically enough, foods higher in sodium and cholesterol seem to be higher in calories, so if you lower your sodium and cholesterol intake that should take care of the calories. In my case, it should keep me from gaining but most people might lose this way. Even so, where I used to count calories now I will be counting cholesterol and definitely sodium to get my blood pressure down. It’s improving but still needs work. Won’t know about the cholesterol until June.

It could be just a coincidence but it seems that adding a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to my diet as I have for about a week now may be helping my lichen planus. This rash affects moist areas. I realized I hadn’t been itching as much and when I checked one of my armpits I couldn’t see any redness.

Unless the person with the laptop in Austin was Molly using Marbridge’s computer, none of the iPhones are Molly after all. Aly says her carrier is Sprint but other carriers like T-Mobile visited me with iPhones in Texas. At this point, I’m getting hopeful that Molly isn’t going to be a problem. If she is, though, I’ll be a problem for her when I contact Marbridge.

Hmm… just read that T-Mobile and Sprint are merging.

MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2018 Okay, I’m going to attempt to use Google Docs while on my treadmill. So far it seems to do a great job of hearing what I’m saying and understanding me. My skier is quiet but the treadmill isn’t. The faster you run on the treadmill, the louder it is. Gotta go at a leisurely pace of 2.3 MPH or else it won’t understand me as well.

I was so pissed off yesterday because while we were discussing the home Improvement plans we want to make in what time we have left here, I looked at a really pretty 3D decorative plate with flowers and hummingbirds hanging on the living room wall and thought that Tammy would love it. I went to reach for it and what did I do? Smashed the fucking thing to smithereens when it slipped out of my grip. I was so pissed!

Her surgery is tomorrow. Still no dreams so I’m guessing no news is good news? I hope that’s the case but I don’t see every single thing that happens in my dreams nor can I control what I do see. I don’t always know that they mean anything until and if they come to fruition. Sometimes I get a feeling right away that a certain dream is a sign of something to come or a warning but sometimes I don’t. I’m hoping that it doesn’t turn out to be any big deal because as Tom reminded me, the doctors were once pretty sure that Mary had cancer all throughout her body yet she didn’t.

I can’t remember every single thing she and I discussed during our phone chat but I misunderstood her about the motorcycles. They are allowed where she lives but like here, if they go joyriding through the place and there’s a complaint, they’ll be kicked out. I was surprised she mentioned a Doberman living there but I guess they used to allow dogs of all sizes until they put similar size limits on them that they have here. I don’t think smaller dogs are necessarily quieter, but if you’re like me and you’re afraid of big dogs, then it’s definitely nice to live where there aren’t any.

A lady was walking her Chihuahua which she freed of its leash as she neared her home and it ran up barking at me. I petted it and then it barked for more when I stopped just like the woman said it would. I like the look and feel of this breed but they do have the bark from hell. A quick check of dog breeds, sizes and temperaments suggests a Basenji dog might eventually be good for me. It’s hypoallergenic and doesn’t bark as much.

Tom has gotten really good at picking locks, haha. As I may have mentioned, he gets a surprise electronics box every few months from ADAfruit and this time it contained a clear lock with lock-picking tools because the point of their packages is to understand how things work. He can pick their lock in just a minute or two but it took him a long time to pick an old rusty padlock of ours. I can’t even pick the easy one but I’m not as patient as he is.

My book Socio was published over the weekend but I’m sure I won’t get shit for sales.

So in the one to six years we expect to be here since they could lay him off anytime, while he doesn’t expect to be working there beyond 67 if they don’t, we decided on what we think is worth doing with the place while we’re still here. It’s a little late to do the windows. We should have done them early on but we didn’t so we’re not going to do that and we’re likely not going to laminate the laundry and kitchen floors like we should have either. We actually don’t know for sure on the floors, but we are getting the new oven probably at the end of this month, and we have plans to drywall the hallway. I love pink and it’s definitely my favorite color but even I can’t stand the blinding pink I so stupidly chose for the hallway. So we’re going to white that out. We had planned to eventually do another mural in the living room and our long hallway, so we think we might do them both at once when he takes a week off in early June.

We disagree on when we should do the roof, though. His logic is that we should wait another year since it held up during the rainy season because that way we’re getting the money’s worth out of what we paid for when we bought the house nearly 5 years ago. My logic is that the sooner we get the new roof, the quicker we can enjoy the peace of mind a new roof would bring and an extra year to get the money’s worth out of that.

Cutting back on sodium has helped my blood pressure at least enough to where it’s not waking me up with my pulse pounding in my neck but it’s still elevated. I probably do need blood pressure medicine but with my medication phobia, I’m not in any hurry to get any. I still say that how I feel matters more than how many more years I live. If I were in my 20s I would be more concerned.

It does kind of suck to know that it’s probably going to take another 20 years before and if I naturally get on a schedule. By then my life will be virtually over.

We went to Sam’s on Saturday where I got a gorgeous floral quilt. It’s very stylish yet colorful. It will be good for the winter but probably not the summer. I’ve been looking for this for quite some time but didn’t realize they were calling them quilts. When I would look up duvets I would get comforters and when I would look up blankets I would get fleece blankets. What I like about this quilt is that it’s thicker than a fleece blanket so I don’t need two blankets during the winter, but it’s not as thick and heavy as a comforter.

We also loaded up on some bulk items like water, detergent, and even got some of those air fresheners you clip on your car vent and I like them a lot. Way better than the danglies that obstruct vision and lose their smell in no time.

On Sunday we went to Walmart and I got a bright pink tank dress for the summer.

I also got a deep dark red wine-colored lipstick for Suki and it looks awesome on her. Where I look horrible in dark-colored lipstick, she looks great. It’s totally her color and goes well with her dark eyes and black hair.

Breaked from this entry to get some other things done. Just finished cleaning Tom’s room and bathroom and now Roomba is taking over. So glad I don’t have to vacuum! Especially the living room.

It was quite chilly on my walk this morning but it’s to be a beautiful day and I have the window by my desk open since I’m not going to be sitting there today. I’m in the bedroom now and have a window open in here, too. I can faintly hear the guy mowing his lawn a couple of yards down even on the treadmill but that’s about it. The smell of fresh-cut grass is wafting in here. I’ve always liked that smell.

Decided to try some peanut sauce with which to season my vegetables but instead of being a thick nutty sauce it’s watery, spicy and gross.

It’s funny to see Mexico get a taste of their own medicine and see how they handle hordes of immigrants for a change instead of it always being on us. Funny how all these “poor” people claim to be so broke yet they appear well-dressed, well-fed, and in possession of all kinds of fancy gadgets.

Molly created a Prosebox account after all. It’s a little hard for me to fully trust Aly because she’s lied in the past. I can’t say for sure that she pointed my account out to Molly or that Molly even knows how to access my profile there since you can’t look up my name as I use a sun emoji for the ‘o’ in my name. But I did stupidly share the account link in the past and she could have gotten it on her own from a different site. I think that for the most part, Aly has learned from her mistakes and that I can mostly trust her with things, but if I really don’t want to risk anything being shared with Kim or Molly, then I won’t say anything at all.

You know, for a split second I laughed to myself at the thought of Aly and I remaining friends for the rest of my life and her inheriting my stuff and then being able to read everything I’ve written, including stuff I never shared with the public or anyone for that matter. That’s the price you pay, though, when you get all kinds of goodies from someone for free since everyone has at least something that someone could really use or that they would like. With those good freebies may come some rather strange, hurtful and surprising revelations.

Nothing’s changed with Molly. I read the two quick entries she posted, and according to Aly Molly says Prosebox is lame because no one has responded to her entries. Of course, that’s the whole point for her is to get attention. For me, it’s writing first, audience second.

Same old shit going on with her. They’re still trying to find the miracle concoction that will help her with her dramatic mood swings, no guys notice her, etc. Same old sad sob story. I guess she really has moved on in some ways, though. Aly said she has an iPhone and I did get a Texas view yesterday but they were in Arlington. I know every now and then someone shows up in a different location and sometimes even a different state. Still can’t say for sure that it was her. Aly assured me that while she seems to have let go of most things, there are a few things she’s still obsessed with like Roman, Josh and Kathy. I was a little surprised to hear that she’s still obsessed with Kathy but I’m guessing maybe she’s remained fixated on these people because she’s actually met them face-to-face. As long as she doesn’t harass me, all will be fine. I know right where she is, though. So if she does revert back to her old ways, Marbridge is just an email away.

I was surprised to learn that Molly hasn’t been restricted from being online at all. She just prefers to stick to Facebook mostly. She can go anywhere she wants from her phone but is not allowed to add any apps that didn’t come with her phone like Facebook.

I had a really sad dream the other day involving a cinnamon rat with the same colors and markings that Tinkerbell had. For some reason, I was forced to give it up and was devastated because I knew it would be killed. I was crying, hugging and kissing it, dreading the moment when I had to basically send it to its death.

Last night I dreamed that I was hanging out in some woman’s home or store. It seemed like it might have been more of a place of business. Some kind of boutique maybe? She received a delivery while I was there and the delivery man referred to her as Eden. She seemed to be in her 30s or 40s and I seemed to be young and desperate again even though I was married to Tom. My end goal was for her to be a playmate.

She said something about me being the kind that was fun to hang out with a few people around or alone and I told her she could contact me anytime.

Then I was going through her shorts. She had a pile of shorts present and I complimented a pink pair with a little rainbow.

Well, I may not be young and desperate, but I’m a little annoyed with Kathleen. First, she says she would like to go shopping with me, then she agrees to look me up on Facebook, then she tells me she doesn’t have a Facebook account, and then she invites me to some little get-together she never follows through on.

Why do women do this to me? She’s given me every indication to believe she likes me even if she knows we’ll never be more than friends, so what’s her problem then?

SUNDAY, APRIL 8, 2018 Just thought I would start catching up while my chicken dinner is cooking. It’s in one of those McCormick seasoning bags where you throw the chicken in the bag with the seasoning. Comes out awesome that way.

It’s been a busy weekend so far and we still have things we want to do.

Backing up and going in order of events and hopefully not forgetting anything along the way, Tammy and I chatted on Friday. I was surprised to get her call because I didn’t expect to hear from her until after surgery. She expects to be pretty out of it for a while so she said the girls will pass along updates for me. They better not forget! They have to work and so does Mark but I’m sure they’ll keep people in the loop when they can.

Anyway, they still don’t know what they’re going to find until they get in there and see what’s going on, and therefore they don’t yet know what they’re going to do about it. She’s just tired of suffering, understandably. It would be nice if her little friend in the sky actually existed and gave a shit.

I believe we’re all cursed in some department or another, and like I’m cursed in the sleep department, it seems she’s cursed in the health department. I hate being so helpless but even if I were there, there still wouldn’t be much I could do. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all go away but unfortunately, there’s just no such thing. However, I can say from firsthand experience that different spells sometimes do help with different things. They may not make things perfect but they can help and so I’m scrambling to figure out an appropriate formula that may help someone nearly 3,000 miles away.

She’s going to be in intensive care after surgery so they can watch for any bleeding. I didn’t realize we had so many lymph nodes all over the place. I guess some of them are too deep to simply reach in and remove for a biopsy so they’re going to go through her throat and try to get something behind the breastbone. At least I think that’s what she said. It sends chills throughout me just thinking about it! I just hope whatever it turns out to be nothing and that they can find a way to make it easier for her to live with the diseases that aren’t curable.

I tried to cheer her up by talking about other things to get her mind off the health issues but then I felt kind of bad afterward like I might have come off as selfish and insensitive to her situation. I don’t think anything or anyone can really cheer her up until all this medical drama gives her a break once and for all.

Where I thought I had one autoimmune disease, apparently I have three. I didn’t realize lichen planus was considered an autoimmune disease in itself until I saw a list of autoimmune diseases listed. I thought that was a side effect of Hashimoto’s. Also, they’ve come to consider asthma an autoimmune disease. For the most part, I haven’t noticed my asthma since quitting smoking. It was bad until I was around 10 because my stupid parents smoked in the house around me every day, but then it improved until I was around 20. I was seldom home the older I got and I was almost never home as a teenager. It was bad from my mid-twenties to early 30s because I too, was dumb enough to smoke for something like 16-18 years. I wish my sister would stop that shit as well.

She got a new dog from the Humane Society, a 2-year-old Chihuahua named Hunter. It has one hell of a fierce bark, LOL, going off on some dog that was passing by when they were sitting in the lanai.

Soon I must change the rats’ cage. Make that their mansion. I could fit in it without the shelves in it.

FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 2018 It’s raining here today. It’s nice every now and then because it keeps things quiet, even if I don’t like the cold. Not keeping the planes quiet, though.

I slept shitty yesterday because the blood pounding in my neck woke me up a few times. I really, really have to back off the frozen dinners! Too much sodium. I just read that we shouldn’t have more than 1500 mg of sodium a day. Well, I had about twice that much yesterday. It’s no wonder my blood pressure went through the roof.

Definitely going to be replacing a lot of what I eat with veggies. I feel so much better when I do and it’s healthier. Less sodium, less cholesterol, less calories.

Today, however, I’m enjoying all kinds of naughties. Candy, nuts, pork fried rice, and lobster macaroni and cheese. Their hot wok didn’t have crab rangoons but what they did have was delicious. Haven’t had the shrimp scampi yet.

The only other thing they didn’t have was sparkling water but since we’re out running errands on weekends anyway, we’ll pick some up then.

Really hoping the apple cider vinegar helps with the cholesterol! Aly’s Fitbit friend swears by it but it’s hard to believe I would get that lucky. As one of my fellow writers pointed out, it isn’t just a matter of what we eat, but a matter of what’s in some of our shitty genetics.

Managed to get some more of my Nano project done yesterday after all. Not sure I’ll be in a writing kind of mood today, though.

THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2018 Finally heard from that elusive sister of mine. Tammy, who is at the hospital registering for surgery on the 10th, confirmed that she is on blood pressure medicine. Figured as much. It seems most older people need it and are left on it for life. I may need it too, but I’m going to try to avoid it for as long as I can. I always try to resort to natural remedies first.

Yesterday I replaced one of my meals with stir-fried vegetables and ended up having a little over a thousand calories. I was down a pound the next day but I have my doubts that I could keep losing steadily. Even if I don’t, the most important thing is getting my cholesterol down. I think if I stay away or at least limit the foods that are bad for cholesterol and blood pressure, it will help a lot.

We did our first Raley’s order online yesterday and they’re to deliver late this afternoon. It will be interesting to see how well they do with being punctual and how well in stock they are. I wonder what they’ll deliver them in? I’m guessing paper bags.

As with Walmart, you have the option of allowing them to substitute the things you want them to substitute that they’re out of. I usually don’t let them substitute, though. I don’t want, for example, them not to have sparkling strawberry water and therefore give me orange, lemon or lime.

I admit I went a little overboard, LOL, wanting to try new things and was especially delighted by the Sizzling Wok. It’s expensive but now’s the time to enjoy these things… While we still have money. I say if you have money, save some and enjoy the rest! If you save everything you may have more cushion for rainy days but you won’t have as much of a life in between. We all gotta live a little. Money isn’t everything, but it’s still nice to enjoy whenever we can. I was broke most of my life and would go back to that in a heartbeat as long as it meant staying healthy and feeling good. You just can’t put a price on that! I’m trying not to think of and not to worry about Tammy’s health, but I do. It’s only natural to worry about those we care about but I’m still holding out the hope that they don’t find anything cancerous and that they can get rid of it if they do. The waiting in the suspense must be killing her! I hope they don’t wait too long after the 10th to give her the results so she can know what’s going on and pass the info along to me and others.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to trying their lobster macaroni and cheese and also their shrimp scampi. Remember, I hate to cook and he’s not into that either so we do get a lot of pre-made stuff.

We went out running early this morning. Didn’t see any coyotes, skunks or possums.

He gets a monthly surprise box with electronic-related stuff, teaching people how things work. One of the strangest boxes yet contained a clear lock and tools to learn to pick it. He’s gotten good at picking the lock but when I tried I had no luck. I only tried once for a couple of minutes, though. I could probably learn to do it with practice though I have no desire to go lock-picking, haha. It might come in handy, however, to know how to do if we lose a key to an old padlock or something.

I really like WhatsApp a lot. It’s definitely easier and more reliable than texting and it has some nice features. I can add wallpaper and so my little chat with Aly is now in the cherry trees. I was playing around with the camera and video functions and accidentally sent her a beautiful shot of the bedroom ceiling. Then I sent a lovely video of Suki. She said she looked like she was ready to be used, haha.

I like how it tells me when she picks up texts and when she’s online and all that, too. It says when she was last on even if she isn’t on at the moment.

She has a nice voice but she’s a little hard to understand at times. Like Kim, she sometimes mumbles and talks too fast.

She said that just 24 hours after taking the turmeric pill it seems to be helping. I just might try it for my rash if she continues to have success with it.

I’m going to have to reschedule my ENT because my schedule isn’t looking good for it. It’s looking good for Doc A, though.

I think I might have had some spotting yesterday but it was so faint that I can’t say for sure.

Last night I had another round of vague and strange bits and pieces of dreams that were pretty senseless. In one dream I was following Tom who was following a waitress who was seating us in a restaurant. Only the restaurant was pitch black and I could barely see them even though they were right in front of me. After a few seconds, I lost sight of them all together and couldn’t see a thing. All was jet black. I couldn’t even see any of the other customers or tables.

Then we were in another restaurant and all of a sudden I felt incredibly sleepy. So they let me take a nap in a room in the back of the restaurant. As I felt myself drift off, I forced myself back awake because I knew that if I didn’t I would probably be out for hours and I didn���t want to make anybody wait on me that long.

In another dream, I was walking down a hall somewhere where a few people and a tiger were present. The tiger took something out of my hand that might have been a plastic bag and I didn’t try to get it back because I didn’t want to piss it off and get attacked. I was still terrified but tried not to let it show. Then I saw someone open a door and I called out to them to hold it for me. I ran up to the door and exited the hallway with them.

In the last dream, I was in this filthy bathroom that looked like it was hundreds of years old. Two women were sitting at a vanity table nearby chatting, and I was taking a bath in an old footed-tub that seemed both gross and way too narrow.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2018 I made a mistake when I said my BP was 161/90. It was actually 151/90 the other day when I woke up and checked it. From the way I’ve been feeling lately, I think it’s stable again. I feel great today and I wish I could feel like this every day. Yesterday I was a touch anxious and I skipped my pill today so it wouldn’t be worse. There’s definitely something about the synthetic version of this stuff, especially this brand. Something has to be done eventually but I don’t know what. Not going to worry about that today since my condition isn’t life-threatening and there’s no imminent danger. My energy levels are great, my mood is great, and I wish I could feel like this every day or at least most of the time. Yesterday I had a bit of fatigue too, but I still managed to get a lot done.

Tom and I went on an early morning walk. I ran so fast at some points that he could hardly keep up with me. I must be in pretty good shape too because when we got back my HR was only up to 118 after that mad sprint. Tom said he saw a coyote. He saw it at the foot of the driveway. I didn’t see anything, though. They’re usually harmless anyway.

We decided we’ve had enough of Walmart’s bullshit so we’re not going to order groceries for pick up anymore from them. They keep selling out of everything, and their site is a nightmare. Really think they’re gearing up to stop that service and that’s why they keep selling out of things that they don’t restock. Everything is now out of stock or on clearance, and instead of seven pages of favorites, we now have two.

So we signed up with Raley’s and they do home delivery for just six bucks. He spends a couple of bucks in gas just to go pick up the groceries and then the time to go get them, so it’s worth it.

I can’t go all vegan so I’m going to just do my best to not go too crazy with the cholesterol. I’ll cut it out altogether a week before labs and we’ll see if the apple cider vinegar is helping.

Aly said her hematologist recommended turmeric pills and I read about a guy with my type of rash that said it helped him tremendously. If it proves to be a good thing for her, I may try that myself.

We left each other voice clips, which was cool. She sounds so young and I sound mean, LOL.

Once again, I’ve removed Campus Games and soon I will be publishing Socio. I just don’t know if I want to keep going with my Camp Nano project. I just can’t get into it. Sometimes I start a story and then I lose interest. Day 4 and I’m already bored.

Molly has been behaving so far and Aly says she’s actually been online for years but mostly sticks to just Facebook where she can play games. She said something about a supervised laptop at Marbridge but then she does have an iPhone which Sprint is her carrier. I wonder if the Austin visitor was her that I had a couple of days ago. Whoever it was had a laptop with Windows XP. Would Marbridge have such an outdated browser? The thing is they read my most recent entry and they read the one about Josh. Funny because according to Aly, she misses Josh, the guy who beat her up years ago in Iowa, so I wonder if the name grabbed her attention. Plus, she hates her roommate. So, same old, same old. But she hasn’t bothered me thus far so I’m not going to panic or run and change things. Again, that would be letting her control me all over again and I refuse to go there.

Aly also says that Marbridge does have apartments for seniors so if her parents can afford it she’s pretty much set for life.

I asked the status of the crazy mother and I guess she had surgery for her esophagus cancer, a couple of rounds of chemo, and then she retired a couple of years ago. Aly said she doesn’t ask about her parents nor does Molly mention them. Aly prefers to keep things very basic when it comes to her. She says that Molly’s never shown a real interest in Twitter so she isn’t going to block her but will watch what links she shares. She thinks she might have found her through her phone number. I wish Aly hadn’t given her her phone number or at least opted out of being searchable via phone number on Twitter like I have with being searchable via email address.

Sure enough, Tammy didn’t answer my question even though she checked in yesterday. I really feel like she and the girls are pushing me away and don’t really want me in their lives. I wish they would just say so and I will respectfully let them go.

Tammy showed up in my dreams but I don’t remember what they were about. I just know I fell asleep with her on my mind and therefore I ended up dreaming about her. Couldn’t have been too bad, I guess, or else I would have remembered it.

I also had a dream that I spotted my dentist somewhere only she had short hair, then my first endo was driving me somewhere, and then Tom was driving us through some streets with some very questionable traffic that seemed to love to cut in front of us and all that.

I dreamed I was talking on the phone to my cousin Lori who was living with her mother and saying they got a new pet which I’d never heard of. I Googled it and found it was some kind of reptile. Then I wrote them a letter saying that I enjoyed our talks and they could contact me anytime they wanted to. In reality, I’d never have anything to do with her and her family.

Then I dreamed I was walking through the park and not only were they building some two-story houses that were huge, the park looked different. There was more space around many of the houses.

The last dream made me once again wonder about parallel lives. I was seeing the life of someone else through their eyes yet it was clearly me. A younger version of myself was deciding whether or not to see a fertility doctor about having kids or hang onto her life and freedom. I chose life but I don’t know if I was with anyone or not. I guess I was.

TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2018 Oh, fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck! She’s baaaaack. Yeah, Molly. Aly gave me a heads-up, letting me know that a Molly M was following her on Twitter and said that maybe it was a bot. No way. It’s her. Bots usually follow a zillion people and or make a zillion tweets. She has 0 tweets, 0 followers, and is only following Aly. How coincidental is that? And how did she find her?

Although it’s probably too late, I change my name in hopes of throwing her off. My account has been private, though, because I only use it to keep in touch with Aly and Kim. Originally I thought of blocking her but that may make her more determined to reach out to me. She was a determined little shit. For now, I’ll just ignore her. I will NOT go through what I went through with her and or her mother in the past! It’s been four or five years since I’ve heard from her so why now? Why has the staff at her group home or wherever the fuck she is suddenly decided to let her back online? You seriously can’t teach old dogs new tricks. The Kim’s and Molly’s of the world simply don’t change. Ever.

So now I’m not sure what to do from here. I suppose I have four options.

Block her and disallow anonymous comments on sites that allow them and stay away from sites with no blocking feature.

Ignore her if she contacts me.

Block her if she contacts me.

Be nice and return a polite hello if she says hello to me first.

I’d say the last one’s out. I never was her friend. I don’t want to be her friend. I never will be her friend. This is one I just can’t forgive. I so rarely forgive anyway, and it’s honestly a miracle I forgave Aly and an even bigger miracle I forgave Kim. It really depends on how much history I have with the person, what they did wrong in the past, and how often they wronged me. Aly and I really got to know each other well and she didn’t screw me over nearly as bad as some others have.

Aly said she tweeted to that account asking if it was the Molly in Texas she knows but didn’t get a reply. She said that’s normal for her, though.

They say that the best reaction is often no reaction at all, so for now, I’ll do nothing. I suppose it was stupid of me to assume they would keep her offline forever. She may never be on her own but I can see where she wouldn’t be kept offline forever. I just wish Marbridge or wherever the hell she is now wouldn’t think she one day woke up miraculously sane. Crazy simply doesn’t become normal.

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2018 While I still can’t see why most lesbians cut their hair off just because they’re attracted to women (I didn’t cut mine off when I dated women prior to meeting Tom), I can totally see why older women go short. By then you’re usually dying it regularly and it’s so much easier when you don’t have as much to color. I think I’ll stay long for the rest of my Cali time and then keep it at the shoulders in Florida. That’s the perfect climate for shoulder-length hair since I don’t think I could ever stand to go any shorter. I don’t want to look like a guy. I might cut my bangs back too, even if it’ll make my huge face look even huger.

Feeling kind of crappy today as I sip on my jasmine tea. I think my blood pressure was up earlier but when we checked it a couple of hours ago it was only slightly elevated. I slept with an earplug in my good ear which makes you able to hear things going on inside you easier like your breathing and your heartbeat. Well, the “neck knockers,” as I call them, woke me up a few times which is a common symptom when one’s blood pressure is elevated. I also felt that strange vibration in my head and that compressed, fuzzy-headed feeling similar to when you have a cold, if that makes any sense. I had some lightheadedness yesterday. The only other symptom I feel is very run down. I don’t know what my problem is but it’s making it hard for me to do things that I want to do. I haven’t even begun today’s CampNano chapter so I may have to double up tomorrow.

I did read that women going into menopause often have high blood pressure. But then so do those with thyroid issues. Out of curiosity, I looked up which foods they recommend to avoid for high blood pressure. I know foods high in sodium are bad but it was funny they mentioned frozen pizza because that’s exactly what I had yesterday. It was a medium-sized pizza that took me two sittings to eat, too.

Just in case my good ear is waxy, we got a new ear wax kit from Amazon with same-day delivery since the one we had expired. We had to bring it up to $35 to get same-day delivery and since he needs new socks and underwear, he got some.

I also got this awesome K-Cup variety pack coming which includes one K cup each of the following: 1 of Cake Boss Dulce De Leche, 1 of Cake Boss Hazelnut Biscotti, 1 of Cake Boss Italian Rum, 1 of Cake Boss Raspberry Truffle, 1 of Cake Boss Vanilla Butter Cream, 1 of Guy Fieri Hot Fudge Brownie, 1 of Guy Fieri Caramel Apple, 1 of Guy Fieri Hazelnut Cinnamon Roll, 1 of Guy Fieri Chocolate Mint, 1 of Entenmann’s Cinnamon, 1 of Entenmann’s Coconut Cream Pie, 1 of Entenmann’s Party Cake, 1 of Wolfgang French Vanilla, 1 of Wolfgang Jamaica me Crazy. 1 of Wolfgang Hawaiian Hazelnut. 1 of Martinson Vanilla Velvet, 1 of Martinson Cayman Coconut, 1 of Martinson Mint and Mocha, 1 of Martinson Caramel Crème, 1 of Martinson Irish Crème, 1 of Martinson Tiramisu Twist, 1 of Martinson Texas Pecan, 1 of Barnie Santa White Christmas, 1 of Barnie Crème Brule, 1 of Barnie Cool Café Blues, 1 of Rio Grande Van Hazelnut, 1 of Hurricane Coconut Fudge, 1 of Hurricane Butter Toffee, 1 of Grove Square Caramel, 1 of Victor Allen Sugar Cookie, 1 of Victor Allen Caramel, 1 of Toraini Toasted Hazelnut, 1 of Polka Dot Café Caramel Macchiato, 1 of Indulgio Hazelnut, 1 of Java Factory Choconut, 1 of Java Factory Vanilla Dream, 1 of Crazy Cups Peppermint Chocolate Mocha, 1 of Brooklyn Beans Maple Sleigh, 1 of Authentic Donut Shop Chocolate Chip Cookie, 1 of Authentic Donut Shop Vanilla Hazelnut.

The only one I may not like is the Irish cream.

I also got a pink pool wrap for the pool and that can also be worn around the house. It’s a unique style and I never had anything like it before. I guess you stick one arm through it, wrap it around your back, then put your arm through the other strap. I know I’m not a plus-size but at the rate I’m going I just might get there. Besides, they say the sizes tend to run small with these.

It’s cool watching Tom in real-time as he makes his way to work. I just wish it updated more consistently but it actually updates every minute or two and draws a straight line from point to point, so I learned. I was wondering why it looked like he plowed through the RV parking lot the other day and drove over some yards, LOL. Even I ran over the pool when I was out running the other day.

I only skimmed it but someone shared an article about forgetfulness being a sign of superior intelligence. Haha, is that why I’ve been so damn forgetful these last seven or eight years or so?

Now that we’ve decided we’re going to stick around a little longer, I guess that means we’re on for doing the roof this summer, and for once we’ll be the noisemakers in the community. Going to get a new oven at some point as well.

I started to say that I was okay with living in the mainstream again when we move since if it isn’t one thing I hear it’s something else and every place I ever live is noisy, but I really would rather not play house again with the welfare bums, the wild college kids, or the large Mormon families.

I feel so bad for that nurse in California who was fired for saying that the black boy who got shot deserved it. Well, he certainly didn’t “deserve” it if he hadn’t brandished any weapons, and I’ll admit I didn’t read the article, but what I do know of the case is that he was running from the police. Why would you run if you haven’t done anything wrong?

That’s not the point here, however. The point is that I think it’s really sad that not only is our civil right to free speech breached constantly, but we are now fired for what we do outside of work.

I read the nurse’s tweet and never once did she mention race. As is often the case these days, it was the people and the media that brought race into the picture. She said he was running and breaking into houses and therefore deserved it. She never said he deserved it because he was black. Only others saw black and took it upon themselves to twist her words. This is so typical of the times we live in. Never before was virtually everything seen as racist. What if she said that about a white boy? Would people be quick to bring race into the matter then?

When you commit a crime and then you run from the police, whether you’re armed or not, you just might get shot and it doesn’t matter what color you are. If you don’t want to risk getting shot, then don’t commit crimes and don’t run showing that you’re guilty of doing just that.

For whatever it’s worth, if the boy never gave the cops any reason to believe he was going to shoot them or harm them in any way, then the police were wrong to shoot him, black or not. I understand people’s frustration with corrupt cops. They’re everywhere. I’m as white as can be yet I’ve had my own civil rights violated, I’ve been tricked, I’ve been lied to, I’ve been bullied, I’ve been manipulated, and I’ve even been threatened by the police in my life, so I get people’s frustration and lack of trust in the police. They’re the last ones I would trust these days myself. Too many rogue cops out there who believe they’re above the law and invincible. Yet sadly, this is often true. The double standards are obvious. They can speed, they can lie, and basically do whatever the fuck they want. So don’t go thinking I’m any fan of the cops. I’m not a fan of anything but the truth. Did the boy deserve it? Probably not. But the fact is the cops abuse all kinds of people. It just happens that the media these days is preoccupied with focusing on blacks. Criminal or not, deserving or not, I just think it’s a shame that our jobs depend on what we do when we’re not working and that people’s words are so often twisted and made into what people want to hear. As long as the nurse wasn’t making any threats, she had a right to state her opinion. I hope she sues the shit out of Kaiser Permanente.

SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 2018 I put a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a 33.8-oz. bottle of sparkling black cherry water and it’s definitely a lot more drinkable than putting it in a 17-oz. bottle of flat water. So we’ll find out in June if it’s going to help my cholesterol or not.

So CampNano has begun and I’m off to a start of 1461 words.

No motorcycles woke me up but the heat sure did. In the winter months, we mostly close the bedroom vent and open the bathroom vent. In the warmer weather, we flip them the opposite way. I’m definitely going to have him climb up and adjust the vents before bed.

Tom said there were no loud vehicles, landscaping or projects today. I’m surprised, but we’ll see how lucky I get tomorrow.

We weighed the pros and cons of staying versus going and decided to stay a while longer because it’s the smarter, safer thing to do. There’s no saying how long it would take him to get a job no matter what state we moved to, and insurance is so hard to get in this country. We wouldn’t mind being uninsured if we didn’t need regular medication, and we wouldn’t mind being broke as long as it didn’t mean being homeless. When he’s retired and we’re on a fixed income I don’t expect to have much extra money and that’s okay as long as we at least have a roof over our heads and our kitchen is stocked.

Will we be able to afford doctors and medication? He will be able to but I don’t know about me until I’m 65. He said we could buy a plan. Let’s hope we can afford it, but if worse comes to absolute worse, we’ll move to a country with universal healthcare. Fortunately, though, my medication is common and therefore it’s not expensive.

Now, if they lay him off or lose their contract in a few months and he has to look for a job anyway, that would be different. He would probably be able to find a job easier in Florida because there are more older people there than here. I’m kind of surprised they haven’t laid him off yet since most jobs don’t last forever and the company has struggled at times, often laying off several people at once.

The only dream I remember was starting a job in the middle of a mall as a “sexless” sex worker. Yeah, I know it sounds crazy. But the idea wasn’t to get it on with the customers as opposed to simply spending time chatting with them.

I was talking to the younger woman training me and she said, “These guys are told all their lives that they’re worthless and can’t get anyone beautiful. But you look great, J-Lin.”

I smiled and thought how this was going to be an easy and interesting job with my worst problem possibly being sore feet at the end of the day as I stood behind the counter in the little booth set up in the center of the strip mall.

I then went to fetch my purse where my phone was so I could text Tom and tell him what a simple job it was and how I loved it, assuming anyone actually wanted to pay me to be their sounding board. But I couldn’t find my purse and began to panic as I glanced into the manager’s office which was empty, questioned some guy who didn’t know anything about it, and then remembered seeing the girl training me place it behind a TV on a cabinet or counter of some kind. I checked, and it was there.

[sublimecatgalaxy]

Fezco fic where reader and him are trying to spend “time” together and everyone keeps cockblocking?

Sure :)

It started with Rue randomly showing up to our apartment while I was seated atop Fez's lap, our sweaty body's pressed up against each other.

"Fez, is someone at the door?" I ask between frantic kisses, Fez's hands only gripping my hips tighter as he drags me against him, shameless whimpers escaping me. He just grunts and ignores my question, his hand slipping up under my shirt as a shiver runs down my spine.

"Fez!" At the sound of Rue's voice now clearly coming through the door, Fez groans loudly in annoyance and his head tips back to rest against the couch, looking up at me with tired, frustrated eyes. I just slip off of him without another word, allowing him to answer the door.

We pulled apart from each other and fixed our clothes long enough to see what she wanted- which was drugs, shocker- and sent her on her way after about a half an hour. We were ready to get back to what we were doing until Faye got home and immediately needed to talk to me about wanting a real job and not relying on Custer. So Fez left us for girl talk, leaving the room with a quick adjustment.

After that, it was Ash needing to steal Fez away from me to go on an abrupt run with an important client, a local drug runner that they were trying to schedule an appointment with to talk to him about working for Fez. But apparently, the best time for them to sit down and talk was in the middle of mine and Fez's shower.

My hands press against the glass as Fez presses his chest to my back, a smile on his lips as his lips skim against my neck. His hand slips up the front of my body until his fingers are softly wrapped around my neck, pulling me back against him and I whine loudly, pressing my ass against him and giving it a playful shake.

"Aye Fez, we got it!" Ash bangs on the door and I jump, knocking over our soap bottles from the wrack. I mutter a quiet apology as Fez flips me around in his grasp, reaching up to cup my cheeks sweetly, knowing that he has to go.

It was just another time today where we were forced from each other, leaving each other hot and bothered. And when they got home, they were both in the mood to celebrate, to light up a blunt and tell me about all the different ways that this partnership with the drug runner could benefit us, how it will inevitably make our lives so much better. From getting me a new car, to getting us out of this apartment, to hire a new doctor for his grandma so we don't have to have someone constantly here with her- it sounded amazing.

But the only thing running through my mind was Fez's body on top of mine.

"Hey, ready for bed?" I sit politely on the middle of the bed, legs folded beneath me as Fez steps into the room, immediately discarding his shirt onto the ground. I bite at my lip as my stomach flutters, my eyes trailing down his body and he turns to me with curious eyes. "What's up? You tired or not?" He laughs but I just give him a playful shrug, crawling to the edge of the bed.

"Something like that." I flirt, finally catching his attention as he realizes just what I want, stepping up to the side of the bed. He cups my cheeks in his hands and tilts my chin up to look at him and I gaze up at him through my lashes, batting them innocently.

"Oh yeah? Whatchu got in mind?" He asks, thumb brushing against my bottom lip with a small, knowing smirk.

"Dirty things." I whisper, reaching forward to grip onto his shoulders, pulling him down to the bed beneath me.

"Shocker."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o- Taglist: @bubblebuttwade @rafelover2405 @leslienjazzy @sorceresss @grxnde-dwt @alex–awesome–22 @bunnietoof @niyamar1e @serialghost @plantlungs @geniusohn @akaliltimmytim @lilaalouuxx @xshariex @elliotsbeigeguitar @elle4404 @lelieja @srhxpci @joselyn001 @taysirene @spinkspanther @thedivineuphoria @peter-maximoffs @tsukishimawhore @poohkie90 @szlaco @distantsighs @nstyles4299 @wolflover384 @givemefoodandlovesstuff @vane2828 @yeswhatever33 @amirrahfranson @vvaalleennttiinna @f-mu @yaspillz @jeyramarie @skylievin@abbybarnes17 @jointherebellion215 @visiondaddy @steezysimfinds @its-ya-gay-boi-luigi

@crunchytoenailsyum@glizzymcguirex @beth123lg @melovesmut @rafecameronswhore @ariianelle @write-from-the-heart @vampviolets@haylee-e@popehaywardssecretgf @honee-chai-tea @lokiandbuckywife @smoke-and-fire @officiallyunofficialperson@heyaitsklaudia@rosepetalsparks @bluetreecloud20 @scenesofobx @double-shot-of-tequila @1dluver13xx @colbysbrocks @iamasimpingh0e @smoke-and-fire386 @loveshineslikethesky @id-3-kbro @diorsitgirl @errorfound101-allideasburnedout @neverwillknowme18 @ellyskey @taylors-folk @loversjoy @myaloveee @thyris-is @lagataprrr @aaaaslaaaan @minjix @luvrosee @storytellingwitht

[stevethehairington]

so, i saw the tweet below (obviously creds to @/kvrtzwcrld, your brain is huge for this!!) yesterday night

and i have not stopped thinking about it since, so, naturally, i took to the keyboard about it:

at first, the letters come from steve — as in, it is steve that is the one who hands them over to max. it’s summer, so there’s no school, and max is still in physical therapy. some of her sessions (most of them, really) conflict with her mom’s work schedule, susan having to leave for her shifts at just about the same time max has to leave for her appointments. naturally, steve offers to help out by giving max a ride to her sessions when susan can’t.

max knows that sometimes, steve will chat with her mom if susan has a few minutes to spare before she has to run and max is taking a little bit longer than usual to finish getting ready and come out.

so when max slides into the passenger seat and steve holds out a card for her to take, telling her “oh, by the way, your mom wanted me to give this to you. she had to leave before you came out so she couldn’t give it to you herself.” she probably does think it’s genuinely from her mom at first.

only, then she opens it and that is not her mother’s handwriting. she’s kind of disappointed by that, just a little, and she probably wouldn’t admit that, but she’s also used to it, so the sting doesn’t last for very long. not to mention, her curiosity to see what it actually says is too great.

she reads through the letter, and almost immediately she thinks that it’s steve who wrote it for her.

she doesn’t say anything to him about it at first. just holds onto the letter, tells him “oh, that was nice of my mom”, and lets him think that he got away with it.

and after that, it keeps happening. the letters keep coming. every time she gets into the car with steve, he has a new one to give her. max never actually sees her mom hand off any of these letters to steve, either, so she’s fully convinced it’s him. not to mention, all of the “you’re going to have a great day”s and the “you can do it”s and the other, various, generally peppy remarks just totally scream steve.

she wants to know for sure though. so she comes up with a plan.

one day she gets ready for her session super early, like at least half an hour before steve’s set to show up. she hides out in her room, so her mom doesn’t know, and she waits there until she hears steve’s car roll up. her mom calls her name and tells her steve is here. max calls back that she’s almost ready, she’ll be out in a minute. she listens for her mom after that, and when she doesn’t hear her, max thinks she went outside to talk to steve.

max sneaks out of her bedroom as quietly as possible and tiptoes over to the window. she crouches down low and peeks out from behind the corner of the curtain. and there steve’s beemer sits, in the patch of dirt they jokingly call their “driveway”, but it isn’t max’s mother who is leaning up against his car.

it’s eddie munson.

(eddie munson, who max never really gave a second thought before spring of ’86. eddie munson who was just “that munson boy, always up to no good”.

until he wasn’t.

until suddenly they’re on the same team. until they’re working together to save each other’s lives. until they end up three hospital rooms down from each other, broken, bruised, busted, bitten.

but on the mend. recovering.

and then it’s neither one of them being able to sleep, too afraid of the nightmares that plague their minds, the horrors that are burned into the backs of their eyelids, there every time they close their eyes. they find solace in each other, sitting together at the rickety old picnic table between their trailers. talking about skateboarding and dnd. about heavy metal and kate bush. about anything that isn’t gates and monsters and hiveminds and hellscapes.

(but they do talk about that, too, sometimes. when some nights are bad and some nights are worse and the only way to make it better is to face it head on. but they help each other feel safe. they help each other feel understood.)

they chase each other’s ghosts away. they remind each other that they are not alone.

it’s an unlikely friendship, not something max ever could have seen coming. but eddie is good. eddie is great. he doesn’t treat her like a kid, doesn’t handle her with care, like she’s something fragile and delicate that could break from one strong gust of wind. he’s one of the only ones who looks at her and just sees max.

he does take care of her, but she takes care of him too. it’s — he’s family. the brother she never had. the brother she always wanted.)

eddie’s got one arm resting against the window of steve’s car where it’s rolled down, and he and steve are talking. laughing. smiling together. steve says something then, and eddie straightens up and fishes for something in his jacket pocket.

and then, right there in plain sight, max watches eddie pull out a small little envelope and hand it over to steve. he says something to steve and points at the envelope in his hand, expression firm. then he spares a quick look towards max’s trailer, and max ducks down quick so she isn’t caught out.

after a second, two, three, she chances a glance out the window again. she watches as eddie taps his palm against the frame of steve’s window, letting it linger for a moment before he lifts his hand up and off and into a wave instead. then he turns on his heel and heads back to his trailer. he looks back twice.

max waits a minute, so it isn’t obvious that she was waiting by the door, then she grabs her bag and heads outside. when she slides into the passenger seat, steve holds out a card — the very same one she just saw eddie give him.

when max opens it, it’s exactly what she expected — the same handwriting, the same spiffy, upbeat encouragements, the same lopsided little smiley face at the top.

it’s signed love you, mom xx at the bottom, just the way it always is.

but max knows now.

when fall rolls around and school starts back up, eddie takes over steve’s job as max’s chauffeur. he and max are going to the same place, after all.

(eddie had been disappointed when they hadn’t simply waved away the last of those finals he missed and granted him his diploma anyways. they’d been strict about the rules. no exceptions. they did, however, offer him an alternative arrangement. rather than redoing his entire senior year again, they came up with an arrangement in which he only had to cover the content from the last few weeks he’d missed and sit for the final exams, and then, assuming things went well, he’d be walking out of hawkins high with his diploma firmly in hand. they even told him he’d be able to walk with the graduating class of ’87 if he wanted.)

now that it’s eddie carting her around, max fully expects the cards to stop. there’s no steve for eddie to hide behind anymore, and max thinks that even though he’s under the impression that she’s none the wiser, he might feel too exposed nonetheless.

but they don’t stop.

every morning, like clockwork, max hops into the front seat of eddie’s van, and eddie hands her a card, tells her, “from your mom.” (he even tries to tug on the end of one of her braids once after he hands it over, and max, who’d had a very bad night and is feeling far too sentimental over a god damn card, lets him.)

it comes to a head, as most things do, in the wheeler basement.

despite max’s steadfast refusal to join in on their silly little game, she still tags along to the party’s hellfire meetings. she likes hanging out in the basement with el, and with robin and nancy and steve if they’re there too. she’d never ever tell them, but she also likes hanging out with the boys too. likes watching them get so into their game that they almost knock over their goofy chalices of mountain dew. likes listening to them all shout over one another when they’re trying to make a decision on what their party’s next move should be. they’re her friends. her people. and, call her a softie, but she just likes being around them. all of them.

it's the end of their latest session, and eddie’s just finished cleaning up — gathering up all his little figurines, carefully stowing away all of his campaign notes, helping steve pile up the empty cans of dew and grease stained pizza plates for the garbage.

“hey, red,” eddie calls, catching max’s attention. he pulls the trash bag from steve’s hands, ignoring his protests, and hoists it up, giving it a shake. the crushed cans clink together inside. “be a doll and take this out, will ya?”

steve tries to take it back from eddie, to tell him he can do it himself, it’s fine, max doesn’t need to help. but max likes helping. she likes doing dumb, annoying, mundane things like taking out the trash. she appreciates steve’s concern, knows he means well, that he’s just trying to make it easy for her since she’s still recovering (even half a year later), but she can do it. she wants to do it.

so she clambers to her feet and crosses the room to take the trash bag from eddie.

“sure thing, mom,” she says, looking right at eddie, and it sort of just slips out. the nickname. mom. she’s never called him that before. no one has.

eddie’s eyebrows fly up.

the rest of the party erupts into confusion because why are you calling eddie mom? that’s steve’s nickname, remember?

and, well, maybe that’s true. but steve’s not the one pretending to write max letters from her mom. steve’s not the one scribbling down the words of encouragement that max never knew she needed to hear so badly. steve’s not the one signing the cards love you, mom xx.

eddie is.

max meets eddie’s eyes, turns her look pointed.

she can see the second it clicks in eddie’s brain. she knows. his easy, relaxed stature tenses. his eyes swim with worry — like he’s nervous, unsure. like he doesn’t know how max is going to react to this. like he thinks maybe she’ll be pissed at him.

but she’s not. she’s not at all. those letters — they mean more to max than she could ever express.

max can’t put it into words — wouldn’t want to in front of all of these people, anyways — so she just lets her mouth curve up. gives him one of her rare smiles.

she watches the tension drain from his shoulders, watches as his own lips twitch up, a slow blossom into something sunny and warm. something just for her. he gives her a nod. then says, “thanks, kid.”

max nods back.

and that’s that.

even though the kids keep calling steve mom, from that moment on, max saves that one for eddie.

it never does get explained to the rest of the party, but that’s okay. they laugh about it in their letters.

because, oh yeah, those still keep coming.

and max sends her own back, too.

love you, mom xx

love you, max xx

[athenaseden]

its like an hour late but i had things i really wanted to add. this is my gift exchange for @roobroker . please enjoy. ( @abbottgiftexchange ) i hope this formats right ....

_________

Janine has an appointment after school and has asked if Barbara could pick her son up and watch them for an hour or two. Barbara had agreed with ease having missed Caleb since seeing him a month ago. As soon as bus duty was over, the woman kissed Melissa a quick goodbye and reminded her to keep her updated on the parent teacher conference. Barbara knew exactly what daycare Janine put Caleb in, aside from having picked him up before she was the one who suggested it in the first place. The trip was a little more than 10 minutes due to afterschool traffic and while she hated driving into school traffic, it was worth it to see Caleb. Making sure to grab her ID after arriving, she made her way in the front door. In the front office sits a few kids, maybe two years old. A gentleman sets one of them down on a playing mat after seeing her, “Afternoon, who are you here for?”

Barbara smiles at him, “Caleb Teagues, please.” He nods and repeats the name into a walkie, “Send Caleb Teagues to the front for pick up.” Waiting for a reply before he turns back to her, “Don’t forget to sign him out when he arrives.” He then goes back to the play mat to clean up. Barbara steps away from the door and waits leaning her back on the wall. She can hear him coming by the running feet approaching and the “Auntie! Auntie!” His mother clearly told him who was picking him up today. When he makes it to the doorway he stops and just yells, “Auntie!” again. 

“Hey, baby.” She calls back and he is back in motion again. Only barely not slamming into her knees, still she grabs the wall to keep herself up. He doesn’t let go immediately and her heart swells a little because of it. She gets to see Caleb more often than her grandkids and being with her makes her miss them every so often. He finally lets go and she leans down to squeeze his shoulder, “Let’s get to the car first, then you can tell Auntie everything okay?” He nods showing his missing teeth with joy. Quickly as she can, she signs him out and checks her phone. The parents for the conference tonight arrived just after she left, Melissa would be done with her meeting much quicker than either expected. 

Finally ready to leave the building she extends her hand for the little Teagues to take and pushes open the door. As she walks, she can feel his little skips in his stride. “Your Auntie Melissa bought you ice cream last night.” Barbara waits for the incoming squeal before she continues. “We have to go pick her up first.” He nods and kicks into a full skip as they round the car. “Why she didn’t come with you?” She unlocks the car and helps him out of his backpack, correcting his sentence before she answers, “Why didn’t she come with me?” Caleb just nods, stepping into the car and plopping into his seat. She misses when he was small enough for her to pick up. It wasn’t that long ago, the precious boy being small like his mother. 

Barbara buckles the boy into his car seat while answering, “She is with someone’s parents. That’s why we have to pick her up.” Swinging his feet and nodding his head, “Okay, yay!” She chuckles and shuts the door back at him. Once she gets in the front seat, he begins to talk about his day. At his speed, she understands some things, like they had applesauce with lunch and colorful spotted cookies for a snack which she tells him were M&M cookies. By the time they have arrived at Abbott he has started talking about his blankets and toys with great detail. 

She parks up front in the half empty lot in front of the school. Picking up her phone she sees the text from Melissa that the meeting is over and just to text her when they arrived. Unbuckling, she turns in her seat, “Caleb, smile for Auntie.” With pride he cheeses at her phone and blinks at the flash as she takes the picture. Although his eyes are closed the picture is too cute not to send. Texting Melissa afterwards, ‘Waiting for you out front.’ From the back seat, playing with his lanyard Caleb asks, “What kind of ice cream?” Thinking for a moment, she can’t seem to remember what ice cream Melissa bought, seeing the bag, or the receipt. Rather than admitting she doesn’t know, she lays the responsibility on Melissa, “You’ll have to ask Mel when she gets in.” 

The two sit there talking mostly about Caleb and his toys or classmates until Caleb spots the red head coming their way. He bounces in his car seat, points, and laughs happily. Melissa is walking their way, hair over one shoulder and her large black bag over the other. Barbara points behind her as Melissa gets closer, directing her attention to the beaming child behind her. Opening the front door, only to set her back down and open the back down and lean in to tickle Caleb. “Hey, big boy!” He giggles and tries to tickle her back, although his hands are on her shoulders rather than her stomach. Chuckling at him, she pulls away, “Let me see that smile.” 

Grinning wide for Melissa, he still tries to talk, “see my ‘issing eeth?” Melissa nods and starts counting, “Missing three! Your big boy teeth will be coming in soon.” Dropping his smile and looking at her questioningly, “But I am a big boy already.” Barbara has to laugh from the front seat, “Yes, but you will get much big, baby.” Seeming to be the answer he needs, he simply says, “Okay.” Lightly squeezing his cheek, Melissa steps back and shuts the door before getting in the car. Behind her, Caleb is feeling for his missing teeth, “Finger out of your mouth, hun.” 

Sitting down comfortably, Melissa leans over the console and kisses Barbara who briefly asks about the meeting again. “It was good. Mostly a progress check from the last meeting.” Barbara nods and kisses her one last time before Melissa can move back to her seat. While buckling, Caleb’s voice fills the car again, “What ice cream ‘d you get me, Auntie Messa?” Turning to her wife with a raised eyebrow, Melissa mouths, “I’m gonna get you.” seeing as her ice cream is being offered up to her favorite nephew she’s not actually all that mad. Looking in the mirror to talk to him, “We have vanilla bean and cookies ‘n cream.” Avoiding listing the one she’s most protective of. 

Barbara is pulling out as more questions come from their back seat, “What color is vanilla bean?”

“White, I guess, hun.”

“But it’s a bean. Beans are gween.”

“Not that type of bean, sweet boy.”

“So it’s sweet?”

“Yes. Very.”

“What kinda cookies are in the ice cream?”

“Oreo cookies.”

“The black crackers?”

“Yes, with the white cream in the middle.”

Similar questions follow them all the way home, even all the way inside until the ice creams are set in front of him. The vanilla bean is in a black container while the cookies n cream is in a yellow one, so he chooses the brighter one. Grabbing three spoons as Melissa scoops out one bowl of cookies n cream and two vanilla bean, Caleb stands politely waiting to help her. Putting one spoon in each bowl and hand one to him, “Hold it with both hands.” Caleb nods and walks with both hands on the bowl, putting it on the table first and then climbing into his favorite chair at the dining table. Barbara joins them not too long after. As they eat their ice cream, Caleb tells Melissa many of the same things Barbara has heard in the car. This time he adds details, like how he has a TRex stuff and a plastic velociraptor which takes them three times to understand, his blue cubby at school and his new light up shoes. 

Melissa and Barbara sit side by side, holding hands and listening intently, catching up on months worth of events. They only cut him off once he has finished his ice cream. “Let’s clean this up.” Barbara stands taking their bowls and walking to the drain with them. Caleb hops off of his seat and walks over to the dishwasher pulling it open. He waits beside her to help her load them. Though Barbara doesn’t often use the dishwasher, she won’t deny that him offering to help makes her proud. “Such good manners.” 

Barbara rinses the bowls and spoons and passes them to him who sets them a little sloppily in the bottom rack. While she dries her hand, she gives him instructions on the correct way to place them in the rack. When he is done, she still bends down to adjust a few things. Melissa stands against the door nodding her head, “Nice job. Very good, honey. Want to play a game?” Running to her legs the same as he had Barbara’s at the daycare, “What game?” Arms locked around her knees, she clutches the wall and looks up at Barbara for help. “Think you can be Auntie Mel at Connect 4 now?” Leaning back now, using her legs as a pivot, “I think so!” Melissa groans a little in pain and leans down the same time as Barbara to pull him free, nearly butting heads. “You’ve got to let go so I can get the game. Then we’ll see if you can beat me.”

For the next hour, Melissa sits on the floor with Caleb reteaching him how to play Connect 4 and enjoying watching how excited he got even when he lost. Barbara sits on the couch behind Caleb trying her best to help him and throws Melissa a pillow to hopefully help relieve what will most certainly be a painful back later. Once Barbara receives the message that Janine is headed their way, she announces it as their last game. Both on the floor pouting, “Last game, then you can clean up and come cuddle with me before your mom gets here.” Melissa’s pout disappears and she leans over their game to whisper, “Last game, loser has to tickle Barbara.” Caleb giggles and reaches out to Melissa, “I win, I tickle you.” The red head laughs and shakes her head, not finding it in her to correct him. He loses again, proudly. They clean up with Melissa poking at him and him giggling and returning to the poke. Barbara takes the box from them once it is done to put it up. Melissa does her best to get off the floor and on the couch.

Barely having sat down, Caleb jumps in her lap and begins to tickle her. “I win. I got you.” She laughs and grabs his hand, “No, honey. I won. I’ve got you.” before attacking him with tickles. When Barbara returns, she watches for just a second before bending over the couch and joining in. For the first time in months their home is filled with the laughter of a child for an extended period of time. 

[clareguilty]

Gabriel Reyes/reader, a/b/o and The Works™

this is the third kinktober prompt for this year!!!

Gabriel Reyes/fem!reader | a/b/o, marking, biting, praise, all that jazz Rating: Explicit Word Count: ~3000

Jack Morrison was getting another medal.

It was everyone’s favorite joke at high command. It seemed like no one wanted to implement any serious policy or sign an actual resolution in favor of giving the golden boy of the Omnic Crisis another fancy award.

So Jack had been stressing himself out all week trying to write an acceptance speech that wasn’t passive aggressive, and you spent too long picking out a formal gown, and Gabe had sat on Reinhardt’s desk laughing and stuffing his face with carbs and fruit because his rut was due next week.

Jack took the teasing in stride and managed to come up with a speech that wouldn’t outright offend the Prime Minster of Russia. Everyone piled into the jet to Moscow with a garment bag and a carryon and a strong cup of coffee at four am the day before the banquet.

This was normal for you. In a world after the omnic crisis, head of Overwatch’s reparations department and mated to the commander of Blackwatch. You found yourself flown across the world dozens of times a year for negotiations and assemblies and ceremonies.

You and Gabe strapped in next to each other on the jet. “I haven’t seen the dress you picked out,” he nodded his head to the garment bag.

“I guess it will just be a surprise,” you purred.

He grinned and leaned in to kiss you.

“It’s too early for this,” Ana groaned from across the aisle. Gabe shot her a toothy smile and made sure to nip at the shell of your ear. You smacked his leg and shoved him back into his own seat.

The hotel was a beautiful historic waterfront building just across the bridge from the Kremlin in the heart of the city. The five of you piled out of the black SUV that had escorted you from the airstrip and made your way inside.

The hotel manager greeted you as well as an official from the Kremlin. Jack was the main recipient of ass kissing and pleasantries, so you simply smiled and nodded and shook hands wherever necessary.

The suite was entirely too big and fancy for a two night’s stay. You and Gabe poked around for a bit, but there were no fun secrets. You took the sitting room, and Gabe set up at the desk in the bedroom as you both buckled down on your work for the day. Gabe had operatives in Bolivia he needed to check in with, and you had a meeting with representatives in London.

He found you a few hours later slumped in the armchair with your head in your hands.

“They still being stubborn?” he asked.

“They won’t budge on anything,” you groaned.

“Change into something casual. Let’s go out for a little bit.” He was already in a hoodie and dark jeans, beanie sticking out of the back pocket.

You nodded and went to find a sweater.

Gabe’s impromptu date night in Moscow turned out to be a lot of fun. Ana and Reinhardt came to meet you at a bar for a little bit, and the two of you wandered around the city until sundown.

The next day was more meetings and frustration until you had to get ready for the banquet. You and Gabe slipped past each other in and out of the bathroom as you showered and shaved and styled your hair and perfumed and moisturized.

You shimmied into the dress half an hour before the car was due to pick you up. It was slim and black, sleeveless with one band that crossed over your collarbone and shoulder. You frowned when you realized it covered your matebite, but it wasn’t a big deal.

Gabe grinned salaciously as he zipped you up, unable to resist leaning down and nuzzling into your neck. “Cool it.” You shoved him off with a giggle. “I have to make it through a whole ceremony and dinner.”

He pulled on his jacket and the two of you made your way downstairs to wait for the car.

For some reason, the event coordinators split you into three cars. Jack rode by himself, you and Gabe in one car, and Ana and Reinhardt in the last. They looked intimidating in their dress uniforms, and you felt kind of ditzy in your sexy cocktail dress next to three enormous well decorated Overwatch officers.

The ceremony was only slightly dull, and you clapped at all the right spots and pinched Gabe when he looked like he was zoning out too much.

Dinner was much more enjoyable. You had been seated with people you knew from other events and assemblies, so conversation flowed well. A string ensemble played and a few people got up to dance or mingle once they cleared their plates. You caught sight of a British Parliament member speaking with a small group of tuxedoed men, and Gabe saw the determination in your eyes. 

“Go get him, sweetheart,” he kissed your cheek and pushed you towards the Lord. You excused yourself quickly and approached the older gentleman ready to push for your negotiations to take center stage in the Palace of Westminster.

The poor Lord was not expecting to be accosted by you at a banquet, but graciously listened as you explained your struggles in negotiating reparations in London.

“You’ve got some real fire in you,” one of the tuxedoes remarked as you shook the Lord’s hand and he scampered away sufficiently cowed. He had an American accent and shiny hair. He reeked of confidence and you knew it was a combination of his nationality and his status as an Alpha.

You cocked your head nonchalantly. “Takes a lot of persistence to get anything done in Parliament.” You knew he was probably referencing the fact that you, a tiny omega, had just approached a government official and demanded that he push for your cause, but you brushed it off. Most of the time people were respectful, but you still ran into pushback every now and then because of your status.

The American laughed, tossing his head back. “And wit to match!” A waiter came by with champagne and he snatched a glass to press into your hands. “What’s your name?” he asked, placing a hand on your back and guiding you back into the crowd of tuxes.

You tensed under his touch. This wasn’t your Alpha. It was extraordinarily rude to touch anyone without permission, especially an omega. But still, you had to be polite, so you introduced yourself.

“If you ever need any help getting through to politicians, you should give me a call. I’m on the UN Peace Council, you know? I was appointed during the crisis.” That information was probably supposed to impress you. It probably would have if you were anyone else.

You nodded politely, taking a tiny sip of champagne and glancing over your shoulder to look for Gabe. You had your own gripes with the UN peace council. Jack and Gabe butted heads with them nearly every other week.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you smiled, attempting to turn and address the other men.

“Here,” the American pulled out his phone. “Let me get your number. Maybe we could meet up for drinks before we both leave Moscow?”

“Oh,” you found your escape. “I left my phone back at my table.” You turned to make your way back to Gabe and Ana, but the UN asshole grabbed your arm. You knew exactly what this was. This guy probably didn’t run into many omegas in professional settings, and he thought you would just go along with everything he said because he was some big shot Alpha.

Laughable. You were a high ranking member of Overwatch. A diplomat. The mate of Gabriel Fucking Reyes.

“Just put your number in and I’ll text you,” he insisted. You struggled out of his grasp and shot him the sternest look you could manage.

He laughed again. “I love how feisty you are!”

Clearly, everyone in the vicinity was also uncomfortable with the exchange. This was not the time nor the place to be asserting dominance over an omega.

Your blood boiled. You didn’t want to make a scene at Jack’s reception -- though he probably would have loved it -- but you were seriously about to deck this guy.

“Cariña,” a familiar voice washed over you and the effect was immediate. You leaned back into Gabe’s chest, taking a deep breath to slow your heart rate. “Jack was looking for you. He wanted to introduce you to someone.”

The American Alpha puffed his chest out, clearly ready to challenge until he took one look at Gabe.

“Commander Reyes,” he greeted. All of the bravado and pushiness was gone in an instant.

“Hello.” Gabe was stiff, clearly trying to hold his tongue. His arms snaked around your waist and he leaned in to whisper in your ear. 

“Would you hate me if we left right now?”

“Absolutely not,” you spun in his embrace so you could look up at him. His expression was stoic as always, but you could see the tension and the anger in his eyes.

You didn’t even look back as Gabe walked you to the table to collect your things. It was a little rude to leave without saying goodbye to anyone, and you weren’t sure if Jack had actually wanted to introduce you to someone, but Gabe looked ready to tear someone’s head off.

He stopped caring about decency the moment the car door closed.

There wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver considering how enormous your mate was in the tiny sedan backseat, but he pinned you to the leather seats and kissed you like his life depended on it. You wound your fingers into his curls, gasping as his hands slid under your skirt and up your thighs. The driver coughed, and you giggled at the slow whir of the partition motor giving the two of you some privacy.

“I can’t believe he touched you,” Gabe snarled.

You shivered both at the possessive edge in his voice and the disgusting memory of the other Alpha’s hand on your arm.

“Make me forget about him,” you whispered, hooking your leg around his hips.

He rose to the challenge. Super soldier strength shredded your lace underwear, dress hiked up around your hips. He pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee, trailing up your thigh at a torturously slow pace. He had barely sucked a mark into the skin when the car stopped. A glance out the tinted window showed that you were back at the hotel.

“Thank you!” you called to the driver in your terrible russian accent as you yanked your dress back down and teetered on your heels on the pavement. Gabe half carried you with an arm around your waist as you breezed through the lobby to the elevator.

The elevator was another brief attempt to continue. You managed to get Gabe’s jacket and shirt open before the door slid open and you were staggering down the hall.

He dragged you into the bedroom, pinning you to the bed on your stomach so he could yank down the zipper on your dress. He couldn’t keep his lips away from your neck. The moment your matebite was uncovered he dragged his teeth over the mark. A shiver ran all the way down your spine.

“You’re never covering this up again,” he growled, rutting against your hips clumsily. “I want everyone to see that you belong to me.”

The words made your stomach flip. You wriggled your way around onto your back, pushing your dress over your hips and to the floor. “You’re going to hit your rut early.”

He didn’t seem fazed. “I’ll just fuck you until we have to leave for the flight.”

You figured Ana, Jack, and Reinhardt wouldn’t appreciate Gabe in the throes of his rut on the flight back to base tomorrow, but they had probably experienced it before. You could only imagine how bad he was back during the crisis. The thought only made you wetter.

He must have sense the spike in arousal, because he settled more of his weight on top of you. “What are you thinking about?” he demanded.

“You. During the crisis. Alpha Commander Gabriel Reyes.” You trailed a finger down his chest. “Were your ruts worse than they are now?”

He smirked. “They’ve gotten worse again since meeting you.”

You pulled him in for a kiss, mustering the last of your coordination to get Gabe undressed. He made sure you were laid out comfortably on the bed -- grabbing a few pillows to place under your hips and head -- before sinking all the way inside you to the swell of his knot.

Gabe always fit inside you so well. The perfect stretch. And he filled you so deep when he knotted you. You knew that his ruts could get intense, and you would probably be exhausted and sore by the end of it. Still, you had been mated for a few years now, so you had figured out how to manage.

“You feel so good.” You closed your eyes and lost yourself in the situation.

“Don’t worry, baby. I’m going to knot you so good.” He rocked forward, teasing you with the stretch.

“Please,” you begged, nails scratching at the shaved hair at the back of his head.

He shuddered and set an impossible pace as he began to fuck you. Sometimes you forgot that you weren’t just mated to an Alpha, but to a super soldier. No one else could fuck you like he did.

“You want my knot? Want me to breed you full? Want me to remind you who you belong to?” His words were low against you skin as he kissed along your neck. One of his hands was rubbing your clit, the other holding your thighs open so he could reach deep inside you with every thrust.

“Yours,” you gasped. “I’m yours.”

His teeth found the unmarked skin of your neck, just above your collarbone -- opposite the side of where your matebite was. The skin was practically electrified, especially when Gabe was fucking you like this. He didn’t bite down, but the sensation alone was enough to have you coming on his cock.

“Fuck,” he growled. “That was so good for me, baby. You’re so perfect.”

“Do it,” you begged. “Bite me. Please.” It was a little unorthodox. Normally couples only exchanged one bite. A bite on both sides was usually the sign of a triad or a pack. But you had just been touched by another alpha and Gabe was fucking you so good and you wanted him in every way possible.

He blinked, trying to think through the haze of his rut. “You want that?” He didn’t even wait for you to respond. The thought alone had him spilling inside of you, and he pulled you onto his knot. His teeth found that same patch of sensitive, unmarked skin, and he bit down just as he locked inside of you.

Nothing felt better than coming to the sensation of being claimed. It was the strongest orgasm you had ever experienced.

“Fuck you’re perfect. My perfect little omega. You wear my marks so well. Everyone is going to know exactly who you belong too.”

You couldn’t respond. Too busy marking Gabe’s chest with hickeys and lovebites. He was too massive for you to reach his neck, but you would make do. You were still coming down off the intense rush of endorphins, and everything was a little fuzzy and felt just a little too good too much too fast. You had come twice in less than the span of a minute, and Gabe was only just getting started.

He soothed the aching bite, holding you close as you were locked together. His knot probably wouldn’t go down for a while, but he was less riled up than before now that he had satisfied himself somewhat.

“I love you,” he kissed the top of your head, rolling so you could lay on his chest.

“I-” You cut yourself off, blushed, and buried your face in his pecs. You would happily die there.

“Yes?” He was curious now. You weren’t usually shy with him.

“I’ve been working on something. It’s super embarrassing.” You didn’t look up.

He lifted your head, forcing you to meet his eyes. “What’s embarrassing? I just dragged you out of a dinner party at the Kremlin so I could fuck you. I think I’m the more embarrassing of the two fo us.”

You laughed and kissed his chest right above his heart. Mustering all of your courage, you found your voice:

“Te amo. Me encanta pertenecer a ti. Tú eres mi mayor alegría.”

Your accent was decent, but you had no clue if your grammar was correct. The words were unfamiliar and clumsy, even though you had practiced them a hundred times. Spanish was not a language you were familiar with, but you knew that Gabe had grown up hearing it. You wanted to try and learn for him.

He understood immediately what you were tying to say, and you could feel the rumble of his laughter beneath you.

“Don’t laugh at me!” you whined, smacking him lightly on the side.

“I’m sorry,” he grabbed your hand, running his thumb over your knuckles. “It was very sweet. I love you too.”

“I need a lot more practice,” you pouted.

He petted your hair, staring at you with a dopey, lovestruck expression. “I can’t believe you let me bite you again.”

You shrugged, feeling the pull and ache of the new mark in the motion. “We can let one of them fade.”

He smirked. “What if I like you like this?”

You bared your own teeth. “Can I return the favor?”

You weren’t expecting to rile him up, but the words were enough to make his cock twitch inside of you. “Fuck,” he groaned. “You good to go again?”

You nodded, pushing up to a seat so you could ride him. He grabbed your hips, holding tightly as you slowly rocked against him. You knew the pace was probably no where near what he needed, but you wanted to take your time.

He didn’t give you the opportunity, rolling to pin you beneath him again and dragging your hips up to his. “You wanna bite me? You better earn it.”

[babyharleezy]

Hometown Love Chapter 2

(jack harlow x reader)

previous

bloo's notes: i hope y'all liked the first part. let's see what's next up for the reader!! enjoy babes!!

6 am. your alarm woke you up and you reached over to the nightstand to shut the annoying sound off. today you would be driving down to atlanta and look for some apartments. you couldn't help to have a giddy feeling within you. you were excited. you were proud of yourself and how far you've came.

you finally got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. you did your morning routine and got dressed for the day. you grabbed the bag you packed before making your way out the door. you locked the door to your apartment and made your way to your car. you threw your bag into the car and got yourself settled. you decided to put on a random playlist. you knew you had a long drive so might as well shake some ass listen to some good music on your way to your destination.

three hours in and you were vibing to music and you were half way to atlanta. suddenly a familiar voice filled the car. you froze. "damn this man be everywhere" you scoffed. you listened to the song a bit more and it hit you. "holy shit this is a sample of glamorous" you gasped. as much as you hated to admit it, this was such a catchy song and you loved it. the song finished just as you began to pull into the gas station. you stepped out the car and went into the gas station store and grabbed some snacks. then you went to fill your tank. you loved a good road trip. not long after, you continued your journey to atlanta.

about three and a half hours later you were at your hotel. you grabbed your bag and walked into the hotel lobby. "miss y/l/n your room will be on the seventh floor, here are your room keys" the receptionist said with a warm smile. "thank you so much" you replied, matching her energy. you made your way to your room and settled down. you decided to freshen up before your appointment with the realtor who was going to show you the apartment you saw online. you had about two hours to kill so you decided to take a shower and order in room service to pass the time.

you made your way down to your car to meet the realtor. you typed in the address and were on your way to the apartment. after meeting the realtor and taking a tour of the place you were in love. you immediately signed the papers. luckily you got the keys right then and there. you were left alone in your new apartment and you felt a bit overwhelmed. everything happened so fast but you felt so sure about the move.

deciding to leave the next day you texted your friend neelam who stayed in atlanta and asked if she wanted to meet up for dinner. although she was jack's manager, you two had been close friends even before the breakup and you and her stayed in touch after all these years. this would be the first time since the breakup that you would be seeing each other. you two met up at a cute restaurant and you told her about how you were moving down here within the next week. after some catching up and a delicious dinner you two parted ways.

not even 10 miles from y/n was jack…

"she's what?" jack questioned over the phone. his manager thought it would be best to warn him that his ex girlfriend, who he was still very much in love with, was moving to atlanta. "yeah jack she's moving here within the next week or so. she just signed the papers to a new apartment. just try not to fuck up her life again" neelam said with a sigh. "yeah, i know neelam. preciate you tellin me" jack said. he couldn't believe that you two would be living in the same city once again.

while you were sleeping cozily in your hotel, ready to drive back to louisville the next day; jack was wide awake still trying to wrap his mind around how you were gonna be in such close vicinity to him. but the both of you were unsure just about how close you two were about to be.

next

[letarasstuff]

Minimal Loss - Maximal Stress

(A/N): This was requested by an anon and plays in the intern universe. It’s based on 4x3 “Mininal Loss”. I didn’t follow the exact plot, but the quint essence is there (you’ll see what I mean). I hope you enjoy it.

Summary: An intern goes along on a seemingly undangerous case with Emily and Spencer on a ranch under the lead of Benjamin Cyrus. What could go possibly wrong (well, everything ig)?

Warnings: Mentions of child abuse, guns, vomit, swear words, ususal Criminal Mind stuff

Wordcount: 2.9k

✨Masterlist✨ ________________________________

“Do you guys really think it’s a good idea to bring a child to an interview about child abuse?” Agent Lunde asks skeptically while steering the car towards the ranch, where the allegions originated from.

“(Y/N) is our intern and we thought she has to make some experience in the field and since this is the most peaceful case you can find within the BAU, it’s her opportunity”, Emily defends the team’s decision.

“Also, she is nearly the same age as the girls, so it’s easier for them to open up to her and she is incredibly bright, meaning she can help us deducing a profile”, Spencer adds. The teenager doesn’t acknowledge anything they say, too engrossed in listening to One Direction over her bluetooth earbuds.

Soon the quartet arrives at the Saptarian ranch. “I’m looking for Benjamin Cyrus.” “You found him”, answers the man, who sits in front of a chapel.

“He really is nicely placed. I feel like I looked like this in my math classes. I was like beautiful decoration, but had no use”, (Y/N) whispers to Emily. She in turn has a look of confusion on her face. “You aced math, you graduated with an A+ in it.” “Just because I have good grades doesn’t mean I’m not stupid. I mean, I’m educated, but stoopid.”

A little later she sits across from a blonde girl named Jessica, asking her questions about the 911 call. Her mother continuously steps into that conversation.

“Jessica, can you tell me, if anyone here were ever touched inappropriately?” “Is this really necessary? You are a child yourself, shouldn’t ask one of the other agents the questions?” Slowly the teenager’s patience is wearing down and Spencer can definitely see that from five meters away.

“Ma’am, with all due respect, but I’m perfectly capable of conducting this interview, if you stop interrupting me. I may be young, which doesn’t stand in my way of being an intern for CPS and still knowing my way around, so please step to me colleagues or something and let me do my job.” Hesitantly the mother gives the two girls their space.

As soon as she is out of earshot, Jessica begins to explain. “Nobody is touched in a way they shouldn’t be touched. Or is it wrong for a wife to share a bed with her husband.”

(Y/N) remembers Emily telling her to not judge anything anyone of the girls will say. But damn it, this girl is really hard not to judge.

“Wait wait wait. Let me get this straight: You are simping for that walking quote machine?” Okay, maybe she is judging. But just a little bit.

“If simping means deeply in love then yes, I am simping for Benjamin Cyrus, my husband.” At this point the other three agents get closer again. “Jessica, the state of Colorado demands parental consent. You aren’t married to him unles-'' The black haired woman cuts the young doctor off. “She did give consent.”

(Y/N) can barely contain the unsurprised “surprised” gasp leaving her mouth. But it would have been cut short nonetheless, since sudden gunfire erupted outside the school building.

Fairly quickly everybody is evacuated through the tunnels. As Cyrus tells the cult members to trust in god, the teenager turns to the agents. “This much to it’s safe for me here. Didn’t anybody check for weapons or something?” Flabbergasted because of the whole situation Spencer answers. “Yes, Garcia checked with the authorities and nothing was suspicious.”

Suddenly Lunde takes all the courage she has (maybe because a teenager she brought into this is in immediate danger like all the other kids) and goes up with the cult leader to speak to the shooting law enforcement officers. Shortly after the other three get the message of her death.

But they don’t have any time to think about her, since they all are shoved into the chapel.

While Cyrus holds a speech about trust in god in dangerous and trying times like this the BAU in Quantico learns about the shooting through the tv news report.

“HOTCH”, Morgan yells up to the Unit Chief’s office, probably giving everybody else a heart attack. Alarmed Aaron storms out into the bullpen followed by Rossi, who is attracted by the tumult. “Aren’t Prentiss and Reid on that ranch?” Derek asks, his eyebrows furrowing in worry.

Squinting at the screen, horror etches on the other agent’s face. “(Y/N) is also there”, he says, realizing that they sent a minor with zero field experience into a lava hot situation.

Suddenly the whole bullpen’s phones ring, which results in Hotch barking his first commands.

After a nightflight to Colorado the team sets up at the crime scene.

“Dave, I was appointed to determine the primary negotiator”, Aaron tells him after he pulls him to the side. “It makes sense. I trained most of the people here, if you want me I can give you a few recommendations.” But the Unit Chief shakes his head. “No, I want you to be the negotiator in this.”

Now it’s Rossi’s turn to shake his head. “Aaron, I can’t do it, I’m too emotionally involved.” “So are all of us and why should I take the student if I can have the teacher?” The older one sighs in resignation and accepts the offer. They don’t have the team nor reccourses for any mistakes in this.

As he goes to prepare for his task at hand, Hotch hears a man complaining loudly. “I demand to talk to know why I wasn't told that the FBI was sending undercover agents into the Saptarian ranch?” “The only thing you are in position to demand is a lawyer”, he says while stepping closer to the scene.

“Who the hell are you?” The man spits out into his direction. “I’m Aaron Hotchner, Unit Chief. I’m the guy who is gonna tell the Attorney General of the United States whether to charge you with obstructing a federal investigation or negligent homicide.” “You can’t talk to me like that”.

Upon closing the little bit of space between both of them, Aaron stares him down. “Get off my crime scene.” Just a few seconds of the intense and pissed Hotch Stare are enough to chase that man down to his car and go on his way to Coward Island.

Meanwhile the first contact is made, Emily and Spencer tell (Y/N) in hushed voices what the situation means. “There are three groups here. The leader, in this case Cyrus. The hard die hard believers, the goons of him, and the followers”, Spencer explains.

“In a case like this we go for minimal loss. We try to get as many of the followers out as possible, because the rest won’t give up as long as they can breathe. At first we go with one or two people, children mostly, then with smaller groups and in the end we get out as many of these people we can. Soon, there will be the first supply delivery from our team, but it’s gonna be bugged, which means we know they are listening. Understood?” Emily adds.

Aside from the knowledge that there is a great possibility that they won’t come out alive of this one, (Y/N) is pretty calm. “Honestly, it’s pretty extra here. I mean I can’t even, look at the walls and the whole pseudo decoration. Why would anybody choose this willingly? But yeah, I understand.” Seeing that these phrases are a kind of a coping mechanism, the two agents aren’t too concerned about her right now. I mean, of course they are pretty much on edge because they all are in a hostage situation, but since the teenager doesn’t seem to be on the verge of a breakdown she has to be fine.

“Is there anything you want to know?” The black haired woman asks, stroking the younger one’s hair out of her face. “No, not right now. This is anything but basic, but I’ll hit you up if something shoots into my mind.”

When Rossi comes in to hand make the first delivery, he looks beyond worried. It seems like he got years older in the span of the last 24 hours. As he glances through the rows of people, he subtly acknowledges their presence and well being.

“How do we know this will be nothing like Waco?” (Y/N) asks out of the blue as all the members get a cup of wine. Surprised Emily turns towards her. “You know about Waco?” “Duh? I told you, I’m educated. So, how do we kno-” “And together we drank the poison.” “Oh well, I guess we do now. It’s nearly iconic how bad his acting is.” Now both of the agents look confused at her.

“What? Didn’t I tell you that I was a theater kid? Also, his goons are writing the reactions down, so it’s just a test to know who to separate from the group and who not.” Even in a situation like this a girl in a red and black flannel over a white graphic tee - it is a Doctor Who Tardis - astounds them.

Not long after this, the three of them are shoved into a small room, which looks sort of like an office.

“Which one of you is it?” Cyrus asks. Confused Prentiss, Reid and the intern look at him. When nobody speaks up he pulls out his gun. “One of you is an FBI agent. So who is it?”

In the short silence he points his weapon at (Y/N). “Oof. Dude, what the fu-” “She is a child. The FBI doesn’t recruit children. But she is a good leverage. So, if neither of you reveals their identity, I will blow her brain out.” This is the final point for the teenager to slowly freak out.

“It’s me. I’m the FBI agent”, Emily confesses. Seeing the young girl with panic in her eyes sets something off in her. Roughly she is taken away by two big guys.

“No no no! This can’t be right. Nobody of us is from the feds. It’s not her, you stupid piece of boom-” With a swift motion of his gun Cyrus knocks her out.

“Damn, this is an annoying one. I don’t know how you can even take her seriously.”

(Y/N) wakes up half an hour later in the chapel draped over two stools with her head in Spencer’s lap. He strokes her hair while his mind is running non stop looking for a solution to this situation. A groan tells him that she is awake.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” The young doctor asks in a soft voice. “If good means your head feels like it’s dancing samba without me, then I’m good.”

He smiles. “We are going to get out here, soon. I convinced Cyrus that we are on his side. He also won’t hurt Emily any further. I saw her earlier, he held a speech. She is fine, just a bit roughen up.”

To lie to the girl like that feels wrong to Reid, but he can see signs of a concussion by her behavior and doesn’t want to worry her more than she already is.

Three o’clock rolls closer and closer, which makes both of them more nervous. Because of the lack of communication they don’t know the tactic the team will use to come in. They can only hope that they all come out alive and in one piece.

Since they are in the chapel, their attention is solely on the cult leader. They don’t even notice all the women and children leaving. As (Y/N) and Spencer spot Cyrus with the remote for detonating the explosives, she mumbles “Let’s get this bread”.

When the leader sees Spencer trying to convince one of the die hard believers that he has a choice to change his mind, he punches the young doctor so hard in the gut that even (Y/N), whose vision is slightly blurred, feels the pain he endures.

“Hey Cyrus”, she calls out, “TBH I think all the shit you are doing here didn’t pass my vibe check. Also, the whole system is pretty whack.”

“You are a child, you don’t know anything. If god doesn’t want me to do any of this, he would stop me.” As Cyrus cocks his gun towards Spencer, Derek runs in and shoots him in the chest twice.

(Y/N) crosses her arms over her chest, says “Ok, Boomer” and rolls her eyes.

“Are you ok, princess?” Morgan asks, going over to her and examining the wound on the side of her head. “Never felt better now that there are two Derek Morgans to protect me.” Concerned he goes to say something else, but is cut short by Spencer shouting “RUN!”.

A look behind them shows Jessica short circuiting upon her husband’s death and grabbing the remote.

When the explosion erupts, Emily looks terrified at the remains of the chapel.

“Morgan! Reid! (Y/N)!” She shouts, followed by the other members and their calls after the three. A certain fear captures every single one of them. If only one of them is- No. Nobody can go through this thought. They are going to be fine. They are alive and-

“Thank god”, JJ breathes as she spots three limping figures. They slowly approach the group of four. “EMILY!” The teenager shouts relieved, though a little loud for the proximity between them. “SPENCER WOULDN’T REALLY TELL ME HOW YOU ARE! YOU LOOK TERRIBLE! THANK HARRY STYLES YOU ARE FINE!” Yes, the explosion definitely messed all of their hearings up, since Morgan and Reid also speak with the same volume.

Emily hugs her. “I’m okay. But you need to get checked out.” But the teenager vehemently shakes her head as she hugs Aaron. “I DON’T NEED TO”, when she sees her teammate’s faces, she reduces her loudness. “I am ok. But Spencer, he got a good blow to his guts. I think the Queen in England even felt that vibe check.”

As Derek escorted the young doctor to one of the awaiting ambulances, JJ also gently stirs the girl in the same direction. “Just let a doctor look over your head, it looks like a nasty cut and believe me, you want to get this checked out, Honey.” “But Jayje-” She begins to complain, but gets cut off by bile rising up her throat. In the next moment (Y/N) kneels on the floor, letting out anything she got in her system over the course of the past few days.

“I think this is nothing your body should do, Bambi”, Rossi adds up. Unwillingly the intern goes with the blonde mother to the EMTs. They decide to have a doctor looking over her and getting her x-rays done at the hospital.

A few hours and uncountable complaints from (Y/N) later, the team is back on the jet on their way home. She thanked Emily in a heartfelt moment in the hospital shortly after she got pain killers, which made her loopy, for saving her life by putting her own on the line by exposing her identity. Even Prentiss had tears in her eyes as she saw the young and innocent girl so frayed by the just occured events.

Unusual for Rossi, he takes a seat on the sofa, petting his lap as (Y/N) sits beside him. With pleasure she lays her head onto it, cuddling closer into the fuzzy blanket she got from Morgan.

A few minutes into the flight, Rossi just got into describing the interviews he conducted with Ted Bundy, Aaron motions him to make space. David excuses himself with the reasoning of getting a cup of tea for her.

“I’m sorry”, Hotch says as he runs his hands through his youngest employee’s hair. He is careful to not mess with the bandage she has on the side of her head. Confused (Y/N) looks up to him. “What for?” “For sending you into a situation, where you got seriously hurt.”

This makes the girl sit up, though her world once again begins to spin. “Aaron Hotchner, I hope you don’t mean that. You nor anybody else knew that this was going to happen. You only wanted for me to get as much experience as possible while this internship lasts and I tell you, with that story I’ll go viral on TikTok. Just because I got a medium severe concussion and a wound, which hopefully will leave a badass scar, doesn’t mean you have to apologize. But you can do me one favor.” “Anything.” “When I fall asleep, please make sure I don’t choke on my own vomit. The doctor told me it could happen, that’s why I am not allowed to fall asleep unsupervised. But I haven’t slept in three days and I think I'm beginning to feel uncomfy because of that.”

Smiling softly Hotch nods and lets the teenager take her original place in his lap. Minutes later she is fast asleep. But one thing is certain: As soon as she wakes up and feels any better, she is going to tell everybody who wants to listen about the one time where she got blown up by a fifteen years old girl, who was married to a cult leader. And nobody is gonna believe her tea. Except for Penelope, who greets (Y/N) with a hug and the promise to never let her out of her eyesight.

All works:

@agentshortstacc

Criminal Minds:

@averyhotchner @mggsprettygirl

Spencer Reid:

@calm-and-doctor

[babyboy-cody]

ch. 01 | finding out

summary: after feeling so different for the past week, you decided to go to the doctor in order to find out what was actually wrong with you. the cause of you feeling this way was something you weren’t expecting.

warnings: depictions of early signs of pregnancy, clueless grayson, mentions of sean, implications of smut, mentions of abortion

quick note: okay so this is my first ever grayson series, so hopefully i make you guys proud. some of the pregnancy signs are things that some people don’t go through, so i wanted to make it as realistic as possible. any feedback would be great! <3

word count: 2.6k

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Waking up early in the morning, you never expected to feel like shit. From the position you were laying in, your tender breasts were pressed into the bed, causing you the slightest pain. You groaned and winced as you went to turn. Just from moving, you felt nauseous and dizzy, the blinding light from the sun pouring into the room caused you to squint. Grayson wasn’t in bed beside you as usual. He always woke up at the ass crack of dawn to start his morning routines of breakfast, exercising for two hours, and shower. The rest of his day is spent doing activities, such as woodworking/building, spending time with you, long-boarding, or exercising some more.

A wave of cramps suddenly hit you, causing you to muffle your long moan into your pillow. You tucked your body into the fetal position, tucking your hand under your sweatpants to press down on your lower stomach, hoping that the pressure would ease the aggravating pain. For the past week, you’ve been constantly getting cramps. The breast tenderness happened only a day later. Premature cramps are the usual sign of starting your period. What confuses you is why you woke up with no blood staining your underwear or pants.

Sluggishly grabbing your phone from under your pillow, you opened up your usual period app. The last time you had gotten your period was exactly the same day as last month. Your eyebrows furrow when you see that you should’ve started your period exactly two weeks ago. You hastily sit up, immediately shutting your eyes as a wave of nausea hit you like a tsunami. There was brief commotion coming from the kitchen, followed by Grayson yelling, “Ethaaannn!” You faintly heard Ethan’s boisterous laugh, which only amped up his younger brother’s annoyance.

You swallowed the forming saliva at the back of your mouth. You suddenly felt so exhausted, even though you had a whole ten hour rests with no interruptions or disruptions. Swinging your legs to the side of the bed, you slowly got up, shutting your eyes to avoid feeling dizzy so fast. You desperately craved Grayson’s warm skin against yours in order to make you feel better, especially when his strong arms were wrapped around you, holding you nice and tight against him. As though the universe heard your thoughts, Grayson enters the bedroom, a comfy hoodie adorning his upper body as gray sweats adorn his lower half. He looks so comfy and warm and soft with his messy hair and growing bed and bright smile.

“Look who’s finally awake!” He announced and spread his arms wide, running over to playfully (and gently) tackle you into the bed.

“Gray, Gray, baby, be gentle,” you quickly told him, hands grabbing onto his arm as the room suddenly spun. “I’m not feeling too good today.”

He immediately sat up, using one hand to push his long hair from his face as the other slowly sits you up. His eyes were full of worry as they scan you up and down. You smiled tiredly and gently stroked his jaw, loving the feeling of his scruff on your palm.

“What’ve you been feeling?” He was quick to ask you, desperately wanting to know why you’ve been feeling sick and what could’ve caused it. “Do you think it’s cause E was sick last week?”

“I mean, maybe,” you shrugged. “I’ve been getting cramps and my boobs have been hurting as usual before I get my period.”

“So you’re starting you’re period?” He questioned, thinking that could be the reason.

“I don’t think so, babe. I’m getting symptoms I’ve never gotten before and it’s worrying me,” you quietly told him, your voice holding such worry that he’s never heard before. “I’m so exhausted and dizzy and I can’t even stand without feeling like I’m gonna pass out.” You rubbed your hands over your face, groaning at the uncomfortable churning in your stomach as you suddenly thought about eating. “I can’t even think about food without feeling like I’m gonna throw up everywhere.”

“Baby, you need to make an appointment for the doctor or the GYN to see what’s going on. You don’t know if this could be something serious,” Grayson anxiously tells you, his large hands cupping your cheeks to make eye contact with you, his thumbs lightly stroking your warm skin back and forth.

“I will,” you held onto his wrists. “I promise.”

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After your serious talk with Grayson yesterday, you made an appointment to go to the gynecologist the very next day. Nerves were bubbling in the pit of your stomach, causing you to use the bathroom four times in the past hour. Ethan and Kristina were worried as well, unsure of what to do or say to make you feel at ease and less anxious. If what’s causing your sickness something terminal, they knew that Grayson would quite literally go insane. You were his person. Grayson was a believer of soulmates, and he knew deep in his heart and soul that you were his.

This morning, it was eerily quite. The air was awkward and tense with no one knowing how to break the ice. Grayson’s jaw was clenched and he watched your every move carefully. You were feeling a little better, only eating in small quantities and being forced to drink lots of water (by Grayson). Your appointment wasn’t until 2 in the afternoon, so you had plenty of time to do your morning routine and talk to Grayson. He insisted on staying in the bathroom when you shower and do your skin care.

“Gray, I’m not dying,” you joked lightly.

“Don’t fucking joke like that!” He raised his voice, glaring up at you as he sat on the edge of the top, elbows on his knees with his fingers interlocked. “That’s not fucking funny.” There was anger in his tone, and you realized how insensitive it was of you.

You knelt down in front of him, unlocked his hands and slithering more between his spread knees. He doesn’t look at you as he looks down at the ground between your own knees. “Hey,” you whisper, hands on his broad shoulders, lightly shaking them. “Look at me, please.” When he does, you see the slightest of tears along his waterline. Your heart breaks when his face scrunches up in agony and his eyes shut, his hands immediately covering his face to press the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Grayson…”

He sniffles into his hands, shaking his head frantically. “I can’t lose you,” he weeped so softly, his voice muffled behind the barrier of his hands. “I can’t fuckin’ lose you the same way I lost my dad. I-I just can’t.” You let him pour out his emotions, all the while holding onto his shoulders and gently pushing his hands away from his face to wipe away his warm tears. The area around his eyes and cheeks were tinged red, his beautiful eyes now turning puffy. “You don’t understand h-how broken I’d be without you, Y/N. It’s like… a piece of me might die.”

“Baby,” you whispered brokenly, shaking your head as you hurriedly pull him into your chest. His head buries itself in the crook of your neck. “I am so so sorry for making that joke, alright? Hey, look at me.” You lift his head up, wiping more of his tears with your thumbs. “I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, that everything is okay.” At the sound of your soft whisper, he lets out a quiet and shaky sigh. The thought of now hearing your voice anymore physically hurts his heart. He hesitatingly nods, desperately wanting to believe your words. But looking into your eyes this very moment, seeing the determination and confidence in your face, he has no other choice but to believe you.

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Sitting on the exam table in the cold room that slightly smells of hand sanitizer and wood, you didn’t know what else to think. Your thoughts were a jumbled mess as they tried to unravel itself to form a coherent sentence in your head. Grayson wanted to come in with you, but you had told him to stay in the car, out of fear of him hearing dreadful news. You closed your eyes and breathed in and out deeply, trying to calm the storm that’s beginning to make itself known. What you didn’t hearing was the door opening and the OB-GYN, Dr. Khaleesi, stepping in. She was a lovely Indian woman who was older than you by 20 years. You’ve been coming to her for a year and a half now for your usual STD checkups or any worries you had with your uterus. She was the sweetest woman you’ve come to known and you never felt judged by her.

“Everything alright, Y/N?” She asks as she shuts the door, leaving you both in privacy. She holds the clipboard to her side and sits onto the rolling stool to slide herself closer to you.

“Just nervous,” you laughed awkwardly.

“Well, it’s just me,” she tells you softly, her accent sounding so elegant as she gently pats your knee. “Now, it says on the appointment form that you’re hear for a checkup regarding your period.”

“Yes, um, I’m late on my period - about two weeks now. But I’ve been feeling a lot of cramps and breast tenderness and all the symptoms of starting my period. And I don’t know why,” you sighed and picked at your nails, not sure how to keep still.

“Alright, well, I’m going to be asking you a few simple questions and I want you to answer as honestly as possible,” Dr. Khaleesi tells you. “What day was your last period?”

“The 6th of May.”

“How long does menstrual cycle typically last?”

“Six to seven days, give or take.”

“And are you sexually active?”

You blushed as you thought about Grayson. You hadn’t forgotten the romantic picnic dinner he had set up in the backyard with a large projector hung up. Sitting there under the stars with him, being in such a close proximity to that man always made you feel so nervous. But having his hands on you, his lips on yours, his large and muscular body between your thighs, it made it all worth it. You most certainly didn’t forget how many times he made you orgasm in under an hour. You were thankful that Ethan and Kristina had gone to their own date night for a few hours.

“Y/N?” Dr. Khaleesi’s voice broke you free from your thoughts, causing you to clear your throat out of embarrassment.

“Y-Yes, I’m sexually active,” you softly responded.

Dr. Khaleesi nods and checks off the small YES box beside the question. “And how often do you engage in sexual intercourse?”

“Um, about three to four times a week.” You suddenly burst out into laughter at the surprised look on her face. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she laughs as well. “At least one of us is getting some action, huh?” She laughs again when you cover your face, muffling your small groan. “Back to the questions. When was the last time you were sexually active?”

“I’d say last week, but I’ve been feeling these symptoms for the past two weeks now,” you hesitatingly told her, secretly not wanting to know the cause in order to avoid the dread and heartbreak if something was terminal.

“And what symptoms have you been having?” She asked you, now looking at your expression rather than the clipboard in her hands.

“Um,” you looked up in thought, “Nausea, cramps, breast tenderness, sudden feeling of exhaustion, loss of appetite, and I’ve been peeing a lot more.”

Dr. Khaleesi nods silently, her sudden silence makes you feel incredibly uneasy. You swallow down and exhale a shaky and audible sigh. She gives you a reassuring smile. “Do you mind if I exam your stomach?”

“N-No,” you quietly said and laid back on the cushioned exam table. “Go ahead, please.”

And after hearing your consent, Dr. Khaleesi pulled on some blue latex gloves and hovers her hands over your stomach. You pull up your shirt and pull the cracked skin of your bottom lip with your teeth. She gently presses down in different areas of your stomach, periodically asking, “Does this cause any pain? Discomfort?” And each time, you shook your head. As she was getting to the end of the exam, you went over every single possibility. What if it’s a tumor? What if you’re pregnant? Could it be cancer? Is it internal bleeding? Somehow, you couldn’t find a reason for each possibility to happen. You had no family members with a history of chronic illnesses. And you and Grayson always used protection, never birth control because of the harmful effects to your body. When Dr. Khaleesi was finished with the brief exam, she sighs softly and lays a hand on your shoulder.

“I know why you’re feeling like this, Y/N. And before I tell you, I want you to know that I am here if you ever need advice on how to do this, okay?” She tells you in a reassuring and motherly tone.

“Just tell me,” you whispered, voice cracking as you strong to keep a strong front. But with every second, it slowly disappeared, revealing a vulnerable and terrified woman in front of the doctor. “Please…”

Dr. Khaleesi sighed quietly and licked her red lipstick stained lips. “You’re… pregnant. Presumably one month pregnant.”

If you were standing, you were sure you would’ve dropped to your knees. Your mouth dropped open, trying desperately to form words, but all that came out was a weak squeak. Tears lined your waterline as you shook your head in disbelief.

“N-No, that’s… that’s fucking impossible,” you frantically said, shaking your head even more as you hastily stood up and walked over to the other side of the room. Your hands went to your hair as you paced back and forth. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my, God,” you whispered to yourself, muffling a sob with the back of your hand. “I.. he’s been talking ab-about having kids for-for so long and…” your voice shook between every word. “We’re both so young!”

“We have options, Y/N,” Dr. Khaleesi gently told you as to not scare you if she rose her voice to speak over yours. “There’s abortion-”

“No!” You shouted. “That… That is out of the question. I-I need to talk to him. I need to see where his head is at first, and-and then I can talk to you about… options,” you whispered the last word. You are pro-choice, but you know deep in your heart that you couldn’t terminate this pregnancy. If Grayson thought the opposite, you’re not sure what would happen next.

“Would you like me to schedule your next appointment in one week?” Dr. Khaleesi quietly asks you as she notices the mental battle you’re currently having. “That way you have plenty of time to discuss what you both think, okay?”

You hesitatingly nod and look over at her with an expression that nearly broke her gentle heart. “I-I’m scared, Daksha.”

At the sound of her name exiting your lips, she immediately crosses over and pulls you into a hug. She understands that this may be unprofessional to her bosses and what other patients may see as inappropriate, but she would never let a terrified woman feel alone.

“You are going to be okay, child,” she tells you quietly, one hand wrapped around your shoulders as the other lightly pats the back of your head. “Whatever you decide, I will help you along the way, okay? Do not forget that.”

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CURRENT TAGLIST

@etherealdols @certainaesthetic

[kikis-writing-world]

Pregnancy Announcement HCs

Drabbles under the cut for how Pedro boys would react to your pregnancy, and how you’d share the news. Trigger/content warnings: Pregnancy (both planned and surprise,) mention of abortions as an option, talk of contraception, smut (including cum play, cock warming,) mentions of PTSD and past drug addiction, mentions of dead former partners, blood, periods, doctors/obgyns, single parent/father not wanting to actively participate. If I missed anything, please let me know! Lack of editing as usual... 

Pics are for inspiration, not always an exact replica. All take place in a sort of modern AU where there might be a social media to post pictures to.

Dave York

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Dave already has a family and he made it very clear that he wasn’t leaving them for you. When you found out, you were terrified he would demand you terminate the pregnancy - heck, you considered it briefly yourself. You thought long and hard about your options even before telling Dave.

His first reaction was about as bad as it could get: he said nothing, got up and left. He returned a few hours later when you had already cried yourself hoarse. He held you in his arms as he spoke clearly and carefully. He asked if you wanted to keep the baby, and when he said yes he almost seemed torn. You don’t know if it was wishful thinking that he was excited to have another child, but you swore you saw a sparkle in his eye… of course, it wasn’t that simple.

He told you it wouldn’t be easy for you since he would never be with you like that - you were just the nanny he was fucking. If you wanted to go it alone, he would help financially and support you as much as he could, but he couldn’t claim the baby as his and risk losing his daughters.

You were going to have to go the single mother route, and if anyone asked you’d have to either say it was a fling or the father wasn’t interested in being in the picture.

Din Djarin

In all honesty, you were surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Din loved to cum inside of you. He’d lay with you, his softening cock still inside you to make sure nothing slipped out. When he finally did, he’d watch with amazement as your body twitched as it adjusted to emptiness. Gently, he’d push any dripping cum back into your fluttering hole. His deep, gruff voice was laced with exhaustion and lust as he would talk about filling your pretty pussy, not wasting a drop…

When you started getting ill, you at first thought it was just a passing bug. It was inevitable with all the travel that you would fall under the weather. Two weeks into the churning stomach, you realized you missed a period. 

When you brought it up to Din, he changed all travel plans - the bounties could wait, he had to get you to the nearest clinic ASAP. The test coming back positive had him glowing with pride. It was hard to convince him to wait until further along to announce the pregnancy, knowing anything could happen in these early stages. As soon as you gave him the all-clear, he did everything but shout it from the rooftops. By the time the picture was posted -your headgear, his helmet, and a tiny helmet between - everyone already knew anyway.

Ezra

It was a surprise, but not a shock. You and Ezra, although you tried to be safe, definitely had a habit of being caught up in the moment and forgetting certain precautions. A walk through the forest that led to a beautiful field of flowers, a picnic on a moonlit beach - there were times Ezra was so overwhelmed by your beauty and the beauty around him that he just got swept up. It was hard not to get swept up with him.

He was ecstatic when you told him you thought you might be pregnant. He could hardly wait for you to take a test. His knee bounced anxiously as you waited the 2 minutes, holding your hand tightly in his. The positive result brought tears to his eyes as he embraced you close but gently, already scared of hurting the baby. He saw it as nothing less than a blessing. He dropped to his knees as soon as he let you go, already talking to the bundle of cells, calling them his little shining star. The nickname sticks throughout the pregnancy, leading to a beautiful space-themed nursery and all events leading up to the birth, including the announcement.

Frankie Morales

You’re absolutely terrified to tell Frankie. You knew he wanted to be a father, but the two of you had talked so much about the fears you shared about being parents. Mental health, substance abuse, financial stability - it made the concept of “starting a family” overwhelming.

Your stomach rolled the whole time you waited for him to get home from work, little plastic test taunting you from the table. What if it set him off? He’d been sober for years, but you knew every day was a new battle. You were so consumed by your own thoughts, playing out how he might react in your head, that you didn’t even hear him come in.

“Are you…” He half-asked the question, eyes darting between you and the test. You couldn’t find your voice, only nod. The facial change in him was immediate: broad smile and wonder in his eyes as he laughed, scooping you into his arms. You clung to him just as tightly as he started laughing, too much joy coursing through him. As he started crying “holy shit, I’m going to be a papa,” how could you have possibly doubted he’d be anything but ecstatic?

You each tell your closest friends and your families, but you manage to keep it under wraps for the first months until posting your announcement and shocking everyone. Toes in the sand at the beach of your favorite camping spot, imagining the sandcastles and other games you’d be playing in the near future - it was everything you could ever want.

Jack Daniels

The two of you were religiously careful. You had talked about a family, but had agreed that until Jack was ready - which may or may not happen - you were going to prevent it. But life finds a way…

You find out much later than you would have liked - nearly 3 months in, you missed the whole first trimester. Looking back, there were obvious signs of pregnancy but you just didn’t think it was possible. You and Jack find out together at a doctor’s appointment. You leave the office shell shocked with a stack of pamphlets to consider your options and an appointment for next week. When you get home, Jack doesn’t even talk about it. You try to bring it up a few hours later, but he ignores you.

Finally, 3 days later, you can’t take it anymore. You feel like you’re in this completely alone at this point as you yell at him “ignoring it won’t make it go away!” Jack breaks down and tells you he’s so damn scared. He cries in a way you’ve never seen him cry, talking about how he wants a family with you but he can’t go through that kind of loss a second time. It nearly killed him the first time and he wouldn’t be able to handle it again. You talk long into the night about all of it - both of your fears, worries, dreams, thoughts - nothing is off limits as you talk about all the possibilities lying in front of you. Even through the fear and trauma, one thing is clear: you both want this.

It’s not easy, but your doctor helps relieve some worries. She speaks frankly to you about the development of the baby along the way and suggests a therapist that might be able to help, as well as classes you can take on parenting. It doesn’t take long for the worried “what ifs” to be paired with excited “whens.”

Javier Peña

When Javier Peña walked into your small town police station, you thought you were dreaming. Sent to help with a case that your rural forces didn’t have the experience to handle, he was only supposed to be in town as long as the case took. You never imagined you, just a lowly admin, would catch his eye.

It didn’t take long for you to tumble into the bed of his hotel room. And your bed at home. And your car. And his truck. And just about any possible surface in between. What you thought was a one night stand turned to three, then four, and soon into a full fledged fling. You knew the expiry date hanging above your heads, so you kept your feelings for the charming (if a little gruff around the edges) agent locked deep away. The case took about two months, and then he was gone just as suddenly as he arrived.

A month after his departure, when you found out you were pregnant, you didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t even left you his number, so you were sure he had no plans to see you ever again. Should you track him down and let him know, or just carry on with this on your own? You spent night after night talking to the growing baby, asking what you should do.

Javier ended up answering the question for you, when he unexpectedly walked into the station once more. He asked to speak with you privately before admitting he had missed you. He told you about trying to forget you, only to spend most of his evenings telling his father about you. Eventually you cut him off with a kiss, telling him you’re glad he came back. You take his hand, placing it on your stomach when you tell him you had been thinking about him too.

Javi helps you secure a transfer to Laredo and even though you technically have your own place, you’re spending practically every night with him anyway. If anyone wondered why the move, well the recognizable mustache on your announcement answered their questions.

Marcus Moreno

Marcus doesn’t believe you the first time you tell him “I think I’m pregnant.” He remembers his wife’s pregnancy with Missy, and you haven’t shown any of those signs. You roll your eyes and tell him that every woman and every pregnancy is different, but he still doesn't believe you. It isn’t until he’s staring down at three tests, all positive, that it clicks in his head he’s having a second child.

He’s excited, but he admits he’s scared. He’s older now, what if he can’t keep up with a baby? More than that, he’s worried about Missy.

You both know you don’t want Missy to feel left out or replaced by a new sibling. The two of you have a good relationship, but of course there were speed bumps to get there. She understood you weren’t trying to replace her mother. Would she be as understanding, knowing that you weren’t trying to replace her?

You and Marcus sit her down and tell her together. Before you can even start on your planned spiel about how the family is growing and no one is getting replaced, she is talking a mile a minute about having a little sister. You and Marcus share a relieved breath and lock eyes before you have to remind her that it might be a little brother. This seems to dampen her mood a little bit, but overall she’s still excited… even if she is adamant she isn’t touching any stinky diapers.

Another way you make sure to include her, is how you announce it to your friends and family. You’re sure, with Marcus’ status, it will get out to the public eventually, but you start by sending close friends and family a picture of Missy wearing a shirt calling her a “Big Sister.” She loves the photoshoot, making all kinds of faces as you snap away on your phone. Happy, sad, pouting, crazy… they all go in the baby book.

Marcus Pike

It was only a few months after your wedding that you and Marcus were ready to start a family. You didn’t “start trying” as much as you “stopped preventing.” There were a few false starts when your period would be late or the time you caught the stomach flu, but a few weeks short of your first wedding anniversary, you were pregnant.

Marcus spent many nights laying next to you in bed, hand on your stomach as he just stared at you - to the point where you actually started to get annoyed by it. He was amazed at your body changing, at the growing child inside of you, that he was finally getting the “happy ever after” he’d been looking for all his life.

The announcement was hilarious to shoot. Marcus and you were covered in paint splotches, laughing with love shining in your eyes. You held a palette Marcus knelt in front of you with a paintbrush, painting “Masterpiece coming soon” on your stomach where the bump had just started showing with the right angle.

Max Phillips

Max knew before you did, even if he didn’t put it all together. He started complaining that you tasted different, smelled different. Not just your blood, but as he spent hours trapped between your thighs. His keen senses had him identifying a change, but neither of you knew what change it was. After all, as far as you knew, a vampire couldn’t get a human pregnant.

Max whined when your period was late - he loved your time of the month. “Best of both worlds” he would say as he feasted on you for as long as you could stand it. It had happened before, your period being late due to stress or illness, but this time it wasn’t just a day or two. A few weeks later nothing had happened. A quick trip to your gynecologist confirmed it.

“I thought you said there was no way you could be pregnant,” she teased as she showed you the results.

Max was shocked, scared, and then proud as a pig in shit. He was terrified to be a father, but he hid that behind a swagger and a “yeah, I knocked her up. Not even death can stop these swimmers.”

Even if you did try to hide it for much longer, the vampires he worked with could smell the change in you too. Put together with Max’s protectiveness over you being ramped up even more than it had been… it was easy to figure out.

You took the picture as a joke - it was supposed to be a compromise that if you took this photo, he’d take the cheesy ones you wanted - but damn if it wasn’t your favorite of the bunch.

Maxwell Lord

You know that Maxwell had a bad history with family. First his parents weren’t as supportive as they could have been, and then his ex-wife had all but used Alistair against him anytime she could. You knew he may be nervous when you shared the news, but you didn’t expect him to turn into Maxwell Lord, television personality instead of your Max.

The first question out of his mouth was “is it mine?” Which broke your heart and set a fire in your gut. You threw anything you could get your hands on at him screaming at him for accusing you of cheating on him. You had just started to calm down when he mentioned lawyers and set you off again. You knew his past, but you truly thought he loved you and that you were his future.

You left, booking yourself in at a hotel. You didn’t leave the room - not only had you not packed anything and knew the paparazzi would devour a picture of you looking so disheveled, but you just couldn’t find it in you to go anywhere. You stayed in the room, ordering room service, watching TV, and crying. In a fit of rage, you had thrown the bottles from the mini bar across the room, needing to channel your anger and knowing you couldn’t drink your sorrows away anyway. 

He showed up a few days later, having followed the credit card charges to the hotel, looking remorseful. He apologized for the way he reacted, and you heard him out despite still being upset. There was a long talk in which you reminded him that you’re not his ex or his mother. You’re not trying to screw him over or get anything from him by having his child. It takes him a long time and a lot of groveling for you to truly forgive him, but you go back home that night.

A few months later, as the two of you take a picture on his yacht, both of your hands holding your growing bump, you can hardly tell the fight had happened at all.

Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand

Ellaria noticed before you did. A mother herself, she picked up on the glow in your skin, the change in your body, and the complaining about aches in your back or your breasts. When she pulled you aside and suggested you were pregnant, all you could do was blink. The three of you didn’t use protection with each other, only when others were invited into your bed. You’d never gone out of your way to prevent pregnancy, so while it shouldn’t have been shocking, it still caught you off guard. Ellaria brought you to her doctor, sitting with you while you found out for sure.

You were nothing but excited to share your news with Oberyn. You knew how he felt about you, about love and passion, about the children he already had. You had no doubt that he would love your child just as much as the rest of his daughters. The night you told him was spent making love while he waxed poetic about you, your body, your child... If you hadn’t already been pregnant, you’re sure you would have been at the end of the night.

With sand snakes spread across Dorne, you struggled for a way to tell them all. Sending letters didn’t seem to do the moment justice. This may be Oberyn’s 9th child, but it was your first and you wanted an extravagant way to share the news. 

Ellaria helped you to plan gathering all the children together. It wasn’t easy, but a month and a half after finding out, you had the whole, huge family together. You posed them all for a picture with you, Oberyn and Ellaria front and centre. You were handed a sign to hold for the picture - supposedly showing the family crest. However as soon as the picture was taken, you turned to show them.

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