#and infantalizing them to this degree

[ilynpilled]

i need ppl to just never speak about my family ever again im so serious

[st-louis]

really don't understand why everyone always has to be so fucking weird about hockey players and reading

[nanamimizz]

i love dogs but like. idk not in the same way that people who are dog lovers say they do. dogs are my companion my soulmate the one who fills the missing gaps of my heart. who else greets me like its the first time every time? who sleeps besides me and is there when i wake up? who else gives me a thousand kisses and a thousand goodnights? my dog does, my special boy who i love more than anything

[ailurinae]

Causes great back pain, I'd presume. Human spines are bad enough due to being reoriented for the vertical. Having a 90° turn and another whole length of spine is bound to cause even more issues.

Guys do centaurs have to eat both horse food and human food?

[reserwrekt]

I feel like I had everyone fooled into thinking I was normative or "okay" for two years. (2017-2019)

But the thing is, I never said I was. I had started over after my oldest brother passed away and all my friends left me to deal with it on my own.. I had told everyone around me that I'm not okay, that I have all these diagnosis, that I was sui, and I'm sick all the time.

But everyone ignored me. They ignored those parts. Then, when I started showing signs of my problems and disabilities- they'd act surprised. "I didn't think it was that bad."

My situationship at the time famously told me to drive myself to the ER when I woke up with sepsis, beginning stages of shock, kidneys shutting down. And as I was getting ready, I passed out, pissed, and vomited everywhere. It took me not being able to get back up, for him to sigh angrily and take me.

When we got to the hospital, I was stoic. The staff didn't expect anything. When they took my blood pressure, they suddenly started swarming me, ripping my clothes off my body, and scolding him for not calling an ambulance. (Blood pressure was nothing, like I think 50/40 something like that.)

But again, the fact that the ER staff assumed nothing was wrong, taking their time, and then realizing the emergency. I've always been treated like this..

During my hospitalization, the antibiotics weren't working. That made sense, because I've had a long history with antibiotics and already had antibiotic resistant sickness. But I could hear the staff talking about moving me to a critical care unit, in my valume induced haze. I could hear the nurses explaining "sepsis protocol" to each other. I would get woken up to more anticoagulant being injected through my stomach. I could hear them gossip about how they've "never not felt a pulse in a living person." As they started using my feet to check instead.

During this time, maybe I was hallucinating, I was having long vivid conversations with my passed brother. He told me I had a choice to join him now or not.

I put my deadbeat family's grieving, over my own. It was extra hard bc I was the only one supporting my brother, everyone left us alone.. I told him I couldn't. Then I started to respond to the medication (they switched antibiotics.)

For the next year, I felt I had a tie to my brother and we kept having conversations.

I was dating someone who literally wouldn't believe me or even try to empathize (same idiot.)

I asked my brother why doesn't everyone experience this? And he said it was because they couldn't handle it... and he said "look at how you've been.." and he was right. I was starting to obsess over it. I was regretting my choice to live. And then I'd have to wake up, feeling all this grief, next to a golden retriever who wouldn't even acknowledge that I woke up sobbing every day.

I had to get out of there, but because I had started over, the only people I knew, were HIS people..

I didn't trust his friend that was a little too eager to know me, but I didn't have anywhere else to go. I talked to her about some of the issues and how I don't know how to make it on the street as I'm awaiting disability.

Ofc she invited me to live with her, but I knew she had just married a guy she didn't even like. The red flags were there. And I told her on the first day, what always happens in my life. I said how no one ever helps unless they have other motives. I told her about every "family friend" who promised to get me out of foster care. I said EXACTLY how this was going to end, and I was right every step of the way.

I told her "I have severe problems that no one understands. They always say they do, but when I show signs and symptoms, they demonize me."

"No I won't. "

She did.

I told her "every family friend that said they were going to rescue me, went around and told everyone that's what they were doing, and then usually something happens like their partner gets jealous of me or something, it creates problems, and then when they break up, they leave me to die." And literally all of those things happened.

"I'm a licensed therapist." Yeah, and that's the scary part.

Meanwhile her husband was microagressing me the entire time I was there, I had JUST got my disability money (1yr living there) and then instead of being a dick to just me, he started taking it out on her. Then she immediately found ANOTHER Indigenous, two-spirit, Bipolar person to abuse. Then, that person told me that she basically told them that she was ME. She used her photos, but told them to a T MY personality.

All the people around us during that time, had no idea about me or my life. And then I got to see her go on and be successful at MY personality.

So for the past while, the things that I was interested in, that I showed her, shared with her, no longer felt like mine. So now I'm like in a very weird place with who I am.

I basically feel like for the past couple years, everyone ignored the real me, and cherry picked every detail THEY liked. So now I'm just extra messed up.

[amtrak12]

Also I should've followed my boss's lead and taken a last minute vacation day because I have next to nothing to do for work and all I want to do is play the Sims 😩

[nocturnal-stims]

Margays are small felines that spend most of their lives in the trees. Margays can rotate their ankles 180 degrees, allowing them to climb down trees headfirst. They have been observed jumping up to 12 feet horizontally and have been known to mimic the voices of infant monkeys so they can eat the parents.

🐾 1minuteanimals on IG

[vaporize-employers]

What kind of tents combat hypothermia?

For the last few months, Gazans have been surviving regular floods of rain, soaking their bodies, clothes, and whatever belongings they have left.

The biggest risk factor in hypothermia isn't temperature itself: it's water. If you're soaked through, you cannot get warmer without dry clothes and shelter. A water temperature of 10 °C (50 °F) can lead to death in as little as one hour.

This is especially lethal to children and infants; starvation and malnutrition compounds these risks. In the last week, six babies have died of hypothermia in Gaza.

There are some kinds of tents that provide some protection for $2,000 to $1,500, but providing a fully waterproof tent costs between $2,500 and $3,000.

Dome fabric tent

✔ Wind resistant

✔ Provides shade

❌ NOT waterproof

❌ Outer lining only

Cost: $2,000

This provides some protection, but the cost in winter clothes and blankets to rewarm after the rain soaks through can reach hundreds in added costs.

Insulated tarp tent

✔ Wind resistant

✔ UV protection

✔ FULLY WATERPROOF

✔ Inner and outer insulation

✔ Privacy area

Cost: $2,500 to $3,000

I hope you found all that interesting!

With that in mind, consider helping one of these families by sharing and donating if you are able: all 3 have young children with high risk medical conditions, no shelter, and are completely dependent on donations.

Maha and her 4 y/o daughter Joan (#163). Joan is high risk due to malnutrition and gastritus.

Ahmed/Safaa and their 1 y/o son Kamal (#47). Kamal is high risk due to 3rd degree burns and missing one lung.

Abeer and her little sister Nour (#157). Nour is high risk due to a severe heart condition; you can read more about her situation at @northgazaupdates.

@safa33 @mahafamily1 @nohaibrahims-blog @abeeribrahimss

[sematarygirls]

🍼 ⊹ᡣ𐭩₊⋆ ─── rafe thinks academic!reader wants a baby

   Rafe was absolutely certain that you were trying to subtly hint at wanting to have a baby with him. At the first comment, he assumed you were ovulating because you always did get a little bit of baby fever when you were, but then, you just kept showering him with random facts about the development of infants and toddlers to the point that he started to believe you were dropping hints.

Rafe wasn't someone who liked to play games. He preferred to be told things straight up, no beating around the bush, but being with you, he'd noticed that you had a habit of trying to subtly slide what you wanted into conversation, so you didn't have to directly ask. Almost like you were trying to make him think it was his idea, not yours—apparently, those psychology classes were really paying off.

It had gotten to the point where he had confided in Topper and Kelce, asking them if that's how it sounded to them—bad idea, Topper and Kelce are the last people to go to for relationship advice—to which they both agreed that it definitely sounded as though you were trying to suggest Rafe should get you pregnant.

The idea was completely out of the blue. You both were still so young, and you were still in school trying to get your degree in psychology. You two had only been dating for a couple of months and had never discussed marriage or engagement because it all felt so new to both of you. After all, Rafe was still reforming from his playboy ways and party lifestyle, and you hadn't been in many relationships prior to being with him.

He had originally decided to try his best to ignore your little comments, hoping you would eventually drop the subject altogether. Rafe had never really thought about kids, and he definitely didn't think he was dad material, his fear of turning out like his own father overshadowing the desire deep down to have a child—one he often pushed aside and tried to ignore.

But, you hadn't given up. If anything, it seemed like your mentions of children became more and more frequent—whether that was true or he just believed it was because he was hard-core stressing about it remained unclear. Eventually, Rafe decided he had to address it and make sure you knew that he wasn't planning on having kids with you antime soon, even if it seemed a little harsh to say considering how enthusiastic you seemed.

"Did you know after about a year, the pace at which children learn words accelerates rapidly, and by eighteen months, the average child is learning a new word every day?" You tore your gaze away from your phone screen to look over at him, a bright, proud smile on your face. You were sat in the passenger seat of his truck after he picked you up from your classes, intending to bring you back to Tannyhill, so you two could hang out.

"Okay, you've really gotta cut that shit out," Rafe said, a lot harsher than he intended to. He had already had a bad day, and he just wanted to relax with his girlfriend, not try to decode you and your baby talk. He was tired of dancing around the issue, and his stress only brought that out, making him snap at you.

Your brows furrowed, smile faltering at his words. He had never spoken to you like that before, and you couldn't for the life of you figure out why a little fact of all things had elicited such a reaction. He usually loved hearing all about your little facts, constantly telling you how sexy your intellect was to him. "What?" You simply asked, too hurt and confused to vocalize why his outburst seemed so completely out of the blue.

"Listen I," he took a deep breath, his grip on the steering wheel tightening for a moment before he relaxed again. "I don't want to have a baby with you," he said bluntly. Noticing how cruel that may have sounded, he decided to add an: "Atleast... not right now, alright?"

Your face was a mask of pure confusion. You weren't so much hurt anymore as utterly lost. Where did the topic of you two having children come from? "Rafe, what are you talking about?" You asked, not understanding where he could have possibly got the idea that you wanted to have a baby with him.

He glanced over at you, his own features morphing into an expression that mirrored yours. "All the baby facts and shit. I thought," he paused, wondering if he had read the situation all wrong, but that didn't make sense. It had been pretty fucking apparent to him, Topper, and Kelce that you were dropping baby hints. "I thought you were... yknow trying to tell me something."

You processed the new information for a moment before bursting into laughter to which Rafe glanced rapidly between you and the road, his brows only furrowing farther as he watched you laugh as if he'd said the most hilarious thing conceivable. "Oh, baby," you said softly, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder when your fit of hysterics finally died down. "No, I definitely was not hinting at anything. I am so swamped with school and work that I barely have time for you, let alone a child."

"What?" Rafe asked, relief flooding through him at your confirmation that you weren't trying to subconsciously trick him into wanting a baby with you through your little psychology tricks. Simultaneously, he felt extremely dumbfounded as to your motivations. "Then why have you been talking about kids so much recently?" He quirked an eyebrow, pulling into the driveway of his family's estate.

"Because we're covering the development and learning unit in my psych course, which obviously focuses a lot on the earlier stages of life aka infancy and childhood," you explained, watching realization dawn on him like a light bulb turning on in a dark, empty room. "I didn't think I had to spell that out for you since i'm always hitting you with random facts from class."

Rafe parked the car and unbuckled his seatbelt so he could turn to face you. "Okay, so just to be crystal clear, you weren't trying to use fuckin'...i dont know- subliminal messaging and weird psychobabble voodoo to like, make me want to get you pregnant?"

You laughed, unbuckling your own seatbelt, so you could face him too. "No, you idiot. You're so ridiculous," you grinned, leaning over to give him a peck on the lips. "I promise you I don't want children right now, and if that ever changes, I will talk to you about it and not use subliminal messaging or weird psychobabble voodo."

"Okay, good," he nodded, opening his car door. "Topper and Kelce swore that you were trying to play some kind of mind game."

"Why would you listen to Topper and Kelce of all people?" You asked, following suit in getting out of the car, your brows furrowing as he mentioned the two people who have yet to hold a stable, healthy relationship for any period of time. "They're the world's biggest idiots."

"Yeah, you're right," he grinned, walking over to you and slinging his arm around your shoulder as you two walked to the front door. "I'm sorry for snapping at you," he murmured. pressing a kiss to your temple.

"It's okay," you reassured him, sliding your hand onto his back and rubbing soft, soothing circles. "Just promise you'll talk to me next time instead of letting it build up and fester until you get to the point where you feel like snapping."

"I promise," he vowed, ushering you into the house. "Now let me show you—my beautiful, intelligent, and amazing girlfriend—how sorry I really am," he gave your ass a little tap, making his intentions clear as he steered you toward the staircase, your giggles echoing through the empty house.

tags .ᐟ   @starkeysprincess / @cometmultiverse / @iheartjjmaybnk / @all4l0vee / @kissesfrmriri / @xoxohoneymoongirl / @bradshawed / @fallbhind

[unfortunatelyphoenix]

Inspired by this idea I had, just be aware that things may be out of character and there isn't too much mentioned of DC, this is just the beginning part of it. I may or may not continue writing this idea depending on if my hyperfixation sticks on this and I keep motivation.

Danny looked at the letters he made one last time before sighing and placing the note for his parents on his bed next to the three envelopes addressed to his friends and sister before turning to his window and opening it to throw the rope he had down. He didn't care to see where it landed, instead grabbing his backpack and an unused duffle bag he had stolen from his parents’ closet a day or two ago, quickly checking to see if everything was in them before using the small device one of his friends, Tucker, had made for him to remotely cut out his parents’ security cameras for a few minutes. Originally the device had been made for him in case he ever needed to switch to his ghost form while in the house to avoid his parents from learning his secret identity, but now he was using it to run away, away from everything he had ever known, everyone he had ever- No! Danny couldn't let himself get distracted now and go back on his decision to leave, it was far too dangerous.

Before he let himself get lost in his thoughts he locked his bedroom door, but instead of closing it and heading towards the window he went into the hallway before he closed his bedroom door, the rope and open window only acting as a distraction while he went to where his actual escape point was. He was careful to not wake his parents or sister as he walked down the hallway towards the stairs, no- wait- Jazz was currently attending Gotham University right now for her psychology degree, he only needed to worry about waking his parents right now. Still though, he only moved as fast as he dared to. Danny had to get down to the basement where the portal was before the cameras came back online and before his parents woke up, he had to. As he got to the stairs Danny did his best to get down them as silently as he could, cringing to himself as one of them creaked under his weight. Sure, usually he'd just go intangible and float down the stairs to avoid making any noise, but thanks to his parents having put up ghost detection systems over the rest of the house it was just too dangerous, either the firing from the weapons or the alarms would wake the rest of his family up, and that was far too risky for him.

He internally sighed in relief as he reached the main floor, but he wasn't home free yet, he still needed to get to the portal. He instinctively went onto his tiptoes as he quietly slunk through the house and towards the kitchen where the door to the basement was, where his portal to safety and freedom was, where his children were waiting for him. By the Ancients it was still a little weird calling the two that, but after Vlad's most recent stunt that's exactly what Dan and Danielle were now, his children. Vlad had somehow managed to kidnap the two and forced Dan to possess a clone before de-aging them to both be two in age with Danny being the only witness. It had actually been that incident that convinced him it was best to leave. The GIW had recently started hiring more competent agents that were even less careful with human lives, causing Danny to question if he should use his title as the Ghost King to order all his subjects into the portals and close them once everyone had passed through, but because closing both portals would starve him of ecto AND could be reopened if someone wasn't making sure it wouldn't happen had caused him to not make the decision.

But now, now there were two halfa infants that needed to be cared for who couldn't stay here thanks to Vlad, the other Fentons, AND the GIW making it too dangerous to try and care for them here. He hadn't told anyone other than other ghosts about his plans to leave, knowing that they'd try to talk him out of running and probably somehow convince him to stay. He also originally hadn't even been planning to tell this to his ghost rogues, but after Box Ghost refused to leave since he wanted a reason why Danny gave in and explained his plan to protect the Infinite Realms and all other ghosts. When Box Ghost learned the plan he had immediately gone to tell every other ghost about it which had caused Danny to regret telling him, that was until all the other ghosts, including the ones he was enemies with, were with him on the plan and actively started helping him. Maybe it was because he had technically become king by beating Pariah Dark and they instinctively wanted his safety even if they didn't like him, maybe it was something else, but either way he was happy he wasn't doing this alone.

Danny snapped out of his thoughts as he got to the door, he quickly typed in the pass code before hearing the door quietly unlock. The pass code was pretty easy to figure out and didn't really do much in stopping people from going into the basement, the weak pass code was the whole reason he had even been able to get into the basement on that fateful day, maybe if it had been even a little stronger he wouldn't be in the position he was in now, but what was in the past couldn't be changed. He was careful as he went down the stairs, not wanting to set off any of his parents' traps and wake them up, if he did his whole plan was busted. Reaching the floor of the lab he immediately felt the wave of extra ecto coming from the portal, meaning that there was someone on the other side, normally he'd get ready to fight but he knew who was on the other side of it and he was more than excited to meet them. He walked up to the portal that killed him and sighed a bit, doing one last check to make sure he had both his bags before looking back at the portal. He couldn't shake the guilt for what he was planning on doing but it was for the best. With one last look around the lab he said goodbye to everything he had ever known before going ghost and walking through the portal, using his enhanced powers as the Ghost King to shut the portal off after walking through it and dragging it in with him.

As he stepped through the portal he immediately heard two young voices, one calling ‘Mama’ and the other ‘Papa’. Danny quickly dropped to the ground as the two infant halfas barreled into him, wrapping his arms around the two ghostly children who had already figured out how to use their powers to fly. As he hugged the two he looked up seeing both Wulf and Pandora, the two of them having watched over Dan and Dani while he was finishing things up in the mortal realm. He quietly thanked the two with a nod before picking the twins up, now he just needed to steal Vlad's portal.

Jack and Maddie were starting to get a little concerned, during the past week they had noticed that Danny was growing more distant and had been grabbing things as if he was planning to run, having led the two to believe that he had another self discovery as this was exactly how he acted before telling them that he was trans as he was scared they'd kick him out. So, the two had left him alone so he could tell them on his own terms, but now the two were starting to get concerned. It was the weekend so it was pretty common for Danny to sleep in, but he had never skipped both breakfast and lunch before, and this was really concerning the both of them. Jazz probably would have barged into Danny's room at this point, but she was currently in Gotham attending its university to get a degree in psychology, and while Jack and Maddie didn't usually approve of it they were starting to wish she was here.

It was 1:43 pm when Jack got up from his chair, neither of them had been doing their usual work as they had been waiting for Danny to come down and tell them whatever it was, but Jack was getting too antsy to keep waiting. “I'm going to check on Danny.” He said as he got up from his seat, causing his beloved wife to look up at him and speak. “You know we should give him some space and let him come down when he's ready.” Maddie said with a stern, but also worried tone, showing that she too was also concerned for Danny.

“I'm just going to check on him, okay? He's been showing signs of chronic pain recently and I want to make sure he's doing okay.” Jack said as he looked towards his wife with concern in his eyes, neither of them knew why Danny had begun showing signs of chronic pain recently but they were pretty sure it had been because of the ghost attack last month as that's when he first started showing signs. Maddie, seeing that her husband was serious about this, sighed a bit before agreeing, but told him to only enter Danny's room if he didn't answer. Jack agreed before walking up the stairs, his heavy footsteps causing a few of the steps to creak a bit as he went up them. As he got to the second floor Jack felt a wave of uneasiness, like something was wrong, making his worry even more for his son. Was he okay?

Jack quickly made his way over to Danny's bedroom door and knocked on the door, holding himself back from just barging in. “Danny, kiddo, are you alright? You haven't left your room for hours and skipped both breakfast and lunch.” Jack said with concern in his voice, but all he got in return was silence, making the massive man even more worried. “Danny?” He asked again, this time knocking on the door louder, praying that Danny was just asleep, but once again he was met with nothing but silence. This only made him even more worried. “Danny, if you do not respond I'm coming in.” Jack said with a stern tone that was filled with worry, and when Danny didn't respond he reached for the door knob and turned it. It was locked. Danny never locked his bedroom door.

“Madeline! Danny's door is locked!” He yelled down to his wife, panic filling his voice. At this he heard his wife quickly getting up from where she was sitting, yelling at him to not slam through the door and let her get her lock picking kit, and while Jack desperately wanted to do just that he waited. Jack started pacing in the hallway as he waited for his wife to find her lock picking set, only being able to think of everything that might have happened to cause Danny to lock his bedroom door.

Maybe it had something to do with the chronic pain that had recently popped up? Maybe he had been changing and suddenly passed out from the pain suddenly getting worse? Could chronic pain cause so much pain it could cause one to pass out? If so, how long had their precious boy been out? How long could he have been laying on the floor or on his bed because of having passed out due to unfathomable pain? Maybe it was something else that had happened? Had a ghost somehow gotten in and hurt their son? No, that couldn't happen, they had an anti-ecto force field and sensors and everything everywhere! There'd be no way a damned ghost could have gotten in and hurt their son! Wait… Danny's room didn't have any of the anti-ecto weapons and sensors in his room because they kept constantly triggering on him for some reason. Maybe the reason had been because Danny had been unknowingly possessed and only struck now! Maybe it had taken control over Danny and had him slowly turn off all the precautions and that's why he had started showing signs of chronic pain? Jack had noticed that some of the systems had strangely been shut off but he had thought that it was Maddie either tinkering with them or that they had mistakenly shot at Danny again, but if he was being possessed then maybe the systems were detecting it and they failed to notice anything! Oh god, what if they had the warning signs all along and just ignored it and now their son was potentially in danger if not dead already! What if-

“Got it!” Maddie's voice suddenly called out after a loud click, knocking Jack out of his pit of panicked thoughts. “Danny!” Jack yelled as he rushed into his son's room, ready to fight anything that could be threatening or controlling their youngest, only to find an empty room with the window open and a rope hanging out of it. Both Jack and Maddie were frozen for a moment before they quickly started searching his room for any signs of where their son could have gone. The open window and rope made it immediately obvious that it wasn't a ghost who took Danny, meaning that he was either kidnapped for some reason or he truly had ran away, and considering that so many of Danny's things were also gone it was pretty easy to figure out which it was, were they really that bad of parents? Before Jack started down the spiral of thoughts again he suddenly heard Maddie's voice quietly call for him and quickly went over to her.

As he got over to his wife Jack quickly noticed that she was looking at Danny's bed, so he turned his attention to it and saw three envelopes and a written letter that was likely from their missing son. The envelopes all had names on the, the first had the name of someone called Tucker, another had the name Sam, and the third had their daughter's name Jazz. So it was clear that these were addressed for certain people, but who were Tucker and Sam? They had to have been close to Danny if he had specifically made envelopes for them, but neither Jack or Maddie knew the two. Were they his friends? Why hadn't Danny told them about the two? Or had he and they were just so awful of parents that neither paid attention. Maddie carefully grabbed the note that was in the center of all the letters and carefully unfolded it, revealing the words for the two adult Fentons to read.

“Dear Mom and Dad

I apologize that this is how you will learn the truth about everything that has been happening since the portal opened, but it is also unfortunately the only way as it is too dangerous for me to remain any longer.

As you know, two years and eight months ago you had finished making the portal to the “Ghost Zone” but it hadn't started immediately so you had gone out to eat to think of a game plan on what to do, but by the time you had returned it had powered on, and I know exactly what happened. When you guys had left I decided to go down and try to figure out what happened, well, when I was checking out the inside of the portal (yes, in hindsight I have realized that it was an extremely stupid decision) I had tripped over some loose wiring and had attempted to catch myself on the wall, accidentally hitting the emergency stop switch that had been flicked to OFF. This caused me to not only be electrocuted but also caused the portal to open on top of me, it had also placed me halfway through the portal, meaning that I was half inside of the “Ghost Zone” and half in our realm. The only reason I didn't die due to being electrocuted was thanks to the ectoplasm radiation from the portal and “Ghost Zone”, and the only reason that I didn't die thanks to all ecto-radiation was all thanks to Phantom as he had been near where the portal opened up. Humans can't survive in the Ghost Zone, and Phantom knew that, so when he had seen me halfway through the portal with my body and soul being torn apart due to both the Zone and electricity he immediately tackled me out. Because of what happened with my soul being half detached from my body and unable to reattach itself Phantom had used some of his ecto to fix it, but this left me as something known as a halfa. A halfa is someone who is half alive and half dead, half a human and half a ghost.

Because I had been turned into a halfa thanks to Phantom saving me I needed to learn how to support my ghost side, meaning that he taught me everything he knew about ecto-entities and ecto. I've learned that ghosts have their own language and that those who are fully human and not ecto-contaminated can't understand them, meaning that they aren't ignoring anyone. I've learned that ghosts regularly brawl as a form of both entertainment and bonding, meaning that only a very few of the attacks were malicious. I've learned that ghosts are beings of emotion, meaning that they aren't heartless monsters. I've learned that they truly were once living creatures and not the soulless copycats that the G.I.W claim them to be. I've learned so much that completely contradicts what we thought to know, and it is this knowledge that has led me to this decision.

The only reason that Phantom didn't close the portal from inside the Infinite Realms, the proper name for the “Ghost Zone” as we've been calling it, was because I needed the ectoplasm from it to keep existing thanks to my half ghost nature and I didn't want to leave you guys to a place with naturally high ecto. I'm the reason there have been so many ghost apparent attacks and why our town got dragged into the Infinite Realms by Pariah Dark, the previous tyrant king of the Infinite Realms. The only reason the entirety of Amity Park didn't die immediately by entering the Infinite Realms was all thanks to Phantom's having claimed it as his haunt to more easily protect the town and in turn our family. When he managed to defeat Pariah Dark he earned the title of the Ghost King, which made it much easier for him to protect our town and me, but this also appears to have caused the G.I.W to start hiring more competent agents that care even less for human life, and they are now why I'm leaving.

Neither me or Phantom want anyone to get hurt, and the longer the portal remains open the more likely it is for someone, human or not, to get hurt. So we have decided that it'd be best for everyone that the portal is removed and I relocate to a place with more ecto so I can continue living. Because everyone here has become so used to the ecto-radiation people are likely going to start getting a bit ill after the portal is closed, but no one should die.

I'm so sorry.

Love: Your son Danny

P.S please don't try to recreate the portal to try and find me, I'm not going to be in the Infinite Realms because I'm too human to safely be inside of them.”

Jack and Maddie could look at the paper as tears swelled in their eyes, they had killed their own son and didn't even realize it. They truly were terrible parents.

[crsssie]

'cause now I'm scared to love the thought of you the way you did with me

word count: 10.6k

summary: love, you know. you, simon knows.

The first time Simon ever met you, he had the aching feeling that he knew you already.

No, not the sense of deja vu you get in snippets throughout your life. He felt the strange sense that he had known you all his life and had done something to wrong you somehow. He's four. Four-year-olds should not know that feeling. Especially not the sense that somehow, he had broken your heart or betrayed you. He's never met you before — that much, he's certain. He'd know. You're his age, so it's not like this feeling can be from knowing you as an infant. He doesn't remember that far back.

You wave at him, grinning as you pull him off with his brother to hang out as your parents talk to his mom, and you show him what it means to play.

When he leaves later, you ask him if you're friends.

He gives you a blank stare.

You end up in his class later that year, his next-door neighbour and companion, walking home with him from primary school, asking him if he understood anything in class. You're not as bright as he is, Simon thinks. You struggle a little more with certain concepts, and you argue with the teachers over ways to do certain things. A contradiction of everything, he thinks. He mulls over what you are and what you are not. How do you feel simultaneously like a fifty-year-old and a five-year-old at the same time?

He tugs on you sometimes to calm you down.

"Stop it."

"But it's—"

He gives you a look and you huff.

Simon likes sticking by your place, but he also doesn't enjoy it.

When he goes home, dad beats him because he was with you again.

Can' have them findin' out abou' what I do. y' hear me?

The purple is hard to hide around you. You pry too much. You ask too many questions. You tug Tommy around too much and Tommy talks too much. You don't need to know what it's like at home for him. You ask too many questions about why he's wearing a turtleneck when it's already twenty-two degrees outside. You tug at it, offering one of your shirts, but he can't. You don't need to know. You can't know. You shouldn't know. For some reason.

He wants to hide it from you for some reason.

You seem to know anyway, blinking at Simon curiously as you push back his sleeve, staring at the purple.

"You should report him, you know?"

"Ma wouldn't like that."

"So you'd rather be beat? Is it not just a fear factor?"

You don't speak like you're from around there either. You have a mixed accent. Like you've been in an amalgamation of countries and grew up everywhere at once. You don't feel like you're from Manchester. You had moved, sure, but you're young. You seem to be a constant dichotomy between everything and nothing. What does it mean to exist to you? You stare off into nothing the same way his ma does. But time travel doesn't exist or whatever. It's impossible to be sent back in time. All of that is just science fiction.

Pondering. Is that the word?

"What are y' looking at?"

"I'm thinking." You hum, blinking back to life. "That cloud looks like a rabbit."

"No. Looks like a duck."

"Well, now that it's moved." You huff. "That one's a heart."

"That one looks like a dog."

"I don't see it."

"The four legs?"

"Hm."

"'kay, well, that one's a worm."

"See that."

"mhm."

Dad is taken away at one point. Simon returns home to police at his door, hauling his drunken dad out as another officer comforts his mom, and he leads Tommy inside.

"You Simon?"

"Yes ma'am."

"This Tommy?"

"Mhm."

"You won't need to worry about that man anymore."

"Dad." Simon says. "Dad."

"You won't need to worry about him hitting you anymore."

"He makes all the money. Where are we t' go?"

He spots your parents with his ma, and he wonders where you are.

"They said they'll take you all in." The woman tells him.

Your place isn't big enough for all of them.

Yet, when he's brought home to your family, the guest room is set up, yet he finds himself in your room when he can't sleep, staring at you quietly in the dark, watching as you rub your eyes tiredly and scooch over to make space for him.

He still fits in your bed at this point in time.

"Does that make us siblings?" You whisper, getting yourself comfortable as you tangle limbs with him.

Simon wants to say yes. He does. But there's something else he wants, he supposes. He pauses.

"Maybe."

Room for maybe not. Maybe yes.

Maybe it's a cruel joke that he failed to fall asleep with his mother yet knocked right out with you. He's not so lucky as to be able to do it, and he understands that he's a guest so he shouldn't get too comfortable with the host, but you seem to abandon all care and treat him as though you really were siblings. You share everything with him, and he doesn't get why it hurts when you do.

The maybe was a maybe yes to you, maybe.

The maybe was a no to him. It was maybe not.

There's something in his chest that twists uncomfortably when you treat him like a sibling, abandoning all care for it, and he understands that maybe it's what his mother felt when she had been with his father. He doesn't know how long he'll be able to squeeze here with you. Maybe he'll eventually grow to be too big. He knows he will. He's not supposed to be sleeping with you. He sees it in the way your parents shake the both of you awake in the morning with all the concern for you.

It's almost as if he shouldn't be friends with you at all.

Yet, you don't give him the ability to choose, telling your parents that it didn't matter because Simon was like a brother to you.

The concept of siblings should not hurt Simon as much as it does.

He nods along, and you lace your fingers with him and Tommy, telling your parents you're thrilled that you can finally have the brothers you've always wanted.

Your parents let it go and his mom apologizes for the case, but your parents assure her that it's all you and none him.

Simon keeps his fingers laced with you all the way until the two of you get to the classroom.

You don't mind the teasing from the kids, and in turn, Simon doesn't seem to either.

That's how you spend the rest of primary school, tangled limbs with Simon, tugging and dragging him around with you to different things, and he learns to grow comfortable in your presence. The strange sense that he's done something wrong eventually fizzes into nothing that he worries about. The certainty you have in your friendship keeps Simon afloat even when his family eventually moves into a flat nearby.

You hang out at his place after classes, doing homework with him, munching on snacks you bring from the local supermarket on your way back from classes, humming and chewing on the chips as you do homework.

You struggle less than Simon now.

It's like you know.

The strange feeling that you know everything yet nothing lingers despite the guilt leaving. You blink at him quietly and sleep over occasionally, humming quietly as you lay on the mattress on the ground, staring up at nothing.

You do not go through puberty the same way Simon does.

Simon hits a growth spurt in the early years of secondary school — bed suddenly too small, skin stretching out at the alarming pace he was gaining height, and you hold back laughter when he hits his head in the morning and you laugh from the air mattress. He grumbles as he heads off to wash up, and when he returns, you only smile at him like you know something and he doesn't.

He finds you stare at him with a lot more pride than you used to. It's almost like you're his mother staring at him grow up, and it makes him uncomfortable.

You still sleep in the same room as him because you don't seem to think of him as a threat of any kind.

The girls at school start noticing him as well — whispering happening around him of how he's grown so much and how he's "oh suck a looker" because of his height. You've always told him he looked real pretty. "Blond lashes are rare" you'd told him. "makes you look real pretty, Si". He had flushed red at your compliment, but only because it had been you. He had found that it would only be you. Everything you did, intentional or not, had caused more than enough flustered stumbling from him.

He supposes it is just the curse of a teen in love.

You squeeze his bicep when you pass him in between periods, waving bye to him as you're off to the classes you chose and he didn't.

It's in the periods where you're not by him that the girls like to step up to him and giggle, asking if he's free or if he's all alone.

He wonders if he should lie sometimes.

A no warranted a "well would you want to? what about me?" and a yes warranted a "oh surely you jest" so truly, Simon did not have much a choice. He'd prefer it if you just branded him at that point.

Branded.

You brand him?

He understands that whatever he had felt for you in his earlier years was a sense of yearning, and whatever he felt for you in the current years was most likely closer to love than it is a schoolboy crush. He finds it unfair to do that to you, though. You had only ever seemed to see him as a sibling or something adjacent, cheeks warm and lips curled upwards as you head over to his place with him after classes, helping his mom out with cooking if she needed it, heading home only after dark and making sure that Simon walks you there.

He's utterly and completely a fool for you, he finds.

You could tell him to steal the stars in the sky and he'd somehow find a way.

He finds that it's just a curse, maybe. He's stuck with you and he enjoys it because you had met him at four and suddenly everything you ever did became a benefit to him. You knew what he would do good in, and you knew where he could find a job. Everything from start to finish was as if you had preordained it all. Like you had known before the moment the two of you first met. It was as though you knew everything and were intervening. Some kind of angel for him.

"How was class?"

"Was fine."

He's the one who drags you into the store this time, fishing out cash as he hands you a pack of cough drops, raising a brow when you raise a brow at him.

"You're gonna start coughing soon."

"I still have leftovers from last year."

"y'know tha's not the flavor you like."

You hold a hand over your chest, pretending to be moved as he passes by with a ruffle of your hair.

"Si, you do care!"

"Think I didn't?"

"Maybe."

He follows you home to your place tonight. His ma isn't home and Tommy wanted some alone time with his girlfriend, so he settles at your place. It isn't as though he has no other friends. He's hard to approach because of the deadpan look on his face at all times, but he knows others. You worry that he doesn't so to ease the worry, he has other friends. He thinks about it a little. He only seems to care for what you say. It's been a while since his ma's words have worked on him. Though, he still avoids getting in trouble. She doesn't deserve that, and you'd probably give him a hard time if he really did trouble her in any sort of way.

"How was class?"

"Was fine." He sighs, spreading out his books on the table as you scribble away with yours.

How your hand does not fall off from the writing drives Simon up the wall. Writing has never truly been his strong suit — he's much more fit for his part-time job at the butcher's or fixing your parents' old car when they ask him if he knows what to do with it. He's much better with his hands than he is with his mind at times, but it's never stopped you from just breaking everything down into simpler concepts for him.

"Why d'you do it?" He had asked you once.

"Why wouldn't I?" You left the second part of the sentence hanging in the air.

Simon wonders if he could dare to imagine that the second half of the sentence was an "i love you" the same way that he seemed to love you with.

Though, he'd never know.

You beg your parents to let you spend the night with Simon at the turn of the century, the agreement being that he'd spend the night with you, settling on the floor or your room on an air mattress that he most definitely does not fit in, offering him your bed that's too big for you alone when you're sure your parents are knocked out. He finds himself tangling limbs with you once more, staring down at you as you blink up at him under the sheets, blanket covering the two of you as you open a flashlight. He blinks as you stare at him.

"What?"

"Yer really pretty, Si." You hum. "Can I touch you?"

"Ya nasty—"

"Your face." You mumble. "You can say no."

"'s fine." He mumbles, letting your hands map his face gently as he hums, observing as you seem to memorize something. Patterns of his skin. Your eyes gentle from the flashlight as you press your forehead to his. "You look scared."

"I'll live." You whisper, voice shaking.

You fall asleep in his arms that night, and he wakes up to you tucked under his chin snoring.

He doesn't recover from it.

You suggest him to join a military boot camp over summer after secondary since he wasn't planning on university, tilting your head and shrugging when he asks why. Would suit him. Maybe he'd like it. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. He doesn't need to pursue it. Besides, he doesn't have anything to do either.

"Thirteen weeks is a long time, angel."

"Angel? Well, then, maybe you should embrace what this angel's telling you to do."

He goes per your suggestion, and you send him off with his family and yours, grinning as he frowns at you at the doors with his duffle bag, blowing him a kiss as he fights the blush that snakes up his neck. When he emerges for one final look without his hair, you laugh and play with the new cut, humming quietly as you whisper that you'll be waiting for you after his three months.

He lets himself relax into your touch as your families stand to the side, and he whispers quietly asking you for a goodbye kiss as if he were off to war. He expects you to decline, but you press your lips to his forehead, humming as you lean back and admire the print that's been left behind from your chapstick, laugh on your lips as you reach to wipe it off with your thumb, too occupied with cleaning it off to notice the starstruck look on his face as he stares at you.

"Wait f'r me, won't you?"

"How could I not? As long as you send me off when you're back."

"'f course."

"Come back safe to me, Si. I'll miss you."

His body has muscle memory of everything. The boot camp is significantly easier than he thought it'd be. His muscles remember something he does not, maybe. He treks up and does stellar, ending up personally selected by his managing captain, asked if he ever thought about actually joining the military. He'd suit the SAS. He'd be a great addition to the team, even. He'd get all the military benefits and it doesn't seem like it'd be something that would warrant too much stress for him.

He doesn't know.

Despite his body's ability to survive in such harsh conditions, he finds that he doesn't really want to stay in that state of stress.

When he finishes, his captain hands him a number to call if he ever changes his mind, and he finds you in the crowd. He abandons all the military learning he's received in the last three months just to find himself in your arms once more. He barely cares that the friends he's made are whistling at him as he practically swallows you in his frame. You don't mind. He doesn't mind. It's not a problem.

"'m back."

"Welcome home." You laugh, running your hand through his hair as he buries his face into your shoulder.

"'m missed you."

"I missed you too, Si." You hum, peeking past his shoulder as you wave at his friend. "How was camp?"

"Y'wanna tell me why my body seemed to have no struggle with adaptin?"

You look to the side, whistling as he finally lets go of you, reaching over for his mom, humming as she welcomes him back home with Tommy.

"You have explainin' to do." He points at you, and your parents leave the two of you alone to start on dinner for Simon's return, leaving you in his room as you whistle and avoid his gaze, falling back into his bed with a huff and closing your eyes.

"How was bootcamp?"

"You knew. How did you know."

"I know everything, Si." You close your eyes. "Told you I was a fairy when we were kids."

"Yer less of a fairy and more of father time."

"Who knows. Maybe I'm just cursed with knowledge."

"A curse?"

"Or somethin'." You stare up at his ceiling. "How was bootcamp. Really."

"Offered a spot on the SAS."

"You wanna go?"

Simon turns to stare at you, taking a seat by the floor of the bed as he stares at you, and you turn to face him.

"Y' want me to?"

You stare at him, letting the water in your eyes speak for you.

"Oh, angel. don' cry." He whispers, hand reaching to brush the tears as he frowns. "I wasn' planning to."

"You can go." You mumble. "It's fine. I'm just scared."

"You? Scared?" He pinches your nose, humming quietly as you open your mouth to breathe.

"Yes. Me."

"'m not gonna go. I'll just meet you at uni."

"Simon Riley going to uni?"

"Got a problem with that, angel?" He lets go of your nose when the smile cracks at your face, and you roll over to laugh. "Think I'm too stupid for ya?"

"You wish." You hum. "You think I'd let you fall behind?"

"Never have." He hums, nudging you over as you roll to make space for him on the bed.

"So next cycle? Or are you gonna try somewhere else?"

"Might follow you halfway across the world. You'll fund me, won't ya?"

"Nah. Gonna make you pay rent at least." You swat at his arm playfully as he leans over you, humming as he stares down at you. "Glad your pretty face wasn't ruined."

"Think I'm pretty?"

"Just the lashes."

"Takes too much t' please you." He rolls his eyes, eyes landing on your stomach as your shirt rides up, humming.

"So, did they fuck a lot in the camp? Is it true? Did you guys have a barrack bunny?"

Simon flicks your forehead. "No bunny. yes fucking."

You hold your hands over your mouth, gasping. "tell me more."

"I didn't do anythin'."

"No way."

"Not losing my v-card to a bunch of men in the military."

"Don't know, Si. That sounds like a porno title. Virgin man gets gangbaned by five buff military men... or whatever it is the titles are formatted like."

"'m not even gon' ask how you know that."

You laugh, eyes crinkling as Simon stares.

"'s good to see you again."

"I missed you too." You hum. "I don't mind you going. Really."

"'s my decision to not." He pinches your cheek, glancing at the door as his mother calls for you both to go eat. "I promise."

"Send me to the airport tomorrow?"

"Of course."

You let Simon drive you around before driving you to the airport. You say your goodbyes to your parents at your place, thanking Simon with a grin and a squeeze of his bicep as he lifts all of your luggage into the back of the car. You gasp quietly at the fact that his muscles are harder than before, giving them a second squeeze as he rolls his eyes at you.

"You take that back!"

"Don't know what yer talkin' about."

You don't talk to him too much in the car, too preoccupied with staring out the window. Simon doesn't pry, used to the comfort of your silence when you need it. Besides, you're being sent off to somewhere where you'll be far from him. He wonders if that'll hurt him more or you. You're great, though. You promised you'd write to him, and he's more worried that somehow he will forget to write back to you and you will forget about his existence. You're too far away for comfort.

What if someone else lays eyes on you?

He helps you load the luggage, pulling it with him as you check for your passport, letting Simon put everything down for you, giving his forearm a gentle squeeze in thanks when you arrive with him at the gate. You let him wander around with you before you're supposed to board. He'll wring the final moments you have with him dry, he supposes.

You open your arms for him, squeezing him gently when his arms find themselves around your waist, squeezing you back.

"It's your turn to give me a goodbye kiss." You tap your cheek, tilting your head as you hum, and Simon mumbles under his breath, thumb brushing your bottom lip as he stares down at you for permission.

"You gonna kiss me properly? Real bold of you, Si."

"If you'd let me."

You wrap your arms around his neck, tilting your head as he brushes your bottom lip, staring, staring, staring before letting his lips brush yours gently, softly, and pulling away just as quick. Like a ghost of a kiss — lingering feelings that he can't quite pour out onto you yet because it wouldn't be fair.

"That alright?" He continues to stare at your lips, only snapping out of it when you notice boarding has started.

"More than alright." You reach up to give him a kiss on his cheek, humming as you take two steps back with your luggage. "I'll see you!"

"See you, then."

"Yer gonna let me study abroad without a boyfriend? How cruel of you, Si. Write to me!" You laugh, tugging your carry-on with you as you wave at him from the gate.

Simon stays to stare at you until you've disappeared down the corridor to the plane.

Then, his fingers find his lips where he had kissed you, and then the cheek that you had given him a kiss to.

Ah. He misses you already.

You write to him as promised. You send letters to him and he sends them back, sending you updates on how everyone has been, writing growing more and more illegible with the letters. He wonders if you're able to read everything he sends sometimes, but he eventually sends you a letter with the number slotted into his phone, and when you write to him that you'd be visiting on a certain date, you tell him to pick you up.

The first thing that Simon notices is that you've changed.

Not that you've ever been someone that he's found predictable, but you have changed beyond what Simon can remember from you.

"It's the air." You laugh.

He stares at you, uncertain if he really knows who you are anymore. Was he the one who was being left behind?

You mentioned that you'd never leave him behind.

"Y'sure changed."

"Cultural differences." You open your arms for him, tilting your head when he shakes his head at you.

"'m all smelly from work."

You frown at him.

"Maybe we both changed."

You spend the afternoon lodged at Simon's flat because you didn't want to go home. It's just a week or two, you tell him.

He hands you booze to drink, and you ask him how work has been.

"You still gonna join me?"

"I think I'm alright here."

He fears though, that by doing so, he's going to drift away from you.

"That's good." You grin at him. "If life ever gets too boring, come find me. I'm sure my friends would flip it if some guy who's like a hundred ninety two centimeters tall dropped by and called himself my best friend."

"You talk about me?"

"How could I not?" You tilt your head at him from the passenger seat, blinking slowly. "Si, did you forget about me when I'm gone? It's a little rude of you, you know?"

"I couldn't even if I was killed." He hums. "Your luggage's lighter."

"Mhm. Most of my stuff is with a friend who lives nearby." You grin. "Didn't want you to blow out your back for me."

"Couldn't do that if y' tried."

Simon wonders if there's something in the air when you come back to visit.

"You plan on stayin' there?"

"Maybe." You hum. "I quite like it."

"Leavin' me to fend on my own, huh?"

"It'd be unfair for either of us to do something all for the sake of the other. Your comfort comes before mine." You grin. "Get me a little something to eat?"

"Got dinner at 'ome." He hums. "Your favorite."

"What if it's changed?"

"You can't be sayin' that when you told me less than a month ago."

You laugh in the front seat, grinning.

"Dated yet, Si?"

"No." He hums. "This girl stops by the shop but I don' really like her like that."

"Mm." You tap your chin. "Broken no one in yet?"

Simon coughs at your choice of words, coughing as he catches his breath, your hand patting his back as you laugh.

"Bloody hell."

You have a shit-eating grin on your face when he catches a glance.

"Why? Y'been broken in yet?"

"Nope. Waiting for a certain someone to do the honors."

You laugh at the way he's red for the whole ride back.

Yet, he makes no real move on you back at his place. He hands you a glass of water and settles himself next to you on the couch, letting you show him the variety of items you've brought back to give him, grinning at him when he stares at the strange combination of things.

"Why'd you come back during such a shite time?"

"I wanted to spend the new year with you." You hum, blinking at the snow that's come with the weather.

"You didn't come back during summer."

"No." You close your eyes, throwing your head back. "I wanted to, but I decided not."

"Why."

You kick your legs over his, huffing as you grumble. "It was hard. Flying out the country's hard."

"Cuz of the thing, huh?"

"Yeah." You rest your head on his shoulder, staring out the window. "You got work these days?"

"Nah. Old guy's home with his family. Y' gonna go home?"

"No." You close your eyes. "Didn't tell mom n dad I'd be back."

"Yeah? Just me?"

"Just wanted to see you." You whisper, taking his hand and fiddling with his fingers.

"Y've gotten real handsy since ya left."

"Maybe I just missed you." You mumble. "It's lonely without you."

"Don't love y'er other friends?"

"Love you more." You whisper, finger smooth against his ring finger as you feel him tense up under you.

"Y'love me?"

"Si, I've known you since forever. Of course I do." You rest your hand on top of his, opening your eyes as you whisper.

"Oh, like that."

You don't breach the subject of love further than that, playing with Simon's fingers as he turns on the TV for a match, letting you get comfy with him under a blanket and eventually fall asleep. He stares down at you, voice tight in his throat as he rests his hand on your forearm, heart painful in his chest. Distance has given him no time to think if all he thinks of is you. But, it would be cruel to tell you of something that's long been his problem.

It is not your burden to bear.

It is not your portion to carry.

He rests his eyes as well, the two of you staying that way until late night, Simon first to rouse as he looks out the window.

It is dark outside.

You stir as he does, leaning back onto the couch to stretch out, and kick your legs out, and Simon holds your ankle to push it to the side. The snow creates the illusion of an empty street, and the black and white hurt each other in the lack of light, but you keep staring. It reminds Simon of when you were kids. The staring has since gotten better, but every now and then he catches you staring into nothing.

"Dinner?"

"Sounds good." You kick the blanket off of you, yawning as you follow him to the kitchen. "'m tired."

"Long flight."

"Mhm." You sit at the island, watching as Simon heats the food for you, staring at him as you lean on your palm. "Si, why did you never date?"

"Why should I?"

"Donno."

Simon takes out dinner from the microwave, placing it in front of you as he stares.

"Will y' ever tell me about the staring problem?"

"Probably not." You wiggle your hands comically as you grin.

"Don't do that again."

"So you hate me." You start at dinner anyway, thanking Simon as you chew on the food, scraping the plate in the end when you finish, grinning.

"How's Tommy?"

"Great. Getting engaged soon."

"Ooh! Did you help him pick a ring?"

"No. He went ring shoppin' with his girl." Simon hums.

"Wish you could show me."

"Get dinner with him sometime. I can arrange it. He comes over Friday nights."

"Can't I just grab dinner with him friday night then?"

"Next week?"

"Sure."

"I'll tell him."

"It's Christmas week." You hum. "Did you grab me anything?"

"No." He rolls his eyes. "Dinner wasn' enough?"

You pretend to think, grinning at him when he raises a brow.

"I'm kidding."

"Sure hope you are."

You wake up to a surprise on Christmas anyway, eyes glimmering when Simon serves you breakfast with a gift, kicking your legs as you gush to him about how he didn't need to. You give him a squeeze on his bicep as you ask him if you can unwrap it, pulling at the little ribbon and paper, grinning when you spot the headphones you've written to him about, bottom lip quivering as tears threaten to spill, and Simon rushes to brush them from your cheek, calling you a crybaby while he's at it.

"I should give something back to you."

"Yer back, hm? That's m' gift."

"But I like being with you too." You mumble, hand finding his as your thumb brushes his. "D'you want anything? Anything."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

Simon stares down at your lips, humming as he raises a brow.

"Truly?"

"Use my body or whatever. I trust you." Your voice quiets the more you speak. "I'm all yours."

"Tell me to stop whenever." Simon's thumb finds your bottom lip, brushing it as he presses his lips to yours — hungry, decades of holding back overflowing and spilling into you, hands gripping the counter til his knuckles turn white, tongue shoved down your throat and a hum in his as you pant once he pulls off of you, staring as your eyes haze over and your chest rises and falls, lips parted as you blink to come back to him, bottom lip glossy from his saliva as he brushes it once more. "y'still with me, angel?"

"Mhm." You hum. "You sure you didn't go around kissing others while I was gone?"

"On my life."

"Surprising." You reach up to cup his face, thumb brushing his bottom lip as you hum. "Only ever kissed me, hm? Only wanna kiss me?"

"Bloody hell, what did going to uni teach ya?"

You laugh, humming as you squeeze his face. "How to flirt, apparently. 's it working?"

"No."

The red of his ears betray him.

You're everything except the title, Simon finds. You barely bother hiding the fact that he's allowed to do whatever with you, lounging on his couch and sticking by him at every moment, barely bothering to hide your boredom with the TV and working your knuckles into his back instead. He doesn't need to look to know you've got a shit-eating grin on your face when he groans as you work out a knot in his back.

"Yer real tight, Si."

"Yer pickin' up my accent."

"Maybe it's cuz I love you." You dig your elbow into the muscle, earning a groan from his lips.

"At this point yer just messin' with me."

"Maybe." You hum, exhaling when the knot's released itself, and you collapse on his back, grumbling.

"Get off 'me."

"Don't call me heavy, big guy." You sigh, peeling yourself off of him anyway, falling back to the other arm of the couch.

"You got knots?"

"Don't think so. Sure you're not gonna get hard all pressed up on my ass, Si?"

"Said you were free use f'r the week."

"Didn't think you'd jump to fuck me like that." You settle on your stomach anyway, letting Simon run his hands along your back, oil warm on his hands as you settle with watching whatever's on the telly (it's a football game. you're not the biggest fan, but better than thinking about the fact that you're practically moaning and squirming under Simon. You can't run from the consequences of your actions forever).

Simon fights every bone in his body to not spill over and take things too far, jaw clenched as he brushes the knot from your shoulder, pushing his thumb into it as you whimper. He hears you bite your tongue, and fight back a moan, and it almost comforts him to know that you're not too far off either. Though, he doesn't mention anything when you swat at him to stop, rolling over to lay on your back, staring up at him through your lashes, humming as he stares down at you.

"Minx."

"Freak." You laugh, chest shaking as you grin, eyes crinkling as he presses his hands on your waist, thumb pressing down to your ribs, humming quietly.

"If I were a cut of meat—"

"What fuckin' nonsense are you askin' now?"

"Entertain me, won't you?"

"I wouldn't cut you up."

"You'd eat me raw?!"

"'m no cannibal, angel."

"Just say you won't fuck me."

You're pushing buttons, Simon finds. You're testing to see how much it'll take for him to crumble and snap in your hands. Your hand rubs at his bicep in the mornings when you pass him, cheek squished with his as you point while windowshopping, fingers laced with his as though you were really on a date, and Simon finds that it's hard to fight the red that ruins the pale of his skin, crackling between the cracks of his skin from the winter cold, forced to play it off as the fact that it is cold out. He gives your hand a gentle squeeze back when you ask him to enter a store, and he tugs you back when you're wandering off course.

"Did yer cough start this year?"

"Not yet." You hum. "Worried I'm gonna get you sick?"

"No. Worried you don't like the flavors where you are."

"You remember." You mumble, staring as he hands you the stick from the grocery bag.

"Hard to forget."

"Not when it's only mentioned in passing."

You take the stick anyway, unwrapping one and pressing it to your lips, sucking on it as you squeeze at his arm, puffer coat zipped all the way up as you head back to his place.

Simon doesn't snap the entire time that you're back for the week.

He knows you're trying to get him too, but he's probably held back more than you have over the years, so not much really moves him to do anything anymore. You can try all you want, but truly, you can't do all that much.

"Can I sleep with you tonight?"

Simon raises a brow from the island, blinking at you as you stare back at him.

"Not in the sex way. Just. Like when we were kids."

"You finally gonna tell me what all that staring you did as a kid meant?"

"Maybe." You place the dishes into the dishwasher, blinking slowly as you turn around to stare at Simon. "But I don't think you'd believe me."

"I'd argue against that. Can't tell me something insane."

"Oh, I'm sure." You mumble. "I'm sure you'd believe some made up war story from a world in the past."

"Is that what it was?"

"I don't know." You blink slowly, taking off the gloves and letting them dry as Simon stares. stares. stares.

Past your eyes and through your soul, like you're just a piece on display. Like he knows something you don't. He doesn't. Simon knows better than anyone that despite every single cell of his body crying for him to pour himself to devote to you, you would never accept it. You wouldn't. You wouldn't let him "throw his future away" all for the sake of you. Something stops you from letting him devote himself to him, and something stops you from just accepting that maybe Simon wants it and it isn't a side effect of being friends for so long.

There's a constant need to take care of him better than he takes care of you.

Simon finds it in the way you hand him a mug of water before bed, throwing the blanket over the two of you, flashlight resting between the two of you as you blink at him.

"You gon' tell me?"

"No." You hum. "But I'll tell you another secret if you tell me one. You first, though."

Simon doesn't keep secrets from you other than the fact that he loves you.

"I don' have any."

"None at all?"

"I tell you everything."

You blink at him from under the covers, tilting your head.

"Everything?"

Almost.

"Thinkin' 'bout signing up SAS." He whispers, voice cracking as he watches the grief crack past your eyes and your face drop. You don't mention anything, telling him it's fine as you collect yourself, swallowing everything back and smiling again.

"Yeah?"

"Thinkin' bout it."

"You gonna go? Really?" You whisper — scared. Simon knows you enough to be able to sense when you're scared. It's rare you even display such an honest emotion to him.

"Why don't you want me to?"

"No, it's just." You shake your head. "'m being paranoid. I'm just upset that I might not get to see you again."

"I'll see you between missions."

"I'm out of the country, Si." You mumble. "I can't visit all the time."

"I know." He mumbles. "but I've got to do sumthin 'n if not this, then I don' know what."

You rest your head against his chest, voice quiet as he runs his hand through your hair, pressing down to get you to relax for him.

"'m thinking about settling down permanently there."

Ah.

Simon seems to understand why you'd be so panicked at his enlistment. Truly, he wouldn't get to see you again, maybe. He'd be busy and if you start work, then you wouldn't get to see him at all. You can't write back to him if he's moving around, and his phone would most likely be off-limits in the service. Too little to do. Too little to hold on to. Maybe that is what you have feared.

"I'll tell you one more secret, then, Si." You mumble, hands finding his chest as you close your eyes.

"'s it, angel?"

"Tommy's gonna get married to her and then they're gonna have a boy." You close your eyes, and Simon feels you furrow your brows against his chest. "He's gonna be named Joseph. Joseph Riley. Sweet boy. Lovely, even."

"Why are you telling me this."

"Just." You whisper. "Just remember that."

You don't respond, going quiet for the rest of the trip, only giving him a hug at the airport and waving goodbye. You leave him your new address, smiling at him.

Simon doesn't know if he likes the silence he's left with when you're gone from his flat.

Yet, he's gone anyway, sending you letters that you can never quite send back, always too close or too far. He mails small things that remind him of you — tucks a photo of you into his helmet, stares up at the stars when it's night with a smoke between his fingers (that you'd scold him for) while the rest of the team joins him. He climbs up ranks — never stops writing to you. During the few times he has off, he returns to the empty flat and wonders how you're doing. You don't write back to him.

He wonders if you get his letters at all.

Yet, he can't stop to think. He can't stop. He just.

He becomes a Lieutenant.

When he's asked if he'd like someone to be at the ceremony, he briefly wonders if you'd fly over for him.

He doesn't ask you.

His feelings aren't yours to deal with.

Tommy and his mother help him pin it, but he'd wish that the hands promoting him to a higher position was you. It's to prove to you. It's to prove to you that he's fine and alive. Maybe it holds the same sentiment as when he writes to you. He's still alive, angel. He's still in one piece, even if you can't write back to him. He wonders if you still live there. Are his letters meeting a stone wall? Is it a brick wall that stands between the two of you? He'd break it down, but he doesn't want to risk the chances of you getting hurt in the crumble.

He returns home for Christmas one year, wondering if you'd be home. Tommy mentions sending you a wedding invite through Simon, and he stares. Really. Just stares at the wedding invitation. He doubts you'd answer. You feel like a ghost of his past. It's almost as if you had known that he'd never see you again when you had spent a winter with him. Like you knew. Like you wish he knew. Like when you pulled him under the blankets with a flashlight, you had known, maybe, that he'd be gone and you'd be gone.

When he sends the letter to the address you gave him, he almost worries that Tommy won't get a response back. (He slips an additional letter asking you if you'd like to be his plus one, but he doesn't have much faith that you'll respond to that one.)

Then, he's off and back to the military.

You meet him at Tommy's wedding.

You find him in the crowd, eyes lighting up as you sit next to him in the crowd, chattering excitedly about how you finally get to see him again. He listens to you talk. You've changed — as one does, and he has as well. Yet, he doesn't mind the change this time. You seem the same as before, sparkling eyes, only a little more mature. You look less like a kid and more like an adult now. You look pretty as you ever are.

"Missed you so much." You mumble. "So so much. Love reading your letters. Please never stop writing to me."

"You read em but won't send responses to my flat?"

"You didn't sell it?"

Simon shakes his head.

"Then I will. I'll write back to your flat." You mumble. "I just worry that your mailbox will overflow."

"Tommy takes care of it."

"Yeah?"

"Mhm."

"Alright." You grin. "You got a phone when you're off duty?"

He shakes his head.

"We'll stick to letters, then."

You sit with Simon at dinner. The wedding is nice. You're nice. Simon missed you, and he almost wants to ask if you've got a booking for somewhere because apparently you had tugged along with you a luggage when you first arrived and left it at the front for safekeeping. Maybe you'll ask him. It wouldn't be strange if you did. He has a day off, but you're more than welcome to stay as long as you want in his flat. He'll get you a copy of his key, even.

Maybe you'll give him a copy of yours next. He'd like to visit sometime.

"Si." You whisper, nudging him gently with the tip of your heel.

"Hm?"

"You got space in your flat?"

"I'll give y' a copy of the key. I gotta get back in the mornin'"

"You only took a day off?"

"'s just a weddin', no?"

"It's Tommy's wedding."

"Still a weddin', angel."

"Oh, should I be worried that you'll only take a day off for our wedding?" You squeeze his arm as you wave at Tommy and his bride.

Simon blinks at you.

"Y' did not just say that."

"Hm?" You tilt your head at him. "D'ya stop lovin' me over our break?"

"Who said I ever loved y'a?"

"The voices." You let go of his arm, going back to the food.

Simon takes you home after you get plastered at Tommy's wedding. He's never seen you drink so much, but to be fair, you didn't drink all that much last time you were at his flat. You seem like nothing to him as he carries you, letting you hang off of his shoulder as he brings you up the stairs, raising a brow at you when you beeline for his bathroom and throw up over the toilet.

"Regret drinkin' yet?"

"No." You rasp. "Fuck, no. Can't get alcohol this good where I'm stuck."

"Thought you loved it there."

"I only love being next to you." You start again, Simon sitting by your side as he holds your hair up. "Fuckin' hell."

"Yer slurrin' your speech, angel."

"Speakin' like you." You huff, crying. "I missed you, Si. Really did."

"Missed y' too."

You rest your palm against your forehead, eyes closed as you whimper. "'s lonely without you."

"Yeah?"

"Mhm." You mumble. "Thought I could take it again."

"Again?"

"Again." You whisper. "And again. Si, I'm not made for casual I'm made for soul crushing devotion. God, I need to move on already. Why's it so hard to move on?"

"F'rm who?"

You turn to him, eyes glossy and red as you let out a laugh— pathetic. Almost as though you were laughing at yourself.

"'m not gonna come clean about that, Si."

"Never?"

"Maybe when you get married." You bend over the toilet again, closing your eyes.

"Though' it was we?"

You laugh. "If you survive."

"You always know somethin', angel."

"Hard not to." You throw your head back, furrowing your brows as you focus on breathing. "I'd like for it to stop, though."

"And how would that happen?"

"Can't. Cursed with the knowledge. Wish you could just fuck it out of me, honest."

You wake up to the worst hangover of your life — head cracking open down the middle as you sit up and rub at your neck, groaning as you stretch your back. Getting plastered at Tommy's wedding was probably not worth it.

"Hey." Simon hands you a bowl of soup, and you whimper as you press it to your lips, drinking.

"Thought you had to go."

"You looked like shite when y' went to bed."

You huff. "So you stayed back?"

"If not me then who?"

"I could've handled it."

"Wouldn' have wanted y'to." He hums. "Wiped your face down last night."

"Thank you, Si." You mumble. "You angel."

"All you."

"No. Not this time." You close your eyes. "Did I tell you anything?"

"Said you thought y'could take being alone again."

He leaves out the part where you had cried about him fucking you.

"Oh." You mumble. "'m just lonely."

Without him.

"Would you let me visit?"

"Shall I give you a spare as well?" You tilt your head. "Or do you want to do it classic style and break into my place?"

"A spare would be nice."

"Okie dokes." You hum. "You can go back in the afternoon. I feel much better."

"Won't let me stay longer?"

"I'd assume you can only stay for so long."

"Can ask for longer. The captain'll get it."

"You don't need to, Si."

"Thought y'missed me?"

"I do."

"Then let me stay. Allow yourself tha' much."

"Yeah?"

He nods.

You let him.

He sticks behind and wanders around with you, following after you with your bags as you point and shop, squeezing Simon gently, stopping halfway to feed him, your fingers nimble on your new device as you click.

"A cell phone?"

"Mhm." You rummage through your bag, frowning when there's a lack of something. "Forgot it."

"Forgot what?"

"I'll give it to you later."

You end up leaving it on Simon's bedside — something he returns to after deployment, brow raised as he reads through the album and the songs you've burned down for him. The letter you tuck behind the tracklist doesn't go unnoticed, Simon's first letter greeting him in the house from you as he looks through the rest of his mail. You've started writing back. Blue and black envelopes stick out from the whites of formal mail, and he flips through them, your writing familiar to his eyes as he sits back with a cup of water, reading through your responses to what he writes to you.

He feels childish writing to you sometimes. The pen feels a little too light for a hand that only knows the sword and not pen. Well, sword is wrong. Gun. His hands are much more used to the weight of a weapon than a quill.

It helps ground him sometimes.

His letters are most certainly darker than yours. You report about what you've been working on in school, sending him tickets to your graduation later in the year. You tell him that it doesn't really matter if he doesn't attend, but you wanted to give it to him anyway. The extra ticket is in case he actually found someone in the military to bring as a plus one.

It wounds Simon that you'd think he wouldn't stick with you.

He writes back to you, marking down your graduation and taking the day off in advance with his captain, nodding when asked if it's the same person he took the week off for last time.

"Must really love 'er, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

"Got a ring on it?"

"No, sir."

"Better move quick, Simon. Yer at the age where dating's all the storm."

Simon wonders if you'd agree to do long distance if he can't call you all that much.

You deserve someone who'll at least be there for you when you need it.

Yet, he lingers a little too long in front of the jewelry store, battered and bruised face in the reflection of the glass, staring himself in the eye as he wonders just why you had called him pretty back then. He's hardly pretty now. Mangled upper lip and scratches on his cheek — there is no trace of the "pretty" you had once called him. Though, his lashes stay the same, so he wonders if you'll still recognize if the only thing visible are his eyes.

He stares for a second too long at the jewelry store, stepping in and looking for something you'd like.

A ring.

"A nice dramatic gem for the engagement ring" you had told him once. Yet, despite it all, the sketches you had drawn for him had been a moderate gem. A ring that would remind you of how much he loves you — it had been a simple request. Even without the title of it all. You did not need to know what you were and what you weren't. If you had the certainty that one day the two of you would end up together anyway, then why waste the effort and consider or think over other people?

Simon understands you a little more now.

"Custom. If y'do 'em."

He pulls out the sketches you made as a child. Messy and childish ones — ones where it's a moonstone or pearly, never a diamond, and ones where Simon's handwriting as a child are visible to leave ideas for his own. You did not know. He did not either. But there's something quite assuring in just knowing. Simon knows you love him. It's quite a simple thing, really. You love him in the letters you write back, painful detail down to the point and making sure not to miss a thing. You love him in the trips where you're back, refusing to book a hotel and squeezing into his flat with him, limbs tangled in an intimacy that you've both grown comfortable in.

Simon loves you too. He loves you in the simplicity of having grown up with you — in the hair held up as you throw up, and in staying back when you won't let him but you need him. He loves you quietly the same way you love him. It's quite simple, really. It doesn't matter if you won't marry him or that you deserve someone better than Simon. All that really matters is that you want him, and he wants you too. There isn't too much other thinking he should do. You've always been more simple like that.

He writes you a letter back, asking if you want any particular flowers (not that he'll get the chance to read what you want).

He'll know what to get you when the time comes.

There's a sense of stability that Simon's learned to realize now that he's older or whatever. Settling down with you and retiring from the military won't kill him. He'll just open a nice little shop by where you live if he has to. You won't let him, but you trust him enough to let him make his own decisions now. It doesn't matter what you refuse to tell him. Time will tell him, and then eventually, you'll be honest. He just has to have faith or whatnot.

He brings the ring to your graduation, sitting in the back with your family, catching up with them. He wears a mask to hide the scars on his face and whatnot, but nothing outside of it. There's a sense of age that's crept up with him, and something weighs on his shoulders, but you'll work it out of him like you always have. Seeing you in your robes and throwing your hat is more than enough to let him forget for a moment.

There's a long life of him ahead on the battlefield if he decides upon it. He'd like something to go home to or meet up with halfway.

Preferably you.

He tucks the bouquet under his arm with the box in his pocket, meeting you halfway as you spot him in the crowd of people immediately, his name yelled and your friends abandoned for him, launching yourself into his arms as he catches you with an arm, humming as you squeeze his biceps, eyes lit up as you ramble to him. He watches you, eyes gentle and warm as his mind reminds him that yes, this is what bliss is to him. Simple, easy, bliss.

"Got you flowers."

"Yeah?" You tilt your head, grinning as he presents them to you. "Can we get dinner at mine later? I'd go to the grad party but I missed you a whole lot and you probably have a hotel so—"

"You'll host me?"

"I live alone."

"Tha's unsafe, angel."

"So?"

"You wan' me to pick?"

"Nah. Takeout at my place, but I'll get to say I have dinner plans."

"And your parents?"

"They'll understand." You glance at the flowers. "You tryna tell me something with the single rose amongst all those yellows? Ooh, white carnations..."

"Maybe I am."

"You've gotten bold, Si." You laugh, squeezing his forearm as your parents spot you. "I'll send you my address. Love you lots, kay? See you in a bit."

Simon bends down to press his lips to your forehead, humming as he sends you off with a pat.

You seem to know too.

He enters with the spare key you keep buried in the depths of the crevice of a window, setting his luggage down as he reads your texts about where to stay and put his stuff. You live comfortably. He understands why you wouldn't want to move. His flat is significantly less impressive than this, yet you stayed with him every time. Considering it all, you probably could've just bought out a flat next to him if you really wanted to.

Maybe there is love in the way you simply choose to exist the way you do.

You return home a little later, makeup smudged and messy as you tell him you ended up in the backseat with some friends, but you managed to get home in one piece. You abandon the robe and hat, shaking out the bobby pins as you recite the local pizza place to Simon, pulling out a drawer with your makeup remover as you do.

It feels oddly domestic.

"Wh'd'ya want?"

"Just tell em my name. They know my order. Oh, tell 'em to make it a combo this time. You can ask them what options they have. I like the wings, but their salad isn't bad."

"This what you've been livin' off of in uni?"

"Maybe." You pause to yawn, shaking the bottle and pulling out cotton pads to get everything off. "They're good though, I promise."

"Trust you." He dials.

You're not wrong.

Simon sits with you on your couch as you tangle limbs with him, pulling the pizza out and letting the cheese stretch as you do, your TV turned on as you let him watch the game.

"Si, what do you think about me moving back?"

"Why? Y'live comfortable here."

"It's lonely without you."

"Yeah?" He reaches down to rub circles on your knee with his free hand. "Y'er so much better off here, though."

"We can just get a new place in Manchester." You lick your fingers, reaching for another slice. "I'll buy it. It can be a dowry or whatever."

"I couldn't let y' do that, angel."

"Why not?" You raise a brow. "I'm willing to."

"Then let me take care of utilities."

"If y'want."

Simon slides his hand up your leg, squeezing your thigh gently as you turn to look at him, pizza crumbs on the corner of your lips as he fishes something out from his pocket.

"If yer willin'—"

"Oh, hell, yes. Please." You grin.

"At least le' me finish."

"Sorry, Si." You hum. "Shall we reroll and rerecord?"

"'s fine." He hums, opening the box as he squeezes your thigh, humming quietly as he presents the ring to you.

"I can't promise bein' in bed with you every night, but I can promise an eternity of the time I have that is my own with you." He hums. "I'll come back to you in one form or another. I'll leave if y'want it. Anything you ask for, I will give. Marry me, angel?"

"Will I be upgraded to luvie if I do?"

"Anythin' y' want. Missus Riley, even."

"It's a yes, Si. Always a yes. Thought it was obvious when I said our wedding at Tommy's." You hum. "Let me wash my hands, though. Got crumbs and oil all over 'em."

"I'll wipe the ring down later. Gimme y'er hand."

You lick your ring finger, giving Simon your hand as he presses a kiss to the finger, delicate, gentle, soft before sliding the ring on.

"Looks real familiar." You observe the design, pausing when it hits you. "Did you keep the drawing I made back in Year 7??"

"Surprised y'noticed."

Your bottom lip quivers, tears welling in your eyes as Simon reaches to hold your head to his chest, humming as you wipe at the tears, chest shaking from laughter.

"Yer so stupid." You laugh, folding the last of your pizza and finishing it in a bite. "y'er such a bloke."

Simon pokes at your cheek, your hand flying up to swat at his as he hums.

"Yer bloke."

"Guh."

Two months later, Simon returns to help you move.

You sell the majority of your furniture and tell him you've got your eye on a nice little place a little more outskirt, but he tells you to pick where you'll be comfortable. He truly only needs to come home to you and it'll be enough. You kick at him and tell him at least to tell you whether it should be a flat or a townhouse or whatever. He settles with you as the two of you look into an agent, and eventually you find a place you both like to some extent.

You move back home to Simon, and you blink as you settle into the new place, keys in your hand as you squeeze Simon. You're back on the couch, legs kicked over his as your thumbs brush at his cheeks, staring.

“Heard Tommy’s baby is coming soon”

“Mhm.”

“Did they pick a name?”

Simon raises a brow at you when you tilt your head and blink.

“Joseph, luvie. Joseph.”

You laugh, cheeks warm as Simon hums.

"Yer still pretty as ever, Si."

"Even with the mangled lip?"

"Adds flavor." You grin. "Funny that we haven't gone on a proper date yet."

"Y'wanna go on a date? Bring your documents. We're off to get the civil ceremony."

"Wow, really can't wait f'r me to become Missus Riley, huh?"

"Waited long enough. 'm sure you've waited longer." He mumbles. "A whole life, even."

"Whole two." You hold up your fingers. "I'll tell you all about it after you finally break me in."

"Bloody hell."

You laugh, cheeks warm and eyes closed as Simon stares.

This, he understood.

You, he understands.

In this life, and whatever other he had.

You, he knows.

"Thinking?" You quirk your head to the side

"Thinkin' bout you, luvie."

"Yeah? You'll be doing that a lot more now, Si."

"Always have been."

[kaisaerinlover]

michael kaiser

tw: incest , abuse

thinking of nii-chan kaiser ,

big brother kaiser who grew up protecting his sweet little sister from all of the abuse his dad put him through. kaiser who doesn’t want his baby sister to suffer the way he did. even though it was painful it was all worth it, seeing how you would bandage him up and kiss all of his injuries better after, it never numbed the physical pain but it gave him butterflies even as kids.

big brother kaiser who never went to school, neither did you, so neither of you had contact with the opposite gender much, especially not in any way you could be romantic with them. no parents to take example from, to chastise you for the inappropriately growing relationship between you both.

big brother kaiser who’s overly protective of his baby sister because he doesn’t want her to ever have to face any of the horrors he did to any degree at all. a big brother who keeps his little sister shielded from everything and anything, from his father to the prying glances of other boys as they both grew up.

big brother kaiser who took most of the beatings and abuse from their father, and the few times his angel of a sister wound up hurt he hated himself for it. he hated himself for the fact that he couldn’t protect you, even though it happened so rarely to you, even though it was out of his control. big brother kaiser who punishes himself and gives you his small ration of food for the week after he allowed you to get hurt.

big brother kaiser who starts seeing more and more of his mother in himself and especially his precious baby sister as she grows up. he remembered everything so well, but you were an infant when your mother picked up and left. you don’t understand why your brother is being increasingly weird to you?

kaiser’s little sister who notices how protective kaiser really is, how possessive and overbearing he can be. kaiser’s little sister who notices her brother having more and more anger. going out more and thieving. kicking and beating his soccer ball with such force it scares even her, even though kaiser has sworn so many times he would never ever lay a hand on her. and he hasn’t. he’s always protected you and taken good care of you, giving you stolen food, little trinkets he thieved and a lot of love. or at least, what you both thought is love. what love was meant to be.

big brother kaiser who gets increasingly meaner to his baby sister because he sees so much of his mother in her. :< he gets so insecure that he doesn’t leave you alone at any given times any more, but he’s still so angry. he doesn’t want any guys to take you away from him. you can’t leave, you can’t leave just like mom did? he’s not going to let you go the same way he let your mother go.

big brother kaiser who vows to himself that he’ll stop taking out all of this rage on you, and he’ll put it into football. a nii chan who wants to treat his little princess to a lifetime of luxuries, and make up for his toxic behaviour, starting now. but it’s challenging isn’t it? you can’t just simply exert all of your emotions into soccer, there’s always going to be lingering hard feelings.

big brother kaiser who does become a prodigy, he was michael to you, never kaiser. but the sport has changed him, he swears he’s doing all of this for you, his angel, his princess, his baby, his cute little sister, and he is, but he’s so different now. he’s so angry, and you’re a great outlet, aren’t you little imouto?

big brother kaiser and sweet little sister who realise their relationship is far from normal. maybe if you had the proper guidance and love of a mother and father your relationship wouldn’t have turned out this way. maybe if kaiser taught you a thing or two he read in all of those psychology books he oh so loves to read you wouldn’t have turned out this way. he feels so guilty sometimes, but he has to keep you around somehow.

big brother kaiser and his doting baby sister who doesn’t mind his harshness, because even she realises they don’t have their parents, and that’s not normal. all she has is her big brother, the one who warded off all the boys who tried to hurt her and take her away from him, so he says, and took care of her all this time. a brother who protects his sister from the world at any cost, he feels a little guilty sometimes, because he knows lying and manipulating his fucking sister is wrong, but what else can he do? he doesn’t want to lose you too?

big brother kaiser who has his little sister wrapped around his pinky finger. big brother kaiser who’s equally as wrapped around your pinky finger. a brother who’s willing to completely mutilate any semblance of morality he had left just to keep you close. and you’re so unaware. but even if you knew, would you care? big brother kaiser and his little sister who love each other so much. don’t let the press find out about this sick love you have going on though, that wouldn’t end well, would it?

big brother kaiser who wanted his sister to grow into her own person, be nothing like him, be devoid of weakness in the past. he was so insecure, so unsure of himself, but now he knows that’s not right at all. kaiser who loves taking care of his sister, even if he can get a little mean sometimes. but that aching resemblance you both bear to your mother is a gentle reminder of why he’s doing this. he can’t lose his favourite girl in the world. he can’t lose someone else so dearly beloved to him.

michael kaiser who’s so happy to see his baby sister in the crowd, watching all of his games, cheering him on. michael kaiser who wants nothing more than to welt the soccer ball right into the bastard next to you’s face for even trying to talk to you. but it’s okay, he’s trained you pretty well, he’s sure of that. you wouldn’t dare to entertain another man than your brother, because he’s all you need. and he’s satisfied when he sees you turn away from the man, like the little prude bitch you are. you look so spoilt, it’s funny, little does everyone know how the two of you grew up.

michael kaiser who spoils his baby sister rotten. using all of that hard earned soccer money on good food, shopping trips and everything you desire. everything but school, that is. school means education. education means you’re going to meet others. you’re going to meet other guys. you’re going to meet girls with older brothers. you’re going to realise how fucked this all is and leave too. he can’t let that happen. everything but school, you have little to no complaints about this arrangement anyway, why would you even need school? your big brother is the smartest anyway.

michael kaiser who wants to keep his little sister as innocent as possible, complete opposites. he experienced the most brutality in childhood, and you experienced the least. he played as your father figure most of the time, so maybe that’s why you’re so pure, he thinks. your big brother can’t help but smile at the thought as he puts on some cutely decorated bandaids on your injuries, sorry little sis, even your older brother gets really angry sometimes!

but unlike his dad, even in his fits of rage, he bandages you up and loves you after, because maybe if he strayed away from anything in his routine with you, you would leave just like mom. you’d gain the awareness he did, and he doesn’t want that happening. it’s for your own good, you know! “don’t ever leave me, süsser schwesterchen, it’ll do you no good, you know that right?” he muses to you, whilst patching you up. you giggle right back at him, because why wouldn’t you? in your pretty little head big brother does no wrong. “of course i won’t, never ever. love you ‘s much micha” he smiles at you, and pushes himself up to capture your lips in a sweet kiss, the kind a husband would give to his beautiful wife. “i love you too, angelic thing you are” but he knows he lied to you, he knows that leaving him can only bring good. but he won’t think too hard about it, because then the guilt will swallow him up. it’s only benefitting him, maybe it would do you better than good, great even, to get away from him. maybe his mother could tell what a sicko her son would grow up to be and that’s why she left. but he doesn’t want to lose you too. you’re all he fucking has left. he shakes off these thoughts and insecurities, because they don’t do him any good. he needs you and you need him. and it will stay like that forever. you’re so shielded from everything anyway, and you won’t ever want to change that.

all you need is kaiser and all kaiser needs is you. and he simply doesn’t care what level of depravity he has to stoop to in order to achieve this one singular goal of his.

[scifimademequeer]

Vulcan Tails

I'm not sure if it's known which fan "invented" Spock's tail, but in a nearly 60 year old fandom the actual pioneer is probably lost. I've been influenced by a ton of fan artists, notably shigeoreum here on tumblr and on twitter. They look very long and flexible, possibly prehensile, and end in a tuft of hair.

I've also seen the other obvious tail for Vulcans, a bifurcated tail like a demon, which is also cute but not my headcanon. From here on I'm just talking about my headcanons but I'm open to feedback/comments/questions lol. I just want to organize my thots

I really dig the imagery of a humanoid able to wrap their tail around their own waist semi-neatly. I think for most Vulcans this is the equivalent of poker face or maintaining composure, and in some formal clothing the tail is actually meant to be worn this way the entire time. It conveys several different attitudes depending on context, such as professionalism, objectivity, modesty, humility, etc.

And on the flip side, when the tail is "out" it is only mostly voluntarily controlled. It reacts to stimuli and emotions automatically and Vulcans work to control it as they mature the same way they discipline their own facial expressions and other bodily functions.

I think Surak had a docked/destroyed tail. Perhaps it was symbolic or a literal result of his outsider status. The tail could be your connection to your family line or community and when you are ostracized, it is literally cut.

This resulted in modern Surakians using the docked tail to signify the ultimate devotion to logic. And with the ritual of Kohlinar, the two meanings collide: a Kohlinar adept has achieved both perfect logic and perfect independence from their community. Your tail and your emotions are severed from you.

Along this same line, the tail is an instinctive object of interest for infants and small children. Many start walking as they hold onto their parent's tail. This could help a touch telepathy bond be maintained between children and caregivers while letting the caregivers use their hands freely.

I've read really interesting stuff about hunter/gatherer communities where babies almost never cry because they are in constant tactile contact with other people, including older children. They develop a tactile language before a verbal one and have all their needs for comfort met immediately. Sounds like how touch telepathy might work, or develop in a species.

A Vulcan in extreme distress might comfort themselves by stroking or holding their own tail. They may even comfort one another this way, or soothe a child by giving them an adult's tail to stroke. The equivalent gestures among humans might be rocking back and forth or hugging yourself.

The tail is prehensile to a certain degree but cannot lift heavy objects or ones that are too small to grip. The primary use of the tail is communication, it wants to wrap around the bodies of others as well as the Vulcan's own body. And remember that you can't pull on tails too hard because they're attached to the spine. Vulcans should have pretty well developed lower back muscles to wield this tail, I think

I have cats so I'm biased but I think the gestures are a blend between a cat's and a monkey's. Cats tails tremble, curve, lash, shake, whip, and wag to portray different emotions.

I'm writing a wedding fic and I realized that the children at the wedding would have bells and ribbons tied to the ends of their tails. But this would be seen as cringe on an adolescent or adult.

I think as far as touch telepathy goes it makes no sense for tails to be as telepathic as the hands, face, or genitals. BUT I would think that the skin of the tail IS somewhat sensitive. So, going back to the children touching a caregiver's tail, I think a Vulcan can naturally "sense" with their hands and attune to anywhere on a person's body that is ennervated. The tail is just very convenient and has developed to be a little receptive to telepathic touch, but not wield it as the hands do.

So the connotations of touching another adult's tail would be non-sexual intimacy and comfort. Maybe depending on how Surakian you are, or if you are in private, casual touching of tails is normal between friends and family members. It helps you coregulate to do so. Not only putting your hands on your friend's tail but putting your tail on their body. Maybe even wacking them with it to be annoying, I could see that as a sibling activity for sure.

[tofu83]

What men bred for

4. Stallions and Cows

Countless transparent glass columns are filled with milky white liquid. The liquid surges and gradually recedes, and white figures appear from them.

Now in each column is a smooth, hairless, muscular male figure without genitals. The color of figure’s skin gradually deepens from completely white to normal skin color. Then, the hair and the genital grows, and the figure becomes indistinguishable from a real person.

A strong gust of wind blew through the columns, leaving the men dry and clean. There was a beep in the room and they all opened eyes, the glass of the tube also retracting into the floor. Countless men who looked exactly the same stepped out of the platform, turned left, and walked towards another room.

The two "wild earthlings" escorted by the security drones were shocked by the sight in front of them.

"You were cultivated in this factory, but not in this cloning room. Only the best individuals will be cloned and directly made into adult individuals for rapid shipment." The drones explained to them in a monotone, emotionless voice.

"And you are prey-type humans who were raised from infants to adults using traditional methods, and then released into the wild for hunting. You do not have the memory here because according to regulations, all products leaving the factory must have their memories erased."

Before the two humans could understand the information they heard, a naked man wearing a helmet walked past them with two armored men wearing the same helmet.

"They are the latest products: Space Patrollers. They will be partially mechanized and equipped with armor before leaving the factory to adapt to the harsh environment of outer space. The one in the middle should be considered "the best of the best", so the mechanization process was stopped. He will be modified into a "Stallion" and he will provide his semen to create excellent clones until he die."

" Yet you two are an inferior breed that does not know how to obey your alien masters. You cannot become soldiers, guards or other useful characters, except used as nothing but food." the security drones said.

"However, the R&D director of the factory believes that even wild low-level species like yours can be domesticated, so he arranged this factory tour for you."

The two prisoners were taken to the next room, which contained a row of huge glass tanks filled with milky white liquid, a super muscular man wearing a helmet and covered in black rubber armor, and a group of men wearing helmets, boots and metal briefs.

"What you see is the Bellwether and a whole herd of Cows. The screens on the inside of their helmets are playing scenes of human sexual intercourse in a loop, and the metal underwear constantly stimulates their genitals and arseholes, keeping them on the edge of climax for a long time.

The difference is: the semen of the Cows is of high quality and can be used as high-quality nutrition for the alien masters. They should fill the entire tanks with semen every day;

The Bellwether is responsible for managing the entire herd of dairy cows. Their own semen is of poor quality, but their desire for semen is so strong that they are not allowed to ejaculate but are fed semen as a reward for their work.”

"So why are the masters showing us this?" one of the prisoners asked tremblingly.

"It is a very good start for you to start calling 'Masters'. You will make preliminary adjustments, put on the mind control helmet, and assist the R&D director in the laboratory as a 'Quality Control Assistant' for one month. The earthlings who can serve as the Master's personal assistant is supreme glory."

"And after that?"

"After one month, your helmets will be removed, and the R&D director will review your degree of domestication to determine whether you can become better individuals, or you can only be destroyed."

Before the two prisoners could react, they were put on helmets. A spiral appeared in front of their eyes. The director's whispers sounded in their ears. At the same time, they also felt a device being installed on their groin, giving them a comfortable feeling.

The drone released the two prisoners, trembling with pleasure at the "reward" the armor had given them.

The two prisoners, now "Temporary Drones", were completely hypnotized, controlled by the helmet's instructions, and walked towards the quality control room like robots.

[swift-creates]

category: Gen

fandom: DC Comics (Young Justice, Batfamily)

characters and relationships: Tim Drake, clone baby, Kon haunts the narrative (Timkon isn’t explicit but. it’s a clone baby au)

warnings: almost drowning, infant whump

Summary:

@ailesswhumptober Day 29: Ownership, branding, “Everybody will know that you’re mine.”

Tim tries to clone Kon, but this time it works.

notes: I can write so many Timkon fics with this prompt list :fireElmo: Inspired by this post by @hyperblue which has haunted me from the moment I saw it please come bother me with interest about this AU or any of mine plsplspls on my knees in tears pls

—

Tim woke to the loud beeping of one of the many machines in his lab. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, frowning at his reflection in the powerless computer screen; there were sleep marks on his cheek from the sleeve of his sweater, but aside from that he barely looked like he’d rested at all. The circles under his eyes hadn’t budged, and he sighed and scrubbed his hands across his face. It wasn’t like anyone was going to see them, anyway. He rarely left his lab except to grab more snacks from Titans Tower when he ran out, his work far too important to abandon. 

Tim got up and trudged past the empty cloning chambers to look for whatever had gone wrong, picking at the plaster on his arm where he’d drawn his own blood. His tablet lay on a table across the room, and he needed to recheck the Kryptonian environment values he’d copied off the Batcomputer-

One of the chambers wasn’t empty. 

He stared at it for a second, seeing but not quite understanding. Attempt one hundred and twenty-nine successful, the green letters said cheerfully. He stepped closer slowly, as if it was an animal that would lunge and try to bite him, and gingerly placed a hand against the glass. It was near but not exactly room temperature — 99.2 degrees Fahrenheit, 37.3 degrees Celcius, to be precise, ever so slightly warmer than a regular human temperature. 

“It worked,” he said to the empty lab. The machines keeping 129 alive seemed to sigh in response, then the beeping got louder, and the infant stirred in its glowing pod. No, not just stirred. It flinched. 

Error, the screen read now in bright failure red. The small letters underneath would have told him the reason, but he didn’t read it because 129 was struggling, tiny lungs seeking desperately for air and only receiving fluid. Tim’s heart screamed, and then he realised he was screaming. 

He can’t lose him. Not again and not like this. 

One heartbeat, and he was rushing forward, smashing the glass with his bo staff and pulling the infant out of the pod. 129 coughed up liquid and was still for a terrifyingly long moment, and Tim’s heart froze in his chest. 

Then the baby took a shaky breath and let out a gloriously loud cry. Now he was wet and wailing, but he was breathing. At least he was breathing. Tim went to rub a hand across his face in relief and halted when he realised it was covered in thick fluid. “It’s okay,” he said, and realised his throat was choked with tears. 129 cried louder and kicked his little legs as Tim became painfully aware how austere and clinical his lab was, absolutely no place for a helpless infant. There was no milk ready for him, no swaddling cloths to wrap him up in. And it was so, so cold. He must be so cold. Get it together, Drake. 

There was a shirt hanging on the back of his chair, and Tim reached for it, wrapping 129 in the black fabric and holding him close. “Shhh. It’s okay. Shh, shh.” The baby’s cries lowered slightly in volume, but didn’t stop. Tim bounced him gently, folding the shirt over him to keep him warm better- 

The edge of a familiar red insignia peeked out from underneath the folds of the shirt, and Tim froze. Kon’s shirt had artificial amniotic fluid and a crying baby in it. Kon’s shirt was wet and soiled and ruined and gone and Tim can’t even protect this one last part of him can he-

Then he was sliding down the wall to the floor and realised he was the one crying now. “I’m sorry,” he gasped, to Kon and to 129 and to no one at all. “I’m s- I’m so sorry.” 129 made a soft sound in his arms, but that just made him cry harder. Tim couldn’t take care of a baby. He’d failed Kon and failed Bart and failed Bruce and it’d been barely a day and he was already failing 129. 

As if that wasn’t enough, he had the stark realisation that the child in his arms resembled old baby pictures of Tim himself a little too closely, the tiniest package of Kryptonian blue eyes in a round little face. “Everyone will know you’re mine.” This wasn’t supposed to happen. His DNA was supposed to stabilise Kon’s, not influence it. He’d given 129 the curse of being related to him, in addition to being the ghost of a dead man. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He curled in around the infant and wept, surrounded by broken glass and a broken heart. 

[cuubism]

thinking about baby wish and how once she gets sick both hob and dream will 100% get TERRIFIED and very antsy due to their past with their own child :')

funny enough i already had a drabble kind of like this so i've gone and finished it up for you :)

-

Anyone who wants to rob Johanna should probably do a more subtle job of it than leaving the damn door to her flat cracked open for her to find. They’d tripped her wards, too—amateurs—making her scramble home in the middle of a job to catch them in the act.

She pushes the door open carefully, knife held in one hand. The light’s on in her kitchen, which gives her pause. Surely any burglar—especially one stealing magical artifacts—would get what they need and get out?

She really should have been less surprised to burst into the kitchen and find Hob leaning against the counter.

“Finally,” he says.

Johanna irritably puts the knife away. “Why are you in my house?”

“You weren’t answering my calls.”

“I was working. I can’t just drop everything to watch your strange baby.” She’s gotten roped into that a few times. Not a lot of reputable childcare around for supernatural infants, apparently. Not that Johanna counts as ‘reputable childcare’.

At least Dream pays well for it. And Jo’s grown fond of the little critter, to her chagrin.

Hob sighs, scrubbing his hands over his face, and finally Johanna takes a proper look at him.

He looks exhausted. Hair a mess, like he’s been running his hands through it, stubble coming in unevenly on his cheeks, clothes all wrinkled. When he drops his hands from his face again, he gives her a pleading look.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“Wish is sick,” Hob says. “I don’t— I don’t know what it is. She doesn’t normally get flus and things like that. She’s just… fading. She won’t wake up.”

Well, shit. “What does Dream have to say about it?”

“He’s been pushing power to her from the Dreaming to keep her stable while we try to figure it out,” Hob says, starting to pace across the kitchen, tugging on his hair, “but now he’s gone under too and I—”

“Hang on,” Jo exclaims, “you’ve been letting Dream drain the Dreaming?”

“You think I get to let Dream do anything?” Hob says, exasperated. “He does want he wants. In any case, we needed to buy time, but I think we’re out of it again. Will you help me or not? Because if not I need to find someone else who will.”

“I’ll help you,” Jo says, groaning internally. “If I can.”

If Dream is actually ill too then she has, unfortunately, at least some degree of responsibility to not let this become a repeat of the sleeping sickness. Besides which… she’s fond of Wish.

Hob looks so relieved that she feels bad for her reluctance. He’s practically vibrating as he helps her gather her things and then leads her, at speed, back across town to his home.

--

Once upstairs, they step quietly into the bedroom. Wish is asleep in her crib, cat plushie clutched in one hand. She’s gotten bigger since Jo last saw her, almost a proper toddler now. And she looks… alright? At least from afar. She’s sleeping very deeply though.

Dream, meanwhile, is slumped in bed like a dead man, one arm trailing down limply to the floor. His skin is even more pale than usual, forehead beaded with sweat. She shakes his shoulder and he doesn’t move. When Jo focuses, honing in with the Sight, she can make out a thin trail of power going from Dream’s hand to Wish’s.

Jo focuses on Wish. Takes her hand. She’s been working on her Sight, and she can sense now that whatever power Dream is funneling into Wish is just going straight through her and out into whatever is draining her. It may be keeping her stable but it’s primarily just getting burned up into nothingness.

Alright so they’ve got to stop that before Dream fucking kills himself because this is a bottomless pit. If they don’t interrupt it he’ll evaporate the Dreaming from the inside out.

“What he’s doing isn’t working,” she tells Hob. “Something’s draining any power he sends her.”

“Can you tell what?”

She can’t sense anything obvious. No malevolent presence. No connection to Wish’s power, other than Dream’s.

“I don’t know,” she says. “But Dream isn’t helping. I’m going to try to break the connection.”

Hob looks concerned, glancing between Wish and Dream, but doesn’t stop her.

Johanna gets out her chalk, and starts drawing an elaborate warding circle around Wish’s crib. It’s a bit of a tossup, honestly, on whether she’ll be able to combat Dream’s magic. He is, after all, Endless. But if she focuses on containing Wish, rather than fighting against Dream, she might just be able to do it.

Hob sits on the bed beside Dream, looking on anxiously, but giving her space. Johanna seals the final stroke of the warding circle, and—

—nothing obvious happens. But the connection between Dream and Wish, visible only with the Sight, slows to a trickle. She wasn’t able to break it completely, Dream’s power is too strong for that, but at least it’s not the flood that it was before.

“They didn’t wake up,” Hob says, clutching at Dream’s hand. “Shouldn’t Dream have woken up at least?”

“He’s probably weakened himself,” Jo says. “He won’t drain himself into nothing now, though.”

Hob looks down at Dream limp beside him. “Now that he’s connected with her power Dream might have been able to tell us how to fix it,” he says, hands twisting together anxiously. “Fuck I wish he would wake up.”

Dream jolts awake in bed, gasping for breath, eyes wild. Hob jumps in alarm, but quickly clutches at him, holding him steady. “Dream.”

Jo looks between Dream and Wish. “Shit.”

“What?” says Hob, jumping up as if to rush over to Wish, but hesitating between her and Dream.

“Her power…” Dream says, his voice still its low rumble, despite his evident exhaustion. “I felt it spike, before I woke.”

“She wished you awake,” Johanna says. “Or, technically Hob did. And Wish’s power made it happen. That’s got to be what’s draining her— all over the world people are wishing things all the time, and she’s granting them.”

“Isn’t that kind of her function?” Hob says.

“No,” says Dream. “Just as I shepherd dreams but do not make all of them manifest in the Waking world, Wish’s power carries wishes, but does not grant them. A few, she can make real—but to grant all wishes would destabilize reality.”

“She’s just a baby, how’s she supposed to know that?”

“Exactly,” says Jo. “It needs to be limited until she can learn how to limit it herself. If you’d like, I can—”

Dream’s eyes flash threateningly. “You dare to hinder my daughter’s power?”

“She clearly can’t control it!” Jo exclaims. “If you don’t put a limit on it, she’ll burn through it again.”

Dream looks murderous, but Hob lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I think Johanna’s right. It’s not like we’d let her run around the city without us either, is it? Kids have to have limits.”

That softens Dream’s expression into something that’s almost a smirk. “Like your leash.”

“Are you seriously one of those people that has a child leash?” Jo says to Hob, incredulous.

“My baby can fly!” he says indignantly. “Not all of us can just grow wings to chase after her.” He pokes Dream.

For a moment Johanna gets distracted by the image of Hob flying Wish like a balloon, but comes back to her senses. “Look,” she says to Dream, “I can put a ward around her if you want—”

“I will do it.” He stands, only slightly unsteady on his feet, and walks over to Wish’s crib. Hob follows him, keeping a hand braced low on his back to support him. Dream picks Wish up, cradling her in his arms. Smoothes a hand over her forehead and hair.

She really doesn’t look much worse for wear, other than still being asleep. Dream’s the one who looks like he got run over by a train. Nevertheless he sprinkles dream sand over her, letting it whirl around her in a big spiral.

“I do not have unilateral control over her function,” he says, “but I will tie her powers to mine again, so—”

“Didn’t we just learn that was a bad idea?” Jo says.

Dream casts her an irritated glance for the interruption. “So,” he continues, “I can use the Dreaming to corral her power and keep it contained around her. As I did before she was born. I will mind her, and be sure the use of her power is moderate.”

The dream sand fades away, and Dream runs his hand over Wish’s hair again. “Wake up, my love,” he says to her, much softer than the tone he’d used with Johanna. “You are alright now.”

She shifts in his arms, nose scrunching up, letting out a quiet whine as she finally opens her eyes. “Mama.”

Johanna still hasn’t figured out why Dream is “mama.” She has her suspicions but she definitely doesn’t want to think about Dream giving birth. Nope, not at all, definitely not.

Dream smiles down at Wish. “How are you feeling?”

Wish reaches up to touch his face, grabbing at his cheek. “Lotsa wishes, Mama.”

“Yes, very many wishes indeed,” says Dream. “Now, you must go to Dada, because your Mother is about to collapse.”

Hob swoops in to grab Wish just as Dream’s legs go out from under him. Johanna is left to catch Dream, and grabs him by the arm, hauling him back over to the bed. Dream collapses back onto the pillows, panting. God, he looks absolutely exhausted.

Hob props Wish on his hip and comes over to him, touching the back of his hand to Dream’s forehead even though Jo is pretty sure you can’t gauge an Endless’s wellbeing that way.

“It is fine, Hob,” Dream says, though it doesn’t look particularly fine. Nevertheless, they’ve solved the problem, so it probably will be fine, sooner or later, or so she hopes.

Wish reaches for Dream. “Stories, Mama?”

“Perhaps tomorrow night, my love,” Dream says, eyes already falling shut.

“Mama needs to take a nap,” says Hob, draping a blanket over Dream with his free hand. “We’ll go read the next chapter of our book, hm?”

“Book!” Wish agrees.

Hob leans down to kiss Dream’s forehead. Wish reaches out with grabby hands, so Hob holds her out to kiss Dream’s forehead, too. “Kiss!” she says.

It’s kind of sickeningly adorable. 

Johanna follows Hob out into the living room, feeling a bit whiplashed by all of it. Hob sets Wish down on the couch, then scrubs his hands over his face, taking a shuddering breath. For a moment, it seems like he might crumple, but he steels himself.

Johanna isn’t really good at this kind of thing, but she rests a hand on his arm. “She’s alright, Hob,” she says, attempting a comforting tone.

“Oh, I know, she’s probably forgotten it already.” He gives her a wan smile. “Not sure Wish was the one much bothered by all this in the first place.” 

Jo feels a pang of sympathy. If anything, Hob got the worst of it, witnessing it all without being able to do much of anything to help.

“Let me know if you need anything, yeah?” she says.

He nods. Meanwhile Wish reaches out her hands to Johanna, crawling towards the edge of the couch. “Auntie Jo!”

Johanna sets her back before she can fall, then shakes her hand solemnly. “Pleasure doing business with you, as always. Let’s hope you haven’t wished anyone the nuclear codes.”

“Nu-clee-ur,” Wish echoes, with surprisingly good pronunciation.

Hob pales. “Let’s not introduce the concept of bombs to my child who likes to play with the electrical sockets, please.”

Johanna just laughs. “Your problem for later, mate.”

She turns to leave, then hesitates. Goddammit, she is becoming so fucking soft.

She gives Hob a hug.

He freezes in surprise. Then wraps his arms around her in turn. “Thanks,” he whispers.

Johanna pats his back, then pulls away before it gets any more awkward. She waves to Wish on the couch. “Be good, Sparkle!”

Wish waves goodbye, and with that Johanna heads out to leave them to it—though she’s sure, with the rate things are going, it won’t be for long.