#and then immediately decided to give him the healthy familial experience he was missing

[soaked-ghost]

haha what if I made ink loved by everyone? what if I made ink the first person his friends go to for advice and comfort cuz they genuinely find him helpful? what if I made him an annoying loser but his friends stay with him anyway cuz they see more to him than he let's on? what if I made him the glue that sticks his whole friend group together? what if I made him the heart of his friend group?

[flowerandblood]

The Pearl and the Sapphire (4)

[ modern! • Aemond x Baratheon! • female ]

[ warnings: sex content, oral sex, fingering, smut, angst, sexual tension, obsession ]

[ description: As a representative of a large family-owned gemstone business, Aemond is attending a major jewellery event where jewellery makers from all over the world are exhibiting. One of them is the Baratheon family. Aemond is tasked with focusing on attracting new customers, but his attention is diverted by the youngest daughter of the eminent maker Borros Baratheon. Slow burn, bitchy, possessive and obsessive Aemond, lots of dark angst and sexual tension. ]

A story which is an alternative universe of The Impossbile Choice taking place in modern times. The characters are all the same as in the main series, however, for obvious reasons they will behave differently and experience things differently from medieval times. You can read this without having to delve into the main series.

Series moodboard: Aemond & Miss Baratheon

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Previous and next chapters: Masterlist

______

As soon as she entered his room she wondered in her slightly unsober mind what she was actually doing. She watched as he took two wine glasses out of the kitchen cupboard and walked towards the open living room, while she thought strenuously about whether he would add something to her drink if she just went to the toilet for a moment.

She knew nothing about him.

He was a stranger to her.

She was snapped out of her reverie by his low voice, the look in his healthy eye dark and expectant.

"What does he want from you?" He asked directly, without any warning, as if they had known each other forever, and he was her friend to whom she was about to tell her heartfelt dilemmas.

She swallowed quietly at the thought, moving slowly towards the couch and sat down on it. Targaryen immediately sat down next to her, but not too close, allowing her to keep her distance. He poured what was left in the bottle into their glasses, waiting patiently for her response.

With a trembling hand, she opened her clutch bag and took out her phone. She unlocked it and began to read the messages she had received from Cregan.

She swallowed loudly, struggling to hold back tears, locking the screen back, putting the phone again in her purse. She couldn't believe in what she just read, her heart pounding like crazy, her head humming from the wine and stress.

She had spent so many months getting herself together, to accept the fact that he didn't want her, and now he claimed he had changed his mind?

"Question for question." She said abruptly, looking at him tiredly. She recognised that if she was to externalise herself to him, he had to reciprocate.

They knew nothing about each other.

He looked at her intensely for a moment, indecision painted on his face. He was apparently considering all the pros and cons, but in the end he grunted and nodded. She looked down at her hands.

"My ex-boyfriend wanted to be my friend. Months later, when I finally got myself together, he decided he had made a mistake. That maybe we should get back together after all." She choked out with difficulty, reaching for her glass and taking a loud sip from it. She saw that he moved restlessly, playing with his fingers stretched out on his knee, tense. She felt he wanted to say something, but she didn't give him the chance.

"You and the woman you were with at the banquet. Are you two together?" She asked uncertainly, arranging herself comfortably on the sofa, taking a sip of wine, looking at him intently. She saw his whole body tense up, he wasn't looking at her but ahead.

"No." He replied coolly, immediately pressing his glass to his lips.

"Why did you break up?" He asked almost immediately, and she twisted in her seat feeling her heart pounding.

She felt shame.

Why did they break up?

Because she was insufficient?

Because he wasn't ready?

She lifted her legs and tucked them under her thighs, changing positions slightly and sighed quietly.

"He wanted to have some more fun." She said quietly, feeling him give her a sudden, surprised look and move as if he wanted to say something.

"Are you sleeping with her?" She asked suddenly, looking down at her glass, which she held in her hands.

She needed to know.

She needed to know who she was dealing with.

He was silent for too long for her to realise what his answer would be.

"Yes." He said, but there was a kind of withdrawal and uncertainty in his voice that surprised her, as if he really didn't want to admit it.

She looked at him thoughtfully recognising that he was a very insecure man hiding behind a mask of indifference and coldness. She concluded that there was no point in her trying to understand him or his relationship. She opened her mouth wanting to ask at last the question that had been pressing on her lips since she had entered his room.

"Why did you want us to come here?"

He looked at her horrified and went pale, swallowing loudly, twisting uncertainly in his seat, looking away. She pressed her lips together, feeling that they both subconsciously knew answer to this question.

She thought that there was nothing wrong with what they wanted. Since he claimed he wasn't in a relationship with his assistant, and she wasn't in a relationship with Cregan, they were free people.

She looked at him, at his scarred cheek, at his artificial eye. She looked at his jaw, at his nose, his mouth, his hair. He was handsome, he was dark, cold.

She thought he attracted her.

“You can say it. It’s okay.” She said quietly and softly, wanting him to know that she wasn't judging or condemning him, that she appreciated how honest he was with her. She knew what she could count on and what she couldn't and it gave her a kind of security.

She saw him lick his lips nervously and move his shoulders, swallowing hard without looking at her, playing with the glass in his hand.

“I want it.” He whispered almost silently, his lower lip trembling as he spoke the words.

She lowered her gaze at his words, embarrassed, feeling her insides pulsate involuntarily at the very thought of what could happen between them. She lifted her gaze to him and, seeing that he still couldn't look at her, she set her glass down, moving closer to him, sitting on her knees.

She saw him look at her surprised and horrified as she grasped his large hand gently, her thumb running gently over his soft skin. They were both warm from the alcohol and the tension. She saw him swallow quietly, then lean back and set his glass down on the table.

He looked at her as if hesitating, and after surprising her by grasping her face in his hands, he moved closer to her, looking at her with slightly parted lips.

Only now could she see his scar more clearly, his glassy, artificial eye and the healthy one looking at her with a hazy, dark gaze.

She thought she was not afraid of him.

That she wanted to touch him.

When he leaned towards her she moved closer to him, their lips brushed uncertainly, tentatively. They both sighed and kissed again, just as gently, unhurriedly, as if to see if they liked the feeling, his lips firm and warm, tasting of wine. She threw her arms around his neck and he purred into her mouth, emboldened by the gesture.

Only now did she feel that he was much bigger than her, taller even than Cregan, she had the feeling that he encircled her whole person and she felt safe with that thought.

"– I want to taste you –" He whispered and she felt a powerful shudder, her insides clenching helplessly around nothing. "– will you let me? –"

She felt shame at the thought of how much she wanted this.

She couldn't hide what was happening between her legs. As soon as he slipped her underwear off her thighs he could see what his words, his temper and his appearance were doing to her. He touched her leaking entrance gently, watching carefully for her reactions. She shuddered and moaned helplessly, delicate and hypersensitive.

He did what he wanted with her, teasing her clit with his thumb while sinking his finger into her hot entrance once in a while. She breathed loudly, trying to meet his expectations and answer his questions.

"− what made you so wet? − hm? − messages from your ex? −" He hissed, his finger sliding in and out of her with a perverted, sticky click of her own wetness. He tightened his lips as soon as she squirmed at his words, turning her head away, writhing beneath him.

"− answer me −"

"− no −" She mumbled with difficulty, and he hummed under his breath with the satisfaction, leaning between her thighs. She couldn't stand his subtle caresses, she hadn't expected him to be so gentle, the tip of his tongue teasing her entrance and clit, barely slipping in between her folds.

"− I fucking knew it − I knew you would taste wonderful −" He exhaled, pressing his nose against her warm womanhood. His tongue slided suddenly into her swollen, fleshy interior, licking her shamelessly, her hands tightened involuntarily on his hair pressing him closer, a quiet mewling came out of her mouth.

She was horrified at how close she had come to fulfilment, at how easily he had brought her body to such a state.

When she came on his face she lost touch with reality completely for a moment, panting loudly, clenching her eyes shut, the tickling heat spreading throughout her body, loosening her muscles.

She looked up at him sleepily when she heard the sound of fabric being unfastened and saw that his hands were at his zipper, his pupil dilated, his gaze thirsty and hot.

"You still want this?"

She nodded.

She let him carry her onto his bed, his arms holding her gently and tenderly. She hugged his neck and felt a pleasant buzz in her head as he laid her down on the sheets. She swallowed loudly as she watched him put a condom on his swollen, hard manhood and pressed her lips together at the thought of actually doing it.

She felt her insides pulsate again at the thought.

Her heart was pounding like crazy.

He leaned over her, his gaze full of something she couldn't name. It was dark, murky, but warm at the same time, full of affect, although she didn't know why. For some reason she sensed he would not be violent towards her and she felt a momentary relaxation.

"– already during the show I was wondering how to get you into my bed – how tight and hot you must be inside –" He exhaled, guiding the tip of his cock against her hypersensitive entrance. She opened her mouth, drawing in a deep breath at his words.

Already during the show I was wondering how to get you into my bed.

That's why he was looking at her like that.

She felt a strong shudder pass through her at the thought.

When she felt him inside her she closed her eyes, sighing with effort and relief at the same time. He was big and pulsating, pushing her tight walls to their limits, making it hard for her to catch her breath. He looked at her as if he couldn't believe they were really doing this, his lips parted in an accelerated breath.

They both moaned in surprise at as he began to move inside her, slowly at first, as if he wanted to savour this moment and the feeling of her throbbing, warm walls.

After a moment, his hips began to accelerate, stretching her insides to the limit, pulsing on him with desire. She had already forgotten how wonderfully pleasurable it was, her lips parted in accelerated gasps each time he rubbed the point inside her that made her hot.

"− oh, baby −" He exhaled, speeding up, entering her with a loud, wet slap of flesh against flesh, looking at her with an expression of delight on his face.

She wasn't sure if Cregan had ever looked at her like that.

She felt her insides tighten around his length at that thought, with every thrust he made, the slap of his thighs against her buttocks, it felt better and better, as if she realised that she really did want this.

She wanted him.

She touched his cheek with her palm as he leaned down and kissed her tenderly, deeply, devotedly, pressing his forehead against hers.

"− you like it when someone takes care of you, don't you? − when someone fucks you properly −" He gasped fucking her faster and faster, she felt the whole bed creak beneath them, his hands clenched tightly on her hips, his body focused only on pushing his cock into her again and again.

She felt the heat in her lower abdomen reach its zenith again, a mewling sound erupted from her mouth that was also meant to be a pathetic confirmation of his words, her lips parted wide.

"− I'm gonna cum now, okay? − I'm gonna cum inside my sweet little girl −" He exhaled and she nodded quickly, feeling his words between her thighs, sensing that her fulfilment was rapidly approaching, that just a few more of his movements and she would come again.

"− oh, yes, please −" She mumbled, feeling his hand begin to tease her clit again.

They both moaned loudly into each other's mouths, feeling each other's orgasms, she heard him sigh helplessly as he felt her core clench violently against him again and again, his cock twitching and pulsing inside her in fulfilment.

Looking misty-eyed at his face, at his clenched eyes, feeling his nose pressed against her cheek, his lips trailing over hers, his trembling hot breath enveloping her skin, some part of her regretted that he had to use a condom, that she couldn't feel his semen inside her. She blushed at the thought, panting loudly, embarrassed at the idea.

They stroked each other's faces with their palms, breathing fast and trembling all over, trying to calm each other down, when suddenly someone started pounding on his door with their fist.

"Aemond? What the fuck? Who the fuck are you in there with?" She heard a raised, distraught female voice and looked at him with big eyes, horror on his face, he shook his head quickly, his mouth formed the voiceless words 'be quiet'.

"Aemond!" The woman started pounding on the door and pawing at the handle, she felt her whole body start to quiver, she sobbed quietly. He laid on top of her and embraced her as if he wanted to comfort her and protect her from what was happening.

"You fucking bastard! Are you fucking this little girl? This little slut? God fucking damn you! How could you do this to me!" She heard her angry voice followed by sobs. She herself began to cry hearing it, in her head the words she had spoken.

Are you fucking this little girl?

This little slut?

Why did she feel like a whore if they weren't together?

"What have we done?" She asked in a terrified whisper, feeling his lips pressed against her temple.

"Shhh." He hushed her by stroking her head, she could feel his heart pounding hard.

He was as terrified as she was.

She cried out quietly in his arms hearing her for a moment longer, and then she heard someone in the distance open and close the door loudly.

Complete silence ensued.

She swallowed loudly, his hand steadily stroking her head snuggled into the hollow of his neck, only after a moment did she realise he was still deep inside her.

Seconds later he lifted himself up on his elbows, glancing down at her most likely to see what state she was in. She could see that he was also shaken, both of them looking at each other breathing unevenly.

"You can sleep here if you want. I'll give you my shirt." He said uncertainly and she blinked, her lips slightly parted in disbelief.

He was proposing that she stay with him for the night.

Probably through remorse.

She shook her head and saw that an expression of disappointment flashed across his face, his jaw clenched tightly, his nostrils moved anxiously.

"I can't. I'll be up all night dreading that she's coming here again. I won't sleep a wink." She explained in a trembling voice, wanting him to know that this wasn't about him. He swallowed loudly at her words and nodded, then slowly pulled himself out of her.

She gasped in discomfort and clenched her eyes shut, feeling a sudden chill and emptiness inside her, his hand stroking her cheek reassuringly.

"Shhh. Wait here a minute, okay? Don't go anywhere." He said pulling up his trousers and getting out of bed to disappear into the bathroom a moment later. She sat on his bed only now feeling that her whole body was shaking from stress, her eyes burning from crying.

A minute later he came out of the toilet, a wet towel and a glass of water in his hand. He handed it to her, his hand with the damp material slipped between her thighs. She clenched them, frightened, but he looked at her calmly.

"Let me. I don't want you to leave my room in this condition." He said lowly, and she felt a warmth spread over her heart that she didn't want to feel at all.

She relaxed her hips and felt the warm, wet towel wipe her clean of all her sticky juices, bringing her relief and comfort. She involuntarily took a few deep sips of water from the glass feeling her throat dry up after what had happened.

As soon as he finished he rose and she stood up with him, covering her thighs with her dress, moving on shaky legs towards the sofa to get her underwear, putting it on quickly. She felt him watching her alertly as she picked up her clutch bag and his briefcase of documents.

As she moved towards the entrance, putting on her shoes quickly, he followed her, doing the same as she did.

"What are you doing?" She asked surprised, fatigue, terror and alcohol mixing in her head.

"You don't think I'm going to let her catch you alone in a corridor somewhere after that scene, do you?" He asked coolly, and she swallowed loudly.

She saw him quietly grab the doorknob and open the door silently, leaning his head out, looking around. He nodded for her to follow him and they both started for the stairs, not wanting to wait in plain sight for the lift.

They climbed to her floor and only then did she feel relieved. However, they both froze and stopped in mid-step when they saw her father emerge suddenly from his room, apparently heading for her brother's apartment.

When he saw her, her tear-stained face his brow furrowed in a way she knew all too well, his accusing gaze falling on the Targaryen standing beside her.

"What happened?" He asked expectantly, she could feel her heart pounding hard, she thought she had to think of something quickly.

"Cregan has been nagging me all day and I felt bad during our conversation. Mr Aemond was kind enough to offer to walk me to my room to make sure I was okay." She mumbled being on the verge of crying again, looking at her father pleadingly.

He muttered under his breath and nodded at Targaryen, putting his arm around her and saying 'thank you for your concern'.

Before she entered her room she glanced at him apologetically over her shoulder, their tired gazes meeting for a moment before he turned and started down the corridor in the other direction.

Her father began to question her about what was going on and ordered her to show him what messages Cregan was sending his daughter. Feeling that she needed to somehow make her story credible she showed him textes she had been receiving from him throughout the day.

"Couldn't he finally decide on something? Why is he messing with your head like that? I'll talk to his father when we get back." He said angrily, ignoring her pleas for him not to do so and that they were no longer children in kindergarten. When her father left, angry and shaken, she called Royce quickly.

He was in her room after a few minutes.

He walked in smiling, but seeing her state and her red eyes he immediately furrowed his brow, looking at her anxiously.

"What's wrong? Cregan?" He asked walking up to her, putting his hands on her shoulders, as usual physically showing her his support. She pressed her lips together at his questions.

"Not only that." She whispered with a blush of embarrassment and shame not believing what she was about to say.

"I slept with someone." She mumbled, burying her face in her hands, shaking her head. Her brother threw her a confused yet amused look.

"Well… I told you to have fun. I just hope he didn't hurt you? Do you regret it?" He asked bending down to her level as if to see what the look in his eyes betrayed. She looked at him helplessly, lowering her hands.

"I slept with Aemond Targaryen…"

"WHAT?"

"…and when it was all over his assistant, who he is sleeping with but is not in a relationship with, started banging on our door when she heard us, screaming and crying." She mumbled out quickly on one exhale, wiping quickly the tears that were again flying down her cheeks, her brother looking at her in disbelief. He ran his hand through his hair, shaking his head.

"I, God, this is totally fucked up. If they're not together then why did she make him a scene?" He asked rhetorically.

"I have no idea! Maybe there's more to her than that though. She was already looking at me at breakfast after I exchanged a few words with him and I'm afraid she knows it's me. That she's going to say something to our father." She said in a trembling voice, Royce pressed his lips together.

"Has she seen you?" He asked uncertainly.

"No, but our father saw me and Aemond when he walked me to my room. He wanted to make sure this woman didn't catch me anywhere. I told him he only saw me off." She explained brokenly, seeing her brother's horrified gaze.

He let out a loud breath, burying his face in his hands as if he felt immense relief. He put his hands at his sides, looking at her with a mixture of awe and disbelief.

"Well, my little sister, I see that when you do have fun, you do it with pomp." He said amused and she burst into laughter at his words, somewhat relaxed by the fact that she had told him, that she didn't have to carry this burden alone.

Before bed she took a quick shower, wanting to refresh herself after what they had done. She realised to her surprise, standing under the drops of hot water falling on her body, that she didn't regret what she had done after all.

She couldn't erase his touch, tell herself that it hadn't been pleasant, that it hadn't given her pleasure.

She thought, sighing, that they were both adults, they had done what they wanted, and now their paths would part and everything would go back to normal. She thought she would call Cregan tomorrow and explain to him exactly how she felt, and if that didn't work, she would just block his number for a while.

She came out of the bathroom in her pyjamas and involuntarily reached for her phone wanting to see if Cregan had written anything else. She was surprised when she saw that she had received some direct message on Instagram from a strange account, but it didn't look like spam. She opened it and started reading.

She swallowed loudly feeling her heart pounding.

A.

Aemond.

She felt relieved and hot in her lower abdomen at the thought that he had found her, that he had made the effort just to write her that.

She knew that he must have seen that she had displayed the message and she didn't want him to feel that she was pretending that nothing had happened. She took a long time to respond and deleted and rephrased several times.

She felt a shudder when she saw that he had immediately displayed her message and wondered if he would write anything more. She felt a stab of disappointment when nothing appeared after a few minutes but decided it was still nice of him to write to her.

She shuddered when she heard the sound of a vibration, a notification displayed on her phone that she had received a new message on Instagram. She unlocked her phone with her heart pounding hard, wondering why it excited her so much.

She thought maybe it was because he seemed so withdrawn, dark, silent, and now he was talking to her of his own free will.

She pursed her lips as she read this and swallowed loudly.

He opened up to her.

He talked about his relationship.

She rolled over on her sheets, sitting up, thinking deeply about what she should answer to that. She didn't want to judge him or ask too in-depth questions, but she wanted to understand him.

She finally replied, her heart tightening.

Will this answer upset him? Was she too direct? She flinched as her phone vibrated again.

A short, cold answer. She swallowed loudly, sighing softly, not knowing whether she should write more or not.

She pursed her lips as she read this. Somehow their relationship was as complicated as hers and Cregan's. She wondered if she should advise him something.

She blinked, feeling her heart pounding hard.

Exchange of mutual benefits.

Objectification.

Had he done this to her today to make her go easy on his grandfather's deal and convince her father to sign it?

She swallowed hard at the thought.

He didn't answer her question for a very long time and she slowly started to fall asleep in her bed. She suddenly jumped up when her screen lit up after several minutes.

She pursed her lips as she read the messages that appeared quickly one after the other. She thought he had finished the rest of the wine that was left in his room.

She fell asleep almost immediately after sending the message, the alcohol numbed her completely and made her not wake up until the morning. She flinched when the alarm on her phone started ringing and she turned it off, glancing at the display. She saw then that she had received another message from him.

______

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[whumpshaped]

For when you're looking for a prompt, can we get more pet recovery whump?

A former pet just brought to Caretaker's home to be rehabilitated? Maybe with the help of another former pet who's been there longer and made more progress? Someone for them to cling to and to help them feel marginally safer until, with their help, they can come to start trusting that their new Caretaker won't abuse them?

anon i have the perfect people for this. zeddy, mari, meera, and dr pax belong to me, lucky and the other pets belong to @hidden-dreamland :)

tw pet whump, past trauma

Lucky had no idea who his new owner would be. If he was being perfectly honest... he didn't really want to leave the guaranteed security of the hospital for something uncertain and possibly dangerous. Dr. Pax had told him that it would be fine, that Meera's men ran extensive background checks on every person who'd volunteered to help pets reintegrate, but...

All too soon, the two of them were standing in front of a big house, and the doctor was lifting a hand to knock. Lucky was staring at the ground, taking deep breaths, just like he'd been taught.

It's fine. Dr. Pax wouldn't betray you. He even gave you a name. Your new owner won't be calling you mutt... probably.

Lucky heard the turn of a key in the lock, then a soft click as the man opened. And oh, dear. He was... big, and imposing, and intimidating, and part of Lucky wanted to make a run for it immediately. He wasn't a small pet by any means, but he was weak, and he knew how easy it was to overpower him, hold him down, hit him–

"Lucky, this is Zed Hansley, one of our most trusted friends," Pax said, gesturing to the man. He gave Lucky a sheepish smile and a wave, which he returned through great effort. Scary. Scary, scary, scary. "And Zeddy, this is Lucky."

"Hi, buddy," he tried softly, and Lucky attempted to swallow the lump in his throat.

"Hello, sir."

"I'll go ahead and fetch the rest of the family while you guys make yourselves comfortable in the living room. Pax already knows where everything is."

Mr. Hansley disappeared into the house, and Lucky could soon hear him calling names that reminded him a lot of other pets' he'd met while staying with his previous owner. Dr. Pax seemed to read his thoughts perfectly. "He's adopted three pets before you. I thought it'd be beneficial for you if you could see how happy and healthy they all were, not to mention all the experience he has dealing with rescues." He nodded towards the door with a soft smile. "Shall we?"

Lucky willed himself to take a few steps forward, crossing the threshold and committing to giving this process a chance. He wanted a kind owner. He just wasn't sure whether that was something he deserved at all. Whether life would get in the way. Twenty years as a neglected, borderline unwanted pet had taught him nothing but fear, and he had no reason to believe that if he wasn't good enough at twenty, someone would suddenly decide to care for him now that he was forty. Pets his age... there weren't many pets his age.

Dr. Pax sat down on the couch, and Lucky settled on the floor by his feet. He watched nervously as Mr. Hansley ushered everyone in: three pets, just like the doctor had said, and a beautiful woman he introduced as his wife, Mariama. Mari, as everyone apparently called her.

The pets looked... alright. As in, unhurt. All their scars looked old and faded, and while one of them was missing a couple parts, their prosthetics seemed like the nice, expensive kind. They actually looked quite happy.

They introduced themselves one after the other, and Lucky tried to keep up with all the names and tidbits of information. Berry, Cupcake, Spots... Spots was the newest of the bunch, and they already seemed to be getting along quite well with everyone.

Lucky found himself wishing he could experience that too.

"So," Mr. Hansley started, and he quickly looked away from the pets, back up at him, "this is the family you'd be joining. Now, I know what you're thinking– Here's this huge guy with arms thicker than my torso, how could this ever work out in my favour? Or, well, some pets have said that. But I can assure you, if you decide to come live with us, I will do everything in my power to keep you safe and happy."

"I will, too," Mrs. Hansley added with a smile. "And we both mean it. We're very passionate about helping people in need."

"I'm a pet," Lucky said timidly. Her smile didn't waver.

"Pets and people. Anyone we can help, we try to help."

Lucky glanced at the other pets again, and all three of them gave him nothing but encouraging grins and nods. Berry even did a thumbs-up. "Um..."

"You can ask questions," Dr. Pax prompted. "You don't have to, of course, since you can call me at any time if this house isn't the right fit for you, but it might be nice."

"I, I'm just wondering... I don't... I don't know why you'd want to help a mutt like me. All the others... they seem..." Sweeter. Bubblier. Better. "I'm not sure I can be of any use to you, sir."

Mr. Hansley hummed thoughtfully. "Believe it or not, all the others had the very same doubts. I'll tell you what I told them, yeah? I just want to help. This community has helped me more than I can ever explain, and now that I have the means, I want to give back. Besides, the house is too big for just Mari and I."

Lucky shifted on his knees. It hurt to kneel. "I see," he muttered.

"You should tell Lucky about your job," Cupcake suggested, and Mr. Hansley's face lit up.

"Oh, I have the best job. My wife and I run a little soap business, and we handmake a lot of the stuff. There's always a DIY project in at least one room in the house, if you ever feel like you want to unleash some creativity." He stood up from the couch and walked over to the table, picking up something Lucky had assumed was a decoration. It was very pretty, soft pink and shaped like a rose. "This is my latest obsession. Ever since I learned how to make flowers like this, I've been making dozens every day."

"Is, is that what smells so nice?" he asked, and Mr. Hansley handed the soap to him with a grin.

"You tell me."

It was the soap. It was the most gorgeous scent, rich but delicate at the same time. Lucky thought he would like to stay in this home for sure, if only to have access to something to amazing on the regular.

"What was that last one? The last big era?" Spots asked quietly.

"The swirly ones," Berry chimed in. "Swirly and striped. Everything was swirly and striped."

"Oh, right! All of them looked so tasty."

"You're not eating soap, are you?" Dr. Pax asked with all the concern of a well-intentioned doctor.

"Zeddy makes me edible soap now!" they clarified, and it made Mrs. Hansley chuckle.

It all seemed... so innocent. Even Mr. Hansley seemed less threatening like this, chatting away about scented soaps. Lucky handed him the rose to he could put it back on the table, then glanced at Dr. Pax for confirmation that he really was allowed to stay here.

"It's your choice," the doctor said softly. "And it's not permanent, if you don't want it to be. I'm always just a call away."

Lucky looked back at his potential owners, and all the new friends he would gain by agreeing to this. The new life he could live, so far removed from dingy basements and cattle prods.

"I think... I think I'd like to try, sir."

When the pets erupted in cheers and excited clapping, Lucky dared hope that their joy was honest.

~

general drabbles taglist: @ashh-ed @whumpsday @whump-queen @the-scrapegoat @hidden-dreamland @rosewriteswhump @dismemberment-on-a-tuesday-night @whumpkinpie @delicateprincepaper @whumppmuhw @whump-em @cyborg0109 @morning-star-whump @justanotherlokifan @2in1whump @lthrboy @justletmereadmywhump @florissimps @anonymous-tiangou @whump-kitty

[bozers]

What the MK1 Cast Does When Placed With This Dog^

Kitana: Doesn’t pet it immediately. Was taught that strange dogs could bite or have diseases. Once she sees that it’s friendly she will give it food and try to find a home for it.

Mileena: Doesn’t pet it because it might smell the tarkot and bite her. If it comes up to her and is friendly she will play fetch and take it out for a jog. She is the queen, so no one can tell her she can't keep it lol

Tanya: Whistles for it and if it comes she will praise it and call it a good dog before having someone take it away from the palace before it makes a mess. Will immediately fold and let it stay when Mileena says she wants to keep it.

Sindel: Glances down at it and smiles but doesn’t try to pet it. Will order a servant to get it back to it’s owner.

Li Mei: Checks to see if it has a collar with an ID tag of some kind. If it doesn’t she will put up missing posters. In the meantime she has the dog help her sniff out and locate contraband being snuck into outworld.

Shao: Says something like “Scram, dog!” 

Reiko: Immediately starts teaching it commands and has it running drills by dinner time. The dog is glued to his side and fights alongside him during battles.

Rain: Doesn’t pet it because he was also taught that most animals on the street are unsafe, and he is a slight germaphobe as it is. If it follows him and seems friendly, he will give it a tentative pat if no one is looking.

Havik: Is happy to see a healthy dog and is hesitant to scare it away. But the dog loves the way he smells and starts licking him like crazy, almost knocking him over. He laughs and lets the dog chew on his arm. 

Syzoth: He is used to most animals keeping their distance, so is curious as to why this one isn’t running away. Will let it sniff him to see if it wants to be friends. When it licks his hand, he grins and feels an instant connection. He runs around in his lizard form on all fours, the two of them racing around all day. They end up curling up in a dog pile to nap. 

Ashrah: Thinks it is cute and goes right up to it. She can see the purity of its soul and is impressed with its tenacity. Decides that it would make a wonderful companion, and so, she gets it a nice new collar and names it something like "Angel". She feels contented and very happy with this new addition to her family.

Shang Tsung: Ignores strays because they were such a common sight in his past. But if this dog looks healthy he might consider experimenting on it, but will end up just keeping it around the lab to be a watchdog/vermin catcher. He will talk to himself when working through a hypothesis, and will sometimes absently scratch the dogs head while deep in thought. (the dog had learned to stand by his side when he gets deep into research)

Quan Chi: Ignores it. He has no use for such creatures.

Liu Kang: His godly façade crumbles immediately. He gives the dog lots of pets and scratches, and when it gives him a kiss he giggles like a school boy. Likes to watch it play in the yard in front of the fire temple, taking comfort in this simple joy.

Geras: Is fascinated by the dog and takes a few moments to study it. When it comes over to investigate, he gives it a little pat on the head and deems it a “good boy”.

Kung Lao: Immediately goes to pet it and gets it all riled up to play. He immediately comes up with a name and has it following him around the village. Sneaks it dumplings under the table when Madam Bo isn't watching.  

Raiden: Puts his hand out to let the dog sniff before trying to pet it. He makes sure the dog is healthy and well fed. Hopes that it will want to come sleep on his bed with him.

Kenshi: Will call out to the dog to see if it is friendly. If the dog comes up to him he will pet it, but won’t allow himself to get attached to it. (he get's attached to it)

Johnny: Takes a picture with it and snaps a few more cute dog pics. Gives it treats and will see if it knows any tricks. If it doesn't, he Teaches it "high five". Makes the dog it's own Instagram account and it gets 1M follows by the end of the day.

Bi-Han: Will demand to know who let the dog into the compound, stating that it is forbidden to have pets in the Lin kuei and whoever is responsible will be punished. In the meantime, he keeps it in the training yard until he can decide where to send it away. He makes sure it has food, water, and shelter. No one catches him giving scratches and cooing at it. 

Kuai Liang: Is suspicious that a random dog is wandering around the compound but that doesn’t stop him from kneeling down and petting it. He smiles but his heart aches because he cannot have a pet. Makes sure it finds a good home.

Tomas: Gets really excited because it reminds him of his childhood family dogs. He grew up helping his dad train their hunting dogs and so has a soft spot for all canines. He knows its not allowed on the compound but still sneaks it into the kitchen to get some scraps. 

[kuroneko1815]

My head cannon about Penelope and Callisto during her pregnancy

- Callisto would have read up everything about pregnancy and pestered doctors and Cedric about the topic.

- Cedric is his go to reference for any worries that he has. Penelope has Marianne to lean on for her pregnancy and to give her advice. Marianne fills the role of older sister/matronly figure that she goes to for advice. She seriously has a lack of female friends and other kinds of female figures in her life. The only ones she trusts are Emily and Marianne, and Emily is her maid and quite single at the time, so it goes to Mrs. Porter to educate her on what to expect.

- Callisto bans food that trigger Penelope’s morning sickness, slowly eliminating them through trial and error.

- Penelope starts craving Korean food, particularly kimchi. Callisto goes mad trying to figure out what tastes she’s looking for before figuring out that she was missing foods from the other world. Then he has it made after asking her for the recipe.

- Callisto eats kimchi with a straight face even though he doesn’t quite like the taste because Penelope is enjoying it and eating with gusto.

- For royal births it was typical to have an audience when the Queen/Empress gave birth but we’ll pretend that Callisto either did away with it because there was no way in hell he would let anyone see Penelope like that, or it didn’t exist in the first place and her birthing experience would have been how typical nobles were… with the Fathers waiting for news. If this were the case Callisto would definitely not leave Penelope’s side and would threaten the Doctors when they try to get him to leave.

- Callisto would watch the birth and be somewhat traumatized. This man is so overprotective he gets upset if she even has a little cut on her hand. I can’t imagine he wouldn’t be the least bit traumatized after watching the woman he love be in pain, and also seeing all the blood that comes from childbirth. That would be his worst nightmare. And then he glances down to see what’s happening down there and he can’t even figure out what’s happening anymore.

- They don’t bother to inform the Duchy that she’s gone into labor so it falls to Cedric who was informed, to send a messenger to them. The Duke is woken up in the early morning to Pennel’s frantic knocks on his door and when he finds out that Penelope’s in labor, he rushes out in his pyjamas with his two sons.

- Even though Penelope gave birth in the morning, they don’t see anyone in the Imperial family until the very next day. All they know was that she delivered a healthy baby girl and that she was also doing well because Callisto ordered them to be left alone to rest.

- The Duke, despite being upset that she had Callisto’s colouring, falls in love with Judith immediately, her fingers grasp on to his and he promises her the world. This is when he decides it’s time to retire and enjoy being a grandfather.

- Callisto tells them that Judith will inherit the throne, no matter what other children he and Penelope have in the future. They agree with him and are the biggest proponents to the succession law being changed.

[clawbehavior]

not actually a question, but a declaration and a thanks.

I love your stories, Enantiomer is especially my personal favorite! I had a greedy moment after I finished reading chapter 3, write a comment that may or may not seem delirious bcs there were things I think I missed (I forgot which is the older twin from Gaon and Isaac), the small things like that. I decided to immediately reread the whole story and I thought, these 3 chapters are enough!

let me tell you, I always shed tears reading the 2nd chapter. chapter 3 feels like having your prayers answered/ a breeze in a very hot weather. it just feels right and peaceful, hopeful ending. the ending is enough to make me wonder how the characters will fare in the future but i have faith they're in a happy place. it's that kind of story for me.

i will reign my excitement and overflowing feelings for this story of yours as to not scare you off or make you overwhelmed with my responses here and there. thankyou you wonderful human!

i once read this beautiful post by Paulo Cohelo where he described getting a comment from a reader across the world about how touching they found The Alchemist, so he got up and and went outside and looked up at the sky. reading your comment made me understand what he meant by that, what he felt, and why he did it. 

i'm so, so happy that 'enantiomers' touched you deeply. because i also care about them deeply. like you, i felt hurt for yohan in chapter 2 and relief for their growing family in chapter 3. but as you know, being a creator means wondering if your art/story/plot/setting/characterization that you experience so richly when creating them also come across like that to your reader; if someone will be similarly moved by your story as you. and you got it!!! you picked up on all these tiny and crucial details; the differences between the twins, how kang jisang had left an impression on isaac, gahan's hyung kink, that gaon badly wanted to be loved and yohan badly wanted to give it to him. getting your comments made writing that story worth it. 

i totally agree that the fic left off on a hopeful note even if the way forwards seems unclear. strong emotions like theirs take time to fully resolve, no matter how genuine the effort behind it. but i know they get through it. gaon and yohan actively include isaac (and his little family) in their lives. they show up when things get tough, congratulate each other on their wins, push each other gently when needed, and are there for each other. isaac's whole thing with their relationship stemmed from a fear of change and losing yohan. but seeing yohan be healthy and happy and being actively included in their lives settles him. as a result, gaon feels secure too. 

actually, reading your comments made me want to write a version of this story where kim deji is alive, gahan still falls in love, and she lovingly guides everyone through that transition. it starts with gaon waiting for his train on an outdoor platform and watching trains pull in and out of the station. he makes eye contact with a university student through the glass. it shouldn't be anything big except that the young man visibly starts and says something to gaon through the glass. gaon blinks back in confusion, but the train is already pulling out of the station. the young man frantically runs the length of it inside while gaon watches. gaon sees him mouthing the words ishmael and isaac, realizes that this man knows his brother/his family and they share a grief stricken look before the train pulls away completely. 

gaon stays rooted to the platform. he misses his train. but it's worth it because yohan gets down at the next station and runs all the way back to the older man, catching hold of him. gaon can barely make out what the younger man is saying, talking a mile a minute as he is, until yohan pulls out his phone, calls kim deji, and gaon hears his mother's voice for the first time in decades. 

--

a little gift for you for your lovely comments. i will cherish them deeply. thank you. 

[ihaveatheoryonthat]

We’ve reached the point where I have too many pans on the burner again, and need to clear some of them out to get anything done. This is another one of those that falls under ‘I’d like to revisit someday, but that day is not today’.

This in particular is really only setup, and I never got to what the piece was supposed to be about-- as such, it’s woefully incomplete.

TW for a fictional illness that’s pretty blatantly based on covid.

---

Travic [surname] had one primary problem and two sub-problems.

The overarching problem was that he was sick. Quite sick. The kind of sick some people didn’t recover from. He’d been sick for days and hadn’t noticed, seemingly fine until he very much wasn’t.

Enter the first of his secondary problems: Vick had accidentally passed the illness onto his youngest son; Emmet getting sick had been the last tumbling straw before the weight of it all finally fell into place. He’d done everything he should have as promptly as he could, even if days after the fact, his own symptoms magnifying under the sudden comprehension-- calls made, warnings to get tested issued, supplies ordered same-day delivery.

Which brought him to the second problem: his eldest, miraculously, had tested negative. He didn’t pretend to understand how that worked when the pair was always in direct contact with one another, but Vick would take what small mercies he could get. And while that was [undeniably] good news, the issue was was keeping Ingo healthy. Stuck in the house with his his immediate family, he was almost certain to catch [it] eventually, no matter what precautions Vick belatedly put into place.

The only solution his foggy mind could put together was to call for help, and so he had. Drayden was on his way to Anville Town; Ingo could stay with him until things were better. Soon, all Vick would have to worry about was getting two of them through this.

‘Soon’ could not come quickly enough.

“INGO.” He [idk], but his usually booming voice came out as something gnarled and [?]; it was little wonder the six year old startled at the sound. Hands frozen in the air, he turned meekly, eyes wide and uncomprehending as he idled at the side of his brother’s bed.

He was only trying to help, Vick reminded himself; he couldn’t truly be angry about that, but it still sounded [angry] when he forced out, “Back up. Don’t touch. Go sit on the couch until I come talk to you.”

Worrying at his bottom lip, Ingo glanced back at his brother, eked out something in a much quieter voice than usual, and darted off, eyes on his father until he rounded the corner.

Vick sighed, the usually [?] of the medical mask hot and stifling to his raw senses. He would endure it. He had to endure it, for Ingo’s sake. If there was anything he could do to prevent further exposure, he would [do it] to spare his eldest this [danger/suffering].

Not even an hour now, and Drayden would be there.

Thoughtlessly, Vick found himself doing precisely what he’d scolded his son for just moments prior; his hands automatically moved to Emmet’s face, brushing damp hair away from his eyes, to no response. He’d been asleep for hours, which, in Vick’s experience, was infinitely preferable to suffering through the day fully conscious.

That said, he still needed another dose of medicine, and whatever fluids Vick could coax him into drinking. They would give it a shot after their respective older brothers left, he decided; best to let him sleep while there were so many other things vying for attention.

Glancing up at the clock, Vick grimaced and got back to it. His body ached with every step, but, dutifully, he trudged back out to the bathroom and scrubbed his hands under the hot water. This time, when he admitted himself into the twins’ room, he didn’t let his tired mind take the helm, instead beating a direct path for the jet black dresser.

Clothes, at least, were easy to pack; going through each drawer in succession there was no way to miss something vital. It became orders more difficult when he tried to to remember what else a child would need while away from home. Snagging a ragged Purrloin plush on his way out, he turned his attention to raiding the bathroom.

He found himself repeatedly checking the time, and constantly surprised by how much had escaped without his notice. It wasn’t fair to have left Ingo waiting for so long without [cause], but Vick had yet to spot him peeking around any given hiding spot, so odds were he’d found a way to entertain himself.

Vick hoisted the bag over a shoulder, and the effort left him wheezing. It meant he was all too ready to let it [flop] down onto the nearest couch cushion when he reached the living room.

To his surprise, the TV wasn’t on-- not even at the low volume his aching head had dictated for the past few days. Neither was there a library book or a fidget toy to be found, just Ingo on the far side of the couch, hands tugging at the sleeves of his sweater, wilting under his father’s gaze.

Ah, shit. He thought he was in trouble.

“Look, bud,” Vick croaked, but combined with the strain of hauling the bag out, it sent him into a coughing fit before he could say anything of substance. He turned away, head spinning, and tried to stifle it into an elbow.

As he regained his breath, there was a knock at the door, and he gratefully shuffled toward it.

[not gonna bother w/ the greeting rn (I DO think it would be funny if Drayden is also wearing a mask, but it kind of just looks like his beard is a different color at first glance)]

Drayden squared his shoulders and strode past, kneeling in front of the couch so they were on the same level.

“I see you have your bag packed. Are you ready to go?”

Instead of any verbal answer, Ingo made a sound of confused protest. The look Drayden shot Vick wasn’t much better.

“I know, I know. It’s for your own good, buddy-- and uncle Drayden promises to take great care of you, right uncle Drayden?” His throat burned as the sentence stretched on, but he could do this. Just a little longer, now, until his son was safe from him.

Drayden inclined his head, eyes pinching as he made the effort to look nonthreatening, and offered his hand. Keeping an eye on Vick, watching for what he was meant to do, Ingo tentatively reached out to mirror it; when it closed around his, he nearly flinched.

“Good boy,” Drayden rumbled, ruffling his hair with a free hand and encouraging him to stand up, too; moving to take the travel bag, Drayden scooped up the cap sitting at the top and settled it over the mess he’d made.

“His coat’s by the door,” Vick said, backing off to leave a good six feet of space between them. It was only as that coat was settled over Ingo’s shoulders that he [vocalized] again, a high whine that Vick knew from experience would only grow louder if it was allowed to continue.

“Ingo,” He said, and he was trying so hard to be what the situation called for, but his mounting exhaustion still shone through, “I know. I’m sorry, but this has to happen. I love you. Have fun with uncle Drayden.”

The door swung shut, and Vick all but collapsed against the wall in his relief.

---

Drayden wasn’t great with kids. As part of being a gym leader, he had to deal with older ones on a semi-regular basis, but his experience with six year olds consisted entirely of Ingo and Emmet.

He wasn’t prepared to look after a child, even if only for a few weeks.

But Travic had asked for help. His brother and nephew were sick, and the biggest help he could be was looking after the odd boy out. He could do that, for his family’s sake.

Only… Ingo was acting incredibly different from what Drayden knew. Usually, you had to pry the kid away, but instead of clinging to Drayden’s hand as they walked toward the train station, the little fingers poking out of his sleeves worked themselves into a nervous tangle. He had yet to speak a word, to talk about the Pokemon they passed by or ask about the ones Drayden had brought with him, and his own stubborn expression hadn’t budged from ‘deeply distressed’.

That was completely understandable-- Drayden himself had only forced a smile for Ingo’s sake-- but it was still troubling. He didn’t know how to connect with young kids, let alone one coming from such a tough spot.

Well, he supposed, when in doubt…

“Do you know what a Swablu is, Ingo?” He asked, readjusting his grip on the bag. The boy next to him nodded, and, somewhat [belatedly] Drayden realized that the pace he’d set was too much for someone so short. Forcing himself to slow, he continued the thought, “You do, hm? Have you ever seen one in person?”

It was met by a small shake of the head.

“It so happens a trainer brought one into the gym last week; his wings are too sparse to carry him right now, so he’s staying with me until his plumage grows in. Would you like to meet him when we reach Opelucid?”

Ingo hesitated far longer than Drayden had expected of someone usually so excitable. “...can I?”

“I offered, didn’t I?” / “Yes, you can meet him if you’d like. He’d benefit from having someone else around, and maybe he can help keep you company in return.”

[…]

He waited until Drayden set the travel bag down, and then climbed up to sit along its other side. Strangely, he didn’t move to dig through its contents once throughout the commute; surely he had something to keep himself entertained in there? Vick had mentioned at some point or other that he was being dragged to library nearly every day as the twins’ shaky grasp on reading began to solidify, so it only made sense that Ingo would have brought a book with him.

The kid pulled his legs up onto the subway bench and rested his chin on his knees.

That was… probably not a good sign.

[…]

Swablu hopped up without a second thought-- the exact behavior that had landed him in Drayden’s home instead of its natural habitat-- and cocked his head one way, then the other. The difference it wrought in Ingo’s expression was subtle, but unmistakable; despite his clear interest in the bird, however, he stayed put.

It seemed to take that personally, fluttering its [?] wings with enough energy to give itself the tiniest bit of lift, nipping at the pair of hands that dared to not to pet it. Surprised rather than hurt, Ingo reeled backwards, and Swablu jumped again. Its weight was negligible-- there was absolutely no way the little guy could bowl over a human, no matter what their age-- but Drayden still held a hand out, steady against the boy’s back, to keep Ingo from tripping.

---

Ingo usually liked school-- really, he did!-- but if he’d had a say in it, he would prefer not to go today.

The test he’d had to take that morning, to make sure he wasn’t sick after all, said he was okay, but he wasn’t so sure; this wasn’t his first time staying overnight at uncle Drayden’s house, and the last time they’d been here, the guest room hadn’t felt so cold. He remembered being sick once, too, and how much more intense everything had felt against his skin-- how cold it was when he tried to sleep without a blanket, but how unbearably hot it was when he changed his mind and pulled it back over himself.

It wasn’t exactly the same-- he’d been cold with the blankets and even colder without-- but it still made him worry.

He didn’t want to accidentally break a rule. He didn’t want to go to school sick and risk making anyone else sick.

Plus, he was all the way in Opelucid City. School was in Anville Town. He didn’t know how long it took to get there, but he was pretty sure class started before the first horns sounded in the rail yard. If he had to take the train to get there, he’d definitely be late. Being late was rude. He hated it, and it didn’t matter that uncle Drayden promised to ride with him today; that was nice of him, but it didn’t fix the problem.

Also! He didn’t have his backpack. He didn’t have any of the practice sheets he was supposed to have filled out, or the library book he’d wanted to show the teacher, or his water bottle or the little key chain he could fiddle with without bothering anyone or--

He bit down on a whine building in the back of his throat, and when that began to fail, stifled himself against his jacket.

More than anything, he knew that Emmet wasn’t going to be with him today.

He was going to get to school late and without any of the things he was expected to have, and that would have been bad enough, but he was going to be alone all day today. And tomorrow. And the day after that. Ingo didn’t know when he was going to see his brother again, and it made him want to scream.

That wasn’t allowed, though; he definitely wasn’t supposed to yell, because people always got mad at him when he did. It was extra important that he follow the rules right now. He was already in enough trouble.

And that was why he was going to go to school, even though there were a million reasons not to, and it was the very last thing he wanted right now.

Swablu chirped and frantically flapped his wings, painstakingly making his way onto the back of Ingo’s chair, and then hopping down onto his head. It was a little heavier than his hat, but in a nice way. While it stayed there, it was easy to focus on the warm fluff instead of the school day that awaited.

Uncle Drayden laughed when he saw them. Ingo liked that, too.

[…]

[after school]

“Here you go,” Uncle Drayden said, holding out the familiar black-and-red-and-blue backpack. Ingo took it with numb fingers and dislodged the ‘thank you’ stuck in his throat.

He only peeked inside when he was back in the guest room, where nobody could see. Piece by piece, he unloaded it onto the much-too-big bed: the homework he hadn’t been able to hand in, the book he’d been so excited to share, his water bottle and the rubber key chain-- and more, beyond that. His library card and the pouch he kept all his best pencils in, the stretchy Clodsire toy Emmet hated so much he refused to touch it, and that Ingo liked to stick to the walls, the hooded sweatshirt with the ears that he’d wanted to wear yesterday, but had been in the dryer.

He was struck, again, by the desire to scream.

Instead, he gathered it all up, put each item where it belonged for tomorrow, and went to bury his face in Swablu’s fluff.

[crittercrossing]

Rest in Peace, Smokey

March 28th, 2005—February 15th, 2021

I met my best friend on the day he was born in 2005. I was nine years old. In the prior year, I had befriended a couple of semi-feral cats who took up residence at my childhood home, a male and a female. Growing up in a very rural area in the mid-2000s, spaying and neutering pets was a rare thing that was usually reserved for dogs, and practically unheard of in indoor-outdoor cats. And so, it was no surprise when these two cats had kittens, born on my front porch.

Smokey's mother was pregnant when I went to school that day, and when I returned home, I peered into the box we'd set up for her on the porch and saw six impossibly tiny kittens. I still vividly remember the sight of them and the fierce excitement I felt. Of the six kittens, I immediately noticed that one of them was much smaller than the others—a little grayish-tinted black tabby. I adored him from the moment we met.

He was named Smokey, for his smoky-gray color and my belief that he was a gray tabby. (It was several years before my fascination with cat colors and genetics took hold, when I would learn that he was, in fact, a black tabby.) Smokey was always the runt of the litter, a tiny kitten who stayed smaller than his siblings throughout their first few months of life.

I can't recall now exactly when this happened, but at some point, Sassy, the mother, seemed to give up on Smokey, perhaps because he was so small and weak. She stopped letting him nurse and even went so far as to remove him from the nest and from the other kittens. Determined to help him thrive, my mom and I began bottle-feeding him with kitten formula and spending lots of one-on-one time with him. I loved him wildly, and we began to develop a close bond.

After several weeks of supplemental feedings, Sassy accepted Smokey again. The little guy acted as though he never even knew that his mother tried to abandon him, and he became a mama's boy. He followed Sassy everywhere she went, and rarely left her side.

Being a kid and living with six kittens was one of the most fun experiences of my life. I loved all of the kittens tremendously, but Smokey was my favorite.

I don't have a lot of specific memories from that time period once Smokey got strong enough to fully rejoin his feline family, but I know I spent hours and hours playing with all of the kittens, cuddling them, and getting to know them as individuals. Smokey remained very close to his mother, to me, and to his only brother, Sammy—he seemed to feel very net neutral about everyone else, human or animal.

Thankfully, Smokey thrived with the extra feedings and special attention. He always remained very small—even as an adult, he was smaller than most female cats—but he was healthy and strong and full of energy and life. By the time he was six months old, he fit in so well with his siblings that you never would have guessed how drastically smaller than them he used to be.

Sassy, a tremendously patient mother, continued to let all six kittens nurse until they were nearly six months old. This is my only photo of the entire family together, with Smokey at the bottom.

We decided to keep Smokey and Sammy, and to rehome the four females. Though they were already close, Smokey and Sammy became inseparable once they were the only two indoor cats (their mother went missing not long after the above photo was taken, and their father lived almost entirely outdoors).

As a young adult, Smokey had a pretty different personality than his brother, and was less slightly less social. Sammy was the first one who would approach people, and he would jump up on their legs in the way that small dogs do. Smokey would follow behind and rub on people's legs in a more typical cat fashion. When other people came into the house, Smokey would run and hide behind the furniture, while Sammy would hang around to greet them. But that never bothered me at all, because when it was just Smokey and I, he was still the sweetest little guy in the world, someone who would sit with me and let me hold him and dress him up in silly things sometimes.

For eight years, Smokey and Sammy shared their lives together, with the closest bond between animal brothers that I've ever seen. Sammy passed away suddenly in 2013, and for the first time in his life, Smokey was the only cat in the house. He immediately became closer to people again, and from that point on, he never really hid anywhere, even when other people came over.

Not long after Sammy passed away, I took Smokey to the vet for a check-up just to make sure he was okay, as the vets were unable to determine what had caused Sammy's death. That was when Smokey was diagnosed with a heart murmur. I can't recall now what grade it was at the time, but it was either a grade four or five, as I know it started with a 'f.' There are six grades of heart murmur in cats. At the time, the vet assured me that he was otherwise healthy, and that the murmur was just something to keep an eye on. It might cause problems later, or it might not. Smokey was eight years old then, and I just desperately hoped that I would get at least a few more years with him. Little did I know then that he would live nearly another eight years.

Smokey very briefly shared the home with another cat, Crowfeather, a young male who unfortunately didn't live long—less than two years. Smokey didn't particularly like Crowfeather, but he tolerated his adopted younger brother surprisingly well. Kudos to Smokey for being so patient when Crowfeather was super high energy and loved to annoy him.

For several years, Smokey was allowed to go outside during the day, before I did my research and learned about how bad of an idea that is for cats and for the natural environment around them. I'm very glad that nothing bad happened to him in that time. Smokey loved being outside, but he was always very good about coming home when the weather started to get bad or before it got dark outside. And once I made the decision to keep him indoors only, he re-adapted very well.

Smokey's everyday life was very routine and predictable for the second half of his life. He was just always there, living everyday life with me and my mom. His middle age and his elderly years were relatively peaceful for a long time, until his health started to worsen—gradually at first, and then all at once.

At about nine years old, Smokey developed strange stomach symptoms that never were explained, even though he saw multiple vets. All of his bloodwork and other tests came back fine. His heart murmur worsened gradully over time, but nothing could indicate what was going on with his stomach. He struggled to keep food down. He would throw up after almost every single meal. I tried everything under the sun to help—different foods, prescription foods, vitamin supplements, scheduled meals, different sizes of meals, and nothing seemed to help. He had good days and bad days with it, but overall, he struggled to keep on weight. Through it all, he remained in great spirits and had lots of energy, and it honestly didn't seem to bother him. This part was relatively manageable, and as the vets said that it probably wasn't super dangerous, I held out hope that he would stay with me for much longer.

Smokey dealt pretty well with his stomach problems, but unfortunately, his heart problems did catch up with him eventually. And with that came one of the scariest time periods of my life.

(Content warning below for detailed medical problem descriptions and discussion of euthanasia. If you want to skip this, scroll until you see the next photo of Smokey.)

My mom woke me up in the middle of the night in November of 2020 to tell me that Smokey had somehow become paralyzed while he had been taking a nap. She saw that he walked into the bottom of one of his cat trees normally, fell asleep, had woken up, and couldn't seem to move. Panicked, I ran to him. I found him there, seeming generally unworried. He tried to stand up and walk, but he couldn't. He crawled out with his front legs, his hind legs and tail dragging behind him. He was paralyzed in his back half. I can't even start to describe how scared I was.

He went to the vet in the morning. Smokey was diagnosed with a saddle thrombus. The vet explained it to me as a blood clot in the aorta, sitting where the aorta branches out into the two main blood vessels that go into the back legs. Smokey had somehow had this clot break loose from somewhere else, possibly within his heart, and it traveled there while he slept, hence why he was fine before his nap. His heart murmur, at that time, was a grade six. He had what was only described to me as severe heart disease. To say I was devastated would be putting it lightly. He had been acting completely fine, and there had been no indication that something so serious was going on. The prognosis for this kind of thing is usually pretty bad, and especially so in Smokey's case. The vet gave me options. I could have let him go that day, or I could take him home and try treatment. I was told that he may very likely never regain movement in his back end. He was in pain and would need pain medication daily. He would need blood thinners to try and prevent more blood clots from happening. Nothing could be done to slow down his heart disease. But I looked at Smokey, and he looked back at me as though nothing were wrong. I decided to try. I took him home.

The next several months, my life revolved around keeping him happy and comfortable. I made a special area for him on the living room floor, in a corner, with lots of soft blankets, a short-sided litter box that he could crawl in and out of easily, and food and water. He hated taking his medicine, and given how often he threw up, he didn't actually end up keeping most of it down. He still had a great appetite, though. He ate a lot of chicken in those days, as much as he wanted. I sat with him for hours. He would lay his head in my hand and look at me and purr.

Then, about a week later, the seemingly impossible happened. I watched him pull hard with his front legs, and he somewhat propped up his back legs beneath him. His toes weren't really working, and he couldn't move his hind legs individually, but he started kind of shuffling along the floor in a mostly-standing position. I had so much hope. I cried when I first saw him shuffle over to his old recliner and climb up it to get to his favorite spot on top of the headrest. By the time another week passed, he was walking again. His toes never came back all the way, but he did start to move his legs individually again and he held them mostly normally beneath him. He wasn't paralyzed anymore! He could walk! He returned to an almost entirely normal life by the beginning of 2021. Through it all, he never once looked scared or upset.

At the time, I had a lot of trouble admitting to myself that his time was still limited. His heart wasn't going to recover. He was at an extremely high risk of having another blood clot. I pushed away the sad, scary thoughts, and focused on the positives. He was getting around pretty much fine. The vet was blown away at how much progress Smokey had made. I couldn't imagine not having my boy around, so I didn't.

In February 2021, I couldn't ignore it anymore. In retrospect, I am angry with myself for waiting so long. I've read a lot since then about how well cats hide pain. He could have been hurting that entire time. He maintained his good spirits up until about a week into February. He got lethargic. He lost interest in eating. His whole body shook with the effort of breathing. It was past time.

Early 2021 was a really awful, difficult time in my life for multiple personal reasons, and this on top of it seemed unbearable. I honestly didn't know if I would survive it, but I knew I had to do it. I couldn't let him suffer any longer. On February 15th, I took Smokey to the vet to find out what kind of shape he was in. I was pretty sure going in that that was it, but I still foolishly hoped that there was a way out. There wasn't. He was in active heart failure and was, according to the vet, already on his way out. I wasn't going to let that go on indefinitely.

I held him, wrapped up in a towel, cradling him in my arms. I was sobbing so hard I could barely speak words that were understandable, but I talked to him. I told him I loved him. Oh, how I loved him so, so much. I told him he was a good boy. I thanked him for choosing me to be his person. I know it wasn't technically a choice—he was just born at my house and I was there to love him and care for him—but, I don't know. His beautiful, loving soul could have been born into any kitten anywhere in the world. I don't know if he got any say in it, but if he did, I was glad that he chose to come into my small part of the world. And then, he left my world.

I try not to dwell on that time too much. I try to focus on his life, his wonderful little soul, all of the memories with him that I wouldn't trade for anything. I focus on how I knew him and I loved him every single day of his life—15 years, 10 months, and 19 days.

There were so many delightful little things about Smokey, and about my relationship with him. His favorite food was green beans. He would do nearly anything for a green bean. From adulthood onward, he almost always had a perpetually serious, grumpy-old-man-looking expression on his face, which was really funny given how unserious and sweet he was. He was such a handsome cat—the most handsome black tabby I've ever known. I was obsessed with the beauty of his fur color and pattern. His eyes were the prettiest shade of green. For much of his life, he had these funny little fangs that always stuck out of his mouth. His upper canine teeth were long, and so in many of my photos of him, he seems to have a little fanged smile. (Sadly, the fangs eventually began to crack and had to be removed.) His meow was always very squeaky, his voice cracking in the middle of pretty much every single meow. He knew his name very well, as well as his collection of nicknames: Cinnamon Roll, My Boy, El Niño, Little Man, Smokey Boop, and Little Love.

Smokey didn't love a wide variety of cat toys, but he really loved his orange feather wand. In his middle age, even with little toy motivation in general, he would always drop whatever he was doing and bat wildly at the feather wand, looking just like his baby kitten self when he did. He loved to be brushed and combed. There was one particular comb he liked—a flea comb, even though he rarely ever had fleas—and if I stopped combing him before he was ready, he would grab at the comb with his paws and rub his cheeks on it. The only other inanimate object he really loved was this random purple ballpoint pen. I don't remember whose pen it was originally, or where it came from, but it was one of the little ones with a cap on it. I don't even remember how I discovered this, but Smokey adored that pen. He loved for me to hold it so he could gently chew on the end of it—always supervised, and he never bit anything off or swallowed anything. He just liked to gnaw on it, and he never seemed to grow tired of it. I now carry that purple pen with me every day. It's one of the very few things I have left of him.

Smokey was always in the center of home's activity, no matter what was going on. He sat with me and watched TV for hours on end. He took naps with people on the couch. He even sat with the dogs on the chairs or couch sometimes. Smokey was never afraid of a dog in his entire life, and he was never aggressive with them. He never seemed to think twice about rabbits, rodents, and chickens coming in and out of the house.

Smokey claimed one recliner in particular, and it became known as "Smokey's chair." First thing every morning, I enjoyed walking into the living room for the first time in the day and seeing him curled up on the top of the headrest. And every morning, he would stand up, look at me with his big green eyes, and headbutt me. He would wait for me to bend down just enough for him to be able to bonk his forehead against mine, and he would always headbutt me hard enough that I don't know how it didn't bother him. But it didn't seem to. We did this several times every day, and he seemed to love it. Often, when he pressed his head to mine, he would stay put there, our heads together, and he would purr so loudly that I could feel it rumbling in my bones. I still think about that feeling all the time.

I feel like I don't have the right words to explain what sharing my life with him was like. It was just simple and easy and unbelievably filled with love and affection and trust and friendship. He was a constant in my life, a faithful companion.

In a way, I am really sad that so few people got to meet Smokey. He was such a good cat, the kind of cat that seems to be one in a million. I know that objectively, that might not be true, but that's how it feels to me. It feels weird for me to think about how my partner of several years now never met him, when he was such an important part of my life and I talk about him a lot. (He passed away a few months before my partner and I met.) I wish I could tell the whole world about him, but this is probably as close as I can get to that.

I know that time heals most wounds to some extent, but in all honesty, I don't think this wound has healed at all. I think about him pretty much every day. I miss him more than I can explain. I miss the soothing sound of his purr—I am very glad that at some point in his old age, I thought to record a video of his loud purring. I miss the feeling of our heads together, the vibrations of his purr. I miss feeling that purring when he would lie on his side, curled up like a cinnamon roll, and I would press my face into the fur on his side, and he would purr even louder. I can remember exactly how soft his fur was. I miss the gentle tapping of his paw when he would reach out for me, the touch of his claws (never painful, as if he was being careful not to scratch me), the warmth of his paw pads. I miss the brush of his whiskers, the rhythmic flicking of his tail tip when he laid beside me.

I miss his steady presence in the house, almost always in the living room. I miss sitting with him while I watched TV or played video games, looking over at him every now and then to see him gently sleeping or seemingly watching the screen with me. I miss how sometimes, I would look at him to find that he was already looking at me first, gazing up at me with the warmest expression I've ever seen in a cat's eyes. He just looked at me like he loved me. I could feel it.

I hope he knew how much I love him. I'm sure he knew, to some extent, but I just really, really hope that he knew that I love him with a ferocity, with all of my heart, with the kind of love where I know that I would have done anything in the world for him, the kind of love where I still, over three years later, don't really know what to do without him.

I can't really talk about him at all without choking up and, often, crying. It happens when I think about him. I'm kind of falling apart writing this.

And while writing this, I have a song in my mind. It's "Goodbye May Seem Forever" from The Fox and the Hound—the really unbelievably sad song that plays during the scene where the widow who raised the fox drives him to the woods and leaves him there, for his own good, never to see him again. I don't know that I'll ever be able to listen to it again. I can't honestly even think about it without tearing up. But I think it's the most fitting song I know of to describe my grief, and it reminds me of my Smokey.

"We met it seems Such a short time ago You looked at me Needing me so Yet from your sadness Our happiness grew And I found out I needed you too ... Goodbye may seem forever Farewell is like the end But in my heart's a memory And there you'll always be"

There you'll always be, my little love.

[ramp-it-up]

It Takes Two

Pairing: Soft Dark!Chris Evans x Reader

Warnings:  18+, Minors DNI. Curate your own experience. Cursing, drinking, cheating, breakups, rehab, recovery, deception, lies, celibacy, manipulation, wedding planning, semi-public explicit, rough, sex, oral sex (m receiving), degradation kink, breeding kink, choking, dubiuous con (b/c of deception). Darkish! Scott Evans. This is not proofread!

A/N: @lovebittenbyevans gave me a great idea about still dealing with Chris when commenting on The One.  I thought that the Chris in that fic could really go left and get pretty Dark and dirty. And then.... 

Anonymous asked:

Imagine Chris cheating on Y/N …

That made me think up this fic. It is a sequel to The One. I hope you like it!

-----

You left him.

You flew to Montreal to surprise him on set, trench coat and lingerie and everything, and when you opened the door to his trailer, you saw Heidi on her knees giving Chris a blowjob.

You cussed him out, threw the ring back in his face and turned around and left. 

You blocked his number, moved out of his house and cut off all contact.  You were done.

The audacity of Chris being indignant about your warnings about Heidi when he was boning her all along.

You loved Scott, but you had to cut him off too after he tried to explain that Chris was drunk when you found him, and was going to rehab to deal with his issues. 

 It was classic celebrity bullshit and you didn’t have time for it.

You decided to center yourself, and swear off all relationships and sex. You wanted to purge your mind of all that weighed you down. 

You concluded that love, sex, and Chris Evans made you feel heavy as fuck. 

You moved to New York City. It was far enough away from Chris and your folks in Houston to give you some peace. 

You could still run your business and even think about a storefront.  It was the perfect location to live your best life, eat healthy, exercise, socialize and network. 

You fell in love with yourself, and you didn’t think much about Christopher Robert Evans at all.

Only every time you went on IG or Twitter, even though you blocked him and his hashtags.  And every time you went to Target, because his fucking movies and merchandise were everywhere. 

But you were cool, because you were doing you. You weren’t looking for love.

Of course, that’s when it found you.

Six months after you left Boston, you were at a natural beauty products expo in Brooklyn hawking your wares.  

Your business had taken off, with almost a half million dollars in sales, and you were being interviewed by a major news outlet of color when one of the correspondents caught your eye. 

You flirted, exchanged numbers and ended up going on a date. In another three months you were engaged to him.  

Kevin Watts made you feel safe, protected and loved. And he wasn’t just after sex. He was well off, and secure in himself and you.  It just felt right. 

When Kevin proposed, it was just you and him at your favorite restaurant. So romantic. 

Not like the rowdy family 4th of July party at which Chris asked you to marry him last year, in front of both your parents.

The laughter and the joy was just a little much. 

This was perfect. You didn’t miss Chris at all. You set about planning your wedding with a profound sense of peace and safety.  

You and Kevin were meant to be.

----

Chris was nothing without you.

Nothing but an award winning actor and producer, a multi-millionaire and founder of a major organization dedicated to bringing opposing political viewpoints together. 

All of that was cool, and it kept him going, but when he lost you, he lost his motivation.

Chris didn’t take any more roles after the sequel with Heidi, and he dumped her post haste. He did enter rehab and realized that he depended way too much on alcohol to dull his emotions. 

He got drunk off his ass when he was away from you because he missed you so much, and that led to him letting Heidi think that she could have him.

She’d had him physically, but never his heart. Or his mind. You owned those.

Chris followed your business closely, and was proud of your success. 

Of course he followed your social media on burner accounts and saw that you were doing well. 

You looked like you enjoyed being single and seemed healthy and happy.

He couldn’t ask for anything more for you.

Except to be his again. 

Chris was just biding his time for your reunion, deciding to give you a year before he made his move. 

Now he felt every emotion, and he knew that you must still love him too.

You just needed to realize that your life would be even better with him back in it.

The year apart would be just punishment for what he’d done to you, and when you came back together, it would be better than before.

Everyone speculated on his bachelorhood, wondering if he would settle down, speculating and gossiping about who he was with, but he just played coy and kept quiet.

No one would know that he was yours and yours alone, and that you were still his.  

You just didn’t know it.

But you weren’t going along with the plan that you didn’t know about. 

About seven months into his self-imposed purgatory, a complication started popping up on Chris’s feed. 

Kevin. 

And a couple of months after that, a post of a proposal, in a restaurant.

The asshole probably didn’t even ask or involve your folks.  Chris was in a rage for a week. 

He almost started drinking again, but as he got ready to drive to the liquor store, Kevin’s face flashed on his screen doing a report on the election.

Instead of making him even more angry, he smiled, elated at the thought that came to him.

Chris had a new plan, and it was going to be even better than before.

-----

The last three months had been a whirlwind, and you never thought it would turn out this way.  

You were planning your wedding with your mother, discussing the seating at the reception, and you deciding where Chris Evans and his date would sit.

What a time to be alive.

Your mother only let it slip a couple of times that you should be marrying Chris, but for the most part, she kept it cute.

You explained to her that everything was squashed between you and Chris, and that he and Kevin had a great relationship, were friends, even.  

They’d bonded over politics when Kevin interviewed him, and became buds before Chris even realized that you and he were together.

Kevin knew, but he wasn’t the jealous type, and he didn’t want to make things awkward. Surprisingly, Kevin insisted that he be at the wedding. 

You thought about it and decided it would be the ultimate closure for Chris to watch you marry someone else. 

You were pleasantly surprised at Chris. He was handling this very well. He never tried to contact you, and according to Kevin, never even mentioned you. That was growth. 

Maybe you too could be friends. 

You felt good about it. So much so that you unblocked him and started a dialogue.

-----

Hi.

Chris saw your number come across his apple watch and he practically did a dance. It was 9:24 pm.  He picked up his phone and stared at the word, forcing himself to wait and not respond.  He went to work out.

47 minutes later, he responded.

Hello?

This time, he sat and waited for your response, which came 7 minutes later. 

I just wanted to say, I appreciate the way you're handling this.

Chris bit his lip, imagining you sitting there, thinking of what to say and staring down at your phone.

I’m sorry, I don't know who this is. You may have reached a wrong number?

He grinned at the play. 

----- 

Your heart dropped. Did he no longer have your contact?  

Why would he do that?

You don’t know why you felt some kinda way; you’d blocked him. 

Maybe he had changed his number and this was no longer his. Your heart was beating fast when you texted back.

Is this Chris?  This is Y/N.  I was just texting about Kevin Watts.

You anxiously watched the thought bubbles on imessage.

----

Even though you’d texted back almost immediately, Chris kept you hanging for just a couple of minutes. His dick was hard at the thought of communicating with you. 

Fuck, you were such an aphrodesiac.

Oh shit! Y/N I’m sorry.  I got a new phone.. You know how it is…

He knew you wouldn’t believe that. That’s why he said it.

You just stared at the phone. That was bullshit. You can easily port your contacts into a new phone.  You just never believed that Chris would really move on.  And you didn’t know why. 

You had.

You took a deep breath and continued.

Lol, No worries!  Just wanna say thank you for being cool with my Boo. I’m gonna turn in now. Check you later.

You tried to keep it light.

Chris ignored the ‘my Boo’ comment and focused on the thought of you in bed. 

You usually slept in a tank top or t-shirt and panties, and the top would invariably come off because you got hot. 

And then things would invariably get hotter if he was in bed with you….

Cool! Sweet dreams. Check you later. 😉

Chris made sure to exit your message thread and come back so that you wouldn’t see the thought bubbles that he saw when you kept staring at the text.

You  were lost in the times that Chris always used to say that to you, and when he whispered “Sweet Dreams” in your ear when he was far away, you always had wet dreams about him. 

And that wink. 

How could a fucking yellow emoji turn you the fuck on?

You reached for your bullet vibrator as you continued to stare at the interaction.

Chis had already started stroking himself when you told him you were going to bed. 

Knowing that you were thinking exactly what he wanted you to got him close, and he didn’t even have to pull up your old videos to get off. 

Not tonight.

-----

Over the next few weeks. you’d texted a few times, Chris ‘made amends’ and you accepted his apology. 

Then, you started texting more regularly, mainly joking around about sports, your Celtics/Rockets rivalry ever raging. 

From your perspective, Chris was always appropriate and respected your relationship with Kevin.  You were glad because you’d missed your friendship with him.

You felt giddy that your life was working out so well, and you traveled to your weekend getaway in the mountains for your bridal shower with a light heart.

Chris attended Kevin’s bachelor festivities with only a week to go until the wedding.

——

From Chris’s perspective, things were working out better than he’d hoped. 

Scoring an invite to the wedding was more than he’d imagined, and Kevin inviting him out to his Bachelor party was just icing on the cake.  

Maybe he could make Kevin slip up enough so that you would dump him before the wedding. Chris was hopeful.

If not, Plan B was the nuclear option. 

-------

Kevin was following the stripper’s ass like a puppy. He was lit on booze and pills (that Chris provided) and his guard was down.

Kevin considered Chris a friend. 

Chris just wanted to keep Kevin close because he was the enemy.

They were talking about you.

“She’s so fucking innocent. A sweeter angel there never was. I’ll have to teach her how to fuck.”

Chris almost choked on his water.

“I'm sorry. What now?”

Kevin just barreled on, ignoring the question.

“That's how I know I need to wife her.” He was talking to Chris, but still staring at the stripper.

“She would never chase the D. Hell, she won’t even touch mine. You know, her being celibate and all.”

Chris raised his eyebrow and smiled, which Kevin never noticed. Chris shook his head at your antics.  His little beautiful love.

“That’s why I was never pressed that you are her ex. I mean, I’m impressed you were with her as long as you were.”  

Chris just smiled and nodded, curious as to where this was leading.

“A man like you don’t have to put up with that. You must have punani lined up for days, bro.”

Chris’s heart lept. This dullard did not have access to your pussy. HIS pussy.  Never has.

Chris could fuck a lot of people a million ways from Sunday with one text. Except for you. And you were all that mattered. 

“I don’t know about all that.” Chris put on his best, ‘aw shucks’ act.

Chris was over the moon. You were still his. In every way.

Kevin kept tipping the stripper and was trying to call her over. He asked her about a private lap dance.  Chris’s eyes lit up. This asshole was making it too easy.

The stripper nodded and went back to finish up her set.  Chris walked over to the bar.

“Aye!” Chris summoned tha bartender over. 

“What can I get you, Sir.” 

“I don’t need a drink.  I wanna take care of my friend over there. He’s gonna have a lap dance with Star. It’s his bachelor party.  I need it to be extra special.”  

Chris started peeling off hundreds so the barkeep could see. 

“And I need him to have some keepsakes, so he’ll remember it always.” 

More hundreds came off. The bartender’s eyes got bigger and bigger. “That’s no problem.”

Chris flashed his famous smile.  

“Great, let me tell you where to send them. Wanna make them a wedding present.” He wrote down an address on a napkin. 

He was now on Plan C. And it was perfect.

------

A week later and the rehearsal at the church was more fun than you thought it would be.  You weren’t allowed to participate, just watch, as the result of an old wives tale.

The church secretary found you in the pews. She handed you a manila envelope.

“This was mailed here yesterday, probably an invoice of something for the wedding, I put it aside for you, sweetie.”

You smiled back at her and tucked it into your purse, not wanting to distract yourself with more wedding bills. 

Later, when you and Kevin were in the back of the car to the restaurant for the Rehearsal Dinner, you pulled it out and opened it. You couldn’t believe your eyes.

“What the ENTIRE FUCK KEVIN!”  

You threw the pictures of him fucking a stripper in his face, startling him out of staring at his phone.

He picked one up, his mouth dropped open and started talking. 

“Look, Baby, Baby! I can explain!...”

“DO NOT FUCKING LIE TO ME KEVIN!  WE HAVE OVER 300 PEOPLE HERE FOR OUR WEDDING TOMORROW MORNING.” 

Kevin was on his knees in the back of the suburban. 

“Listen to me.. Listen.  I’m a man. I have needs…”

“Kevin, I swear to god….”

“Okay, okay… I admit it…”

You listened to him and your heart went silent.  You couldn’t even absorb what he said.

When you pulled up to the restaurant, you straightened your dress and looked at him coolly.

“I am NOT going to deal with this tonight. Tonight was supposed to be a fun celebration of our wedding. I will decide later if it's still going to happen.”

Kevin was terrified.

“Right now, you and I will go into this place, greet our friends arm in arm and pretend that you are not a fucking narcissitic asshole who just ripped my heart to shreds. Got it?”

“Yes, but I-”

“Do NOT speak to me unless I speak to you first. Or it's automatically off.”

Kevin just nodded and cleared his throat.

You raised your chin and said, “Let’s go.”

-----

Two hours later, dinner was over, and you were lit on your way to TURNT.

Chris observed you, from the moment you entered holding hands with Kevin to the second you dropped his hand in disgust, to the way you held yourself away from him at dinner, but then put on a sweet face when everyone spoke, to Kevin, who was an absolute mess.

He figured you got the pictures. He suppressed the glee that was coursing through him.

But he couldn’t figure out why you were still going on with the charade.

Chris didn’t make a beeline for you like he wanted to, he just let the natural flow of the party lead you to him.  He was talking to your cousin when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around.

“Hey you.”  

You cocked your head at him in that way and looked up at him, your smile brightening your face.  Damn, he had to plant his feet. You smiling at him like that made him feel faint.

You both heard your cousin say something, but you didn’t pay attention, caught up in your own orbit.

“Hey.”  

Chris crossed his arms, and you swore that he was recalling the time when you told him your forearms made you horny. Fuck. Chris made you wet and you were fresh out of fucks tonight.

“So, I can’t have a hug?”  

Chris shook his head at your line and opened his arms to embrace you, keeping a respectable pressure and distance until you hugged him tight and pressed close.  

He couldn’t help but pick you up, but he put you down immediately, cleared his throat and backed up, looking uncomfortable.

That wouldn’t do. You wanted more of his scent, his warmth, his HIM. You pouted unconsciously in your buzzed state.

Chris’s cock stirred.  That fucking mouth had haunted his dreams for almost a year. He was pleased that you were flirting, but he had to work the plan.  Couldn’t go too fast.

“You look… great.  I can’t wait to see you tomorrow in your wedding dress. You will be a beautiful bride.”  

Chris broke his voice in just the right place to convey a wistfulness, making you think that he thought he lost you.

You felt bad.  Chris was so sweet.  You thought about him and you thought about Kevin. 

What was the difference between what Chris did and what Kevin did?  

And who did you have more chemistry with? Chris.  

Why were you even marrying Kevin?

You looked over at him looking at you and Chris like a lost dog.

You had no idea why you were marrying him.

“You look… Like Chris fucking Evans.” You two laughed.  

“I bet you’re fighting them off with a stick.”  You sideyed him.

Chris reveled in your interest in his sex life.

“Well, you know. After rehab, I’ve laid off the... physical part of my life. It only brought chaos, you know. I’m trying to be more… zen. Haven’t really had… that  for the better part of a year.”

He watched your eyes get big.  

“Word?”  You smirked. “So you…”

Chris held up his hand.  The one you knew he jacked off with.  You grabbed it and started drawing on his palm.  Chis pulled it back and cleared his throat again. 

You pouted again. Him being hard to get made you wet.

And Chris knew that.

“So… you ready to marry the love of your life?”

 Chris’s sea blues looked you deep into your cocoa browns. You were transported back in time.

“Yes.” 

 Then you snapped out of it.  

“I mean… the church is set up, the dress is bought, everyone’s here. I guess so.”

Chris laughed as if you were telling a joke.  

“I miss your sense of humor.”

You all made small talk and you caught up a little before you asked what you wanted to know.

“So what are you up to tonight?”

Chris looked at his watch.

“I’m actually about to go to my condo an turn in. I get up early to work out.” He felt your eyes sweep up and down his body, and he flexed even though he was fully dressed. It was true. Working out was a regimen. He wanted you drooling for him. 

“It’s the Marvel condo in Brooklyn?”

You nodded, remembering good times.

“So you have a car picking you up?”  Your mind was whirring.

“I actually have a rental.” 

You gulped your drink down, not daring to look in his eyes. Now, not only was your pussy wet, your nipples were hard as hell. 

“It’s in the parking garage down the block.”

“Well, I need to clear my head. I’ll walk you there, and you can drop me back?”

Chris looked down at your cute face, and then around the room, spotted Kevin and gave him a nod.

“You sure that’s a good idea?”  

You looked at Kevin, too.  You wanted to stick your tongue out, but you just took Chris by the arm and headed toward the door.

“I’m a big girl. Nobody owns me.” 

You looked up into Chris’s eyes and instantly regretted that statement. You played it off and pulled him through the door.

You didn’t talk at all the entire way, both of your heads deep in the clouds of you and him.  The chemistry was crackling the air between you.

You held on to his arm, and he let you, reveling in your touch.

When you reached the parking garage, Chris pressed the button with his knuckle and you got in, headed for the top deck.

You just stared at each other, both thinking the same thing. Chris chuckled.

“You’re dangerous, night before your wedding, you probably have cold feet, I’m here. Maybe you want to be sure that you’re sure…”

You cocked your head. “Who said I wanted to fuck you, Chris Evans?”

Chris cocked his head too, mirroring you.  “Who said ‘fuck?’ I was thinking you wanted to talk.”

He smirked and you scowled as the door opened.

Chris left you in the elevator stewing as he walked over to the black Tesla he’d rented. There was no other car on the deck.

You scoffed, and followed him out.

He was about to walk around to the driver's side door when you grabbed his arm before he made it. He stopped directly in front of the car.

“Do you mean to tell me that you don’t want me?”  You were hot, in more ways than one.

Chris leaned back against the hood.

“That’s not what we’re talking about, y/n. You’re getting married tomorrow. To someone else.”

You smiled and reached up, fingers grazing his neck and playing with the hair at his nape. You ran your fingers through his beard.  Kevin’s couldn’t compare.

“That’s tomorrow. Tonight I’m single as fuck.” 

You stood on your tip toes and brushed your lips against his, reveling in the moan that came from his throat.

Chris fought to control his urge and continued with his act. His fingers tightened around your waist and you thought this was it.  He turned you around in front of the car and then let you go, stepping back to pace back and forth.

“What? What is this? You’ve had almost a year. Kevin’s my friend. What do you want from me?”  

He advanced on you, and you had to remember to breathe.  He knew what you wanted.

“You. I want you, Chris.”

Chris attacked your lips with his own.  He took two seconds to savor them before he ravaged your mouth with his tongue.  You moaned and he broke from your mouth to re-discover your face, your neck, your cleavage.  He had to control himself not to rip the bodice of your blush pink chiffon dress.

He had a raging hard on, which you were feeling up, remembering how you always struggled to take him.  You wanted him to hurt you with it now.

“Give me this Chris… please…”

You were reaching into his pants, thumb caressing his wet, thick tip. He was leaking for you.

“Remember when you told me that I would meet you in a parking lot, and let you fuck me over the hood of your rental car? Even if I was with someone else?”  

You pulled your hand out and started sucking your thumb, closing your eyes at the taste of Chris after so long.  You pulled it out with a pop.  

“You were so right.”

Chris practically growled, grabbed your arm and spun you, pushing your back until your chest hit the hood of the Model X.  He leaned over you, pushing his covered crotch into the back of your dress, you moaned, wanting more.  His mouth was at your ear.

“Oh, so you want to be my cock whore on the eve of your wedding to someone else.”  You moaned because it was true.

“It’s been so long, Chris…”

He reached down in between you and flipped the flouncy skirt of your dress up, exposing you to the wind of New York City.  He looked at it for a minute, your ass always his favorite.

He caressed it with both hands, pressing into you with his thumbs.  

“So you want me to feel you up?”  He pulled his hand back and sucked one of them, practically jumping for joy when he tasted you. 

“You want me to pull your panties to the side….” and he did so, seeing your slick shine in the moonlight, and playing in it for a minute, tracing your lips and making you quiver around nothing.

The way you were moaning his name was everything right now.

Your face was pressed against the cool metal of the car, and it was the only thing tying you to the earth.

“Oh yes, Chris…. Please please yesss...fuck me… damn...stretch me out…”

Chris’s dick pulsed and he needed you around him. He moved close again and unzipped his pants, the sound making your knees weak.

He teased your cunt with his tip, collecting your arousal and smearing it not only around your pussy, but around your asshole.

“I know you’ve fucked him, but have you let him have your ass?  Am I still the only one…?”

Chris was still playing the game. 

“No, no, no… I haven’t let him… I haven’t given him anything. I’ve been celibate, too.  It’s still yours Chris. All of me is still yours.”

Chris almost came just hearing you say it out loud. He already knew, but hearing you say it was the shit.

He pushed into you with a grunt, and it was difficult.  He didn’t make it. Your cunt squeezed him out.

“Ffffuck, y/n. You’re practically closed down.  Is it true?”  

He started rocking his tip into your pussy slowly, both regretting and reveling in the fact that he didn’t stretch you out with his fingers beforehand.  Then he decided that he wanted you to feel this fully.

You couldn’t answer, only responding with moans has he painfully breached you. You welcomed it, though.

“Ah, ah, ah, ah… yes Chris.  Only you.. Since you and I….”  Talking about it and the fact that you were taking him again made you wetter, and eased Chris’s way, although your pussy was already stinging with his girth. Your eyes rolled back in your head.

You would never get over this and were so grateful for the feeling again.  

Chris watched you and had to grit his teeth to hold back from the reality that he was taking you again. 

He leaned over you, hot breath huffing in your ear, puffing and groaning as he fucked you slowly.  He was trying to feel every sensation. He wanted you to know that each and every millimeter of your glorious wet, tight pussy was his.

‘Ohhhh. Fuck Chris… YESSSS!”  Your voice echoed off the concrete walls, and Chris wanted you louder.

“This what you wanted?  You wanted your thick cock inside you again. Hunh?  You wanted me to stretch your walls and fuck you raw, hunh?”  He started speeding up in time with your moans.

“Such a fucking filthy cockslut for me, baby.”  Chris grabbed your neck from the back. “Why didn’t you let Kevin hit, hunh?”  

You didn’t answer, you just moaned and Chris smacked your ass, hard.

“Chris! Fuck!”  

You screamed. You missed his ruthlessness when you fucked, you missed him making sure that you knew that he knew that you knew. You belonged to him. 

 “Please!”

“I know why.” 

Chris stopped fucking you and pressed down harder on your back, reaching around to find your clit.  He swirled around it once, then started to press down slowly. 

“Because you would never beg him for that subpar dick that he has. You’re MY whore. You belong to me.”

He pressed down roughly, and you detonated around his dick.  He didn’t have to move.  Chris pulled out, leaving you cold and bereft.

You turned around and leaned up against the hood, panting and still desperate for him.  He stood there in front of you, dick sticking out of his pants, which were ruined, and still rock hard and ready. He was in a quiet rage.

“Why did you leave me?” 

You searched his face.  He sounded like he was about to cry.  You couldn’t quite see his entire face, but his eyes shone, bright with liquid.  You went toward him.

“You hurt me Chris.  I couldn’t stay. But let me take care of you now.”

You got on your knees in front of him, the hard concrete of the parking structure digging into your knees.  

Again, you welcomed the physical pain, distracting you from what you were doing to Kevin, to Chris, and to yourself.

Chris felt like he could fly.  You on your knees for him again was a dream. 

He took his cock in his hand, stroking it, while moving close to you. In no time, the back of your head was in his palm, and you opened wide to accept him, hand coming up to stroke what you couldn’t fit.

“Ah, ah. Let me.”  

You looked up at him to see an evil grin shine down on you. 

Chris looked down on an angel trying to swallow him whole. He brushed the tears away from your eyes as you struggled to breathe. You were perfection.

Moaning around him, you relaxed your mouth and throat and let him use you.  It was difficult, because you were out of practice, but you welcomed the letting go of all thought. 

You dripped down your thighs as Chris pumped into you, ready to accept what he had to give. 

After a few minutes, he stopped, and pulled out, grabbing you up to your feet. 

Then he bent down and grabbed you by the back of your thighs and you wrapped your legs around his waist, kissing him and trying to grind down on his still-erect cock as he backed you to the car.

Your ass hit the hood, and Chris reached between you to first tear your panties off. He put them in his pocket as he swiped his dick up and down your dripping wet folds.  

He looked back up to watch your face as he pushed inside you, now, an easier path to nirvana.

He pulsed as he watched the pleasure take over your face, with your mouth slack and your eyes glassed over. This was his main purpose in life and he almost lost it.

He brought his hand up to bring you closer, breathed into your mouth as he squeezed your throat. You were high instantly, and clamped down on his cock as your body was wracked with waves of pleasure.

Chris let your body descend back down to the car as he pumped his seed into you, his mind fantasizing that he was impregnating you. 

He shook your body as the last ropes of cum spurted out of him. He ran his hand down your body as he pulled out, zipping up his pants as you came back to your senses on the hood of the car.

You stared at the stars as you realized what you had done.  You sat up and adjusted your dress, gingerly climbing back down to the ground.  

Chris kissed you on the forehead, and this time you let him get into the driver’s seat. You got in the passenger side and Chris reached into the glovebox and handed you some wet wipes.

“Fix your face. And your knees.” 

He nodded down to your legs, which were dirty from the parking structure floor.  He watched you wipe your knees off, but stopped you as you went higher.

“No. I want you to feel me all night long.”  

You wanted to be a brat, but you didn’t feel like sass right about now. You felt kinda terrible.

You got another wet wipe and fixed your makeup as best you could as Chris drove you back to the restaurant.

“Chris, I…”

“I know.  None of that meant that we’re back together.  That was for some kind of something, I dunno, something Kevin might have done?” 

You looked down, ashamed. Chris lifted your chin up with his hand.

“I want you to come to me on your own.  You’ve gotten that out of your system, and I’m glad to be of service.”  You looked up into his eyes and at his wry smile.

“But remember, you still have a choice. I’m here if you choose me.”  

He leaned over and gave you a tender kiss in front of the restaurant.

You smiled at him and climbed out of the car, watching as he drove off.

Chris’s heart was beating out of his chest as he watched you turn and go back inside. He fought the urge to turn around. It was better this way.

----

You walked in the restaurant, and pulled Kevin over to the side of the restaurant in dark alcove. 

“Listen. Do you still want to marry me?”

He looked you up and down, taking in your state, from the faint marks on your neck to your scuffed knees.  He knew exactly what was up.

You raised an eyebrow at him.  

-----

Three hours later, a sleepy Chris answered the doorbell in Brooklyn.

He smiled at you, in the Captain America t-shirt and jeans that you’d stolen from him after a photoshoot, looking like his favorite Disney princess. You.

You took him in, clad in grey sweatpants that hung off his magnificently cut body.  He blinked at you sleepily.

“The wedding is off. Chris, I….”

He reached out and grabbed you, pulling you in the brownstone and shutting the door behind you.  He had you pinned up against the wall as you tried to speak.

“Shut up and let me taste you.”  

You grinned and wrapped your legs around his waist as he carried you upstairs.

--- 

The next morning, Chris was on the phone with Scott.

“Yes, tell the workers at the warehouse to dump all the products….I don’t care, the river, the landfill…. Y/N can’t find out that I bought up all her stock…. We’re going to be married..... I know what the fuck I’m doing Scott. We leave for Aruba this afternoon. Listen, I’ll call you later.”

Chris hung up and turned to find you in the doorway, frowning and rubbing your eyes.  

“We’re going to Aruba?”  

You smiled and yawned, sleepily stretching.  That was all that you’d heard of the conversation.

Chris gave you his stunner smile.  

“Yes. It was going to be a surprise.” 

He reached down and swung you up in his arms, carrying you into the bathroom bridal style.

“Now let’s get in the shower.  You’ve been very naughty, gotta get you clean for your wedding day.”

You giggled as you relaxed in Chris’s arms. “It takes two to be naughty, Chris.”

He winked at you as he turned on the shower. “Don’t I know it.”

-----

I know it’s different. Let me know if you like it. Like, comment, reblog! 

Tags:

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[mcufox123]

Poofed

WandaxFemReader

Summary: Wanda copes with a life that may not have you in it.

Warnings: Devestation

A/N: This story literally is heartbreaking but in a good way I think. Let me know what you guys think!

****************************************************************************************************

You wake up suddenly to your hand being kicked. It was wrapped around your wife’s very pregnant belly as you both tried to sleep through the night. You smiled dreamily in your sleepy state as you were reminded of the twins who would be born any day now.

You and your wife were a part of the famous superhero group who saved the world numerous times. Shortly after she joined and got acclimated with the team the two of you started dating. It has now been 7 years of being together, 3 of them being married. You had moved out of the compound and were now living in your dream house in the countryside, the perfect place for your growing family.

While Wanda was able to take leave months ago as none of the team wanted your children hurt, you still went to work every day. The team promised that once they were born you would be given 3 months to spend with your family but until then “there were still bad guys out there” in Tony's words of course.

You checked the time to see you still had a half an hour to spare before you had to be at the compound. You made Wanda breakfast and set it up next to her then you got ready for your day. You showered, got changed and before you left you wrote two sticky notes to leave on your wife’s mirror. One saying, “I love you more than chocolate chip cookies.” The second said, “You are looking like such a hot mama today.” You left a kiss on Wanda’s forehead and whispered an ‘I love you’ then you went to work.

Wanda woke later that morning with a smile on her face. She saw the breakfast you set up and immediately started eating because she was starving. After her breakfast in bed, she showered before seeing the notes you left. She actually laughed out loud. Even when you weren’t home you always made her day. She sent you a quick text.

Hi my love! Thank you so much for breakfast! I love you more than tv shows!

After that Wanda went about her day normally before she got bored and decided to go to the compound. When she arrived she saw Bucky and Sam watching tv.

“Hey boys,” Wanda said as she set her bag on the counter before walking over and sitting in between the two.

“Hey Wand, how are you feeling? Do you need anything?” Bucky suddenly jumped into protective older brother mode.

“Sit.” Wanda ordered him, glaring at him. She appreciated the gesture, but she was pregnant and not handicapped.

“Yes Ma’am.” Bucky sat not wanting to make Wanda upset.

“Damn man, if she needs something she’ll tell us right?” Sam asked, turning to Wanda.

“Exactly thank you Sam.” They continued watching TV comfortably every once in a while bantering about something.

“Hey guys, where was y/n’s mission today? I usually hear from her by now if she’s going to be later than 6.” Wanda said realizing the time was now past 6 and she still hasn’t heard anything.

“I think they were in Florida today,” Bucky said, scratching his head trying to remember what Steve told them this morning. “Some mission with aliens that Carol warned them about. They’ll be fine. You’re welcome to stay here in your old room though.” He finished. Wanda thanked him before getting up to move to the kitchen, both men hot on her tail.

“Who is hungry?” Wanda asked as she started to get ingredients out for a caprese chicken dish and some pasta.

“Me, for sure. I missed your cooking so much Wanda.” Sam said, taking a seat at the counter pulling out his phone to que up some songs to listen to while you cooked. Dinner was good and shortly after Wanda went to bed in the now foreign space and begged for sleep to consume her. It was hard because she grew used to your arms wrapped around her with your face pressed into her hair. That night she didn’t get much sleep. She sent you a text letting you know she was sleeping at the compound before she rolled over and tried to shut her eyes.

The following morning Wanda woke up to a still empty bed. Now she started getting nervous, she searched for her phone to see no new messages. She took her time getting out of bed but quickly threw on the clothes she was wearing yesterday before heading to the kitchen.

As she was almost there she could hear Steve talking.

“So Wanda’s here?” Steve asked the person he was talking to.

“Yeah she came yesterday and we just told her to stay. So wait, you're telling me that these things just hit a button then poofed with Tony and y/n? Are they alive?” Wanda could now tell the other person was Bucky. She felt like she couldn’t breath, feeling the wind knocked out of her at the words she just heard. She couldn’t hide any longer and barged into the kitchen.

Her hands instantly went into a fighting position holding Steve in a tight grasp so he couldn’t escape.

“Where is she Steve? What happened? You promised me no life or death missions. You promised me she would always come back to me. She said she would never go away.” Wanda said while breaking towards the end and crumpling to the ground. Bucky went over and wrapped her in a hug.

After a few minutes Bucky put Wanda on the couch as now the rest of the team came in and Pepper with her two small children. Steve went over what happened on the mission and how they have no trace of either of their teammates. He made everyone aware that Thor, Carol, and the Guardians of the Galaxy were all in search of their friends.

Wanda felt so lost. Your twins were expected any day and you were gone. How was she going to do it if you weren’t back? How was she going to be strong for your two little ones if you weren’t there? The questions swarmed her head as she tuned out the rest of the team. After hours of talking the team now turned to their tuned out friend to offer some support.

“When was the last time you ate?” Clint asked Wanda, putting his hand on her shoulder to ground her.

“I don't know.” Wanda shook her head still thinking a million miles a minute not making eye contact with anyone.

“Wanda you need to eat. You have two other people to worry about. Y/N will be ok, she will come back.” Steve said, sitting next to her. She collapsed in tears and that was how the rest of the night went, crying and the team forcing Wanda to eat.

The following days Wanda barely left the bed. On the 4th day of you being missing Wanda felt a sharp pain in her stomach. Her eyes started to tear up from both pain and the realization of what was happening. She was going into labor without you. She screamed out in pain and heartbreak.

Steve rushed into the room as soon as he heard Wanda scream, “It’s ok Wanda we’re here, let's get you to the infirmary.” he held Wanda’s hand all the way down to the infirmary. Steve sent a text out to the rest of the team to let them know what was happening and soon familiar faces appeared in Wanda’s room.

They took shifts as they waited for the time to push. Natasha talked about the makeshift nursery they set up for Wanda, Bucky talked about how he got clothes for Wanda and the babies from Wanda’s home, Steve talked about schedules and shifts he made up to help Wanda, Sam bought stuffed animals, and Peter offered to take the babies to the playground. Wanda just sat and listened, grateful for her friends and the help they were giving her. All she could think about was how you should be there.

You should be freaking out everytime Wanda had a contraction, asking if she should get the doctor. She knew you would try to find her favorite shows on the TV and rub her back whispering soothing words. She needed that more than anything, she needed you. She needed you to be there for your twins first breath, for bringing them home, for the countless sleepless nights.

Soon the doctor entered the room, “Wanda it looks like you are ready to push,” nurses entered behind them with all of the equipment needed for the babies’ delivery. Wanda nodded trying to prepare herself for the experience that was moments away. “Would you like anyone in the room with you?” and Wanda did, she wanted you but you weren’t there. So she asked her best friend Nat to stay with her to which Nat agreed.

They got into position and Wanda endured the hardest fight of her life, childbirth. She could’ve sworn she broke Natasha’s hand from how hard she was squeezing. Soon a melodic sound broke through the pain as her first child was born. “It’s a boy!” she heard and she started to cry of joy. She had a son. The joy didn’t last as she felt another urge to push. “And we have another boy!”

Wanda was so relieved that both boys were here and healthy. You kept telling her that you could feel it was two boys, two football players, you would say. They brought the babies to wanda and laid them on her chest. Nat was quick to snap a quick photo before exiting the room to let the rest of the team know, giving Wanda a moment with her children.

Nat walked out of the room to see no one in the waiting room. She asked the nurse where everyone was who informed her that they were outside. She walked quickly outside hoping you were back. Instead she saw someone else. Tony on his hands and knees crying while the rest of the team was surrounding him.

“What? Where’s Y/N?” Bucky was the first to speak. Everyone was too scared to hear what happened, why Tony was back but not Y/n.

“I don’t know. One minute we were in a room being questioned the next thing I  know y/n lunged at the guy questioning us. She was fighting with him for the poof thing. Then after she successfully got it we realized only one of us could go back while the other had to hit the button. She didn’t even give me a second. And now, now here I am and she is there. Where’s Wanda I  have to tell her something?” Tony suddenly looked frantic.

“No, you’re going with Bruce to do everything you can to get Y/N back.” Clint said, poking Tony in the chest. “You are not doing anything else until she’s back. And you definitely are not seeing Wanda. That girl just had to give birth to twins without y/n, she’s destroyed.” Clint walked back into the infirmary while everyone was still in shock.

“I ‘m sorry. I ‘m going to bring her back.” Tony promised before walking towards the lab to get in contact with the people who were already searching for y/n.

Meanwhile Wanda was still in awe of the two boys in her arms, memorizing all of their features. She knew their names, you and her had picked out the names for all twin scenarios and for two boys it’d be Tommy and Billy. She started to hum a tune she remembered as a child. She started to get upset as she remembered the last time she hummed the song.

You had just walked in from a long day helping in the lab and training. You saw Wanda in the kitchen cooking dinner before turning to see you. She gave you the biggest smile as she came over to wrap her arms around you. Her pregnant stomach left some room between you two as she reached up to plant a kiss on your lips.

“How was your day my love?” she asked walking back to the stove to turn it off and putting the food on the table.

“I'm so tired. Tony was going on about this new feature he wants to make for the quinjet and then Nat beat my ass at training. I don't want to do anything.” Wanda sensing your mood guided you to the couch she sat then pulled you down so your head was on her lap. She played with your hair to calm you down.

“The babies were very active today kicking the heck out of me” she giggled to which you turned your face to her stomach. You placed your hands on her stomach.

“Hey you two, stop kicking mama. I  know you want to play football but you're gonna have to wait till you come out of there.”

“How do you know they’ll want to play football?” She questioned you.

“I  can just feel it in my bones.” You said as your eyes fluttered close. Dinner was long forgotten as Wanda continued to play with your hair humming the tune and you drifted off to sleep.

The following week after the twins’ birth was very hard for Wanda. She went through all the firsts by herself. Instead of going through the first night with you she went through it alone. Instead of bringing them home together with big smiles she took them to her room in the compound. Instead of introducing the twins to the team with you they were all by Wanda’s side before she could introduce them.

She spent the nights in bed. Someone on the team  was always sleeping on a cot to help her during the nights. It had been 11 days since you went missing and you had already missed the biggest week of your little family’s life.

On the 11th day Wanda left the sleeping twins with a sleeping Uncle Bucky and roamed around the compound seeing you everywhere she went. In the kitchen where you both cooked dinner for the team all the time. On the couch where you spent countless nights watching tv shows and movies. In the training room where you pinned Wanda more times then she likes to admit. Then she headed towards the lab.

She stood shocked.

Right in front of her was a man that betrayed her. A man that you had put your life in the hands of who disappointed you. She stormed at him in a fit of rage. “You son of a bitch! Where is she? What did you do to her? I'm going to kill you!” Wanda screamed at him while hitting his chest. Tony let her, knowing that this was what she needed. Wanda continued to curse him out before Tony finally grabbed her hands.

“Stop. I  get it. I'm the bad guy, and I deserve to be. I  messed up the biggest moment of both of your lives. You can keep hitting me, knock me out, whatever you have to do. There is something I have to show you first though.” Tony let go of Wanda’s hands before walking to the screen to pull up a video for Wanda.

When it came through it was you. You were sitting in a bare room and Tony was asleep on the floor behind you. Your hair was a mess and you looked exhausted.

“Friday is it recording? Yes? Ok here we go. If anyone is watching this I  probably did something stupid and I ‘m so sorry. If it’s Wanda hi babe. Man, I think it’s been 3 days and I miss you like crazy. I ‘m trying to figure out a way to get back to you and the babies I promise.” Wanda can feel the tears rolling down her face. “Well I think I have a plan. You aren’t going to like it but I promise you that it will all work out and I will come back to you. Babe I  don't have much time they are coming back. I  love you and our twins so much. I  am going to do everything to come back to you.” Then the screen went black.

“Play it again, Tony.” Wanda asked Tony and he did. She watched it about 10 more times. Just hearing your voice made Wanda feel better.

“Thank you for showing me that. Can you send it to me?” Wanda asked, keeping her eyes locked on yours on the screen. Tony nodded and Wanda walked out of the room back to the twins.

After that day Wanda had hope. She knew you would come back to her. She watched that video every night on repeat to fall asleep too. She played it for the twins and other videos of you so they could hear your voice. The team noticed the change in Wanda as well. They were very skeptical but didn’t question her mood change.

After a month of you being missing Wanda had almost given up hope. Tommy was fussy and Billy had an explosion in his diaper and it was the first time the team had all gone on a mission so no one was with her. She was crying while changing Billy’s diaper while using her powers to rock Tommy’s baby seat.

“Ah boys, it’s ok mamas here. We’ll be ok sh sh sh.” She was so frustrated she couldn’t even get the diaper on Billy. There were a few more minutes of Tommy crying and Billy and now Wanda before she heard Tommy stop. She didn’t even turn around; she figured he just fell asleep.

When she turned with Billy in her arms she was shocked to see the person standing in front of her. It was the love of her life with her son. A sight Wanda never thought she would see. You looked skinnier, tons of bruises and cuts littered your skin. Your clothes were tattered and your hair was a mess in your face. Wanda thought you still looked just as beautiful. She had Billy in her arms as she slowly walked towards you not believing her eyes. She reached up and touched your face to make sure you were there. And you were.

With Tommy in one hand you reached up with your other to place on top of Wanda’s. “Hey there stranger.” You said with a chuckle. She wrapped her arm around you and started sobbing. You put Tommy in the bassinet still holding onto Wanda then reached for Billy placing him next to his brother. Then you did the thing you had been wanting to do forever.

You held onto Wanda as she sobbed in your arms. You stroked her hair while whispering “I’m here,” over and over in her ear.

Your arms were around Wanda but your eyes were on your twins. You soon began to cry, realizing how much time you missed. Wanda pulled away when she felt something drip on her shoulder.

“It’s ok my love you’re here now. You won’t miss anything else. You’re here.” Wanda promised with her hands on either side of your face to make you look at her. You leaned down and gave your love a long awaited kiss. Both of you being grateful to have the other there to comfort each other.

You soon pulled away from Wanda to look at your twins.

“I told you two football players.” You chuckled as you picked up the other baby who you have not held yet. “Who is who?”

“That’s Billy and this is Tommy.” She said while picking up the other baby. You both made your way to the bed with the twins and got comfortable next to each other. You stared at them trying to take in the two people who were now your own.

“I’m so sorry I  missed all of it. I  tried to get back as fast as I  could. I  really did. I  thought when I sent Tony back it was going to be hours and I would be back. But I see metal man's mind isn’t what it used to be.” You rambled on. You wanted Wanda to know just how sorry you were.

“It’s ok. You’re here now and I’m not letting them take you anywhere. You’re staying with us for as long as I want.” Wanda assured you. You sat with your family for hours just basking in their presence and soaking it all in. You changed every diaper and did anything Wanda needed until she ordered you to go shower. While watching your 7th episode of grey's anatomy you dozed off with the babies between you and Wanda.

You only woke when you heard the rest of your rag tag group of friends enter the compound from their latest mission not even trying to be quiet. You turned to see Wanda still awake nursing Billy.

“Should we scare them?” You asked Wanda with a grin on your face. “You can if you want.” She didn’t feel one way or the other. Knowing how much the team helped her while you were missing.

You stood up and hid behind the closed door. It opened halfway.

“Hey Wanda how’d everything go?” Steve asked, you could feel multiple people enter the room however.

“Boo!” you jumped out to scare the team. Bucky not knowing it was you punched you in the stomach.

“Ah shit sorry y/n.” he said before recognition came to his eyes and the others. “Wait y/n?” he stared in disbelief. Nat was the first to tackle you in a hug before the others were soon to follow.

“How, how, how did you get back?” Tony asked with tears in his eyes.

“Well I  thought you would figure it out quickly once I  sent you back but that didn’t happen. I  kept waiting and finally decided to just do it myself. I  befriended another prisoner who promised to poof me back. And then when they did I  was in the training room. I  got Wanda’s text and just assumed she was still here and made my way up to her room.” They all said how happy they were that you were back. You ate dinner as a family and spent the night in your room with your beautiful wife and boys.

“Let’s go home tomorrow.” you suggested to your half asleep wife in your arms.

“You are my home.” she said and you felt warmth well up in your chest.

“I  love you so much darling.” you nuzzled closer to her.

“I  love you more.” and you both fell into a deep sleep which neither of you had had for a long time.

[janumun]

A [Cat] Parent's Memoirs of Pregnancy ft. Spouse (Pregnancy Headcanons)

Game: Shall We Date: Obey Me! Rating: General Audience/SFW Tags: pregnancy sweetness (and shenanigans)

Summary: Satan's approach and reaction to having a baby with his S/O.

Author's Notes: YESSSS YOU CAN @niphredil-14. 💚💛 This is cute and very, very warm. I tossed in between giving him either fur babies or demon babies (he deserves both!), and chose this! I hope you enjoy your read. 💚

Requests for this event are now (long) closed, dear readers. Thank you to all those who participated!

Perhaps three or twelve feline babies later, the two of you might plan on making a hybrid child — with two hands and two legs, five fingers on each and absolutely no fur in sight.

Satan would prefer waiting until your youngest adopted foundling — a tiny, dark slip of a cat — is well into its second year in this world before he decides to try for a baby, of your own flesh and blood. A decision he hardly takes in frivolity. Every vulnerable life, be it cat or person, is important and requires adequate care; Satan is very well aware of the fact.

When the two of you discover you are with child, happiness trumps within alongside multiple plans he’s already running through his head for the arrival of your child. Unfortunately, his immediate task on the agenda is informing Lucifer about the upcoming arrival — fighting for board for his adopted cats’ was Hell enough, war waged with you by his side — lest Lucifer demand he find elsewhere for the two of you to care for your baby. He’s going to stomp out of the House of Lamentation if Lucifer so much as suggests displeasure at your child.

Begrudgingly — and as frightening as it is to witness this conversation in between the two brothers, you fear you might almost collapse at how tensed you are watching the two glare at each other — though your demon breaks the news, and perhaps almost surprising for Satan, Lucifer greets the news with good cheer.

Claret gaze warming in affection as it slides towards you before he congratulates the two of you on your pregnancy.

Suffice to say, once his other brothers are informed of the news, they’re gathering over to express surprise (you suspect it’s more about them wanting to fawn and coo over a human pregnant) and extend their well-wishes to the two of you. Gifts from every single brother — in good will, but largely injurious to your health and the baby’s — Satan has lined against your side of the bed. Lucifer’s he burns with his unearthly verdant fire the moment you’re presented with it and the elder brother’s out of sight.

Manuals are brought out, books are being purchased. Shipments from all four corners of Devildom, pricey tomes on human pregnancy from the Earth.

Satan’s here to provide you with all information necessary to nurturing a baby within your womb, random facts and tid-bits even you’re hearing for the first time. He stresses on keeping yourself healthy. He isn’t an over-bearing future father but does definitely encourage you to stick to the health schedule he draws up for you every week, making a point of, time and again, how important it is for you to follow a good lifestyle in order to see through a safe pregnancy and delivery.

Everyday walks, Kegels, healthy amounts of fruit and meat in your diet (let him know if anything — anything at all — upsets your appetite and he’s quick to swipe that item out of your plate, and your lives). None of which you’re doing alone because he’s more than happy to accompany you throughout your regime.

Don’t let him choose too many of the baby’s clothes however, he’s pulling the oddest combinations of clothes off the rack and it leaves you half-amused half-terrified for your future baby’s sense of fashion. [That is way too many cat onesies in bizarre shades, Satan!]

He would never force you to adhere to something he wasn’t capable of seeing through himself. And, first and foremost he wants to be there for and with you. If you’d let him, he’d be very hands-on in helping deliver your baby as well.

Every single time the two of you make progress through your health list, Satan’s got a pat on the head ready, stroking your hair, affectionate, praising you on how well you’d done that day and what good progression you’d been making lately. Parting stray locks to press a kiss against your forehead. One to your lips in a smile more than happy to, if you ask for more. He’s that perfect balance between strict and adoring.

Future Father™️ (not so) secretly loves to be wrapped up in surprise cuddles any day of the week. There is nothing more joyous than the thought of being needed by you.

Perhaps one of the more enjoyable parts of your pregnancy has been how much more physically affectionate your child has made you and he can hardly complain when you crawl across the covers to join him in bed as he reads. You settling soft against him, needy arms coming around. Swollen stomach, round and wonderfully full, pressed into his side, he almost thinks he feels the baby within, kick a foot in welcome against his side — Hello Dad, as if that’s what Baby’s saying, if they could speak. The rather ridiculously sweet thought’s enough to pull a soft bout of laughter from him and an arm he fits carefully against your shoulder to drag you in.

“Are you cold again, kitten? Come sit next to me. We don’t want you and the little one to get sick now, do we? Is that better? Do you need me to go fetch a blanket? Alright then, sweet dreams.”

He’s here to answer to your every need, so long as it’s within the bounds of reasonability and not injurious to you or the baby.

As much as Satan might seem in control of the entire situation; calm rationale persevering through your hurdles of new pregnancy and future parenthood. Despite how he is the one you seek comfort in and take pride in as the father of your child… Satan is not entirely without his own chips in a seemingly flawless armor.

His knowledge, no matter how vast and thorough, doesn’t replace the practicality of witnessing you nurture a child — your child — within your belly for nine long months. Less than even a speck within a demon’s eternity but so very long and at times… challenging, more than he’s ever encountered throughout his lifetime. Having been born of Lucifer’s rage and anguish, Satan has never known of a parent’s love, nor does he pretend to understand what it might entail. He’s never really felt the need to, past that hollow ache that surfaces at times, to know he was born of loathing and negativity, not nurtured from love.

Lucifer’s hatred of his Father, Levi’s brief mentions of his Mother… a bedtime story narrated of times within the Heavens past with their family, among the brothers, in Lucifer’s absence, is all he knows of the entities called ‘parents’. He does not know what he ‘feels’, if his emotions and reactions are appropriate for a life the two of you are responsible for, together. If his version of love would ever be adequate enough for your baby — the thought that they too might grow missing half the love of their parents, to have no outlet for restless agitation and hurt towards a father who’s never had one of his own… it terrifies him beyond belief.

Times like these are when you need to read him like the very books he’s so fond of picking apart. Seat him by your side and engage him in conversation of your future as a family of many, many children (demon/human and feline alike). Let Satan voice his thoughts, unformed or firm, however they might come across. Pity or sermons are not what he needs; rather quiet understanding and thinking space. To let him realize how he has no need for anxiety; his version of love is just as much valid and your absolute faith in Satan’s ability to love your child as much as he does you. Something you’re willing to learn, a new experience of loving your child, together, with him by your side.

And if the hand that reaches out to caress your distended abdomen, as if towards one very precious, the soft affection in that verdant gaze is indication enough, he’s already begun to learn.

Bonus: Baby Wrath™️ is studious and very interested in learning of the world around, from a tender age. Drinks milk regularly and lick-finishes their cup clean, like they are supposed to under the watchful eye of Dad Wrath™️.

Satan is strict only in terms of good manners and good education; he’s nurturing and encourages the child to enjoy whatever hobbies they develop over their years. (Reading is one and no one’s more proud than Satan that Baby’s often found burrowed within their father’s mountain of books). You do allow the child more leeway, in terms of candy consumption and staying up past bedtime, although that influence can be traced back to Uncles Mammon and Levi who are terrible role-models and have more than once caused Dad Wrath to explode on their sorry souls. Baby Wrath is — much to the chagrin and woe of his father — very fond of Uncle Lucifer and he is their (second) favorite in terms of gifting new and fascinating books to study, and teaching to write simple words, on occasion.

End Notes: Thank you for reading!

♧° Link to Master List °♡

[karmelek-writes]

would you do tom holland x fem!reader

You had finish your photoshoot, as you drive to go golf course to see Tom. You really wanna surprise Tom with your arms around his neck, peck his lips. You watch him as he could hit the golf. You were so proud of him.

(thank you and have a a good day) <3

Hi! Thank you for sending your request, I had an amazing time writing it and I hope you like it! 💕 Also, I made fem!reader an actress, I hope you don't mind.

Your day started off slow as you woke up very early from the excitement of being back home. You were extremely tired after getting only a few hours of sleep due to your late arrival at the hotel but couldn’t contain your happiness. For the last couple of weeks, you were working on your newest project in the USA, spending around twelve hours filming every single day, working hard for your recognition. The job was an amazing opportunity to spread your name in the industry as you worked with the most incredible actors in Hollywood. You made sure to give 100% of yourself, hoping that one day all the work would pay off. Undoubtedly, it did as everyone, including the director, was impressed with your work ethic and talent. There was only one thing that made the whole experience unbearable - the separation from Tom. You’ve been dating for almost two years, but with your careers and crazy lifestyle sometimes you didn’t see each other for months. As in your case now, it’s been weeks since you held Tom in your arms or were held by him. It’s been weeks since you could taste him on your lips, being able to feel his body pressed tightly to yours. You missed him mercilessly and the time difference didn’t help you either as when you were going to sleep he was getting up and vice versa. You always knew what it took to maintain your relationship and that you’d eventually face some hardships due to your occupation but this time it seemed like work was even more insufferable than usual. You couldn’t stand being apart from him anymore hence your decision of taking an early flight to London. You departed right after your wrap-up party dreaming of nothing else than Tom’s arms around your waist, squeezing you in a longing embrace.

Tom knew you were coming home and he has never been more excited to welcome you back than this time. The lack of your presence was hard on his end too. He took a break from filming for a few months after years of chasing his success to be with you and he understood you had to work but still couldn’t help but miss you. He missed everything about you - even your voice as he only could hear it in the speaker of his phone, which was similar, yet so different from his favourite sound. There was no surprise that Tom was counting days until your return but you haven’t informed him of the change of plans yet, which gave you an advantage since you wanted to surprise him. That’s why you didn’t tell the taxi driver to go straight to his house after you landed, no matter how much you wanted to.

Now that you were finally here, you couldn’t help thrill overcoming your senses and butterflies erupting in your stomach as you imagined seeing Tom’s pretty face for the first time in a while. From all the emotions you almost forgot about your photoshoot. You were invited to be on the cover of British Vogue as your career was taking off thanks to your outstanding performances in your latest movies and the hype around your current project. You got informed about the photoshoot quite late but agreed on the spot, feeling honoured, now impatient to have it done so you could finally see your man. You haven’t told Tom about it, having the surprise in mind. You still had a few hours until you had to leave so you picked your phone and immediately noticed an unread message in your notifications. Clicking on it you felt a wide grin creeping on your face reading the text. Can’t wait to see you soon darling. Two more days! - Tommy💓

By the time you finished your photoshoot, Harry had sent you his current location as you implicated him in your plan. The boys decided to go play some golf as they didn’t have any work to do and the weather was too nice to stay inside. Getting in the car, you couldn’t believe that it was finally the time you could see Tom. You felt your whole body shiver at the thought, hands trembling and heartbeat speeding up, going through the same emotions when you were going on your first date.

You got to the golf course after what felt like hours, giddy from the excitement. You practically ran into the building to meet up with Harry waiting for you in the hall. Immediately trapping him in a loving hug, you greeted him, missing him no less than your boyfriend. After a sweet, but short reunion with Harry, he grabbed your hand and led you into the course, aware of how much you wanted to see the rest of the family, especially Tom.

The guys had been halfway through the game by the time you caught up to them, Harry rejoining the game while you stayed by the cart for a few seconds admiring your man as it was his turn to hit the ball. You watched in awe how his defined muscles were flexing when he gripped the club, securing his position. You peeped that he must have been working out hard at the gym as the shirt he was wearing was swathing his torso unusually tightly, making your mind go places. You were so proud of him for making an effort to stay healthy and looking after himself. He looked unexceptionally well dressed in sportswear, his silhouette illuminated by the sun, making his skin glow in the light. His clenched jaw and popped-out veins were enough to make your knees weak and you were sure that you were drolling just by gazing at him. Everything was perfect in the man standing in front of your eyes and you couldn’t believe he was yours.

The sound of the club hitting a ball brought an end to your daydreaming, making you blink a few times to fully register what was happening. Tom, Harry, and Sam’s voices rang in the air, manifesting a hole in one. Taking advantage of their distraction, you skipped to wrap your hands around Tom’s waist, kissing his back softly. You could feel him flinch at the action, muscles tensing under your touch, but relaxing as soon as his senses took in your familiar scent. Taken aback, Tom quickly turned around in your embrace, jaw dropping low at your sight.

“No way!,” he gasped, throwing himself at you. Crushing you in a tight hug, he picked you up and spun around making you giggle like a child at his happiness. When he put you back down, you felt him drop his head in the crook of your neck, enjoying the proximity, golf long forgotten. You stayed like that for a while; Sam and Harry moved to the next hole leaving you two to catch up and have a moment for yourself.

“I missed you so much, darling,” you heard Tom mumble into your skin, slowly getting emotional from finally having him in your arms again, being able to feel his body pressed to yours.

“I m-missed you too, Tommy,” the crack in your voice alarmed the brunette. Pulling away, he could see a few tears threatening to fall in the corner of your eyes so he quickly wiped them away, cupping your face with his palms and connecting your lips in a slow, passionate, full of love kiss. You wrapped your arms around his neck, bringing him even closer to deepen the peck, Tom’s tongue grazing your lower lip asking for permission to enter your mouth. You let him in, fingers running through the dark curls forcing a small moan out of Tom; the sound you could listen to every single day. How good it was to be back.

[deadpresidents]

We Remember: When 9/11 Forged a Genuinely United States of America

Today, we remember.

We remember that the weather was perfect throughout nearly the entire country on that Tuesday morning. We remember where we were when we heard about the first plane hitting the tower. We remember what we thought as the new just began to trickle in. We remember our horror as we watched the second plane hit the South tower. We remember the evacuations -- people running out of our monuments of freedom and democracy, our centers of government and finance, and spilling out on to the streets of our nation’s capital. We remember the dust and debris chasing thousands of New Yorkers through the streets of our most iconic city. We remember the smoke rising from the Pentagon. We remember that impact site in Pennsylvania -- a smoldering hole in an empty field instead of the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building because Americans decided to fight back. We remember watching the towers fall.

We remember the fear, the chaos, the sadness, and the feeling of not knowing what was happening or when it would end. We remember a feeling that Americans were not used to experiencing up to September 11, 2001: the helpless feeling of being attacked as went about our normal lives. We no longer remember what it felt like on September 10th.

Do you remember pointing fingers? Do remember placing blame? Do you remember partisanship? I remember patriotism. Not bumper sticker and window decals. Genuine patriotism. I remember flags and candles and donating water and giving blood and having a new appreciation for first responders. I remember that, for at least one week, we weren’t Democrats or Republicans. I remember that we were Americans. I remember that we cared a little bit more about each other for at least a couple of weeks.

When Democrat Lyndon Johnson was the Senate Majority Leader and Republican Dwight Eisenhower was President of the United States, LBJ -- one of the most intense, passionate, partisan political animals in our history -- never attacked President Eisenhower. It wasn’t because LBJ agreed with Eisenhower’s policies. It wasn’t because LBJ was scared. It was because, as LBJ explained in 1953 in a comment that has an unfortunately haunting connection to 9/11, “If you’re in an airplane, and you’re flying somewhere, you don’t run up to the cockpit and attack the pilot. Mr. Eisenhower is the only President we’ve got.”

The only President we’ve got.

We all want to head in the same direction. We all want to move forward. We all want to progress and be happy and healthy and safe. But now, more than ever, our country’s prosperity is crippled by divisive partisanship. As World War I and World War II approached and the world realized that we are clearly connected on a global level, the people who seemed the most out-of-touch -- the people who were wrong -- were the isolationists. In both of those great wars, the isolationists were proven wrong. Yet, in the span of our grandparents’ lives we have regressed to the point where most Americans have become individual isolationists -- not isolationism on a national level, but on a personal level. We’ve tried to disconnect from the people in our own country -- especially if they look, love, or think differently than us. Don’t you remember how powerful it felt after 9/11 to be united? Don’t you remember how we helped each other in so many different ways?

I guess I could be cynical. I guess I could remember the look on President George W. Bush’s face when his Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, whispered news of the attacks in the President’s ear as he sat in a Florida classroom. I guess I could remember The Pet Goat, and the fact that Bush didn’t immediately get up, sprint from the room, and change out of his Clark Kent clothes into the Superman suit. I guess I could remember Air Force One zig-zagging across the country, the only plane in the air besides military escorts and combat air patrols over our major cities. I guess I could remember the surveillance videos of the well-dressed hijackers walking through airport terminals that morning before they turned our planes into weapons. I guess I could remember that the passengers of Flight 93 didn’t actually get through the cockpit door and force the plane to crash into that Pennsylvania field. I guess I could remember our government’s alphabet agencies -- the FBI, CIA, NSA, and everyone else listening in on our world -- being unable to work together and stop the attacks from happening in the first place. I guess I could choose to remember those things, but that doesn’t make me feel better. It doesn’t make 9/11 anything but a success to those who tried to frighten and frustrate and intimidate us through terrorism.

This is what I choose to remember:

I remember that the passengers of Flight 93 tried to get into that cockpit. I remember that their plane didn’t make it to Washington, D.C., and even if they never actually breached the cockpit and physically forced the plane into that meadow in Pennsylvania themselves, they certainly fought back and forced the hijackers to abort the mission that they had planned. That plane didn’t crash into the White House or the Capitol, and that’s not because the hijackers got lost.

I remember driving to the wedding rehearsal for two of my best friends on the Friday after the attacks, feeling bad for them that they were getting married in the shadow of 9/11. I remember being amazed at thousands of people in the streets of Sacramento -- neighborhood after neighborhood, thousands of miles away from any of the attack sites -- holding a candlelight vigil. I remember that it was then, as I drove through the silence of these peaceful vigils, with flags and flames and tears all around me, that I thought,��“We’re going to be okay.”

I remember George W. Bush -- a President I never voted for -- who, like all of us, was a bit unsteady with his words in the hours immediately following the attacks as he processed the magnitude of what we were living through. But I remember how he found his footing and found his voice quickly and began to speak for all of us. I remember him returning to Washington, D.C. that night, against the wishes of his government and his Secret Service protection. I remember how this President -- a President I didn’t agree with, a President I never cast a supportive ballot for or whose campaign I ever donated a cent to, a President whose beliefs were diametrically opposed to almost everything that I believe in -- went to Ground Zero and met with the families of those who were dead or missing, and gave them all the time they needed with him.

I remember how that President visited the rescue workers at Ground Zero. I remember, more than anything else, how President Bush climbed on to a pile of rubble from the fallen towers of the World Trade Center, grabbed a bullhorn and began to speak, but was interrupted by the workers yelling, “We can’t hear you!”

I remember that the President -- the only President we had at the time -- shouted to these exhausted, weary, grieving, heroic rescuers, “Well, I can hear you! And the people who knocked these buildings down are gonna hear from all of us soon!” I remember that it was genuine, that there was nothing manufactured about that moment, and that, despite all of his faults and deficiencies, George W. Bush said exactly what those people -- our people -- needed to hear. As the workers chanted, “USA! USA! USA!”, I remember thinking that I didn’t vote for him and I won’t vote for him in 2004, but at that moment he was my President and I was proud of him.

As we look back, we can’t help but think about everything else that has come out of 9/11 -- the interminable war in Afghanistan, the unjust and unnecessary war in Iraq, the humiliating and annoying experience that flying in an airplane became in this country -- but I think about that stuff pretty much every day, and I feel like this should always be a day where we think differently.

So, even if it’s just for this day, I’m going to think about those flags and candles and President Bush on top of the rubble of the World Trade Center with a bullhorn. I’m going to think about being an American -- just like I was in the weeks following 9/11 -- rather than who I voted for or what team I like or any of the millions of things that divide us and can get back to tearing us apart tomorrow like they did yesterday.

I’m going to remember thinking, “That’s my President,” as President Bush spoke to the rescue workers, just as I did a few weeks later when he went to Yankee Stadium for Game 3 of the World Series, strapped on a bulky bulletproof vest under his FDNY jacket, walked to the pitcher’s mound, and with millions of Americans watching on television, with thousands of rabid New Yorkers watching in the stands, and with Derek Jeter’s words of warning (”Don’t bounce it or they’ll boo you”) rattling around in his head, threw a perfect strike.

I’ll remember thinking, “That’s my President,” about a guy I never voted for and didn’t agree with, and I’ll hope that you do that when the guy you didn’t vote for and didn’t agree with says the right words, does the right things, and throws a strike when our nation needs it -- not because you’re a Democrat or a Republican, but because you’re an American and that’s the only President we’ve got. We don’t have to disagree about everything just because we don’t agree about most things, and we don’t have to like everything about one another to understand that, sometimes, we need each other.

What do you remember?

[sisterspooky1013]

Only One Choice, Part 2, Chapter 23

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

It doesn’t feel real until she sees the flutter on the ultrasound, the grey and white pixels flashing erratically confirming a healthy ten-week pregnancy. The doctor gives them a due date of September 17th, and she explains to Mulder repeatedly that the due date is only an estimate, that the baby will most likely arrive sometime in the two weeks before or after that day. Nonetheless, he prints little numbers in the corner of each date on the calendar, counting down.

She is lucky to experience very little nausea, but the time saved clinging to the toilet is instead allocated to bursting into tears at every tiny inconvenience. Mulder comforts her with a confused expression when she cries because she can’t find a Tupperware lid that fits, or her latte has too much foam, or she realizes she can no longer see her toes. She cries because she’s crying, because she feels out of touch with her own body and thrown off by her own emotions. They marvel at the growth of her belly as well as her breasts, which are even more sensitive than they were before. Her libido kicks into overdrive at the same time that she becomes incredibly self conscious about her protruding belly, her fuller face, her swelling feet. This leads to more tears as she grapples with both wanting desperately to be touched and not wanting him to look at her.

He tells her each day how beautiful she is, her hair growing longer and thicker, her skin glowing, her rounding belly housing the perfect little life that they created together. When he’s home, he rubs her feet every night, fetches her countless glasses of water and then helps tow her out of the bed so she can pee ten times in the night. When he’s on the road with Monica, he calls three times a day, asks Missy and her mother to go by and check on her, calls in dinner to be delivered so she doesn't have to cook. As her due date nears, he stops going on out-of-town cases, needing to be close enough to be by her side immediately when she goes into labor. He will not risk missing the birth of his child.

The apartment becomes cramped with a bassinet, changing table, pack n play, and various other baby gadgets. They consider moving, but the idea is too overwhelming for Scully so they decide to stay put until the baby becomes mobile and they really need more space. Mulder breaks the lease on his apartment and moves his fish tank into the living room, putting the rest of his furniture in storage until they buy a house. Priscilla breaks in all the baby gear, sleeping in the car seat and jumping into the swing, covering the tiny onesies with her black fur and making Scully cry yet again. Mulder refuses to let her scoop the litter box, even though she insists it’s safe if she wears gloves and washes her hands afterward. Other tasks she’s forbidden to complete include cleaning the toilet, carrying in the groceries and hauling laundry to the washing machine. When he’s on the road, she misses him as much as she is relieved to be able to be independent, not much caring for being treated as though she’s made of glass.

For the majority of her pregnancy, Scully insists that she doesn’t want to know the sex of the baby, that she wants to be surprised. Mulder respects her decision, even though he would personally like to know, and they create two lists of potential baby names, Scully crossing off “Lisa Marie'' each time Mulder tries to add it to the “girl” column. When she reaches 39 weeks, her pelvis widening as the baby drops into the birth canal, she is so miserable that she has a change of heart, needing to feel connected to this thing that is destroying her body and stealing her sleep. They call the doctor together on a Thursday afternoon as Scully sits on the couch in tears, having woken that morning to find angry red stretch marks marring her previously lily-white belly. When Mulder relays the doctor’s message that the baby is a girl, she sobs harder, and he’s not sure whether it’s because she’s happy or disappointed.

She wakes him at 3:00 am on September 21st, the irregular Braxton-Hicks contractions she’s been feeling for weeks having taken up a predictable cadence, now ten minutes apart almost on the dot. He starts rushing around, scrambling for her hospital bag and his shoes, and now it is her turn to provide comfort, to let him know there’s plenty of time. She doesn’t want to go to the hospital until the contractions are five minutes apart, and so they wait. The progression to nine minutes, then eight, then seven is alarmingly fast, and by the time she agrees that they should head to the hospital she’s starting to feel pressure low in her pelvis. Mulder drives too fast, the streets thankfully still quiet in the early morning, and she is wheeled into labor and delivery with not enough time for an epidural, much to her lament.

Molly Katherine Mulder has blue eyes and a dark shock of nearly-black hair. She barely cries at her entrance to the world, instead searching the room with a curious gaze, squeezing her daddy’s finger with an impressively strong grip and latching like a pro. They are able to go home the following day, Scully wincing as she moves gingerly from the bed to the couch, rinsing her tender stitches with a bottle of warm water and bleeding through entire packages of overnight maxi pads in a day.

Mulder takes off work for two weeks and they spend blissful days curled up in bed with the baby nestled between them as Priscilla curiously sniffs around her, licking her hair with a rough tongue and making them laugh. Each time Scully wakes at night to nurse, Mulder insists she go back to sleep while he changes the baby and walks her around the quiet apartment until she is asleep, singing softly and lulling them both.

When Mulder returns to work, Scully insists that he get a full night's sleep and let her wake up with Molly, reasoning that she can take naps during the day. She does not, of course, take naps during the day. Instead she tries to keep the apartment clean, the clothes washed, the diapers taken out to the dumpster, the litter box scooped. She does too much, and he sees it each day as she grows more and more weary, more and more defeated, the bags under her eyes deepening in color and her mouth rarely hosting a smile. He begs her to let him do more, to ask less of herself, but she is stubborn and strong-willed, the very things he loves about her now keeping her from properly taking care of herself.

They struggle through sleep-deprived arguments over who left the breast milk out on the counter all night, why it matters if he changes the baby on the floor instead of the changing table, why Scully doesn’t want to supplement with formula so he can take some of the night feedings. Her doctor releases her as medically clear to have sex after six weeks and she cries as she tells him that she doesn’t feel ready, that she can’t imagine anything worse than sex right now, and he holds her as he tells her that he doesn’t care, that she should take as much time as she needs, that he can wait.

They struggle, and they thrive. Moments of absolute unadulterated joy are punctuated by intense despair and overwhelm. The gain of a family against the loss of a life where you could pick up and go, stay out until 2:00 am and make love in the middle of the day. They are happy, and they are stressed, and they face it together.

On a Saturday in December, Mulder wakes early and takes care of every conceivable task in the house; the laundry, the dishes, cleaning the bathroom, scooping the litter, buying the groceries. He checks every item off Scully’s to-do list and then takes Molly for a long drive, leaving Scully alone with nothing to do in hopes that she will rest for once. When they return from their excursion, he creeps into the quiet apartment with a sleeping baby in his arms and sets her in the bassinet by the couch. At first he thinks maybe Scully has gone out, but he finds her in bed asleep with soaking wet hair, Priscilla curled up behind her knees. He watches her for a bit, affection clutching at his chest, then changes into sweats and kicks Priscilla out so he can snuggle up behind Scully. It feels so infrequent that they just lay like this anymore; one of them is always about to get up with the baby, about to get ready for work, or doesn’t want to be touched after a tiny person has clung to them all day. He pulls in a deep breath, smelling her lavender bubble bath and feeling the rise and fall of her ribs against his chest. He doesn’t want to disturb her, but he can’t resist pressing a tiny kiss to the side of her neck.

“Mmmm,” she hums in response, twisting her body around so they are face to face.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispers.

“It’s okay. Where’s Molly?”

“She’s asleep in the living room.”

She sighs and snuggles closer to him, pressing her forehead into his chest and pushing one of her legs between his.

“This feels nice,” she says contentedly, and he brushes his hand softly up and down her back.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

“Tired. Frumpy. Like I haven’t put on real clothes or a stitch of makeup in three months,” she laments.

“Well, I’ll give you tired,” he says softly, “but I can’t agree on frumpy. I think you look very beautiful.”

She scoffs against his chest.

“You don’t have to placate me, Mulder. I know I’m a mess.”

“Maybe so, but you’re my mess,” he retorts, pushing his fingers into her hair to gently scratch her scalp.

She tilts her head up to look at him, appraising his face with a skeptical eye.

“Is this what you thought it was going to be like?” she asks, her tone open and vulnerable.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly, “I guess I didn’t really know what to expect.”

She sighs. “I just wish I knew when I might start to feel like myself again,” she says sadly. “I can’t help but feel like you’re not getting what you signed up for.”

“What do you mean?” he asks with a concerned frown.

He sees her eyes growing glassy, dampening with impending tears. “I mean the woman you asked out in the autopsy bay isn’t the one you’re with now,” she whispers, swallowing against the lump in her throat.

“That’s not even a little bit true,” he implores, cradling the back of her head with his hand. “You are everything you were then, and more. I’m amazed by you every day.”

She closes her eyes, a tear rolling across the bridge of her nose. He feels his chest ache; the need to make her understand is overwhelming.

“Hey,” he says, pulling the blankets back, “come here.”

He pulls her into a sitting position and slides off the bed, towing her along with him to sit on the edge of the mattress. He kneels on the floor between her knees, his hands on her hips.

“If you think for one second that I want to be with anyone but you, you’re fucking insane. I don’t care if you wear giant milk-stained T-shirts and have spit up in your hair for the rest of our lives, Scully. You’re it for me, okay?”

She pulls in a shuddering breath and wipes at her eyes, but won’t look at him.

“Stay here,” he commands, and disappears into the bathroom for a moment. When he comes back, he returns to his post kneeling at her feet.

“We knew this was going to be hard,” he says tenderly, holding one of her hands in his. “You said it yourself before Molly was born, that it would be the hardest time in our lives, and that we’d be at our worst. And I’m telling you that if this is your worst, sign me up, okay? It hasn’t changed how I feel about you.”

He holds up his other hand, a diamond ring perched between his thumb and forefinger.

“If you’re not ready to say yes yet, that’s okay, but I need you to know that I still want to marry you, Scully. I’ll wait forever if that’s what you need, but there hasn’t been a single day since I asked that I haven’t still meant it.”

Her tears have stopped, though her eyes are still wet and the tip of her nose is red. She looks from him to the ring and back, her eyebrows stitched in contemplation.

“I didn’t hear you ask me a question,” she says quietly, and he picks up on the slightest lilt of playfulness in her voice, which makes him break out into a smile.

“Dana Katherine Scully, love of my life, mother of my child, will you marry me?”

She smiles then, and he thinks his heart may burst right out of his chest.

“Yes, I’ll marry you,” she answers, and he takes her left hand, slipping the ring on her finger.

She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him repeatedly, soft pecks devolving into lingering smooches as he shifts up slightly, pushing her back gently to recline on the bed. He moves over her, kissing along her jaw and down her neck, not going any further, not wanting to rush her.

She brings her hands to his hips, letting the tips of her fingers slip under the waist of his sweatpants, and his cock stirs. It’s been so, so, long, and he wants her desperately, but not until she’s ready. She pushes her hand down the front of his pants, gripping him as he grows hard under her touch. It’s overwhelming in the best way; he feels like a teenager being touched for the first time.

“I wanna have sex,” she breathes into his ear, the words rushing out quickly as though she’s afraid she might change her mind if she waits too long to say them.

He pulls back to look at her. “Are you sure?” he asks, and she nods, bringing her palm to his cheek before glancing at the ring on her finger and smiling.

They move slowly, though still with a sense of urgency that a baby sleeping in the next room brings. He pushes her shirt up and she lets him take it off, then slips the yoga pants off her hips, leaving her in basic black cotton briefs. He sees the hesitancy in her eyes as he looks at her body, now softer than it was before Molly, curvy in different places, purple streaks running from below her belly button to disappear under her panties.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, kissing her chest, her breasts, her belly, running his tongue along the grooves of her stretch marks. He loops his thumbs under the waist of her panties and tugs them down slowly, quickly undressing before he rejoins her in the bed.

“Tell me if anything hurts, okay?” he asks with a serious expression, and she nods, letting her legs fall open as he settles between them. He lines himself up with her entrance and pushes in achingly slowly, watching her face raptly. Her mouth opens slightly, and she takes in a sharp little breath. He’s about to ask her if it hurts when she closes her eyes and her mouth drops open further as she breathes out “oh,” in a way that he knows means pleasure, not pain. When he’s all the way in, their hip bones pressed together tightly, he stills and kisses her for a while, feeling like he could melt into a puddle for how good everything feels. His heart, his mind, his body, he is all wrapped up in her and it’s exactly where he wants to be.

He begins to move, and she responds with an arch of her back and a little gasp, her hands clutching at his shoulders. Little by little, he increases his pace until he knows he won’t last much longer.

“What do you need?” he asks, and she brings her hand to her breast.

He dips his head, flicking at the hardened bud of her nipple, and feels her clench around him. He plays with the level of pressure, licking and sucking, pleasantly surprised that she is enjoying it even as her breasts have taken on a purely functional role these last few months.

She pulls in a huge breath, arching her back and pressing her head into the mattress and he groans as he feels her tighten around him. She emits a single piercing cry when she comes, stifling it with an arm slung across her mouth. He pours into her, burying his face in her neck, clinging to her like a life raft. She is, in fact, all he needs to survive.

Resting half his weight on the mattress beside her, he stays inside as they both come down, panting and smiling, brushing hands over each other’s skin, reconnecting.

“Ah!” Molly yells from the living room, and Mulder laughs.

“You’re being summoned,” Scully says with a tender smile.

He withdraws from her, handing her his T-shirt to clean up while he slips on his sweatpants and retrieves Molly from her bassinet.

“Guess what, Goose?” he says, using his special nickname for her, “Mommy and Daddy are getting married.”

“AH!” She squeals, flapping her arms.

[krabstick32]

Your Hand in Marriage

Pairing: Giyuu x Reader

Synopsis: Headcanon/scenario for how Giyuu proposed...how he asked you to marry him...how he popped the question

Tags/warnings: There is slight mention of near-death, but yes, all fluff apart from that!! Also, this can be taken as modern or during canon timeline, whichever works really

a/n: again, thank you so much for requesting anon!! apologies for taking so long :((( i hope you like it though 🥺

LINK to the ask: Request by Anon

anyway, please enjoy!! <33

When he knew you were the one, marriage was always in the back of his mind

You made him yearn for something he feels like could never have

He dreamed of living a quiet, peaceful life with you, to build a warm home and a loving family

And he wanted it so badly

But he couldn’t

Not when he lived the life of a demon slayer—a pillar no less!—not when they were fighting a literal war against the demons who brought so much pain to him, to you, to so many people

He didn’t want his family grow in a world where demon exists

You two talked about this already

And you’ve both agreed that you’re all fine with not getting married even if both of you wanted it more than anything

Your jobs were dangerous—one wrong move could mean death

Both of you entered the corps knowing the consequences, and have made peace with that fact 

I mean, you were open to getting married to him

and as much as he loves you, a lot

He didn't want marriage if it only leads to you dying 

this man has experienced so much loss already, he can’t lose you too.

And you respected that. You didn’t care much for labels. 

Marriage was, in essence, just a piece of paper to prove your relationship, and you knew that you loved each other too much to let a mere document dictate your relationship. 

You don’t mind just staying as boyfriend and girlfriend, you’ll take whatever he’s willing to give

One day, on his way home (to you uwu), he passes by a jewelry store, and sees the ring

Now, Giyuu was never an impulsive buyer, but the ring was perfect.

He could clearly picture it on your left ring finger and—

Oops, he now has a ring in his pocket

It would either be a real classy ring—you know, the classic engagement ring with a yellow gold band and a sizable diamond in the middle

OR

A unique and pretty ring that reminds him of you—a ring designed with sapphires and diamonds. 

(only the best for u after all uwu)

We all know man´s rich enough for it

(giyuu is a pillar. he can literally afford to buy everyone in the corps this ring, and still have left over money to have a lifetime supply of salmon daikon if he wanted to.)

When he got home, his stupidly impulsive buy just dawned on him and u bet he was awkward with you until he found the sneakiest hiding spot for it

((it was hidden underneath a shingle on the roof—a little overkill honestly))

Anyway, all was normal

But Gods, everything changed when the fire nation attacked when you were called to the Butterfly Wing.

He was finishing up on a mission with another pillar, Shinazugawa, and four other slayers (ranked kinoe’s and kinoto’s) when they ran into an upper moon.

And surprisingly, all of these slayers came home, bruised and a lot bloody, but alive.

As you were listening to the report at the Ubuyashiki estate for a meeting, you were relieved to hear that—six demon slayers, all alive after an encounter with an upper moon!!—but when you heard the entire report, your stomach dropped in dread and you dead-ass sprinted out the door to go straight into the butterfly wing.

(You can apologize to the Oyakata-sama later though he was a second away from shooing you out the door)

Because Giyuu—

Giyuu was there 

Your stupid, brave, lovable Giyuu,

Threw himself in front of his fellow slayers to take the brunt of the hit with lull, and so very nearly died when he got hit by the demon’s blood art.

It worked though, because now, the demon got distracted, giving the others ample time to deal with the minions

Once Sanemi and the others were able to lop its head off, the kakushi arrived promptly and rushed everyone back to the butterfly estate.

He woke up after a week. That was the extent of the damage brought to him by that near fatal blow.

First thing he saw was you

You were sound asleep right by his bed, slouched over the visitor’s chair in a position Giyuu knew was anything but comfortable. He was quick to note the dark circles under your eyes, briefly wondering how long you were there. You looked a little cold, so he moved to place the extra blanket from his bedside over you, but you immediately stir when you felt the slightest movement.

“Giyuu? Sweetheart, are you…?”

Seeing him awake felt like a huge bucket of water was poured over you. Any trace of sleep was gone from your body—you were wide awake in a flash, relieved and grateful that he was alive.

“Hello—“ His voice was a little raspier than either of you liked, but yours however, was fine, and healthy enough to to speak your mind. 

“You dumbass!” You hiss, throwing him a light glare.“Do you know how worried I was? How scared I was? I thought I was going to lose you!”

“I’m sorry.” He says, and squirms slightly under your gaze. He would’ve looked away, but he’s missed you a lot. Wasting a few seconds from cowering in slight shame and a little fear would be unbecoming of a Pillar.

“Don’t say sorry!” You were trying so hard to look stern and mad, but having the love of your life nearly taken away from you? You nearly lost him—all you wanted was to just touch him, and never let him go.

Tears start slipping down your eyes before you could stop yourself. Without a word, you wrap your arms over his neck, nearly straddling him as you buried your face in his neck. You try to memorize how his body felt against yours, clinging to him like your life depended on it—and in a way, it did. 

“You!—don’t ever do that to me again!” You cry, being mindful of his injuries as you hold him tighter. Neither of you make mention of how his hospital clothes were starting to grow damp. “If you die and leave me alone, I swear to the gods—!” 

“I’m sorry,” he says again, because what else can he say? He wasn’t aware of how close he was to losing you, until he woke up from the week-long coma. He made you sad, and worry over him, and he never wants to see you cry ever again. He brings you closer against his chest, and says a silent thank you to whatever god let him live. 

“You better be!” You mumble.

“I am. I missed you.” He drops his head against your shoulder, and holds you tighter against him.

Still mindful of his injuries, you return his hug tenfold. “I missed you too.”

Neither of you let go until Shinobu and Aoi dropped by to clean and redress his wounds. 

Afterwards though neither of you left each other’s side (I mean, it’s not like Giyuu could, but you get my point), 

Anyway, even if one of the butterfly girls or even Shinobu came in to give him meds—

He would always be touching you

Holding pinkies, even holding hands, which was a surprising, since he wasn’t much for PDA.

Another surprising fact was that Shinobu would only tease him no more than eight times per visit, when she would usually tease him nonstop.

You didn’t leave him for the entire week he needed to recover, unless it was for a mission (Oyakata-sama was very kind in giving you lighter, and easier missions—easy for you, hard for lower ranked slayers)

That night, you definitely stayed in his room (one of the pillars was kind enough to take over your patrol. it was Mitsuri), and slept right by his side. 

As you slept, he watches the careful rise and fall of your chest. 

You looked so peaceful that he starts daydreaming about what could be—a future with you.

His near death experience made him realize that if he didn’t marry you, it would be one of the greatest mistakes of his life.

You taught him to live life to its fullest, to live without regrets

And he knew he’d regret it if he didn’t get to call you his wife, even if it was just for a day.

The demons have taken so much from him already—his sister, his best friend

They’ve already taken too much

He’s not going to let the demons take away any more of his happiness

SO YES

This was the moment he finally decided to ask you to be his wife.

took him long enough

Giyuu knew that he wasn’t the best at communication

And he was really worried about you not wanting to marry him anymore. It’s been a while since that conversation after all

He wanted things to be as clear as spring water before even popping the question

So he decides to ask you.

He brings you out to the engawa and sits there with you, enjoying the night breeze and the view

You’d look very pretty under the moonlight and aaaaa

He wonders how he ever managed to control himself from asking you to marry him earlier 

Because right now

Giyuu has half the mind to just beg you to marry him 

He brings it up bluntly carefully,

“...How do you feel about marrying me?”

He brought it up bluntly.

You’re used to it though (you didn’t even bat an eyelash—what a champ), so you take it in stride.

“What I said before still stands, sweetheart. I would love nothing more than to be your wife, but if you’re not ready—“

“I am.”

Your neck almost snaps with how fast your head turns to look at Giyuu. He wasn’t far, just a few inches of space between your bodies, but you could feel his comforting warmth, and could clearly see his expression despite it being night.

“Are you serious?” You knew he was—Giyuu never was the type to joke—but you couldn’t help but ask. You knew he loved you, you knew he wanted to be with you for as long as possible, but him asking to marry you? Both of you talked about this, and you respected what he wanted and his reasons behind it, so whatever this was? It all felt too good to be true that you wanted to pinch yourself.

“Yes.” Giyuu carefully takes your hands and uses his thumb to trace soothing circles onto the skin of your palm. “If you’re fine with someone like me...” He places his forehead on top of yours and your heart just...picks up the pace. You’re sure he could hear how fast it was beating, while you’re made aware of the fact that your eyes were starting to get teary because everything looked so blurry. 

“Marry me, (F/N)?”

Him wanting to know if you still wanted a marriage with him, turned into an actual proposal

But neither of you minded

It felt perfect

You burst into a loud, giddy laugh, the happy smile on your lips wide enough to reach your ears. The tears start spilling over as you nod your head vigorously, repeating the word “Yes!” like it was the only word you could say.

Giyuu’s mouth curls into the sweetest smile you’ve ever seen on him, and continues to grow each time you ‘yes’. He puts the ring on your finger and you're struck by how pretty it is, feeling a sense of rightness wash over you. He feels it too as both of you take a moment to look at how perfect the fit is, before you look back up at him. 

By the gods, he looked so handsome with that smile on his face, you couldn’t take it. You bring your hands to cup his face, and kiss him for all you were worth. HIs hands wrap around your waist, and you grip the nape of his neck, savoring the feeling of his comforting warmth pressed against you. As both of you pressed your lips against each other, neither of you could stop smiling—you were both so happy.

“You’ll marry me?”

“I’ll marry you right now, if it was possible.”

“You really want to marry me?”

“I always did. I feel stupid for making you wait so long.”

“It’s fine, sweetheart, I understand why.”

He pulls away a little, pouting. “But I could’ve been calling you my wife earlier.” 

“And I could’ve been calling you my husband earlier,” You tease “but here we are.”

“...Maybe we can find a priest right now.”

You laugh and smack his shoulder. “We waited a few years, I’m sure we can wait for a few months.”

The two of you look at each other for a moment.

“Giyuu?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.” You really do.

He smiles softly, taking your left hand and kissing the back of your hand. “I love you too.” He really does.

For better or for worse

During the next Pillar meeting, everyone definitely notices your ring

a/n: i would like to marry this man please and thank you (′ꈍωꈍ‵)💖

I have another request in the works, but if you liked this headcanon, maybe you’d like to see a continuation! I’ve got some ideas stocked up for “how they met”, “how they got married”, or maybe “how the other pillars react to your engagement”... anyways feel free to drop a request!

apologies in advance if it takes me another month 😔

[noctarcanum]

army dreamers || levi ackerman x male!oc

Rowan, the young, but promising marleyan warrior candidate was never famous for his ability to keep out of other people's businesses. After getting caught up in his family's history of titan experiments and genetically modified clans, his supervisors decide to harvest said curiosity and lack of discipline. He wakes up on a ship, sailing north, with a piece of paper in his backpack that has only one sentence written on it, over and over again: "Kill the remaining Ackermans on Paradis Island and return home."

chapter one: the remaining

‘So, is it true?’

Zeke pushed himself away from the concrete wall he was leaning against.

‘What?’

‘That you’re the one to inherit it.’

The streets of the inner district got filled with busy adults, hurrying home from work. The two blonde boys slowly made their way through the crows, leaving the training center behind them. The setting sun painted an orange glow on the old, shiny stones and bricks.

‘Oh,’ Zeke sighed. ‘Yeah. But keep quiet!’

‘Quiet?’ Rowan exclaimed with sparkling eyes. ‘But this is awesome, you can finally be an honorary marleyan! You’re gonna be rich or some shit! Who knows about it?’

‘Those who need to know about it.’

Rowan walked next to him in silence, as he examined the stores they were passing by. Women with thicker arms than some warriors were carrying wooden boxes back from the street, cleaned the blackboards. He didn’t really understand why they had to clean them, after all, the same thing was advertised on them every day: potatoes and flour. Maybe because the price got higher and higher.

He thought about what his sister and mother did while he was away at training and then the interrogation. He doubted if Ma even got dressed.

‘Do you want to come over for dinner?’ asked Rowan. ‘You could tell Cornelia the big news!’

‘I was there yesterday…’

‘And?’

They turned at the corner but didn’t stop at Zeke’s house.

‘Do you think I have a bigger chance now to get the armored? I mean, you could say some nice things about me every now and then!’

‘Yeah, I’ll tell them about you. What nice things could I say to them, though? You are already on thin ice, that would just end up me also being punished.’

Rowan rolled his eyes but didn’t respond.

‘You’re being punished, right?’ Zeke inquired.

‘Well, yes, technically, no. They kept talking about all the things they can thank my family, and how it won’t protect me forever, and…’

‘They’re right, you know.’

‘I know,’ Rowan sighed. ‘Also, interrupt me again and you’re not getting dinner. As I was saying… they sort of agreed with me. Or I was just hallucinating out of stress.’

‘I highly doubt that’s a thing’ Zeke shook his head. ‘What on Earth did you say to them that they agreed?’

‘Well, they first shouted at me that I need to stop acting up, they can’t deal with me anymore in these times. You know, they’re about to plan the mission to retrieve the Founding… but they don’t even have proper candidates yet, they’re just stupid fuckers who never learned how to deal with pressure…’

‘Rowan, quiet!’

‘Shit, okay, got it!’ the younger frowned. ‘It was quite the speech they gave, though. About the titan experiments my ancestors did, and those… families. That the shifters they will have to send to Paradis will not only have to deal with those devils, but entire clans of genetically manipulated guard dogs, and they really don’t have the time to discipline me every time I’m too nosy. So, it got me thinking, and I just blurted it out, that they should get rid of the families first, then comes the hunt for the founding titan…’

Zeke raised a brow, his eyes locked on Rowan. He knew him too much, that tall monkey was already thinking, planning, or just revising ideas. His train of thought was interrupted by the sight of two soldiers, patrolling the narrow street.

‘When were they placed here?’ asked Rowan, as Zeke didn’t comment on the phenomenon.

‘They weren’t here yesterday,’ he muttered.

‘That’s why I asked, dumbass.’

Zeke yet again stayed silent – he did that an awfully lot of times. Rowan sometimes wondered if it simply was his nature, or he became like this after… what happened with Aunt Dina and Uncle Grisha. What he did not like to wonder about, is that what would happen to Cornelia and Ma if he got sent to paradise, like Zeke’s parents. Would they break down? Miss him? Rent out his bedroom immediately? Starve to death?

‘So, I only said the… plan or whatthefuckever to get them off my tail, but I think I really did give them ideas… I hope this makes me more favorable when it will come to the inheriting the armored titan!’ He had to blabber about something before his mind went to a darker place.

Rowan locked the front door behind them as they entered the narrow townhouse. Thick dust sat everywhere, around and on the once elegant leather shoes his mother used to wear but wasn’t picked up in weeks. The filth that Ma didn’t take care of quickly distracted him from the bad feeling he got from the soldiers on the street, this far from the fence.

‘Ma! Cornelia! Zeke is staying here tonight! What’s for dinner?’ he shouted, but got no answer, as usual.

They found his sister at the kitchen table, sleeping on top of a pile of textbooks. Her silver hair spread out on the pages, but he knew she studied for her pilot exams. Which she won’t be able to take if they’re not honorary marleyans. Another thought Rowan needed a distraction from.

Rowan gave Zeke a more comfortable t-shirt and sweatpants, after they both changed they headed back to the kitchen. Their cupboards were almost completely empty.

‘Didn’t you get the aid this month?’ Zeke glanced at him, after unsuccessfully searching for fresh ingredients.

‘The military has some good methods to keep up one’s motivation’ he shrugged. ‘We still have some potatoes and dry pasta somewhere, I think.’

They started working together in silence, Zeke knowing the kitchen just as good as Rowan. They boiled the potatoes, then the pasta, and added the remaining spices from the packet.

The meal was only enough for two.

Zeke automatically picked up one bowl and put it in front of Cornelia, who didn’t wake up to any of the noises they made.

Rowan gave the other to Ma, who even though had her eyes open, could have easily been asleep. He placed the warm bowl in her lap, guiding her bony, scarred hands to grab onto it, but her reaction to any of these arrived long seconds later. She didn’t seem to register his presence, not even when she sat up a bit on the sofa, and started eating, her greasy hair falling in front of her face, functioning like an old, ugly curtain. He stayed next to her for a while to make sure she didn’t stop after a few bites. Meanwhile, his mind wandered in his memories, trying to think back to the times his Ma was still pretty and healthy. Were they even real memories, or just the creation of a young little girl?

Zeke and he headed upstairs to get away from the smell of pasta that made their stomachs growl even louder.

‘Is it always going to be like this?’ Rowan asked quietly, not even expecting an answer.

‘This is what we signed up for.’

Rowan sat down on the bed, soon followed by Zeke. Their shoulders touched, but they didn’t pull away.

The bed they sat on barely counted as one, as it was one old mattress laid on the ground. He was supposed to get a frame, a few years back, Uncle Grisha promised to assemble one. This was the smallest promise that was broken.

He glanced out the window the mattress was placed next to. The two soldiers were still patrolling on their street.

‘We should sleep,’ said Zeke. ‘Or at least you should, you had a long day.’

So Rowan did. It was the last time he closed his eyes with full trust in the presence of him, as he didn’t wake up in his own bed the next morning. He didn’t even have any kind of bed under him, only smelly, wooden slats, and the scent of the sea around him.

He got up, thinking he was dreaming some bullshit again, but the wind in his long hair was too real. Everything got too real in mere seconds, just as the dozens of people a few feet away from him, all in chains. All in chains, except form him.

A nearby officer flinched as he spotted Rowan moving, his hand moving closer to the grip of his gun. He was clearly still a detainee, but some other kind. The ship they were on… was it sailing to Paradise? That was his supervisor’s solution to harmless bullshit he pulled sometimes? Turning him into the same mindless titan as traitors and murderers?

‘Hey, you rat.’ Burped the old officer, not even bothering to look in his direction anymore. ‘You’re not here for sightseeing, you have instructions.’

Rowan opened his backpack with trembling hands. It was almost empty – it had a water bottle in it, his knife that he trained with, and a piece of paper that got smudged ink all over it.

It had the same sentence written on it over and over again, mimicking the punishment they used on first graders in school. He couldn’t tell if it was Zeke’s or Cornelia’s handwriting.

Kill the remaining Ackermans on Paradis Island and return home.

Kill the remaining Ackermans on Paradis Island and return home.

Kill the remaining Ackermans on Paradis Island and return home.

Kill the remaining Ackermans on Paradis Island and return home.

Kill the remaining Ackermans on Paradis Island and return home.