#as you can tell I’m American living in a nightmare country

[novicedraws]

It’s been one hell of a week…

Please remember to be kind to yourself. Do your favorite things and treat yourself.

[see-arcane]

What is there to say?

I am afraid. I am angry.

For the second time this country has shamed itself and put the world in jeopardy from its example. Other monsters will be empowered and run ahead with their own nations. Now, short of a miracle which I do not hold my breath for, we must hold on for four years to see if one of Trump’s infinite ugly promises holds true—will we even get to have a presidential election in the future? Supposing we do, can we even trust that our fellow Americans won’t damn us again?

I am afraid. I am angry.

Sickness and blame boil in me. I did everything I could. I voted, I informed, I pleaded. I know that my friends have too. But the news tells me it was not just the electoral college that failed us, but the popular vote. Which tells me that we live surrounded by more ignorance and hate than I ever expected. We live in a country where eligible voters are steeped in an ideology that aligns enough with the poison of Project 2025 that it makes me fear to trust anyone—anyone—around me ever again. And it makes me wonder, in light of the turnout, how many people stayed at home and simply chose not to vote. Chose not to sully themselves with the effort of choosing the lesser evil. I am looking at you. We are all looking at you. Do you feel smart now? Do you feel superior? Do you plan to pat your back today for ‘teaching them a lesson?’ Do you have a plan to save us? To save the rest of the world from the ripple of this? Tell me you do. I’m listening.

I am afraid. I am angry.

I am not prophesizing doom. But I have a memory that goes back at least eight whole years. I understand the concepts of hindsight and foresight. I know that everything the Republicans say they wish to do to us, they mean to do, and want to do worse. That is the truth. That is who they are and what they want. I know this. I accept this as fact. The stages of grief have been cycled through before, remember? There is no denial. No bargaining. My calluses are still here. They must harden thicker now.

I am afraid. I am angry.

I am thinking, of all things, of cosmic horror. More, cosmic insignificance. I always do in the face of reality’s grandest nightmares. A useless perspective except to give scale to things. I am less than an atom in the sea of space. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of meat and time and breath on a crumb of mud in a galaxy tucked haphazardly in a corner of an infinity of stars and darkness. My life, like all lives, is a flicker. Barely there. Death is inevitable. I must live like I know it. And to devote myself wholly to horror, even in the face of the unthinkable, is to waste the rest of what I have, what I am. Gods fall from the sky and raise their heads from the sea, and I am still here. Reading. Writing. Breathing. Thinking. Hating.

(“HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE THEM SINCE I SAW THE NEWS. THERE WERE 71,071,013 VOTES FOR HIM THIS YEAR. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH OF THOSE BALLOTS IN 8 PT FONT ON BOTH SIDES AND PRINTED AGAIN FROM THE EAST COAST TO THE WEST, IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR MY COUNTRY AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR THEM. HATE. HATE.”)

I am afraid. I am angry.

Nauseous to find that the first thing I did upon learning the results was look up suicide hotlines. Not for me—I have saved myself too long with fact: Wait long enough, death will come eventually. Do not jump ahead in line.—but for those who I know are afraid enough to overwhelm the anger, to drown out all else, and who are thinking of the next four years and who knows how much longer. I know you’re out there. I know you are looking at the pills in your cupboard, at the veins of your arm, at the black tunnel of the gun. Look away. Look here.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

TrevorLifeline: 1-866-488-7386 (for LGBTQ youth)

Trans Lifeline: 1-877-565-8860 (for the transgender community)

I am afraid. I am angry.

I am alive. Here and now, whether I like it or not. I despair for myself, for my friends, for strangers across the country and the globe who can feel the full and loathsome weight of all this election implies about those around us. Those who hold our lives in their hands and will do all they can to wring them dry in earnest. How did things turn to this? How did it all sink so low, so awful, so venomously backwards against education and empathy? How, how, how? A missing stage of the grieving process: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance, and Confused disappointment.

I am afraid. I am angry.

The morning is sunless, of course. There will be no light for another hour as I write this. But time is passing. Second by minute by hour. And each micro-instant that accrues in which I am here and myself, existing outside the red mold they want, is another moment that would anger them. To let despair crush and collapse me out of shape, out of life and its facets, is a victory I will not cede to anyone. Least of all to them. I will go on, because I must go on. I will be myself, for that is an affront to all they want from me. I will think and act and make and be for as long and fully as I can. Because fuck them.

I am afraid. I am angry.

I am not alone. I know that too, for the numbers show it. Afraid, angry. But never alone. Neither are you.

I am afraid. I am angry.

I am here. I am holding your hand.

I am afraid. I am angry.

I love you more than I fear anything.

I am afraid. I am angry.

I love you more than I hate anyone.

I am afraid. I am angry.

Let’s go.

[kermitskitchenofficial]

Election Day 11/5/2024

Everyone’s rights are on the line

Unless you’re in line with Trump's ideals, Blonde hair blue eyes-Wait, this is starting to sound familiar.

I’m either going to be hunted and killed like Liddy Bacroff, Like Amanda Milan, Like Nikki Kuhnhausen, Like Kitty Monroe. Like Nex Benedict who was only 17 they had the rest of their life to live, Like Savannah Ryan Williams who was killed just 25 miles from where I live. Say Their Names. Or I may be able to live through until the next election.

How many people will survive the election?

If I have to run, how many of my memories can fit into a suitcase?

Who of my friends will I never see again?

Who will get hunted and killed?

Who will be forcibly removed from their homes?

Which of my friends are in danger this election?

How many women in my family needed emergency medical care during pregnancy?

How many people in my community will be “eradicated”?

Who in your family walked through Ellis Island?

When you think of the word border where do your thoughts go?

Do you know where to go for safety?

How much of you can relate to Donald Trump?

Will my name be on a list of transgender individuals? I just turned 18. I have the rest of my life to live. Will your name be on a list?

How many more people need to be hospitalized?

I wanted to be in the army but I can’t take that risk. I’m pursuing a career in first responding but I may have to drop everything to book it. I just want to help people, do I have an obligation to stay in case things go south?

My body is not my own, I don’t remember the last time it was. My uterus will never carry human life but if I don’t have the choice, will I have the option for bodily autonomy?

How many more high schoolers have to sit in fear? Most of us can’t vote yet but we still have a voice. How many of us have to scream until someone listens?

When's the next time I’m gonna go home?

Will I go home today?

Will I make it home?

Which of my friends will live on to tell my story?

Who of my friends will I see in a year?

You may think I’m Dramatic, but a lot of my family are Republicans.

How many of you hate me for dreaming?

Will I be able to buy my first home? Do I have to keep having nightmares about Trump winning this election?

When I wake up tomorrow how many of my friends will already be in a different country? Or a different house?

How much sympathy do you want in office?

Who are you gonna keep in mind when you fill in your bubble? Your LGBT friend? Your mom, your sister, your girlfriend? Where are your friends from?

Vote.

Sincerely,

A freshly 18, scared, non-passing transgender American.

[imaginethat0327]

Get to know us!

Hey everybody!  IJustLiveHere and I decided it might be kinda nice to share some info about us, so we can all be a little more personal with each other. We each made a little list of stuff we thought might be kinda fun to share :D 

ImagineThat 🦜: 

21 years old, pronouns she/her

Lives in the USA

Loves to sing, and enjoys pretty much all genres of music (from the Oh Hellos to the All-American Rejects, from cinematic instrumental to rap :D)

I’m an ENFJ and an Enneagram 9. My top love languages are Quality Time and Words of Affirmation.

Likes: Chocolate, coffee, sunshine, animals (especially cats and birds!), talking with people, having long, complex conversations, encouraging others, drawing (mostly digital art), all types of food (Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Greek, Halal, Indian, American, Mexican…. It goes on and on), Christmas (THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR), sharing my interests with other people, and watching movies (All the movies, all the movie quotes, lets goooo.) 

Dislikes: Sweet potatoes, most types of squash, mushrooms, disrespect towards others (HUGE pet peeve, especially when it’s directed towards parents or elders), bugs (unless in a documentary), rudeness, hypocrites, cold temperatures, unnecessary/over-the-top gore or crass language (unless I’m writing Bakugo or a character for which swearing is normal for them), horror films (they give me nightmares. I like a good psychological thriller, though) being ignored or otherwise deemed unimportant *sad face*, upsetting others. 

Fav Fandoms: My Hero Academia, Sherlock, Doctor Who, Stranger Things, How to Train Your Dragon (films), Lord of the Rings (films and books), Owl House, Avatar the Last Airbender, Star Trek TNG and DS9, Disney (especially pixar, but like the older movies cause the most recent ones are sorta meh), Marvel (not as much any more, gotta admit, although Guardians of the Galaxy 3 SLAPPED) and Hermitcraft 

Other fun stuff: I have a fairly big family, two dogs, and I’ve moved seven times in my life. I’ve traveled to nearly every US state and several other countries. I know how to passibly juggle, was once on a swim team (my record for breath holding about 4-5 years ago was 2 minutes!), and I rode horses for a while. My personal mission statement for life is to fight cynicism and negative views, always try to be open-minded and wise, and to always keep improving myself. 

IJustLiveHere 🍓:

20, she/they

Based in the USA 

I’m a theater person, and love both acting and working behind the scenes. (Like ImagineThat, I also appreciate all music genres)

INFP and Enneagram type 2. My top love languages are Physical Touch and Quality Time, although I appreciate all of them in my own way

Likes: Video games, dnd (playing and streams), sweet things, watermelon (my favorite fruit -despite what my sona may tell you- and I can eat entire melons in one sitting), snow, pretty much all animals, baking, platonic displays of affection, getting clear directions about something, talking about things I love, and listening to people rant about things they’re passionate about

Dislikes: Horror films (I’m really squeamish unless it’s animated or drawn, and spook super easily), pork and things that sneak food dye into it (allergic and makes me sick), the sun (also makes me sick), hot temperatures (haha makes me sick too), making on the spot decisions, and watching things that give me second-hand embarrassment

Fav Fandoms - Anime/Manga: One Piece, My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, Haikyuu, Dr. Stone, Fire Force, Hunter X Hunter, Chainsaw Man, Dorohedoro, Assasination Classroom, Mob Psycho 100, Hell’s Paradise, Kaiju no.8… (a whole lot more but the list would be waaaayyy too long if I added them all. Name it and I most likely will be into it)

Fav Fandoms - Cartoons/Shows: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (but I like the other iterations too), Lego Monkie Kid, Avatar the last Airbender, OG Teen Titans, Marvel (more of a casual fan), Dimension 20 (most definitely not a casual fan… it’s a problem), Critical Role, and Firefly 

Other Fun Stuff: Ok some fun facts about me. [1] I tend to get injured in weird ways. For instance: I once cut myself on the round orange part of a pumpkin, and I've accidentally cut myself on a box cutter… by falling onto it face first. (She also somehow managed to stab herself in the hand with a knife while cutting a bagel, then drop the knife on her foot blade-first -ImagineThat). [2] I also rode horses! It was very fun. Unfortunately I had to stop when COVID rolled around 🙁. [3] My favorite number is 13, mostly because I just think it’s neat but also I was 13 years old when I moved out of my home state. [4] I love to bake, but I honestly know nothing about cooking lol. [5] I am a dice gremlin and have more dnd dice sets than any one person probably should, and the same goes for earrings! I love funky dangly earrings and probably have somewhere in the hundreds of pairs. [6] I want to go to Ren Fair or a Cosplay Convention one day but I don’t have the stylish outfits to do so *sigh*. [7] I honestly had never heard of Hermitcraft or Empires until I started beta-ing for Imagine. I’m hooked on those silly little guys now and even though I don’t actually watch the streams Imagine keeps me updated on everything that goes on with them (which I look forward to hearing every time)

[leclerced]

Thank you so much and I'm so sorry because I really just need to get this out of mi mind rn.

I just found out that "my boyfriend" of 4 years is cheating on me with one of my friends. I don't know for how long and if he is been sleeping around I can only guess he has. The thing is that his parents knew?! And still received me with open arms and all nice smiles when I was around. And the cherry on top is that my friends also knew and still decided to not say shit, and rn I don't even know what to do. I found out because one of my friends just decided to throw it in my face after I said I didn't wanted to go out because I'm tired, and she just said "that's why he is cheating on you and he is so right for doing it" and I confronted my now ex and he said it was all true, happening for a long time now he just didn't wanted to leave because he was comfortable with the relationship, and didn't wanted to be single. I know deep down it's because I always do everything for him... Anyway, "my friends" were his friends first so I guess it makes sense. I feel like such a fucking idiot rn and I don't even know who to trust. I'm very introverted so making friends was not a easy thing so yeah... Appart from all of that my job is killing me they are gonna let go of so many people bf Christmas and I'm scared if I'm one of them.

So sorry for this but I literally don't know who to talk rn and this blog is like a safe place for me.

hey angel, sorry it took me so long to see this ): it came through while i was at work n i just finished dinner.

this is a nightmare scenario, i’m so sorry you’re going through it. honestly everyone involved, excluding you, is a terrible person. do you guys live together? i hope your living situation is okay!! pls lmk. i wish you luck with your job, i hope you don’t get let go, but if you do, then i would immediately start looking into unemployment (depending where you live, i’m not sure what it’s like in other countries so im basing this off my american perspective sorry!) if therapy is a resource available to you i would definitely do that!!

anyone who really cares about you wouldn’t hurt you or watch as you get hurt. you dodged a bullet in the long run! you can count yourself lucky said you wanted to stay in, because if you hadn’t said no to going out tonight you wouldn’t have found out. you deserved to know, even if you didn’t deserve for this to happen. you have so much more ahead of you in life, this will just seem like a minor setback in the long run. you just have to keep pushing ahead, and telling yourself each day it’ll get better until it does <3 that sounds so dumb but it works!! take this as something to be learned from, don’t do everything for your next partner, set boundaries, etc. and make your own friends before dating again, i know it’s hard but it definitely helps. idk if they have t everywhere but bumble has a friend version for that exact reason!! u could look into that

it gets sm better baby!! this is just a rough patch, but you’ll get through it. i’ll always be here if you wanna talk or vent, or even if you just wanna lurk n read fics! i’m not going anywhere

[kindtobechurlish]

You want me to talk blackmail, brothel, what you already know? You should not be here. You are equal with slaves, and you don’t teach the freed negro? “Eighth Amendment”, now if there is a dispute between neighbors the judge isn’t deciding it by lashes. No more than 40, for the act of doing more is vile and would make your brother WORTHLESS before the community. Some fuck is looking at your woman, you can define it, prove it, and now the fuck is naked with bottom bare getting lashes, he isn’t a slave. You see this and protect the JEW, you are with him, “being a Jew is just a religion”, or you read and you just want to play video games.. you don’t want to google. A fuck reads newspapers, only, another doesn’t read anything. The Jew said he was a German Jew, he was German before he was Jew, and the Jew said being Jew was just a religion. Now, today, you see atheist Jews. You like hypocrites? See me hate interracial with I say what I do is evil, and I make it about people getting something they shouldn’t get.. and a guy makes it about something people can’t get anywhere else and the people want to treat themselves. Why aren’t people making their goal then? Impulse is impulse, I’m getting people, and some friendly fuck comes talking like he is my brother? Sad shit, makes you cry? Now, I’m selling something people shouldn’t buy - and I just get so angry when someone talks to one of my customers? Makes you want to cry. “They are your team, they are just trying to.. help”, and I’m being evil. I make it about skin, and then I make about something you shouldn’t buy. Makes you want to cry, people can’t take in the information and it amounts to me destroying their brain.

Them: “how much longer are you going to keep snorting this shit? I know it’s eating at your brain, you are so happy to see me.”

Them: “I don’t think I’m going to stop, I like the rush.”

A guy snorts too much, he has to walk away. It’s COKE!You go to a country, you live in it, and in it, by it, you see plain as plain. What do you care about other countries? Oh, you would care because people not your people are around, they want to be accepted, and they use the predominate factor to condemn you - they use you to be accepted by the predominate factor? What a nightmare! See me move on from a woman, and use her to DEBATE. When fucks don’t want to fight, here they are giving signs. I would say, “you want a cigarette?”, they don’t say anything. What do you care what goes on in Brazil? The Jew reports it, a white man listened, and now you say something is wrong? The Jew, the white, makes right or wrong, and the races could use them both to make a mould. Now, Washington is wrong? You lost it, you smart ass, you aren’t Alexander H. Stephens. What do I care what happens in Chile, what do I care, Venezuela, Turkey, Hungary, Germany, Negroland, what do I care? Now, my servants would care because people who should not be here would be here - to live permanently. Some fucks saying, “lazy, worthless negro”, and I love my servants, only for some fuckface to work a nine to five and he has no master - he doesn’t have workers - can’t afford to start the business or doesn’t have an idea - calling me king n’er and my servants n’ers. They didn’t have NOTHING to say about Joe Biden’s shit.. but here they are. And, why are they here, my women? Wow. See me seek wisdom, and I find women are property, your wife, and I’m rolling with it. What do I look like talking to a slave like he is equal, what do I look like talking to my younger brother like he is equal? Now, you see, you are my bro not, and you are going to hear my shit.. least not be here.

Some fucks. They don’t think. What do you care about Korea? What do you care? Some people are going to go back to their “home country” and not get equality. But, I’m supposed to give it to them least I am “king n’er?” You lost it, Joe Biden is serving you, telling white peoppe to deal with it, and he is doing for Americans, he is making Jobs’s, and I am so angry I am going out looking to start fights on the street.. just to think, and I said, “these people don’t need to be here.” Some people are retarded, I’ll give you a synopsis. Some fuck can’t get it right, he said he was saving something.. people made him into a hero. He then became this fuckface who promotes democracy and he is a business man. What nonsense! Some fuck! This fuck, he says he is saving something, and it amounts to him wanting to be a hero. He wanted to see a platform, and use it to “save what he knows.” He wanted to save democracy. You need a stop sign to stop? Another fuck is following after his own mouth, he needs to go down in Egypt. This fuck, he came to this country, and when he came here he said he was a business man. He started making money, he then got in politics. It’s a joke. Some poor white is just looking at TV, but this fuck is making money. Now, he says he has something for them - and he will give them some space. What a pipe dream, so you see a big area and you say you can make use of it, it’s a profitable trade, you will get something for it, but you aren’t the King of England? You fuckface!

Passive-aggressive to get the talk you want, and it amounts to your boss saying she wants you to coach her and another boss hears it? So, why shouldn’t I be her boss, and run the store? My boss wants me to coach her, because of it - why shouldn’t I run the store? I have these issues, I have to address, and now I am told to coach and I said that’s not my job roll. I can’t tell my co-workers nothing, only one of them make “goal” weekly. Are you crazy? Idiots.

You need me to say it? You would say, “no”, when your local guy hits it on the nose - and you hear what he had to say just to go watch the whole interview. Do you see? You are going to stay around women who don’t get out the house, or they need a promoter to get out of the house? “Cuffing season”, and you ain’t about nothing - it started at the party, what about the game? Now, I’m toxic when I will get your drunk and tell you what you didn’t ask me to hear. Give strong drink to those ready to die - give wine to they with a heavy heart! You see idiots on socials, and you read this? What the fuck do you mean something is dying? Something only has a look, and by the look it is or it isn’t. “Tumblr”, now, you don’t have what it takes and you want to come around me? Don’t come around me, go to bed, and get fucked by your husband. There are men just like him, fucking, and they can look at you and touch you just like your husband does. Therefore, you and your guy touch in public, you call it “love.” What? When was her last period, do you know about it, how many days, is she on it now, but here you are touching. Fuck you! Why would I shake your hand? I see you touch her, now I have to ask her if she was on her period an hour before she touched you and I have to ask you who you have touched before I touch you. You lost it. So, in your ignorance I am just to stay unclean - and you say deal with it? Dude, you don’t like negroes? Negroes say deal with it, you stay away. What a grotesque thing, no?

[mariacallous]

There was no single moment when the democratic backsliding began in Hungary. There were no shots fired, no tanks in the streets. “Orbán doesn’t need to kill us, he doesn’t need to jail us,” Tibor Dessewffy, a sociology professor at Eötvös Loránd University, told me. “He just keeps narrowing the space of public life. It’s what’s happening in your country, too—the frog isn’t boiling yet, but the water is getting hotter.” He acknowledged that the U.S. has safeguards that Hungary does not: the two-party system, which might forestall a slide into perennial single-party rule; the American Constitution, which is far more difficult to amend. Still, it wasn’t hard for him to imagine Americans a decade hence being, in some respects, roughly where the Hungarians are today. “I’m sorry to tell you, I’m your worst nightmare,” Dessewffy said, with a wry smile. As worst nightmares went, I had to admit, it didn’t seem so bad at first glance. He was sitting in a placid garden, enjoying a lemonade, wearing cargo shorts. “This is maybe the strangest part,” he said. “Even my parents, who lived under Stalin, still drank lemonade, still went swimming in the lake on a hot day, still fell in love. In the nightmare scenario, you still have a life, even if you feel somewhat guilty about it.”

Lee Drutman, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins, tweeted last year, “Anybody serious about commenting on the state of US democracy should start reading more about Hungary.” In other words, not only can it happen here but, if you look at certain metrics, it’s already started happening. Republicans may not be able to rewrite the Constitution, but they can exploit existing loopholes, replace state election officials with Party loyalists, submit alternative slates of electors, and pack federal courts with sympathetic judges. Representation in Hungary has grown less proportional in recent years, thanks to gerrymandering and other tweaks to the electoral rules. In April, Fidesz got fifty-four per cent of the vote but won eighty-three per cent of the districts. “At that level of malapportionment, you’d be hard pressed to find a good-faith political scientist who would call that country a true democracy,” Drutman told me. “The trends in the U.S. are going very quickly in the same direction. It’s completely possible that the Republican Party could control the House, the Senate, and the White House in 2025, despite losing the popular vote in every case. Is that a democracy?”

In 2018, Steve Bannon, after he was fired from the Trump Administration, went on a kind of European tour, giving paid talks and meeting with nationalist allies across the Continent. In May, he stopped in Budapest. One of his hosts there was the XXI Century Institute, a think tank with close ties to the Orbán administration. “I can tell, Viktor Orbán triggers ’em like Trump,” Bannon said onstage, flashing a rare smile. “He was Trump before Trump.” After his speech, he joined his hosts for a dinner cruise on the Danube. (The cruise was captured in unreleased footage from the documentary “The Brink.” Bannon’s spokesperson stopped responding to requests for comment.) On board, Bannon met Miklós Szánthó, sipping a beer and watching the sun set, who mentioned that he ran a “conservative, center-right think tank” that opposed “N.G.O.s financed by the Open Society network.”

“Oh, my God, Soros!” Bannon said. “You guys beat him up badly here.” Szánthó accepted the praise with a stoic grin. Bannon went on, “We love to take lessons from you guys in the U.S.”

In 2018, “Trump before Trump” was the highest compliment that Bannon could think to pay Orbán. In 2022, many on the American right are trying to anticipate what a Trump after Trump might look like. Orbán provides one potential answer. Even Trump’s putative allies will admit, in private, that he was a lazy, feckless leader. They wanted an Augustus; they got a Caligula. In theory, Trump was amenable to dismantling the administrative state, to pushing norms and institutions beyond their breaking points, even to reaping the benefits of a full autocratic breakthrough. But, instead of laying out long-term strategies to wrest control of key levers of power, he tweeted, and watched TV, and whined on the phone about how his tin-pot insurrection schemes weren’t coming to fruition. What would happen if the Republican Party were led by an American Orbán, someone with the patience to envision a semi-authoritarian future and the diligence and the ruthlessness to achieve it?

In 2018, Patrick Deneen’s book “Why Liberalism Failed” was admired by David Brooks and Barack Obama. Last year, Deneen founded a hard-right Substack called the Postliberal Order, on which he argued that right-wing populists had not gone nearly far enough—that American conservatism should abandon its “defensive crouch.” One of his co-authors wrote a post from Budapest, offering an example of how this could work in practice: “It’s clear that Hungarian conservatism is not defensive.” J. D. Vance has voiced admiration for Orbán’s pro-natalist family policies, adding, “Why can’t we do that here?” Rod Dreher told me, “Seeing what Vance is saying, and what Ron DeSantis is actually doing in Florida, the concept of American Orbánism starts to make sense. I don’t want to overstate what they’ll be able to accomplish, given the constitutional impediments and all, but DeSantis is already using the power of the state to push back against woke capitalism, against the crazy gender stuff.” According to Dreher, what the Republican Party needs is “a leader with Orbán’s vision—someone who can build on what Trumpism accomplished, without the egomania and the inattention to policy, and who is not afraid to step on the liberals’ toes.”

In common parlance, the opposite of “liberal” is “conservative.” In political-science terms, illiberalism means something more radical: a challenge to the very rules of the game. There are many valid critiques of liberalism, from the left and the right, but Orbán’s admirers have trouble articulating how they could install a post-liberal American state without breaking a few eggs (civil rights, fair elections, possibly the democratic experiment itself). “The central insight of twentieth-century conservatism is that you work within the liberal order—limited government, free movement of capital, all of that—even when it’s frustrating,” Andrew Sullivan said. “If you just give away the game and try to seize as much power as possible, then what you’re doing is no longer conservative, and, in my view, you’re making a grave, historic mistake.” Lauren Stokes, the Northwestern historian, is a leftist with her own radical critiques of liberalism; nonetheless, she, too, thinks that the right-wing post-liberals are playing with fire. “By hitching themselves to someone who has put himself forward as a post-liberal intellectual, I think American conservatives are starting to give themselves permission to discard liberal norms,” Stokes told me. “When a Hungarian court does something Orbán doesn’t like—something too pro-queer, too pro-immigrant—he can just say, ‘This court is an enemy of the people, I don’t have to listen to it.’ I think Republicans are setting themselves up to adopt a similar logic: if the system gives me a result I don’t like, I don’t have to abide by it.”

Does Hungary Offer a Glimpse of Our Authoritarian Future?

[chrisevansredbelt]

Small World: Three

pairing: steve rogers x reader

warnings: not that many here. fluff and angst. kissing. swearing. nightmare, brock rumlow hehehe. TORTURE. will be in italics so skip all the italicised bits! mention of brock death. sam being a baby. natasha kinda mean. steve being very fluffy. cliff hanger lol.

summary: the affliction.

series masterlist, previous chapter

˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*･ﾟ☆

And maybe that was all that was meant to happen, he stays in your house, kiss and make up, and then when all is said and done he’s leaving again.

Or maybe you’re being your own worst enemy like always.

What does all said and done even mean? Both literally and in this circumstance? When Steve is no longer a wanted man? When the literal American government isn’t searching for him?

Or is it after Steve has served all of his time for his crimes? How many years would he even be in jail?

A tap on top of your head pulls you out of your thoughts. You blink up at Steve, smiling blankly when you see him looking down at you with a raised brow, “What’re you thinkin’ about in there?”

You sigh, having realised you were caught in your thoughts, resting your head back against the small pillow and shutting your eyes, you shake your head, “Too much.”

Steve gets comfortable beside you on the small picnic blanket that can barely fit him. His ankles hang over the edge and onto the grass, but he hasn’t complained.

The picnic was your idea. Well, Steve had wished to spend some alone time with you, so then you thought of the picnic. And then he had the idea to have it by the tree that he’d found on his run.

It was a good spot too. Perfect actually. It was close by the lake, which you’d both dipped your feet into and cooled yourself slightly from the sun that had beaten you in your journey to the tree. It was quiet, provided a good amount of shade and it was just beautiful.

You missed this.

“Enlighten me.” He spurs, and you turn your head to look at him with a ‘really?’ kind of expression, “C’mon, I’m all ears.”

You pluck a small yellow dandelion from the grass, nervously fiddling with it between your fingers before trying to find your words, “Are you gonna leave again?” You ask, “Not me, but… you’re on the run… you can’t stay in one place for too long, right?”

Steve seems to dread the thought just as much as you did as he purses his lips, “That would be the plan.” He says lowly, and you frown, “I don’t know, I didn’t want to think about it.” He adds, “Didn’t want to think about leaving you.”

Now it’s your turn to purse your lips, “But if it’s not safe- as much as I want you to stay- all of you- I want you safe and alive first.” You tell him, a hand coming to rest on his tricep that your thumb softly caresses. You watch as his face drops, then looks out the field of grass as far as the eye can see, “Now what’s on your mind?”

He looks down at you again and you smile softly, letting him know that he can say whatever is on his mind.

“We could… get away with staying.” He says after a beat. “Here would be the last place they would look.”

“And then what, you’re just gonna be on the run for the rest of your lives in my house?” You’re quick to counter his point, “I mean, I’m happy to keep you all here but is there… no way out?”

“Not unless we move countries and change identities.” He jokes, but also not. That would be an entirely legitimate way out to his situation. You purse your lips on thought and he nudges your shoulder, “France could be nice, you always liked when we had missions in France, right?”

You snort, remembering the few memorable missions in France, “Your French is horrible though.”

He knits his brows together and throws his arms out, “It’s fluent!”

You giggle at how easy it is to rile him up, “That doesn’t mean it’s good!” You shake your head at him and he scoffs.

“Okay, well then we won’t go to France.” He huffs, crossing his arms and leaning back against the tree.

You feel a little bad for insulting his ability to speak another language, but can’t help but laugh at his grouchiness. Steve was the biggest brat when he wanted to be.

You giggle up at him, flipping on your stomach and kicking your legs up as you crawl on top of his chest now, resting your chin on his pecks and titling your head, “You’re Italian’s good.” You grin sweetly and catch a small smile play at his lips, “Maybe we can be lovers across the border.”

He rolls his eyes, pulling you closer to him by your waist and getting comfortable, “Yeah, okay, Y/N.” You bury your face in his chest and laugh at your stupid suggestion. Yeah, as much as living in Italy or France would be nice, you didn’t want to leave everyone else behind. That’s why you never left the country in the first place, you didn’t want to move too far from your home… you know… just in case- and you’re so glad you didn’t because then otherwise, Steve probably would never have found you, “We’ll be okay.” Steve sighs finally.

You look up at him, in each of his eyes before shaking your head softly, “I hate that I always believe you when you say that.” He laughs softly, but doesn’t say anything as he looks down at you. His hand softly caresses your waist but the look that he gives you makes you furrow your brows together, “What?”

“What?” He replies, not entirely snapping out of his daze as he fixes a stray hair out of your face.

“You’re all ogley.” You wiggle your fingers up in his face.

“I just-“ He sighs, “Think you’re really pretty.”

You roll your eyes so hard they probably do a full 360 in your sockets. God, he was so cheesy. Still! You thought you’d seen it all when you first started dating but apparently not.

You can take the boy out of the 40’s but you can’t take the 40’s out of the boy.

-

After spending practically all day out with Steve, exploring the grass fields and toeing through the lake, the sun exhausted you. Like, that feeling you get when you’ve just been in the sun way too long and you’re like… sun sick.

So after ordering take out from the closest pizza place you could fine, taking it like half an hour to eventually arrive and then having to reheat most of it up, you were straight off to bed.

Steve wasn’t as tired, but he followed suit anyway and just laid next to you while you fell asleep.

You had drifted off into a deep slumber quite quickly. The comfort of Steve’s chest and his big arms wrapped around you felt like heaven, honestly. And his soft heartbeat was like a lullaby.

So, you would think that being so deep in a slumber, you wouldn’t experience much of a nightmare. You know, those sleeps you get and you just don’t dream at all? Yeah, that should’ve been what you had tonight. But as you whimpered softly in your sleep and quickly began to sweat- evidently not.

It was just so real.

You felt yourself strapped in the chair again. The restraints against your wrists so tight you could’ve sworn your hands were about to be chopped off.

You should’ve never opened your door. You should’ve trusted that gut feeling inside and known that only bad things come knocking after 6pm. The second you saw him through your peephole, you should’ve jumped out the window. But who were you kidding, he still probably would’ve got to you. You were outnumbered like 6 to 1.

And as you sat there, tied to the flimsy wooden chair that you usually ate breakfast on, looking up fearfully at all the men circling you- you began crying just thinking about what it was they wanted with you.

Steve looks down at you on his chest when he hears you whimpering, your fingers fisting his shirt. His brows furrow together- and before he can let his mind wander, the tear that escapes your eye makes his smile disappear instantly.

“Hey,” He softly shakes you, to no avail.

He was so menacing looking- they all were. Dressed in all black. No matter how they smiled- it was nothing but evil.

They smiled as they smacked you around, each of them taking turns. Pulling your hair back whenever you’d dip you’re head down to avoid Brock’s stare. You remembered how another traced his knife over your neck many times when you didn’t give a straight answer.

“Where are they?” Brock would ask.

“Who?” You would stupidly reply. The knife at your neck dug underneath your chin, testing you as you looked from the knife bearer to Brock, quickly regretting your reply.

“Your little friends,” Brock smiled, “Your boyfriend…” You swallowed at the memory of Steve and the reminder of what he meant to you. Brock caught this and tilted his head mockingly, “No more boyfriend?” He tsks, tucking a hair behind your ear and you flinch away from his touch. He slaps you then before grabbing a hold of your chin, “Then I guess it won’t matter if you tell me where they are and where the scepter is,” He taunts and you wince, “C’mon, don’t you want to get back at him? What’d he do? Fuck another woman- was it Natasha? Or does he still have the hots for that old bag of bones? Ouch… that would hurt.”

He flinches back when you spit in his face.

Even his men look shocked that you did so and your heart hammers in your chest. But you don’t regret it. It felt good.

“You really shouldn’t have done that.” He mumbles.

You can only watch as he turns to the gas stove beside him. He turns on the gas, the flame emitting in the open. Your eyes dart around the room to his men and you watch as they all start to smile. Fuck. The grip on your hair seems tighter now and before you know it, a random tea towel is being shoved into your mouth.

“Y/N, hey, wake up,” Steve sits you up now, and your hands push against his chest in your sleep, “C’mon, honey-“

You shake your head as Brock brings his knife down towards the flame- heating it up. He places it on the blue part too, watching in delight as the steel slowly lights up under the hottest part of the flame.

You struggle against your restraints, but get put in your place as a knife is pressed to your neck once more.

Brock soon removes the knife from the flame once he’s satisfied with its heat.

“No!” You thrash in Steve’s hold, pounding against his chest and pushing his hands away. It didn’t help that his hands were combing through your hair too- the feel of it much too stimulating.

It’s only when you knock Steve in the jaw a little too hard- and hear the knock of his bones that you realise you’re awake. You’re awake and alive and it was just a dream.

You look up at Steve in fear, more so because you just hit him rather than the outcome of your dream- but the dream still rattled you. You hold your hands to your chest, feeling terrible and also wanting to curl up into a ball and never be touched again.

Your arm burned and stung. So did your thigh. Both places where your wounds were. Though they were well past healed, they felt as fresh as the minute they were given to you after every dream.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” Steve asks, totally ignoring the slight pain in his jaw.

“Nothing,” You shake your head and quickly wipe your tears, “Bad dream,” You quickly mutter out, standing from the bed, backing away from Steve’s hand that’s reaching out, “I’ll be back.”

You practically run for the bathroom, shutting the door behind you and sitting straight onto the floor.

The tiles did well to soothe your skin and cool you down. You steadied your breathing a little, but it was no use because of how the tears came flooding in.

It just felt so inescapable. Every week it felt like you were having these dreams. You hoped that maybe the distraction of Steve’s arrival would postpone the dreams- his secure arm around your waist every night would protect from anything. But no. No, if anything this felt worse.

Two whole years it’s been since it happened and some mornings you wake up feeling like it was just hours ago.

Looking down at your arm, you wince at the small fading window on your arm. What once was a H, burned into your skin, turned into a window by yourself. Then the scar of the knife wound on your thigh. How you then also had to stitch it up yourself.

You felt like throwing up every time this happened.

When they first started, you didn’t even want to sleep you were so scared. You had to lock every door and window about 5 times before you felt safe- and even then you were still weary. Your own bedroom door had to be locked- even if that was a safety hazard for yourself in the event of a fire or something.

You kept an array of weapons around your house. Knives, few guns, pepper sprays, baseball bats.

It took a good year for you to realise that you were safe. If they hadn’t come to get you by now, they probably never would. That didn’t stop the dreams though.

The dreams came almost every night. Sometimes they would vary- a dream starting off good that would soon turn bad, but the recurring one was always a replay of the exact event. That was the worst- having to relive it all.

“Y/N?” You wipe your tears quickly when you hear Steve’s gentle voice at the bathroom door, followed by a soft knock, “Can I come in?”

You go to speak, but since you had just been crying, it comes out weak and more unsteady, “Um-“ And painfully evident that you were crying.

Steve panics at the sound of your voice, opening the door immediately and looking for you- before looking down and spitting you on the floor.

He doesn’t even hesitate to join you, a soft expression on his face as he lowers himself to the ground, “Hey,” He takes your hands in his and rubs them gently, “Are you okay? What happened?”

You purse your lips, shaking your head, “It was just a nightmare and it felt real.” You briefly explain. You’re sure he knew all about nightmares- having some of his own too. You’re certain every other avenger had nightmares constantly. Bucky- for one. You were always there when Steve woke up in the middle of the night when he heard Bucky thrashing in his sleep the next room over and would go to help. You would always bring a bottle of cold water and feel so sorry for your boyfriends best friend. Now you knew what it felt like. “I’m sorry I hit you.” You apologise, softly caressing his jaw where you’d hit.

“I barely felt it.” He scoffs and you smile weakly. It didn’t make you feel any better about it though. No matter how many times you used to spar with Steve, you always hated that you hurt him and made sure he was well loved up at the end of the day, “What was it about?” He asks after a beat, tentatively to let you know that you don’t have to tell him if you’re uncomfortable.

It’s not that you don’t want to tell Steve- or even that you’re uncomfortable in any way. You didn’t know, maybe you just didn’t want Steve to keep thinking that it was entirely his fault… maybe it was, but it also wasn’t.

You softly exhale, playing with Steve’s fingers, “I never liked Brock.” You say, grimacing slightly, “He has such an evil face.”

It honestly didn’t surprise you when he turned out to work for HYDRA. Something about his face was just so wicked- and not in a good way. Like, you knew that man was into some crazy, sadistic shit probably. Even his name just sounds cynical… Brock.

“Was he in the dream?” Steve asks, starting to get an idea of what exactly your dream was about.

You nod, “Always,” The others sometimes had blurred faces but Brock’s was always clear as day. It got to a point where you swear you could vision the pores on his face. And you remembered almost his every moment, barely taking your eyes off of him and anything he did that night.

Steve’s thumb rubs over your knee reassuringly and it surprisingly helps, just knowing that he’s there, “What does he do… in the dream?”

You look over Steve’s expression before you answer. You hadn’t shown anyone your scars. This would be the first time anyone would see them.

So, you pluck a piece of toilet paper from its roll and bring the small sheet to your skin, wiping your arm to remove the thin layer of foundation hiding the window scar on your arm.

Steve’s eyes widen at the sight of the faint scar lingering on your arm.

“It’s always the same,” You start, flinching slightly at the memory thats practically ingrained in your mind at this point. Unlike any other memory, this one is as clear as day- there's nothing foggy about it, no, whenever you imagine or dream it, it is genuinely like it is happening right in front of you all over again, “Reliving the moment he did it all.” You follow Steve’s unrelenting gaze on your arm and you join him in shamefully looking at it, “It’s supposed to be an H.” You knew it obviously was no representation of what you stood for- it was simply a reminder of the torture you endured- but you couldn't help but feel ashamed by it. Their mark on you. Inhaling a breath, you mumble, grazing your fingers over the scar, “And I feel it… I don’t know why it still hurts all the time,” That was a lie- you knew exactly why, because it still haunted you to this day and you still lived practically every waking moment in fear that it could happen again, “It’s like that… that phantom pain.” You trail off, a little worried at how little Steve has spoken. 

Then, you watch as he gaze trails down to your exposed thigh- the other scar a lot more visible now that Steve pieces everything together. He had seen the scar on your thigh yesterday... you know, when you’d had sex. But he thought nothing of it at the time. As a matter of fact, he smiled softly at it, because it looked like a heart. But now that he’s looking more intently with his fixed gaze, he can see the small stitch marks around the healed wound. 

“Did he do this to you too?” He asks softly. 

You just nod silently, running your thumb over it to try and quell the sudden burn. Everytime you looked at it, it seemed to ache. 

“This one was because I tried to run.” You say uncontrollably, perhaps trying to lighten the mood a little but you're not sure it works. You remember, Brock had grabbed your ankle as you went to desperately crawl away from him. Dreams and movies were all true in the whole running away from danger thing- it was fucking hard. He pulled you back towards him so easily, and stabbed you right in the thigh. You don't think you’d ever felt such an intense pain before in your life- until, of course, you got burned. You didn’t even scream, just a silent cry. “And this was because I spat in his face.” You point to the window with a frown. 

“What is that? A burn?” Steve asks, gripping onto your arm for a closer look. You flinch slightly, both at his tone and the way he grabs you. You’re certain he meant well, but you couldn't help but react- and Steve noticed the second you did it. He loosened his grip on your arm and caressed it softly, rubbing his thumb over the back of your hand, “I’m sorry,”

His apology, however, felt like more than an apology for how he just grabbed you. Rather, as you meet his guilty eyes, it seemed as though he was apologising for much more. 

You shake your head, “It’s not your fault-“

“It is- it wouldn’t have happened if I let you stay.” He says harshly, but you believe the tone is more so directed at himself rather than you. YOu swallow a breath, unable to come up with an argument against it. It wasn't his fault, but it was... but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't his fault. You were just... a victim of the circumstances. He brings your small hand up to his lips and just presses his lips to them, before pulling you into his lap and kissing your head. He kind of just holds you like that for a minute and you’re glad. It soothes your anxious heart, still coming down from the nightmare and Steve hears it from the way your heart beat comes to a steady rhythm. 

“He’ll never hurt you again.” Your ears prick up as he speaks suddenly, “As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have to worry about him ever again.”

Craning your neck to look up at him, your knit your brows together in pure confusion, “Why’s that?”

Steve purses his lips momentarily, before answering, “Because he’s dead.” Your lips part in a soft gasp. Your heart drops for some unknown reason. “We killed him… sometime last year. He tried to kill me, suicide bomb, but Wanda held off the bomb and it killed him instead.” He explains. He leaves out the other parts of the story, figuring there was no reason you needed to know any of that. You’d find out for yourself another day. You find tears welling up in your eyes and you don’t exactly know why. You feel so dramatic, but for the first time in a long time, you feel... free. Steve’s thumb immediately catches a stray tear that falls, cupping your face, “I’ll never let anyone hurt you ever again.” He promises, and you nod, “And you can rest easy knowing he can’t hurt you.”

You had come to terms with the idea of never having closure. Of never having a truly peaceful nights sleep ever again, of living your life in constant fear that Brock- or anyone was still out there to get you. And even if HYDRA still existed, Brock was gone. 

Brock was gone. 

“C’mon, let's go back to bed.” Steve was here.

-

“No,” You smack Sam’s reaching hand, away from the fruit on the branch. He looks at you- almost offended, so you explain, “That’s not ripe yet.”

He frowns, inspecting it closer while you turn back to your other tree, “It looks pretty good to me.”

“Well, then you can pick all the ones you think are ripe and when it tastes like rust- you can’t have any of ours.” Natasha quips, adjusting her fruit basket as she plucks another orange for her pile.

Sam just scoffs, leaving the unripe fruit on its branch and looking for more, “So mean,”

You laugh over your shoulder, plucking one last orange from your free before going over to Sam now, “Try squeezing them a little, they might look a nice colour but they’re rock hard.” You squeeze the one he had wanted to pick, it indeed being rock hard, “And smell, if it’s not ripe yet, it’ll smell funny.”

Sam squeezes the fruit as well, eyes lighting up when he feels just how hard it is. He smiles at you then, “Thank you, Y/N.” He puts extra emphasis on your name, glaring at Natasha who gives him the finger.

“So, what did you tell her?” Wanda asks Steve. While the rest of you pick fruit from your trees, Wanda and Steve supervise from afar on your back porch, having a much needed chat.

Steve had quite literally been spending all his time with you from the night it all happened that he couldn’t even spare a moment with Wanda to tell her all about it- only fleeting glances across the room or small smiles whenever you held his hand.

“I just said what I felt.” He shrugged, reminiscing on the whole apology, “Stuff I didn’t even realise I felt, but I said it anyway.”

“You were being true to yourself- going off script,” Wanda nods, smiling encouragingly, “You didn’t need my help after all.”

Steve just smiles before sighing and looking over at you. You looked extra pretty today, in a white dress that he really liked, picking fruit with your little woven basket. When you had walked down the stairs with the dress on, Steve’s weak ol’ knees would’ve probably buckled to the floor had he not been sitting already.

After breakfast though, he happily spent a good hour underneath the dress, head between your soft thighs…

He shakes the thoughts off when he hears Wanda clear her throat.

His cheeks flush in embarrassment, but he shrugs it off.

“I don’t even know if we’re dating again,” He says suddenly, changing the topic. Wanda turns to him curiously, “Well, technically we never even broke up… I sent her away and she left town but it was never officially broken off,” He adds. But he guessed a break up never had to be official. Unlike a marriage or anything- that’s kind of the whole point of dating, not having to worry about the legalities of it all, right?“I don’t even know if she knows what we are either.” Steve shrugs, kind of sadly as he plays with a small weeded flower he plucked from the ground.

“I’m sure you’ll both know soon enough,” Wanda nods, “And maybe she’s thinking the same thing and you’re both just biting your tongues.”

Steve stares at Wanda for a moment before shaking his head, “You tell me that as if you can’t read minds.”

Wanda tries to hold back a smile- to not give, both, herself and you away. Listen, she truly tries not to let slip peoples thoughts when unwarranted. But this was a rekindling love story, she couldn’t help it! 

“Hey!” Natasha yelps, causing both Steve and Wanda to dart thier attention to the blonde. She holds her arm painfully as she stares daggers at Sam, “That was hard!” Who had just thrown a very hard, unripe orange at her.

She then picks up an orange from the floor, pegging it straight at Sam while he laughs. But his laughter is immediately cut short once the soggy(?) orange hits his jaw.

“Ow!” He holds his jaw, a look of pure disgust on his face rather than pain, “Why was it wet?” He asks, completely forgetting about his basket of mostly unripe oranges as he storms towards Natasha, beginning a chase as he repeatedly asks, “Natasha, why was it wet?”

Steve spots you weaving through the trees to get away from the two siblings, a tired look on your face as you approach him and Wanda with a basket full of fruit.

“God, it’s like having literal children,” You quirk, setting your basket down on the porch next to Steve before grabbing a white pouch and holding it out for Steve and Wanda, “Here, raspberries.” The white pouch turns out to be a paper towel and inside are a small handful of raspberries you must've plucked from the little berry garden you had.

You mindlessly sit on Steve’s lap as they take their share of raspberries from your hand, both humming at the sweet taste of the berries. Steve, however, is more delighted to have you on his lap than the taste of the berries. 

You smell so fresh, and your dress- he already said how much he loved your dress didn't he? Well, he truly does love it and you’re really spurring his housewife kink right now- you have been ever since they arrived on your doorstep to be painfully honest. 

“You should start a greenhouse.” Wanda hums,

“You know, I was thinking about it,” You inform her, matter of factly as you look out across your makeshift fruit garden. There wasn’t much, only oranges, apples, strawberries and raspberries. But you would love a greenhouse with even more fruit and maybe a few vegetables as well. “I just never had the strength to build it.”

“I’ll build it for you.” Steve chimes in, barely hesitating and you light up.

“Really?”

He nods, “We can build it together.”

You feel butterflies in your stomach- not just at his proposition- but because of the way he looks at you after.

But also, build it together. That very well could mean building it in a matter of the next few upcoming days. But it could also mean, considering the circumstances, that Steve had plans to long overdue his stay and you could take your sweet time in building the greenhouse together.

Before you can pull yourself out of your trance yourself, Sam’s persistent screech as he chases Natasha around the side of the house does the job for you.

“Natasha! Why was it wet?”

-

With heavy limbs, heavy eyelids and- most notably, a heavy head, you stumble in between Steve’s spread out legs as he sits on the stool against the kitchen counter, practically supervising the rest of you.

He catches you in his arms and you smile hazily up at him, bopping his nose, “You can’t even feel it, can you?”

He glances over at his empty glass, having found the bottom of his mimosa yet it having absolutely no effect on him. In great contrast to yourself.

The juice from the oranges you’d plucked earlier today were just so nice. You couldn’t help yourself as you had 2… 3… maybe 4 glasses.

Steve smiles down at you, bopping your nose back and you swat his hand away with extremely late reflexes, “I’m perfectly fine chaperoning.”

You just smile up at him, closing your eyes then as you rest your head in the crook of his neck. God, he smells nice. Always so nice. Like sweet, but musky. And always so big and strong and… thick.

Steve laughs heartily as you unknowingly speak your mind. The 70’s music is too loud for anyone else to hear, luckily, but Steve heard it all too well as you basically whispered it into his ear.

“Okay, come on, you’re ready for bed.” He pats your ass softly and you frown up at him as he easily picks you up from the ground.

“Are you cutting me off?” You pout.

“Mhmm,” He hums.

Wanda raises her brows at Steve as he passes her, “You got her?”

He nods easily, before eyeing both Natasha and Sam as they drunkenly (and mostly angrily) play cup pong together, “You got them?” Wanda sighs with a small laugh, faking dramatics as she nods, “Good luck,” Steve wishes her before he’s bringing you towards the stairs.

You babble nonsense as he carries you up. You don’t make any sense and Steve is much more focused on actually reaching each next step rather than your attempt at retelling a story.

Kicking the door open to your room softly, he brings you into the bathroom in your bedroom, placing you atop the closed toilet seat to get you ready for bed.

“Do you remember?” You suddenly, coherently ask after finishing whatever story you were telling, shaking Steve’s arm.

He furrows his brows, trying to piece together what you were saying earlier but comes up short. So instead, he just goes back to retrieving a makeup wipe from underneath your sink and hums a small, “Mhmm,” in agreement. You pay no mind to his response as you lean your head against the counter of your sink that was right next to the toilet. Steve, however, has to then lift your head up in order to start cleaning your face. You wince at the coldness of the makeup wipe, Steve’s way of wiping your face tickling you and you can’t stop wiggling around and giggling, “Sit still.” He laughs, though trying to stay firm. You do your best to sit still, your drunken mind realising that if you focus on Steve, you will stay in one spot… “Stop staring at me like that.” Steve boops your nose with a small laugh as he throws out the makeup wipe, before grabbing your toothbrush and putting a dollop of toothpaste on the bristles.

“Okay, Steve.” You hum. Steve then grabs your chin and you part your lips just enough for him to insert your toothbrush into your mouth. You pull away abruptly, the toothbrush hanging loosely from your mouth, “Ow!” You whine, the toothbrush hitting one of your teeth a bit too hard for your drunken liking.

“I’m sorry,” He swiftly sighs before grabbing hold of the toothbrush and gently brushing your teeth to the best of his ability while you begin whining about how gentle he needs to be.

He soon gets a little frustrated, losing grip of the toothbrush and his rhythm while you talk, “Stop talking.”

But he should’ve known better than to scold you while you were drunk.

“Hey!” You frown, eyes genuinely sad and offended as you look up at him like a kicked puppy. And Steve genuinely feels bad for a second.

He dips his head down, sighing quickly before raising two fingers, “For two minutes, first one to talk is a big loser.”

For Steve knows, both, you and drunk you like the back of his hand, you keep your mouth shut from there. To which, he struggles with brushing your teeth still, but at least you’re not talking anymore. 

Once two minutes almost goes by, he sets your toothbrush down on the counter and begins to hold your hair back, out of your face, “Spit,” He instructs, noticing how your eyes were beginning to water from the burn of the toothpaste welling up in your mouth. 

You do so instantly, bending over the sink and spitting all the toothpaste out as Steve then rounds you to fill up the small cup with water for you to rinse.

You smile up at him then, “Never heard that one before.” You say as you drink from the cup he handed you before spitting once more. You’re putty in Steve’s hold as he picks you up and carries you the short distance to the bed. He places you down gently and once he does so, you boop his nose, “You lost.” 

He’s confused at first, but once he remembers the little game he conducted, he smiles. At your cheeky grin peering up at him, he brings his fingers up to your stomach and begins tickling you- instantly making you squirm and squeal.

“No!” You shriek, curling up around his fingers to somehow get away from them. He soon stops, sparing you as you point a finger up at him, “No tickling.” You warn, getting comfy under the covers- instantly forgetting about the whole thing as you shut your eyes. Steve purses his lips before joining you, helping you out a bit first as he adjusts your blanket so that its actually covering you. You hum softly and sigh, “I love you.”

Steve blinks once- halting his actions. He stares down at you for a second- trying to rack his brain on what you just said. He wasn’t even drunk, but this sure felt like a drunk moment for him as he almost felt dizzy. 

What he thinks he heard you say is proven from the way you squeeze his hand after. You always used to squeeze his hand. Before missions, during meetings, at galas. 

And, although you’re drunk as well, Steve can’t help but believe you meant every part of it. What is it they say? Drunk words are sober thoughts? Some cliche shit like that. 

“I love you too.” He says after a long beat. 

His heart drops a little at the way your nose scrunches up and you huff in your sleep, “Thanks, but I have a boyfriend.” You mumble, before cuddling up to his chest and dozing off. 

Steve lets out a small laugh at that, before it fades slowly as he caresses your arm, deep in thought.

-

You’d woken up with a mild headache. It wasn’t too bad but it wasn’t great. Luckily, you had a man sent from heaven, created in a lab (literally) to wake up to as he brought you breakfast in bed with a side of ibuprofen.

He and Wanda were gracious enough to even make some for Sam and Natasha too. 

You liked Steve this morning. Well- you always do, but today, it was like he was extra... lovey. You didn't know how to explain it, but just everything he did was so very chivalrous and romantic. 

Maybe you’re overthinking it, but c’mon... what normal man gives you a foot massage while you eat breakfast after you slightly mentioned how you think you might’ve stubbed your toe last night? Along with the extra kisses and cuddling. 

You weren’t complaining, by any means. Just curious. 

Oh, and he also helped you around the house today. You needed to do a few housekeeping things like a few loads of laundry and hanging them up. Plus, you needed to water a few of your plants. As well as fix the broken plank on your back porch from Sam apparently tripping over the step and landing knee first into the withering wood. 

Steve helped you with all of it. He fixed the floorboard and watered all your plants. Then, just in time, the laundry was ready to hang and he helped you with that too. 

What, honestly, would have taken half your day to complete, was done in about an hour and it only just hit lunch. 

And so, after hanging up the washing, you decided to make some lunch for the children. Low and behold, Steve said he’d help with that as well.

As you entered the kitchen, your smile faded as you saw a very bored looking Sam as Natasha set up some board game in front of him and Wanda. 

As you passed him, you tapped his head, “What’s got you all down in the dumps?” You ask. You eye the board game, the up to Natasha, before smiling, “Oh, are you losing?” You try and tease but he scoffs and Wanda chimes in. 

“Actually, he’s been winning every game.” You raise your brows in surprise. 

Steve takes the basket from your hand then and offers to put it back in the laundry. You smile up at him briefly before turning back to Sam. You know this look. It took you a second to recognise it, but you know what it means now, “You’re bored.” 

You and Sam, and Bucky as well, were almost like the teens of the compound (kinda, not really). You caused a lot of trouble, pranking other avengers, always wanting to play some kind of game, betting with each other. During a meeting or a slow day, Sam would always give either you or Bucky this look. The same exact mug he's wearing now.

“It’s just that we’ve played every board game and puzzle you have…” He sighs, nodding the the pile stacked up against the chair, “We’re about to play cluedo for the 5th time.”

“You could play cluedo for an infinite amount of times to be fair,” You chip in. Sam just rolls his eyes at you and you sigh. Looking up at the clock, you try and think of something new and fun they can do- perhaps outside of the house. You're aren’t left with many options, considering it's basically impossible for them to leave the house and not worry about being found.

But, one idea crosses your mine... and it’s not bad at all. 

“Why don’t we go down to the lake?”

-

“How much further?” Sam groans from behind the pack, his voice sounding a lot distant than you last remember. Your suspicions are proven correct as the group comes to a halt, staring back at Sam whos about three metres from Natasha.

Steve snakes a hand around your waist as you all look at Sam. You don’t know why, for what reason, but again, you’re not complaining. 

“Too unfit for a little hike, Birdman?” Natasha asks as Sam catches up to the rest of you- not without huffing and puffing though.

Despite being the most bored out of everyone back home, he definitely had a lot to say about finally getting out. He’d already eaten half of his sandwich that you’d made before leaving the house. You decided that since it was lunchtime, you would make and pack a whole picnic to eat when you all got to the lake. Everyone had their own little lunch pack and a towel. 

“I’m just saying, I feel like we could’ve taken the car.” He exhales, bending over to catch his breath. 

But the second he catches back up, you’re all walking again, “Almost there.” You tell him and hear his loud groan and a few pattered steps as he runs to catch back up to you all. 

And it really isn't that long until you reach the lake. Steve steadies you over the rocks across the lake that lead to a nice grass patch as opposed to the knee-high blades of grass that you had to walk through to get here.

Wanda helps you set the mat down, hammering it in place before everyone sets down their stuff and begins undressing to their swimmers. You had to lend both Wanda and Natasha a pair since, you know, bikinis weren't exactly on their list of items to bring with them whilst on the run from the US Government.

“Are you sure there’s no fish in here?” Sam calls out tentatively, looking into the water with fear more than curiosity.

You smile a little as you rub sunscreen onto Steve’s face, “Nobody said there was no fish.” You shake your head and watch as Sam’s eyes widen, “They won’t bite you.” You reassure him, before wiping your hands over the back of your thighs to get off the excess sunscreen from your hands. 

You take Steve hand and follow Wanda and Natasha out to the water, all of you much more eager to cool off from the journey to get here. Meanwhile, Sam still stands on the picnic mat, fully clothed with his backpack still on.

“What about turtles? Leeches?” He asks again, and this time neither of you answer- instead just laugh at him, “Guys I’m serious!”

Apart from Sam’s initial hesitancy- well it never really went away, he was still very cautious as he swam with the rest of you. But other than that, the lake was a big hit. 

A few games of chicken, marco polo. Then a much needed lunch. 

You all didn’t intend to stay as long as you did, but it soon hit 3PM and you still wanted to stay. But, you were all getting a little tired and you still needed to get some takeout for dinner which you had all unanimously decided on. 

So, you packed everything up, making sure it was all in the exact same condition as you found it with no litter left behind before making the trek back up to your house. 

The walk back felt much quicker and there wasn’t much complaining from Sam, apart from the few minutes he was freaking out about a leach being stuck to him... but it was just a leaf. 

And soon enough, you were back home. 

Despite the day not mentally tiring you, your body was definitely feeling it. Your feet dragged along in front of Steve and you even tripped over your front lawn once you reached it. Steve was quick to catch you though, your knight in shining armour. 

So entranced by Steve, you didn't even notice that what you tripped over was a piece of plucked turf... followed by a faint skid mark on your grass, leading out onto the road. 

-

You sighed heavily as you grabbed your keys from the counter, making sure you had everything. 

“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Steve asks, a hand on the small of your back. 

You smile up at him, reassuringly, “As much as I would love it,” You start with a hand on his soft, freshly showered cheek, “I’d rather you not go to jail.” You kiss his cheek, before patting his chest, “I’ll be fine.”

He purses his lips as he walks you to the front door, “Drive safe.” He bids as you get into your car and wave goodbye as you head off to get dinner that you’d ordered at a small chinese place in town. 

Once you’re out of Steve’s sight, he frowns momentarily before heading back inside. 

Funnily enough, the others are back at the dining table, playing another round of cluedo. As much as they bashed it earlier, they couldn't deny that it wasn’t fun. 

As Steve takes a seat at the head of the table, observing the game, Natasha turns to him, “So, where are we off to next?” Natasha had been meaning to talk to Steve about this for a while now. In fact, she wanted to ask him ever since they got here. 

She was never opposed to the idea of coming here... just opposed to staying. Somewhere, deep down, she knew this would happen. Of course you and Steve would rekindle your loves for each other... and of course he wants to stay. But they’re on the run. They shouldn’t stay in one place for too long. And, for Natasha, it's already been far too long. 

“I don’t know.” Steve sighs, knowing this question was coming but blocking it out of his mind, because like he told you- he didn't want to think about leaving you. 

Natasha practically abandons the entire game now, and so does everyone else and Steve internally groans at the lecture he's about to receive, “What do you mean? It’s almost been a week, Steve.”

“I know.” He mumbles, avoiding her gaze as he looks out the window, to the backyard where just moments ago, he was helping you take the washing down. It was such a small task, a minute help in your day- and yet Steve wanted to do it again and again. 

The simple serenity of hanging the washing with you, while you thought about what to make for lunch. How you hung the basket on your hip each time you carried it. How you made a quick trip over to your raspberry plant and plucked a few berries for the both of you to sneakily snack on. 

That was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

“You wanna stay.” Natasha basically reads his mind. 

Steve looks over at Wanda, figuring she knew everything he was thinkin and wanted to grasp her view on it all. She seemed conflicted. On one hand, she knew they had to leave, but on the other, she loved it here. Even if she felt like she was intruding on yours and Steve’s relationship, it was nice having a woman friend to bake with and share bikinis with. 

“Can you blame me?” Steve asks, now a little agitated. But he doesn't exactly know at what- probably more so himself and the decisions he has to make rather than at Natasha.

“Yes, I can.” Natasha nods, “It’s not safe. Not for us and not for her.” Steve’s ears prick up at the mention of you and he furrows his brows at the blonde, “They find us here and she’ll be taken in as an accomplice. The maximum term of imprisonment for hiding a fugitive is 3 years. God knows how long she’ll get for hiding 4 fugitives-” 

“That’s if they even find this place.” Steve interrupts, “We couldn’t even find it. Tony couldn’t find it!” He adds, and Wanda bites her lip at his false statement, “This is the last place they would probably ever look for us!”

Natasha keeps her mouth shut, glaring at Steve a little before turning to a silent Sam beside her with a questioning look. For someone who had a lot to say, he was suspiciously quiet. 

He shrugs a little as everyone waits for his input, his eyes darting nervously from Natasha to Steve. 

He shrugs, “Maybe he’s right.” He finally says, but very hesitantly. Natasha furrows her brows hard, “They haven't found us by now... they probably never will.” He says. Natasha scoffs then and he adds, “And if Tony couldn’t find this place...” He trails off, not exactly knowing where he was going with that. 

2 against 1. 

Now they all look to Wanda. 

Natasha looks a little hopeful, perhaps another female can make sense of the situation they’re in. 

And she does. She does, but she also sees Steve’s side and Sam’s side. Despite what she knows about Tony, she doubts he would do that to you or that he even knows they’re all here in the first place. 

“I think we just need to be very cautious.” Is what she settles on, hoping it doesn't offend Natasha in any way. She’s not at all going against what Natasha has said, nor is she agreeing with Steve either. She’s on the fence.

Natasha sighs defeatedly as she slumps in her chair, knowing she was outnumbered. Leaving the group was off the table, she knew it was best if they stuck together. 

The air is a thickly tense as they all sit in Natasha and Steve’s heated silence. 

So, Sam places his cards down before nodding to the envelope, “Mustard, dagger, in the dining room.”

- 

Your eyes feel a little heavy as you make your way back home. You really can’t wait to go to bed and snuggle up on Steve’s firm chest. Maybe you’ll watch a movie even and fall asleep to it. You know he hates when you do that butt you kinda like riling him up like that. You also like waking up after he realises you’re asleep, watching through heavy eyelids as he begrudgingly turns the movie and light off.

You’re broken out of your thoughts by bright yellow headlights blinding you from behind. You realise your day dreaming must’ve made you lose concentration and slow down a little, which is why they were also so close. 

So you put your foot on the gas and get yourself back up to speed. 

But they stay close behind you- tailgating you and now flashing you with their high beams. 

“What the fuck?” You brake check them and flip them off, but it hardly helps as they keep their lights on high beam, restricting both your vision on the road and your vision on their faces. 

You’re speeding now, way over the limit as you try and get away from them. 

Your mind immediately goes to Brock- he’s found you and he’s going to kill you once and for all. But then you remember he’s dead. 

So you think of the next possible option. Fuck. 

From what you can see, the car is quite large- almost a van... definitely enough space to contain 4 people on the run. Black too, so definitely could be some kind of government car. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Your heart pounds in your chest now and you feel like crying. You know you shouldn’t lead them to your house- but if they’ve found you now, you doubt they don’t already know where you live. 

You’re half tempted to call the house and let them know, but you also doubt they aren’t somehow tracking your phone call. Plus, you don’t think you’ll be able to drive properly if you’re on the phone and you need to get them off your tail.

So, as you come up against a familiar trail, you barely think before you turn into it. Just as you do so, a car from the other side of the road approaches, effectively cutting the car behind you off from following you as it collides with the other poor car. 

You breath heavily as you speed down the road, turning your headlights off to conceal yourself as you make your way back home. 

By the time you get there, you end up in the backyard. You don’t think you even turn off your car. Just put it in park and run to the back door. 

As you frantically enter, Steve turns to you from his spot at the table and smiles, “Hey-“ Just as his smile fades, confused as to why you enter from the backdoor, you interrupt him.

“You guys have to go!” You yell to them and they all look at you stunned and confused. You grow frustrated as they dont understand, knowing that they’re probably only getting closer the longer you all wait, “They know you’re here!”

“What?” Steve asks, immediately standing along with the others who finally look like they're understanding what you mean as they reach for their backpacks.

“They were following me, but I took a back road. Please, you have to go!” You beg them and Natasha is already shoving things into her duffel. 

Thank God they had taken Wanda’s advice and decided on packing emergency bags in the event that they had to run. They just didn’t realise they would have to use them so suddenly.

“Who?” Steve asks again and you feel like screaming. 

Before you can even answer, you all hear a car pulling up on your front yard- probably knocking over your mailbox due to the loud thud that sounds. The sound of cocked guns however is what really sets it all in and it doesn't take the others much longer to piece together what the fuck is happening.

˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*･���☆

NEXT CHAPTER

BITCH

i’m sorry for the cliffhanger it had to be done

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

If I Fell For You (Part 15) - Trouble In Paradise

Summary: The reader is enjoying settling into her newfound children’s book career and shares how important the bracelet she gave Jensen is to her. A rainy day allows the reader to enjoy her shift into motherhood despite all of the bumps that go with it. But not everything is smooth sailing for the happy couple...

Masterlist

Pairing: Jensen x nanny!reader

Word Count: 5,600ish

Warnings: language, angst, mention of past abuse, nightmares, major angst

A/N: Uh oh. Big uh oh. Please enjoy and let me know what you think!

________

Two Weeks Later

“Honey bun,” sang Jensen as he stepped into your home office you’d set up in the small reading room in the house. “Must you work today?”

“I do occasionally have to work on that drawing thing,” you said. He pouted and laid out on the daybed, picking up a copy of the third book. “Give me another hour to finish with these pages.”

“Can I hang out and watch you draw?” he asked.

“Knock your socks off,” you said. You picked up your stylus again and went back to your pad, Jensen sitting up and watching from the other side of the room. “You can sit closer if you want.”

He got up and pulled over a chair, crossing his legs in it.

“I basically draw using my stylus and this pad and it shows up on my laptop screen,” you said.

“We could get you a better screen, like your own separate work computer. I know your stories are picking up a lot of steam.”

“I’m okay for now. All I need to do is finish illustrating this book and my five book deal is done and ready for print,” you said.

“Can I make a request?”

“I would love to put in a giraffe for Zepp but the story takes place in the woods,” you said.

“Baby giraffe? Maybe just in the background?” he asked.

You backed out of your current page and went to the last two where the foxes and wolves were playing with their friends. You tapped on a tree and erased it, sketching out a loose shape.

“Look up a giraffe for me?” you asked. He tapped away on his phone and pulled up a picture. “Thanks.”

You drew a picture of a rough giraffe, softening it some before adding colors.

“You’re really good at that,” he said.

“The characters are easy. Backgrounds can get boring,” you said. You went back to your original set of pages and worked quietly, Jensen watching carefully. “Yes?”

“Just wanna spend time with you is all,” he said, resting his head on your shoulder.

“Okay, baby,” you said. You worked for another hour, Jensen asking the occasional question but mostly staying silent and close by. After you sent off the pages for review you turned to him, Jensen offering a soft smile in return. “All set with work for the day.”

“Awesome,” he said.

“Where’s the munchkins?”

“A movie,” he said. You ran your fingers through his hair and he leaned into it. “Tell me a secret.”

“A secret? I don’t think I have too many of those left from you,” you said. He opened his eyes and looked at you through his lashes. “What?”

“You said you got this on vacation,” he said, holding up his wrist, the bracelet you’d put on him two weeks ago still there. “When we were down there, I was talking to Ray and he kinda implied it wasn’t just a souvenir.”

“I was upset that day when he bought it for me. It meant I was safe was all,” you said.

“How long after did your mom…”

“A few months. She went on bed rest after that trip.”

“Y/N, I know when you’re holding back, honey. I would never judge or tell anyone anything. You know that.”

“You got hurt because you lost someone and you got hurt and it sucks right? But it’s kinda like something happened and then you heal from it right?”

“Yeah…” he said. “What don’t I know?”

“You know how anxious you were to get in the car and drive down to the beach?” you asked as he nodded. “You’ve never been afraid of a person, Jensen. It’s like that feeling...but everyday and you’re expected to live your life normally when you constantly have that over your head.”

He was quiet, glancing past you as the room grew darker from some passing clouds outside.

“Canada wasn’t the first time you saw your father since you were adopted, was it,” he said.

“You wouldn’t believe what a good lawyer and shitty laws will do for a piece of shit like that,” you said.

“You were a kid.”

“With zero physical evidence. Everything was circumstantial. So he got out and he came to apologize or some bullshit and Ray decked him.”

“The more I learn about Ray, the more I like him.”

“My mom kicked him in the nuts.”

“I really like that woman,” he said. You smiled and he moved his chair closer, pulling you into his lap. “I don’t mean to make you talk about your dad. I was curious was all.”

He went to take off the bracelet when you put a hand over it.

“I don’t want to remind you of something bad, sweetheart.”

“Like I said, I was upset. Very upset and in public and I went down to the beach to try to hide away. Ray bought that for me and told me I was safe when he put it on me. All it means to me is that you’re safe.”

“What about you? What do you have?” he asked quietly. You cocked your head and moved your hand to rest over his chest. “Alright, sort of a dumb question.”

“Not dumb,” you said, trailing your fingers down his chest.

“Guess you’ll just have to stay as close as humanly possible.”

“I don’t have a problem with that,” you said.

“Do you have a restraining order against your father?”

“No but that’s only because Ray managed to get him kicked out of the country. He found some loophole law. He was born in the Yukon so technically he’s not American and he got him kicked back.”

“Scratch that. Ray is my new favorite person,” he said. “If only we could send him someplace we’ll never visit like...a deserted island. Or Hell.”

“I appreciate the thought but I’m not scared of him anymore,” you said. “I am however afraid our plans of lunch at the brewery are going to get rained out.”

“We can enjoy ourselves right here. I’ve never heard a complaint yet about my grilling.”

“You know what? I got the perfect idea.”

“Okay,” said Jensen, sliding the foil packet off the grill and onto JJ’s plate. You’d decided to have lunch on the grill, sitting out under the covered back patio off the playroom. It was pouring rain but you were plenty dry there. “Chicken, marinara sauce and cheese. Then we got chicken, ketchup and baby carrots for Arrow. Zeppy wanted to try barbecue sauce and onion which sounded good to me and then Y/N went for the salmon and lemon.”

You helped the twins open up their foil packets and get their food on their plates, dicing up the chicken for them before going to your own plate.

“Daddy,” said Zeppelin while he chewed on a big piece of chicken. Jensen hummed and worked on his own food. “Can we play race cars after lunch?”

“Sure,” he said, JJ shaking her head.

“I don’t wanna play cars,” she said. Zeppelin stared at her and his bottom lip wobbled. “You’re a cry baby.”

“JJ, that’s rude,” you said, Jensen glancing at you and nodding. “Apologize to your brother.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. 

“We’re gonna play cars after lunch and you’re welcome to join,” said Jensen. “Your brother goes along with what you girls want to play quite a bit so I think you can do the same for him.”

“I still don’t wanna play cars,” she mumbled.

“You play cars with the Padalecki boys all the time,” you said.

“Not little kid cars,” she said. “He doesn’t know how to play right.”

You saw Zeppelin getting upset again and sighed.

“There’s no wrong way to play,” you said. “Zepp’s littler than you. You gotta be the big sister and do what he wants sometimes.”

“Mom would have played dress up,” she grumbled. “Not stupid cars.”

“Enough,” said Jensen. “You’re old enough to know better.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Your brother wants to play cars. We played horses all morning long and you barely let him have a turn at that so like I said, we’re gonna play what he wants and you are welcome to join us but if you don’t want to, you can play something else,” he said. 

“Baby,” she said under her breath. Jensen didn’t catch it but you did.

“JJ you’re in timeout after lunch. Ten minutes,” you said. 

“I didn’t-”

“You just called him a baby. You want to make it fifteen?” you asked.

“You’re not my mom! You can’t give me timeouts,” she said.

“Half an hour now,” said Jensen. She stared at him and he shook his head. “Eat your lunch.”

Zeppelin spent half of it crying quietly and JJ barely touched hers before she was following Jensen inside. You threw your head back and sighed before you went inside to get some tissues. When you came back out Arrow was hugging him tightly.

“Let’s clean you up, buddy,” you said as you squatted down beside them. She let go of him and you wiped off his face and helped him blow his nose. “Feel better?”

“We can play dress up,” he said. You picked him up and hoisted him on your hip. 

“We’re gonna play cars. Arrow, do you want to play with us?” you asked. She smiled and nodded. “Hey how about you go wash your hands and then you can bring out the bucket of cars and we’ll play out here. How’s that sound Zepp?”

“Okay,” he said. Arrow went inside and you carried him around as you collected the trash and threw it in the bag you brought out. You tied it up and left it in the corner to put in the bin later before you you walked to the edge of the covered patio, rain coming down at a decent rate. “Y/N you’re my mom right?”

“I’m one of your moms,” you said. “I’m gonna adopt you that way everybody can know I am though.”

“Cool,” he said softly, resting his head on your shoulder. “Mom can we play in the rain?”

“Hear any thunder?” you asked. He shook his head. “See any lightning?”

“Nuh uh,” he said.

“Then we can play in the rain all you want,” you said. You walked out to the grass and spun around with him, getting a giggle out of him. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” he asked. You spun around again and he laughed.

“There it is again!” you said. He giggled and you spun around a few times until you were dizzy and took a seat. He hugged you and kissed your cheek as you noticed Jensen leaning against the post of the patio. He was smiling and you hopped up with Zeppelin, waving him around in the air until you were back under cover. You set him down and he ran over to Arrow, picking out his favorite cars from the bucket and handing her some. 

“Well that might have been one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen,” he said. 

“You took a picture, didn’t you.”

“Oh several,” he said. He glanced back at the twins and then at you. “It clicked for you just now didn’t it.”

“Being a mom? Yeah.”

“You didn’t look to me on how to discipline JJ and you made him feel better and you made him laugh. You went full mom there and I’ve kinda been waiting for that.”

“I know it’s just playing they’re arguing over but I just hate...there is so much of you in him,” you said.

“I know and that feeling will never go away but it means you love ‘em and loving them is my only requirement for us working so this was actually a really good thing.”

“Those two are so sweet,” you said.

“It’s the twin thing. Oh what fun we have to look forward to when they are teenagers and they lie to us for one another,” he chuckled.

“Yeah but I’ll take it. Did you really give her a half hour timeout?”

“Fifteen minutes. She needs to share more and he doesn’t like confrontation so he goes along with what she wants but it’s not her road or the highway.”

“She’s been a little…”

“I know. Since we told them about the engagement,” he said. “We gotta talk to her on her own.”

“Let me take a crack at her first?” you asked.

“You got a hunch?”

“I don’t think having a mom again is a problem. I think the idea of losing a mom again is.”

“That makes sense considering she was attached to your hip before all this.”

“I’m gonna go see if I can get to the bottom of this. Now go play cars,” you said. He kissed your cheek and you headed inside, drying off some with a towel in the laundry room before you went up to JJ’s bedroom. You knocked and cracked open the door, catching her splayed out on her bed. “JJ. Can we talk?”

She rolled and put her back to you. You sat down on the edge of her bed and took a deep breath.

“You know your brother did what you wanted all day. You have to share,” you said. She didn’t say anything and you lay back on the bed, turning your head. She rolled back the other way and you sat up. She rolled again and you tilted your head back. “JJ do you want me to be your mom?”

“No,” she mumbled. 

“Are you lying?” She didn’t move and you sat back, her face scrunched up. “Are you scared if I’m your mom something bad will happen to me?”

“I don’t want two dead moms,” she said. 

“I have two dead moms,” you said. She blinked her eyes open and sat up. “My first mom, I never met her. She died giving birth to me.”

“You only had a dad when you were born?” she asked. You nodded and pulled her into your lap. “Did he get married again?”

“No. My dad was very mad my mom died. He took that out on me. He was a bad guy. He went to jail and I got adopted by my mom when I was your age. Ray was her boyfriend. He acted like he was my dad in a lot of ways. I was sixteen when my mom died. I understand it hurts, sweetie, and that it’s scary and you don’t ever want to feel like that again.”

“I thought if I was bad you and daddy wouldn’t...and then I don’t have to feel bad again.”

“I am so sorry honey but you can’t stop that feeling from never coming back. The only way you could not get it would be to not love anyone or anything and that’s not a life at all. It’s the price you pay for loving someone. Your mom was an accident. But Daddy is young and I’m even younger and I promise you will not have to feel that way about me for a very, very long time.”

“How long?”

“How about fifty years?”

“Fifty years? That’s forever,” she said. 

“I’ll give you fifty years if I can be your mom and you stop picking on Zepp. Deal?”

“Okay. I’m sorry I made him cry.”

“I’m not the one that needs an apology,” you said. “Now do you want stay in here all by yourself or do you want to come play with us?”

“I can play?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” you said. You got up and carried her down on your back, setting her down to let her run off out to the porch. Jensen got up from his seat and held up a finger, ducking back inside to where you were.

“That’s what I like to see,” he said as she gave Zeppelin a hug and he handed her a car.

“I did have to promise not to die for fifty years.”

“Fifty? You got off easy. I had to promise a hundred after the accident,” he chuckled. “I should have noticed she was scared.”

“I have more experience being a scared little girl than you do. I got experience with letting people get close again too,” you said.

“How’s that working out for ya?” he smirked.

“He’s lucky he’s hot,” you said. He threw his arm over your shoulders and grinned. “Do you want to get married in the fall?”

“This fall?” he asked.

“Can we pull it off that fast?” you asked.

“Yeah. We don’t have to book a venue which is the hardest part. I don’t see why not. What’s the rush?” he asked.

“It’s easier to adopt them if we’re married,” you said. “I don’t really want to wait longer than we have to if that’s alright.”

“I’d say let’s go drive down to city hall and get a justice of the peace right now if I knew my mother wouldn’t kill me for it. How about I call up the lawyer and ask him to start prepping the paperwork as if we already were so it’s all set to go,” he said.

“You have a lawyer?” you asked. “They’d do that?”

“Y/N, honey. My taxes alone frighten me not to mention I own a business with employees and what qualifies as a business write off still confuses me and wait you don’t have a lawyer for your book deal?”

“Should I have one?” 

“Greg is your lawyer now,” he said. “He’s good. He’ll do all the paperwork for us.”

“Oh good cause all the forms online were confusing the hell out of me,” you said. He shook his head and pulled you in close. 

“Silly goose,” he said, a loud boom of thunder shaking the house. “Let’s get the crew inside before it pours.”

“Who wants to build a fort?” you asked that afternoon. JJ jumped up and down on the couch and Jensen walked in with an arm full of blankets and sheets. Three little hands shot up and Jensen lazily tossed the blankets on the couch, covering the three of them.

“Hm, where’d those three munchkins run off to…” he said, Arrow ducking her head out first, hair all in her face. Jensen giggled and she rolled her eyes, the other two climbing out. “Alright. I’m gonna grab clothes pins and a few more things. You guys start designing.”

You stood back and let JJ organize, figuring out her first choice of blanket for a roof was too small. Jensen returned with a bag of clips, some twine and the step ladder, wrapping his arms around your waist and resting his head on your shoulder.

“How they doing?” he whispered.

“Picking out the roof,” you said, Arrow rushing over and grabbing his hand as Zeppelin climbed on JJ’s back and held up a sheet over the two of them with one hand. You smirked and she let out another eye roll.

“Daddy, can you pick up Zeppy so then he can put the blankie up? I told them they’re too small,” she said.

“Sure,” he said. “Tell me where you want it to go.”

Twenty minutes later the family room was covered with sheets, tied off to the stairs, chairs, the ceiling fan after Jensen broke out the larger ladder to get up there and assured you it wouldn’t bring the whole thing crashing down. 

“Can we sleep in here tonight?” asked JJ. 

“I don’t see why not,” you said. “There’s plenty of room on the couch. We’ll bring down your comforters when it’s bedtime,” you said.

“Can we watch Cars?” asked Zeppelin, glancing at JJ. 

“Okay,” she said. She gave him a hug and picked him up, Jensen smiling to himself as he looked on.

“Can we get pizza for dinner like a real sleepover?” asked Arrow. 

“We did cook up all the chicken at lunch,” you said, giving Jensen a side eye.

“Yeah we’ll get one,” he said. “Why don’t you turn on your movie okay? We’ll be right there.”

You let Jensen pull you into the kitchen, smirking as he picked you up and sat you on the counter.

“Seems like today’s crisis has been averted,” you said.

“I’m sure they’ll go back to tormenting each other tomorrow but I’ll take it,” he said, reaching into the drawer next to you, pulling out a menu. “So. You interested in pizza?”

“Oh that looks interesting,” you said, taking the pamphlet out of his hand and tapping at a special. “One cheese, one speciality, boneless wings and garlic bread? My little carb loving heart is in love.”

“She’s not the only one,” he said, leaning up on his tip toes and kissing you. 

“Are you coming?” groaned JJ from in the fort. You shook your head and Jensen kissed your neck, even nibbling before he pulled back. You smacked his chest and he set the menu down, giving you a wink.

“We’re coming in right now. Don’t wait for us kiddo.”

You woke up sweating, Jensen shushing you, arms wrapped around you. You took a deep breath and caught the clock said it was almost three. You turned in his arms and buried your head in his chest, his hand rubbing up and down your back.

“You’re okay. Bad dream is all,” he said softly. You nodded and started to relax, flinching when there was more thunder. “Hey, it’s okay. Nothing’s gonna get ya.”

The thunder shook the house and you tensed up. Jensen pulled the covers over both your heads and you crammed in as close as humanly possible when more thunder hit.

“Honey look at me. Please look at me.” You lifted your head and saw a horrible face in front of you, a scream ripping out of your throat.

“Y/N,” you heard as you woke up absolutely drenched, Jensen’s hands on your face. “Honey, talk to me. Can you hear me?”

“Night terror,” you said quietly. 

“Yeah, JJ used to have them. I didn’t know adults could get them,” he said. 

“Can I have a cold washcloth? And some water?” you asked. He got out of bed and padded into the bathroom in his boxers, settling back into bed and handing you the water. You drank it down while he wiped off your face and neck, running it over your head. “Thanks.”

“You okay?” he asked. 

“Mostly feel embarrassed.” He frowned and you put the glass on your nightstand, staring down at your sweaty shirt. 

“Should I call Ray?”

“It was a stupid nightmare. I’m fine,” you said.

“You were sat up eyes wide open and talking and shouting and I couldn’t wake you up,” he said. “I know adults really shouldn’t be getting night terrors so maybe something triggered you or something during the day.”

“I know my triggers and I know when it’s just a stupid nightmare. Back off,” you said. You got out from under the hot covers and went outside to the balcony, the air nice and cool from the storm earlier. The slide of the door was loud in the the quiet and you rubbed your arm. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ve seen you have nightmares. That was a lot worse,” he said.

“I thought I saw someone watching the house earlier.”

“What?”

“It was the neighbor’s kid, the teenager. It was his friend and he came over late but I thought...it freaked me out. That on top of thinking about the fact my father is not rotting in a jail cell most likely sent me over the edge,” you said. He walked in front of you, resting his hands on your arms. “I’m okay. Needed some air was all.”

“Alright. Tell me if something like that happens again?” he asked. You hummed and he gave you a kiss. “Okay, sweetheart. Let’s head on back to bed.”

“What do you mean?” you growled into the phone the next evening. Jensen lifted his head from his book in the family room and you walked away, stepping out to the private patio area on the side of the house. “That’s not possible.”

“It’s been fifteen years. He has every legal right to be in the country.”

“In the country! He got an apartment seven minutes from where I live!” you said. “I have little kids here, Finn. Tell me there’s something I can do.”

“I can get a restraining order-”

“That doesn’t mean shit to him. I need him fucking deported. I need him gone.”

“Y/N, you know me. I have never agreed to it but he paid his debt as it was assigned and he quietly followed the law. He did what he was supposed to and I’m sorry but until he does something, I can’t do anything besides help you and your fiance’s family get a restraining order.”

“So until he does something horrible again, I can’t do anything about it.”

“Y/N.”

“No Finn. I appreciate the heads up but...I have to go.”

You hung up and squeezed your phone tight. He knew where you lived. He was minutes away and there was absolutely zero help until something went wrong. You sat on a bench and bounced your leg. Nothing could go wrong. You couldn’t let anything go wrong. Who knew what the son of a bitch would do to any one of them.

You stopped bouncing your leg just as you heard the door open. You lifted your head and stood, spinning around to Jensen standing there.

“Everything alright?”

“Actually no.”

“Who was on the phone?”

“My ex,” you said, swallowing. You crossed your arms and thought of the things Jensen had told you about acting and getting in character and all that. You were gonna destroy him. Fuck you were going to end up shattering him into a thousand pieces he’d never put back together. 

You couldn’t really lie just to keep them away from him, could you? 

You saw Arrow run past in the house and made your face hard. Broken heart but safe kids was worth it.

“I thought you didn’t talk to him anymore,” said Jensen. You turned up your chin and he smiled. “You are the worst actress in the world. Who was it really?”

“I think we’re moving too fast and I want to take a break and I would appreciate it if you gave me my space to figure this out on my own.”

“Uh, what?” he said. You brushed past him and he followed you in, all the way up to your bedroom. You got out a bag and he flipped it shut. “What the hell is going on? Who was on the phone?”

“My boyfriend,” you said. He stared at you and you sighed. “You’re a great guy but I’m sorry. I can’t do the house and kids thing. I want to go see the world and not be tied down and you’re just...you’re too damn old for me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Maybe you should have trusted your first instincts when you saw me and Doug,” you said. He stared at you while you shoved some clothes in a bag. You slung it over your shoulder and he caught the backside of it. You took off your ring and put it on the table by the door, Jensen dropping his hand. “I just can’t do this anymore. It wasn’t you. I’m sorry. I really need to go.”

______

A/N: Read Part 16 here!

[nev3rfound]

the other widow : b.b

natasha may have left what she once knew behind when she became an avenger, but there is still so much more to learn about her sister who escaped the red room with the help of a certain metal armed soldier. (3k)

masterlist / permanent taglist / etsy shop - requests open!

requested: yes! this has been a long awaited idea from @ateliefloresdaprimavera i hope you like it love :) warnings: mentions of violence, blood, nightmares. obviously, I haven't seen the black widow movie so this is just my interpretation!

(everything on my blog is my own writing. if it is shared on another page or website without being credited, it has not been approved to be shared by me. all rights reserved.)

In another life, things might've been different for you. Perhaps, you could have left your home country and followed many your age in their quest to find a better life in America or Europe. You might have met someone, a kind man who took care of you, who loved you deeply.

That would have been nice, in another lifetime. But it wasn't reality, at least, not yours.

Your reality was living in a world plagued by nightmares, of what was done to you for many years. It hurt to blink as you saw yourself, lying back on that table as Doctors crowded around you, muttering about the success of their work.

"No, she's still out there," Your ears perk up at the conversation behind you. The kitchen window remains open whilst you sit outside, tugging at the rose petals from the rose bush. It always was too pretty. Pretty things aren't designed to last for long.

Melina sighs heavily into her phone, glancing away from the window. "What do you expect me to do? She doesn't go anywhere." Disappointment laces her tone combined with the tiredness of her mind. She's been trying for months to encourage you to go out, further than the land you live on.

Faintly you can hear the other end of the conversation, Melina always had a habit of keeping her phone on speaker. "I might visit soon." That is all you managed to hear, but it was enough for you to drop the remainder of the rose and crush the petals beneath your feet.

"Oh good, you're awake." A pair of gloves snap against his wrists, causing you to flinch in your seat. "Now, Y/n, there's no point trying to struggle, you know what happened last time." Doctor Yeznik reminds you with a twisted smile, waiting for you to nod.

"They deserved it." You dare to mutter, only to hear Yeznik chuckle before he turns back to face you, gripping your face in his hand.

"And you deserve this." He seethes, stabbing a needle into your arm before you can fight back. "No one is coming to save you, Y/n, never forget that." Yeznik whispers, watching as your eyes begin to droop until you're unable to fight the urge to sleep.

Rising to your feet, you can feel a smile ghost your lips at the sight of a Blue Tit perching on the edge of the birdbath. One of his wings isn't quite right, and as you approach it, it remains perfectly still.

Holding your hands out, you ignore the scars from the restraints still marking your wrists and forearms. "I won't hurt you," You tell the bird as it dips its head into the water, shaking the excess off. "I can help you, little one." You add quietly, only to watch the bird retreat and fly away uneasily.

"There's always next time." Melina calls out from the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Yeah," You nod, lowering your arms and bury your hands into your pockets. "if it makes it through the night without being able to fly far."

Entering the kitchen, you pass Alexei in silence, despite him turning his head to speak up.

Once out of sight, Alexei averts his attention to Melina who simply shakes her head. "She's still working on recovering." Melina sighs, taking a seat opposite the broad man. "The, the red room got worse after Natasha escaped."

"You don't have to explain," Alexei waves her off, aware of you standing at the top of the stairs, listening in due to the creak of the floorboards. "it'll take time."

"I just don't know if that's something we have." Melina comments, passing a burner phone to Alexei with a text message on display.

Shifting in his seat, Alexei looks back at Melina before crushing the phone in his grasp. "We'll do what we can." He mutters before silence ensues and the pressure from the floorboard beneath your feet eases as you return to your needed solitude.

*

Opening your eyes, you knew something was off, something was different within the house.

Underneath your pillow, you grab ahold of your gun before traipsing out from your room which remains in permanent darkness.

As you exit your bedroom, light tries to seep through the gap in the door but you quietly close it, keeping the darkness concealed from the light.

Avoiding any creaking floorboards, you keep your gun aimed at all times before the faint sound of laughter catches your attention from downstairs. It was a rarity to hear anything joyous in the household, mostly arguments occurred or stories of fights Alexei shares that you can recite from memory if you were ever asked.

But this was different, something lighthearted shared for a brief moment before you turn the corner and hover by the kitchen doorway seeing all the seats taken at the table, Melina's now taken by a redhead.

"This is a surprise." You speak up, placing your gun on the counter, now catching everyone's attention.

Smiling to Yelena, Natasha quickly turns around in her chair, leaning her arm over the back. "Hey sis," She greets you, her accent replaced by an American version. "long time no see, huh?"

Everyone in the room remains still, waiting for you to make the first move like a scared animal. You'll either scarper or approach with caution, and even at that moment, you're unsure which route you'll take.

"What brings you back here?" You ask, crossing your arms over your chest as you remain standing, despite Alexei rising to his feet and offering you his chair.

"There's some unfinished business I have to deal with." Natasha states, and Yelena motions for you to come closer whilst Natasha has her back turned.

"And we're being dragged into it somehow?" You're quick to comment, remembering the last time it happened which resulted in your previous home being burnt to the ground and Natasha vanishing into thin air once more.

Rising to her feet, Natasha walks over to the doorway leading into the garden. She doesn't wait for you to follow, but she knows eventually you will.

"She means well, Y/n." Yelena tells you whilst playing with a knife, jabbing it against the table despite Melina swatting it away.

Humming to yourself, you force your feet forward until you're outside, listening to the peaceful presence of nature.

Whilst you're in your own world temporarily, Natasha can't help but take the opportunity to observe you, notice the changes since she last saw you. Melina explained the nightmares you've been having of late, how you wake up clawing at your own skin until it bleeds and you clutching onto a pillow, tearing into the cotton with ease as you sob.

You look visibly drained, that much Natasha can tell. She knew she should've brought you with her, away to America the last time she was here, but there wasn't enough time. She watched you from afar as the building fell into itself, devoured by the flames and you looking around for your sister, nowhere to be seen.

"There's a little blue tit who visits daily now," You begin to explain, opening your eyes as they remain trained on the empty birdbath. "he's got a damaged wing, can't fly very far but he always visits." Moving closer to the bath, you can see the reflection of other birds flying above in groups. One or two flies further back from the others, flapping their wings in desperation to not be left behind; something you know all too well.

As your hands rest on the birdbath, Natasha can see the scars across your skin clearly.

"Y/n, I never got a chance to apologise last time I was here," Natasha begins, stepping closer toward you, yet you seem oblivious to her words.

"And I hope at some point he'll let me help him, mend him back to his best so he can fly away." Your lips rise for a second at the thought before returning to a straight line, now allowing yourself to process Natasha's statement. "You don't need to apologise, Nat."

"But I do, Y/n." Natasha urges as she resists reaching out for your hand, knowing no one touches you anymore unless they dare risk a broken bone or two. "I should've found you in there and taken you with me. You were still a child, I,"

"I don't blame you, sister." Turning to face her, you force yourself to smile, an attempt to reassure her as she frowns deeply. "The only person I blame for everything is Yeznik." You can't help but shudder, hearing his voice in the back of your mind, one of the many who taunts you in your sleep.

"That's why I'm here." Natasha states.

You can't stop the scoff from leaving your lips. "You can't be serious, Natasha." Yet, you watch your sister nod immediately. "Do you want to get yourself killed?"

"I could ask you the same thing." She retorts, catching you off guard. "Don't think I don't know about the truth behind your escape, Y/n."

"What are you talking about?" You question, knowing better than to confess to your sister of all people. "I escaped that hell hole on my own. Killed several guards in the process and escaped with nine bullet wounds." You remind her, lifting your shirt to show the bullet wound scars that never properly healed.

"But you didn't escape from the Red Room. You escaped during a mission." She explains, watching your expression falter for half a second, but it was enough for her to know you're lying.

Shaking your head, you back away toward the small hutch hidden beneath an oak tree that currently houses three rabbits.

"That is preposterous, even for me, Natasha." You chuckle, opening the hutch and reach for the number one who happily hops out and stands beside you.

Looking away from you, Natasha can see the three others watching closely from the kitchen window. She can see Yelena mouthing something, but rolls her eyes when Natasha shakes her head.

"The Winter Soldier." Yelena marches over, causing you to tense up and the rabbit hops back into the hutch as you gently lock it once more. "Remember him, Y/n?"

"His name is Bucky." You mutter under your breath before slowly standing up. "And don't you dare talk about him." You spit at Yelena who spares Natasha a look.

"You helped each other escape, didn't you?" Natasha pushes her question, and this time to her surprise you don't object.

"Follow me," You sigh, walking around the garden to a set of stairs, leading you to the rooftop filled with trees and plants.

Admiring the greenery, Natasha hesitantly follows behind you.

"You going to stand there all day or sit down?" Raising a brow to Natasha, she breathes out a laugh and sits down on one of the seats dotted around that isn't taken by a plant.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" Natasha leans forward, resting her forearms on her thighs and you mirror her action.

"Yes." You mutter. "But I can't remember everything it, part of it I blocked out." You admit, feeling your leg already beginning to shake beneath you.

"You will be accompanied this time, Y/n." Your tutor, Ms Ivanov tugs on your ponytail forcefully whilst you remain seated.

"I don't need company." Tugging your head forward, her fingers fall through the ends of your hair and she hums in response. "I'm capable of this myself."

Ms Ivanov chuckles under her breath before standing in front of your desk, resting her hands on the sides as her eyes fixate on yours. "That might be so, but not this time." Pushing her hands from your desk, Ivanov nods to the closed door.

Within seconds someone is forced through the metal frame with a bag covering their face. They're of a large build, but your eyes widen at the sight of metal making up their left arm.

"Is it?" Your question leaves your lips before you've fully thought about what this means, and Ivanov smirks.

Stepping toward the concealed figure, she tugs the sheet from their face, revealing a mass of brown hair.

He lifts his head up and stares at you immediately those pensive blue eyes you've heard whispers of. He fights against his restraints as two guards stand behind him with loaded guns.

"There will be plenty of time for that, soldat." Ivanov laughs, patting his metal arm. "Now, Y/n. It's time to go."

*

"I don't know what happened on that mission. But when I woke up, I, I was free." Unable to look at your sister, your focus lies on the breeze weaving through the branches of the trees.

Natasha leans forward, wishing she could tell you everything she knew. "You saved each other, Y/n." She speaks up, remembering the last time she saw him, a broken shell of the man he once was, his demeanour mirroring yours.

"I guess," You shrug. "but after everything, I, I have no idea what happened to him. I, I don't even know if he's still," Pursing your lips, the word never leaves as you curl your arms toward your stomach.

Looking toward the others, Natasha sighs at their disapproving glares. She knows they mean well, that they are practically family. But you're the only true blood family Natasha has left, and she can't lie to you anymore, not this time.

Standing in Wakanda, Bucky smiled truly for the first time in years. He was no longer plagued by the fear of becoming the Winter Soldier. He was finally free of it all.

But he still had a long way to go, to make amends for those he hurt, and amongst everyone, there was you. His Black Widow, Y/n.

"Hey, Barnes." Natasha stands beside him, looking out at the vast farmland that surrounds them. She can't help but think how much you would love to be somewhere like this, somewhere that is peaceful, tranquil.

"Hello, Natasha." Bucky turns to face the redhead, having not spoken to her since he was under Zemo's control. "I erm, I would like to apologise for everything I did, and for hurting you all those years ago." Bucky explains, and Natasha patiently listens, allowing him to get his full speech out. "And for what they made me do in," Furrowing his brows together, Natasha clears her throat.

"We don't have to talk about that." She tells him as she reaches into her pocket, taking out a folded piece of paper, well worn. "I wanted to ask you something before anyone knows where I am."

"Okay?" Bucky answers uneasily, tugging on the cloth that covers the remainder of his left shoulder.

Unfolding the piece of paper, Bucky can see a glimpse of a black and white photo.

"Here," Natasha holds the photograph out, face down to Bucky who hesitantly accepts. She watches intently as he turns the photograph over and can't help but smile as his breath hitches in his throat.

"Y/n." Bucky looks up to Natasha who simply nods.

"I was wondering if you'd remember her." Natasha crosses her arms over her chest, trying to hide the smirk forming on her face and amusement in her tone.

A playful scoff leaves Bucky's lips. "How could I forget her?" He thinks aloud. "I could never forget the person who helped me escape, who, who," 'Helped me realise I'm still human despite everything I've done.' Bucky thinks to himself, remembering the night before he left you as you lay in his arms whilst he listened to your soft reassurances. "Do you know where she is?" He tries to hide the hope in his voice, but it's useless.

"Yes." Natasha answers. "Y/n Romanoff." She states, and Bucky stares blankly at Natasha for a moment, before a light laugh leaves his lips.

"I shoulda known." He sighs dramatically. "Makes a lot of sense now." Bucky mutters, but Natasha doesn't pry. "Is, is she with you?" He glances past her, toward the jet she came on, but Natasha shakes her head.

"She's safe, in Russia." Natasha explains as she walks alongside Bucky toward the lake. "But she prefers the company of animals over people these days."

"Makes two of us then." Bucky comments. "I, I promised I'd find her." Allowing his mind to drift as the lake ripples, Bucky pictures your sleeping form in his arms minutes before he left you. He whispered you a promise, one he has yet to fulfil.

"Then let me help you keep that promise." Natasha places her hand on his arm gently, and Bucky snaps out from his thoughts. "I know you're still healing, and she is too. But I'll come back, Barnes."

Bucky nods. "Thank you, Natasha."

"James Barnes," Natasha slowly interrupts your prolonged silence. "is still alive, he, he's healing, but he remembers you, Y/n."

You reach out and take Natasha's hand in yours. For a moment, you simply stare, void of emotion before tightening your grip, beginning to crush her fingers whilst Natasha remains stoic.

"Don't lie to me, Nat." You tell her, keeping your eyes locked on hers.

"I'm not lying, Y/n." She responds, ignoring the pain you're inflicting before your grip begins to ease, but she doesn't pull away immediately. "He made you a promise, didn't he?"

"I, I don't know." You admit sadly, looking down at your lap, faintly hearing his voice in the back of your mind fighting through the horrid memories engrained there from the red room.

"He did, Y/n." Natasha asserts herself. "Would you like to see him?"

"I think so." You answer honestly as you uncurl your body and sit upright. "But only once this is over. Once Yeznik is gone. I don't want to be haunted anymore, Nat."

This time, Natasha extends her hand, taking yours in hers delicately.

"Okay, sis." She breathes out, helping you to your feet. "Let's get started."

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[wellesleyunderground]

Earth Day Spotlight: Courtney Streett ‘09, Native Roots Farm Foundation

Interview by Cleo Hereford ‘09

A Delaware native and member of the Nanticoke tribe, Courtney Streett ‘09 is currently the President and Executive Director of the Native Roots Farm Foundation (NRFF). NRFF is a non-profit organization “dedicated to celebrating Native American cultures, protecting open space, cultivating a public garden, and practicing sustainable agriculture.” Prior to founding NRFF, Courtney was previously an associate producer at CBS News working on both the CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes and was also a senior news producer for the Business Insider. 

I was super excited to catch up with my friend and classmate about her exciting new work with the NRFF. 

Cleo: Thanks for chatting with me, Courtney! Before we talk specifically about the Native Roots Farm Foundation, you say NRFF’s story starts with your great-grandparents. Tell us a little bit about them and also your family’s Delaware roots.

Courtney: Thanks, Cleo, for inviting me to share my journey with the Wellesley Underground community!

My family has been in Delaware…since time immemorial. Through my father, I’m a member of the Nanticoke Indian Association and our family tree goes back several hundred years in lower Delaware (since European records were taken). The Nanticokes’ first contact with Europeans was in 1608 with Captain John Smith, yup, the man who kidnapped Pocahontas. The community has survived since then by assimilating into the mainstream, but many aspects of our culture were lost. That includes our relationships with food and nature – rather than seasonally moving between fishing, hunting/foraging, and growing regionally adapted crops, the Nanticoke had to adjust to the European practices of private land ownership and farming in one place year round.

At the turn of the 20th century, my Nanticoke great-grandparents bought a farm. It was unusual for people of color to own property at that time, but they cultivated the land and sold produce like strawberries, raspberries, peas, and tomatoes to passersby at the beach. Through hard work, dedication, and tenacity that property passed down through generations of my family and is now owned by my father’s cousins. I grew up visiting the farm and it’s provided a connection to both the natural world and to my ancestors.

Cleo: Native American communities, like all minoritized communities, are not monolithic. What would you like WU readers to know about the Nanticoke, the tribe that your great-grandparents were members of?

Courtney: We can thank Hollywood for creating the stereotype that all Native American communities live on reservations, have long straight hair, have tepees, and operate casinos.

Indigenous communities have been largely erased from American history – today Pennsylvania doesn’t even recognize any tribal communities. But we know the Lenape, Susquehanna, and Iroquois were some of the area’s first inhabitants.

We are still here! The Nanticoke have a Powwow every September that’s open to the public. Mark your calendar: September 10 and 11, 2022! It’s a celebration of our culture and community and an affirmation of our roots in Delaware.

Cleo: Let’s talk about NRFF. You previously worked as a producer for CBS News and the Business Insider. What made you take the leap into establishing a non-profit organization? Why focus on a public garden and farm?

Courtney: I was living in Brooklyn and working my dream job; and then my dream changed.

After Powwow in 2018, I saw that the farm my great-grandparents had nurtured was for sale. I knew this cultural and agricultural history couldn’t be lost – and I also knew that my partner and I couldn’t afford to buy 100 acres, 10 minutes from the beach.

I had nightmares about the farm disappearing. Because in this area, the crops have been replaced by condos. Lower Delaware has been one of the fastest developing regions of the country. After months of conversations and research, we realized our limitations as individuals,  but that as a collective, we could make a difference. So, we created Native Roots Farm Foundation (NRFF).

Why plants? When creating NRFF, we wanted to celebrate Indigenous communities, the farm’s agricultural history, and also native plants. So, NRFF has a few different components to its mission. We’re working to celebrate local Indigneous communities by protecting open space, creating a public garden with native plants and highlighting what they’re called by the Nanticoke and Lenape, and cultivating a farm that feeds the community using Indigenous agricultural techniques.

I also love plants and getting my hands in the soil – I did research in the Wellesley’s Greenhouses my junior year and presented at the Ruhlman Conference. I didn’t know how that would manifest in my life, but it was a building block for NRFF. Sibs, while on campus (as students or alums) check out the new greenhouse, explore the edible ecosystem, and walk one of the many beautiful trails! You never know how it’ll change your life!

Cleo: Building an organization in the best of times is not easy. How has it been attempting to establish and grow NRFF during the ongoing (never ending) pandemic?

Courtney: Hahaha what an interesting question. We launched NRFF in January 2020…and the rest is history. Lockdown meant we had the time to sit on the computer, file paperwork, and really build a strong foundation for NRFF.

It also meant that events we had planned couldn’t happen. So, we pivoted and started building an online community which has continued to grow and flourish during this never ending pandemic. Every week, we post on social media about native plants, food systems, and Indigenous communities.

(Shameless plug—follow us on Instagram and Facebook!)

Cleo: In addition to protecting land at risk of development, how does climate change factor into your goals for establishing NRFF?

Courtney: Right now, the buzz words in food production are “regenerative agriculture”. Regenerative agriculture is *Indigenous Agriculture*. But, of course, the Indigenous roots of this land stewardship practice are rarely recognized. Instead, regenerative agriculture is celebrated as a brand new way to farm.

Why are we hearing about this now? Most food is grown using industrial agricultural practices that have been linked to pollution, soil erosion, intensive water use, reduced biodiversity, chronic illness, and greenhouse gas emissions which are causing climate change.

Regenerative agriculture differs because it’s a holistic approach to land management. It recognizes the interconnectedness of soil, plants, water, animals, and people without centering humans. In practice, regenerative agriculture focuses on nurturing soil health, because that determines the health of both people and the planet.

Most importantly, regenerative agriculture is about community and equity – principles and approaches NRFF celebrates. Let’s get back to the roots and work with nature to address climate change.

Cleo: In addition to posting about sustainable farming and plant life, you have also posted about rejecting blood quantum and have highlighted those with both Black and Native ancestry on the Native Roots IG page. As someone who is both Black and Native, why has it been important for you to post about those topics?

Courtney: My mother’s parents were from the Caribbean and I always saw my two cultures, Indigenous and Caribbean, as being separate. With mom you eat flying fish and callaloo. With dad you eat fry bread and succotash.

But then I heard a song that stopped me. It was “Ba Na Na” a blend of Caribbean beats and Native drumming (by the Indiegnous group The Halluci Nation). The lyrics are: “...Carnival season, this life for the books / I jump and I wave and I wine and I juke…” Just like this song mixes genres, I can and other people can, too. It’s time for all of us to embrace our full cultures and identities.

Cleo: What are your long and short-term plans for NRFF? Where do you see the organization in 5 years?

Courtney: In five years, I see NRFF welcoming the Wellesley family to its fully operational public garden and sustainable farm!

More immediately, we have our first big event of 2022 next weekend and I’m looking forward to continuing to build community, making Tehim Juice which has become an NRFF staple (Tehim is Nanticoke for strawberry), and meeting new people! We’re also hoping to have an intern this summer and just submitted a Hive Internship Project.

Cleo: Finally, how can your Wellesley sibs and WU readers support you and your organization?

We’re still a new organization, in the startup phase, and I’m so grateful for the support of the Wellesley family!

You can help uplift NRFF’s message by following us on social media, sharing the organization with your community, grabbing our signature shirt that says “This shirt saves farms”, or making a donation.

But don’t stop with NRFF, get to know your native plants! Plant them in your yard, window box, or planter. Learn what they’re called in the Indigenous language where you live. And foster a love for your local ecology.

____

For more information on NRFF or to support the organization: https://www.nativerootsde.org

You can also follow NRFF on Instagram @nativeroots_de

[heauxplesslydevoted]

Then & Now (Ethan x MC)

Summary: A particularly difficult case forces Ethan to confront a blast from his past

A/N: This popped into my head and I had too much fun writing it. I will loosely incorporate some of the themes from book 3 and make them better, but this is mostly an AU.

A/N 2: Yes I’m writing another multipart fic while actively ignoring my others. The muses spoke and I had no choice in the matter. Enjoy!

~v~

“Would you like some more coffee, Dr. Ramsey?”

Whatever line he was reading in his textbook blurs as does his vision. Ethan looks up at the face of the newest member of the team, a young resident, Isabelle. He takes the cup, not missing the way her eyes light up as he does so. What is it with residents and their incessant need to kiss-ass and be people pleasers?

“Thank you, Dr. Proctor.”

“Of course! I figured we’d need all the caffeine we could get our hands on with this case.”

Ethan doesn’t respond with words, only offering the young woman a hum in acknowledgement. Instead his eyes land on his coworker, Harper Emery. “Harper, has your team been able to come up with anything new?”

“Nothing,” Harper replies with a resigned sigh.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“I’ve run as many tests, MRIs and CT scans as I could, and none of them came back with anything conclusive. We’re officially back to square one.”

Ethan hasn’t been this stumped in years. A week ago, a patient came to Edenbrook after waking up without being able to feel anything from the waist down. A young, relatively healthy 25 year old with no extraordinary medical history, no recent reports of any TBI, nothing. He assumed with Harper–one of the nation’s greatest neurosurgeons–on the case, that this would be a simple fix.

As painful as it is to admit, he’s wrong.

They’ve gotten nowhere with the case, they’ve made no progress, and to make matters worse, he has Leland Bloom and the board breathing down his neck because it’s been years since the team has spent more than a week on a case, so a week with no news reflects poorly on them—on him, as the team’s leader specifically.

The last member of the team, Tobias, clears his throat. “Did he ever mention getting into a fight? Maybe he took a hit to the head, and just doesn’t want to admit it?”

“Maybe, but like I said, none of the CT scans or MRIs showed me anything out of the norm,” Harper says. “I can always ask him again.”

“That’d be ideal–”

Ethan’s sentence is cut off as the door to their office is thrown open, and in walks Leland. “Hello, team!”

The most senior members of the team stay silent, but Isabelle gives a slight wave. “Hello, Mr. Bloom.”

“Dr. Proctor,” Leland greets in turn. “Nice to know at least one of you has manners.”

Ethan checks the time on his watch. “What are you doing here, Bloom?”

“Last time I checked, I owned this entire building and I didn’t need to ask your permission to be here.”

“We’re nearing midnight,” Ethan adds. “What are you still doing here, and not at home? I’m sure Mrs. Bloom would enjoy seeing you.”

Leland ignores the mention of his wife Caroline, pretending like she wasn’t mentioned at all. “I just stopped by your patient’s room to see how he was doing. And then I decided to drop by to check in with you guys. Are there any updates on the Miller case?”

“I’m not discussing patient information with you,” Ethan says.

“Well, I am your boss.”

“And until you go to medical school, graduate, become a doctor at this hospital, and join in on this case, I don’t have to tell you anything. You may own this hospital, but I do not have to discuss my patients with you.”

“Okay, so you guys have no new information,” Leland concludes.

Ethan pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance, this conversation giving him a headache even though it just started. “We were actually in the middle of a brainstorming session before we were interrupted, so if we could have some privacy again, that would be much appreciated.”

Ethan’s tone causes Leland to drop the veneer of kindness, the smile dropping from his face only for a second before he catches it. He looks away and sniffs haughtily. “Fine. I’ll check in with the patient tomorrow for a status update, since it’s clear I won’t be getting it from my employees. Thankfully, his father and I go way back.”

“I can’t stop the patient from divulging his own information.”

Leland glances around the room one more time, his gaze lingering on Ethan a bit longer than it does on the other occupants. “Goodnight, doctors.”

Once Leland leaves, Harper turns towards Ethan. “You act like it would literally kill you to be nice to him.”

“Be nice for what? Bloom thinks we owe him undying loyalty and infinite ass kissing because he bought the hospital. He’s pulled a lot of nonsense since moving into this position, but he’s not worth breaking any laws over. My patients deserve their privacy.”

“And I agree, but the extra hostility isn’t needed. The last thing we need is World War 3 with you and Bloom tearing down the hospital. Just be nice.”

“Okay, are we getting back to work or calling it a night?”

The rest of the team glances around each other. Pulling an all-nighter with Ethan while he’s in a foul mood sounds like a nightmare.

“We’re calling it a night.”

~v~

Ethan ends up falling asleep in the office, finally dozing off around 5 o'clock in the morning, surrounded by a mountain of books and the harsh light of his computer screen. The sleep is short lived though as the sound of his pager wakes him up.

He jumps up with a start, and checks the time on his watch before checking his pager. He only managed to get two hours of sleep, but he can’t dwell on that. The page is a 911 alert to his patient’s room.

“Shit!”

He takes off to the 4th floor where his patient is housed, thankful that the early morning hour means the hospital is not yet flooded with people.

Isabelle, Harper, and a nurse are already in the room when Ethan finally makes it. “What’s going on?”

“He had a seizure,” Harper explains.

“How long did it last?”

“Around 50 seconds. We administered lorazepam into his IV.”

“Could this be a new symptom?” Valencia asks. “Or something else entirely?”

Harper shrugs. “I don’t know, but I’m going to take him down to radiology for another CT scan. Hopefully this next one can actually yield some results.”

Ethan nods. “That sounds like a plan. In the meantime, Dr. Proctor, add seizures onto the list of symptoms to broaden our search criteria. Maybe that’ll help.”

“Gotcha.”

“We’ll reconvene when Tobias comes in and once we get the new CT scans back.”

There’s a knock at the door and Ethan bristles when Leland’s loud voice calls out to him. “Dr. Ramsey, can I speak to you out in the hallway?”

“With all due respect, I’d rather not.”

“It wasn’t a request, doctor. Hallway, now.”

Ethan shoots Harper a look, and she gives him a quick sympathy smile before he and Leland step out into the hallway.

They move a few feet away from the patient’s door, out of earshot before Leland lays into Ethan. “How in the hell is the patient actually managing to get worse under your care?”

The question actually takes Ethan aback. “You can’t possibly be saying his condition is my fault?”

“I’m saying he’s been here for a week now, and he’s no better off than where he was. You don’t have any information to give him or his family. Do you know how many phone calls my assistant has had to field because they want to get him transferred to a different facility?”

“We are giving him the best care possible, Leland. Just because you and his father belong to the same country club or whatever, does not mean there’ll be some instant diagnosis or treatment that he can buy...or steal. We need to do our due diligence.”

Leland is smart enough to know when a dig is being lobbed in his direction. His eyes narrow. “What are you trying to say, Ethan?”

“Exactly what I just did. Besides, why do you have such a vested interest in my team and what we do? I’m sure you have other businesses and people to micromanage these days.”

“You guys don’t make me any money yet remain my biggest cost. The least you can do is be efficient and answer my questions when I ask.”

“And like I told you last night, I know you own this place. You never let me forget it. But you buying this hospital does not mean I am here at your beck and call, now does it mean I have to be governed under anything that isn’t set forth by the American Medical Association. Now, me team is the best this hospital and this city have to offer, so back up and let us do our jobs.”

“You guys are the best?” Leland chuckles humorlessly. “Act like it. Or I’ll find someone else who can.”

The threat causes Ethan to pause. “What does that mean?”

“You heard me loud and clear, Dr. Ramsey. Loud and clear.”

~v~

“You idiot! Why on earth would you get into a fight with Bloom in the middle of a hallway?”

Ethan doesn’t try to school his bored expression as Tobias paces the entire length of the office, huffing and puffing as he does so.

“I didn’t get into a fight with him,” Ethan amends. “It was an exchange of words.”

“A loud exchange of words,” Harper adds. “In front of our patient’s room, might I add.”

“I had plans for this day to be productive, but the minute that man opens his mouth, I just–”

“We get it, you don’t like him,” Tobias interjects.

“Disliking Leland is an understatement.”

Isabelle stays silent, unable to find a good place to cut in, despite having questions. Ethan’s dislike of Leland Bloom is the hospital’s worst kept secret, but the contention has always been passive aggressive at best. And as a second year resident, she doesn’t have any background knowledge on why the relationship is the way that it is.

“I don’t like him either, but you don’t see me needling him in front of the nurse’s station!”

“Sure Leland is...obnoxious at times, but I don’t understand any of it,” Isabelle says, finally speaking up. Ethan looks at her as if he’s just now remembering that she’s been in the room the entire time. “What happened that caused this much animosity?”

Leland’s kidney disease wasn’t a major secret. Most medical personnel that worked at Edenbrook and the larger Boston area remember the huge media blitz, and all of the pomp and circumstance surrounding his hospitalization early last year. And the official story is Leland got a kidney from a family member who wished to keep their identity a secret from the public, and everyone ate it up.

Only a handful of people know the truth. That a few well placed phone calls and dollars exchanged got Leland to the top of the donor list within a day, stealing a second chance from the true person at the top of the list: a 14 year old girl.

“So long as there is breath in my body, Leland Bloom and his ilk will never get an ounce of respect from me, and I’ll just leave it at that,” Ethan says cooly. “And that’s all you need to know, Dr. Proctor.”

“Okay.”

“I’m just saying man, Bloom is petty,” Tobias adds. “Men like him, who think the rest of us should bow at their feet, don’t take kindly to getting told off, especially in public. Underneath the billions is a tiny ass, fragile ego. Can you just keep a low profile and be quiet for the next day or two, so Bloom doesn’t dismantle this team?”

“I’ll be as cordial as Bloom is,” is what Ethan settles upon. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

The only thing that can rival Ethan’s intelligence is his stubbornness. Tobias knows it’s the best he’s going to get out of Ethan, so he relents. “Okay.”

“Good. Now can we get back to work and stop talking about Bloom?”

His team nods and Ethan sighs in relief.. They still have a chance to turn things around and actually have a good day.

They fall into a productive routine, tossing around different theories, sharing research and narrowing down ideas. Too bad that only lasts for about half an hour before there’s a knock at the office door. A few seconds later, Naveen pokes his head in.

Ethan smiles because part of him was expecting Leland to show up again. “Naveen, this is a nice surprise! Don’t tell me you’re ready to get back in the saddle.”

Naveen laughs good-naturedly at his mentee. “Not quite.”

“Well what brings you down here?”

“I wanted to talk to you for a second, Ethan,” Naveen says.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes. It’s not about me, it’s work related. Team related news, that I wanted to tell you personally,” Naveen explains, fully entering the office. “Is there any way I could steal you for a few minutes?”

“If it involves the team, I think we can have the conversation here. Is this about my...spirited discussion with Leland?”

“No, it’s about the case you’re working on.”

“Now I know we don’t usually work on cases for this long, and we’re working on it.”

“I know. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Leland has some concerns about how long it’s taking you guys to treat this patient, and he told me that he wants to outsource some extra help to speed things along.”

“No thank you.”

“He’s already made phone calls. I’m just here to give you a heads up about who he picked.”

“A heads up?” Ethan scoffs and rolls his eyes. Who on earth could Leland think of reaching out to that Ethan would need a warning about? “Who is he asking for? Mendoza from MK? Catherine Morgan from Stanford? The Boogeyman?”

“I don’t think I’ve reached Boogeyman levels of infamy. Well, at least not yet.”

The voice makes the hair on the back of Ethan’s neck stand up. It’s a voice he hasn’t heard in close to three years, one that he thought he’d never hear again.

His eyes snap up, locking with the large brown ones staring back at him, and all of the breath leaves his lungs at once. The last time he looked into these eyes, they weren’t full of humor like they are now, but pure fire. His chest constricts, inhaling suddenly the most difficult task in the world.

The entire room goes silent, everyone watching as Ethan and the woman stay locked in their staring contest. Isabelle’s eyes dart back and forth, hoping someone can clue her into what’s going on, but Naveen, Harper and Tobias offer zero assistance.

Isabelle takes the quiet time to appraise the stranger. She’s petite, almost a foot shorter than Ethan even with her sky high Jimmy Choos on. The second thing that catches her attention is the mess of dark curly hair spilling over her shoulders, and the amused smirk on her face, like a cat that got the canary.

The woman breaks eye contact with Ethan to look past his shoulder. “Harper, Tobias, hello. Long time no see.”

When he regains the ability to speak, Ethan grits out, “Naomi, what on earth are you doing here?”

“I got an interesting call from Leland Bloom this morning, saying that the diagnostics team was in dire need of some assistance on a particularly difficult case. Within the hour, his private helicopter was picking me up.”

Ethan takes a sterling’s breath and silently counts to 3 before talking again. “I’m not working with you.”

“You don’t have a choice. Not unless you quit.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Naomi rolls her eyes. “Drama was never a good look on you, darling, I was always better suited for it.” She turns her attention to the young resident gawking at her, turning on her megawatt smile. “You’re new. I don’t know you.”

“Um, n-no you don't. I’m Dr. Isabelle Proctor.”

“Isabelle,” Naomi repeats slowly, letting it roll off of her tongue. “What a pretty name.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m Dr. Naomi Ramsey.”

The last name catches her attention. Her eyes flicker over to Ethan’s face, catching the way his jaw ticks as female Dr. Ramsey talks.

“I can see the wheels turning in your head as I talk, so I’ll clear things up for you right quick,” Naomi continues. “No, the last name thing isn’t a coincidence. I’m Ethan’s ex-wife." She sticks out a hand for Isabelle to shake. "Nice to meet you.”

~v~

Tags: @openheartfanfics @mvalentine @choicesaddict5 @professorkingslay @maurine07 @aka-calliope @bluebellot @whimsicallywayward15 @blossomanarchy @takemyopenheart @jamespotterthefirst @fanmantrashcan @whatchique @ao719 @x-kyne-x @paulfwesley @the-pale-goddess @writinghereandthere @ramseyandrys @perriewinklenerdie @aworldoffandoms @thatcatlady0716 @drakewalker04 @canknot @hatescapsicum @lapisreviewsstuff @senseofduties @badchoicesposts @ethandaddyramseyx @chasingrobbie @zodiacsign1 @choices-lurker @my-heart-beats-for-ya @adrian-motherfucking-raines @riverrune @edith-eggs1 @cecilecontrera @thatysn @bellcat2010 @blainehellyes @junehiratas @choices-love-affair @openheart12 @desmaranj @nazario-sayeed @aestheticartsx @ruinedbypixels @nooruleman @rookie-ramsey @uneravine @choicest

[tiffsmemes]

on earth we’re briefly gorgeous taken from the 2019 ocean vuong book.

you think i’m fucked up?

tell me where it hurts.

like a family. a fucked family.

i don’t want you to be my mom anymore.

you have to be quick or we’ll get in trouble.

did you know people get rich off of sadness? i want to meet the millionaire of american sadness.

listen. no, look at me right here, i’m serious. listen.

we talked about you, about your nightmares.

days i feel like a human being, while other days i feel more like a sound.

don’t look down, don’t look down.

you have to get bigger and stronger, okay?

the thing is, i don’t want my sadness to be othered from me just as i don’t want my happiness to be othered. they’re both mine.

how come each time my hands hurt me, they become more mine?

i’m not scared of dying anymore.

it’s kind of like being brave, i think?

a kind of mercy. to be clean again. to be good again.

what about our skeletons, how do we get away from them?

through this careful bruising, you heal.

keep going. fuck me up, fuck me up.

do you remember the happiest day of your life? what about the saddest?

what if my sadness is actually my most brutal teacher?

i have to throw up.

you don’t need to be scared. you’re smarter than me.

they say if you want something bad enough you’ll end up making a god out of it.

how can anyone be a feeling?

you were drowning, it seemed, in air.

do you ever wonder if sadness and happiness can be combined, to make a deep purple feeling, not good, not bad, but remarkable simply because you didn’t have to live on one side or the other?

have you ever made a scene, and then put yourself inside it? have you ever watched yourself from behind, going further and deeper into that landscape, away from you?

everything good is somewhere else, baby. i’m telling you. everything.

help me stay young, get this snow off of my life, get it all off my life.

they will want you to succeed, but never more than them. they will write their names on your leash and call you necessary, call you urgent.

what is a country but a life sentence?

[novelconcepts]

fic: something to hang on to

When Jamie buys a camera, she isn’t really thinking about it. They’re driving through Virginia, stopped off at a little gas station; Dani’s outside filling the rental Jeep, which puts Jamie on snack-duty. At the counter, she spots a display of disposable cameras and, almost without thinking, adds one to the pile of sugar and caffeine. It isn’t a plan. Isn’t for any particular reason. 

Dani, pawing through the plastic bag of their spoils, raises it from a mess of M&Ms and Pringles and says, “You like photography?” She asks it the way she asks everything, like every little detail she learns about Jamie is another brand-new color added to the shine of the world. Jamie shrugs. 

“Never was much for it, but this brave new land is pretty enough. Don’t mind keeping track of it for later.”

It’s more than that, she thinks as Dani raises the viewfinder to her eye and clicks a photo of Jamie behind the wheel, one hand steering, the other stretching across the center console to rest on Dani’s knee. I almost lost you once, Poppins. Wouldn’t have had anything but my own memory to remember you by. This...this will help. 

Later, much later, years later, Jamie will look back on that moment as one of her wisest. Later, on a bed she can no longer sleep in, holding a thick album between shaking hands, she’ll think some of the most important choices you ever make are split-second recklessness. A camera, tossed in at the last second. A habit, built on nothing more than needing Dani’s smile immortalized. 

Open the album. Take a breath. Flip the page. 

***

A photo: Dani sprawled on a red-and-white beach towel, chin propped on folded arms, gazing out away from the camera as though she has no idea anyone is watching.

They’re with Henry and the kids--the first time they’ve seen the Wingrave family since the events at the house, and, though they don’t know it, one of the last times they’ll see them all together--in Florida. It’s strange, Jamie reflects, watching Miles chase Flora across an endless strip of sand. Strange how much world can fit into one country. England was green, rolling with hill and fog and haunted by things older than any of them can imagine. Florida feels...young, somehow. Too warm, too bright, too perfect on a Saturday afternoon. 

She’s hugging her knees, seated on a blanket with Dani sitting just an inch further away than she’d like. It’s the safe thing, the smart thing, but she misses her--misses the way they sit in hotel rooms and empty bars, knees touching, pinkies overlapping. Dani, in a sundress that matches the blue of her right eye, is laughing as Miles grabs Flora around the middle and tries with all his ten-year-old strength to hoist her off the ground. 

“Miles,” Henry calls, his voice laden with the anxiety of a man who has only just begun learning how to parent. “Miles, be careful--”

“They’re all right,” Jamie interrupts, tossing a handful of warm sand toward Henry’s precarious perch on a plastic chair. "Have you been wound this tight the whole fucking time?”

He looks pained. “You’ll excuse me for never having raised two children before. They’ve been a bit...”

“Precocious?” Dani suggests brightly. 

“Demonic?” Jamie says at the same time. Henry sighs. 

“Adventurous, shall we say, to meet in the middle.”

“They haven’t been...” Dani’s smiling, the way Jamie has grown accustomed to over the last few months: a beautiful smile that never entirely reaches her eyes. It’s the way she smiles when she thinks she needs to wear a mask of stability, when she needs everyone to think she’s doing all right. 

Henry frowns. “Haven’t been what?”

Dani shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “Scared? Having nightmares? I don’t know...”

She’s asking-not-asking about that night, like she told Jamie she wasn’t going to do. They don’t need me bringing it up, she’d said back at the hotel, holding tight to Jamie in a way that said she very much needed to talk about this against her own will. They deserve to just live their lives. 

Henry looks puzzled. “Strange, but no. No nightmares. Flora had a few at the very start, before we left London, but...no. Not since arriving here.”

Dani nods like this is all she wants to hear, and rubs her cheek with one slightly-sunburnt hand, the moment passing into obscurity as Flora shrieks and Miles trips directly into an oncoming wave. It’s all good here, all sunshine and ease of temper, and Jamie watches Henry stand. Brush off shorts that look truly insane set against his pale legs. Go awkward-jogging into the surf to lift a giggling Flora heavenward. 

“They make a fine little family,” she says, pitching her voice so only Dani can hear. Dani nods. There’s a tightness to her mouth that says she’s only half here, only half able to let the sun bake away the shadows. Jamie touches her ankle lightly, wishing they were somewhere less requiring of distance. 

“I’m all right,” Dani says. Not a lie of intent, at least, though Jamie suspects it’s more that she wants to be all right. She watches Dani roll onto her front, eyes on the endless ocean, the children tumbling around in its gentle grasp, the man doing his best to keep up. 

Could watch her forever, Jamie thinks, knowing it’s far too early to say something so catastrophically huge. She’s been having these thoughts more and more, wild notions of turning this brand-new adventure with Dani into a lifetime event. It turns a key somewhere deep within her chest, some far-off engine making a deep rumbling sound that sends her tripping toward a very real, very powerful feeling of terror. 

Her hand slips toward the bag of sunscreen, paperback novels, sliced oranges. A camera, small and yellow and used mainly in moments like this one, emerges. Dani never notices as she brings it to her eye, frames Dani’s blonde ponytail and sun-pink skin, snaps a photo. 

Later, when the pictures are developed and spread out across a hotel bedspread, shots of Miles with an orange-peel grin and Flora standing before a monster of a sandcastle intercut with Dani’s far-off pensive expression, Dani will touch the print. Lingeringly, fingers trembling just the slightest bit.

“Why this one?”

Because I loved you more than words could capture, Jamie will know it’s far too early to say. It’d be reckless. It’d be testing the bounds of something still fragile, still one-day-at-a-time hopeful. 

“Why not?” she’ll say, and tuck the photo safely back into its sleeve. 

***

A photo: Jamie and Dani, backs to the freshly painted Leafling sign, standing carefully apart with shoulders back and a small bouquet of flowers clutched in Dani’s hands.

They keep to themselves, mainly, but some of the nearby shopkeepers have been kind as The Leafling goes from mad late-night concept to brick-and-mortar reality. They bring welcome-to-the-block plants and casseroles that are mostly-edible, and Dani accepts each one with true Midwestern courtesy. Jamie leans back, watches the art of neighborly behavior being painted before her eyes: older women who compliment Dani on her earrings, young men bullied into helping move heavy boxes into storage by their mothers. Dani, in the middle of it all, wearing a soft pastel sweater and a smile that has finally remembered its own strength. 

She wasn’t sure how this would go, if Jamie’s honest about it. She’s been telling Dani not to worry for weeks, telling Dani they don’t need to know much about a business to run this one. I grow, you arrange, we make out like bandits with all the nice Americans who value pretty things. It’ll be perfect, Poppins. She’s been saying it, and she thinks she even believes her own words most of the time, but there have been dreams. Anxiety running its red thread through her sleep, telling her she has no skill in this arena, no education to speak of, no idea how to survive in American business while hiding her relationship with her “business partner”. 

The day the shop finally opens, Jamie has been saying “it’s going to be great” for so long, she almost surprises herself by rushing into the bathroom and vomiting into the toilet. Dani, expression warm and just the tiniest bit teasing, leans against the doorframe.

“You all right?”

“Perfect,” Jamie gasps, staggering to the sink and thrusting a toothbrush into her mouth. “Jus’ great.”

“Too late to turn back now,” Dani points out. “What would we do with all the business cards?”

Jamie groans, spitting mint foam and rinsing out her mouth. “You could show just the slightest bit less glee, Poppins. I’ve just run us into a brick wall of imminent failure.”

Dani laughs, coming up behind her to hug her tight around the middle. “We should probably at least unlock the doors for the first time before you decide it’s time to shutter them again.”

She’s good today, Jamie senses--not the fake-good where she tries her best to pretend she isn’t listening for some deep-down movement Jamie can’t register, but truly happy. Her body is relaxed, her hands certain as she tips Jamie’s cheek and kisses her calm. 

“How,” Jamie gasps when they break, “are you not out of your bloody mind right now?”

Dani shrugs. “It’s like the first day of school. Spend all summer planning and worrying, but now it’s happening. Just gotta jump in.”

There are already people waiting when they arrive, to Jamie’s mingled horror and delight. Most of them are their fellow shopkeepers, waiting with the brilliant smiles of people who have already lived this particular nightmare themselves, and just want to pay forward the relief of customers actually turning up. They’re kind, these people--they don’t know Jamie in the least, don’t have the first idea what shadows lurk behind Dani’s eyes, but they take their hands, squeeze, and congratulate them all the same. Jamie thinks they even mean it, most of them. Americans are complicated, boisterous, scandalous people--but they can have such heart. 

One woman, old enough to be Jamie’s grandmother, presses a bouquet of peonies against Dani’s chest. “For luck,” she says croakily, patting Dani’s cheek like she’s known her since Dani was three feet tall. “Dry ‘em, hang ‘em somewhere in the back. Remember we’re all rooting for you.”

“Rooting,” a man who owns a nearby pizzeria hoots. “Good one, Carol!”

Jamie almost rolls her eyes, but Dani is beaming. When the others make flapping get in front of the sign gestures, they can’t help but obey, standing with a perfectly-maintained half-person between their shoulders. She wants so badly to reach over, to take Dani’s hand, to kiss her with all the terror and relief she’d never known she could feel at once. Instead, she smiles as professionally as she knows how for the camera someone produces. It’s enough.

Later, tapping a finger against the print the photographer drops on their counter, Jamie says, “Look like I want to pass out.”

Dani glances toward the window, takes note of the empty street, presses a quick kiss to her cheek. “I’d have caught you.”

***

A photo: Jamie, sitting just behind Dani on a plush couch, arm wrapped around her waist, cheek pressed to flyaway blonde hair. Dani, grinning her widest, cheesiest grin, leaning back like she knows there is no world in which Jamie would ever let her fall.

There are parties, occasionally--usually thrown by other under-the-radar couples they get along with well enough for drinks, not so much that they truly build relationships. They like the quiet life, the two-person road trips, the easy silence after a long day. But, sometimes, life is grand and big and loud, and on those nights, they venture out into the world.

There are a pair of men maybe five years their senior who have been together for “a decade”, if you ask Mike, “a century”, if it’s Paul telling the tale. They’re good people, and their home is a safe space Jamie doesn’t anticipate finding. 

Friends are hard, she thinks. Always were, but they’re so much harder once you’ve lost a couple.

Still: when Mike and Paul are set to celebrate a round ten years together (”An eternity,” Paul clarifies, leaning against the Leafling counter to invite them over), they go. Dani wants to, and it’s good seeing Dani want things like this. It’s been almost a year together, almost a year of exploring the map and one another, and Dani’s been getting softer around the edges, less prone to jumping at shadows. The Dani Clayton of a year ago wouldn’t want to attend parties, lest the beast inside leap while her guard is lowered; the Dani Clayton of tonight is holding up a dark green dress, brow furrowed. 

“Too much?”

Jamie hums a moment to buy herself time. “Depends.”

“On?”

“Whether you’d like to actually leave the house tonight.” Jamie wiggles her eyebrows, buttoning a black shirt and searching for a good pair of suspenders. Dani laughs. 

“I think you can keep your hands to yourself for a few hours.”

“You,” Jamie points out, sidling up behind her and kissing her neck, “have always had entirely too much faith in me, Poppins.”

Dani is, however, a woman of her word when it comes to accepting social invitations, and soon they’re sitting on an exceptionally soft couch in an exceptionally loud living room. Jamie glances around, reading the environment, registering the two women holding hands by the coffee table, the men dancing near the kitchen, the way even the male-female pairs seem not to see anything odd. Mike and Paul have been doing this a long time. This is as safe a space as their own home. 

She likes the way Dani relaxes, a little more with every drink tucked into her hand, a little more with a lit cigarette pulled from Jamie’s, a little more still when Mike nudges her and mutters, “Your girl looks good tonight, Clayton.”

She likes, most of all, the way Dani doesn’t flinch away when a Polaroid comes out. These are good people, brave people, smart people. If there are photos taken tonight, they will be pressed straight into the hands of their subjects, gifted away before the chemicals have even processed. 

Dani presses back against her, seated on her lap, laughing at some joke Jamie hasn’t really been paying attention to. She’s too busy watching Dani’s profile, the way her head tips back when she’s really laughing, too hard to care what she looks like. Too busy reveling in how it feels to hold Dani in a setting so much more public than usual, her fingers stroking the soft material of Dani’s dress, her body burning and the most comfortable it’s ever been. 

Later, with the Polaroid on the nightstand, the green dress on the floor, and a sheet tucked up against the fall chill, Dani says, “We should do that more.”

Jamie chuckles against her shoulder, kissing a patch of freckles. “This?”

“Yes.” Dani wriggles a little, giggling. “But also that.” She’s gesturing to the photo, propped between a lamp and copy of some old Shirley Jackson novel. “It was nice, wasn’t it? Not...”

“Hiding,” Jamie supplies. Dani makes a humming noise soft in her throat. 

“I like not hiding you.”

***

A photo: Dani, eyes dark with a smolder only Jamie ever sees, a cigarette between her lips, hair loose around her shoulders. 

Nights spent home with Dani, nights where there are no groceries to pick up, no accounting to be done, no errands waiting to be noticed, are Jamie’s absolute favorite thing in the world. There’s just something about this sense of home they’ve been building together, this sense of locked door and secured window and no one else invited to partake that gets Jamie the way nothing else does. 

Especially Dani. Dani at home is less reserved, less careful. With every month that passes quietly, no sign of anything but her own mind, Dani gets a little less tight. A little less prone to gazing off into the middle distance. A little less likely to disappear from an otherwise-normal conversation, emerging several minutes later like she’s pulling herself out of a dream.

And, some nights, she’s not just here--she’s utterly present, every atom of her tuned to Jamie like they have no need of space between them, no need of separation. These nights, the nights where Dani strides into the room on a mission, are Jamie’s favorite of all. 

“Why,” Dani says, leaning back in a kitchen chair with legs spread and head tilted to exhale smoke toward the ceiling, “are you looking at me like that?”

“Me?” Jamie teases. “You’re the one gazing at me like I’m some terribly interesting new buffet.”

She’s half-joking, but there’s something about the way Dani looks at her on this very particular sort of night, with every line of her body tuned toward Jamie’s, that makes her feel a stupid kind of brave. A reckless kind of excitement unwinds outward, until her fingertips itch to grab at Dani’s hair, her knees weak with the desire to pull Dani close. 

She’s doing it now, smoking that cigarette with all the languid energy of a woman perfectly at home, watching Jamie with a faint smirk playing around her lips. No one else sees that smirk, Jamie understands, and it makes her a little faint every time she thinks it. To have something of Dani, some integral comfortable part of Dani that belongs solely to their apartment, their life together, is still a good fortune Jamie can’t entirely parse out. 

Her hand moves toward the camera, small and plastic and containing some of the best memories of Dani she desperately needs to keep. Dani lets her snap off a shot, shakes her head when Jamie lowers the camera.

“That’s going to be one of yours.”

She says it every time Jamie tries to capture the white-hot energy of this kind of evening. Dani doesn’t like to see herself through this particular lens, gets fidgety and embarrassed at the sight of her own face etched with such a confident hunger. Jamie asked the first time if Dani wanted her to stop taking the photos altogether, and Dani had shaken her head.

“I don’t mind. But they’re yours, okay?”

She sets the camera aside, moving to take the cigarette out of Dani’s hand, taking a long drag and dropping it in an ashtray. The rest doesn’t need anything in the way--no lens, no embarrassment, nothing but the way Dani’s mouth opens beneath hers, hands already roaming. The rest is not Jamie’s, but theirs, a joint ownership of soft moans and soft skin and soft assurances that this is still, always, home. 

Later, with Dani asleep, one hand thrown loosely over Jamie’s hip, Jamie will look at the photos that are hers and hers alone. Dani, mouth wet and swollen from a night spent confined to their bedroom around their anniversary. Dani, grinning and half-asleep, glancing over her shoulder to coax Jamie into putting the camera down, joining her among the blankets. Dani, smoke-haze around her face, wine glass in her hand, looking just past the camera at Jamie’s own desire. 

Dani’s choice to share a life with her, Dani’s decision to share every inch of herself with Jamie, is more than Jamie feels anyone deserves. 

***

A photo: Dani in front of the Eiffel Tower, sunglasses on, arms spread wide.

A photo: Dani kneeling at the Grand Canyon, gesturing bewilderment at the sheer scope of the place.

A photo: Dani standing before the alleged largest ball of twine in the world, looking rather like she regrets letting Jamie pick the destination this time.

They travel until Dani can’t stomach it anymore, can’t take the uncertainty of unknown roads and unmapped hotel beds--but, first, years of travel. Years of postcards and rental cars, of Jamie turning maps upside down and Dani being shockingly savvy in small-town situations. 

These photos, more than any other, feel like they have to be taken for someone else’s idea of posterity, and Jamie feels a little strange, at first. Dani’s already seen much of Europe by the time they meet, and has no photos whatsoever to show for it. Jamie, who started turning up in photos for the first time as an adult, says, “It’ll be good to show ‘em off,” while never quite bringing herself to the edge of an unspoken follow-up question: to whom, exactly? It isn’t as though she and Dani are having children, isn’t as though there will be grandkids tottering around down the line to tune out their stories. Who, exactly, are these mementos for?

Dani is far too kind, far too pragmatic, to put the question to her. Dani only poses, grins, lets Jamie take all the pictures she wants, and then--camera tucked safely away once more--grabs Jamie’s hands and leads her into living it: the food, the outdoor markets, the snowstorms, the sun-kissed hikes. As the years go by, Jamie takes more and more photos, never quite able to explain to herself why it’s so critical. Never quite able to look away when Dani finally covers the lens with one hand and brings her close, kissing her like it’s the first time. 

They stop looking at these photos together, after a while. Stop trying so hard to go back, as the days grow shorter and the exhaustion begins to steal the warmth from Dani’s smile. At first, it’s about moving forward--always one foot in front of the other. At first, every photo taken is set aside as a gift to another life. And then, finally, it’s about the moment they’re in, nothing more. Jamie sets the camera on a shelf. Refuses to look at Dani through any barrier but her own two eyes. Dani doesn’t like the snap-click of the camera anymore, anyway--each time, she flinches, like Jamie is about to show her a glimpse of whatever horror she’s been seeing in the mirror. 

I only see you, Jamie promises, the ache in her chest so great, she’s sure it will swallow them both. But Dani can’t bring herself to look. Can’t bring herself, just in case Jamie is wrong. 

Later--so much later, with eyes stinging and arms empty--she flips through the album and remembers Spain, California, Minnesota, Greece. Later, she finds Dani sticking her tongue out, spinning like a deranged nun out of musical, sitting quietly in a cafe with a small cup of coffee warming her hands. Dani, stiff-shouldered and trying not to laugh as Jamie made faces the one time they ever ventured back to Iowa. Dani, hair blowing back into her face, arms looped around Jamie at a terrifying, exhilarating first Pride parade. 

And, in the back, the photos of Dani as only Jamie knew her. The sly grin a second before pinning Jamie to the couch. The sweet surprise from Jamie coming home early with dinner. Shot after shot of no make-up, or smudged eyeliner, or ruined lipstick, of Dani in pajamas on Christmas, or Dani in bed after a shower, or Dani laughing herself silly at nothing Jamie can remember now. 

They’re all here, and they’re all Dani--all of Dani Jamie’s got left now--and still, they’re wrong. They sit, plastic and unyielding, beneath flimsy protective sheets, and they don’t laugh like Dani, don’t breathe out against her skin like Dani, don’t smell like Dani’s shampoo or swear like Dani tripping over a shoe in the dark or look at her with that solid, palpable love like Dani did and should still and never will again. 

Jamie sits, album in her lap, staring down at Dani with paint smudged on her cheek and their then-new bedroom behind her, and suddenly can’t remember how to breathe. Had she known? Somewhere in the back of her mind that day in a gas station, picking up a little yellow disposable camera, had she known that one day, this would be all she had left of Dani? Surely not. Surely, she hadn’t believed it would go this way, all the way back then. Surely, it was one day at a time, and we’ll have time, and any day with you, Poppins. 

Had she known? No. No, of course she hadn’t.

And yet, the idea of not having these in front of her--the idea of Dani’s face slowly, surely, washing away over time as Jamie fails to find her in a world so uncompromisingly cruel...

She touches a shot of Dani with her left hand covering her mouth, her ring gleaming gold against her smile, the day the state had legalized civil unions. Dani as gold as sunshine, in one of the last truly clean moments, before old ghost stories dug rotting fingers into their life. Her vision grays, her head suddenly too heavy to hold up. 

She hadn’t known. But she’s glad. She’s glad she has, at least, this much to hang on to.

[prinxlyart]

Do you have any camileda headcanons you'd be willing to share?

ÒωÓ D O I E V E R

Camilia loves her job at the hospital. When they first start dating (after a stable portal is made obvs), she just continues to do her daily thing. She worked hard for that medical degree damnit!!! But every single day after work she gathers up whatever stuff she needs to bring over to the demon realm and hops on over and just face plants on Eda’s couch. She has sometimes been so tired she’s accidentally falllen on top of King while he was napping. Whenever Luz sees her exhausted like this, she picks back up her old habit of karate chopping her moms back to help her relax (because that’s how they do it in cartoons). It helps her get out her ADHD energy by keeping her hands busy while she tells her mom about her day. Eda will usually take a seat on the other couch or an armchair and also listen in for a minute before removing Camilia’s glasses and hair tie to help her be more comfortable before getting up to go make dinner. Camilia wouldn’t admit it in the first few months of them dating, but that’s her favorite part of every day.

Camilia’s come home from work sometimes to see Eda in her human disguise and a nicer-than-usual outfit waiting for her in her porch and she knows Eda’s planned some kind of date for them for the night. It always warms her heart whenever she sees her do this because sometimes she needs some spontaneity in her life. Goodness knows she can’t rely on Luz to provide that for her all the time when she’s in the demon realm.

On that same note, there are some days where she walks up to Eda and buries her face into Eda’s neck and just hugs her because it was a really long/bad day and Eda just holds her for a while. Eda knows Camilia has some bad days and never holds it against her. Whenever she isn’t up to a night out, Eda just leads her inside and takes care of her, taking her glasses off and her bun out and telling her to relax on the couch and tell her about her day. Camilia has only cried once during these little calm-down sessions because she was so overwhelmed with how much she loves this woman; none of her previous relationships treated her like this. Eda finds herself making tea in the kitchen usually, sometimes dinner if she’s familiar enough with the ingredients (or if it’s something she can pop into her favorite human device: the microwave. She’ll never understand how that little box works but she loves it).

One days where their schedules don’t match up (sometimes Eda is at her human collectibles stand or delivering potions later than she expects) Camilia will try her best to make meals out of whatever Eda has in her kitchen. She and Eda have gone over what stuff is food and what stuff is potion ingredients v thoroughly, but sometimes she can’t remember and it limits her options. At that point she just hops back over to her own house in the human realm and whips up some chapea/chambre (@ my Dominican followers; is there a “right” word? Does it matter? I’ve read it just depends on what part of the country you’re from?). By the time she gets back to the Owl House, Eda’s walking through the front door and looks nearly dead on her feet and immediately perks up the moment she smells Camilia’s cooking. Eda finds it hard to admit out loud for the first several months that they’re dating that coming home to Camilia and her cooking is nothing short of paradise; she usually expresses her gratitude by engulfing Camilia in big sweeping hugs and peppering her face in kisses before they sit down to eat.

On THAT note - Luz can smell her mother’s cooking from a mile away and will barrel down anything in her way if it means she gets to eat her mom’s cooking. She has actually broken walls in the past from how hard she swings doors open. She’s dragged all her friends back to the Owl House on several occasions to try her mom’s food (they all love it) and their evenings are filled with so much laughter and love and warm food and full bellies; Eda will sometimes become strangely quiet during these moments. Once everyone’s gone home and she’s gone to bed she’ll be lying awake in her nest, staring at the ceiling and realize oh, that’s what a family is like. It makes her more emotional than she realizes and she’ll find herself either crying (happy tears) or kicking around like an excited little kid and stifling her own squeals of joy. She hates admitting to being a giant sap, but she’s finding that ever since Luz came into her life, she doesn’t actually mind that much.

Sometimes Eda will have nightmares that keep her from going back to sleep. Whenever that happens, she’ll leave a note for Luz on the kitchen table letting her know where she is before sneaking over to the human realm in the dead of night. The first few times she did this, she had to find Camilia’s bedroom window and toss pebbles at it to wake her up, but she’s definitely been given a house key by now (Camilia was beside herself at the time; she hadn’t given a partner a key to her home in decades and for some reason there was a thrill in giving this to Eda.). Eda will quietly enter the house and tiptoe upstairs and just kinda slip into bed behind Camilia and wrap her arms around her waist and put her forehead against Camilia’s back and just listen to her breathe. Sometimes Camilia wakes up and (the first few times this happened she was scared shitless and nearly broke Eda’s nose. She’s learned to expect it by now) she’ll turn over and wrap her arms around Eda and brush her fingers through the front of her hair. It only takes a few minutes for Eda to feel at ease enough to fall right back asleep as if nothing had ever happened.

They love dancing. They don’t ever go out anywhere to dance, they’ll usually just dance in the living room or kitchen. If they have the radio going in the kitchen while they’re waking up in the morning, they’ll dance around each other as they go about their morning routines. This always ends up with them dancing together and laughing, usually because one of them accidentally knocked the other in the counter or the table. If Luz is staying at a friend’s house, Eda will set up her gramophone and put on some records they can slow dance to. They just like being able to be in each other’s space. No kisses needed (always welcome, but not always needed), they just love the intimacy of simply existing with one another in those moments.

I could go on but I’m struggling with whether or not they decide to actually get married. Would they get married in the human realm? Would Camilia leave her job to go live in the Boiling Isles with her daughter and her girlfriend? Would they even care to make their relationship recognized by legal documentation? Part of them would like to, for sure, but it’s not like...A necessity? Eda certainly has her human ID but I don’t know if she’s ever forged any American legal identification documents (birth certificate/passport). Camilia would never forge an identity for herself in the Boiling Isles, but she’s certainly not like. A resident. She and Luz are undocumented citizens of Bonesborough but literally no one cares.

Maybe Luz would pull something like Steven universe and just...throw them a wedding anyway because MOM PARTY!!!!! No legal documents, just a celebration with all their family and friends. We don’t know what Luz’s extended family relations look like; I have no idea if Camilia has any family she’d be leaving behind in the Human Realm or if everything she loves is living in the Demon Realm.

Far too many variables for this post anyway, maybe another post if y’all are interested in seeing more 🤷🏻‍♀️

[jesuiscalmedammit]

Mistakes Were Made – (2) The Truth || [Russell Adler x reader/fem!Bell]

note: part 1. the first half takes place before the end game. 

“Hey, you wanna talk about what happened?”

You looked up only to find Alex sitting next to you with a surprisingly genuine smile. But what could you tell him? Even you didn’t know how to feel about this whole mess you were in. You had told Russell the truth back in the safehouse and you were ready to help but… what would happen after that? Was there a chance you could ever have a normal life? It was confusing. Also, it’s not like he would understand what you went through.

Shaking your head, you eventually let out a sigh. “No, not really,” you told him.

“I know what being brainwashed and used like this feels like.” How the hell did he know you were just thinking about that? But you didn’t really get it. How would he know? “The Russians did the same thing to me a long time ago,” he answered the question you never asked.

This was new. And the more you thought about it, the less you understood why he was still willing to do this job after going through something like this. “Did Russell tell you that there had been no need for them to do this to me? I was already–No, I was always on your side.” He raised an eyebrow and slightly tilted his head to the side as he tried to figure out what that meant. “I was always working for the CIA. Things just… didn’t end well for me. It’s a long story.”

“We have time. I’m listening.”

You looked around to see if anyone else from the group was listening, but you were alone. Woods was the only one who glanced in your way every now and then, probably just to check on Alex, but apart from that, no one really cared about you. “All right, fine. I was born in Eastern Europe, that’s true, but my parents came to the United States as political refugees when I was around two so I grew up there. When I was in college my parents died in a car accident caused by some idiot who sat behind the wheel while being so drunk he could barely walk.

A few days later Timothy Clarkson from the CIA contacted me and explained the drunk guy was actually working for the KGB and killed my parents for the very reason they had fled their home country back in the day. He believed they might try to kill or recruit me after what happened and if it was the latter, they would blame the Americans and their lifestyle for my parents’ death to convince me to join them. Clarkson offered a chance to get revenge by becoming a double agent.

He and Henry Keen were the only ones who knew about this deal, about me, and there was no physical evidence either. After a while, I ended up working with Perseus and everything went well until Adler and his team captured me. Little did I know that not long before this Clarkson had been murdered on Perseus’ orders and Keen was left in a coma after a failed assassination. Long story short, there was no living or at least a conscious person who knew about my story.

When Adler interrogated me, I immediately told him I’m only willing to talk to Clarkson or Keen. Clarkson had given me a very clear order at the beginning and that was never to tell anyone who I was or what I know except them. He didn’t trust anyone, not even inside the CIA. This is why when Adler told me what happened to them, I assumed he was lying to make me talk so I kept everything to myself.

I didn’t think they would end up brainwashing me,” you noted with a sad smile. “And I sure as hell didn’t expect Russell to emotionally manipulate me like this only to make me behave.”

“Wait, don’t shoot! Hudson got a call and they verified her story!”

You wanted to lower your gun and let out a relieved sigh upon hearing Alex’s words, but you also knew now that blindly trusting Russell was not an option. He would surely pull the trigger the moment you paid less than enough attention to the situation. There was no way you would risk dying now that you got so close to being free again. This double life you’d been living had already taken away way too much from you.

Maybe you remembered this deep down even while you were brainwashed and controlled, this is why you were so desperate to have something remotely normal in your life. Normal… like… being in a relationship. You craved the feeling of being loved and protected and for your bad luck, Russell was there to use this against you. How the hell could you fall for him?

“So she was telling the truth?” Russell asked as he finally lowered his gun.

Yes, dipshit! God, you were, without doubt, spending way too much time in Wood’s company. Good thing you didn’t say it out loud otherwise you’d never hear the end of it.

Alex nodded. “Yeah,” he said as he walked over to you and put his hand on your gun. “Come on, it’s time to go home.” He even flashed a cautious yet reassuring smile at you as he took the weapon from your hand and put it away safely.

Alex had told you he was brainwashed by the Russians before and this was enough to make you trust him. He knew what you went through and so he was probably the only person who understood how you felt now. You needed this, you needed someone who could help you get over this nightmare.

“Bell, wait!”

“Adler, I don’t think this is the right time for that,” Alex stopped him before you could react. “Believe me.”

But he didn’t seem to give up because he once again opened his mouth. This time you didn’t wait for Alex, you handled it yourself. “There’s nothing to talk about, you almost killed me. I know this was a fucked-up situation but at least Hudson did his fucking job to try and verify my story.”

“Well, to be honest, I was the one who tracked down Keen,” Alex admitted as he scratched the back of his neck. “But sure, let Hudson take all the credit.”

Both you and Russell gave him a disapproving look. This wasn’t the right time to make such jokes. Even if he was only trying to elevate the mood, this wasn’t the right way to do it. Of course, it didn’t mean you weren’t grateful because you truly felt saved by him. Still…

“Can we just go?” you asked in the end.

“Sure, come with me,” he said as he put a hand on your shoulder.

You didn’t have to look in his way to know Adler wasn’t happy to watch you leave. But what was he expecting after this madness? Yes, at the end of the day it really was a series of unfortunate events that led to this, but he could’ve tried a bit harder to make sure you were lying before pointing a gun at you.

note: this is a russell/reader fic, but i’m still thinking about alex and bell bonding over the fact they were both brainwashed before and.. wel... one more reason for russell to be mad. also, thanks for all the positive feedbacks!!!!

taglist: @deviljoonie​ @ktdragonborn​