#even after almost eight years of thinking you were a cancer | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blossomwritesthings · 2 years ago

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𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐦𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝? 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞. | 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭

pairing: minho x fem!reader (afab)

genre: veterinarian!minho (this includes a few of the skz members working in his clinic). client!reader. hurt/comfort. angst. fluff. smut - MDNI, 18+ only. reader pov. strangers to lovers au. slowburn romance. lots of pining.

content & warnings: explicit & strong language. very thematic elements. minho is reader's vet. reader's childhood cat suddenly gets diagnosed with cancer, and she has to make a big decision about what to do. this fanfic includes heavy topics like: pet euthanasia, extreme loss/grief, depression, the problems with pet healthcare, and more. there will be some humor/fluff placed throughout, and also smut somewhere along the way. :))

18+ warnings: masterbation. sexual fantasies. kinda perv behavior but not really??

word count: 3.0k

summary: dr. lee minho is known throughout your area as the city's hottest veterinarian, and he's also the very man that's been taking good care of your two cats for the past three years. but one day, you're thrown down a dark path of heartache when the cat that you've grown up with - nyx - is diagnosed with an acute form of bone cancer. burdened with the hardest decision of your entire life, you come at a crossroads of what to do. and throughout it all, minho is the single most person who continually stays by your side.

a/n: i seriously contemplated on whether or not I should post this chapter, after all of the events of this week. I want to make sure that I am cautious and sensitive to everyone during such a painful time. but in the end, I decided to post this since perhaps, it might help a few of you out there who are dealing with so many emotions right now. I cried while I was writing this last week because it brought up so many feelings that I felt when I had to put down my dog almost 2 years ago. so if this chapter make you sad, please don't feel bad about that or think that you're alone, because I swear that you're not. next week's chapter will be a little bit on the lighter side of things (but just barely). take care of yourselves, okay?? take everything one day at a time. allow yourself to feel a plethora of things, or nothing at all. everyone is different and processes things at a variety of paces. this isn't a race, this is life. and as always, my asks/dms are always open if you just need to vent to a listening ear. I love you guys, and... stay strong, yeah?? ❤️

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ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ʀᴇᴘᴏsᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ sɪᴛᴇs (ᴛʜɪs ɪɴᴄʟᴜᴅᴇs ᴛʀᴀɴsʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴs). ©ʙʟᴏssᴏᴍᴡʀɪᴛᴇsᴛʜɪɴɢs ⤐ ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛs ʀᴇsᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ

You decided to schedule the appointment on a Sunday afternoon, that way you’d be off of work. Since the night you had spent with Dr. Lee in the waiting room after hours three weeks before, he had continually checked up on you throughout the weeks by way of numerous phone calls. And it felt like, with each one that passed, they seemed to grow longer, as the two of you talked about everything and nothing - all in hopes of trying to get your mind off of the imminent date.

From your daily phone calls, you had gleaned some valuable information from Dr. Lee - like the fact that he had been single since he opened up the clinic three years prior since it was pretty hard to keep up a long-term relationship when he was so busy with clients and managing a successful business.

You didn’t even know how the topic of romantic adventures came up in your daily wellness calls, but all at once, you were confiding in Dr. Lee about your most recent boyfriend which had broken up with back in university. But you didn’t go into too much detail about the relationship, and you skimmed over the… bad parts of it all.

You alluded to your horrible breakup with your ex during the conversation, and you briefly mentioned your ex’s awful treatment of you at the very end of the relationship - but you never crossed the line of professionalism and confessed to all the bitterness you still held for your ex. No, you didn’t think Dr. Lee needed to know such intimate details about your life. But also, he probably wouldn’t care. After all, the phone calls were only a means to an end…

And besides, no one else in the entire world knew the extent of your old relationship, so you didn’t see any point in telling a random veterinarian about such a dark part of your past.

The calls seemed to help somewhat - if only to take your mind off of the looming date. But then, as soon as Dr. Lee hung up, your thoughts were clouded with the pain of losing Nyx all over again.

Slowly, you were watching her deteriorate. Dr. Lee warned you that things would go downhill quite fast, and fast they did - since Nyx hardly wanted to eat her meals anymore, even when you’d try to coax her with her favorite treat of a fresh sardine. She was incredibly lethargic and because of the weight loss that she experienced from the lack of an appetite, her thinness only caused more pressure to be put on her legs, which was where the cancer was located.

Throughout it all, Dr. Lee did a tremendous job of preparing you for the day - the day that you were expecting to take the place in your mind as the worst moment in your entire life. The two of you planned it so that his schedule was completely free for the procedure. Originally, he told you that he usually doesn't accompany his clients into the euthanization room, and instead leaves it up to the vet techs to take care of the protocol. But without you even having to ask him, he assured you that he’d be with you the entire time - that he’d be the administer of the drug. Because he already knew, that having anyone else there with you wouldn’t help, not in the least bit. Sure, Yongbok and Hyunjin and Seungmin were good techs, but nothing could compare to the utterly calming presence that Dr. Lee alluded… with his soft, brown eyes and his slight smile and-

You were thinking about him again- damn it.

Because besides being cluttered with the pain of losing Nyx, your mind was also full of so many thoughts about… him.

And how, ever since that night in the clinic, he had continued to call you by your first name. No honorifics, no pretense. And even though he felt familiar and warm to you, you still felt somewhat uncomfortable to drop the doctor title. You wondered if he thought it was odd, how he was addressing you informally, and yet you were still doing the ‘keep it professional’ bit.

When you were busy working at your desk throughout the day, you found your eyes constantly moving over to the side to check your phone. To see if he had called you.

While you were eating your packed lunch by yourself in your office’s break room, your mind kept replaying the way that it had felt, when he had touched you that night - with those slender fingers and warm palms of his.

When you were lounging on your apartment’s small sofa, watching tv before you went to bed, your thoughts drifted off to the sound of his voice, and the way that he always said your name so delicately.

But perhaps worse of them all, is what you would do late at night, when you lay wide awake wrapped up in your duvet covers in bed. Because instead of thinking about Nyx, your musings drifted off to him, yet again.

And perhaps it had something to do with your exhaustion from the end of the day,

Or the fact that it was so very dark in your bedroom,

But more often than not, your imagination would get the best of you, and all at once, things were turning deeper, dimmer…

Flashes of him, and that smile that he always gave you when he first saw you during a visit, danced across your vision,

As you imagined what he’d look like, staring you down, bright eyes glued to your exposed self.

You dreamed about that pretty, red mouth of his, lips turning kiss-swollen and sticky from your very essence.

You wondered how it’d feel, to have him towering over you, whispering sinful words into your ear with that sly tongue of his, as he pressed you further down into the bedsheets.

And when those thoughts came upon you, you just… couldn’t help yourself.

Hand playing with yourself-

Grazing over pert buds,

Tickling a sensitive waist,

Spreading swollen lips,

Brushing against a throbbing knot,

Pushing past folds and curving inward.

And every time, the only thing that crossed your mind, was him.

Him - and his smell and his voice and his built frame.

In those heated moments of twilight, you only ever made one single sound as you thrashed about between your thick duvet covers…

“Minho.”

The name fell from your bitten-raw lips in whispers, cries, and pleas.

Maybe it was because you hadn’t been with a man in so long,

Or maybe it was because you were a grown woman and so naturally, you were extremely horny most of the time.

But all at once, as you delved into such fantasies late at night, you realized that the attraction to him had always been there.

You had just tried to mask it with honorifics and professionalism since you didn’t want to cross any lines. Since you figured that a man of his stature - of wealth and success - would never stoop so low to date a woman like yourself.

Even still, none of that stopped you.

Stopped your midnight explorations or the way that he seemed to inherently infect your very being with every breath that you took throughout the day.

But eventually, the crest of sadness took over everything again, as the day finally came to a head. To your relief, the weather outside on that Sunday afternoon was bright and sunny. You didn’t know what you’d do with yourself if it had been grey and drizzling.

You stopped just outside of the clinic’s doors, forcing yourself to take a good look at it all, as you held Nyx in her carrier at your side. It’d be the last time that you stepped through these doors with her in hand.

And that’s when the tears started. They silently traced down your cheeks, even as you shuffled through the clinic’s front doors slowly. The bell above your head signaled your arrival, and as if on cue, Jisung and Chan’s heads turned in unison from their computers at the front desk to where you stood at the entrance of the clinic.

In an instant, Jisung was getting out of his chair and flitting over to you. “Hi, Y/N,” he said in a soft voice, offering you a gentle smile. “Hi, Nyx.” He bent down in front of you, peering into the black carrier and cooing at your cat.

“How long is the wait time?” You asked, voice shaky as you clutched a little harder on the handle of the carrier.

Jisung peered up at you then, his big, doe-like brown eyes shining with compassion. “About ten minutes.”

You nodded without saying another word, as you began to make your way over to the front desk to check in for your appointment. The entire time you spoke with Jisung, Chan had been watching the two of you in silence, assessing the atmosphere and displaying a compassionate face.

“Ji said it’s gonna be ten minutes.” Is all you said, as you stood in front of the wooden front desk. You couldn’t meet their eyes anymore, your vision too blurry with tears. And frankly, their pity just made you feel even worse just then.

“Yeah, that’s about right,” Chan began, typing away at his computer. Then he slid over a clipboard and had you sign your name at the end of the document. Signing away on the procedure. Signing away on Nyx’s life. “And… I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

“Me too.” You whispered before you were pulling away from them and taking a seat near the doors to the back of the clinic. Usually, while you waited for your appointment, you’d scroll through social media on your phone or pick up a nearby magazine and peruse the articles.

This time, you just sat there. You sat there in utter despair and silence, before deciding to pull out Nyx from her carrier. She was a little less warm than she had always been, and the thinnest you had ever seen her. Even still, she looked beautiful to you. You pressed your face into her midnight-black fur, taking in the sweet smell of her and nuzzling into her pliable skin.

“I love you so much, girl,” you muttered into her coat, before giving her a few kisses. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you…”

The minutes ticked by slowly after that, as you clutched on protectively to Nyx. As you kissed your childhood best friend. As you fought for the last seconds spent with the single most stable thing in your entire life.

And then, you heard the fateful call of your name ring out across the waiting room. You stood from your chair, muscles moving like they were trapped in a vat of sticky molasses. Your gaze was fixated on the ground at your feet, so you didn’t see who had called your name.

“Right this way,” it was Hyunjin’s angelic-like voice that graced your ears, as you walked through the threshold and into the back hallway of the clinic. You felt his hand land atop your shoulder, his slender fingers gently squeezing there in a soothing gesture.

Then he was leading you through the back hallways, past the examination rooms that you had sat in with Nyx countless times. Finally, he stopped just in front of a door that was painted in a baby-blue color.

“The doctor will be right with you,” Hyunjin began, his tone ghostly-faint and fading away behind you as your eyes locked with the room you were about to be left alone in. “I’ll be right here when you’re done.”

You didn’t even register the door being shut closed behind you, too focused on the decorations that were placed throughout the room. The walls were painted a sky-blue, with a beautiful stain-glass window in the center of the room. The scene depicted a magnificent sunset, bursting with colors that were burnt cayennes and violets. The room was quite small, but the bright, real flowers placed throughout the area helped to add life to the otherwise depressing atmosphere - with their brilliant yellows and reds. Just underneath the stained glass window was a small pedestal that was covered in a thick duvet and plastic rap, and off in the corner of the room was a sliding glass window with a curtain shielding the other side of the glass.

You sat down on the nearby bench, looking at everything around you. Looking at the pedestal that was before you - where Nyx would be laid to rest. And it felt like your heart was bleeding irrevocably inside of your chest, straining and pumping at the same time as you tried to come to terms with the situation at hand.

At least she was going to join the afterlife in a safe space - at least it was beautiful looking and-

Your thoughts were interrupted by the shutting of the door that you had originally walked through. Lifting your head from Nyx who was peacefully dozing in your arms, you came face-to-face with Dr. Lee. He was dressed in his usual garb of black slacks and a white doctor's coat.

“How are you doing, Y/N?” Was the first thing he asked, as he shut the door behind him and neared you. He knelt in front of your knees, taking both of your hands in his and giving them a gentle squeeze.

That’s when you managed to find the courage to look up into his eyes finally, and the heartache and pain that you found there just made it hurt a little bit more. You felt your bottom lip quake, as the sobs freely flowed from you. You didn’t even have to reply since he already knew how difficult this was for you. So he kept quiet, not moving from his position in front of you and holding onto you as you cried yourself to exhaustion.

“I-I’m ready,” you finally said, roughly scrubbing at your eyes with the palm of one of your hands to try and knock some sense into yourself.

“Are you sure?” He questioned, the concern dripping in his voice from the way that it deepened somewhat.

You nodded furiously, heart hurting so much that it felt like you were going to drop dead from a heart attack any minute. “Y-Yeah.”

Then his hands were slipping away from yours, leaving a fierce shiver to course down the length of your spine at the absence of his touch. He stood close to the curtained window and tapped on the glass once, and you turned your head to the side just in time to glimpse Yongbok pushing the glass aside before he handed over a metal dish that had a small syringe placed in it.

You swallowed around the huge lump that was forming in your dry throat. And when Yongbok offered you a sincere, comforting smile, all you could do was nod once before he was shutting the glass door again, pulling the curtain closed to give you and Dr. Lee some privacy.

Then it was all happening at once - too quickly for you to even grasp - as Dr. Lee was gently taking Nyx from your grasp and laying her down on the cushioned pedestal. She put up no resistance and nudged her little black nose into the palm of his hands, purring in satisfaction. She had always had a soft spot for the doctor.

You stumbled over to her, grabbing hold of one of her paws and squeezing it delicately. You peered up at Dr. Lee through hazy eyes, his face a blotch of color shining through your tear-stained vision. “P-Promise me it’ll be painless, doctor. You- you have to promise me…” Your voice broke off at the end of your words, as you leaned down into Nyx and pressed kiss after kiss into her silky fur.

“She won’t feel a thing, Y/N. I promise.” You heard Dr. Lee say before he was moving again, picking up one of her paws in bated silence. You felt his eyes on you, as you cried into Nyx’s warm skin for the last time.

“I love you so much, girl…” You whispered, voice barely audible to your ears. Cracking irrevocably. “I’ll see you again someday- so... just wait for me there, yeah?”

Then, almost like she could understand your words, Nyx moved her head over to your neck and nuzzled into you, purring lowly. The sobs wracked through your body, as you felt Dr. Lee leaning into her at the same time as you held her close.

You squeezed your eyes shut, like if you closed them long enough, everything would disappear.

The pain,

The loss,

The fear.

And then just like that, Dr. Lee was sighing heavily, a metric ton of agonizing weight in just his breathing alone. “It’s done.”

In the blink of an eye, it was all over.

You clutched onto Nyx’s languid body, holding onto her for dear life. Perhaps, if you held her long enough, she’d come back.

But nothing happened.

There was no more purring,

Or meowing,

Or scratching.

Just…

Utterly nothing.

Silence.

And that was the worst part about it all.

“It hurts,” you began, voice not even sounding like your own from all of the dryness and the crying, “it hurts so fucking much.”

You were shaking your head then, still clutching at one of Nyx’s little pink paws. Then you felt arms wrap around your waist, pulling you against a firm chest. Hands clutched at your sides, and you all but turned around to bury your face into the warmth of Dr. Lee.

“I know,” he said in a hushed tone, his deep, melodic voice so close to your ear that it sent a ripple of shivers across your skin. “I know it hurts, Y/N, but I’m here…”

And then you could do nothing more,

As a new wave of grief washed over you,

Suffocating the very air right out of your lungs,

Drying out your entire being,

Causing the dull pain of a bad headache to bloom across either of your temples.

All you could do at that point was cry and cry and cry, your entire body violently shaking as you held onto Dr. Lee for dear life. And he made no point of pulling away from you. Almost like, he had planned to be there all along.

To be continued...

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🌾 tags: @sleepyleeji :: @if-spearb :: @hyunes4ngel :: @drhsthl :: @seosalad

©ʙʟᴏssᴏᴍᴡʀɪᴛᴇsᴛʜɪɴɢs⤐ ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛs ʀᴇsᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ

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phasecode · 9 months ago

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✧ ⸻ welcome to infinite entertainment! it's NA 'AXEL' YUCHAN, who is the MAIN DANCER of INDIGO. i’ve heard whispers that the 24 year old is pretty INDUSTRIOUS but lowkey CAPRICIOUS. also, doesn’t he remind you of CHOI YEONJUN?

good evening everyone! u can call me klee and i'm excited to write with you all! i go by they/them and i'm currently residing in the eastern timezone. i didn't have anything ready because applying was just something i did on impulse so please bear with me as i try to get everything done by friday ( wishful thinking ). i'd like to introduce you to a revamped child of mine named AXEL, the main dancer of indigo and infinite entertainment's resident Just Some Guy™. underneath the cutoff you'll gain access to more information about yuchan as well as some plot ideas that are bouncing around in my head! please like this post if you're interested in plotting and thank you in advance if you decide to read my intro!

✧ ⸻ i. 𝑳𝑰𝑵𝑲𝑺 .

profile, connections, wanted relationships.

✧ ⸻ ii. 𝑫𝑬𝑻𝑨𝑰𝑳𝑺 .

full name :: axel yuchan na

korean name :: 나유찬

nickname :: known professionally as axel, his english name, but he doesn't mind being called whatever

date of birth :: march 29, 1999

zodiac :: aries sun, cancer moon, scorpio rising

place of birth :: toronto, canada

gender :: cis male, uses he / him pronouns

orientation :: pansexual, demiromantic

height :: 183 cm, 6ft

languages :: english ( native ), korean ( native ), japanese ( conversational )

vocal inspiration :: a.c.e's kim byeongkwan

✧ ⸻ iii. 𝑺𝑼𝑴𝑴𝑨𝑹𝑰𝒁𝑬𝑫 𝑺𝑻𝑶𝑹𝒀 .

began dancing at the age of five, taking ballet classes at canada's national ballet school because his mom wanted all of her children to become professional ballet dancers like her. his dad was on the fence about it, not necessarily opposing the idea of him and his two sisters doing it but more open to supporting them if they decided they wanted to do something else in the future. his mom was less thrilled by the possibility but would eventually come around when all three of them chose to pursue different paths later in life.

one day when he was eleven he attended one of the open hip hop classes his older sister was taking, and immediately liked it better. the music was the main reason he wanted to continue taking classes but when he initially started, he felt challenged and ya boi likes a challenge. he still attended the ballet school, dedicated to becoming a professional ballet dancer like his mom wanted him to, but he knew deep down his interests were shifting and his older sister knew it too.

when he found out that new star entertainment wanted him to audition in person all the way in seoul, once the confusion subsided as to how they even knew about him ( his sister submitted an online audition in his stead ), he was more excited to audition than nervous despite not knowing much about the industry. he didn't know what he was getting into, but the idea of not becoming a ballet dancer was exciting — doors he didn't know existed were opening for him.

axel is nothing if not a hard worker. he is someone who doesn't like to disappoint, and especially since his parents had allowed him to completely switch gears and become a trainee with an undetermined future ( they didn't tell him that tho. they just let him think there was no way he wouldn't debut ).

he received a lot of criticism as a rookie for not being able to sing live very well. he put more power and energy into the choreography and didn't think he needed to be the greatest singer since the other members were hard-carrying. he did what he could to improve after ( what he considers to be ) the disaster of his debut, he attended more singing lessons and visited the practice rooms almost every single day to practice his live singing while dancing.

has been caught in several different dating rumors over the eight years he's spent as an idol. only one relationship was real ( they broke up almost immediately after ) but the others were either with his close friend or someone he didn't know that fans? connected out of pure coincidence.

he began an acting career three years ago, appearing in minor roles and supporting roles. he began taking acting lessons at the insistence of his company, wanting him to try something new and expand his skillset. although he knows he's not the best idol-actor the industry has to offer, he hopes that he could land a lead role in the near future to really test his abilities.

✧ ⸻ iv. 𝑯𝑬𝑨𝑫𝑪𝑨𝑵𝑶𝑵𝑺 .

HUGE fan of star wars. he collects a lot of merch and ( unfortunately ) can talk for hours about anything related to it. he's too interested in the lore and has definitely talked about it on a livestream for hours. he used to receive a lot of star wars related gifts from fans prior to no longer accepting gifts from them, and he keeps it all either at his grandparents' house in seoul, or in his childhood bedroom in toronto. ( woozi talking for 6 hours about anime is literally axel talking about star wars )

also he's just a huge movie bro in general ?? he LOVES movies and sometimes it feels like he has seen every movie in existence. ( for legal reasons i'm joking but he does definitely have an extensive knowledge. ) he constantly invites friends out to see movies or goes by himself ... there's really no movie he wouldn't watch. his favorite movies include jurassic park, the host, spirited away, a silent voice, arrival, in the mood for love, and a more recent addition is godzilla minus one.

a little bit too active on his social media accounts. he's the most active on tiktok and instagram, and constantly overshares like he's on his private accounts and talking to his closest friends. he had always been social and active on indigo's official sns accounts, and it seemingly got worse when indigo as a group were allowed to have their own personal accounts. he's the type of idol who is never beating the 'in a parasocial relationship w fans' allegations.

he is known for being apparently passive about the criticisms that come his way every now and then, and he wants to believe that he isn't bothered at all by hate when in reality it eats away at him in an unhealthy way. during his rookie years where he spent his free time working hard on improving his skills, he had gotten sick more often than not by overworking his 17yo body more than it could handle. sometimes he falls back into his bad habits when he really lets himself be bothered, but he's also gotten better at pulling himself out of that state ( also the other members help out a lot too ).

he became a first-time cat dad in 2021 when he adopted his daughter as a kitten. her name is sun and she is a russian blue that he fostered for a while to trial animal therapy, but she ended up being a foster failure and he adopted her after a month. he is known for donating to local animal rescue centers and hopes to adopt a rescued feline in the near future.

axel can be best described as ... warm. warm in the sense that as a person, he feels like someone you've been friends with for years even if you've only known him for a month. he's typically easy-going and more-often-than-not a Yes Man. but he's also warm in the sense that he's a simmering pot that's one second away from reaching its boiling point should something stress him out. he wants to believe he's nonconfrontational but the truth is that he feels the need to fight should he feel wronged.

he's close with both of his sisters, and the three of them working in the entertainment industry has only made them closer. sometimes he appears on his younger sister's youtube videos or tiktoks when they're in seoul or if he's in los angeles. he sees them in-person at least four times a year, but they constantly facetime and do so once a week. he's also close with his parents, and much closer to his lax father despite being nearly a carbon copy of his mom in terms of personality.

he grew up in wealth, his dad being a defense attorney and his mom being an ex-professional ballet dancer turned ballet teacher in toronto's most prestigious ballet school. it's safe to say that he spends more than he should on a monthly basis buying things he doesn't necessarily need. while he doesn't go announcing his wealth to the world or even tries to show off in front of peers, he shows it silently in the way he constantly offers to pay for everything when out with friends or in the way he constantly buys gifts and lil trinkets for friends when he finds something that reminds him of them.

✧ ⸻ v. 𝑪𝑶𝑵𝑵𝑬𝑪𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵 𝑰𝑫𝑬𝑨𝑺 .

the besties!! it would be so cute to have a cute lil squad similar to the 97 line. i feel like having a good group of genuine friends is very much needed so just know this is the most wanted thing!!

a co-host during his time as a mc?? could be a more recent gig for them or something from a couple years ago, it could be fun doing a thread of them working together behind the scenes.

"exes" ?? the individuals he was caught in a dating rumor with ... they could've been close friends that grew apart after the rumor appeared in articles, they could still be super close regardless of the past, they could've been strangers who either became close or stayed strangers ... possibilities r endless.

sibling-like relationships ... i love found family tropes, and please know any friend of axel's is just treated like family when they meet his parents and sisters.

ex-friends!! i kinda lowkey love the drama and i feel like despite axel's craving for peace in his daily life some things are just unavoidable. i think it would be interesting if they were forced to work together again and see if they could become friends again or just continue to drift further away from each other.

maybe like actual exes? axel is absolutely a hopeless romantic and wants to go all in when it comes to relationships, but i feel like him being someone who is so hyper-focused on his job as well ... i feel like both these things can cause problems but u can hear me out on that later.

having a backbone builder / positive influence is someone i think that axel really needs in life, someone who could remind him that life is too short to spend most of it hating himself or criticizing himself ... i feel like he just needs an angel on his shoulder tbh.

i'm open for anything so if none of these fit your vibe dw friend we'll think of smth!!

#infinite:intro #im not joking this took out all of my braincells in one go #so sorry if its not cohesive or smth IDK #❪ ✧ ❫ filed under ╱ 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎 .

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maccreadysbaby · 2 years ago

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i just binged the logan fam au pls im so invested 😩 there’s not a lot of works with logan and i’m so so happy i found it !! it’s so amazing and i love how you write ❤️

Thank you so much this makes me so happy! Unfortunately this is going to be the last part. I think fifteen is a good number to end on. Also this goes into the futures of Logan and y/n’s kids as well!!!

< prev part

HERES TO THE FUTURE™︎

y/n was absolutely livid Logan wouldn’t let her go to Houston with him

Elliot and McKade were absolutely livid Logan wouldn’t let them go to Houston with him

Y/n never got many descriptions of that night. Only that Finn’s first ever mission was saving his brother

y/n stayed at home with McKade, Elliot, Jade, and Sadie. They stayed up nearly all night waiting for any kind of communication

there was nothing until, three days later, Logan got home with Diego

and he still wouldn’t tell y/n what happened. Not that Finn had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the mission and that Gaz practically had to carry him. Not that Keegan and Hesh both got shot multiple times for Diego. Not that Rorke had the barrel of a gun pressed against their son’s head. Not that Rorke’s brains were splattered on the wall from a bullet that came out of Logan’s gun. Not that Diego had watched him kill Rorke. Not that Diego cling to Finn the entire way home, that he wouldn’t look at Logan, wouldn’t even get close enough for Logan to touch him

Diego was different when he got home. Traumatized, almost. He didn’t cry, didn’t have much of a reaction at all other than the fact that he wanted to sit on the couch with his whole family and not move

Sadie tried to get him to say something, but he didnt

And the eight of them, including Finn who’d returned home, sat there with him

They all fell asleep in the living room, in the floor, on the couches, in chairs

And the next morning, Sunday morning, they woke up to more silence from Diego

deep down Logan knew he’d scarred the kid for life, but what was he supposed to do? Let Rorke shoot him?

everyone was so gentle with Diego. They handled him like glass. Like porcelain. It broke y/n and Logan’s heart that, after they got home, when Logan moved toward Diego, Diego would back away

he slowly started talking again, but not to Logan. He started smiling again, but not at what Logan said. He started to laugh at jokes, and play games, and go back to normal

all except for the fact that he was avoiding Logan

it was absolutely heart shattering for Y/n and Logan, but what could they do? Forcing him to interact could cause more harm than good, and they weren’t therapists, they didn’t know how to handle this

it was one Wednesday, after Diego had gotten home from school. Y/n was in the kitchen and Logan was working at the dining table. McKade and Elliot were in their rooms, Sadie was playing with Jade in the living room, Finn was on-base with TF141

Diego got home from school and dropped his bag. Sadie greeted him but he didn’t say anything

he bee-lined through the living room, through the kitchen. Upon his arrival, Logan stood, ready to give him his space, but instead, Diego walked straight into him, wrapping his arms around his father so tight he nearly couldn’t breathe

“I’m sorry. I love you, dad,” was all Diego said

Logan made eye constant with y/n and hugged Diego back. “I love you too, buddy”

and then, just then, their family clicked back into place. Everything shifted, everything felt, right. y/n felt, for the first time, that their future wasn’t so uncertain, that their family wasn’t so strange, that everything might just be okay from that point forward

and it was

McKade made it through medical school and became a children’s doctor, working mostly with kids that had to board at the hospital for hereditary diseases or cancer

he wasn’t one for romance. Not until one day, when he was twenty-eight, when a woman and her one-year-old son who’d just beaten cancer got transferred into his care

her name was June, and her son, Julian

he tried not to fall for her because doctor and parent was so taboo, so unnatural, so forbidden, but he couldn’t help it

after they got released, he started hanging out with her, spending time with them, and oh God, he loved them

and he married her when he was twenty-nine. They had three kids, including Julian. One was born when Julian was three, a daughter, Bailey, and then another daughter a year after that, Evie

Elliot ended up with the most oddball job out of them all. He became an underwater welder

sounds strange, but they get paid extremely extremely well

he opened up his home to house foreign exchange students when he was twenty-nine and eventually takes up fostering as a single father

he only fostered one child, a ten year old boy named Ezra, and he fell so in love that he adopted him

he never got married, he didn’t have much interest in women after what his mother did to Logan. he had a few girlfriends but Ezra was his main priority all of the time

he and Ezra had a father/son only life like he and Logan did for a bit, but it was happy as opposed to the messy divorce that caused theirs

Finn spent almost fifteen years in the military before finally settling down after losing his second leg when he was 35

he took up working business deals, being a salesman, so he got a remote job leading a team of salesman under a company that supplied car dealerships with advertising and such

he’d pretty much written off getting married until he met Alluria (uh-lore-ee-uh), a beautiful girl from Slovakia that had moved to America as a baby. He met her because she worked at the local coffee shop he spent, like, half of his life in

they got married when Finn was 36 and never had any kids, but they have a beautiful marriage and live to spend time with their nieces and nephews

Diego graduated high school and college at the top of his class, but settled on the culinary arts

he started working as a cook in someone else’s kitchen

then a manager / cook

and it spiraled and spiraled until, suddenly, y/n and Logan were watching on as he opened his own Brazilian restaraunt

he met a girl, Lacey, when she applied to work there and long story short they ended up married when Diego was 22

they had five kids. The first was a boy, Noah, when he was 23, then a girl a year later, Haven, two years after that a boy, Dallas, then a year later, female identical twins, Callie and Emma

Sadie decided not to go to college, and instead, lives, at first, by picking up odd jobs. She’d auditioned for shows and movies but never made it

She finally settled down and ended up being a freelance photographer

She married a guy named Hudson after meeting him in a theater course she took once

they had one kid, a girl, and they named her Y/n

Jade grew up with so much love and support she didn’t know what to do with it all. She played sports throughout all of her school years, but she finally settled on being a soccer player

she played through college, where she met Avery, a boy that also played soccer

and eventually they got married. Jade was 24

they had two babies, both boys, named Roman and Leo. Leo was born when she was 25, Roman when she was 26

and Y/n, Logan, and their massive family lived happily ever after

(Oh yeah; and every single one of their kids made sure to have pancake Saturdays with their own kids)

#logan walker x reader #call of duty logan #logan walker

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noshitbarnes · 2 years ago

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Better Now?: Prologue

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OFC

Summary: Sophia was 18 when Hydra kidnapped her, gave her abilities, and made her their new secret weapon. Now, flash-forward 9 years later and she's living with the Avengers, trying to live with everything she did, and trust those she now calls teammates.

Warnings: angst, torture, kidnapping

Word Count: 1,652

Notes: This is a rewrite of an old with the same title, I just didn't like the way I wrote it, and this one came out a lot better (in my opinion)! So just let me know if you guys like it!

Better Now? Masterlist

Sophia Dreyer’s story starts off simple enough, but tragic. Almost nine years ago when Sophia was barley 18 years old, she was in Dresden, Germany, on summer holiday visiting her family. It was the summer after her first year of college at LMU Munich University, where she was studying Microbiology, hoping one day to be a Genetic researcher, to help cure cancer, things like that. It was late and Sophia was heading back to college after an amazing summer with her family, about 11PM, when her car had decided that that was the perfect time to leave her stranded on the side of the highway. She’s never been the handiest person when it came to mechanics, that was more her sister and father’s thing, so she thought all hope was lost. Just when she was about to completely give up and sleep in the backseat, she finally managed to see headlights coming her way and was able to flag them down. She was overjoyed, thinking finally someone was going to be able to help get her back on the road back to school—she was wrong. The people in the car had opposite ideas, they were Hydra soldiers, looking for volunteers for their next big scheme, Sophia didn’t even know what Hydra was or why she should be afraid of them, but she would soon learn.

The Hydra soldiers took her to their main headquarters in the vast Russian wilderness, away from curious eyes. There they had all the latest technology, weapons, and torture devices, focusing the latter on Sophia. Day after day for eight years she was tortured, experimented on, and used as a weapon for Hydra. It seemed like every day they found a new way to make her scream, which they relished in. From water boarding to wiring her up to a car battery and shocking the shit out of her, there was never a dull day, or a sleep filled night—it’s also there that Sophia obtained her powers, which was the point of why Hydra kidnapped her. After the success of the Winter Soldier, Hydra wanted to see if they could make another soldier but one with a more trusting face and with enhanced abilities, one that could be more of a secret agent instead of a pure assassin, and they decided that kidnapping and experimenting on nearby citizens was the best way to get “test subjects.” Sophia’s powers are well odd, to her at least, the lead Hydra scientist called it cryokinesis, which means she can manipulate anything cold, like ice, water, frost, and some other things, but even after eight years she’s still learning how to control it all.

When the team realized that their experiments had been a success, they told her that she was going to be their new secret weapon that she was going to have the opportunity to “change the world” and that the world would be grateful for it. Sophia however wasn’t an idiot, she didn’t believe a word they said, but it’s not like she had many other options so she did as she was instructed, hoping that one day an opportunity would arise, and she would be free. Sophia could infiltrate enemy bases with ease, she had the looks of the girl-next-door, but also the brains to show those around that she belonged there, so it was easy for her to fake being an agent of any kind. To Sophia’s disgust it also took her minutes to dismantle the base and everyone in it, she hated how easily it came to her, how the more she did it, the more it seemed to be second nature, but after so many missions, she no longer cared. She eventually grew cold and harsh, caring not about others and even less about herself, nothing matters to her anymore, she even stopped dreaming of ever escaping and seeing her family again. After four years, killing became second nature and the old her, the happy her, was gone.

Years into her captivity, SHIELD got word from an informant that Hydra had started doing illegal human experimentation and they had been successful with one woman, and agents infiltrated the base a few weeks later to put an end to it all. The moment the gunshots and screams started, Sophia was convinced that they were going to kill her as well because of all the horrible things that she had done. When they did find her, she was in the corner of her cell, cowering from fear, a collar wrapped around her neck that prevented her from using her powers, but she still had her hands up ready to defend herself. One of the agents, and archer names Clint Barton, took it upon himself to try and coax her out, he sat on the floor of her cell and talked to her almost like she was a frightened little kitten. To this day, she still doesn’t know why, but she trusted him, perhaps it was his kind eyes, his soft voice, or the fact that he literally got on the floor with her, but he convinced her that she was safe.

Eventually, Sophia was interviewed by Clint’s boss, a man named Phil Coulson, he was also very kind, understanding, and acted as if he really did want to help. He told her that she wasn’t to blame for what happened or for the things that she had done, she was only trying to survive, after all she was a captive of Hydra. He offered to help her in any way he could in order to help her move on, but only if she would let him.

After many many hours of talking, Phil eventually decided that Sophia would be a good asset to the team, telling her that her powers didn’t have to be a curse that she can choose how she uses them, and she can choose to use them to help people now. Sophia, however, didn’t want any part of it, all she wanted was to return home and try to pick up what remained of her life back in Germany. When Phil began talking about taking her to America with them, she panicked, she didn’t want to go there, she wanted to be on her own—finally. All this talk about leaving gave her this sickening feeling in her stomach that they were just going to stick her in a room and watch her, just like Hydra did for years. She decided at that moment her best option was to fight her way out and escape—which she did.

Unfortunately for her though, once she got free, she became lost because Hydra made certain that she knew next to nothing of where she was being kept, all she knew was that she was in a frigid forest. Sophia was alone in the snow-covered forest for three days, luckily for her due to her powers the cold never bothered her, but she did start to lose hope of ever making it out alive, dehydration or starvation would get her soon. Despite how much she hated her life the way it was, she didn’t really want to die, but she figured it was what she truly deserved.

Just as she thought all was lost, Agent Barton found her, cowering against a tree, covered in a blanket of fresh snow. He sat down on the ground next to her and talked to her for about an hour. It was mainly a one-sided conversation, Clint talked about how much he missed his dog, Lucky, how long he’d been a SHIELD agent, and how damn cold the ground was. After a while Sophia say up and looked him in the eyes, growing more relaxed by his presence. He then informed her that in the end, going to the states was really her choice, and if she didn’t want to, they wouldn’t force it on her. Despite not knowing anything about her, Clint said he saw a lot of potential in her, saying it seemed like deep down she had a big heart and he thought she would do amazing things if she would just give herself a little grace. Sophia was warmed by his strange confidence in her and decided that moving forward would be the best thing for her, instead of dwelling on the past.

Once in America, Sophia was placed in a secret government facility because some members of Phil’s team were still unsure of her and wanted to know the true extent of her powers. After a while she started to believe that she just traded in her Hydra cell for a bright shiny SHIELD cell. There was a bed, desk, and a toilet, all in the same room, it was small compact, no color, just blank steel walls. She wasn’t sure hop long she was going to be there because no one ever told her when or if she’d ever be released. She tried her best to cooperate with everyone, she wanted them to trust her because she really did want to put her past with Hydra behind her and start a brand-new life helping people. Sophia wanted them to understand that she didn’t choose this life, before Hydra she was just a college girl from Germany who wanted to study pathogens and viruses, but no matter what she said, not much got through to them. She saw a bunch of doctors and scientists over her many months there, she ended up growing a friendship with one, a man named Dr. Bruce Banner. He was kind, gentle, and completely genuine. He listened to every word she said, and she could tell that he really did care about what happened to her, almost like he understood the torment that was going on inside of her. Maybe he would be able to get the others to understand that she was some evil Hydra machine anymore.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes x ofc #bucky barnes fanfiction #fanf #steve rogers fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #marvel #marvel fanfiction #marvel fanfic #tony stark fanfiction #tony stark fanfic #mcu #avengers #avengers fanfiction

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kudos-si-do · 1 year ago

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move along (or you might as well be dead)

they tell me: sooner or later, life is going to look like it did before. i don't think that's true. when i was ten, my dad promised me that we'd come back to a place that came to mean more to me than anywhere else in the world. he died before we had the chance. sometimes i look at the pictures, at the curves of roller coasters gleaming above lake erie, and i wonder if he knew that his cancer would kill him.

it's been a long road. the chemo they used to save me — to poison me just enough to only almost kill me — almost killed me again, more than a year after remission. neuropathy, they said. common with chemotherapy. especially common with how much you were treated with.

it doesn't matter, what they say now. i hit the ground headfirst from somewhere around eight feet up. i don't remember it. you're getting better, they say, but then they take another look at me and i'm placed back into the prison i've only ever been paroled out of for a few scant days, a few golden hours.

there's blue ice cream on my tongue. they don't sell this specific kind here. i laugh as i say it's a gel or a liquid, banned on airplanes. freedom, taken back. blue, blue, blue.

you tell me that my family isn't normal. i've been told all my life that every family is its own kind of mess, that my family wasn't any messier than anyone else's. that maybe we were lucky, getting the family we had. i believe only part of it now, but before you, i believed it completely. yes, it's true that humans are messy. we get our messes everywhere. but it isn't so normal for someone to throw away your possessions and laugh while you sob, scoff as you dig through the dumpster for pieces of your childhood you can never get back. or is it normal? am i making everything about myself again? am i being dramatic? i've been told that all my life — i'm too dramatic. i walk on three broken bones and i don't complain.

your family isn't normal either. someday i'll send hockey postcards to your father without an ounce of guilt. someday i'll look another member of your family in the eye and disagree, even though i was supposed to be agreeable, even though i promised i wouldn't do anything to make your life harder. smile, smile, smile, i told myself. be at your best. don't let your cracks show through.

my dad was supposed to teach me to drive, to threaten my significant others, to walk me down the aisle. all my friend was supposed to do was grow up. she'd be an adult now. her birthday was last month. the sixteenth anniversary of her death was a less than three weeks ago. she's dead, frozen in time as a kid with a feeding tube up her nose and a bucket hat on her head, always pink or purple. i remember thinking that she was the bravest person i'd ever known. my dad was brave, too. does bravery always beget bravery?

i'm going to die. one day, if not today. if not tomorrow. if not next week, next month, next year. i'm trapped in the same few hundred square feet as i'm always trapped in. you're late by an hour to pick me up from the airport. i think i should be annoyed about it, but i only shake my head. i wonder what adventure your adhd has taken you on. when i hug you, there's relief in the action. i'm tired. my head is spinning. i'm not quite there, not quite right, but i want to be. i'm a little bit trapped in my mind, i think. am i being dramatic? later, i'll hit my head lightly on a support column in the barn while you're trying to teach me to dance. it will bruise, just barely, but enough to betray me. i'll have bad migraines for days, and i'll be too scared to talk about it. i find the fucked up basement we joked about and i make sure you see it.

i don't touch people much. most days, i don't like to be touched. i remember that my dad's hugs felt like the safest place on earth. i wonder if there's anything left of him below the ground, eighteen years later, or if it's all just bone. i've lived much longer without him than with him. i try to project safety through my arms and hope that's enough. or at least something. anything. i can touch people i'm comfortable with, most of the time. every time i thought you looked sad, i did my best. i swung my arm around your shoulders. shook your arm. made a face. i hope it made a difference. i know it was hard, being where you were, doing what you did. i hope you knew that i was proud of you.

i'm scared, but i'm not allowed to be. i fight with my brain, frustration growing. i watch your family with suspicion, with disapproval that they might or might not have earned. i try to be friendly, project myself in a way that makes me enjoyable to the people around me. i'm not that person, not really, not always. one of my friends says i'm much different in person than i am otherwise. is that true? who am i, really? am i someone who can be seen, whose flaws can be pushed away enough to only show the light? when i looked at them, who did they see looking back?

it was odd, hearing my name with a different sound to it. everyone used the same pronouns, but not the ones i'm used to hearing. it's funny, i think. gender means nothing to me, but at home, i hear a different set of pronouns. sometimes i wonder what it would be like, but i don't dwell. it wouldn't be dangerous, i don't think, not in the way a lot of queer folk are in danger, but it would bring more harshness and hardness to my life than i think i can currently bear. i wonder if you think that i'm a coward. am i a coward?

i'm in bed again. you were supposed to be here this week. i watch the plans sift out of my hands like sand. the pressure in my chest is enormous. it hurts to breathe, sometimes. my head is tangled up. they think i'm having seizures. i'm spending more time inside the hospital than i have in a long time. it curls in my chest like fire against bare skin, but i have to bear it. you're lucky, they tell me. it can always be worse. can't it?

i was raised by a religious mother and a non-religious father. once he was gone, there was nothing left to protect me from it. i spent years entrenched in it. i remember one of my teachers bragging that they didn't take money from the government so that they weren't beholden to their requirements. they didn't have to hire the gays, she said. i remember how one of my bible instructors told me to keep my mouth shut. i had too many questions. i ruined too much. the only time i blatantly cheated, it was on a test to name the chapters of the bible. i was caught and suspended. the teacher looked at me like i was scum the rest of my time at that school. am i fake, made of plastic and metal? am i real, flesh and bone and sinew? pulling out of that hate has taken a decade, and i'm still not done.

i stand amongst the protesters, those early months of the pandemic. i wonder, even then, if it will make a difference. years later, my cousin hangs a wooden flag with a blue stripe above her door. i burn underneath my skin. i say nothing.

i found the churro ice cream in the freezer section with a "new!" label around the plastic tamper shield. i bought both of the pints that they had and put them in the freezer. i got a pint of half baked, too. i prefer phish food, myself. i look up the closest scoop store and wonder what it would take to get there. i don't touch any of the pints.

i'm not allowed to drive. my car sits, unused. i rankle as i pace the same endless walls. i trip on nothing. i sit back down, mutinous. i haven't been kind to the breaks in my pelvis and femur. they twinge from the cold, or from overuse, or from both. i remember walking around the oncology floor years ago, spurred by the sheer amount of steroids i was on to offset the effects of the difficult rounds of chemo. there was no leaving, nothing but the same floor and the same walls and the same enlarged pictures of flowers. i got paranoid enough to think that they were watching me. in some ways, i think they're still watching me.

there aren't any flowers in my room. i don't like to see them, outside of in nature, but sometimes i understand the desire to receive flowers. i've never been given them. i've never considered myself as particularly desirable. i've dated, and the relationships have ended in failure. but i loved them, once. i still love them, in a way. i'm not sure if there's a wrong way to love, so long as you're loving in good faith. i wonder if i'm lying to myself about love, if i even have the capacity to love. i wonder if i'm lying to myself about any good traits i think i might have more often than i care to admit. i'm not a good person, i think. i try, scrape and scrabble my way up mountains, but it never feels like enough.

i forgive you for not braiding my hair.

but you knew that, didn't you?

#tw cancer #tw head injury #concussion #ice cream #marshmallow sky #my writing #honestly i have no idea what i just wrote and i'm not going to proofread it now.#so #sorry?#death mention #child death mention #moving forward #pandemic mention

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directnewssourc · 8 days ago

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Generational Change Dynamics: Analyzing Connolly's Victory Over AOC

Rep. Gerry Connolly’s triumph over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the top Democratic spot on the Oversight Committee illustrates the limits of the party’s demand for generational change, with a well-established centrist beating out a progressive standard-bearer. The Victory Beyond Ideology While the victory went beyond ideology, there were simmering fears among centrists about how elevating Ocasio-Cortez, an outspoken liberal who has gone viral for her moments on the panel before, would turn out. There was also a sense that it was Connolly’s turn, after he had previously run for the Oversight spot twice and served on the panel for 15 years, according to interviews with eight Democratic lawmakers. Building Support Through Relationships Connolly also used his strong relationships in the centrist New Democrat Coalition, considered the largest ideological bloc in the caucus, to build significant support, after Ocasio-Cortez surged early on. Incoming New Democrat Coalition Chair Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) made calls on behalf of Connolly after the group’s endorsement Friday, said a person granted anonymity to discuss the private outreach. Leadership Influence and Whip Count Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi also phoned other lawmakers on his behalf — a factor other lawmakers said was significant, but not nearly as decisive as Connolly’s own relationships throughout the caucus. “The membership comes together and makes these decisions. Members make individual decisions,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.). “I’ve seen leadership weigh in on races in the caucus and win some and lose some.” Connolly’s internal whip count of roughly 130 lawmakers that POLITICO reported Friday almost exactly mirrored the final whip count of 131 votes for him on Tuesday morning. Challenges of Generational Shift Ocasio-Cortez’s allies had projected early confidence in the race and had hoped to capitalize on a post-election appetite for change in the caucus. But while other ranking members largely fell to or stepped aside for younger challengers, members still largely felt it wasn’t right to bypass 74-year-old Connolly for the 35-year-old progressive darling. And despite the calls for a shift in leadership and some concerns about Connolly’s recent cancer diagnosis, House Democrats aren’t totally willing to abandon their attachment to seniority. Seniority vs. Ability Debate “I think that there are challenges in totally abandoning the seniority system here, because if seniority is not the rule, money becomes the rule,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who’d been the first Democrat to call for President Joe Biden to drop his reelection bid earlier this year. Committee Leadership Dynamics Lawmakers cemented their decisions to cast aside other senior committee leaders even as they elevated Connolly on Tuesday morning, electing Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and Angie Craig (D-Minn.) as ranking members to succeed lawmakers who’d faced questions about their health and attendance in Congress. Support for Seniority and Experience Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, a former top Democratic leader, spoke up in caucus in support of deferring to seniority. He said he did so on behalf of Pelosi, who was absent from Tuesday’s meetings while she recovered from hip replacement surgery after a fall. In addition to Connolly, Pelosi had also backed Huffman and Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), who failed in his bid to take the ranking position on the Agriculture Committee, as part of a push by the California delegation to back their own. “The fact that you’re senior does not necessarily mean you have the ability,” Hoyer said after the elections. “But if you have the ability, then seniority certainly reflects service, experience, knowledge of the committee, and I think that’s perhaps what made the difference in the Connolly race.” Strategic Moves and Compromises Leading up to the vote, Ocasio-Cortez had sought to neutralize concerns from centrists in the party. She indicated to members of the

Steering and Policy Committee on Monday, who ultimately recommended Connolly for the spot, that she could stop backing primary challengers to sitting lawmakers. “I think a lot of members know Ocasio-Cortez would be best, but I think there’s some heartburn with New Dems and she would put them in a tough spot by going hard on cultural issues,” said one neutral Democratic leadership aide, granted anonymity to speak candidly. Post-Election Reflections Ocasio-Cortez’s loss left her allies fuming. Hill progressives had cited the New Yorker’s power to mobilize millions on social media and her skills as a communicator as a huge benefit for a job that will largely involve messaging against the right. “There is one person in our caucus that has the ear of millions and millions of people with just the touch of her finger, and that is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” said Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.). And some members warned not to expect that Tuesday’s elections will be the end of intergenerational contests in the party. “Those of us who have come up more recently within the Congress understand that the American people have had it with seniority issues,” Balint added. “Nobody in our districts cares about relationships in the building.”

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april-december · 2 months ago

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TW: pet death

I had to have my cat euthanised on Friday. Suki had suffered various health conditions throughout her life - inflamed bowels, thyroid troubles, diabetes, and arthritis - all of which were medicated and treated to help her live happily for as long as possible. I don’t know how old she was exactly, because she was a rescue, but she was with me for 12 years, and was at least a year old when I adopted her. In the end, we think it was liver cancer that got her.

To say she was my cat doesn’t nearly begin to cover it; she was the other half of my soul, my best friend. When she was younger she tried (unsuccessfully) to teach me to hunt on our trips out to the garden. She would sit in front of a shrub and look up at me until I crouched down with her to watch the bushes for a while. She guarded me when I was sick in bed. We both got anxious when we were apart. We had mandatory brush and tummy rub times slotted into our daily routines, at her insistence.

We were devoted to each other.

I knew the end was approaching. I’d known it some time. She was getting slow, visibly old, and stiff in her movements. She almost didn’t make it through recovery of a dental she had in July. I am forever grateful for those last three and a half months together. It felt like extra time.

In the last couple of weeks, she got very old very quickly. On Wednesday I took her to the vets, just to check if there was anything she needed. When the blood tests they ran came back on Thursday, the results indicated that cancer was likely. I’d said it to her before, but as I sat with her that evening, tracing patterns on her tummy, I asked her to tell me when she had had enough, and promised to listen.

When I got up on Friday, she was telling me. She didn’t get up to greet me when I came with her morning medication; she didn’t eat the treats I left for her as a reward for letting me do her insulin injection; she was wobbly on her feet.

I was crying, and she slowly got up and led me to the special tummy rub place under the window, and let me stroke her soft fur and whisper a parting.

I called the vets, and the receptionist arranged for me to go in an hour. Part of me wishes it had been longer; the rest of me knows that I would have spent that time incapacitated with grief and fear, and it would only have stressed her out.

She went to sleep peacefully; she never knew a thing about it.

And the grief is so strong.

I lost my Mum in February, after her 30 year battle with MS. I had lived with her all my 37 years, first as she raised me, and then as I cared for her.

So I had just clawed my way through eight months of intense grief and was finally seeing some light.

Now I feel I am right back at the start. I know this will be a long grieving process. I know that it is compounded by grief for my Mum, and other things that are going on in my life. I don’t want to be here again, but here I am.

All this to say, I am going through extremes of emotions at the moment. My life is loaded with grief. If you are sensitive about the subject, my tag is ‘grief tag’ and if I reblog or post anything else pertaining to pet death, it will be tagged ‘pet death’.

Please bear with me as I go through this painful process, and thank you all for the small interactions we have on tumblr.

Photo of Suki under the cut

#pet death #grief tag #tw: pet death #Suki #my posts

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motparadis · 9 months ago

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dear dad

it’s been almost three months since your passing. how many more months had passed since we last spoke on the phone? i can’t quite recall. and if i remember correctly, the last time i ever saw you in person was christmas of 2015. early morning, you left vancouver on a greyhound, after an uncomfortable and generally unenjoyable visit for the holidays. we could have seen each other in 2019 but you decided not to come to my college graduation. i was disappointed but not surprised. maybe relieved, too. your only other visit to maine was incredibly stressful for me - you don’t have a cell phone because they “cause cancer” so we couldn’t find you at the bus stop. we stopped by every shitty motel on pleasant street before we saw you and picked you up. eight years. i can’t believe that more than eight years have passed since i last saw you in person. i have grown into a whole person you did not and could not know. i earned two degrees. i started then changed careers. i got married. i became an adult. i kept putting off visiting you in california because it is, or was, frankly hard to be around you. i keep writing in the present tense which says a lot. it’s like schrodinger’s cat, you are in two states at once, both alive and dead. because your passing did not change the day-to-day of my life, so it’s hard to feel the weight of it all. but it’s final, and i won’t ever see you again. you could have been a different man and had a better life. but your mental illness shrouded a path forward. that’s schizophrenia for you. your reality was different than mine, but it was your reality nevertheless. and i can only imagine how the voices and delusions and the loneliness were all too real. and i’m sorry things weren’t different. i don’t know why you developed schizophrenia, if there was any contributing factors. i have a story in my head about me being present at the doctor’s office when they diagnosed you, but i don’t know if that is real or not. i don’t think it is. i worry for myself, that i will turn out like you. i’ve memorized the statistic by heart. how you are 10% more likely to develop schizophrenia if a first-degree relative like a parent has it. you’ve already contributed to my depression, my anxiety, my deep rooted distrust of men. it would be just my luck, my draw of the genetic lottery. will malignant growths on my reproductive organs kill me by age 43 or will i spend my later years on a different planet than everyone else? dad, i don’t even feel like i fit in during my grief support group. i am there for you, for my loss of you, but i don’t know what to share. the people in my group loved the people they lost. i loved you too but i don’t have many positive memories of you. the facilitator asked if there are traits i hold that would allow others to see a little part of you within me. and i don’t know, because i never got to know who you were. i wish i knew more about who you were before you got sick. i do have little shards of your selfhood to grasp onto, to attribute some greater meaning. your love of music: bob marley, woody guthrie. maybe the artists we listened to on all of our car rides is what made me a little anti-establishment. you loved swimming and biking and found serenity when you moved your body, until you were too sick to do that anymore. you collected national geographic magazines, you liked to write me letters. you considered yourself a pacifist, someone who didn’t want to harm others. i don’t know what else to say. you have caused me so much pain. but despite it all, i don’t hold much anger in my heart for you. i pity you. i resent you. but i can’t boil it down to a simple anger. all that is left to say is i love you, and i hope you are at peace.

#personal #not poetry #2024

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makeste · 4 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 308: VIBE: CHECKED

Previously on BnHA: Lots and lots of Shindou idk what else to tell you.

Today on BnHA: Tired Nomad Deku rescues Shindou from Muscular, and us from Shindou. Muscular is all “OH BOY I SURE CAN’T WAIT TO FIGHT DEKU AGAIN AFTER HE TOTALLY KICKED MY ASS THE LAST TIME!! I’M SURE THIS TIME WILL GO DIFFERENTLY SEEING AS HE’S HAD ALMOST AN ENTIRE YEAR’S WORTH OF ADDITIONAL TRAINING, AND ALSO HAS SIX FOURQUIRKS NOW, IN ADDITION TO THE CONFIDENCE THAT COMES WITH HAVING EIGHT OTHER PEOPLE’S SOULS CHILLING OUT INSIDE HIM OFFERING MORAL SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT.” Deku is all, “[kicks Muscular’s ass effortlessly].” Muscular is all, “[gets his ass totally kicked].” I for one am very satisfied with this, and with respect to all, I would like to hereby declare this post a discourse-free zone. I’m just happy to see my son out here making good use of his FOURQUIRKS, and more importantly beating Muscular in less than seventeen pages so we can all go on with our lives lol.

damn Deku since when were you allowed to look this cool

from this perspective and with the smoke, cape, backpack, and mask more or less obscuring his actual profile, he looks less like a sixteen-year-old boy and more like a grownass man

OH SNAP

we got a glimpse of this in the cleaned-up scan of 307, but seeing both of his eyes looking so distinctively All Might-esque here is... whoa. I mean we know that his face still looks pretty normal underneath the mask and he doesn’t actually have the black sclera, but still, this is an awesome look. mini-Might

lol Muscular

you and me both. I mean no offense, but yeah

so Deku is just standing there silently

typical Deku. tight-lipped and expressionless. mum’s the word. quiet as a mouse. silent as a grave

okay no but seriously this is so weird and creepy though you guys. Deku please say something or else I’m just gonna mindlessly say whatever stupid things come into my head in an effort to make things less awkward

so Muscular is all “I should probably make a cool speech about revenge but Horikoshi couldn’t think of anything good so I’m just going to stand here clenching my fist real slowly”

“I’m not here to go on a monologue” he says, as he monologues about not monologuing

okay you guys I confess I have only read through/watched the Deku VS Muscular fight once because the arm-breaking is just way too uncomfortable for me to revisit. and so as a result, I have completely forgotten Whatever The Deal Is with Muscular’s eye lmao so let me go look it up real quick

okay so it’s a prosthetic, obviously, and he changes it out according to his mood. that part does sound familiar. I just can’t remember which eye is supposed to indicate which mood. don’t tell me I actually have to go back and reread this shit

lol I’m skimming through chapter 75 now and remembering/realizing that I hardly paid any attention to this the first time around because as soon as I found out the villains were after Kacchan my brain was like “TIME TO FOCUS ON THIS AND ONLY THIS NOW AND FOREVER” and yeah. ah memories

anyway so he started out with the flower-looking eye, and then later on he was all

which begs the question, how on earth could I have ever forgotten the most ridiculous panel I’ve ever read lmao

anyway, but so after all of that, I'm only just now realizing that this isn't one of his previous eye prosthetics in the current chapter; this is an ACTUAL FUCKING ROCK that he's just randomly shoved into his eye socket fkdsjlk

so basically (1) I did all of that painstaking research for nothing, five whole minutes of my life wasted THANKS A LOT, and (2) what, and I have never meant this more emphatically, THE FUCK

anyway so now he's leaping at the building that Deku is standing on top of. but he’s not aiming anywhere near Deku though, wtf

(ETA: HAHA YOU BROKE ALL YOUR MUSCLES YOU LOSER.)

...huh

lmao okay then. I hope those annoying citizens in the building next door are watching this go down and rethinking their life choices

dlkdkljk

just keep standing there pressed right up against the window, why don’t you. “WHAT’S GOING ON THIS SUPER CLOSE COLLAPSING BUILDING IS BLOCKING OUR VIEW.” well, folks, we’ve long since known there’s a critical shortage of hero and villain brain cells, but what we’re learning now is that civilian brain cells are also in short supply

OH THANK GOD DEKU IS FINALLY TALKING THAT WAS ACTUALLY UNSETTLING AS FUCK

SO HE’S STILL OUR GOOD, POLITE, WORRIED, CONSIDERATE DEKU UNDERNEATH THAT COOL AND MYSTERIOUS VENEER. for real, thank fuck, because I swear to god if he suddenly started acting like the Dekus in all of the vigilante AUs my interest in this series would have dropped something like 50% lol. just because he dropped out of school and ran away from home and is currently dressed like the physical manifestation of a Linkin Park playlist doesn’t mean he’s not still the WORLD’S BIGGEST DORK okay

I MEAN, THIS RIGHT HERE. THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. HE’S APOLOGIZING FOR THE DELAY

PLEASE FIND THE ATTACHED SHINDOU YOU REQUESTED. BEST REGARDS!!!

OH MY GOD WHY IS HE SUCH A BADASS

something about making bold, confident statements while obscured in smoke?? idk but damn it fucking works

ffjkkl

more importantly, should you tell him you actually need your copy of Shindou in excel format and not pdf?? on the one hand you don’t want to sound ungrateful, but on the other hand what are you even supposed to do with this

this chapter so far consists of like 50% smoke, but on the other hand Deku VS Kacchan 2 had a lot of cinematic smoke too so who am I to complain

OMG IS IT HIS ARMS

IDK DID YOU?! TELL ME YOUR SECRETS. PLEASE, AT SOME POINT THIS FIGHT HAS GOT TO ACTUALLY ADVANCE THE PLOT

OHHHHHHH

IT’S EN’S QUIRK!! OH MY GOD OKAY THAT’S ACTUALLY AWESOME

I CAN HEAR THE SOUND OF DISCOURSE RUMBLING IN THE BACKGROUND BUT I DON’T CARE LOL. WON’T CATCH ME EVER SAYING NO TO ANOTHER SIXQUIRK. GO AHEAD, BRING THEM ON, I WANT TO SEE THEM ALL but take it easy though Deku. don’t want to give yourself lung cancer or anything

also it’s good to see that in a very real sense he’s not fighting alone. the Vestiges really did mean it when they said they could appear more easily now. this is on a whole other level

so is this whole next page still En talking, or someone else? because whoever it is sure is chatty

okay, several things

pretty sure it is En, because he keeps saying “I suppose.” for someone who never said two words until one page ago, this guy sure never shuts up. we can’t all follow Muscular’s lead I suppose. oh my god now I’m doing it too

really like the suggestion of Deku using the SIXQUIRKS like tools in an arsenal, because that’s what he’s good at! it’s almost like he’s been training for this his entire life. “you value quirks too much” LOOK HE JUST THINKS THEY’RE COOL OKAY IS THAT A CRIME

where the fuck did all this rope come from

not gonna ask what the fuck that thing is sticking out from the back of his utility belt. Horikoshi will surely explain this

is that a fucking jetpack. I’m sorry Deku were six fucking quirks not enough for you. you can fucking float??? but JUST TO BE SAFE, LET’S STRAP A PAIR OF ROCKETS TO OUR SHOULDERS IDK

-- or wait, is this all supposed to be like a visual representation of En’s metaphor?? OH MY GOD AM I JUST STUPID LOL, DON’T ANSWER THAT. NEVER MIND. NEW LIST!!

rope = blackwhip

jetpack = float

radio = danger sense

and so I’m guessing that this ridiculously phallic thing is supposed to be a flare or something?? and that = the new quirk, smokescreen. well that was a fucking ride lmao we now return you to our regularly scheduled chapter

so now Deku is floating to his heart’s content and thinking that he’ll just sneak up on Muscular and vibe check his ass or whatever

WOOOOOOOO DANGER SENSE YESSSS I LOVE THIS FOR HIM

okay guys, I'm gonna press pause here for a sec to make a serious note, because I am loving the shit out of this, but tbh I'm having trouble enjoying it as much as I want to because I keep getting anxious thinking about the discourse. I know that a lot of the fandom has very strong opinions on Deku's character development one way or the other, and I want to respect that. but I also really have no spoons to debate this topic at all beyond what I’ve already weighed in on. so if it’s all the same to everyone, I plan on staying out of this discussion, at least this week

anyway! that said, YEAH BOI GET HIS ASS

VIBE: CHECKED. CURB: STOMPED. HOTEL: TRIVAGO

-- OF COURSE HE’S STILL FUCKING FINE LOL HE CRASHES INTO BUILDINGS FOR FUN IDK WHAT I WAS EXPECTING

dammit Muscular. how many fucking quirks does it take to beat you?! the annoying thing is that even with all of his cool new powers, Deku is still something of a mismatch against him. anyway r.i.p. to all these poor buildings

OOOOOHHHHH

you guys have no idea how intrigued I am at the prospect of watching Deku try to play both good cop and bad cop here lmao

anyway so Muscular says he doesn’t know, go figure

“I’m not here to make small talk or anything” he says as he small talks about not small talking

OH MY GOD DEKU

are you really gonna talk no jutsu all of these villains from now on?? that last battle really did have a profound impact on you, huh! interesting

you guys he’s really doing it omg

Deku this guy tried to murder a five-year-old literally just for fun. I mean more power to you, but holy shit you’re really gonna try to defeat Muscular with anger management therapy huh

I MEAN

WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THAT RESPONSE COMING dlkjslkjk

FUCK’S SAKE DEKU, I KNOW YOU MEAN WELL BUT THEY CAN’T ALL HAVE TRAGIC PASTS KIDDO

but. I have to admit, I do still like that he tried. probably knew just as well as we did what the end result was going to be, but still. he made the effort in good faith and I respect that

uh oh

why do I get the feeling Muscular just got a whole lot deader

oh my god oh my god he’s doing the “powering up” stance ffff don’t fucking tell me you can still use your fucking arms here, Deku

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY WHAT’S THIS??

okay so basically he’s saying that whatever it was he sensed in Tomura, he doesn’t sense from Muscular. which, yeah, that sounds exactly right. good judge of character here lol

AHHHHAHAHA YESS

WHOOPS, GET FUCKED I GUESS

WOOOOHOOOOOOOO

lmao so apparently this is the belated result of Shindou’s attack from chapter 307?? I’ll be damned. good for you Shindou!! I always liked you buddy. please just take my word on that and don’t fact check that statement

okay lol the one tiny bit of discourse I will allow is that it’s bullshit that he just did that with his right arm. like, I’ll fully acknowledge that. that makes no fucking sense, and I demand an explanation from the Great Plot Hole Filler himself. he’s never let us down before when it comes to continuity so I’m trusting him not to suddenly start now

that said, we love to see a rematch against a boring guy settled quickly and decisively within the span of a single chapter. THANK YOU

I like that Deku implies that his power is being a smart nerd who battles villains using the power of ANALYTICS. he basically didn’t do anything except restrain Muscular and wait for Shindou’s attack to take effect while halfheartedly checking to see if he regretted any of that murder and stuff

(ETA: and almost forgot to mention, he made excellent use of all four of his active SIXQUIRKS. it’s like the chapter title said; this is basically him fighting all-out, and it’s a sight to see.)

also, as cool as the mask was, this just feels right. like, we had our fun, now let us see his face, yes good

anyway, I think this was a good start towards establishing What’s Up With Deku Right Now! so if it’s all the same to Horikoshi, I would next like to take some time to explore Why’s Up With Deku. that, and What’s Up With Everyone Else, Especially Kacchan. por favor

#bnha 308 #midoriya izuku #muscular (bnha)#bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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shyficwriter · 3 years ago

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Temporary Home: Chapter 16

Guardians of the Galaxy fanfic | Reader x Guardians (With Yondu and Kraglin!)

Summary: Peter takes the ride into town as an opportunity to be extra annoying, but you also finally find out just how he got into space. The prank war continues. Will you finally declare Peter "The Prank Master," or has he finally met his match?

Previous Chapter here | Next Chapter Here Or click here to: Start From Beginning

Author’s Note: This is a long one! Also, for my records this chapter ends on day 29 of the Guardians living with reader. Enjoy!

Word Count: 7,661

Peter's face was still red by the time you finished pulling your boots on. He had just come out of the bathroom and stood near you as you got up from the bench. He had a strange look about his face and when you went to ask, "What?" he grabbed your wrist with a wet hand and said, "Don't ya hate when you pee on your hands?"

This, of course, was revenge for you embarrassing him just a few minutes prior.

Your expression turned murderous and you ripped your arm away. Was he serious? How dare he! What the hell was wrong with him!? Just as you were angrily saying, "I'm going to fucking kill you!" and absolutely looking like you'd actually follow through, Peter held up his hands and said through laughter, "It's a joke! It's just a joke! It's just water! I promise!"

You backed down slightly, anger still burning in your eyes. "You know I don't have to take you, right? Fury said I could take anyone who passes for human." Just then Kraglin walked by and you gestured to him. "I could just take him instead if you want to start out being a little shit."

Kraglin grinned at the two of you and, clearly seeing that Peter had managed to push your buttons already, said, "Nah. I can catch the next one," and continued on his way up the stairs.

You huffed in his direction before turning to Peter in frustration. "Just get in the car. And don't piss me off."

Peter gave a little mock-salute and followed you out.

You could have killed him on the ride into town. The annoyance was constant.

He started by turning up the radio and singly badly along with the songs, made worse due to the fact that most of which he didn't know the words to. Eventually you couldn't take it anymore and you shut the radio off.

He tried to turn it back on a bit later and you smacked his hand away, only able to do so now that your braced arm wasn't in a sling and you could now grip the wheel with both hands.

He then started asking, "Are we there yet?" about every minute. He knew you weren't close.

This was coupled with the classic, "I'm not touching you!" game. You almost didn't notice for the first five minutes, intent on ignoring him and keeping your eyes on the road. When you finally did notice and tell him to knock it off, well, you know what he responded with.

You were fuming when you finally pulled into the post office. You threw the car into park and angrily ordered him to sit quietly and promptly left him.

He was actually starting to wonder if maybe he should cool it for a bit. You did look pretty mad... probably still weren't over the whole fake pee on hands prank. Maybe he shouldn't go through with what he was considering next?

When you finished your business in the mail office and returned to the car you were actually surprised to find that he had behaved. You don't know what you had actually expected him to do- maybe get out and crouch beside the car to make you think he'd run off?- but no. He was still sitting right where you left him.

You get back behind the wheel and toss your mail on the dash, prepared to head to the grocery shop. Peter doesn't say anything.

The short ride over you were a little leery of just how quiet he was being. He was too quiet. When you pulled in park at the grocery lot you turned to give him a suspicious look.

"What?" he asked innocently, returning your gaze.

"You. What are you up to?"

"What ever do you mean?" He wore a face of innocence, but you knew better.

"The whole ride into town you didn't let up with all your annoying shit, now on the ride from the post office to here you act like a perfect angel. I don't trust it."

"Thought you could use a break is all, you seemed really cranky." A grin was starting to crack Peter's innocent façade. "You know... I think I know what might cheer you up..."

Your eyes narrowed. "Peter-" Whatever he intended, judging by his tone you knew it couldn't be good.

Before you could say more his hand darted out to connect with that spot above your knee, which of course made you spasm in your seat and cackle loudly. Whatever you had been expecting, for some reason you foolishly didn't consider that. You really should have though, considering how often you would now get teased with little pokes and squeezes. Unfortunately for you, a good portion of your guests were apparently an affectionate bunch... Or maybe they just liked to annoy you. You weren't sure which.

You smacked and pushed at his hand but he didn't let up. "Peter! Peter stop that this instant!" you scolded through your laughter.

"Come on, cheer up sour-puss!" he teased in a high voice, still squeezing rapidly into the muscle. "Being stuck with me isn't that bad."

"You little shit!" you cried, smacking at him again, your eyes closed tightly as you laughed and kicked to the best of your ability, trying your best not to accidentally lash out and hit the horn. You were effectively trapped by having a car as your surroundings. So unfair. "Stop it! Cut it out!"

Peter finally stopped and grinned at you as you caught your breath, chuckling when you punched him in the shoulder.

"You're such a brat!" you said, residual giggles still slipping out. However, you didn't seem quite as angry as you had been, so Peter counted it as a win. Maybe now you wouldn't be quite as cranky with him when you discovered the prank he had pulled on you. Honestly he was surprised you hadn't noticed before you sat down...

After a moment you spoke again. "Come on, let's get this over- aw shit."

"What?" Peter asked, confused by your sudden change of tone.

"You didn't bring those sunglasses with you this time, did you?"

"Oh..." Peter's eyes widened in realization. Not wanting to have to wait out in the car he thought to reason. "I think it'll be ok. I mean, It's been what- like 26 years since I went missing? And I wasn't even from this area of Earth so I really doubt anyone would recognize me-"

Your eyes widen as big as saucers. "Excuse me?"

"What?"

"Went missing??" Had you seriously heard him right? Did Fury know?Who were you kidding? Of course Fury knew. Fury knew everything.

"Oh... so you didn't know about that... Ha- well it's fine! Honest! I was just trying to let you know it'll be fine if I don't wear some lame disguise like sunglasses-"

"That's not why I had insisted on the sunglasses! It was for any possible undercover aliens looking for you! I didn't know you'd be on the missing persons bulletin!"

Peter could see you were stressed. That wasn't good in his opinion. You'd be no fun to pick on if you were worried, so he tried to smooth it over. After all, it really was fine. "Look, everything's fine. Ok? I was on that list for missing people, Fury told me that shortly after we arrived, but we talked about it and he made sure I was wiped from it just in case."

You relaxed a little, sitting back in your seat. You turn to look at him again. "Twenty-six years... that means you were, what? Ten?"

"Eight," he corrected.

"That's not better." you reply, and then a realization hit you. "Wait- is that how you got into space? Were you literally abducted by aliens?" Yes, you might have been aware of aliens due to your employment by SHIELD, but from the little you had seen of and about them you had come to assume that the whole "alien abduction" thing was a myth crazy people talked about. They just barely came here, let alone had use for random Earth people.

"Like I said, it's a long story." Peter answered, "We should probably get going." he cracked his door open and gestured with his head towards the store.

Remembering yourself, you give a half nod and exit your vehicle so you could complete the shop visit.

As the two of you walked towards the shop you speak up. "Is it alright if I ask what happened? You don't have to answer if it's a bad memory or anything. I'm just curious about... you know..."

"What?"

"Like, you must have had a family? Now that you're here, why haven't you tried to find them?"

Peter looked like he was searching for the right words. "It's kinda complicated."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"

"No, it's fine." he said as the two of you entered the shop.

You grabbed a trolley and looked at him to see if he would continue, but hoping that he wouldn't feel you were pressuring him.

After a moment he did continue. "My mom died right before it happened. Literally minutes before." Seeing the look on your face and realizing what you might be assuming he clarified. "It was cancer. She'd been sick a long time."

"I'm so sorry." You say, leading him towards the haircare section of the store to start knocking things off your list.

He shook his head, trying to vanish the memory of her lying in that hospital bed. "Yeah... me too." He sighed and went on to say how when it happened he was upset, and angry. She was gone just like that and he didn't know what to do. So he just ran. He ran outside the hospital and then just collapsed on the lawn. Next thing he knew there was the bright light of a spaceship right above him, and it took him.

"It just randomly came by took you? For no reason?" You ask, approaching the hair wash section and deciding on a conditioner that you thought Gamora might like the scent of. You turned to Peter for his opinion and he pointed out a lavender scented one before answering about the motives of his abductors.

"No, they had a reason" he said, "Turned out my father was this celestial being and sent them to fetch me. But of course I didn't know that at the time. Like I said, mom had cancer. In her brain. So when she said my dad was this 'angel' composed of 'pure light', of course no one believed her. They just thought it was the tumor."

"Oh. Wow." You didn't know what to say to that as the two of you were now walking over to the moisturizers. Eventually you settled on, "So you've been with your dad then?" Just as you finished that sentence something clicked in your brain, but you thought for sure it couldn't be right, could it? "Wait, do you mean Yondu? He's your father?"

Peter laughed. "Are you serious? Drax thought the same thing. "

You frowned slightly, picking out a decent smelling lotion and dropping it into the basket. "Well, I have heard him refer to you as "my boy" at least a couple times, and you just said your dad was alien. I think you could see why I might now make that connection there."

Peter smiled softly, seeming lost in thought. "Yeah, yeah I guess. But not exactly. You see, Yondu was the guy my father hired to fetch me. He was supposed to take me to him, but he didn't. He kept me."

You gave Peter a confused look as you led the way towards the razors. You knew from Peter's last story that Yondu had been the captain of a faction of space-pirates called Ravagers before joining the Guardians, but this bit was news to you. Apparently Peter was with the Ravagers before the Guardians of the Galaxy, but why had Yondu kept him? Why not just give him to his father?

Peter continues. "I know what you're thinking, but like I said, it's complicated. He kept me to protect me. 'Course, for the longest time he never told me that. Always said he kept me 'cause I was skinny and good for thieving."

"Protect you from... your father?" You asked. How bad must his father have been for a space pirate captain to decide the kid was better off joining the crew? You raised an eyebrow at him as you grabbed some decent disposable razors off the shelf. Upon second thought, you grabbed some refill-heads as well.

"Yeah. Remember how I told you about that time we saved the galaxy from Ronan, and I was able to touch the Infinity stone without immediately dying?"

"Yeah?" You now led the way towards the DIY section. You knew it was unlikely, but hopped that maybe the shop carried some filler so you might finally repair that chip in the wall above the back door from where Yondu killed that spider for you. You would have already fixed it by now, but the tub of filler you did have was long dried up. Kraglin asked about it the other day, stating he didn't remember that being there when they arrived, and you passed it off as the house being old, unwilling to admit what had actually happened.

"Well, word spread about that pretty fast because I shouldn't have been able to do that." Peter continued, following beside you. "My father caught word of a man who was able to hold an infinity stone and live, and knew it had to be me, so he tracked me down."

"And that was... bad?" You asked, turning into your desired aisle.

"Not at first. At first it was cool. He took us back to his planet- that's where we met Mantis- and this next part is really gonna blow your mind, the whole planet was him."

"What? How does that even work?"

"Honestly, I don't even fully get it, but like I said, he was a celestial. He just was the planet. The guy who we met was just like this... avatar version he made of himself to travel and stuff. He had like these magic powers, and he taught me how to use them... kinda."

"Wait, so you have special powers?" you ask, "I had no idea." You were so surprised by these revelations that you almost missed the small tubs of repair filler the shop did carry, but recovered and placed one in the basket.

Peter rubbed the back of his head. "Well, not exactly. Not anymore. You see, they came from his celestial genes- it's the only reason I was able to hold onto that infinity stone and live- but anyway, I don't have them anymore. I um, I kinda had to... kill him. And when he died so did the light, so I'm just a regular Terran now."

"What?!" you gave him a very confused look. "Did you just say you killed your own dad?" You tried to keep your voice low. You had been lucky to avoid too many other shoppers during this conversation, but just then a couple of boys walked by. You eyed them, but they were lost in their own conversation and didn't seem to have heard or cared about what you had said. You continued towards the cleaning supplies, remembering you were dangerously low on various cleaners for the bathrooms.

"Again, complicated," Peter replied. "He turned out to be not such a good dude. Long story short, He had this plan to expand and make the entire universe him, like he would literally be the only thing left, but he needed another celestial to help him- that's where I came in. Apparently he had a butt-load of other kids, but I was the only one that actually inherited the celestial gene. Well, obviously I had doubts about his whole plan. I mean, all my friends would be gone, for one." He chuckled. "But he was... quite convincing. I don't even think I could describe the things he showed me..." He trailed off, and then seemed to remember himself a moment later. "Anyway, eventually he told me he was the one who put the tumor in my mom's head and that finally snapped me out of it."

You were taken aback. "Oh my god. I'm so sorry. That's awful!"

He shrugged. "Nah. Don't be. That guy was a jackass. I mean, who names themself "Ego" anyways?"

"Probably the type of person who wants to literally be the center of the universe," you quipped.

Peter chuckled and nudged you in the shoulder, apparently appreciative of the joke. "Yeah. I suppose it probably was fitting for him..." he stared off for a moment. "Anyway, it's funny that you thought that Yondu was my father, because all that happening made me realize that Yondu had actually kinda been my dad all along."

You give him a quizzical look as the two of you reach the aisle you were looking for, and he just grins knowingly in return. "Complicated?" you say, sure that that would be his answer.

"Yes and no." Peter answered, and then just let the silence linger.

After a bit you asked him. "You said Ego had other children? Do you know what ever happened to them?"

Peter frowned. "He killed them. They didn't have what he needed, so he just killed them. There was a whole cavern on the planet filled with their bones."

You only managed a soft, "Oh." You felt your stomach twist. What kind of bastard would kill their own- You shook that thought away, telling yourself to compose yourself. Not now.

"Yeah. I know. Pretty dark." Peter said, his tone obvious he was trying his best to keep it light. He didn't say anything, but he saw something in you change a little when he revealed Ego just murdered his own kids like it was nothing, and he remembered a previous conversation he had with you about that job you had in Romania and part of him wished he had lied just then. He tried to steer the conversation in a happier direction for both of your sakes. He didn't like to think about it either. "Apparently at some point Yondu had found out what Ego had been doing with all those kids he had him fetch, and that's why he kept me. I think I turned out alright, all things considered." He nudged you and gave you a wide cheeky grin.

You couldn't help but grin as you responded, "I dunno... depends if any of that contributed to how annoying you are." You located the toilet cleaners and plunked a couple bottles in the trolley.

"Hey!" Peter mock-pouted, but he was glad that the mood had been lifted again.

The two of you walked in silence towards the tub cleaners when Peter suddenly says, "Oh hey, you dropped something."

You stop and look around for whatever might have fallen out of the trolley, asking him what you had dropped.

Peter grinned and said, "Your speed."

You roll your eyes at him. You weren't sure if you were more annoyed at the lameness of the joke, or the fact that you fell for it. "Really? You're gonna start that again?"

"Yup." Peter grinned.

You just shook your head and continued down the aisle to grab some disinfectant wipes, but little did he know you had a trick up your sleeve.

The wipes were just before the air fresheners and after you grabbed the wipes and were walking past you picked up a refill at random and said, "Oh hey, you should smell this."

"Nice try, I'm not falling for that." Peter said.

"Falling for what?" you ask innocently.

"I bet it smells like crap, you're just trying to get me back for the other day."

You roll your eyes dramatically. "It says on the package it's 'Blossom and Breeze.' Here," you smell it yourself to prove to him it wasn't nasty. "See? You're so paranoid. They wouldn't sell these if they smelled bad." You offer the item back to him with an unimpressed look.

Seeming mostly convinced he hesitantly takes the item from you and slowly brings it up to sniff it. Then he looks confused. "I don't smell anything?"

You knew he wouldn't, it was encased in plastic, but that wasn't the prank. "Oh, you might need to breathe deeper, they put the scent in the cardboard bit so people can test it before they buy it, it can be a little faint." This was a blatant lie. Sure, this could have made a decent prank on it's own, but it still wasn't the prank you were going for. It was more of a distraction until that group of pretty young women you clocked entering the aisle earlier when grabbing the wipes had made their way close enough, which they would in 3... 2... 1...

You snatched the item away from a now very confused Peter.

"These don't go in your mouth! How many times do I gotta tell you!?" you ask, acting exasperated.

Peter opened his mouth but seemed at a loss for words. Then he noticed the handful of pretty women walking by who were now staring at him and giggling to each other behind their hands as you said, "They're not gonna taste like how they smell, we've been over this!"

His cheeks started to redden and he turned his attention from the departing group of young ladies to you, his expression switching from wide-eyed and embarrassed to unamused, having now understood what you did.

You were giggling now and he narrowed his eyes at you. "Not cool, dude!"

You tossed the item back on the shelf and, still giggling, said, "But it sure was funny."

Peter just grumbled and followed you to the grocery section.

You spotted some brownie mix and asked him if he thought his friends might like to try brownies.

"Probably. And if they don't like them, more for us." He punctuated the sentence by taking the box from your hand and plopping it in the trolley, making you shake your head and giggle at him.

You then grabbed the couple snacks that had been requested as well as a few things you'd enjoy, including some ice-cream since you found the guys had eaten all of it when you returned from your last trip into town.

Just as you were dropping the ice cream in the trolley Peter decided that would be time for his revenge. There were several people about doing their shopping in that particular aisle when he suddenly said out loud, "Hey, is that rash still contagious?"

You looked at him, mortified, and you noticed the people start to quietly but quickly clear out of the aisle. You give him a glare, but just sigh and say, "Well played."

"I thought so." Peter replied, looking proud of himself.

"Still not 'The Master.'"

"We'll see," he chuckled.

You finished up the trip, and headed home. Gratefully, Peter wasn't nearly as annoying on the return trip.

You supposed the whole trip could have gone worse. It really was too bad you didn't get a chance to go alone though. You might have been able to grab some glitter for... nefarious purposes. Though, you supposed you could always order it online. Oh well, at least you managed to pick up some jelly. He wouldn't be suspicious of jelly... until you used it against him, that is.

***

It wouldn't be until you had been home for a little bit that you would discover what prank Peter had pulled on you in the car. Or rather, Kraglin discovered it.

You were getting a glass of water when Kraglin cleared his throat and awkwardly asked you why there was blue tape on your bottom.

You raised and eyebrow and reached back while Rocket snickered and teased Kraglin, asking him why he had been looking at your ass.

Kraglin began to stutter. "I-I wasn't! It's just- The tape is bright blue! Her pants are black! How was I not supposed to see it!?" He was blushing now and decided to just leave the room. Why did the rat have to be such a dick?

You peeled the strip of blue tape off your butt and looked at it with a half frown before looking up at Peter who was standing with Rocket and grinning. "You have anything to do with this?" you ask accusingly. Who were you kidding? It's not like you just happened to sit on blue tape. Of course he had something to do with it, but how?

Peter grinned wider then pulled the rest of the roll out of one of his pockets. "I put a piece of this sticky side up in your car seat before you got out of the Post Office." He then tossed the roll to you. "Found it in one of those drawers," he said, pointing to the drawers behind you.

"I see you fancy yourself the Artful Dodger," you say in annoyance to his confession that he had knicked the tape with the sole purpose of annoying you. You also realized this meant you had walked around the whole shop with blue tape on your bottom. Well, you supposed there were worse things... like what you were sure to do with that blue dye tonight.

"I have no idea what that means." Peter replied.

You roll your eyes at him, but not altogether surprised he didn't get the reference. "Nevermind." you say, tossing the tape back in the drawer. "Childish..."

Peter just chuckled and left the kitchen.

***

If you hadn't been set on using that food dye to prank Peter the past few days, you definitely were now.

Sometime after discovering the blue tape, you went upstairs and thought you might put one of your sticky notes to use. You stuck with the classic, 'kick me', sign, and thought it'd be a good idea to sneak up behind and jump-scare him and use that as a diversion to stick it to his back. It worked as expected.

It took him less than half an hour to find it. Or rather, Mantis found it, and asked him why he had a sign telling people to kick him on his back. She plucked the sign from his shirt and he turned to see what she was talking about. Taking the sticky note from her, he frowned in annoyance for becoming victim to one of the oldest tricks in the book, and then shouted your name.

You, of course, didn't answer. Just smiled behind your book in your room, of course not realizing that your prank had technically failed.

In revenge, Peter decided to bring up a video on YouTube he came across the previous day titled, "Broken TV screen 1 hour" and set it to play on full screen. Then he went to fetch you.

***

You were in the kitchen when Rocket startled you by jumping up to climb up your back without warning. He had managed to climb all the way up to your head when you let out a startled yelp and asked, "What are you doing??" as you jerked from the unexpected sensation of being climbed on.

"Hold still, will ya? Just needed a boost up to reach up to this cabinet, don't get your panties in a bunch," he said with half a chuckle, balancing himself on your head as he opened the cupboard.

"You never needed one before now!" you said, irritated. That was the cupboard you kept the glasses in, and you'd seen him get up there just fine plenty of times without needing a human ladder.

"Eh. You were there," he said, amusement in his voice. It was seemingly clear he had only done this to annoy you.

"Will you hurry up and get down!" you said, trying to keep the giggles out of your voice as his tail was flitting over your ear.

"What, ya got somewhere to be?" he asked sarcastically.

"Yes! Anywhere without a rac- a furry little beast sitting on my head!" you replied through gritted teeth. You were still trying- and mostly failing- to hide your giggles. Yes, maybe you could have told him to cut it out with the tail twitching, but you didn't want to admit that it tickled. Last thing you needed was to reveal a weakness for the raccoon to exploit.

Rocket heard how you almost called him a raccoon, but let it slide because you stopped yourself. Mostly. He'd allow you to live, however, he stayed up there a couple moments more, pretending to take his time deciding on a cup and grinning as he continued flitting his tail over your ear. He knew exactly what he was doing. The little shit.

He finally grabbed a cup and closed the cupboard, teasingly scolding, "Hey, hold still!" when his tail "accidentally" brushed your neck on the way down and you jerked your head to the side from the sensation, and then twitched when he hit a particularly sensitive area of your shoulder blade on his descent. That one actually had been an accident, but he still logged it away for later. Knowing Peter's tickle spots had proved useful as a payback method, he was sure yours would too if needed.

Rocket had just touched down on the floor when Peter sheepishly came in to tell you to come into the sitting room because he needed to show you something. Having a feeling it wasn't going to be good, you sighed and followed him, leaving the raccoon behind.

He was dismayed, however, when your only response to seeing the "broken" TV was to just sigh and say flatly, "Well, I hope you enjoy reading then. Like I told you before, I'm not replacing it."

He blinked. "Wait- you're not mad??" This was not the reaction he expected. He was sure you'd yell at him. You yelled at Rocket when he spilled tomato sauce all over the kitchen, surely you would have had a similar reaction now?

You just stare at him. "While I'm frustrated that you can't respect other people's property enough not to break it, I barely use it anymore since I'm always- well, I was almost always gone for work. Soon as you guys leave it'll be the same. No sense in rewarding bad behavior by getting another for you guys to use when I doubt I'll be using it much once you leave."

Peter rolled his eyes and picked up the controller. "Ugh, you're no fun!" he complained, turning off the video and revealing the TV wasn't actually broken.

"Wait, so that was a prank?" You say in realization.

"Well, yeah!" Peter said in frustration. "It was supposed to be!" Honestly, he was hoping you world have been mad. It would have been funny to reveal the lack after you lost it. But no, of course you would have just hit him with some version of "I'm not mad, just disappointed."

"You know, for someone who keeps claiming to be 'the prank master,' your pranks are kinda lame." You grinned at him. Sure, maybe not all his pranks were lame- the broken screen on might have been a good one had he done it to anyone else, but you'd still say they were to annoy him.

"Oh yeah?" Peter said with a mischievous grin before lunging forward to aim a squeeze-y tickle attack on your sides, making you let out a squeak as you jumped back and smacked him out of reflex.

Giggling, you scold him for being a child and turn to head out of the room, only to bump into Kraglin who just said, "Hi there," before tweaking your ribs.

You laugh and push him away, telling them that they played too much before heading upstairs.

The two men watch you leave and then share a grin. Little did you know, the TV had only been Peter's diversion prank. Not the one that finally made you fully resolve to use the food dye on him.

***

To get him back for both the TV prank and the tickle attack you decided to take a thumbtack from your desk and use it to poke a hole in a can of fizzy drink that you knew only you and he really ever drank. You placed the hole near the top so that when he took a drink it would dribble down onto his shirt and then positioned the can in the fridge towards the front so that he'd grab that one first. It was a clear drink, so you were sure it wouldn't stain. You weren't a complete asshole.

This consideration could be considered ironic, considering what you'd do to him that night.

You grinned from your room when you heard him loudly cursing your name sometime later.

To get you back for that he made use of a few pieces of macaroni pasta he found in the pantry. He went upstairs and placed them under the toilet rim so that when you sat down the sound of them crunching would startle you. It wasn't a foolproof plan, but he knew you were reading upstairs, and most everyone else was downstairs, so he rolled the dice that you'd be the next person to use that toilet.

Awhile later he heard you shout his name in frustration from upstairs and he chuckled in victory. And no, this still wasn't the prank that sealed his fate, although that one was currently in progress...

Sometime later you were in your room on your laptop doing some research and contemplating what a suitable prank might be to get Peter back for the macaroni thing when Mantis came into the room to retrieve something. You switch away from the tab you were in researching tunnel maintenance to one you had open of tumblr and offer her a short greeting.

She returned the greeting and went about her business behind you for a couple minutes.

Then, out of the blue, you felt her fingers skitter up your side. You nearly jump out of your skin from both the startle and the ticklish sensation and a startled laugh escaped your throat as you jerked away in your seat and squeaked out a giggly, "Mantis! What are you doing?!"

She stopped tickling and just giggled in response before jogging out of the room.

You stared after her before returning to your work with a shake of your head. 'Awfully playful bunch tonight,' you thought.

***

A bit later you decided to go out back for some fresh air. When you do, you notice Yondu already out there, leant against the stone of the house and just looking at the clouds pass by.

Not wanting to disturb him you just nod in his direction and say, "Hey," before walking by towards the garden. He returns your greeting and leaves you to it. Or so it seemed.

You reach the garden and stand there in the peace and quiet, glancing over the plants for any sign of insect damage. It's not too long, however, before Yondu walks up behind you and shouts, "Boo!"

You jump right out of your skin and turn to face him. You frown, but before you can ask him what the hell that was for, he starts to tickle your stomach. You laugh out a protest, but he only switches to tickling your ribs instead. You laugh some more and latch onto his wrists to push him away and he relents. Residual giggles still coating your words you scold him. "Jeeze! What was that for?!"

Yondu just grins at you like he was privy to some joke you weren't in on, shrugs, and turns to head back inside without explanation.

You watched him go, beginning to wonder what had gotten into everyone.

***

Turned out it would be Drax who would spill the beans on Peter's prank.

You were minding your own business, washing the dish you had just used for your supper, when you are rudely interrupted by Drax spidering his fingers over your ribs, causing you to laugh out loud and drop the dish in the sink. Luckily it didn't break, but you quickly turn off the tap and spun around to scold him and ask what the big deal was.

You knew something was up now. Rocket might have done it on accident. Peter and Kraglin- well, they just routinely did stuff like that to mess with you. Yondu could also fall in the category of "just did it to mess with you." Mantis- she was playful and it wasn't out of the realm of normal for her to randomly decide to do that just to make you laugh.

Drax, however, though friendly, hadn't shown himself to be the type to just randomly up and decide to tickle someone, namely you, without reason, or ever.

And all of them deciding to do it in one afternoon? No. Something was up.

Drax looked almost confused by your annoyance. "Well the note-"

Your eyes narrowed. "What note?"

"The one on your back."

You quickly reach behind you and feel a piece of paper. Peter. You rip it off and look at it, but find you can't read it. It was written in some alien text. "What's this?" you ask Drax.

"It's the note you taped on your back?" He answers, confused.

"I didn't put this there! I can't even read this! What does it say?" You hand it out towards him, but he doesn't take it.

Instead a look of realization comes over his face and he says. "Oh! This must be one of Peter's practical jokes! Haha! That's a good one. No wonder you looked so surprised!"

"Drax-" you say, your tone frustrated.

"What's going on here?" Gamora asked, having just moments prior walked in on the scene. She walked up to the two of you, concerned she might need to stop a fight before it began. You'd never be able to take on Drax, but she could almost see you trying if he made you angry enough.

You thought that maybe she'd be more help. "Could you tell me what this says? Apparently Peter taped it to my back."

Gamora took the paper and read it. Then she rolled her eyes and huffed a short laugh. "This note reads, 'tickle me.'" It was indeed written in Peter's handwriting, but of all the things he could have written, at least this was innocent enough.

You look up to the ceiling, unamused. You meet her gaze again and say, "Thank you, though respectfully, your boyfriend is a brat."

Gamora smiled. "I'm aware."

You then start towards the frontmost doorway of the kitchen, dish forgotten in the sink, and yell, "PETER! I'm gonna kick your ass!"

This was then followed by the sound of Peter laughing, the sound of running footsteps, and then the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut.

You stop in your pursuit. "Coward." you mutter.

You knew you might be able to catch him, but decided there was better things you could do with your time. Like refine your plan of counter-attack. You change course and head upstairs to lie in wait.

Unfortunately for Peter, his running away ended up giving you the perfect opportunity to strike.

***

Peter spent his time outside walking about the property and listening to his Zune, which he luckily had in his pocket when he fled from the house. He was almost surprised you didn't try to track him down, but he brushed it off, satisfied with his prank and how well it had apparently worked/ how long it took you to realize what he'd done.

He knew it was bold to try and get you back with basically the same prank you had just attempted to pull on him, and so that's why he paid Rocket to pretend like he was climbing on you to reach something so he could be the one to plant it on you. You would have absolutely suspected Peter if he came patting a sign on your back right after you had just pulled that prank on him. The other pranks he pulled were mostly just to cover his tracks. And because it was too fun not to pull them.

It was getting dark by the time he came back in and was late enough that everyone else had apparently already gone to bed as no one was downstairs. He was getting pretty tired himself and almost considered skipping showering that night, but decided against it. Big mistake for him.

Once he got upstairs and gathered his things to go shower he headed for the bathroom. Upon getting closer to the door you emerged from the room and seemed to jump back, startled to see him.

Peter snickered. "Did I scare you?"

You roll your eyes and turn towards your room. "No," you answer.

"Uh huh, sure." He grinned smugly.

"Oh, just go wash your stinky ass, already." you call back as you walk towards your room.

Peter gasped in mock-offense. "I'll let you know my 'stinky ass' smells like a pretty flower!" he joked.

You turn back at your doorway and retort with, "A corpse flower, maybe."

Peter scrunches up his face. "That's not a thing. You just made that up!"

"No, it's totally a thing. Look it up," you respond, laughing. You shut your door before he can respond further.

He shakes his head and enters the bathroom, muttering, "That's so not a thing."

***

You stayed up to hear the aftermath, and it didn't take too long.

Maybe ten minutes later you hear Peter curse your name, followed by, "What did you do?!"

You couldn't help yourself. You stand up to go peak out your door, biting your lip to hold back giggles. When you look out you see that Peter is now standing outside the bathroom, and that his outburst had also prompted the others to look out their doors as well. Kraglin was the first to start laughing.

The prank went better than you might have hoped. Peter only had a towel around his waist, allowing you to see that he was stained in an uneven coat of blue. Most of it was around his head, chest, and shoulders. It seemed to get lighter the further down his body it went, but it was more than enough to satisfy you. You hadn't been fully certain it would work.

When Peter didn't come back until after most everyone had gone to bed, you realized you had the perfect opportunity to carry out the prank. You did still have to wait until everyone else had finished showering though. You didn't want anyone get caught in the crossfire.

You waited for the second you heard him come back inside, just in case, and then you made your way into the bathroom with the vial of food gel. You unscrewed the shower head from its hose, squirted the whole vial in the head portion, then carefully screwed it back on. You were sure he'd take his shower before bed like always and felt safe to boobie-trap the shower head now since everyone else had already washed up for bed.

You did see his bottle of shower gel in the bath as you set up the prank and realized in hindsight that you could have just put the food dye in there instead so you wouldn't have needed to time everything so perfectly. On the other hand, you also didn't quite want to ruin his whole bottle of soap, so it was probably best you went for the shower head method instead.

Either way, it didn't disappoint.

You bit back laughter as you said, "Feeling a little... blue, there, Peter?"

He shot a look at you and responded with, "You massive turd! What did you do?!"

You feel Mantis come to look over your shoulder and she starts giggling at the sight of Peter. "Did you play a practical joke?" Mantis asks you. "That's so funny!"

Peter looks like he's about to storm over to you when Drax can be heard saying, "See! I knew Yondu was his father! Quill's finally starting to grow into his color!"

You couldn't tell if Drax was joking or not, but his comment started off a new round of giggles from Mantis, Kraglin, Rocket, and little Groot.

Peter just glared at him.

Yondu was standing next to Kraglin in the doorway of their room looking both contemplative and sleepy.

"Hey, Quill," Yondu said, getting Peter's attention. "Remember how ya rigged those dye packs up in my dresser drawers as a boy? Looks like ya finally got someone to give ya a taste of your own medicine." With that he made a sleepy retreat back to bed. His comment earned a laugh from Gamora, which made Peter pout.

A slight blush over Peter's cheeks appeared violet through the blue dye. He looked at you again and said, "You're so gonna get it!"

This of course prompted you to quickly usher Mantis back so you could shut the door and flick the lock, laughing as you did so.

It was totally worth it.

#gotg #gotg fanfic #gotg fanfiction #guardians of the galaxy #x reader #yondu udonta #peter quill #starlord #pranks #rocket raccoon #mantis #kraglin obfonteri #drax the destroyer

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niallloverontheloose · 3 years ago

Text

"Learning the Lesson"

https://princeescaluswords.tumblr.com/post/659414877042016256/learning-the-lesson

@princeescaluswords:

Parts of the fandom have often expressed an irrational rage when it comes to the question “why didn’t Scott trust Derek with the secret of Gerard’s cancer and his plan to turn Gerard’s plan to have Derek bite him against him?”

Allow me to provide some insight on Scott’s motivations.

At the beginning of Master Plan (2x12), Scott has been waiting with Isaac for the police, Coach, and the other lacrosse players to leave so he can rip the door off Stiles locker in order to get things for him and Isaac with which to track Stiles down. So who should show up at that point but Derek and Peter.

Allow me to reproduce a snippet of that conversation.

Scott: What the hell is this?

Derek: You know, I thought the same thing when I saw you talking to Gerard at the sheriff’s station.

Scott: Okay, hold on. He - he threatened to kill my mom. And I had to get close to him. What was I supposed to do?

Peter: I’m gonna go with Scott on this one. Have you seen his mom? She’s gorgeous.

Derek/Scott: Shut up.

Isaac: Who is he?

Scott: That’s Peter, Derek’s Uncle. Little while back, he tried to kill us all, and then we set him on fire, and Derek slashed his throat.

Peter: Hi.

Isaac: That’s good to know.

Scott: How is he alive?

Derek: Look, the short version is he knows how to stop Jackson. And maybe how to save him.

In case you forgot, this isn’t the first time that Derek has surprised Scott in the locker room by being in the company of Peter.

Now, Co-Captain (1x10) may have been a year before to the viewing audience, but to the characters here, Derek’s betrayal and brutal violation of Scott in the very same place the present conversation is occurring with the very same person happened somewhere at the beginning or middle of February of 2011 and this is taking place at the end of March 2011, a week or so after Lydia’s birthday party. So that scene in Co-Captain took place six to eight weeks before.

So, suddenly Derek is once again teaming up with Peter, the person – if anyone needed reminding – who not only threatened the life of Scott’s mother, but also his best friend, his girl friend, and anyone Scott was connected to, but also murdered eight people; savaged Lydia; transformed Scott against his will and violated his mind repeatedly, trying to get him to kill his friends. But hey, Scott should so totally trust Derek, right? Right? Right?

I also would like to point out a few other things in this scene that just might suggest that Scott was right not to trust Derek with his Master Plan. When Derek brings up his realization that Scott was seemingly working with Gerard, Scott explains that he was doing it under duress (which he was!) and he was doing it to get close to Gerard (which he did!). Let’s compare that to what Derek said when Scott demanded an explanation in Co-Captain:

Scott: You’re on his side? Are you forgetting the part where he killed your sister?

Derek: It was a mistake.

Scott: What?

Derek: It happens.

There’s a significant difference in these lines, isn’t there? Scott is working with Gerard to stop him and to protect his mother, and Derek worked with Peter because, well, he can understand how mistakes were made.

But hey, Scott, should so totally trust Derek, right? Right? Right?

I also want to point out that Isaac doesn’t know anything about Peter. Not that this should be a news flash to anyone, but Derek hasn’t been particularly forthcoming with his betas about what happened in the SIX WEEKS before he bit them. He says he told them about the hunters, but did he give them the full story about why the hunters were in town? About how he got his alpha abilities? Did he say “Yeah, my uncle became the alpha by murdering my sister and then I became an alpha by murdering him; this is normal in werewolf society – promotion by murder. Wanna join?”

Isaac’s face on the words “That’s good to know” certainly implies it would have been better for him to know this before he said yes to the Bite, don’t you think? Is anyone shocked that in a little over six months, Isaac’s going to have to demand that Derek explain why he did this to them? I’m not.

On the other hand, contrary to what thousands of Sterek shippers believe, Stiles never had to ask about what happened to Gerard. He was never surprised by Gerard still being alive and he certainly didn’t demand an explanation about why Scott did what he did. It’s almost as if he already knew about it and didn’t care. We can’t be 100% sure, of course, but the fact that Isaac, Scott and Boyd all criticized Derek for not sharing information, but the fact that Stiles never even asked Scott about his Master Plan should mean something.

But hey, Scott, should so totally trust Derek, right?Right? Right?

So, let me wax dramatic for a moment and paraphrase the last part of that first exchange.

Scott: You’ve sided with your murderous uncle again? You asked for my help and then started working with the man who tormented me and everyone I loved the moment he came back from the grave? Did you lie to me about him being dead? Did you help him come back?

Derek: I have neither the time nor the interest to explain myself to you. I’m the alpha, so just suck it up and do what I tell you. When it is in the interest of the greater good, I don’t have to answer to anyone.

Scott: Is that how werewolves work? If you have a good enough reason, you can do what’s necessary without even an apology. Thanks for the lesson, Derek. Keep what you just taught me in mind for about… thirty minutes, okay? It might be useful to you.

If Scott was a terrible person for not revealing the cancer and the mountain ash trick as a way of stopping Gerard’s plan to get the Bite and hurting Derek’s feelings, then maybe fandom might want to consider that he learned his lesson at the feet of the master of concealing information and ignoring other people’s feelings, Derek Hale. Derek has zero room to complain, which to his credit, he never does.

~*~*~

This whole post is so fundamentally wrong, vile and disgusting on so many levels I don't even know where to begin, to be honest...

We all know the Scott McCall Defense Squad bunch have an obsessive hate boner for Stiles and the Hales and think Scott repeatedly lying to everyone around him, conspiring with Gerard behind everyone's back, selling Derek and his Pack out to the hunters, handing both Matt and Jackson over to Gerard to save his own ass, giving Gerard all the information Gerard wanted on Derek and his Pack, and violating a rape victim is heroic. But them stooping as low – lower than usual –as to claim that Scott "Had A Valid Reason" to violate someone's boundaries, bodily autonomy and consent and that Scott used and dehumanised Derek to teach him a lesson and make him a better man is truly on a whole other level of vileness and rape apologism. It's victim blaming at its grossest. The Teen Wolf fandom always talk about Scott McCall's abusive tendencies and behaviour, his toxic masculinity, and his utter lack of empathy; but his fans are even more toxic than him

The only difference is that Scott McCall is a fictional bully, while his fans are real ones

#submission #anti scott mccall #anti tyler posey

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princeescaluswords · 3 years ago

Text

Learning the Lesson

Allow me to provide some insight on Scott’s motivations. Remember this scene?

Allow me to reproduce a snippet of that conversation.

Scott: What the hell is this?

Derek: You know, I thought the same thing when I saw you talking to Gerard at the sheriff's station.

Scott: Okay, hold on. He - he threatened to kill my mom. And I had to get close to him. What was I supposed to do?

Peter: I'm gonna go with Scott on this one. Have you seen his mom? She's gorgeous.

Derek/Scott: Shut up.

Isaac: Who is he?

Scott: That's Peter, Derek's Uncle. Little while back, he tried to kill us all, and then we set him on fire, and Derek slashed his throat.

Peter: Hi.

Isaac: That's good to know.

Scott: How is he alive?

Derek: Look, the short version is he knows how to stop Jackson. And maybe how to save him.

In case you forgot, this isn’t the first time that Derek has surprised Scott in the locker room by being in the company of Peter. Remember this particular scene?

So, suddenly Derek is once again teaming up with Peter, the person -- if anyone needed reminding -- who not only threatened the life of Scott’s mother, but also his best friend, his girl friend, and anyone Scott was connected to, but also murdered eight people; savaged Lydia; transformed Scott against his will and violated his mind repeatedly, trying to get him to kill his friends. But hey, Scott should so totally trust Derek, right? Right? Right?

I also would like to point out a few other things in this scene that just might suggest that Scott was right not to trust Derek with his Master Plan. See the third sentence in the sample above. When Derek brings up his realization that Scott was seemingly working with Gerard, Scott explains that he was doing it under duress (which he was!) and he was doing it to get close to Gerard (which he did!). Let’s compare that to what Derek said when Scott demanded an explanation in Co-Captain:

Scott: You're on his side? Are you forgetting the part where he killed your sister?

Derek: It was a mistake.

Scott: What?

Derek: It happens.

But hey, Scott, should so totally trust Derek, right? Right? Right?

So, let me wax dramatic for a moment and paraphrase the last part of that first exchange.

If Scott was a terrible person for not revealing the cancer and the mountain ash trick as a way of stopping Gerard’s plan to get the Bite and hurting Derek’s feelings, then maybe fandom might want to consider that he learned his lesson at the feet of the master of concealing information and ignoring other people’s feelings, Derek Hale. He has zero room to complain, which to his credit, he never does.

#scott mccall #scott mccall defense squad #master plan #co-captain #anti derek hale #isaac lahey

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rookie-ramsey · 4 years ago

Text

Across the Universe, Chapter Two

Description: All the medical training in the world couldn’t prepare Ethan for a terminal brain cancer diagnosis.

Preview: The confession rolled from her lips before she had a chance to think twice. “I… showed Harper your scans to get her opinion. She thinks it could be partially operable.”

Ethan’s expression faltered, his brow furrowing in anger. “You showed Harper my charts after I asked you not to?”

Warning: Terminal cancer and eventual major character death. Read with caution.

Previous Chapter

Olivia rapped her knuckles against Harper’s door. Her breathing shallowed with anxiety in the moment that passed before Harper called, “Come in!”

Taking a deep breath, Olivia gained some sense of composure and let herself into the office. “Dr. Emery… Harper, may I ask a favor?”

“Of course. What do you need?”

Olivia’s face heated with worry as she handed Harper the envelope. Even if she’d taken any trace of Ethan’s name off of them, she couldn’t suppress the guilt she felt for going behind his back. “These are some scans and test results. Glioblastoma multiforme, right frontal lobe.”

Harper’s smile faded as she took the charts and studied them. “I don’t remember a patient being admitted with this condition.”

“It’s… not one of our patients. It’s a friend of mine from school. He reached out to me but wants to keep it to himself until he knows anything. I promised I’d get him a second opinion as a John Doe,” Olivia lied, guilt gripping her heart.

Whether Harper suspected something or not, Olivia didn’t know. She watched nervously as Harper scrutinized the films.

“I’m sure you know that this is the most aggressive type of brain tumor. They grow quickly and new ones can develop in other regions of the brain.”

“I know. I just… I thought maybe you’d know more than I do. I know it’s probably inoperable, but…”

“GBMs are usually inoperable because of the way the cells develop in the brain tissue,” Harper confirmed. “Even if there’s a chance of removing a portion of it, it’s not possible to remove every trace. The tumor would inevitably return.”

“What would you do?”

“If this were my patient… I’d start with targeted radiation and chemo. If the tumor shrunk after a few weeks, I’d remove as much as possible and follow with another course of treatment.”

Olivia nodded. “And what prognosis would you normally give? I know the usual prognosis is five to seven months without treatment, twelve to eighteen with.”

“That’s right. The five-year survival rate is less than five percent. I think you were right to ask for another opinion, but… you know that with or without treatment, this cancer is brutal.”

Olivia inhaled sharply and managed another nod. “I know. I just… I guess it’s harder to think when it’s a friend. I know to watch for worsening pain, personality changes, cognitive and emotional problems…”

“Those are all to be expected. As the condition worsens, expect problems with balance and coordination, vision problems, emotional and cognitive problems… almost every function suffers.” Harper glanced at her curiously. “Whatever your friend needs… you know where to refer him.”

“Yeah.” Olivia’s heart stuttered as she hoped Harper didn’t see through her lie. She felt guilty enough for going behind Ethan’s back and lying to Harper, but she knew Ethan would be livid if anyone found out before he was ready. “I’ll let you know if we need anything. Thank you.”

“Any time, Olivia.”

Olivia turned and left Harper’s office. As she walked down the hall, Harper’s words rang in her mind.

Six to eight months without treatment, twelve to eighteen with treatment.

An involuntary shudder went through her. Whether to accept treatment or not would be Ethan’s decision, but she knew that Harper was right. Regardless of which decision Ethan made, whatever lay ahead would be excruciating.

In the hours that passed, she saw little of Ethan. Olivia tried to concentrate on her patients, pouring her focus onto her rounds and clinic duty. Still, nothing was enough to pull her attention away from Ethan’s diagnosis.

“Dr. Winchester? Did you hear me?”

Olivia startled, blinking and forcing an apologetic smile for their patient. “I’m sorry, Tyler. I didn’t. But you have my attention now.”

“Tyler was just telling us that the headache started suddenly in the past few days. He had a brief episode of blindness in one eye yesterday,” Tobias supplied, glancing at her curiously.

“Right.” Olivia nodded and flipped through the patient’s charts. “Your scans from Mass General all came back clear. “How long did the blindness last?”

“About six hours. I just said that.”

Olivia sighed. “I’m sorry. Migraines can cause pain localized to one side of the head and visual disturbances, but not total blindness. I think we should run another set of scans to make sure they didn’t miss anything at Mass General. If they come back clean, we’ll start with some labs.”

Their patient looked skeptical. “Is there really any point in doing more scans?”

“We have the best equipment on the market. It may catch something that they missed at the other hospital. Even if everything comes back normal, we don’t want to risk missing a tumor.”

“I guess so.”

Olivia nodded, relieved. “We’ll be back in a few minutes to get you prepped.” She closed the patient’s folder and quietly followed Tobias out of the room.

“You seemed a little distracted in there. Everything okay?”

“Yeah. I just have some stuff going on outside of work. I’ll be fine,” she lied, suspecting Tobias didn’t believe her even if he dropped the issue.

She didn’t see Ethan until the end of their shift. She found him in his office, his attention on his computer screen. “Hi.”

Ethan startled, looking up from the journal he’d been staring at until the words blurred. “Oh. There you are. Ready to go?”

“Yeah. What are you reading?” she asked as she shrugged out of her white coat and replaced it with her jacket.

Ethan hesitated for a long moment. “An article about the average prognosis for glioblastoma multiforme.”

“Oh.” The flat tone to his voice told her everything she needed to know about what he’d read. She fell silent, letting her gaze fall on him. “Ethan, I…”

“What is it?”

The confession rolled from her lips before she had a chance to think twice. “I… showed Harper your scans to get her opinion. She thinks it could be partially operable.”

Ethan’s expression faltered, his brow furrowing in anger. “You showed Harper my charts after I asked you not to?”

She didn’t know why, but Olivia felt her defenses go up. “I took your name off of them. As far as she knows, it’s one of my friends who reached out to me. I know I shouldn’t have gone behind your back, and I’m sorry. But I didn’t think we should just accept that there’s absolutely nothing we can do.”

Visibly frustrated, Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose. “I said that I would tell people myself when I was ready. Getting a second opinion won’t change a thing.”

“But maybe it would give us some ideas. And it did. Harper described a treatment plan that she’s seen some success with. It’s… it’s not much, but it’s something.”

Ethan shook his head and let out a sigh. “With any course of action, the five-year-survival rate is still in the low single digits. I need time to decide what to do. I’m not making a decision based on false hope.”

Her eyes stung with the threat of tears. Refusing to let them fall, Olivia hesitated before speaking again. “I know. But… just think about it. Please?”

Ethan didn’t react right away. After a moment, he nodded so faintly that she almost missed it. “I need some time to think.”

Olivia’s frown deepened when he handed her his car keys. “Where are you going?”

“For a walk. You can take my car home. I’ll be there later. Don’t be worried if I’m late.”

Her expression gave way to one of frustration. “How am I supposed to go home and not worry about you?”

“I don’t know,” Ethan sighed, refusing to meet her eyes. “But I’ll be home later. I need some time to myself.”

“Ethan, just-“ she stopped when he left the room without another word.

Tags, part 1

@princess-geek / @lapisreviewsstuff / @silverlitskies / @paulfwesley / @dr-brianna-casey-valentine / @choicesstanblog / @trappedinfandoms / @justanotherrookie / @bellcat2010 / @desmaranj / @lion-ess24 / @nooruleman / @caseyvalentineramsey / @xee-na / @edith-eggs1 /@oofchoices / @schnitzelbutterfingers / @tefigranger / @jlynn12273 / @laceandlula / @crazy-loca-blog / @somegdchoices / @forthebrokenheartedthings / @lilyvalentine / @parkerattano / @drramseysownsme / @misswhit12 / @drethanfreakingramsey / @juneiswriting / @macy-ray85 / @swimmingauthordreamerbonk / @myusualnerdyself / @siaramsey / @lucy-268 / @takemyopenheart / @queencarb

#open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #ethan x mc #tw: death #death tw #cancer tw #tw: cancer

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hercleverboy · 4 years ago

Text

time

spencer reid x reader

summary ↠ spencer learns the truth about why the reader left the team so suddenly during his post-prison showdown with cat adams.

category ↠ angst

warnings/includes ↠ cancer, main character death, crying, pleading someone not to die, please do not read if these are triggering for you.

word count ↠ 3.6k

“Death is peaceful, easy. Life is harder.”

Breast cancer had a history in Y/N’s family. Her grandmother had died from it, and it seemingly skipped her mothers generation. Y/N was not so lucky.

When the doctor told her, she stared blankly she’d at the wall. He was talking at her but she only seemed to pick up on parts of what he was saying.

“Breast cancer”, “stage 4”, “has unfortunately spread to other parts of your body,” “eight months if you’re lucky”

Lucky?

If she’s lucky?

The doctor sent her on her way after discussing some treatments with her. He told her what the side effects of those treatments were going to be, and she’d shaken her head. The doctor looked shocked, but Y/N had just given him a small smile. If she was going to die, she was going to spend her time doing everything she wanted to, not being poked and prodded and given treatments that were unlikely to work anyway.

Initially, she didn’t tell anyone at the BAU. She certainly didn’t tell Spencer, who she’d been crushing on for years at that point. They were best friends, they had been since she started all those years ago, and they were always there for one another. She was always too nervous to tell him how she felt, but it’s funny how finding out your days are numbered will encourage you to do things you never thought you’d have the courage to. So one night at the end of the work day, when the bullpen was empty apart from her and the resident genius, she threw caution to the wind and walked right up to his desk.

He grinned at her as she approached. “Hey, Y/N. Did you want to grab something to eat before you head home? There’s that new Chinese place a few streets over-“ He was interrupted by her saying three words he never thought she’d say to him.

“I love you.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

“You what?” He manages to get out, his mind was spinning.

“I love you. I’ve always loved you. I’m sorry, you just have to know.”

“Y/N I don’t know what to say I-“ He stumbled over his words, trying to find the right ones. Truthfully, he was in love with her too. Though his own insecurities and stupid thoughts always got in the way. Y/N took his lack of response to mean that he didn’t feel the same, and so she took a deep breath and smiled at him reassuringly. Before he could tell her that he was very sure he loved her too, she was gone, the bullpen’s doors closing gently behind her.

Y/N felt the weight lifted off her shoulders. Despite her thinking Spencer didn’t return her affection, she still felt the sweetest relief imaginable. Because fuck it, if she was going to die she’d be damned If she did so without telling Spencer Reid how much she loved him.

And now he knew.

It brought her a sense of peace.

She told Hotch, but that’s only because she had to give him a real reason as to why she was leaving, after he heard the lie she’d fed the team.

“I’ve been offered a job in the orginised crime unit, I just can’t turn it down.”

“Y/N, can I speak with you?” He’d asked after she’d announced to the team that she was leaving. He led her to his office, closing the door behind her. “I’ll get straight to the point. There is no new job with the orginised crime unit, I would’ve been notified if you’d been offered a new position. What’s going on?”

She couldn’t lie to him, she knew that much. So she took a deep breath and spoke. “I’m terminally ill, sir. I haven’t got long left. I would like to live what is left of my life.” Hotch was understating. He didn’t show it, always very good at masking his emotions, but his heart was broken. He’d even hugged her, telling her what a pleasure it was to work alongside her, how the world would suffer greatly from the loss of her kind heart and unmatched intelligence.

On her last shift, which was a paperwork day thankfully, the team got together and threw her a little in-office going away party. Y/N felt guilty about not telling her friends, her family, the real reason she was leaving but they shouldn’t have to bear that burden, they shouldn’t have to carry around the guilt. And she didn’t want their pity or worry either. Hotch had been surprised at how soon she’d wanted to leave the BAU after telling him of her condition, but she told him it was because she wanted the team to remember her how she was. Strong and confident. She didn’t want to them to see her so weak and vulnerable, how she knew this disease would reduce her to.

JJ found out that day, unintentionally. After laughing and eating some cake with the team, Y/N felt incredibly nauseous (she found she was struggling to keep food down these days), so she excused herself to the bathroom, and was violently sick in the toilet of one of the stalls. JJ had followed her in, noticing how she’d barely touched her cake earlier and that she looked awfully pale as well.

“Y/N? Are you alright?” She asked, opening up the stall door behind Y/N, who was panting over the toilet bowl.

“I’m fine, JJ. I promise.” She smiled weakly but JJ wasn’t buying it. The two women had become best friends over their time in the bureau, almost like sisters.

“You’re not pregnant, are you?” JJ joked as Y/N stood up on shaky legs.

“No, I’m not pregnant Jayje.” Y/N couldn’t look her best friend in the eye, tears filling her eyes.

“Hey, don’t cry. It’ll be okay, what’s wrong?” JJ’s motherly tone made Y/N wanted to laugh but she couldn’t force one out if she tried. Y/N’s lack of response frightened JJ.

“Y/N, you’re scaring me. Tell me what’s wrong, please.” She begged.

“I’m sick, JJ.”

It didn’t take the blonde long to figure out that she didn’t mean a common cold. Tears filled JJ’s eyes.

“I haven’t got a lot of time Jayje.” Y/N cried, and JJ began to sob, pulling Y/N into a tight hug.

“Well there are treatments right? Chemotherapy or something? Something has to work.” JJ was begging, praying that there was something. Her heart shattered all over again when Y/N shook her head.

“I won’t spend the rest of my time hooked up to countless machines receiving treatments that may or may not work. I don’t want to fight this. I’m already so tired, I just want to go peacefully when the time comes. Please?”

JJ just cried harder. She understood Y/N had already made peace with her fate.

After calming down slightly, Y/N pulled back, holding JJ by her shoulders. “You can’t tell anyone. Only you and Hotch know. I won’t burden anyone else with this, okay?”

“Y/N, this isn’t a burden. You’re sick. The team deserve to know, they deserve their turn to say goodbye.” JJ tried to convince her.

“Please. You can’t say a thing. I know they deserve that but god I can’t have them all pitying me. Garcia will buy me gift baskets to compensate, Derek won’t know what to do with himself so he’ll make jokes, and Spencer, god Spence will go into overdrive trying to fix me. I just want to live out my days peacefully, please let me have that Jayje.” She begged, and the blonde nodded.

“I understand, Y/N. But Spence.. he’s one of your best friends. He has been for years now. I know you told him you love him and he didn’t say it back but.. this- this will kill him.” She whispered the last part and Y/N looked away as she fought to stop the tears from falling down her cheeks.

“I know. And I’m sorry if it’s selfish but I’m dying, I think I’m allowed to be a little selfish.” Her attempt at a joke was met with a stern look from JJ.

5 months after Y/N left the BAU, Spencer ended up in trouble in Mexico, and before anyone could do anything he was awaiting trial in a prison cell. He had lot of time to think over the three months spent behind bars, staring at blank walls, fighting to survive long enough for the team to prove his innocence. Every night he slept in his bed he thought of Y/N.

How much he missed his best friend.

How much he loved her still.

He realised how stupid he’d been to let her get away. He regretted not going after her that day in the bullpen and promising her he felt the same way she did. He promised himself the moment he got out he would tell her how he felt, and they could make up for the time they’d lost. He yearned to see her, and If prison taught him anything, it was that time was precious. And he wanted to spend all of his time with her.

When JJ turned up to the prison one day, he’d never felt a relief quite like it.

“We’re taking you home.”

He was relieved that now he could focus on finding his mother, and once that was done he could prioritise Y/N. He would tell her how he felt, how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, no time to waste. He could tell her the words he’d thought a thousands times of the last three months.

I love you. So much.

He just had to win one final time, play Cat Adams stupid game and then everything he’d ever wanted would be his. He could live the life he’d dreamed of when he was in prison, Y/N by his side.

“Even if you are pregnant the baby’s not mine.” Spencer was mortified that she was really trying to persuade him that her baby was his, let alone that she was even pregnant in the first place.

Cat clicked her tongue. “Except for the part where it is.”

“That’s preposterous, you’ve been in prison. And besides we’ve never-“

“So have you, and I know we never...” She trailed off, that smirk on her lips. “Ask me how I did it.”

Spencer was really losing his patience. He didn’t care for, nor did he want to play Cat’s little game anymore.

“Come on, ask me.”

“How did you do it?”

“I had Lindsey dose you in Mexico. You lost time.” Cat smiled at the look of confusion on Spencer’s face. “I told her to pretend to be Maeve.”

That hurt Spencer more than it should’ve. 4 years since the tragic death of his girlfriend, and the wounds were still fresh as anything. Of course Cat knew about Maeve.

“But perhaps it would’ve worked better if I’d told her to pretend to be Y/N, the best friend that you’ve always loved but never told her. It’s a shame that you might never get the chance now.” Cat snarled.

“What do you mean I’ll never get the chance?”

“Oh my god. You don’t know, do you?” Cat teased, and Spencer gripped the edge of the table so harshly his knuckles turned white.

“Know what, Cat?”

“Dear little Y/N has terminal cancer. She was given around eight months to live, from what I know. That would mean-“ She theatrically looked at Spencer’s watch that sat on her wrist. “Any day now, if my timings right.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.” Cat’s head cocked to the side. This wasn’t part of her original plan, but any opportunity to mess with Spencer even more was not to be missed.

“Yes you are, that what you do.” Spencer seethed, the words like venom on his tongue.

“I’m not. Just ask blondie in there.” Cat pointed to the double sided mirror. “She’ll tell you. It is her that Y/N chose to confide in, after all.” She teased.

Spencer shot up from table with loud bang and stalked out the room, slamming open the door to where a gobsmacked JJ stood.

“Is it true?” Spencer asked, his tone cold and unforgiving.

“Spence..”

“JJ! I asked if it was true?” He shouted, slamming his hand on the wall next to them. JJ flinched, and for the first time in their friendship JJ was afraid of the man in front of her.

“Yes.” Her voice was small.

He whipped out his phone, calling Garcia. “Garcia I need you to look up Y/N Y/L/N’s medical records.”

“Our Y/N Y/L/N? Why?” The chipper woman replied, confused.

“Just please, Garcia!” Spencer shouted desperately.

“Okay okay, I’m looking and everything seems fine- oh wait- what’s this?” Garcia murmured to herself as she clicked through the files, her eyes widening and tears forming in them as she gasped. “She’s sick? W-why didn’t she tell us? Oh my god.”

“She’s alive, right? Oh god please tell me she’s alive?” Spencer begged.

“She’s alive, but she was admitted to the hospital 2 weeks ago after she collapsed. They’re keeping her in the hospital, just trying to make her comfortable- oh god I can’t read anymore.” Garcia was sobbing down the line and JJ had a hand clasped over her mouth to keep her own sobs at bay.

Spencer sobbed too, for the first time since he went to prison. Everything seemed to hit him at once.

After a moment, JJ’s trembling voice reached his ears. “Spence, I know this is a lot to take in but if you want to find out where your mother is you’ve got to carry on.”

He’s knew she was right, but he just glared at her coldly. “How long have you known?”

“Since she left.” JJ cried. “I’m so sorry, but she begged me not to tell you, or anyone else for that matter. How could I deny her that?”

Spencer understood it wasn’t JJ’s fault but he was still so angry. The anger burned within him like a wildfire and he didn’t posses the restraint to put it out. “There was no new job in the organised crime unit, was there?”

“No.”

“Fuck!” Spencer shouted, pushing some files that sat on the table onto the floor with a loud crash as he cried.

“Spence-“ JJ attempted to comfort him but he was downright inconsolable.

“You know she told me she loved me. Before she left.” Spencer spoke quickly and fiercely, though the tears trembling down his cheeks told a different story. He finally looked JJ in the eye, and she nodded. “I didn’t get to tell her I love her but I do JJ, god I do and now I’m gonna lose her.” He let out a heartbroken cry and JJ felt so guilty.

“Spence you have to go back in there and win her little game. Save your mother, and then you can worry about Y/N. Okay?” JJ tried, and this time it seemed the words sunk into him.

Spencer hated that she was right. So with a sniffle, he wiped the tears from his eyes with the sleeves of his blazer, before taking a deep breath and returning to the room with Cat, one even more determined to win.

After winning the battle against Cat, Spencer escorted his mother back to the sanitarium. As soon as she was safe and settled, Spencer was immediately on the phone with Garcia.

“Garcia, which hospital is Y/N at?”

Once he got the address he was there in minutes.

He sped up to the front desk, panting as he spoke. “Hi, I’m here to see Y/N Y/L/N.”

The receptionist nodded, typing away on her computer. Spencer stood as he waited to hear what room she was in, tapping his foot impatiently on the white floorboards. A doctor who had been standing near the desk stepped towards him, and he looked him as she approached. “Sorry sir, Did you say you’re here to see Y/N Y/L/N?”

Spencer turned to her, his voice desperate. He prayed he wasn’t too late. “Yes, yes.”

The doctor looked at him with a small smile. She looked him up and down, coming to a conclusion. “Are you Dr Spencer Reid?”

Spencer gulped, unsure what to say. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Y/N- She talks about you, when she’s in between consciousness. She showed me pictures a few weeks ago, told me all about the man she loved who she was so sure didn’t love her back. She’ll be so glad to see you.”

He wanted to smile at the information but he felt so sick that he couldn’t force his lips up into even a grimace. “How is she?” He dared to ask.

“I’m sorry, Dr Reid. Y/N is incredibly ill. We’re just trying to make her as comfortable as we can, I’m afraid it won’t be long now. Follow me, she could use your company.”

His heart broke but he followed her, attempting not to breakdown in a fit of cries.

When he saw her his heart broke even more. Her cheeks were sullen and she was thinner than he remembered. But she was still so beautiful to him. He thanked the doctor and pulled up a chair next to her, taking one of her frail hands in his. She turned to look at him, flashing a weak smile.

“Spencer? Are you really here?”

“Yes sweetheart. And I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” He choked out, attempting to smile for her sake.

She nodded, and he brought his lips to her hand to place a gentle kiss on it.

“I’ve missed you.” She whimpered out. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ve missed you too.” He felt like breaking down but he had to be strong for her. “Y/N, I have to tell you, if this is the last chance I get I- I love you. I always have done. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all those months ago. I’m here now, but I’m too late.” He sobbed.

“Hey, hey. . It’s okay. It was a privilege to love you, Spencer Reid.” She smiled, moving her frail hands up to cup his face. It made him sob harder.

“I wish we had more time.” He cried, pressing his forehead to hers.

“I know, me too.”

They talked for the whole evening, and then, when she got too exhausted to continue conversation, he pulled out her favourite book from his satchel. He read to her, listening to the sound of her shallow breathing.

The team visited, all too shocked to say much, but they came to say goodbye. Y/N was barely conscious enough to realise what was going on, but she still managed to give the team a weak smile and a whispered, “Love you guys.”

JJ and Garcia had to leave the room so they wouldn’t collapse in tears front of her.

When the heart monitor went flat in the early hours of the next morning, that loud blaring sound filling Spencer’s ears, his sobs started again as he rested his forehead on her still chest.

“Please. Please don’t go. Come back, I love you.” Spencer begged, his shoulders moving with the sobs that wracked through him. He’d never felt so utterly heartbroken. Not when he watched his father leave, not when he saw his mother’s condition worsen, not even when Maeve was killed right in front of him. None of that compared to how his chest burned and his throat was sore from the sobs that ripped from him, and the tears that relentlessly cascaded down his cheeks.

“Please, baby. Look at me. Let me see them gorgeous eyes, yeah?” He begged, he prayed to every god there ever was that she’d look at him again with those beautiful orbs that he’d fallen so In love with. Those stunning eyes that would never open again.

The doctor, with tears in her own eyes at the scene before her, moved to turn the heart monitor off, the obnoxious withstanding beep cutting off. It made Spencer’s head ache.

Spencer clutched Y/N’s hand desperately to his chest, his head resting on her chest as he cried. He squeezed her hand, and some foolish part of him almost believed that if he squeezed hard enough he’d wake up from whatever nightmare this was. He twisted his eyelids shut and dreamed. He dreamed of waking up next to Y/N, in a bed that they shared, wedding bands on their fingers and their children’s footsteps and laughter filling their home. He dreamed of a life with her, of raising a family with her. He dreamed of the life she deserved.

He wanted to scream. How was this fair? How were murderers and serial rapists walking around with no consequence but people like Y/N had their lives ripped from them?

It was unjust.

But the world was cruel, Spencer knew. It was cruel and it was cold and it was unforgiving.

He raised his head from her chest, using the hand that wasn’t holding hers to place his hand on her cheek. He pushed forward, placing a gentle kiss on her cold and lifeless lips.

it was a goodbye. one that needn’t be spoken.

“I love you, Y/N. I’ll honour you for the rest of my life, I promise.”

Spencer Reid never recovered from losing Y/N Y/L/N.

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