#guys I kid you not I spent over 45 minutes trying to figure out what reggie’s pfp would be

[diltonsstrangescience]

[journiland]

Okay, so yesterday. (This is gonna be lonnng.)

I woke up earlier than usual and got the animals done, but Eclipse's udder looked really big and her tail ligaments felt like squish. (Mind you, I'm not great at feeling them.)

So even though it was 5 days early, it looked like she was going to go within 24 hours.

Vampire and I hustled and spent all day building the kidding stall (I'll get pics later), cleaning and putting clean hay on that section, and putting in a heat lamp, hay feeder, and waterer.

Meanwhile, Oldest was ALSO showing multiple signs of imminent labor all day, up in PA. And she really wants me there. (And again, she ALSO was early, not due for another month!)

Vampire and I worked until after dark, then went to clean the church. I had a bunch of milk that expired the next day, so I was making two batches of pudding, plus a double batch of the family favorite ham and potato casserole (for the fam), and ham, sunchoke, and broccoli casserole (for me, the nightshade-intolerant,) all at the same time. (New invention, it's a keeper.)

Oldest went to the hospital because her contractions were getting regular. She was 3-4 cm dilated and having regular contractions. They gave her multiple doses of meds, but she progressed to 5 cm and contractions weren't stopping.

She was really upset and really wanted me there. Her partner was not being very supportive. I hated to leave the goat, but video chat is a thing. I figured I could walk the guys through it if she needed help.

I can't drive in the dark, but I was about to try and just drive really slow. Vampire had skipped an entire night's sleep to build all the goat stuff. (He usually sleeps from early morning to late afternoon.) He wasn't any shape to drive, but he did call his mom, who was just about to go to bed (it was about 12:30 am at this point), and she agreed to drive me to PA. She doesn't mind driving in the dark.

I have distinctively different views than my MIL on many things, but I really appreciate her in times like this. We get along pretty well, though I have to censor myself a lot. (Especially now that the kids aren't little, so my language includes a decent amount of cursing 😂)

We left about 1:30am. Ish. It was very foggy. A few minutes after we left, Oldest said the contractions were slowing down a bit, but still coming. We kept driving, because 5 cm. But they kept slowing and finally stopped. We pulled over about 45 minutes after we left, and I was texting Oldest like mad, trying to figure out what to do. She finally told us to turn back and wait until morning. So we turned around and headed back. Fun little trip in the wee hours of the morning!

I was keyed up, but finally went to bed about 4:30 am. Woke up at 7:30. Goat not in labor.

Oldest was being sent home with a ten-day supply of anti-labor meds. After that, Grandkid will have cooked enough.

Although Grandkid is not due until right after April Fools Day, but he and goat were apparently both tricking me early! 😂

(I can't believe I stayed up and worked all day with no nap, and then went to bed so late. I did have the help of a good bit of caffeine. Possibly a bipolar thing. I was pretty keyed up the second half of the day.)

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Okay I am almost caught up from the last week. Long post ahead but lets face it all my posts are long. Post 3 of 3.

So the last three days were spent doing something that was either very adventuresome or very stupid. Probably mostly stupid. Hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge alone without a guide.

Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest gorges in the world. It is located in Tibet, about 2 hours from Lijiang. It is a very popular destination in China. Irene hiked it when she studied abroad in China back in 2014, so that’s how I found out about it. It’s called Tiger Leaping Gorge because there is a legend about a hunter who was pursuing a tiger in this gorge and at a narrow point in the gorge with rushing river rapids the tiger escaped by leaping across the gorge.

I was initially planning to go with a group. But since its the off season and since there are almost zero foreigners traveling in China right now there weren’t any tours offered other than private tours, which would have cost me nearly $1,000. So I did a lot of research, mainly using articles from 2019 before the border closed, and thought I could manage it on my own. Which was my first stupid or adventurous decision.

The trek itself is about 20 miles total and generally takes between 2-3 days. There are several inns along the way to stop at over the night. I used a map from 2019 to plan my way and it looked doable.

I took a bus from Lijiang, and arrived at the gorge without a hitch. However, despite the family sitting next to me on the bus translating everything the driver was saying with their phones and trying to help me, I got off the bus at the wrong stop. I got off at the tourist viewpoint which is at the most narrow, lowest part of the canyon directly next to the rushing rapids, where the tiger allegedly made its escape. You have to hike down a ways from the road to get down to the river. Not gonna lie it was truly impressive, the river was absolutely ferocious. I’d never seen rapids like that before. But then I realized that the place I was supposed to start the hike was actually 3 miles in the other direction.

So I hiked back up to the road and tried to figure out what to do. There were tourist buses but they were all for tour groups making stops at the viewpoint, I couldn’t really ask them for a ride. So I thought, its 3 miles, I can handle that. That was the next stupid decision.

One of the lessons I learn the hard way over and over again is “no, actually, you can’t walk that”.

So I walked for about an hour. The road was pretty precarious. It was a highway with a cliff on one side and a dropoff into the canyon on the other side. I never felt like I was in danger, but it was certainly a sight to see. At one point I walked by a policeman and I thought he was going to tell me I couldn’t walk there but he just looked the other way. I met a few people selling things along the side of the road and they all laughed and laughed as I walked by, which, understandable.

After about an hour I still had a mile to go. A car pulled over and the guy told me he could give me a ride the rest of the way, I accepted, also not the smartest choice but it worked out fine. This makes the third time I’ve hitchhiked; I did it before in Mexico and Turkey as well.

He brought me to the ticket office of the park, which I had thought was the entrance to the hike. It turns out in a brilliant stroke of stupidity that the place where the car had picked me up was in fact the entrance to the hike and I hadn’t realized it. There was an enormous sign and an arrow literally painted onto the cliff that I hadn’t noticed. I only realized when I asked at the ticket office where the entrance of the hike was.

So I turned around and walked back the exact way I had come for about 45 minutes along the highway. At one point some kids chased after me going “hello! hello!”.

After about 3 hours total, I finally made it to the entrance of the hike. The map said it would take me about 5 hours to hike 12 kilometers. Which in hindsight was laughable. It took closer to 7 hours. At that point it was 1pm and it was going to get dark at 8pm. I started walking and it was gorgeous but man it was difficult. It was all uphill. I saw absolutely no one, local or hiker, for about 3.5 hours. It was all farms and mountains. It was a bit unnerving being the only person there, but at least I was sure I was going the right way. There were red arrows painted on the ground every few feet which was reassuring.

After a while, I was at the point where I had calculated that I had 25,000 steps to take still and was counting all of my steps individually because I was so tired. Then I saw a lady waving at me. She asked if I wanted to ride a horse part of the way, in my obvious exhaustion I agreed but in hindsight I should have been more prepared and asked for more details about what this would entail. It was 100% my fault. I spent about 40 minutes on the horse going up the steepest part of the trail called the 28 Bends, which, self-explanatory name. The trail was very difficult, I felt bad being on the horse while the lady was walking behind me, I had thought she would be on a horse as well. She also insisted on carrying my backpack even though I kept saying I could carry it.

We made it up, and then she informed me that I was halfway there. When we had been negotiating a price earlier I had thought she had said 40 yuan, I had 200 yuan in cash so I had agreed. Everyone in China also uses a digital payment system called Alipay and another called Weixin Pay. I have Alipay because for Weixin Pay I couldn’t figure out how to set it up without a Chinese bank account. So we’re at the top of this mountain and this lady informs me that I had misunderstood and the price was actually 400, not 40 yuan. Which, I mean, considering the difficulty of the trail was a fair price but I hadn’t expected it. I showed her my cash and asked if I could pay her digitally, she said yes. She only had weixin pay though, and alipay and weixin pay don’t work together. So we were stuck. I didnt have any way to pay her. We sat there for probably 45 minutes trying to figure out what to do. It was 100% my fault for not understanding and not being more prepared. I hadn’t come across this issue the whole time I had been in China, everyone I’d met before accepted Alipay and I’d never had anything cost more than 200 yuan cash. I tried everything, even tried setting up a weixin pay account but i couldn’t do it without a chinese bank account. Then she told me the price had increased to 600 yuan. I was like I’m not sure what to do here. I called Irene desperately and somehow miraculously had service and she was miraculously able to send the lady money from 3,000km away. I will be forever grateful for friends like her saving my skin.

The lady then told me to be careful and rode away. It was 5:30pm then somehow, and there was still 2 hours left until the inn I was staying at. I also had had to use the bathroom for about 2 hours at that point and between the precarious horse ride up the steep mountain and the fiasco with the lady, hadn’t had a chance. Also 0/10 would not recommend riding a horse while having to pee. I was literally on the edge of a cliff with not even a path into the bushes, but there was at least not a single person around. I hid behind a tree and did what I had to do way too uncomfortably close to the edge of the cliff, thinking “well its already been a wild day, this may as well happen”.

Then I calculated that there were 13,300 steps left until my hotel. I didnt see a single person that entire time. My brain wasn’t capable of doing anything at that point other than putting one foot in front of the other and counting. Finally, in the pouring rain just before dark I made it 7 hours and 13.5 miles total after starting the hike, to my hotel for the night. I have done more physically difficult things in my life, but never for such an extended amount of time and never completely alone and with such uncertainty. The whole way I was thinking through all the decisions I had made today and regretting every single one of them. The views were spectacular though.

I made it to my room completely out of cash at that point and collapsed on the bed. I made it to dinner at the hotel and then came across the same exact issue I had encountered earlier with money. No one accepted Alipay connected to international credit cards, only alipay connected to Chinese credit cards, weixin pay or cash. After being in China for 3 weeks I had never encountered this problem before, everyone accepted Alipay and I had very very rarely had to use cash, people prefer not to use cash most times. So I couldn’t pay for my meal. Irene saved me again, and ended up doing so three more times over the course of this trek. I have learned yet another lesson the hard way, always bring more than enough cash and have a payment backup plan, especially in rural areas, and I am very grateful to have a friend like her to save me from my own stupidity.

I spent the evening trying to figure out a way to set up weixin pay and found an extremely complex way to do it which involved an hour long phone call with my parents and then at the end of the whole process was informed it would take 3 business days to verify my identity and activate my account, which was useless. I could only laugh at the absurdity of the situation and go to sleep.

The next day I felt more at ease because there were other hikers. Apparently what people do nowadays which is way smarter, is to take a car from the beginning of the trail to the first hotel because there is apparently a back road. They stay at the hotel for the night, send a car with their bags ahead to the end of the trail through the back roads and along the highway, then they walk the second leg of the trail with no bags. This would have been the ideal way to do it, but alas, here I was without money and with my heavy bag already at the top of the mountain. Oh well. Today was only a 10k hike to the end of the trail, and there were other hikers which made it a lot less unnerving.

I even met two foreigners, I hadn’t met any foreigners in quite a while. They were teachers in Shanghai, one from New York and the other from London. They’d been living in China since 2018. They were very surprised I was traveling around and wasn’t living in China, they said China really isn’t set up for people to just travel around. Its very difficult if you don’t have a Chinese bank account or speak Chinese, and theres almost no up to date information out there since the border reopened in January 2023. I was like…yup..tell me about it….

They talked about what it was like to go through covid in Shanghai, which other than Wuhan, was the most heavily impacted place in China. They had the strictest lockdown in the world. They literally could not leave their apartments for any reason for a total of 86 days straight. Some people were even literally sealed inside their apartments. They had to rely on food rations from the government being delivered and they weren’t always consistent. Lockdown was rough for everyone but this was another level.

Anyway, I got to talk to them for a while but then they moved along. Then I met another guy who was hiking alone. He spoke to me enthusiastically in Chinese and didn’t seem to be impeded by the fact that I could not understand anything he was saying. I think what I gathered after a while was that he thought since we were both hiking alone we should take photos of each other. He had me take photos of him and then he took photos of me, insisting that I hold his hiking poles. He did this a few times in increasingly precarious photo locations and then I was like ok this has gone too far. We kept walking for a while, almost an hour, and I was kind of ready for him to stop talking to me. I started walking really really slow to try and get him to go ahead but he kept stopping and waiting for me and telling me to hurry up. I can never tell when people are being friendly or being creepy. I always feel uncomfortable with people talking to me so its hard to trust my gut. There was also the language barrier and cultural differences to consider. I think he thought he was being friendly and looking out for me as women traveling and hiking alone is an oddity, not to mention being a foreigner.

After over an hour I think he finally got the hint so he said ‘bye bye’ and went ahead. I met one more group of hikers along the way, a group of 4 friends who greeted me by going “Hello! Fuck! Hi!” which was pretty funny actually. Lots of people yell hello at me on the street when I go by which I think they find funny because they always laugh afterwards and I never know how to respond. This was a new one though. This group talked to me for a little bit and then went ahead.

The path was extremely precarious at this point, but the views were absolutely breathtaking. It was an incredible hike. Finally, after 6 hours because of how slow I walk, I made it to the hotel at the end of the trail. 2 days, 20+ miles, 12+ hours of hiking, and many stupid decisions later I had made it one way or another. There were many times throughout I thought that I truly couldn’t do this and I should give up, but giving up wasn’t really an option, I had to push myself to keep going, and I eventually one way or another made it.

The only room the hotel had was an 8 bed dorm which I shared with a group of bikers who were thoroughly confused by me but were very polite and respectful. They all went out of the room and talked animatedly amongst themselves for a while after I went in the room and looked things up on a translator. I only understood 哪国人 (foreigner) 一个人 (alone) 为什么(why) and 中文 (Chinese). Then they asked me using the translator if I spoke Chinese, where I was from, and after much furious whispering, ‘how do you communicate with people here’. I just laughed and said “不知道，我用我的手机。” I don’t know. I use my phone. They thought everything about me was quite befuddling.

The next day the bikers checked in on me to make sure I knew how to get to my next stop, which was nice of them. I was able to get a bus directly from the hotel back to Lijiang, it ended up taking the entire day because there was only one bus but it was pretty seamless. I very much enjoyed the scenery of the wilderness but am very glad to be back in town where there are atms and people accept my bank card and I more or less know how to get around.

There were a lot of poor decisions made the last few days, but thanks to the kindness of friends and strangers it all worked out. I would do things differently knowing what I know now, but I am glad I did this in the end. It was an amazing experience.

I’ll be back in Lijiang for the next few days, before heading to my next stop. I’m writing this post now in a beautiful park by a lake in Lijiang while eating spicy noodles. I’ll try to update again before I leave to avoid a backlog again.

[kingwuko]

2, 6, 14, 18, 38

I'm cutting this again because one of my answers might be spoiler-y???

2. Where do you get your fic ideas?

Oh boy this is like an impossible question to answer. All over the place, really! Sometimes its from real life experiences. I actually drew a few ideas for Secret from another fic from a completely different fandom (a sexually experienced character guiding an inexperienced character carefully through their first sexual relationship). Some ideas I get from bouncing them off my friends and beta readers. Some ideas I get from you guys!! You send me asks about my hc and it makes me think about them and the ideas start to flow! I will say I DID NOT get the secret relationship idea from red white and royal blue lol. I'd been plotting this for a while before I heard of the book/movie. After I watched the movie I was like. people are gonna think this was the inspiration for my fic and it just wasn't!

6. What’s the last line you wrote?

And it was obviously not because Mako was with a man. She had just called the Earth Kingdom ‘backwards’ on the subject. So was it that she didn’t approve of Wu?

14. What is your favorite location and position to write in?

My favorite? comfortably seated at a table or desk. Maybe a cozy blanket around my shoulders. A footstool for comfort. However I'm usually writing on my phone between clients at work or sitting on my couch after the kids go to bed or are otherwise occupied (I promise I don't neglect my kids, they have another parent lol and we both make sure the other has plenty of time for our hobbies).

18. Do you enjoy research? Which fic of yours required the most research?

Ugh research. I wouldn't say I don't enjoy it, but I don't enjoy the time it takes. I'll be like. Okay. I need to go to bed at 10:30. it's 9:30. I have an hour to write. And then I run into something I need to research before I can write. before I know it I've been looking into the topic for 45 minutes and now my writing time is almost gone!!! Windswept has actually required a lot of research. between rewatching season 3, trying to expand on canon with realism (numbers stations/ciphony tech of the time period, international law enforcement collaboration, bird lifecycles, etc.) I also spent a lot of time and thought into how I'm portraying bending in this one, like how bending feels, how it works, the differences in how it feels to airbend vs firebend... Also. I used a color dropper on Wu's eyes form screenshots of the show, and compared it to several swatches of green to figure out what Mako was going to think about Wu's eyes the first time he saw them. As soon as the swatch for "Moss Green" was up and matched Wu's eyes almost perfectly, Mako's over-the-top description of Wu's eyes entered my brain and I was like "YES THIS IS IT"

already answered 38 in another ask 😊

[moregraceful]

Mostly still talking about this to help normalize and de-stigmatize using accommodations like this as an adult bc I think sometimes we think oh I'm a grown ass adult that's not for me...but truthfully there's never a reason not to at least ask. I was talking to some friends and they were like, oh we did not know that was available for everyone!

We were at the Lehigh Valley Phantoms game at PPL Arena and they mentioned they have a sensory quiet space, which got me curious if the Wells Fargo also had sensory accommodations. I am not autistic and will not be discussing the various things going horribly wrong in my brain at all times but I have a tendency to try to pack too many games into one week and ends up completely hitting a wall by the end of the set of games and either vacate planet earth for several hours if not days or just like am so miserable the entire time that I'm unable to enjoy what's going on. And I'm not what one might call situationally aware but at this point in my life I'm usually able to be like, okay so if I got to three hockey games in three days and two of those games involve very long drives at night, including one on the NJ tollpike, I will probably be feeling a little wacked out by Monday. But I didn't want to miss any of the game if I didn't have to because tickets were expensive and I miss my Sharkies violently, so I went digging for more info.

The Farg's website said they had a whole sensory room for people who are feeling overwhelmed and said it was for everyone! So I went to check it out during first intermission because I was very much about to start experiencing full body horrors. I figure at worst they say it's for kids and I have to go find a quieter spot to dissociate in and just hope I get back on my feet before the second period (which I have done before and it was not. fun lol.) I found guest services and they just gave me a wrist band and directions. Everyone I had to interact with was very respectful and kind, if treating me a little bit like a ticking time bomb, but I think when you're in your 30s looking harrowed while advocating politely for yourself, it's really like oh this guy Needs it. There was a guest services person set up in front of the room and I'm guessing it's bc the room is on the suite level and they need to make sure it's like people who need to use the room for its intended purposes and not drunk adults goofing off. But it was very quiet and calm inside, I think they did some sound dampening and with a white noise machine + that deeply hilarious sensory wall and a bunch of fidget/stim-type stuff on the walls to play with as well as other toys on shelves. I was there bc I needed quiet space so I spent all of the time I was there sitting on the floor staring at an orange water feature on the wall, but I imagine for kids or adults who need fidget toys it's probably a dream.

Very calming in there and I did NOT miss the rest of the game or have to experience the horrors so it was a success overall! I missed three minutes of the second period just trying to get back to our seats but I'll take three minutes over 45 minutes, which has happened before lmao. I will almost certainly end up there again bc I will absolutely end up trying to pack 3 games in 5 days again at some point lol.

I don't really have a concluding thought, I think it's basically like...Just Ask...what's the worst they can do. I think most people following me are adults and porn bots so it's like, yes we can handle our shit but also if there are accommodations available that explicitly say they're open to everyone, just ask yk. At worst they say no and probably we have all ways of dealing with whatever we're going through or we just grit our teeth and white knuckle it through shrockey. But I feel like people pretty often do want to help you if they can so it never hurts to at least find out what's available.

And then I got this sick ass wristband giving me VIP access to a water feature lmao

I would do anything for the Sharks, including driving close to 4 hours round trip to tell Eetu Mäkiniemi, an ex-prospect, we love him and driving close to 3.5 hours round trip to Newark the next day to see the Sharks but I do think today is the day I end up seeing if they let adults who are not autistic into the sensory room to meditate at the Farg lmao

[bchanslvr]

hey! can i please request some fluff with harry potter? it can be anything you want! 💘

strawberry shortcake [hp x fem!reader]

word count — 2k (2, 954)

warnings — kissing, anxiety? overal no warnings

summary — you get a bad score and your loving boyfriend comes to the rescue to comfort you.

a/n — thank you for the request!! i couldn't think of an idea so i just came up with one from my own life. basically i had this test that i failed so my math grade from a b to a d.. and so i thought why not just use that and your request to create a fluffy harry x reader where he comforts the reader after a bad grade. i hope you enjoy. also i think i'd like to start writing on here again. and i swear i'll actually do ideas that you guys send me so please send any interesting ideas for me to do. also i tried to check for all grammar errors but im only human after all <3

you felt like your eyes were going to bulge out of your head when you saw your history of magic score. god save me, you thought.

you were stupid. you had a week to study, yet like you always do, you procrastinated and studied for 15 minutes before going to sleep.

and of course the material didn't stick in your head, so you got a poor score on the test. gosh not even poor, it was a tragedy. 13/45? come on. your grade was going to be a disaster. especially so close to break and finals. what were you going to do about it?

your mind was racing a million miles per hour thinking of anything that can help, but you kept running into obstacles.

how about i go during my free time for tutoring? you thought. yes that'll be great! oh wait. i need to go on my plant in herbology. scratch that. how about i beg for a retake? oh who am i kidding? he hates me he'll never let me re-take. maybe i can tell him a sob story, and then he'll have to be sympathetic and help in some way. i know he doesn't do extra credit but-

"hey y/n" harry said walking over to you with his messanger bag in hand.

you stood there frozen for a minute before looking up to say "oh.. hi harry..".

and well, harry could be oblivious sometimes. well, most of the time, but he saw the apathetic look on your face, and he just knew something was wrong. he was smart enough to know he couldn't ask you head on so he said,

"listen, y/n, i see something bothering you, so do you think you would want to go to hosmead after school with me to help you feel better? after all that's what i'm hear for" harry said.

"um... well... i... oh, forget it; yes, I'll come. meet me near the willow tree at 5 and we'll head there. maybe it will clear my mind. thank you again, harry," you said with a wide grin because at least you had someone who cared about you.

"no problem sugar, try to keep your head up till the rest of the day. ill see you later!!" harry said before winking at you and leaving the classroom.

you simply smiled back at him and began packing up your stuff to head out to your next class which was at the oppostie of the end of the school so you had to hurry before you were late.

the rest of the day passed by in such a blur. you didn't pay attention in any of your classes and just sat there in your seat like a statue. you almost ended up falling asleep in charms, but your partner bumped your elbow in time before professor flitchwick came by your seat and harassed you.

you couldn't wait to go to hogsmead with harry. you were having a terrible week, so you really needed this.

so you got to your dorm, did the usual stuff. put away your things, took a long shower, spent more than 10 minutes figuring out what you were going to wear, and just barely ran to the tree on time.

lucky for you, harry was just arriving as well, so you weren't late.

"hi sweetheart! im glad you made it" harry said after giving you a peck kiss on your cheek.

you felt your cheeks heat up, and pshh, whatttt that's just because of how cold it is outside since it's the beginning of november. totally not because of harry's gesture.

you still couldn't believe you scored with the pride of the school. everything that happened between meeting him and dating him was golden. you once believed that love would be black and white, but it's golden.

anyways you need to stop going back to the past and try to stay in the present more.

".. so i was just thinking we'd hit up the leaky cauldron and get a drink and then we can go anywhere you like. like if you have any errands to run. we could do that."

you smiled at him and said, "yes, butterbeer sounds great. "

he smiled back at you and intertwined his fingers with yours.

you tightened your grip on his hand, and smiled to yourself. walking hand in hand to hogsmead.

you guys window shopped until you got to the leaky cauldron. harry being close with the bartender, got to get booth seats and two butterbeers for free cause it was "long over due".

you sat opposite of each other. playing tootsie and giggling at each other's stories about random things like first years.

you stayed there until your drinks were long over, and you guys just talked about whats going on in your lives.

and all too soon it started getting darker, so you had to start leaving. harry gave the bartender a big tip after he once again intertwined his fingers with yours.

you arms swang together as you shuffled closer to stay warm.

kicking the snow on the ground and living carefree.

walking and talking all the way till he reached your dorm door.

 "so.. this is it for today. tomorrow we can go somewhere else, okay? so i guess it's good night love, sleep well-" he started before being interrupted.

"but i want you to stay!" you said, pouting.

"what?" he said, confused.

"yes, harry you heard me, i want you to stay." you said adamentally.

"but what about the enchantments?" he asked.

"oh don't worry hermione got those removed for all of us a long long time ago when she started dating ron"

"your kidding. you absolutey joking with me right?" he said looking ludocrus.

"no honey, im being 100% serious right now" you said smirking at his dumb expression. 

"and nobody told me???? i wanted to sleep next to you the entire time, but i though the enchantments were going to block me. why didn't you say anything?" he said, now being the one who was pouting.

"i don't know why my love. and i'm so sorry; can we cuddle now?" you asked. eye lashes fluttering at him so pretty he just had to give in.

"oh alright, i forgive you" he said smiling.

"yay!" you said as you dragged him by the hand and onto your bed. he would've still be mad at you but how can he be when he sees those eyes of yours that just stare at him full of love, every single minute of your day?

"...and then eat and-hello? harry? HARRY! are you even listening?" you asked, snapping your fingers in front of his face to catch his attention

"oh! woops i'm sorry dove, i got lost in your eyes"

"oh please" you asked, blushing.

"no love, i'm being totally serious right now. they're my favorite part about you. they tell me everything i need to know before it even comes out of your mouth," he said, bringing his hand to caress your right cheek in a loving manner.

"well- i-" you sputter, trying to think of something to say.

"shut up"  he says, in a demanding manner.

he pushed you onto the bed, so that your back was against it and he was on top of you. he was smirking and checking you out as you layed there.

and, to be honest, it made you.. feel things. warm cheeks and a fluttery feeling inside

you loved harry, he was a wonderful man. but God, he was so slow.

he never got any "action" in the love department before you. which you enjoyed because you liked the thought that you would be his first everything.

so far, nothing more than a heavy make-out session with some clothes off has happened. and you would never ever push him or force him to satisfy you until he comes to you.

and you'd wait as long as he made you but he was so dense sometimes.

like now. he doesn't even know the things he does to your insides as he looks at you like that.

"well are you gonna do something or just stare at me like that?" you ask.

he smiled and pressed his lips against yours. his soft velvety lips that have been bitten and chewed on were perfect against yours.

you ran your fingers through the side of his hair and pulled him close till he was one against your boobs.

his hand traveled to your neck, holding you until you had to break apart to breathe.

you giggled at his dazed expression and then pushed him over and straddled him so now you were on top.

now it was his turn to chuckle as he looked up at you with those gorgeous green eyes.

sparkling admised the red curtains and your bed sheets.

you couldn't help it as you smashed his lips into yours once again. it was safe to say you were completely mad for him as he grabbed your waist closer to him.

his hands roamed all over your body. squeezing and pinching and holding any part of your body he could reach. his hands werecoming over to squeeze your ass when-

"Y/N!!! Y?N?? WHERE ARE YOU I NEED TO TELL YOU THAT ME AND RON ARE- ohhhh..." hermione said as she barged into your shared dorm.

you broke apart so fast you must of his hit his head with your chin. ron stood behind hermione shell-shocked and she stood there with the doorknob in her hand speechless.

"im so sorry y/n oh my gosh. i can stay in ron's dorm tonight. don't worry about it. i-uhm have fun you two?.. hahaha bye."

and they slammed the door after that and you could hear them running away frantically. trying to erase the memory of each of their best friends getting it on.

you just sat there on his lap not knowing what just happened and he broke out in a loud laugh. that kind of contagious laugh that cheers everyone up.

you joined him in it and rolled him over so you were both lying on your sides facing each other.

"the l0ook on ron's face i- cant-t"

soon enough the laughing simmidered down and you both just stared at each other.

he was thinking of how lucky he was to have you when you interrupted his train of thought to say: "i actually have the matching pajama set that you got us for christmas last year remember? we couldn't wear it because we were so busy. why don't we wear it now?" you inquired.

"oh yeah! i remember! that's a great idea y/n!" he said, grabbing your cheeks in both hands, squishing them together "my baby's a genius isn't she" he baby talked to you and made you smile and laugh till your jaws hurt.

he then went to get the clothes for you. before yelling about how the girls dormitory had more room than the boys to which you giggled at from where you were on the bed. he then finally brought them back to your bed.

it wasn't anything much it had a snowman and snowflake print on the pants in a velvety soft material, and a ringer tee that said "oh deer"

you went into the bathroom to change happily. thinking about how you still went somewhere else to change even though it has been almost a year of dating him. you were still scared of him seeing you all barren like that and he didn't mind.

but if he was to say, he wouldn't mind you looking like that.

he cleared his throat and looked around to distract his thoughts of you before you showed up dressed looking the most perfect holiday angel.

he couldn't help but blush slightly as you sauntered over with a goofy smile on your face. he didn't like that it rendered his muscles into jello and his stomach to jump around like it did.

"come on now don't make me wait!" you said, giggling and jumping onto your side of the bed.

he smiled at you before joining next to you on the bed. he made himself more comfortable before he thought of something.

"do you want to go down for dinner love?" he asked

"hmphhh, i frogot about that. ughhhhhh do we have toooooo?? m' to comfortable." you said, pulling your blanket higher over you and melting into harry's side and the pillow.

he chuckled again, "that's just what i was about to say. don't worry i have it all sorted out"

he clapped twice before winky the elf walked out of thin air and bowed down to harry.

"hi there winky, how have you been?" harry asked genuinely.

"i've been good sir. how has master harry potter been?"

"i've been good. listen now, i have a request. can you bring us our dinner to our bed? i don't know if it's allowed but me and my girlfriend here don't want to walk down to dinner. can you do that?"

"sure winky can bring food for master harry potter and his girlfriend! winky would be delighted to be of service!"

"thank you winky i know i can count on you. could you also bring us two glasses of water and any dessert you have?"

"yes sir i'll be back here as soon as i can!"

and just like that she disappeared again leaving you guys in silence.

"well well well... look at you, with your own personal elf huh? what will hermione think?"

"shut up, winky actually likes to work and i'm just helping her to be in service" he said, and with that he pinched you.

"oww!! harry!! i know i was just teasing you. and you know actually in my house when you clap two times you either turn on or off a light not make an elf appear"

"oh yeah well-"

winky appeared out of thin air again with a tray in her hands

"here you are sir and sir's girlfriend. for your dessert like you asked i brought you somthing we had left over, strawberry shortcakes!! is this okay for master harry potter?" she asked.

harry grabbed it from her hand and placed in the middle of the bed.

"it's perfect winky thank you. you are dismissed now. "thank you sir. if there is anything else you would like me to do winky will be glad to service you again!"

she disappeared out of the thin air she came from.

"alright then dig in my love" he said.

"thank you harry, you're a dear" you say.

he blushed at the nickname but ate nonetheless. until you got to the dessert, you guys sat in a comfortable silence. but just when you were about to dig in on the cake both of your utensils clinked as they were reaching for the cake at the same time.

you looked at each other and laughed. "how about we do this? i know this might be a little cringe but i can feed you and you can feed me"

"ah yes be romantic in our bed with pajamas on, sure let's" harry said chuckling.

you shook your head with a smile and grabbed a piece on your fork, his mouth wide open and waiting. you gently pushed it into his mouth and brought it back out.

then it was his turn to dip his fork into the cheesecake and feed it to you like that. that kept altering until the cake was done. when it was done and about to be cleaned up you observed a small piece of frosting hanging on his chin.

you smiled to your self before putting your thumb into your mouth to collect wetness before wiping away the smudge.

he seemed surprised at first and then finally came to his senses.

he grabbed your wrist when it was just about to leave and pulled you closer. you look at him startled before he smashed his lips onto you once again. he pressed himself against you and warmed you up from the inside.

he tasted like strawberries and smelled like the leftover smell of a fireplace that's been extingushed.

you closed your eyes and gave in to his ministrations. allowing him to place you on your back on your bed again and kiss you like no tomorrow. you were panting as you broke apart.

that went on for a few more minutes till the high went off and he seemed embarrassed of what he did.

"harry. darling. don't worry. i liked it. if you hadn't started it, i would've" you said, caressing his arm.

he seemed to be reassured in your words and smiled at you. he put the tray away for the elfs to get in the morning along with your clothes to be washed.

you both set yourself comfortable and snuggled into the warm covers.

you wanted to face him but your back demanded to be faced the other way. you swore you had a back problem, and you were not even twenty!! so you faced your back to his face. thought he didn't mind. he actually preferred it this way because he could put his leg on top of you pull you closer to his chest.

you could feel his breath down your neck and his hand inching over your stomach lacing with yours. his face hidden among your soft hair.

you layed there content and belly full with the love of your life and delicious food. your bad score from the morning is a faint memory in the back of your mind. you can worry about that when exams come but for now life was good.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

harry taglist - i have no one to tag right now except the people i already know like works, because i made a new taglist which is in my navigation so if you'd like to be tagged in future works check it out! anyways @elleblxck @ronsbadidea @ladyvesuvia @heythereangels @hmupotter @toms-diary

[tricktster]

TST. We all know that you have a… unique perspective on the things that happen to you, but I’m very confused about what part of “I hurt my back while trying to impress four preteen boys heckling me at the ice rink” was supposed to be heartwarming??????????

Well I didn’t share the heartwarming part because it’s impossible for me to share it without coming off like a smug, self-aggrandizing prick, but if the shoe fits…

My best friend Kal and I went to this little dinky outdoor ice rink that had been set up in (this is a depressing phrase) the shadow of the massive, mostly vacant casino that the developers and politicians involved in its creation swore to GOD was gonna turn around the economy devastation that GE wrought on Schenectady NY when it shut down operations and laid off/fired/lost the vast majority of its workforce in the 80s and 90s.

It is probably unnecessary to say this, but the casino has failed to perform as anticipated, and Schenectady remains a monument to the crippling human cost of unchecked capitalism and the corporate profit motive. Also before GE closed up shop and left an economically devastated company town in its wake, they managed to illegally dump a ton of toxic chemicals in the river and now the fish aren’t safe to eat, so uh, fuck you Jack Welch and your 1980s greed is good bullshit.

Anyway.

So, resetting the scene: little outdoor rink, 10 bucks for 90 minutes of skating if you have your own skates, perfect Saturday diversion. We figured we’d only do like an hour, then go grab impossible burgers or something. And then, out of nowhere, four preteen hecklers manifested to lean against the boards and beg us to “SKATE FAST! DO JUMPS! SKATE ON ONE FOOT! DO A BIG STOP AND MAKE THE ICE GO EVERYWHERE!!!!!” every time we went by them… so like, every 45 seconds or so - like I said, it was a small rink. And like, as someone who spent approximately half of her childhood bumming around rinks and getting into mischief whenever I wasn’t on the ice, I was immediately inclined to entertain these kids. Plus, you know, it’s kinda fun to try to do figure skating spins and leaps on hockey skates, even if I did beef it a few times.

Anyway, we hopped off the ice for a break after about a half hour because one of us was an absolute weenie who did not play ice hockey from the ages of 4 - 21 and was not used to skating for so long so his peeeeets were tiiiiiiired and he wanted a dwiiiink and i’m being mean, I wanted a diet coke too. So I’m at the concession stand when an employee from outside comes over to the employee grabbing our drinks and she says “hey, there’s a few kids at the ticket window who really, REALLY want to skate but they don’t have any money, can I at least give them these coupons for free skate rentals?”

And then I suddenly processed that my little heckling squad consisted of, you know… four little kids in the 9-11 year old range, and that were all on their own, at a casino - an unusual place for little kids to be hanging out unsupervised, and that they’d just spent a half hour just watching people skating while they stood on the other side of the boards… and I just decided on the spot to ask the employees “Are you talking about those four boys over there? They do like, REALLY want to skate, can I pay for their tickets and rentals?”

So like the employees (who were really really kind and immediately on board with my plan) were like “that’s so nice of you, you can buy their admission, but the rentals are on us.” which sure, I’ll take that deal. And then I went over to the boys with one of the employees who told them I’d get their tickets if their parents were okay with it, and while I can attest that they all insisted that they’d checked and it would be fine with their parents suspiciously quickly… jesus christ you guys, they were jumping up and down and they kept saying things like “I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE ARE YOU FOR REAL??!!!!?!!?!” and even this withered heart of mine couldn’t take it, it was so goddamn sweet.

Now, there was one thing I hadn’t thought through when I made my impulsive offer, which was “do these kids actually know how to skate.” I quickly realized when they were all holding their rental skates and then gave me a collective look of “okay, now what?” that the answer to that question was an emphatic NOPE, so I had to jog over to Kal and explain what I had done. Thankfully, I’m a good judge of best friends because he was immediately on board with our new afternoon plan of “teaching four random boys how to skate, starting with how to put skates on.”

And you guys. We got to know our new buddies very well, very quickly, because they immediately all started telling us all about themselves, and… jesus, these little dudes were in need of a no-strings-attached act of kindness, you know? They kept going off about how they couldn’t believe anyone would just do this for them, and how the mom of two of them wanted to let them do things like this but money was tight and she had to pay rent and bills and then another one volunteered that his dad and grandma both passed away in 2020 and things were rough and, like, before we were even back out on the ice Kal and I were both just like “okay, fuck our plans, let’s make sure these guys have one perfect afternoon.”

And we fucking did. We stayed out on the ice with our new buddies for hours, from mid-day until the sun went down, and in that time we got all four of them from slipping and wobbling and clinging to the boards to skating comfortably on their own; the biggest talker of the group, who did not initially appear like someone who would be a natural athlete? He was skating backwards by the end of the night. I honestly did not know that I could feel so much pride for the athletic achievements of children that I had only met a few hours ago, but i’m getting sentimental in my dotage I guess because i’m still feeling it several days later.

I mean, I really wish I could capture how happy and thankful we both were to see these kids having a blast. They all were just so great and so sweet and they kept yelling at each other whenever one of them slipped up and swore in front of us, and they bounced right back up whenever they fell and laughed about it, and once they were doing pretty good without us hovering they’d skate by us and yell “LOOK AT ME! I’M DOING IT I’M SKATING!!!!!” every single time, and when we too a break to get them snacks and hot cocoa they were so happy and they made a big point of telling us it was the best hot chocolate they’d ever had (bruh it was swiss miss dissolved in hot water but i appreciate the sentiment) and just… like, I am so fucking happy that I leaned into that fleeting generous impulse, because it was probably the best day I’ve had since, oh, March of 2020.

See? Look at all that shit I just wrote so I could humblebrag about a nice thing I did. Told you I’d come off like a smug, self-aggrandizing prick. But… There was this moment right after the employee told them they were going to get to skate when the oldest, quietest one said “Are you for real? People don’t just do stuff like this for us.” and like… I’m being entirely genuine when I say that I want to be the type of person who does stuff like that from now on, and I will remember the day we temporarily and impulsively acquired a group of four small hecklers for the rest of my life.

[absintheandtextbooks]

Time and Time Again

Content warning: cursing, attempted murder, it’s a little more heavy than it is fluffy. One non canon character. If I need to add another tag let me know.

Mabel looked around the rooftop. She had deliberately avoided telling any more people about her childhood. She was so relieved to not be Mabel Mora - bloody Mabel - to leave all of that behind. But here she was. At a surprise New Years party. On a rooftop. At the Arconia. The men who were basically her fathers weren’t there. They were with their families. But for some reason no one in the building thought this through. She was pissed. She looked down at the green and gold sparkly dress. It mocked her, reflecting off the string lights and she pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders, hiding the sequins. the sky was cloudy and the cold was biting. She ducked her head into the collar of her coat, vowing to find who had planned it. Her own little mystery for the night. Hopefully it would work as a distraction.

She headed back to her room until she could hear the party start. As the time past 10:45 she dragged herself back up to the roof. Quickly she found a drink and nursed it, wandering the party. She chatted up her neighbors, obliquely trying to find the culprit. The music was deafening. As the evening dragged on she considered leaving but she was here and quite frankly, didn’t have any other plans. And again, her anger hadn’t quite subsided even with the staggering cooldown time. What she gathered by 11:30 was that Nina was swamped and was approving things left and right. Her kid had the flu when the party was pitched and she felt terrible but couldn’t do much as the whole thing was organized and obviously happening. With a few more questions to people and after finally talking to Howard she quickly learned it was one of the new residents, a man named Daniel. In a whirlwind she began to look for him, flitting from group to group, the music reaching a dizzying volume. Finally she stormed to the center of the crowd, peering around, looking for the loose description she had of him - tall, brunette, wearing a deep maroon pea coat and a terrible sparkly bow tie. Finally she saw him, head down, chatting with Ndidi and Lester. She trudged through the crowd again, weaving in between, bumping into people’s shoulders and hips. Finally, she reached the small group as they were discussing the new mailbox system. She interrupted gently, feigning politeness and asked if she could have a quick word with him. Lester smiled and waved them on. Daniel glanced over at her, lightly annoyed. She led him to a quite corner away from the rest of the party.

“So I’ve gotta ask, do you know the history of the building?”

Daniel blinked at her, glancing down at his partially spilled drink, eyes narrowed.

“You spilled my champagne!”

“Yeah that doesn’t so much change my question. Do you know the Arconia’s History.”

Daniel looked up at her, his eyes sharp. “Yeah. Course I do. But here’s the thing, I don’t really care.”

~~~~~

Theo thought the stupid party was pretty much the worst idea someone could think of. But he had spent enough time trying to deal with things, he figured he should be able to actually celebrate in the building. I mean his dad was going, but that was avoidable. Hopefully he could chat a bit with Lester, wave to everyone, get a drink, and duck out. He showed up late - very late - and then spent most of his first ten minutes wandering. Suddenly he saw Mabel rush to the middle of the crowd, peer around, and then with laser focus shove back into the crowd. She bumped against him, blind to everyone around her. Leaving disgruntled looks and like I grumbles in her wake. Theo followed her quietly, looking apologetically to those pushed out of the way.

Soon she stopped and he slid back into the crowd, not wanting to make a scene and nearly as soon as he did she was back on the move, dragging a nonplussed looking man behind her. Theo recognized him as the new guy. He had moved into Tim Mono’s old apartment. He followed them as they headed away from the party and he slipped behind a hedge. He could see everything from here. He caught glimpses of what they said to each other. Mabel’s face got more and more frustrated before finally snapping to angry. “Yeah … you really… care.” she shouted. Theo tilted his head trying to make out the words more clearly. They were taking quickly trying to sprint towards the end of the argument. The guys said something about family tradition and Mabel mentioned New Years parties being a sensitive topic and the argument only seemed to grow. Hands waving and people stepping towards each other. He watched as Mabel began to flinch away. And suddenly he wasn’t and adult watching Mabel fight with this man. He was a kid.

Zoe and Oscar were fighting. Young Theo was hunched behind the same hedge, trying to make out their argument. The words seemed to blend together. He watched as their argument grew and grew before finally Oscar walked away. He watched as Zoe stood there, crushed, and gingerly walked up to her. Current Theo remembered what happened next, though in a blur. He remembered signing with her. And the run in her hand and then his. And then her pushing him. And pushing him. And pushing him. And then a flurry of motion and nothing. He could have pushed her, she could have tripped, or some combination outside of even that. However all he knew was it was his fault. His mind spun until motion from the two people in front of him pulled him back to the present. He watched as Daniel slightly pushed Mabel’s shoulders as she visibly shouted at him. He watched her begin to tense to push back and a sense of clarity shot through him. He wasn’t going to watch something happen to something he cared about again. He wasn’t just a watcher. He pushed out from behind the bush, sprinting towards them and putting himself between them, hands out.

~~~~~

Mabel was livid. The rooftop was too empty and all she could see was the smug luck on Daniel’s face. He had the gall to tell her the buildings history didn’t matter because the party was a ‘tradition’.

“But why would you do this here,” Mabel pleaded, “why does your tradition outweigh the deaths in living memory!”

The guy smiled. “See I knew nobody got over anything. Does it bother you I’m in Tim Kono’s old room.”

“Who are you. What are you doing to us?!” Mabel shouted.

“Oh believe me. This isn’t for the building. I just think you did it. I think this is all your fault. And I realized I have the income to prove it.”

Mabel stepped back, flinching slightly.

“You fucking monster”

“Oh yeah bloody Mabel? I’m the monster,” Daniel stepped towards her, pushing her shoulders, “what are you gonna do about it. Ya gonna kill me. Stab me. Do it bitch. You’ll go to fucking prison. It’s all. Your. Fault.”

Mabel tensed. And then took an instinctive step back as Theo Dimas sprinted forward and cemented himself in between. “Fuck you! Get out of this building. And stay the FUCK away from me.” She shouted.

Daniel grinned again. Mabel wanted to slap the look off his face. She tried to push Theos hand out of the way but he caught her wrist and promptly let go. Daniel grinned again “bitch” he sneered, trying to push past Theo. He caught Daniel by the shoulders, keeping him from getting to her. Then Daniel ducked under Theo’s hands and grappled him, pushing him towards the edge of the roof. Theo bucked and fought him the whole way. Mabel felt frozen as Daniel struggled against Theo, holding him close to the edge. As he kicked at him, She watched as Theo saw where he was and went pale. His blue eyes looked bright in the light from distant string lights. She could see pure panick in his eyes.

“Leave him ALONE!” she roared, frozen. She wanted to plow forward but was stuck. She couldn’t run to the edge. Not with the chance of another friend dying on this roof. Going over that edge.

“Please” she choked out. Daniel looked down at her.

Mabel pleaded with him in shock. Zoe and Theo’s faces blurred together in her mind. “Please let him go,” Mabel’s mind spun, “the police are on their way. There are so many people here. Don’t let this ruin your life like I keep ruining mine.”

Daniel blinked at her, his grip loosening on Theo who used the opportunity to scramble away from him. Mabel let out a deep breath and her eyes welled with tears again. Theo situated himself between her and Daniel again gesturing towards the phone she had clutched in her hand as he kept his eyes locked on Daniel.

Mabel fumbled with the phone, calling the police. Once they had guaranteed they were on the way, she stood next to Theo, gently bumping her shoulder against his.

“How long have you been planning this?” She spat at Daniel.

“Months and obviously it was time well spent. It worked”

~~~~~

The police arrived about 10 minutes later. Theo watched as Mabel explained what happened and they frog marched Daniel away. As they watched the police leave, Theo came up to stand next to Mabel. She looked a little dazed as she turned to give him her full attention. “Thank you,” she signed. He nodded and she studied him for a moment before signing “You ok?”

Theo nodded. Mabel reached a hand up to his cheek before withdrawing it again and opening her phone. “You’ve got a couple of scrapes.” She showed it to him before hesitating and typing more. “I have first aid stuff in my apartment. I can help if you’d like.”

Theo nodded again. Mabel led him down the stairs from the roof to her room, pulling out a box of first aid supplies and pointing to her couch once they got inside. “May I?” She wrote, “it may sting”. Theo held a finger to his face, feeling the cut and looking down at his hands and seeing they had a mix of scratches. He nodded, at a complete loss of what to say. Mabel handed him her phone with the notes page open and then began to clean the cut on his cheek, beginning to put Neosporin over it. Theo began to write. By the time she finished with his face, his note was done.

“Are you ok? If you’re not we can talk. Or not. I know I need to talk about what just happened”

Mabel smiled slightly as he handed it to her, taking a moment to respond before taking his first hand in hers to clean the scrapes.

“I’m ok-ish. And if you’re ok with it I’d like to talk that through”

Her hands felt so soft as she held his. He could feel tiny callouses on her fingers. He thought it was probably from knitting. She shifted to his other hand, continuing her effort. Finally she sat down on the couch next to him and he was suddenly surrounded by her lavender and turpentine scent.

“I was so scared I was going to watch another friend die. It feels like I barely have any left. Daniel was right. This is all my fault.”

Theo read the message quickly, glancing up to see quiet tears falling down her cheeks. He reached out, quietly brushing the tears from her cheeks, letting in his hand rest on her cheek a second longer than was strictly necessary. Then he typed his response “Look, it’s not your fault. I froze. I was scared something would happen too. I thought I would be standing by again, watching as something else just happened. I really hope you’re ok.”

Mabel tugged her jacket off and Theo grinned. “Green and gold glitter?” He signed, “that’s a little on the nose.” Mabel caught the beginning of the sentence. She was proud of the progress she made with sign but she wasn’t at fluent yet. Upon seeing her confusion Theo tapped his nose slightly and she smiled slightly, nodding. Mabel snatched up the phone, typing and retyping a message before showing Theo the screen. Sure enough he looked down and saw a message saying “so I don’t know about you but I’m exhausted and a little emotionally confused. I have a really comfortable couch if you don’t want to go back to your apartment. (I’d certainly like you here tonight)”

Theo smiled gently and nodded. Mabel rested her hand by his knee and he moved his towards her to where their hands barely wouldn’t touch. Mabel smiled up at him. And the two slowly tilted towards each other as the time passed like magnets before finally barely falling asleep next to each other. Hands millimeters apart.

[babiemingoo]

fantasy faire || yoon jeonghan

summary: [apart of the seventeen stars to the right series] jeonghan figures babysitting his niece at disneyland can’t be that bad, but it definitely gets better when he finds out you’re the cast member assisting his niece’s favorite princess, cinderella.

genre: fluff, cutie uncle!jeonghan || wc: 2.3k

a/n: yes I did take too long to post this and yes I did go overboard... i’m sorry

I’m definitely the only college kid that has to spend their Saturdays like this, Jeonghan thinks to himself for the second time that month. When he had spent all those nights in high school imagining the crazy parties and wild events he’d attend on his Saturdays in college, there was never any 4 year old niece involved, and definitely no Disneyland either. Yet here he was, his right pointer and middle fingers wrapped tightly around his niece’s hand as she tugs him towards the opening gates of the amusement park. Despite the fact that he did want to go out day drinking with his friends like normal college students did, he also couldn’t complain too much. A free year pass to Disneyland and getting paid just to spend the day with his niece every week? There’s worse things to do on a Saturday.

Still, Jeonghan curses his need for money in the back of his head when a mere 15 seconds after stepping into the park his niece won’t stop begging him to go to the Royal Hall, of all places. “Uncle Hannie pleaseee you told me last time that you’d let me meet Cinderella!” He tries not to groan at the way his niece looks up at him, eyes pleading and much too big for his dwindling resolve.

“Why do you want to go there?! Don’t you want to, like, ride Space Mountain or something?” Jeonghan complains to her as they walk down Main Street, wearing matching Mickey and Minnie Disney ears while weaving through the overwhelming crowds of families and couples.

His niece lets out a whine just as they pass some teenager asking her parents for pictures in front of the castle, “I want to meet Cinderella! She’s my favorite! Uncle Hannie pleaseee!” Her walking halts and she begins to stomp her feet in protest. “You’re such a meanie, you told me last time we came that we would see Cinderella and the time before that and the first time and-”

“Fine!” Jeonghan thought he was first at a lot of things in life, but his niece definitely has him beat in the whining and persistence departments, “We can go see Cinderella at the Royal Hall, but only once today okay? We’re not going over and over again.”

His niece pouts, but doesn’t complain further as she makes her way to the left where the hall was located. Disneyland was always fun - it was Disneyland - but Jeonghan wishes he could enjoy it to it’s full potential rather than being dragged around to visit people in costumes and watching the same shows over and over again.

-----

The boy watches as his niece makes small conversation with the cast member dressed as Ariel. They had to wait in line for 45 minutes to get into the meet and greet and his niece only looks half amused when the princess asks her if she’s met any new fish friends lately. Jeonghan doesn’t say much during their interaction aside from taking a few pictures to show his aunt later and thanking the cast members for their time. 

Almost immediately after Ariel bids her goodbyes, the little girl goes taking off around the corner, calling out a, “Cinderelly Cinderelly!” in excitement. Jeonghan rushes to keep up, and right as he rounds the corner himself he sees his niece happily jumping into the arms of the woman dressed in blue. 

He already knows this is going to take twice as long as Ariel’s meet and greet did; his niece is already spewing off about how she wants her own castle with a mouse named Gus Gus and a carriage shaped like a pumpkin. With a slight puff Jeonghan makes his way to stand next to the cast attendant with Cinderella and for the first time today it’s his heart that goes pumping with excitement.

You stand next to the pillar with a smile watching the interaction between the princess and Jeonghan’s niece. You loved your job of attending to the princesses at the Royal Hall - the way a few magical minutes in someone’s day always makes the tiring hours more than worth it. You beam as Jeonghan’s niece claps her hands while speaking to Cinderella, questioning her on whether or not the King and Queen of the kingdom forced her to eat broccoli, too.

Since starting your job at Disneyland, there were many days where you and your favorite coworker would talk after a shift to discuss the cute guys that would funnel in and out of the parks. Turning to look at the man who came into your area with the little girl, you knew today would be one of those days. “Is she your sister?” You decide to ask, you know, for good measure. He technically looked old enough to have a child around the girl’s age, but you learned the hard way it’s better not to assume.

“Niece,” He answers with a small smile once he settles next to you. Jeonghan lets a few moments pass as he watches his niece happily bounce next to the princess, but in the corner of his eye he’s watching you. You were probably one of the cutest people he’s ever seen - if not the cutest. Knowing he only has a limited amount of time before the family on the other side of the wall moves on to get their meeting with Cinderella, the man attempts to strike up a conversation, “My sister makes me bring her to Disneyland every Saturday.”

“Every Saturday?!” Your eyes get wide, turning to fully face the man, “Did you have to buy an annual pass for that?”

“Nah, they pay for it.” The boy decides to face you completely in response while rubbing his fingers together, “My sister married well.” For a split second he wonders if he should’ve lied and said he did pay for it all himself - to impress you or something.

Your mouth opens to reply, but you’re quickly distracted when you catch the two girls posing for a picture. Despite your desire to talk to the cute guy, you know you’re technically still on the clock, so you cut the conversation in favor of taking pictures of his niece with her favorite princess. Jeonghan decides to do the same and pulls out his phone for pictures, but really, his attention is on you the entire time.

-----

When his niece first begged to meet Cinderella, Jeonghan fully prepared to tell her every week following that they can’t go the Royal Hall for whatever made up reason and somehow convince her to go on a ride instead.

However, with the thought of you, the cute cast member replaying on his mind like a loop, he doesn’t complain for a second when his niece asks to see the princess in blue. In fact, it’s become a habit to head straight to the left whenever they enter the parks. Sometimes Jeonghan even takes his niece through the meet and greet twice if she behaves well (but she doesn’t really have to do anything. He just wants an excuse to see you again).

With their new routine in play, you and Jeonghan become more and more familiar with each other. You learn each other’s names, where the two of you go to school, and even things as in depth as Jeonghan’s love for basketball and the story of how you came to work for Disney. He figures out that your shift ends at 3pm every Saturday and he always seems to make it at least once before you’re off. Coming to Disneyland goes from babysitting his niece to borderline using the little girl as an excuse to talk to you. The bond you two create is simple, and definitely unexpected from your job of working with families and couples more often than not, but it’s special; even magical in a way.

So when Jeonghan’s niece makes a move to go right instead of left one Spring Saturday, Jeonghan nearly gets whiplash, “What are you doing? Don’t you want to go to the Royal Hall?”

To his surprise, the little girl shakes her head and points towards Tomorrowland, “Can we try Space Mountain instead?”

For once in his life, Jeonghan is rendered speechless. His niece never turned down an opportunity to go see her favorite princess. He does nothing but blink at her for a bit, trying to understand her sudden fixation with the opposite end of the park, until he’s pulled back to reality by her tugging on his hand again, “Do you want to see Cinderella later, then?”

Jeonghan’s okay with going on the ride first - as long as they get into the Royal Hall by 3pm. “No,” His niece suddenly answers and the boy can only imagine how high his eyebrows raise, “I don’t really like Cinderella anymore.”

“You what?!” Jeonghan drops down to the girl’s eye level to shake her shoulders dramatically, “What do you mean you don’t like Cinderella?! She’s your favorite!”

“Not anymore, I watched Frozen yesterday and Elsa’s dress is prettier. She’s my favorite now!” He’s sure this could go in a Youtube compilation of Top 10 Anime Betrayals, “I wanna go see Elsa today instead!”

“Screw Elsa!” Jeonghan forgets for a second just where he is, catching a middle aged mom in the corner of his eye covering her daughter’s ears. Clearing his throat and bringing his tone down, he continues, “You like Cinderella, okay? When we get back to your house later tonight we can watch all the Cinderella movies and I’ll even buy you a doll today! But we're not going to see Elsa! We’re seeing Cinderella!”

The small girl, as expected, isn’t very happy with his demands. She begins to stomp and whine like that first day he took her to meet the princess, and although she got the best of him that time, it’s not happening today. “Why can’t we see Elsa?!”

“Because-” Jeonghan pauses to bring his voice down once again, “Cinderella’s friend is really, really cute, okay? And Uncle Hannie really wants to get their phone number. So, we’re going to see Cinderella and later on when Cinderella’s cute friend doesn’t have to work anymore we can go see Elsa, I promise.” With his pinky stretched out, he’s hoping his explanation suffices. His niece was young and maybe she won’t understand just how desperately he wants those two or three minutes with you every week; but it’s worth a shot. 

For a second, she does nothing but stare at his outstretched hand, almost as if she’s weighing her options. Then, with a small smile, she lifts her small hand to meet his and hooks their pinkies together, “Okay.”

-----

Today, Cinderella is placed at the end of the Royal Hall, and Jeonghan’s sure that his niece knows exactly what she’s doing when she nearly flies through the first two princesses with little to no conversation. He decides not to point it out though, and just goes through the routine of taking a picture and thanking the workers.

Jeonghan wonders how the interaction between his niece and Cinderella will go; will she pretend to be interested? Will she tell Cinderella that she’s found a new favorite? Or, worst of all: will she take nearly no time with the princess, and Jeonghan will be forced to talk to you for less than a second before having to leave?

Surprisingly, his niece does none of the three. Without even sparing Cinderella a glance, she immediately marches over to you standing in your usual spot against the pillar and says, “My Uncle thinks you’re cute.”

Silence. Jeonghan, despite being a naturally confident guy, doesn’t know what to do when you look up from his niece with an amused smile. Even Cinderella seems to lose character for a few moments when she slaps her hand over her mouth to conceal her laugh. Before Jeonghan can open his mouth to redeem himself, you look back down at his niece, “Oh? Does he?”

“Yes! I told Uncle Hannie I wanted to meet Elsa today but he made me come here because he said you’re really cute and he wants your phone number,” The girl replies and Jeonghan wonders where kids learn this stuff. “Can you give him your phone number so I can see Elsa now?”

 Jeonghan sighs. This would happen to him. It’s probably karma for using his innocent niece as a way to talk to you. What is he even supposed to say now? Breaking into an awkward smile, he grabs his niece by the shoulder and shrugs, “Uh, kids, right?” Damn kids.

You laugh for a few seconds before lowering down to his niece’s level and grinning at the girl, “Tell your Uncle, that I think he’s really, really cute,” You spare a glance at the man briefly, “And that I’m flattered he’d like to get my phone number. But it’s against the Disneyland rules for me to give it to him.”

Of course it is, he thinks to himself. Leave it to the happiest place on Earth to ruin his chances with you. Jeonghan’s about to nod in understanding and motion for his niece to (very quickly) finish her meet and greet and he can stuff his face with churros for the rest of the day. But before he can make any sort of moves you continue, “However… If you and your Uncle were to see me at the castle around 3:30 after my shift today… I’m sure Mickey wouldn’t mind, right?”

“He wouldn’t!” His niece answers happily before jumping up and down, facing Jeonghan to say, “Can we see Elsa before then?!”

Chuckling (mostly to mask his sigh of relief and excitement), Jeonghan nods and points to Cinderella across the room, “Finish saying hi to Cinderella and I’ll take you to meet Elsa right after this.”

The little girl squeals in happiness before running over to the woman in blue, who he knows is giving him a knowing look. Jeonghan fits into his spot next to you, whispering through a smile, “So… churros at 3:30 then?”

You beam at him, nodding, “It’s a date.”

[write-orflight]

Trouble: Chapter 4

*Gif not mine*

Pairings: HotchxReader

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2  Chapter 3

Rating: M

Words: 3.8K

Warnings: SMUT, Oral sex(male receiving), fingering, choking, slight degradation, dom/sub overtones. mention of past rape/abuse. witch shit. 

Request: OPEN/CLOSED

Summary: After Haley’s passing, Aaron Hotchner has lost the light in his eyes. He seems to find it it the most unlikely of places, an occult themed coffee shop ran by a witch.

A.N: If you don’t like smut, i’d skip some paragraphs but not the whole thing because there’s some major plot points. Tarot, wicca, and crystal information is very secondhand if you see any inaccuracies, no you don’t.

Chapter 4: I been facing trouble almost all my life

“Y/N, what’s wrong?” Hotch asks, immediately standing when he heard the crash of the phone.

You couldn’t tell him. You couldn’t tell hotch about that period of your life, you guys just got to the place you wanted to be at for quite some time. Charlie couldn’t do this to you again, you couldn’t let him fuck more of your life up. 

“Oh nothing, butter fingers sorry.” You say, plastering a smile on. Hotch doesn’t believe you, you can tell he doesn’t but he doesn’t ask questions either.

After talking for another hour, Hotch kisses you goodbye, knowing somethings off but not saying anything. You head upstairs and relieve Silena of her duties, promising her details of the night tomorrow. Once you see her out, you instantly crawl into your daughter’s bed. 

“Mama?” She says groggily. 

“Yea honey, it’s me.” 

She nods sleepily before laying her head on your chest. You run your hands through her hair watching her sleep for a spell. 

Charlie couldn’t take this from you. 

You won’t let him. 

—————————————

It’s been a couple months since the phone call and things were honestly going good, scary good. Business was booming, a famous blogger had stumbled upon your shop by accident and posted about it since then you and Silena seemed to have your hands so full with hipsters and entitled elitists that you needed a full time sitter. You didn’t like it but money was money. 

You and Hotch were also doing good. He finally took you on that date, which was dinner at a small Italian restaurant. He looked at you in shock as you rattled off the menu items in perfect pronunciation. You just shrugged explaining that you worked at an Italian bakery through college, which is where you learned the language and most of the recipes you used in the shop today. 

Both of you didn’t account for weather though and as soon as you left the restaurant it began to pour. Hotch gave you his suit jacket to cover your hair as the two of you bolted across the parking lot to his car. The original plan was to just wait out the rain until it was safe enough for you to both drive home but what ended up happening was the two of you making out like teenagers in the backseat of his car. 

It’s been about two months since then and while he’s gone a lot on cases he seems to still make time for you and, by proxy, Artie. The weekends the both of you had free were spent at the park with your kids who got along swimmingly. Artemis had the same personality as you in that sense, nice and outgoing. It was no surprise that she’d befriended Jack in a matter of days despite his shy demeanor.

You were still worried about Charlie. You tried not to be but you couldn’t help it. You had already moved multiple times because of him you couldn’t do it again. You had the shop, Artie was finally at that age where she was old enough to remember so she needed stability and now you had Aaron, who had already lost so much you couldn’t be another thing he lost. So you issued a new deal that gave any law enforcement officer 50% off a coffee order. Was it the best for your bank in the long run? No, but it gave you and Artie the protection you needed so he wouldn’t think of trying anything. That didn’t stop the threatening notes and phone calls though despite everything. 

You had finally decided though you weren’t going to run. Not this time. 

------------------------------------

You’d never been inside the FBI building before and until today you never had an excuse to. But since Artie was with her sitter all day and you had the time you decided you’d take a long lunch and come see Hotch. 

You got off the elevator 2 carriers of coffee in tow, figuring it’d be rude to bring Hotch something and not the others. As you walk into the bullpen the first person to take notice of you is Spencer. 

“Hey, Y/N. What’re you doing here?” 

“I thought I’d surprise Hotch with lunch and you guys with coffee.” You smile, handing the coffee carriers to him as he makes grabby hands at them. You take out the two cups you knew were yours and Aaron’s. “Where is his office?” 

Spencer points to the catwalk above you. “Upstairs, his door is the open one.” You mouth your thanks as you head up the stairs and into the opened door of the office, rapping quietly on the door to announce your presence. Hotch looks up annoyed but when he sees it's you his face softens a bit. He gestures to the phone he’s talking into and a chair for you to sit and wait. You close the door behind you and walk in silently placing the cup you brought in with you in front of him silently. He gives you a gracious look while you sit quietly in the chair across from him as he finishes his conversation. 

You’d never seen Hotch at work so you’ve seen him like this. You always knew he had an authoritative energy, but you’ve never seen him like this in his element, in charge. Your eyes slowly pan up the charcoal suit he was wearing, broad chest and shoulders ridged with stress. You watched his stern expression get more annoyed by whoever he was on the phone with as he blew heavy exasperated breaths through his nose. 

He was angry. You could tell. 

But for some reason it was incredibly hot to you. 

“I’m not compromising when it comes to my team, now Goodbye.” He said, angrily slamming the phone into the receiver. He pinches the bridge of his nose, obviously frustrated. You decide to lean forward placing your fingers in the aforementioned hand. He instantly looks up and fully laces your hands together, pulling your hand up so he could kiss the swell of your knuckles. 

“Hey, dove.” Your heart swells a bit at the pet name, still not fully used to the development of your relationship despite being together for months. “What’re you doing here?” 

“The shop was pretty slow and Malia is watching Bean. I figured I’d take a long lunch to come see you. Is it a bad time?” You ask. 

“I’ll always make time for you.” He says. Hotch didn’t have many regrets but one of the major gut-wrenching ones was the fact that he drove Hayley away and made her feel unloved because he couldn’t tear himself away from work. And while you were very understanding, in fact much more understanding and patient than she was, he wasn’t going to do that ever again. 

“You’re angry though.” You say, stating the obvious. 

“I was.” 

“Can I ask why?”         

“It’s just… my boss doesn’t like me very much and because of that she puts the team under unneeded scrutiny.” He sighs, waving his hand. “I don’t want to bore you with that though, how was your day?” 

You shrug. “You know it’s just coffee, so uneventful. And you don’t bore me, if something’s stressing you out, I wanna hear about it.” You look him in the eye, thumb moving over his knuckles. “I wanna help.” 

Hotch sighs again. “It’s just, when Hayley was killed my judgement was clouded for a while. I was angry and I was taking unnecessary risks that were ultimately damaging to the team. I realize that now but not soon enough because Strauss is still on me about everything. And I’m trying to work on my anger about stuff like that but obviously when my abilities as a leader are questioned every 5 minutes, it’s hard.” 

You ran your thumb up and down his knuckles the whole time he ranted. You get up to circle his desk before standing in front of his chair, leaning back against the edge of the desk “Can I give you something?” You ask. 

“If it’s another rock, I’m going to have to get a chest to put them all at some point, having them on my desk is taking up space now.” He laughs. 

“I think we’ve established it’s always going to be a rock, Aaron.” You reach into your pocket. “I actually carry this on me all the time and maybe it’ll help you too. This is raw aquamarine. Because it’s water based it’s used for it’s cooling energy. Sometimes to calm anger, sometimes to provide wisdom in conflict.” Aaron holds out his left palm, knowing the drill by now. “Please be used as a conduit of peace.” You say, before handing the stone to him. 

“Thank you, dove.” He says, placing the crystal next to the others. “You said you carry this one all the time?” 

“Yea.” 

“Why?” 

You sigh. “I used to have a really bad anger problem. Raw aquamarine helped me with it?”

“You...had an anger problem?” He said, extremely confused. “You? I’ve never even seen you angry.” 

“That’s because you haven’t done anything but make me happy, Mr. Hotchner.” You smile, leaning down to kiss him which he instantly reciprocates. “Also, you haven’t seen me drive, I have real bad road rage.” You laugh. 

“Well, thank you for the stone. I don’t think it’ll help my situation but it’s worth a shot.” He says. 

“Well, there is another way to absolve some of your anger.” 

“And what’s that?” He asks. 

“You could take it out on someone.” You say, looking him directly in the eye. You notice his pupils darken extremely. “I don’t mind.” 

“When do you have to go back to the shop?” He asks, standing from the chair so he’s towered over you now, the desk still blocking you from being able to back away from him. 

“I have another 45-50 minutes before Silena calls.” You look back at him innocently. 

“Lock the door and close the blinds, please.” He says, you don’t have to be told twice before you are squirming from under him to do just that. Once you do that you look back at Hotch who is gesturing for you to come closer which you do. 

“Are you sure you want this, dove? I know we haven’t done anything like this yet.” He asks you, you nod fast. “And you’ll tell me the second I do something that makes you uncomfortable?” 

“Yes, Aaron.” You say, practically whining. “Please, I need you.” 

Aaron instantly sweeps you into a deep passionate kiss that’s already leaving you groaning as his tongue sweeps across your bottom lip. He presses impossibly close to you and you feel him erect against your side. His hands travel up your sides and under your shirt slipping a hand into your bra, unhooking it before toying with your nipple. You moan loudly as his lips trail down your jaw sucking bite marks into your neck. 

“Fuck, look at you.” He says, lowly in your ears. “Already so desperate and loud for me when I’ve barely touched you.” You can’t help moan at that too, touching him everywhere your hands can reach. “I’m going to have to shut you up somehow, huh?” He says, you whimper slightly and he grins, devilishly at you. “Get on your knees for me, baby.” He says, and you nod fast before settling on your knees for the man before you. 

For a minute he just looks at you, studying you as if this was going to be the only time he’d see you like this. You watch him with hooded eyes as his hands go to his belt buckle and fly, revealing himself to you. You’re agape for a second trying not to drool he was certainly bigger than you’ve ever had. He tilts your chin up slightly so you can look him in the eye easily. 

“You want to make me feel good, right?” He says, you nod. “Use your words, baby.” 

“Yes, Sir.” You say, breathy. 

“Then do so.” He says, you nod before grabbing his member in your hand. Flattening your tongue to lick up the underside. He groans, grabbing the side of your head, pushing himself further into the warm heat of your mouth. He goes slow at first, testing the waters, trying to make sure you won’t freak out on him but soon enough he hears and more importantly he feels you moan. He grips your hair tighter before more forcefully shoving himself into your mouth. You have no choice but to flatten your tongue and take the assault, squeezing your legs together for some form of friction. 

“Look at you, so desperate to please. You wanna make me cum, dove?” He says, voice straining as he nears his end. You answer his question by sucking him harder, inducing a groan from the man. You start to feel him twitch on your tongue. “Fuck yes, that’s my good girl. Take it all.” He says, releasing himself into the back of your throat. You swallow quickly before leaning back on your knees looking up at him putting himself back in his slacks. 

“Come here.” He says, you stand up instantly and he cups your jaw, kissing you harshly before moving you until you’re seated on the edge of his desk. He reattaches his lips to your neck automatically going for that spot behind your ear you can’t help the groan that leaves you as you feel one of his hands undoing your pants. He doesn’t waste any time undressing you, just brings his hand into pants, cupping your heat. 

“You’re so wet for me already, dove?” He runs a finger up your slit before pressing inside you. A gasp that dissolves into a loud moan rips through your body. He grabs your jaw roughly with his other hand so you’ll meet his lips. His tongue running over the roof of your mouth as he slipped a second finger inside of you, curling slightly to hit that spot inside of you every thrust. You try to keep quiet but the moans and whimpers keep slipping out involuntarily. Aaron’s hand moves from your jaw to your neck, tightening slightly. 

“If you can’t keep quiet, I’m going to stop.” He says, looking deep into your eye as his thumb circles your clit. Your eyes roll back at the sensation. “You want everyone to hear you? Hear how desperate and needy you are for me?” You shake your head as much as you can with his tight grip around your throat. Trying to keep quiet as you felt yourself coming close to the edge. “No, I think you do. If we had the time, I’d bend you over this desk and fuck you like the needy slut you are. You’d want that wouldn’t you, dove? You want me to fill you up?” 

You nod, hips moving fast to meet his hand. “Yes, Sir.” You say, brokenly as you approached the edge. Hotch groans in response, hand tightening around your throat again. 

“Fuck, next time, Angel.” He says, thrusting his fingers faster now. “Now I need you to cum, Princess. Go ahead, let go.” You bite down on your own hand to keep quiet as your orgasm washes through you then, not knowing you were waiting on permission. Hotch rides you through it, only withdrawing when he hears you whine. He instantly pulls his fingers up to the seam of your lips, you open your mouth, inviting him in. He groans as he watches you suck them into your mouth, tongue rolling over them. He kisses you the second he pulls his fingers out. 

“Are you okay?” He whispers. “I hope I wasn’t too rough on you.” 

You shake your head, picking up your bra and shirt to put them back on. “No, I’m fine. You were great.” You say, leaning up to peck his cheek. 

“Good, because I’m not done with you yet.” He says, with a dark look. 

You pout. “I’ve gotta get back to the shop, Gus.” 

“Can I come see you tonight then?” He asks, you nod, smiling. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.” 

You stop in your tracks for a second. “We didn’t think this through, did we?” You say. “Everyone on your team is going to know exactly what we did.” 

“Most likely, but I don’t care.” He smiles, pecking you on the cheek before opening the door holding your hand as you guys walk toward the elevator. 

“I do.” You mumble, he only laughs at you. 

Later, you walk into the shop, hair that was down before now in a tight bun. You didn’t even bother trying to cover up the marks on your neck. It wasn’t like you had anything to cover it with and it was way too hot for scarves. Silena looks up from the book she was reading. Smirking when she sees your disheveled appearance. 

“Have a good lunch?” She says.    

You flush, walking back to put your apron on. “Yea, i-it was fine.” You paused before looking at her. “Your reading was right.” You say, inducing loud cackles from your best friend. 

-----------------------------------------------------

Since you left, Hotch was having trouble thinking of anything that wasn’t you. After he saw how beautiful you looked losing control under him he knew he needed to see more. See just how much he could break you. He was just about getting ready to leave work when he got the call. 

“SSA Hotchner speaking. Who is this?” He says, he didn’t recognize the number on the screen. 

“Hey Hotch, This is Silena. I work with Y/N at HG.” 

“I know who you are Silena, what’s wrong?” He says, knowing something had to be up for her to be calling him. 

“Umm nothing yet, it’s just… Y/N’s ex is here and is camping in front of the store, I assume to catch her while she’s leaving… he’s not a good dude.” Hotch could make out some crashing behind her and someone he could only assume was Y/n yelling in very angry italian. “I just thought maybe if you came and flashed the badge a bit he’ll leave her alone.” he hears more yelling and crashing. “And you could save your girlfriend from a murder charge. Win-win.” 

“I’m on my way.” He says. 

“Great, come to the back door please.” Silena says hanging up. 

Hotch knocks tentatively when he arrives at the back door, Silena lets him in with a small smile. 

“Thanks for coming, Hotch.” We’re hiding out in the kitchen right now but he’s still banging on the front door. Luckily, we already locked for close so he couldn’t just walk in.” She says leading him to the kitchen where he sees you aggressively beating some dough. He looks back at Silena confused. “She’s pissed, sorry.” 

“This is fucking ridicous!” You yell. “Lo fa sempre, cazzo. quel ratto bastardo! Non posso vivere un giorno in una fottuta pace. Lo ucciderò, cazzo.” (He always fucking does this. that rat bastard. I can't live one day in fucking peace. I'm going to fucking kill him.)  

You turn and see Hotch who is looking back at you concerned. You level your angry gaze to Sil now. “I told you not to fucking call him.” You seeth. “You said you were calling Mike.” 

“Yea, but I figured it’d be better if I called Hotch since he’s an actual Agent and Charlie will probably listen if he said fuck off.” 

“I didn’t want you to call anyone. I wanted to handle it myself.” 

“Yea by killing him. Which I’m obviously not going to let you do. You have a shop and daughter to worry about.”  

“Un motivo in più per ucciderlo, cazzo! Non posso lasciarlo vicino a mia figlia!” (All the more reason to fucking kill him! I can't let him near my daughter) 

“Hotch, can you please handle it so we can just go home?” Silena pleads with him. He gives you another worried look before walking out the front of the store. Where he sees a disgruntled poor shaped man banging on the front door. 

Hotch opens the door slightly so the man could hear him “The shop is closed.” He says. 

“Who the fuck are you?” The man spits. Instead of answering, Hotch just pulls out his badge. 

“Since the shop is closed, you’re trespassing. I suggest you leave.” 

“Look, I don’t know who the fuck you are. But I know that whore is in there and I’m not leaving until she comes out.” 

As if on cue, you come out despite Silena trying very hard to hold you back, brandishing a rolling pin as a makeshift weapon. 

“Get the fuck off my property, Charlie.” 

“Where’s my kid, Y/N?” 

“You don’t have a fucking kid! I have a kid!” 

“I’m her father, I have a right to see her.” 

“Vedrai prima le porte dell'inferno prima che ti permetta di avvicinarti a mia figlia!” (You will sooner see the gates of hell before I let you near my daughter!) 

“You need to leave.” Aaron says, practically bodying the man out of the shop. 

“I hope this shitshow shop is doing well because I’ll just take you to court, Y/N.” He yells while leaving. 

“Oh yea, take me to court, stronzo! Let’s see what they decide. The mother with a successful business who raised her, or an abusive drunk!” You yell after him. “Fuck!” You yell, throwing the rolling pin deep into the shop thankfully not hitting anyone but putting a small dent into one of your paintings. 

“Can you believe that fucking asshole wants to take me to court! Me?! I’m the one who should’ve taken him years ago if i wasn’t so fucking afraid.” You kick a chair over. “You shouldn’t have stopped me, I should’ve killed him.” 

“Y/N, calm down. You don’t know what you're saying.” Aaron says. “It especially isn’t something you should be saying in front of an agent.”  

“Considering you actually fucking killed the man who killed your ex-wife, you have no right to judge me for saying I want to kill my fucking rapist.” You snapped at him. You see the hurt expression come across his face. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, Aaron. That was a really shitty thing for me to say.” 

“No, it’s fine. You’re right, I did do that and I don’t regret doing it.” Aaron grabs your hands, smoothing his finger over your knuckles, an action you had just done for him earlier that day. Which felt like lightyears away now. “I want to help you, Y/N, but I think… I think you need to tell me about it first.” 

You sighed heavily. He was right, you knew everything about Aaron’s past. 

It was only fair he knew everything about yours.

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[itgetsdarksometimes35]

For Freedom

Warnings: This chapter: none; the series: non-con, dub-con, depression, forced marriage, angst, forced pregnancy, 18+

Word count: 4,237

Pairings: Dark!Bucky Barnes / Reader

Summary: Reader is the youngest girl in her family. After being sold to Bucky Barnes, and forced to have his child, she and her sisters look for a way to escape.

~ indicates time change

- indicates a POV change

A/N: Hey you guys! I know I planned on this being the ending, but I thin this will be a small series. The next part will be the ending for sure, though. Hope you enjoy, next thing out will be Love In True Form, and then I’ll get to work on challenges. Then after that, I may have a new series for you all...

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It took months to save up enough money. You only needed enough to get two one-way tickets to Germany, but you were scared to take out too much in fears of James finding out. In that time, your oldest sister, Lucille, had twin boys. She had 5 sons altogether now, and you couldn’t wait to see her again. You hadn’t spoken to her since she was married and taken away years ago; Anne seemed to be the person who was doing all the communicating for you all. The second oldest, Vienna, had 3 daughters before she finally had her son. Her husband refused to give up until he had an “heir.” Anne had only 3 children, two boys and a girl. All the names to your nieces and nephews were a mystery, along with their faces and ages. You could guess Lucille’s twins’ ages were less than a year, but you could never be sure. Anne knew you had your son, but she didn’t know his name. She never asked, and she told you not to tell her. You weren’t sure if your other sisters knew, but it would only be a matter of time before they did. 

Bucky had turned 1 years old a month prior to you both leaving. James threw a small party at a local amusement park that he had rented out for the entire day. His friends and family were the only in attendance, as usual, and the older kids enjoyed the rides while Bucky smiled at all his guests and messed his face with icing from his safari cake. James had been so happy to plan the party; balloon animals, a small petting zoo, and face painting areas all decorated the park. You couldn’t deny the way he beamed at Bucky as he screamed in affection at the baby goat drinking from the bottle or the way he giggled at the stuffed rabbit James’ friend, Natasha, had gifted him. James wasn’t loving with you, but you were thankful it didn’t carry over to Bucky. You wished yours and James’ situation was different. Maybe you’d love him in different lights. 

When James thought you were buying groceries one day, you went out to get you and Bucky’s passport and buy your tickets. The passports would be ready and shipped to your house in 5 weeks, you paid an extra fee to get the expedition processing, and our flight would be the following week.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“See ya tonight, bud.” James caressed Bucky’s head while speaking to the pouting toddler. Bucky was always upset to see his daddy leave for work, and overjoyed when he came back. Your heart clenched. Were you doing the right thing? Then James turned to you and you shook the thought away. Of course you were. 

“Have a good day, dear. We’ll miss you,” You chirped as you kissed James on the cheek. He turned his mouth up in a small smile before kissing you on the lips. 

“Can’t wait to get back.” He winked at you and your stomach turned at his crud intentions. You were nothing but a walking toy for him, something to cook him food and bear his children. You faked a smile before dipping into the house while James drove off. 

You shut the door and quickly walked upstairs, your cab would be here in an hour. Plenty of time to pack. You set Bucky in his playpen and he looked at you as you frantically moved around yours and James’ shared room trying to throw useful items into the suitcase you brought to the house the day you moved in. 

“Da-da,” Bucky cooed from the pen as he picked up a block to start stacking. 

“Da-da went to work, baby. Now you and mommy are going to go on a trip,” You turned to your son and smiled at him, “Are you excited?” You talked in your baby voice and your son smiled back at you. His 3 teeth on full display for you. 

Your suitcase was filled with as many clothes as you saw fit. Everyone had specific items to bring, and your job was the clothes. Anne and Lucille would bring baby supplies, diapers, sippy cups, toys, etc; Vienna shared your job. The plan was to pack light, anything other than what you absolutely needed had to be left--including photos, and then drain your husband’s bank account for money. Finding out James’ banking information was the hardest thing for you to do, he kept it all locked in a safe in a room that was always locked. After snooping on him one night after he thought you were asleep, you were surprised to see the combination was the day of your marriage. 

As you were leaving the bedroom, you saw Bucky’s baby book. It wasn’t big, and you could fit it in your purse. There were millions of photos on the walls, but none of them were personal to you. They were high tech and flashy photos James had spent too much money on. None of them looked natural. Then again, you had never felt natural with him. But that book held photos you had captured with an old polaroid you found in the basement.  The film was just as old, but there was enough to last you years. You grabbed it and stuffed it into your purse as the Taxi started honking. You picked Bucky up from his playpen and left. You would just have to deal with Anne’s complaining when you got to Germany. 

The taxi dropped you off at the airport 45 minutes before you were supposed to board. You rolled your suitcase over to the bank that was next door, and entered with Bucky on your hip. James listed you as an account holder in the case of an emergency. You were positive he hadn’t seen anything wrong with this, you’d still need to know his information, and he probably thought he had broken you beyond the point of willing yourself to run. Little did he know. 

“Good morning, I’d like to withdraw some funds from my husband’s account,” You said to the older woman with a blonde bob and bright red lipstick. She smiled and set the glasses hanging around her neck on her nose before turning to the screen ahead of her. 

“Alright, name please.” You told her and she typed a few times. “And his?” She looked at you, and you noticed a bit of lipstick in her teeth. 

“James Buchanan Barnes.” The woman nodded and typed away.

“Da-da,” Bucky yelled and you looked down at him with a smile. 

“That’s right, honey, that’s daddy’s name.” Bucky smiled up at you before grabbing at your hair to play with. 

“Oh, he’s a cutie,” The older woman exclaimed, “Can he have a lollipop?” She reached into a brown bowel on the counter separating the two of you before pulling out a blue sucker. 

“I don’t see why not. Thank you.” You took the blue lollipop before turning to Bucky who was eyeing the candy with intensity. “What do you say?” 

“Tank to!” You unwrapped the lollipop before handing it to Bucky. He grabbed it with his chunky hand before greedily sucking on it, already getting a blue sticky streak on his mouth.

You turned your attention back to the blonde, and she asked you for your name and bank information. You gave it to her as she continued to type away at her computer. “Alright, can you tell me the amount you’d like to withdraw today?” 

You cleared your throat before answering, “All of it.”

The woman’s eyes got big. “Ma’am, there’s 2 million dollars in here. Can you give a reason?”

“Yes ma’am.” You adjusted Bucky on your hip as you tried to remember your lie. “My husband, James, was recently in a horrible accident at his job. I understand the hospital can take the money from the account, but they’ve given me the option to give it to them in person as well. I was on my way to catch a flight to him, and decided this was a route I’d like to take. Our insurance wouldn’t inflate because they wouldn’t have to pay anything, too, and now that we have this little one,” You lifted your hip that carried Bucky a bit higher, “I want our insurance as good as possible. We never know, you know?”

The blonde looked as if she were about to cry. “Oh, you poor thing! Yes, of course I understand completely. I have 2 daughters, and when their father got sick our insurance and healthcare went completely down the drain. I wish I could’ve had the money you have, I know it can be terrifying to have bad policies when raising children. Especially young ones.” You were nodding your head, trying to look pitiful. You felt bad for lying, especially to this woman. She looked so bad for you and was able to relate to your fake story. Your stomach flipped, and you felt like you were going to be sick.

“Thank you, I’m sorry about your husband. It’s a horrible situation that some of us are put in.”

The woman agreed and typed on the computer again. A register was opened and she counted out taped together stacks of money. She put them in a cream colored bag along with a receipt and handed it to you. 

“I hope everything goes okay for you and your little one. Us moms have to stay strong and do what’s best.” 

You held back tears at the woman’s words. “That we do.”

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You made your way back to the airport as Bucky babbled a song from a show you both watch together. The bank teller, who’s name you learned to be Camille, informed you that your husband would be emailed by the bank about the deposit due to legal protocol. You knew James checks his email religiously and that he got notifications on his phone. You knew that he was probably on a phone call with the bank right now, screaming into the phone. But you didn’t care.

By the time he figured out you’d left, you’d be in Germany. Or close to it. You planned on destroying your trail once you got there. Anne had planned it all out. She deleted her history and told you to destroy all your letters by burning them. She led her husband to believe you all had traveled to Greece with undeleted searches. It would throw all of them off for a bit, but eventually you knew they’d figure out you went to Germany. You all knew that you couldn’t stay together after a while, it’d be too risky. You knew at some point one of you might get caught, and the rest would have to save themselves. You were fugitives, trapped in your own homes, with men that were supposed to provide security as the guards. But, until then, you’d stick together as long as possible. You were stronger as a team during the weaker parts of the beginning. 

As you boarded the plane you felt a wave of nausea hit you. You rushed to the plane bathroom with Bucky still in your arms. You threw the door open, and emptied your stomach into the toilet bowl. 

“Uh oh,” Bucky said, making you laugh at his purity. 

“It’s okay, honey, mommy’s just a little nervous,” You reassured your son. You flushed and washed your hands before stepping out of the cramped room to find your seat. The plane took off soon after that. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You were jerked awake as a flight attendant tapped your shoulder, her brown hair pulled tight into a low bun. 

“Sorry to wake you, ma’am,” She had a smooth voice that you felt could put you right back to sleep, “But you’ve arrived at your destination.”

“Okay, thank you.” She smiled at you before standing up straight to move to the back of the plane to wake up other passengers. Bucky was asleep in your arms, and you planned to keep him that way. He had been good throughout the entire flight, but you weren’t surprised. He was such an easy baby, you couldn’t have been blessed with a better one. Especially not in your circumstances. 

You got off the plane and went in search of your suitcase in the bag return. You quickly found it before you headed out of the crowded airport. Bucky was quick to wake up after hearing the commotion of the early Wednesday morning traffic. Taxi drivers were yelling in German and English to the people exiting the airport, offering them a ride for a “price they couldn’t get elsewhere.” You would’ve taken the offer, but knew that you had to wait for the bus. Anne had said it’d be easier to hide that way. The taxi driver would ask for a direct address while the bus would drop you off at another station. Miles from your true destination. Plus the bus driver was less likely to remember you. 

Your stomach growled as Bucky bounced in your lap. You had eaten on the plane, but had vomited nearly everything up. Your stomach wasn’t agreeing with anything today, but you knew it was just the guilt and nerves you felt. Everything would go back to normal once you were with your sisters, and plus they would have something good for you to have at the house. 

The bus smelled and was cramped with loud people on their way to work. They spoke words you couldn’t comprehend loudly in your ear, and Bucky sat amazed at them. When your stop came, you eagerly grabbed your suitcase, bag, and son and all but jumped off the bus, glad to be rid of it for now. You followed a path Anne described in great detail until you came to houses with numbers. You dragged your tired body along them until you found the number that had played in your head for the past few days. Number 39. Your new home

You climbed the three steps up to the brown, wooden door, and grasped the iron knuckle. You pulled it up and down several times emitting loud thuds to echo in the small community of homes. Bucky grasped the front of your chest and stuck his face into it to represent his hunger. 

“I know, baby, mommy will feed you soon.” 

Your heart beat loudly in your chest as you waited for an answer. You counted 23 seconds before you considered your possible mistake. Did you go down the wrong street? Was 39 the house number or was it the bus number you were supposed to take? Was there any way to contact your sisters? Could you somehow convince James that you had been kidnapped in hopes he’d believe you? Just then the door creaked open. Your worries came to a halt as you saw Vienna standing in the doorway. She had, of course, aged a bit since the last time you saw her. Her hair was shorter and a little bit dull in color and she was skinnier than the chubby teenager you were used to, but there was no denying that was her. 

“Oh my God, Vienna?” Her droopy tired eyes held tears as she took you in. Her lip trembled and she whispered your name. She opened the door wider as she held out her arms to you. “It’s been so long!” 

You held her tighter to you with the arm that didn’t hold Bucky. She pulled away from you as tears escaped from her eyes. Your own were starting to conjugate in yours. Vienna stepped aside so you could step into the small house. She took a peek outside before shutting and locking the door behind you. 

“Where’s everyone else,” You asked, setting your bags down at last. 

Vienna didn’t have to answer as you heard your name being called behind you. You turned and adjusted Bucky into your other arm as you see Lucille stepping out of a room. Her back is a bit hunched over and one of her eyes seemed to lazily shut now. Gray hair was sprinkled across her scalp, and wrinkles were setting under her eyes. She was only 36. 

“Look at you, you’ve grown so much,” She exclaimed, stepping closer to you. You were only 1 when she was married off at 16. She was the youngest one wed, but she was also the prettiest. Your father had no problem finding a man to sell her to. She was the only one auctioned off before 18. Vienna left at 19 and Anne left at 22. None of you were as strong as Anne, she had held on the longest. You had left at 18, too. 

You hugged her tightly. You never got to know her, but you still loved her deeply. You hated the cards you all had been dealt for keeping you apart for so long. You let go as Vienna stepped closer to you both. She rubber Bucky’s small back. 

“And who is this little guy?” She smiled down at him as he gave a 3 tooth grin back. 

You sniffed before handing Bucky to your sister. “This is Bucky. My one and only.” Vienna mimicked the name before bouncing him on her hip a bit. 

“Well, Bucky, I think it’s time for you to meet your aunts and cousins.” 

Lucille took your hand as Vienna carried Bucky into a room filled with kids and a crib with two babies sleeping. They all were watching a TV, but turned to you as you walked in. 

“Kids, come meet your 4th aunt,” Vienna said as she cooed at Bucky. 3 girls and a boy walked over to you and Lucille. “That’s Jade,” Vienna pointed to the girl with dutch braids, “Josephine,” The one with big curls and floral dress, “June,” The one with a ponytail and a sports jersey, “and Jared,” The only boy. They all waved to you, all looking a bit uncomfortable. You didn’t blame them, they had traveled from God knows where to a weird house, and now they were meeting people they had never met before. Probably never even heard of. “And this is your other cousin, Bucky.” Josephine, she looked to be the oldest-- probably 13, smiled at the child. 

“Oh, he’s so cute! Can I hold him?” She looked to her mom for confirmation before looking at you. Her big eyes soft, just like her mother’s.

“Yeah, of course. He’s hungry, do you want to feed him?” Her eyes lit up. 

“Yes!” You chuckled at her enthusiasm, and she gave a shy smile once realizing how excited she sounded. 

“He can eat crushed up fruit, do you guys have any?” Your eyes searched Vienna and Lucille. 

“In the kitchen. I can go do it for you,” The girl replied, scooping up your son before moving through a door that led into, what you assumed to be, a kitchen. 

“We left just in time,” Vienna said, “Her father had already found a man to marry her. She’s sweet, and I know she’d make a great mom one day, but she’s also so smart. She has a life to live before she should even think about a baby,” She sighed, “But of course, women in our situation don’t hold any other value.” 

Vienna’s children had gone back to watching the TV, and Lucille called her children up. 

“Boys, come here please.” 3 boys walked over to you. “This is my oldest, Tennessee,” The boy with dusty hair nodded to you, he looked about 16, “Then Anthony,” the one with curly hair and glasses, “And Kyle,” He had freckles and a dimple on his chin. Lucille pointed to the crib. “Over there are Michael and Ian, they’re 3 months old. Didn’t think I had it in me, but I guess it’s not over until the big change, huh?” You smiled at her as she squeezed your hand. 

“It’s nice to meet everyone,” You say and they nod at you, taking their seat on the floor and couch yet again. There were still 3 kids that were taking steady glances at you, and you were about to ask about them when you heard your name yet again. You turn to the left to see Anne walking down the stairs. 

“Anne!” You ran over to embrace your sister. You and her had by far had the strongest relationship, being closer in age and spending the most time together. You felt yourself crying once again. Anne broke the hug and held you at arms length, looking you over. 

“Wow,” She breathed out as tears flowed freely. She looked exactly the same as she did 7 years prior. You giggled at her and she joined you. A little girl, no older than two, ran to hug her legs. “This little stinker,” Anne said lifting the girl up, “Is my youngest Brooke.” She kissed the girl’s cheek before waving the last 2 boys over. “That’s George,” The oldest one with shoulder length hair, “And Evan.” He looked exactly like your father. Had the same lifted left eyebrow and everything. Anne looked like the man she hated the most, and you knew she’d never be rid of the man who she blamed all her sorrows on. Especially not now that her son looked like him, but you knew she’d never neglect her child. 

Josephine was walking out of the kitchen while wiping Bucky’s hands. You grabbed your sister’s hand and led her over to your son. 

“And this is Bucky.”

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After the tear filled reunion, you found yourself at a small dinner table with your sisters. They were all huddled around it as your nieces and nephews sat in front of the tv and had dinner. They giggled at the silent screen that flashed cartoons at them. Bucky lay asleep in Anne’s arms as she bounced him. 

“Alright,” Anne whispered loud enough for just you all to hear, “So, does everyone know the plan?” You all nodded. Anne had planned this all out. Every time something was needed outside of the house, somebody different each time would leave to retrieve it. It would go in rotation from oldest to youngest. You would carry a burner phone with you and would only use it if there was an emergency. The phone would have one number on it, the house phone, that another sister would be right by until the other one returned back safely. 

After dinner, you helped Vienna clean up. You both had insisted Anne and Lucille get some rest, saying they had gotten there the earliest and were tired. Anne took Bucky to the room you, her, Bucky, Brooke, and June would sleep in. The house only had 3 bedrooms, and 5 people would have to bunk in the small bedrooms with only one king size bed together. It would be a squeeze, but it was all definitely better than the Hell you all had escaped. 

While cleaning, you found yourself not being able to focus on the story Vienna was telling you. Your stomach was turning, fighting the peas and chicken you had just ate, and your head was suddenly hurting. You were sweating too. Were you having a panic attack? 

“You okay, sis?” Before you could answer, you were vomiting up your dinner into the sink. Vienna soothingly rubbed your back as you finished off the remnants. You turned on the faucet to wash away the mush. 

“I’m s-sorry. I guess I’m a little scared still?” Vienna looked at you and gave a knowing smile before resting her hand on your shoulder. 

“How far along are you?”

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The day had been a shitty one. James was in the middle of an important business pitch with Sam Wilson, a promising company from Louisiana that he wanted to partner with, when his assistant rushed in. He tried to order her out, but when he heard “money” and “gone” he had to apologize and excuse himself. After seeing the bank’s email, and hearing the voicemail they left his assistant after she called them, he rescheduled his meeting with Sam, explaining vaguely what was happening. 

James believed someone had stolen your information in order to rob him blind. He didn’t think you would do that, what reason would you have? Name anything on this Earth and James would have it in your hands the very next day. He was clutching the steering wheel with a vice-like grip that was turning his knuckles white. When James got home, he looked on terrified at how it was left. He called your name out while he ran around looking for you and Bucky. Once he found it empty, he started dialing 911. You both were missing.

James was tapping his foot waiting for the operator when he saw it. The picture album that you begged him for when you first found out you were pregnant. It was gone. 

The metal hand clutching the phone crushed right as he heard the female voice on the other side greet James. You and Bucky weren’t kidnapped, you had run away. 

James went downstairs to call his friends, Steve and Natasha. He was going to need their help tracking down his bratty wife. She was smart, he’d give her that, but she’d have to try a lot harder if she wanted to get away from an ex super soldier. 

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@jtargaryen18​ @coconutqueen21​ @collette04​ @stayhazey​ @nsfwsebbie​ @official-and-unstable-satan​

[parkersharthook]

Sorry For The Disruption

(Tom x female!reader)

warnings: mentions of weed, I think some curse words

1.8K+ words

Requested by the lovely @im-not-okay-i-promise1452​ You’re a teacher and now with this quarantine and social distancing situation going on, you’re expected to teach your classes from the “comfort” of your apartment. Unfortunately, this idea doesn’t really accommodate for those that will be living with three loud boys who never know when to be quiet

~.~

“yeah mom I still have classes, it’ll all just be online now.” There was a pause as you fiddled with your apartment keys, “The kids are gonna hate it.”

Well that sucks honey, I’m sorry.

You shrugged, forcing your screen to press harder against your cheek. “it’s not that big of a deal. It’ll take some time to get used to, but my kids are smart and I’m sure they’ll do just fine.”

You’re planning on staying in, right?

“yeah, I just ran to the supermarket to do some grocery shopping but we should be good for the next week and a half at least.”

You didn’t bulk buy, did you? Everyone is doing that here and I was barely able to get any toilet paper.

You let out a small chuckle as you pushed into your apartment, “no mom I didn’t. Just got some necessities and did regular grocery shopping. I’ll go back out in a week or two or I’ll have some new supplies delivered. We’ll see how bad it all gets.”

Ok well stay safe sweetheart. Tom’s home right?

“yeah he is.” You set the bags on the counter and smiled as you watched Tom immediately go to the hallway to help with the rest.

Is anyone staying with you through this? I know you guys have friends over a lot.

“Yeah.” You shifted the phone to your other ear. “Harrison’s apartment is getting fumigated so he’ll be staying with us. And I think Harry is staying with us for a week too, I’m pretty sure he’s sick of his house right now.”

I know the feeling. Your sister is trying to figure this online thing out and I’m trying to be patient with her but she’s driving me crazy.

You frowned slightly, wishing you could be there to help out. “Well I’m sorry I’m not there. I would’ve come to help out if I knew there would be a travel ban.”

Oh it’s okay sweetheart. It’s pretty bad over here too. I think we just need to stay home and stay calm.

“yeah…” You sighed and ran a hand through your hair, “how is y/s/n taking all of this?”

She’s sad. Her prom and graduation just got cancelled so she spent yesterday crying. She’s trying to play it off but I know it’s affecting her.

“I’m sure. That’s definitely not how I would’ve wanted my senior year to go.”

There’s still a chance that they’ll have a dance or something at the school if this all calms down so we’ll see.

“well I hope it all works out for her. I’m gonna let you go mom, I have to put away some groceries and I’m sure you have work to do as well.”

Okay honey. I’ll talk to you soon and please keep in touch.

“I will. Love you.”

Love you.

A deep sigh and a click to the phone and you were washed in silence. It didn’t last long though as Tom strolled through the door with his arms full of groceries.

He smiled and pecked your cheek. “are you sure you didn’t bulk buy?”

You rolled your eyes and started putting away some cans. “please, you eat this much every week. And now we’re feeding Haz and Harry. I had to get a lot.”

“you’re sure you’re okay with them staying this week?” His hand grazed your waist as he passed by you in the small kitchen.

You smiled warmly at him, “of course. They’re my family too.”

Tom returned the smile and gave you a chaste kiss. You didn’t want to break it, but you had frozens. You gave him one last peck before turning and opening the freezer. “I do have an online class tonight though so I’ll need you guys to be somewhat quiet.”

“do you need the den?”

You shook your head, reaching up on your tip toes to put away a can of peanuts. Tom smiled and came behind you, easily taking it from your hand and placing it on the shelf.

“I’ll let you guys have the common spaces, I’ll just use the desk in our room.”

“okay love.” Tom pecked your cheek and gave your waist a squeeze. A ding came from his phone and he spun around to check it. “they’re here.”

“one last kiss?”

“of course.” He smiled as he pressed his lips softly against yours. You quickly wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him in deeper. You knew that your PDA would be cut back with both his best friend and brother in the apartment. You needed to make this kiss last. You felt his strong, warm hands come around your back and lower to the curve of your ass. And right as you were about to kiss him even deeper- ping!

You groaned slightly and pulled away, patting his chest to signal the end. He smiled at you sympathetically before moving to the door to let them in. There was a sudden rush of noise as the two boys quickly came in with their luggage and greeted Tom before coming to you. You smiled through the oncoming headache… you could do this.

~.~

“I have my class for the next 45 minutes or so, so I’m gonna need y’all to be somewhat quiet.” You told the three as you grabbed your laptop and backpack and moved towards the bedroom.

“we’re doing a puzzle; how loud could we get?” Harry said as he studied the box.

“knowing you guys? Pretty loud.” You sent them a warning glare before you went back to the bedroom. You sat in the office chair, opened your laptop, and launched the meeting for your students.

You waited patiently as your students slowly began to pop up on your screens in various degrees of ready. Some were wearing pajamas, one was in a very vibrant and tight dress, another boy was shirtless, and there was even one smoking a blunt. You rubbed your head, why did I start teaching high schoolers?

“Okay guys I know this whole thing is a little weird and this is our first meeting so this will be more like an orientation but I do have to go over a few rules.” You sighed as you started talking to your class. “Each session will be recorded for educational and safety purposes so Ryan, I really suggest no smoking on camera. You all also need to be appropriately dressed so Dylan you need to put a shirt on and Ashley, I would recommend a sweater. I personally don’t care if you guys eat while in these sessions, I know a lot of them might interrupt your day to day life but please either mute yourself or chew quietly because that is a gross sound to hear over video.”

There was a small wave of chuckles that went across your students. You watched as your two students that needed to change throw on sweatshirts but unfortunately Ryan was still smoking.

“Ryan I really need you to-”

“Babe! We need you to settle a debate.” You whipped around to see Tom’s head poking through the door.

“Tom, I’m teaching a class!”

He grimaced, “sorry! Sorry y/n’s class!” he quickly ducked out of the room leaving you to groan and spend back around to your class.

“sorry about that guys. Much like you, me and my family are all working from home so it’s a little chaotic.”

“Was that your fiancé?” Gemma asked.

You smiled and nodded. You knew your students knew you had a fiancé, but you had been very secretive about who he was. You knew that your students would never get any work done if they knew that Tom Holland was your boyfriend.

“again sorry about that. Let’s get back to this. Ryan, I’m really going to need you to put that out.” A beat. “thank you. So basically with this class we’ll have a few online assignments-” CRASH!

“Ah what the hell Harry?!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“well obviously you did!”

You frowned deeply and apologized to your students before getting up and going to the door, opening it and looking down the hallway. You saw probably half of their 1000 piece puzzle on the floor. “You guys really need to be quiet. I’m trying to teach!” You slammed the door and stomped back over to the computer.

“I’m going to try to get this out as quick as possible because obviously everyone in my household doesn’t know how to be quiet. I’ll be assigning a few online things, but I don’t want to just stick you guys with busy work. We’ll be meeting twice a week on zoom so you guys can ask me any questions you have on any of the work. I will also be available to reach by email from 9 to 4 everyday so if you have any questions just email me. Ummm, I understand that this change to online is hard for all of us so I’ll definitely try to be flexible with you guys and I ask that you do the same for me. Any questions?”

Margaret raised her hand, “are our tests and quizzes going to be online?”

You nodded, “yeah they will. The teachers are still working with the school to figure everything out so when I have more information on that I will let you know. Anything else?”

“If we can’t make a meeting what should we do?”

“well every meeting will be recorded so you can access-”

“Y/n!” You looked to the door with an angry expression but before you could stop him, he ran over and grabbed your hand. “we finished the puzzle first! You got to come see!”

“Tom I’m still teaching!” You quickly pulled your hand away and lightly pushed him out of the frame.

“I am so sorry you guys.”

“was that Tom Holland?!”

“Is Tom Holland your fiancé?!”

Your students rattled of questions faster than you could comprehend them and all you could do was glare at tom as he smiled sheepishly. He mouthed sorry as you narrowed your eyes at him.

“I am so sorry but obviously we won’t be talking about anything else and I don’t want to keep you longer than I have to so please email me any and all of your questions. Bye guys!” You ended the meeting before they could respond and you instantly whipped around to face Tom.

“Love... I am so sorry.” Tom began slowly.

You closed your eyes slowly and then opened them back up with a tight smile present on your face. “Thomas Stanley, you are answering every email about you because I cannot handle that right now.”

You could hear Haz and Harry’s laughter from the other room. Fuck, you didn’t know if you could do this for 3 weeks.

[trvelyans-archive]

look out

a comm for @dauntless-necromancer of the detective’s daughter miss maxine spending a weekend at the warehouse with unit bravo <3 it was such a pleasure to write for you again !!! i hope you enjoy <3

-

When Max finishes up science club on Friday, there are three vampires waiting outside school for her.

… That sounds like the beginning of a bad YA novel.

Not that she reads those. Well… she does, just not that often. She’s too busy with homework most of the time – also, lots of them are bad. Besides, she’s glad that she hasn’t had time to read lately, because she wouldn’t want Unit Bravo to catch her flipping through some trashy teen book when they get home from… y’know, killing werewolves or demons or whatever. (Or not killing them? She doesn’t really understand what it is they do.) She hitches her backpack higher over her shoulders, pushes her glasses up her nose and clears her throat as she heads down the sidewalk towards the sleek black van they’re standing in front of.

Nice, Max thinks. Better than Dad’s car.

It nearly broke down on the way to school this morning. Max doesn’t know how she felt about him making the 45-minute drive into the city with it, but he kept changing the subject whenever she brought it up. Actually, he didn’t really say or do anything but go over a checklist of what she needed for the weekend until she was about to get out of the car and he said, “Sorry, kiddo. I’ve just been… on edge lately.”

As if he had to tell her that. She sees him every week – she knows how stressed he’s been. That’s part of the reason she went along with this plan so willingly: she wants to get to the bottom of whatever’s going on with him.

“Max!” The shortest one – Farah – practically pounces on her as she approaches their van outside the school, grinning widely. (No vampire fangs, Max notes. Maybe they only come out sometimes? She has an urge to write that down somewhere. She should definitely start taking notes.) “How are you? How was school?”

“Good,” Max says. “And I’m good. How are you?”

“I’m good,” Farah replies, grinning. “I’m excited!”

“She has quite the schedule planned for you,” Nat says, smiling softly. Max likes Nat the most out of all of them – she’s smart and nice, if a little… boring. But boring can be good, sometimes! “We’ve all been looking forward to your visit, though.”

Max looks over at Morgan, who tosses her cigarette onto the ground and stomps it under her boot, staring at the school with a frown and a furrowed brow.

Maybe not all of them, Max thinks.

“Whose car is this?” she asks, pointing at the van.

“The Agency’s!” Farah hurries to pull the door of the van open and gestures inside. “Nothing but the best for Eddie’s daughter!”

“All the vans look like this,” Morgan grumbles. Farah elbows her.

“Nothing but the best,” she repeats.

Max pokes her head inside – it’s practically spotless and smells like new-car smell (except she knows it probably isn’t). They’re probably just really particular about, like, cleaning them after they use the vans to haul back dead werewolves or whatever. (God, she hopes they don’t do that, and she especially hopes they haven’t done that with this van. She makes a mental note to ask Nat about it later.)

As if on cue, Farah grabs Max’s overnight bag from her hand and tosses it inside the car.

“What are you waiting for?” Farah asks. “Let’s go!”

-

At first, Max as hesitant to spend her weekend with Unit Bravo. Before her dad finished finalizing plans with them, she begged Mom to take the weekend off work until her mom was sick of her asking. As much as she’s grown to like… most of the Unit, she didn’t know how much she’d like spending three days with them. After all, she still hasn’t forgotten what happened with that freak Murphy earlier this year. She still hasn’t forgot that, whether they wanted to or not, they left her dad out to dry and he got his ass – butt – kicked because of it.

And yet, by ten o’clock Friday night – the time she would usually be getting ready for bed – she’s pretty sure she’s gonna like spending the weekend here much more than she thought she would.

They’ve set up camp in the games room. After Max scarfed down the slightly burnt dinner that Nat made her, they spent the evening playing darts – Morgan won the first three games, to Farah’s annoyance, and then Max won the fourth game, to even more of Farah’s annoyance – and now they’re about half an hour deep into what feels like will be an incredibly prolonged game of pool.

Max’s on Farah’s team, apparently. She thinks it’s because Farah doesn’t want to lose again, but she’s going to be disappointed – Max’s only played pool a couple times before, and Dad is never an easy opponent.

(In pool, at least – she kicks his ass – butt – at chess.)

“Y’know,” Farah says, leaning on the pool table and turning to face Max with a bright smile, “I don’t know a lot about you, Max. Your dad doesn’t talk about you a lot – well, I mean, he does sometimes! But just about how proud he is of you and stuff.”

Max smiles. It never hurts to hear that the hours she spends doing homework every night always pay off. “He doesn’t tell us much of anything else, though, like…” Farah purses her lips, scanning the ceiling while she searches for a question. “What do you like to do for fun?” Her eyes widen with excitement. “We can add whatever it is to the schedule for this weekend!”

Morgan snorts and hits a striped, orange ball, sending it straight into the pocket at the corner of the table. “Not even I have enough energy to put up with all the shit you have planned for this weekend, Farah,” she says. “You think the kid does?”

“I’m not a–“ Max stops herself before she finishes the sentence. “Well, I would love to do anything you have planned, Farah,” she continues politely. Mostly because the more time they spend together, the more dirt she can try to dig up. “I can’t wait to see what else we’re going to do tonight.”

“Tonight? Oh, the rest of tonight is all about pool, baby!” Farah grabs her cue stick and turns back to the table. “We gotta get through the next three games of our tournament before we even think about doing anything else.”

Max waits until Farah’s back is turned to wince. It looks like she won’t be able to sit any of them down and have a serious discussion anytime soon, then. It’s not that she doesn’t want to play pool at all – she’d like to play pool and see if she can find any board games – but she just has more important things to tend to, as well.

She’s not exactly going to say that, though, so when she catches Morgan smirking at the look on her face, she forces herself to smile.

-

Saturday morning, Max creeps out of her dad’s bedroom wearing one of his old t-shirts and a pair of basketball shorts she found in his closet. She thought about having a shower but decided against it – firstly because she’s too lazy to figure out how the shower in his bathroom works, and secondly because she really wants a bowl of the cereal that she spotted on top of the fridge last night. She pads slowly through the wide, empty hallways, her socked feet thumping softly against the floor, and the kitchen door creaks open as she walks inside, yawning.

Unfortunately for her, she didn’t get a lot of sleep. It’s kind of hard to do so when you’re in some supernatural underground warehouse surrounded by vampires and one of them plays music very loud and very late at night.

“Good morning,” Nat says. She’s sitting at the table with a cup of tea and a book open in front of her – the book looks old. Looks ancient. If she has access to books that look so ancient, then how old is Nat? Max can’t ask that, right? Dad’s told her that it’s rude to ask women how old they are - does that count for vampires, too?

She clears her throat when she realizes that she hasn’t answered yet.

“Good morning,” she replies, tiptoeing over to the table and tucking her hair behind her ear before pushing her glasses higher up her nose. “Can I – uh, have some cereal?”

Nat laughs gently. “Of course,” she answers. “I bought it just for you – the others don’t eat human food very often.”

‘Human’. It feels weird to hear them refer to her as a human. She knows they aren’t humans, of course, at least not anymore, but – they look like humans and sound like humans. She hasn’t even seen a fang yet! (Though she’s not sure whether or not she wants to.) “Oh.” She nods, blushing. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Max can feel Nat watching her as she heads for the fridge, standing on her tiptoes to grab the cereal box. “Does Farah have any plans for you today?”

“She does. Well, I think she does – she said so last night, anyway, when I finally went to bed, but I think I might try and catch up some homework this morning first.” Max opens the door of the fridge and reaches for a jug of milk that looks entirely unopened – Nat really did buy everything just for her, apparently. “I have a journal to write for English, a project to work on for science, some equations to work on for math…”

“Sounds like quite a lot of work.”

As if any of her work compares to the work of top-secret agents who also happen to be vampires. Still, Max sighs and nods. “Yeah, it is a lot sometimes,” she agrees. “I don’t mind it most of the time, though. I like school. But I’d rather just… I don’t know, hang out with you guys this weekend…”

Well… she’s a bit worn out from playing pool and darts as of right now, and she doesn’t want to spend any more time with Morgan because Morgan doesn’t seem to like her very much, but she all she needs is to have some coffee and she’ll feel a lot better. (Hopefully.) (Do they even have any coffee here?)

“Who says you can’t do both?” Nat asks. “I’ll be moving to the library soon, if you want to join me.”

Max smiles. “Really?”

“Absolutely,” Nat answers. “There’s plenty of room for you to do your work, and I wouldn’t mind some company.”

“Okay.” Max nods, looking down at her bowl as she pushes the dry cereal around in her milk. “Thanks, Nat. For, uh, you know…” She shrugs, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “Buying me food and stuff.”

“Of course. My pleasure.”

She goes back to her reading, leaving Max alone with her thoughts and her cereal.

-

Miraculously, in the peace and quiet of the library, Max manages to get almost all of her work finished.

Well, she saves the last part of her science project for tomorrow, but mostly because she starts falling asleep in her chair at about three in the afternoon and heads back to her dad’s room to take a nap that ends up lasting a lot longer than she intended. Nat’s not in the library when she returns at about half past ten, which is a letdown, both because Max genuinely likes her company but mostly because she didn’t get any information about what’s going on in Wayhaven out of her earlier.

She’s hoping she can get some tomorrow. Unless they have to go into the field and kill (or not kill) some more werewolves, in which case she’ll probably be out of luck.

After scarfing down the leftovers of last night’s dinner, she decides to continue her search for Nat anyway, and while she’s leaving the kitchen she comes across Farah in the hallway. She tails Max around the Warehouse for a little while and asks her what feels like a thousand questions – what class her favourite is, what her mom’s like, what she wants to be when she grows up – and while Max wouldn’t have liked answering them a month ago, she does now without even thinking about it. Playing darts and pool with someone for six hours can really help them grow on you, apparently.

They’re on their fifth lap when Farah stops abruptly. “Alright, Max,” she says. “Think I’m gonna head to Morgan’s room and ask her if she wants to play darts!”

Max cringes – she hadn’t realized how bored Farah might be wandering around what’s basically her own house. She doesn’t seem too bothered by it, though. (Is she ever bothered by anything?) “But you can come find me later in the games room if you’re bored, alright?” she continues, smiling widely.

“Okay.” Max smiles. “Thanks, Farah.”

“No problem!” Farah pats her shoulder before she bounces away whistling, and Max considers going with her for a few seconds before she remembers the importance her mission and prepares herself for another several hours of searching for Nat.

She knows that whatever she finds out is probably going to scare the hell – heck – out of her, but she still wants to know – her dad is scared, too, and she doesn’t want him to feel like he’s alone or like he can’t talk to her about it! Which she knows is a silly thing to think, but she can’t help it. She loves her dad – besides, she’ll be much better off if he can prepare her for anything scary that might happen to her, right?

The way his mom didn’t?

She wanders around for a couple minutes before she can hear the sounds of someone grunting and yelling in the distance, and she starts running towards the sound before she can question it. She doesn’t find any rabid werewolves or anything, though, which she definitely thought she would – just an open set of double doors to her left and someone with a blonde ponytail punching mannequins inside.

Ava.

Max frowns immediately. She didn’t want to see Ava this weekend – out of all the Unit, she’s Max’s least favourite. She dislikes Ava more than Morgan, and considering that Morgan personally doesn’t like Max, either, that’s saying something. She steels herself to run back the way she came when Ava glances over at her.

“Oh.” Her eyebrows furrow slightly. “Maxine.”

Staring at her, Max nods politely. “Ava.”

And then, without thinking about it, she steps through the open doorway into the room, glancing around curiously.

It looks sort of like a school gymnasium, only with lower-hanging ceilings and an army of dummies and mannequins that they definitely, definitely don’t have at her school. The lights are brighter in here than they are in the hallway, and after nearly an hour of wandering through the Warehouse, she half-heartedly raises a hand to shield her eyes, lips pursed.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Training,” Ava answers.

Training.

Maybe she’s training so that next time some bloodthirsty freak tracks Max’s dad down, Ava won’t let him get taken again. She’s the one who was with him when Murphy snatched him, after all. Max hasn’t forgotten that.

(Dad says that Ava couldn’t have saved him, that something had happened to her before they escaped his apartment, but Max doesn’t care. Her dad matters more than anything.)

“Have you been avoiding me?” Max asks.

Ava’s eyes widen in surprise before she clears her throat and shakes her head. “I haven’t,” she answers. “I had Agency work to tend to today.”

Max toes a crack in the floor with the tip of her shoe. “You didn’t come with the others to pick me up yesterday.”

“I had work to do then, as well.”

“Mmhmm.”

Ava turns back to the dummy, shaking her bandaged hands out before curling them into fists again. “I won’t be able to entertain you, if that’s what you’re looking for,” she says, reaching out to hit the mannequin so hard that it nearly topples over. “I’m sure you could find something to do with one of the other agents.”

“Do you train a lot?”

Max doesn’t know if she’s asking to pester Ava or if she’s genuinely curious. Probably a little bit of both.

“Yes,” Ava answers. It doesn’t sound like she’s going to say any more than that, but Dad has always said that she’s not very talkative. (He says it with a smile, though, which Max doesn’t understand at all.)

“So, you’re gonna keep my dad safe from whatever it is that’s been going on lately?”

Across the room, Ava tenses. It’s visible enough for Max to notice.

“What has he told you?”

Of course, Max’s first instinct is to be honest with her and say “nothing”, but when the realization that she stopped her herself from getting any sort of information hits her, she nearly kicks herself for it.

“Good,” Ava says. “You don’t need to concern yourself with Agency business.”

Max frowns. “I do if I want to keep my dad safe.” Because you might not, she thinks, but she doesn’t say it.

“That’s not your job, Maxine.” Ava says her name like she knows her, and Max doesn’t like it one bit. “I think Ed- I think your father would agree with me on that.”

“But it’s not fair!” she says. “If I’m in danger, too, don’t I deserve to know?”

“That is not my choice.”

Max curls her hands into fists at her sides. If she were in cartoon, she knows for a fact that she’d have steam coming out of her ears. Her dad would say she’s being unreasonable for pinning what happened with Murphy on Ava, but – she got her stubbornness from him, so he’s really the one to blame. Him and Ava and whoever else in the world lets her dad get hurt.

“Fine,” Max says. “But you better keep me safe, then, too, or my dad will never forgive you.”

She swears she can hear Ava open her mouth to say something behind her, but she’s turning on her heel and stomping down the hallway before the vampire can get a word out. When she reaches her dad’s room, she nearly slams the door but stops herself at the last second and closes it slowly, taking deep breaths in and out through her nose so she doesn’t get too wound up.

All she can hope is that Ava doesn’t tell Dad about their conversation. As much as she loves him, she doesn’t love being scolded.

-

To Max’s relief, Ava doesn’t tell Dad. (At least she hasn’t told him yet.)

She tells Rebecca, instead.

Max is packing her stuff up at the end of the day on Sunday when she hears a knock at the door. At first she thinks it’s her dad – by now, he should be on his way to the Warehouse to pick her up – but when she hurries over to open the door, she sees her grandmother standing there on the other side, instead.

Rebecca smiles kindly. “Maxine,” she says. “May I come in?”

They’ve only seen each other once or twice since their first meeting. She’s another one of the people that Max has a grudge against for how they’ve treated her dad, except this time he seems to hold the same grudge, too.

Still, Rebecca let Max stay the whole weekend and didn’t come to see her until now. She can’t exactly say no.

Max moves to the side and opens the door even further while Rebecca steps into the room, scanning the space with sad eyes. Max guesses from the way she’s acting that she probably hasn’t been in this room much before, at least not long enough to get a good look at everything. Max feels defensive about it for her dad’s sake – this is his space, after all, and he’s not here to decide whether or not he wanted Rebecca to come inside – so she relaxes when Rebecca turns to her again.

“I’ve been meaning to come see you,” she says, her voice soft and tentative. “I’m afraid I’ve just been rather busy this weekend.”

Busy. Max nearly snorts at that, but she doesn’t.

“Agent du Mortain talked to me earlier,” Rebecca continues. “About your conversation with her yesterday.”

Max’s eyes widen in surprise. “I didn’t say anything bad to her, I promise!”

Her grandmother smiles. “I know you didn’t,” she says. “She didn’t say that you did. Only that you expressed a concern for Ed- for your father’s safety. And I wanted to assure you that the Agency is doing everything we can to keep him safe.”

“So he won’t get kidnapped again? Or get strapped to a bed by some bloodthirsty weirdo?”

“He told you that, did he?”

“Yeah. He tells me everything.” Max crosses her arms over her chest. “He doesn’t treat me like a kid the way everyone else does.”

“Well… I suppose that’s fair.” Rebecca presses her lips together. “As long as you haven’t told anyone…?”

“Of course not!” Who would she tell? The girls in her class would never believe her. Even if she came to school with a vampire bite on her neck or carrying a werewolf tooth, they would probably just say that she was faking it to impress the boys in their class.

“Good.” Rebecca nods. “In any case, Maxine, I just came by to promise you that I, personally, will do everything I can to keep your father safe, as will the Unit. Your father – as well as you and your mother – are all under our very close protection. What happened with Murphy…” She clenches her jaw the way Dad does when he’s upset. Max’s heart hurts at the sight. “It will not happen again. I promise.”

“You can’t abandon him.”

Rebecca seems surprised by how firmly Max says it, but she responds with nothing more than a tight nod. “I won’t. I would die before I let that happen.”

Despite that, Max’s first instinct is not to believe her. After everything her dad said about Rebecca, how much can they trust her, really? Even if she’s trying now, it doesn’t make up for everything she missed when Dad was a kid, nor does it make up for the fact that no one will tell Max what’s going on even though she might be in danger, too. But the determination in Rebecca’s words, in her eyes… Max’s seen the same look in her dad’s eyes a million times. Her dad, who she loves to the ends of Earth and trusts more than anyone.

So, in the end, Max can’t help but trust Rebecca, too. Her and the team, even Ava. She just hopes that none of them do anything to break that trust, because after spending eight hours playing darts this weekend, she has pretty good aim.

-

It’s ten o’clock when Dad and Max get back to his apartment that night.

His car stalled on his way back to Wayhaven – she knew something bad was going to happen! – but thankfully he was close enough to town that he could call someone to tow him back in. They’ve borrowed an Agency van for a couple days that he’ll drive her to school with tomorrow, and as she sits on the counter beside him and watches him put dinner together, she tells him that he should just buy it from the Agency.

“Maybe you’ll get a discount,” she muses, leaning back against the cabinet. “Or maybe if one of the werewolf corpses left a stain –“

“Max!”

“What?”

“They don’t –“ He sighs in exasperation. “That’s not what the vans are for.”

“Sure it’s not.”

Dad laughs. Max can always trust him to laugh at her jokes. She can trust him with anything. She turns to look at him and watches him pour pancake batter into the pan, gnawing on the inside of her cheek.

“Dad?”

“Mmm?”

“Don’t get kidnapped by someone like Murphy again, okay?”

He glances up at her, face softening. “I won’t,” he says. “I promise.”

She believes him. Even if she doesn’t believe anyone else, she believes him, no matter what.

[artificialqueens]

Galactica, Chapter 51 (Group Fic) - TheDane/Veronica

A/N: Click here if you’re looking for previous chapters (or here if you’d rather read on AO3). 💫

Last Chapter: Courtney arrived at Bianca’s penthouse and Violet met Sutan’s mother and neither of them burst into flames.

This Chapter: We dine. (Thanksgiving Chronicles 2 of ???)

***

“I thought,” Raja reached out, taking an empty chocolate wrapper from Raven’s hand. “That you didn’t like Beng-Bengs, Princess?”

They were sitting in the living room, three couches carefully arranged around a round coffee table, the sweet scent of incense in Raja’s nose. All the walls were filled with photos, the window stills overflowing with plants and flowers. She could hear her mom in the kitchen, Murni waving her away when she had tried to lend a hand, the fact that she was pushing 70 apparently not an issue.

“Shut up.”

Raja chuckled, leaning even further back on the couch, her arm around Raven’s shoulder. Raven had gone directly for the candy dish as soon as they had entered the house. The Beng-Bengs were a chocolate treat from Raja’s childhood, either her mom or dad always asking their family back in Indonesia to send some along whenever they received care packages.

Raven swallowed the last bite, reaching for the bowl to grab a kopiko, her girlfriend eating like she was possessed.

“Mmmh,” Raven moaned, closing her eyes as she bit into the chewy coffee candy.

“You know,” Raja turned her head, putting her lips against Raven’s temple. “Maybe, it’s time to consider if you want to continue doing swimwear.”

“Why?” Raven looked up at her, an annoyed expression on her face. “You think I can’t do it?”

“No.” Raja ran her fingers through Raven’s hair, the strands silky smooth as always. Raja didn’t want to make decisions on Raven’s career, those choices up to her brother. Sure, she always gave her opinion when Raven asked, and was always ready to guide her and help her, but at the end of the day, Raja prefered to have those lines in their relationship. “I just don’t know if it’s really worth it for you.”

“Raj-”

“All I’m saying,” Raja smiled, lowering her voice to make sure her mom couldn’t hear her, “is that it usually takes a good 45 minutes to make you moan like that.”

“Maybe the chocolate is just better than you?” Raven huffed, and Raja couldn’t help but laugh as she leaned in, stealing coffee flavored chocolate kisses from her fiancée.

***

“Hey munchkins,” Katya smiled as she reentered the kitchen, a box of decorations in her arms. “How is everyone doing?”

Katya had just spent the last 35 minutes setting up the living room, hanging a garland of Fall leaves, arranging her most impressive ever cornucopia, and putting out the special Thanksgiving tablecloth with little turkeys all around the edge that Trixie had made her for their first Thanksgiving together.

“You do realize,” Max looked up from where he was rolling out the puffed pastries, his back bent slightly so he could use the kitchen counter, “that we’re not actually children, right?”

“Speak for yourself-“ Pearl pointed at him with the potato peeler, yellow rubber gloves on her hands. “It’s so unfair I always have to peel the potatoes. I don’t even like them.”

“That’s because it’s the one job you can’t fuck up,” Trixie grinned, and Katya smiled at him, her fiancé standing at the stove with his ‘kiss the cook’ apron on, caramalizing the onions, a pumpkin ale next to him.

“I could stir onions.”

“You could,” Katya opened their pantry, where boxes filled with decorations for every holiday (except Christmas, which had its own basement storage unit all to itself) took up half the shelves. “But we don’t want another house fire.”

“It’s not a fire if it doesn’t leave the pan!”

Max snorted, and Katya laughed. “Sure baby, sure.”

“Is that Pearl whining again?” asked a voice in the doorway, and Katya turned to see Kim. She’d generously agreed to cook the turkey in her oven, since that would free up Katya and Trixie’s for the rest of the food, and had left to baste.

“Of course. How’s the turkey?”

“Your bird is looking moist and delicious,” Kim answered, and Max visibly shuddered.

“Must you use that word?” he asked, and Kim stepped up to him.

“What word?” she inquired, leaning right up to his ear, cooing a teasing, “You mean mmmoist?” directly into his ear.

“Gah!” Max cringed again, all of them giggling at his overreaction.

“Kimmy, can you start the pumpkin pie filling?” Katya asked, getting down the cans from the shelf and laying a recipe card on the table.

“Of course!” Kim picked up the card and looked it over while Katya bustled around the kitchen, pulling out the various spices and ingredients she would need.

“Ugh, she gets pumpkin pie?” Pearl whined.

“You want a piece of me, potato bitch?” Kim asked, and Trixie burst out laughing, repeating ‘potato bitch,’ softly to himself.

“Kids!” Katya clapped her hands and the whole group looked at her. “You’re all marvelous and essential, and I love you.”

“Gross,” Pearl said, but the smile on her face betrayed her words.

***

“Ha!” Sutan smiled triumphantly, the metal lid on the bird feeder finally popping open. “There we go!”

Sutan and Violet were out in the backyard, Violet sitting on the deck in a lawn chair, while Sutan had braved the moist Autumn grass to make his way to the big pear tree in the corner.

“Throw me the seeds, would you?” Sutan looked over his shoulder, Violet wrapped up in his jacket so she wouldn’t be cold since had forgotten her own in the car.

“The seeds?” Violet raised an eyebrow, but she still patted his jacket down, her eyes widening when she found a packet in the right pocket. “... Did you bring bird seeds with you from Manhattan?”

“Maybe?” Sutan grinned, catching the seeds in the air when Violet threw them. He hadn’t expected her to follow him into the garden, had figured he could slip away without anyone noticing, but while Raven had absolutely warmed up to VIolet, and his twin seemed to genuinely like her, he wasn’t exactly sure if Violet felt the same way about his sister and her fiancée.

“Is this a normal occurrence?” Violet was smiling, watching him with her brow eyes.

“That I fill the bird feeders?” Sutan got up on his toes, tipping the packet to fill it up about half way. “Or being in the garden?”

“Both?”

“My mom isn’t as young as she used to be,” Sutan shrugged, moving from one feeder to the next. “And she’s not very good at asking for help, so I always try to do something in the garden whenever I’m here.”

Murnis age was something he tried not to think about, something he tried to push away, the idea that his mom wouldn’t be there one day one of the few things that genuinely terrified him.

“It’s a very beautiful garden.”

“You should tell her that,” Sutan smiled, the complement sounding completely genuine. “She’s very proud of her marigolds.”

“She should be.”

Neither of them said anything for a little while, Sutan getting some of the last pears from the tree. He knew they had to go back inside, that his mom was probably putting the finishing touches on their Thanksgiving dinner, but he figured he’d maybe have time to take a look at the greenhouse too, Violet thankfully not the type of person who kicked up a fuss when he took his time.

“Did you grow up here?” Sutan turned around, Violet practically swallowed up by his jacket as she was cuddled up.

“No. When we got to America, my family lived in Iowa. This house is actually the first thing Raja and I ever bought, when we started making money. Our first piece of real estate.” Sutan smiled at the memory of when Raja had finally, finally, finally gotten the pay check that pushed them over the edge. “We still lived in a shitty one bedroom apartment in Manhattan, but we knew we wanted to do something for our parents. Wanted to make sure Ayah and Bunda had a good place to stay and for them to be closer.”

“Ayah?”

“It means dad. In Indonesian.”

“Oh…” Violet paused, looking at his face, and Sutan really hoped it wasn’t obvious how much it hurt to think about his dad. “He isn’t here, is he-”

“He died when I was 32.” It was weird that Violet didn’t already know, weird that she hadn’t stumbled on it yet since the gossip sites and magazines had certainly covered how it had wrecked both him and Raja, a simple google search enough to know his entire life story, but Sutan appreciated that she wanted to hear it from him too. “Cancer.”

“I’m sorry.” Violet looked genuinely upset, empathy clear on her features.

“It’s okay,” Sutan forced a smile. “It was a long time ago.”

It didn’t feel like it, but that wasn’t Violet’s burden to bear, Sutan’s regrets of how he’d never get the chance to talk to his dad again and apologize his and his alone.

***

Once Courtney had a couple of drinks in her, she found herself forgetting to be nervous or uncomfortable about being in the fanciest apartment she’d ever seen, and just began having a good time with her bestie, enjoying Bianca’s generous hospitality and the attention that still made her heart go a little fluttery when their eyes met.

By the time Bianca appeared in the den again to tell them that dinner was ready, they’d abandoned the karaoke machine and were curled up on the couch, watching the parade, Adore’s head in Courtney’s lap.

“You guys ready for dinner?”

“Ugh, vegan Thanksgiving. I am not looking forward to this,” Adore grumbled, poking Courtney in the arm. “Did you know she was gonna do that? Get everything vegan?”

Courtney’s eyes widened--she wasn’t expecting that, not at all. She’d been surprised that the appetizers were vegan, but the whole meal? She looked at Bianca with gratitude and shock, asking, “Really?”

“Most of it. Adore whined so much about the stuffing that I made her some the good old-fashioned Cuban chock-full-of-meat way.”

“You did?!” Adore jumped up excitedly, clapping her hands.

“I did. I used Abuelita’s recipe.” Bianca cuffed her playfully on the ear. “Happy?”

“I take back everything I said, you’re still my favorite sister.” Adore slung an arm around Bianca’s shoulders as they walked down the hall. “You didn’t forget my Hillshire Farms, did you?”

“No, bitch, I didn’t forget your Hillshire Farms. I even put it out all nice on a plate so you don’t have to eat straight out of the package like you do at home.”

“Yaaas, sounds classy as fuck.”

Courtney was completely unprepared for the sight that met her when they stepped into the dining room. The table was laden with beautiful, vibrantly colorful Autumnal dishes - enough for at least ten people.

“Oh my god.”

Bianca looked over at her. “Something wrong?”

“No! No, it’s absolutely...just so much, I wasn’t expecting this. Are more people coming?”

“Courtney. You live in America now. And you know what Thanksgiving is all about?”

“Gratitude?” Courtney guessed, still overwhelmed at the spread.

“No, baby. No. It’s about coming together, and, whether you are hungry or not, eating until you can’t possibly take another bite. And then having dessert.”

Courtney laughed, taking her seat. “I guess I’m not fully assimilated, huh?”

“You’ll learn.”

“I don’t even know where to start.”

“Try this. It’s the vegan version of Adore’s favorite relleno de pavo,” Bianca said, spooning some onto her plate, along with about five other things, Courtney quickly losing track.

She’d been to a family Thanksgiving dinner once before, during a short-lived college relationship with a guy who Adore had nicknamed “Wonder Bread,” and it was nothing like this: a meal of dry turkey, bland mashed potatoes, overcooked green beans in some kind of hideous mushroom sauce, and candied yams straight from a can. This meal was like something she’d get at a 5-star farm to table restaurant, fresh and delicious, somehow reminding her of her mother’s vegetable garden, something she didn’t realize she was missing so badly until she was tasting it. It was so good, she forgot to say anything, soon greedily gobbling up everything she could get her hands on.

“So...what do we think? Can I put the chef on a repeat list?” Bianca asked, and Courtney nodded vigorously, mouth full.

“I’m actually shocked how good this corn pudding is,” Adore said, mouth full. “Who knew vegan butter would be so good?”

“Well, vegan butter is margarine. And you’re garbage, so you love margarine.”

“I really do, man.”

Bianca laughed, chuckling slightly, finishing her wine.

“Anyone want another drink?”

“I’ll get it!” Adore said, rising from her seat.

“Thanks.”

Once she’d left the room, Bianca turned to Courtney, who was still gorging herself on all of the delicious dishes before her. She touched Courtney on the wrist, sending little tingles up her arm as she tried to quickly swallow the persimmon and kale salad in her mouth.

“Listen, I want to thank you for being so sweet with her, and looking out, you know? I know she pretends she’s a tough girl, but-she really needs TLC right now.”

Courtney wiped her mouth and answered, “Of course. She’d do the same for me. She has done the same for me.”

“Good. I mean, not that you...uh, needed, y’know-”

Courtney smiled, wondering if there was anything cuter than someone with Bianca’s self assuredness getting flustered and tongue-tied. “I know what you mean.”

“I’m just glad that someone gentler than me is there for her. You know, I’m not so great with the touchy-feely stuff.”

“I think you do okay,” Courtney said, unable to tear her eyes from Bianca’s. And then Courtney’s chest flooded with guilt at the next thought. A fleeting second where she imagined Bianca taking care of her, too. Fortunately, Adore came back into the room at that exact moment, two bottles of wine in hand, letting her shake the thought right from her head, reaching for a whole grain dinner roll to distract herself from it all.

“Bitch, I have never seen you eat like this,” Adore commented, laughing.

“Well, you’ve never seen me with food this good. Who was this chef, anyway? Can I marry them?”

“I’ll pass along the proposal. Although I’m not sure her wife will be too pleased,” Bianca said.

“I can share,” Courtney suggested sweetly, batting her lashes, making Bianca laugh.

“Or, you know...you can just marry someone with the resources to hire her whenever you want.” Bianca swirled the wine in her glass.

“Hmm...I don’t know anyone like that,” Courtney told her. “I run with a pretty low-rent crowd.”

“Pity.”

Courtney giggled into her plate, wondering if she should ease up on the alcohol, since that warm, light-headed feeling was taking over.

***

“Come on, come on,” Juju muttered to herself, digging through her bag, everyone's jackets piled high on her aunt's bed. She was looking for her daughter’s toy monkey, Julia falling outside and hitting her knee while playing with her cousins. She was okay, but she had asked for her toy, if only Juju could find it.

“Juju?” The door opened, and Juju looked over her shoulder to see her husband stand there, thankfully without one of their children on his arm.

“Give me a second-”

Detox closed the door, and Juju paused, her eyes narrowing. “What are you doing?”

“Me?” Detox grinned, his eyes sparkling with an almost predatory glee. “Oh, nothing.” He reached behind him, flicking the lock. “Nothing at all.”

“De-” Juju almost wanted to get upset, her entire family just outside, and she still hadn’t seen Julia’s knee for herself. “I have to get-”

“Your dad put a bandaid on her,” Detox smiled, walking over to her, and Juju couldn’t help but notice how good he looked, “and she’s watching TV with Kelly.”

“Ah.” Juju chuckled, her oldest an absolute sweetheart when her siblings needed her, even though she often tried to act too cool for school. “Well then-”

“Well then,” Detox walked into her space, “I think we have more than enough time.” He put his hands on her waist, pulling her in, her belly bumping against his hips.

“Time for what?”

“Time for this.” Detox leaned down, their lips meeting in a heated kiss, Detox lips tasting faintly like the Beerloa the Laotian part of her family loved.

“De-” Juju broke the kiss, trying to pull back. “We have to-”

“Come on,” Detox smiled. “Live a little. Not like you can get pregnant right now.”

“I hate you so much-” Detox gave her a peck, and Juju could feel her knees buckle, her hands going to his hips, her fingers grabbing the belt loops on his pants as she allowed herself to fall back on the bed.

***

“Okay well...vegan Thanksgiving was less gross than I thought,” Adore said, putting her head on the table.

“We’re glad you didn’t suffer too much,” said Bianca.

“I think it was fucking perfection,” Courtney said, a happy grin on her face as she scraped the last of the cranberry mousse from her plate.

“I mean, I’m not complaining,” Adore added, reaching for another apple hand pie, and after a pause, a second.

“Oh no? That’s a first,” Bianca chuckled.

“Well to be fair, most vegan food is crap. This was an exception,” Adore said, slathering her pies with what was probably quinoa-based whipped cream and taking another pumpkin blondie square for good measure.

“Mmhmm…” Bianca said, judgment dripping from her pursed lips, laughing when Adore stuck her tongue out. She then turned to Courtney, who had gently tapped her on the arm.

“Where’s your restroom?”

“There’s one right through there.” Bianca pointed, and Courtney smiled.

“Thanks! Be right back!”

Adore eyed her sister, watching her face, eyes glued to Courtney as she left the room. It took Bianca about ten full seconds before she realized that she was being watched herself. She turned to Adore, took in her smirk, and scowled.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just fun to see you bark up the wrong tree. Not used to you being rejected.” Adore rested her chin on her hand, popping a bite of blondie into her mouth.

“Shut up.”

Adore laughed. “No, it’s cool. Very humanizing.”

“First of all, I’m not barking anywhere, so you can put your little smug face away. And second...what makes you so sure I’d even be rejected?”

“Please.” Adore rolled her eyes. “I know my girl, Bianca. She’s straight.”

“Okay.” Bianca set down her coffee cup.

“I mean, if you got another seven or so drinks in her, maybe she’d let you-”

“Alright, enough. Now you’re being gross,” Bianca said testily.

“Sorry. But can I just give you one tip?”

“What?” Bianca asked, face stern.

“Tequila shots.”

Bianca tried valiantly to keep the cross look, but after a few seconds, she broke, dimples deep in her cheeks. She balled up a linen napkin and chucked it at Adore’s face.

Outside, the rain had let up, a few rays of evening sun breaking through the clouds.

“Hey, do you mind taking the dogs out for a walk before it starts raining again? Just a little one, they’ve been out to the terrace.” Bianca rose from her seat and began clearing some dishes from the table.

“Yeah, no problem.” Adore headed for the door, intercepting Courtney on her way back from the bathroom. “Come with me, we’re walking the dogs.”

“Oh...but doesn’t Bianca need help with the-”

“Nope!” Adore pulled her by the hand towards the door, grabbing their coats and strapping the dogs into their harnesses.

It wasn’t until they were safely outside when she finally felt comfortable giving her friend...well, not a warning exactly.

“So listen,” she began, and Courtney turned to her, head cocked. “I’m sure you already know this, but my sister is kind of a player.”

“Uhhh…”

“Come on. You must have heard stories.”

“I guess I have, but I–”

“It’s my fault. I should have…I dunno, I should have warned you about B’s weakness for pretty blondes. And I know it’s just your personality to be sweet and friendly and a bit of a flirt. But you’re totally gonna give her the wrong idea.”

Courtney bit her lip and turned away, and Adore felt bad.

“Don’t be embarrassed! I’m not saying that you’re doing anything wrong. It’s just...she’s not really used to people turning her down, so...”

“Right.”

Courtney didn’t seem to have much more to say, and Adore worried that maybe she’d offended her.

“I’m sorry, boo, but this is just something you have to consider when you’re the most charming, beautiful, kind, funny, smart…”

Courtney started laughing, cutting her off with a hug.

“I get what you’re saying. You can stop laying it on so thick.”

Adore smiled, then realized that her phone was ringing. She handed the leashes over to Courtney and looked at it, surprised at the name on the display.

The last one she thought she’d see, especially today.

Pearl.

[jaegercentral]

⠀⠀⠀ “PROLOGUE”

© sakusadist, 2021, DO NOT copy or repost

selene set her phone down on the bathroom sink, rubbing her face (hands washed ofc). this is really happening, huh? she thought. walking out of the bathroom, she cleared her throat which was previously worn out from crying. selene, with her test in hand, sat on the couch, waiting and waiting and waiting for haru to come home from work. the time was 8:28PM and she had nearly fallen asleep until she heard the quiet unlocking of the front door. selene sat up and saw her boyfriend walk in, paper grocery bags in hand. “little help here?” he chuckled, seeing her focused gaze.

he snapped in front of her face to get her attention and she shuddered, nodding harshly. “yeah, of course.”

he rolled his eyes at her in a teasing way. she was always a little dazed. he found it cute.

he then looked down at the coffee table, seeing a little rectangle box wrapped in pink wrapping paper. “what’s this?” he reached to pick it up but she got to it faster. haru looked up at his beloved girlfriend and frowned. “hey? what is it?”

“it’s nothing!” selene pressed her lips together. “okay fine it’s a pregnancy test.” haru’s eyes widened to the size of an american quarter and he smiled softly.

“are you pregnant?” she nodded and he set down the groceries, pulling her into a hug, stroking her long black hair.

“what are we going to do, haru? aren’t we too young to start a family?” she sobbed into his shoulder and he patted her back.

“well, we can talk about that after i make dinner. is that good with you?” selene sniffled and mumbled a quiet ‘yes’. haru grinned and ruffled her hair. selene sat down at their small dinner table. soon they would have to add another chair. “okay. how about..i make your favorite dish?” he made jazz hands, waiting for her reaction—at least a smile.

selene looked up at him and tears filled her eyes again. the smaller man rushed over to her, pulling her into his embrace. “no no no, don’t cry. you’re okay, baby.”

haru helped her stand up, leading her over to the couch. “i’m scared, haru.” she curled up into a ball, feeling comfort in the way his arms were wrapped around her. he was her home.

“i know, i know.” he caressed her hair, kissing the crown of her head. the young couple sat still for a while, holding each other. selene stopped crying but only because haru started.

“no, you can’t start crying too! that’s my thing!” she huffed, wiping his tears.

the boy suddenly started laughing, which shocked selene. “and laughing is my thing.” she giggled and kissed the tip of his nose.

selene pressed down on her thighs and finally stood up. reaching for his hand, she sighed. “okay, let’s do this.”

haru took the girl’s hand and stood up with her. “what? make dinner?” she punched his shoulder and he feigned hurt.

“you know what i meant.” the girl rolled her eyes and yanked him towards the kitchen where they spent the next 45 minutes fixing a meal.

*six months later*

“i don’t know, tora. he’s just been pretty distant lately.” selene rested her hand on her stomach, where her bump had grown even larger.

“do you think he could be planning something? that’s why he’s been extra busy?”

“i guess? there isn’t much that kindergartners do so i don’t think he’s too busy with work.” her best friend snorted, finding her retort kinda hilarious.

“oh, well i have to go, selene. kou just texted me, asking where his phone was. ttyl!”

“yeah, thanks! bye.” she hung up, sighing heavily. selene looked down at her bump. “you’re a real pain, y’know.” she poked at it like it was some kind of jelly.

the front door of their apartment opened harshly, and selene flinched. their apartment doors were always so loud. we should probably get that fixed, she reminded herself. there stood her boyfriend, arms full of bags of candy. halloween was always his favorite holiday. selene smiled at the dorky boy who was still struggling to reach the marble island.

“i’ll get it.” she spoke, arms stretched out to reach for a bag. haru turned away from her, trying to keep her from doing any heavy lifting. “hey! let me help you!” haru thought she looked like an angry penguin when she stomped towards him.

“no! the doctor said you can’t do any heavy lifting until after you give birth!” he had set the bags on the island and selene looked at him like he was prey. her hands gripped onto the counter; she was ready to lunge at him. haru’s face as she chased him was priceless. it was a weird mixture of worry, fear, and joy. “oh shit!” he exclaimed, losing his balance as he tripped over one of the shoes she threw at him.

“i don’t care what the doctor said. i’m helping. besides, from the looks of it, the candy can’t be THAT heavy.” she tried reasoning, but when she lifted the variety bag, it tore open and spilled all over the kitchen floor. “well i guess it can, huh?”

haru, with a hand on his hip, gave selene an ‘i told you so’ look.

“you look a lot like your mother right now.” selene pointed out, painfully bending over to pick up a hershey bar that fell seconds ago.

“now that’s just sad. and wrong. she’s all old and wrinkly now.”

selene’s face went 😟 as she saw the small figure behind her boyfriend. with a mouth full of chocolate, she spoke, “babe you should shut up right about now.”

“no! i still have more to say.” selene glared him down, nearly making the poor man pee his pants. like his mother once said, if you value your life, never make a pregnant woman mad.

“who’s old and wrinkly, haruto?” his face suddenly lost all color as he heard the familiar, sickly, sweet voice from behind him. “and do tell me what else you had to say. we’ll be around for dinner so you have time.”

“oh it’s nothing.” the boy rubbed the back of his nape, a scare smile painting his face.

“right, mhm.” haru’s parents practically adopted selene after they started dating since hers were absent for most of her life. for people who are supposed to be parents, they sure stopped caring about selene after the wife finally got pregnant. “selene, darling, how are you? is the baby healthy? how many months along are you?” the aforementioned girl blinked harshly, trying to process what she asked.

“um, i’m good, so is the baby. and as of three weeks ago, i’m six months.” haru’s mom walked up to her, tucking her hair being her ears.

“poor girl. you must be in so much pain. plus, my little dweeb of a son must be making it worse.”

“oh, so much.” selene exaggerated, watching as haru frowned. he knew she was joking, but it still hurt him. he could be doing so much more for his girlfriend, but no. he’s been spending so much time trying to plan the perfect day to propose to her that he didn’t take the time to understand how she must’ve been feeling. horrible and lonely, he would’ve guessed.

“anyway, are you guys ready to go? i think it’s almost an hour until the reservation is actually valid.”

“i am, but i don’t know about haru.”

haru feigned an offended look, his hand pressed against his chest. “are you kidding me? i went to the grocery store in this suit.”

“well, haruto, don’t you know that that can cause creases and wrinkles?” his father asked, checking his watch.

her boyfriend shrugged, running his hands through his hair. “i do, but i just wanted to be extra prepared.”

“now that that’s settled, why don’t we head out?” selene offered, haru handing her her shoulder purse.

they all agreed, following after selene while haru locked up.

*45 minutes later*

as the clock hit 6:47, the group pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot, exiting the car. they were seated at a small round table, with a waitress named harlowe.

minutes passed by, they ordered, they ate, and then they left. it was now 8PM and fatigue was starting to take over selene. they waited by the entrance for their car to be driven back to them. while waiting, haru’s anxiety was kicking in. right now. do it. right. now. haru kneeled down and selene raised a brow. “are you tricking me again?”

haru shushed the girl and looked down, rethinking his words. “selene, i’ve known you for six years now and i think this has been long overdue. i’ve known you were the one for me since the moment you walked into the gym, bumping into the door, announcing your role as a new manager. and i’ve loved you ever since.” people were starting to crowd around the couple and normally, selene would’ve been scared out of her mind, but now she didn’t care because she was finally having her main character moment. “now here’s the scary part,” her boyfriend whispered. “miyasaki selene, will you be the roxanne to my max? my forever and always? will you marry me?” selene giggled at his “a goofy movie” reference and eagerly nodded, grinning like a child at disney world.

haru smiled with her, pulling her into a bear hug. he wiped her tears that were unbeknownst to her and declared his love to her as he slipped the peridot ring on her finger. “you remembered?”

“i remembered.” back when they were in high school, selene begged him that when, not if, they got engaged, he would give her a peridot ring instead of a diamond ring. she always believed that worth was subjective and haru knew how much she loved her birthstone, so he got the ring custom made.

“you’re perfect.” she exclaimed, basking in the attention they were receiving from the bystanders.

*three months later*

“haru, you asshole! if you don’t show up within the next 10 minutes, i’m divorcing you.”

“don’t worry, babe. i’m right around the corner!”

“don’t ‘babe’ me, just show up!” she violently screamed into her phone. the bloodlust was practically oozing out of her and if her fiancé didn’t walk faster than 2mph, she would make sure that he would never see the child that she was on the verge of giving birth to.

the door slammed open, and there stood her fiancé. it felt like déjà vù but selene was NOT in the mood. she just wanted the pain of being in labor to end.

after around 27 minutes of pushing, screaming, and selene cursing her fiancé in her head, the baby popped out of her. “it’s a boy!” the overly cheerful doctor exclaimed.

“well no shit, we saw in the ultrasound.” selene retorted, finally able to breathe again.

“i apologize for her.” haru smiled at the doctor who looked like she was about to start crying. as soon as they cut the umbilical cord and did whatever they do to newborns, they gave selene her baby, afraid she was going to snap at them again.

selene and her boys slept on that very hospital bed for the night, relieved. her baby was healthy and the love of her life was there to see. he was definitely happy that selene wouldn’t divorce him. they weren’t even married yet!

*two months later*

“bye, haru!”

selene kissed him on the cheek and haru kissed her and hikaru back. “bye, selene! bye, hikaru!” he waved and closed the door, going off to the school.

“why don’t we go on a walk to the park? well, i’ll be walking and hauling your cute little ass around, but it’ll be fun!” she claimed, clapping her hands together.

selene gathered all of hikaru’s baby food, diapers, clothing etc. and put it in the baby bag in his fancy, new stroller that his grandparents bought him. changing into some leggings and a graphic tee, selene and hikaru left the apartment, and went off to the park.

it was half way into their walk that selene received a call from an unknown number. “hello?”

“hi, we are here to inform you that your fiancé has been involved in a car accident, caused by a drunk driver.” selene covered her mouth, tears streaming down her face like a waterfall. seeing his mother cry, hikaru started wailing loudly. “ma’am? are you there?”

the, now, widowed mother regained her composure. “may i ask which hospital he’s at?”

“highland hospital, miss.”

“thank you, have a nice day.” selene placed her phone back in her pocket and sprinted in the direction of her car.

[at the hospital]

selene, holding hikaru on her hip, paced back and forth around the room, waiting for news.

suddenly the door opened, revealing the man’s parents. their eyes watered at the sight and his mother ran over to embrace the poor girl. his father took a seat at the bench and sobbed quietly into his hands.

haru’s right arm and leg were severely broken and he would’ve definitely been required to have surgery. across his face and shoulder were extremely long wounds that were still bleeding. he didn’t look like your fiancé anymore.

hikaru was still confused about what was going on, for he was looking around the room, watery eyed, for his father. he couldn’t recognize the man on the bed, which added to the sadness.

within a fraction of a second, the machine that was taking and recording his vitals started beeping and doctors started rushing in, pushing everyone else out. now, there she was. sitting outside of the icu room, she hugged hikaru tightly and prayed to whichever god was present to save her fiancé. she couldn’t lose him. not yet.

but death is natural. and although it takes some too early or too late, for the right or wrong reasons, it’s still natural and destined to happen some day.

and that’s when she received the news. “miss, we’re sorry to inform you that the patient has unfortunately passed away. we give our condolences.” suddenly, every single noise in the hospital drowned out and everything went black.

“hey! we need a doctor over here. my daughter-in-law has collapsed!” was the last thing she heard before losing consciousness.

*a day later*

the light was blinding and coming back way too fast for selene’s liking. she searched the room for her family. not even hikaru was present. only the doctor. “w-what happened?”

“oh, good. you’re awake. apparently, you went into shock and collapsed in the middle of the hallway after hearing the news of your fiancé dying.” she was suddenly reminded of the news as her eyes glossed over. she let out a small ‘oh’ at the thought and cleared her throat. another doctor burst in and yanked the man aside.

“gee, aaron, who kicked your dog today?”

“aaron?” selene looked at the man again and looked for any familiar features.

“that’s dr. aaron to you.” she fiddled with the blanket which was uncomfortably thin. the female doctor ordered him to leave the room and sat by her side.

“sorry about him. he’s not good at interacting with anything but his body pillow of ariana grande.” selene grimaced at the thought and she laughed.

“it's fine. everyone has their flaws, i guess. do you happen to know where my son is?”

“oh, hikaru? what an adorable little boy. he’s in the waiting room with his grandparents.” she caressed selene’s arm. “my name is zoey, in case you were wondering.”

“thank you, zoey—i-sorry, dr. zoey.” zoey shook her head and laughed.

“don’t worry, i’m not like that uptight little shit named aaron. you can just call me zoey.” she beamed at selene, showing her gummy smile. she was about to leave, but quickly turned around and snapped and pointed at her. “right! i came in here to tell you that you’re okay to be discharged right about now.”

“thank you, again, zoey. you’ve been a great help!” she nodded as a ‘thanks’ and left the room. selene went back to fiddling with her blanket. he can’t really be gone, can he? i mean, it all happened so fast.

it took her a while to finally come to terms with the harsh truth that her fiancé was dead and she would never see him again. the next couple months would be the hardest, despite what she thought.

prev | masterlist | next

A/N: ngl, i kinda sobbed when i wrote this. and OMG :0 this chapter is 2,578 words long- that’s like the longest thing i’ve ever written without any guidance or prompt. so congrats to me! and i promise that this is the longest the actual word by word text will be in this fic. i’m too tired to write any more stuff so 👍

[snakebites-22]

Heylo! I saw that you were asking for requests, and I have one if you want to write it! What if the reader is always drawing on the boards after school, and students don’t know who does it, and one day Peter catches her drawing? Idk, I kinda liked the idea! I love your writing hun!!🥰💕❤️

Peter Parker and The Dry Erase Board Artist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: And here it is! Almost a whole month after I said I would have it done! I am so so so sorry for how long this took and also sorry for how shitty it also is. I hope you enjoy this trash fire that I just spent almost 4 hours on and finished at 1 am. Oh, I also made this gender neutral using they/them pronouns. 

Warnings: uh language, slight death threat?, stupid teachers, numbers, fluff ig, idrk 

Word Count: 2279

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Summary: There’s a new mystery in Midtown, and it’s the creator of the dry erase board drawings. Peter is desperate to find out who it is even if it means losing sleep and missing assignments. What will it take to find out who this secret artist is?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peter knew all about mysteries. He used to stay up too late reading those mystery novels by flashlight when he should have been sleeping. He grew up loving them. The amount of times May would walk into the living room to see him once again binge watching Scooby Doo was uncountable. Even now, he prided himself on being one of the biggest mysteries in New York: Spider-Man. He had to hold back a grin whenever he heard people discuss who the masked hero could possibly be. The craziest one so far was that Spider-Man was actually an alien being used by the government. He wasn’t sure who came up with that one, but props to them for their creativity.

He just absolutely loved mysteries of all shapes and sizes, and now, he had a new one to solve: the drawings. He called it Operation Dry Erase Board, and yes, the name did need improvement. Both MJ and Ned made sure to tell him that every single time he brought it up. Ned had suggested The Search for the Hidden Artist, which MJ just said sounded even worse. 

It had started a couple weeks ago. He had walked into his first period calculus class to see everyone whispering and taking pictures of the board. His first reaction was panic － his teacher was prone to surprise pop quizzes － but it soon turned to awe as he stared at the array of color across the board. It was a beautifully detailed portrait of the sea. He gazed upon the scene of manta rays and fish and even the silhouette of a shark. There was coral and shells of every color, and the lines and swirls of blue captivated him.There was no signature. Nobody knew who had done it. 

At first, Peter just tried to brush it off. There was somebody in the school who was skilled with dry erase board markers and was very artistically gifted. Not the biggest deal, but good for them. It became a bigger deal when the next day a gorgeous rendition of Starry Night was covering the board of the biology classroom. Once again, no signature. That’s when Peter started to become invested. 

He questioned MJ first. She was one of the only artists he knew, but she just scoffed. “I’m good, but dry erase markers are shit for me to work with.” 

He started paying more attention in art class, looking for anyone with a similar style. Nothing. Everyone was your typical high school artist who was just there for the credits, meaning people like him. Don’t ask about how designing the first spidey suit went.

 The drawings just kept coming. He soon saw space, dinosaurs, a jungle, The Mona Lisa, even each of the Avengers all spread across the dry erase boards. Each one of these was so beautiful and so alluring that it made his eyes sting and shouts of protest to erupt from the students when the teachers had to erase them. Even if they didn’t erase them, they were gone the next day. Whether it was the Hidden Artist or the janitor, Peter didn’t know. It was just another part in the mystery.

A lot of the drawings weren’t done in any classrooms that Peter had, meaning he would have to take field trips during his lunch period to go and find them. Most of the time he already knew where he was going. There was now a whole Instagram page dedicated to the art. It was run by Daphne, who was in both Yearbook and the Art Club. He had asked her if it was her, but she had just giggled and said she was a fan. Honestly, Peter was too. 

He would stare at the art for as long as he could each time he saw it, and he stared at the pictures he took of them even longer. He was consumed by the art, by his love for it. He needed to find out who the artist was, but unfortunately for him it would have to wait. He was so preoccupied with being Spider-Man and now also being a shitty detective that he was falling behind on both his work and his sleep. He had now fallen asleep a total of five times over the course of a week and a half, and he was close to failing both AP Government and Spanish, simply because he wasn’t catching up on his workload. 

Now, he was passed out in AP Lang, the one class that everyone knew not to fall asleep in. He couldn’t help it. He was running on a total of 4 hours for the week, and it was a Thursday. Not even his spidey sense could have prepared him for the crash of a ruler against a metal trash can right next to his ear. After nearly falling out of his chair and almost decking his teacher, Peter was given two weeks’ worth of detentions. 

“Hopefully that’ll teach young Mr. Parker here to pay attention instead of dozing off in the middle of class. Maybe he’ll catch up on his missing assignments, too. Speaking of, would you like to tell the class which rhetorical devices you’ll be utilizing in your essay, Mr. Parker?” All Peter could do is stare back at his teacher, horror written over his face. 

————————

It was 3:30 on a Wednesday, and Peter was losing his mind. Each of his detentions were an hour and a half long, lasting from 3:15 to 4:45. He had managed to catch himself up on his work and raise his grades a bit, but that didn’t change his predicament. He couldn’t go home or skip detention, meaning he was stuck at school for another hour and fifteen minutes. When he asked if he could do something, he was told he could go help the janitor. With a sigh, he got up and went in search of the janitor’s closet. 

During the time spanning over his punishment, he had nearly forgotten about his obsession with the Hidden Artist. Of course he still saw and heard about the drawings and he would still stare when he saw them, but now with the need to focus on his assignments being drilled into his brain every day on top of trying to stop bad guys each night, he was forced to move on. He didn’t want to. God, if he had the chance he’d stare at those drawings for hours on end, but he didn’t have that chance. It fucking sucked. 

After a couple minutes of searching, he finally found the closet. He grabbed a broom and looked around, and to his left, there was a classroom with the door slightly open. With a heavy sigh, he walked towards the room and pushed the door open, only to stop dead. There, across the room, was a brand new drawing, and it was a drawing of him. Not him him, of course, but a drawing of Spider-Man. It was a drawing of an event he recognized from yesterday when he had walked a lost kid back to their parents. The drawing showed him crouched down in front of the kid who was crying, and he had his hand out as an offer for the child to take it. 

Upon closer inspection, the drawing seemed incomplete. There were too many white spaces which wasn’t the artist's style. As he stepped closer to it, he heard the door creak and a gasp behind him. He spun around, nearly falling over in the process, and looked up wildly. His eyebrows furrowed when he saw Y/n L/n, a student in his grade. They stared back at him with wide eyes. 

“Did...did you do this?” Peter asked slowly. Y/n hesitantly nodded. 

“If you tell anyone about this, Parker, you’re dead.” 

He was slightly taken aback by this. Not the death threat, necessarily, he got those all the time, but it was a bit of a surprise coming from Y/n.

“I won’t. I promise,” he said softly. 

Y/n nodded slightly before striding towards the board and taking out a marker, beginning to fill in all of the white spaces Peter had noticed earlier. 

After a moment, Peter asked, “How do you do it?”

Y/n turned towards him, black marker clutched in their hand. “What?”

“The drawings. They’re so beautiful...I didn’t even know you could draw like that.”

“Everyone has their secrets, Parker. I’m sure you have yours.” 

Peter almost laughed at that, because yeah, he did, and Y/n was drawing it across the Physics dry erase board. But he didn’t laugh. He just smiled a little and kept watching, forgetting all about the broom that was now leaning against a desk.

“So...Spider-Man huh?” 

Y/n sighed and turned to him. “Why are you still here? Shouldn’t you be sweeping or something?” 

Peter shrugged. “Or something. Look, this is probably gonna sound super weird, but I’ve been trying to figure out who you were for weeks. Your art is super amazing and cool and I just wanted to know so badly who was talented enough to pull it off. And now I know.”

“Are you disappointed?” It wasn’t a question out of fear, but more out of curiosity. Y/n sat themselves on a desk and waited for the answer. 

“I don’t think so,” Peter said. “This was just unexpected, I guess. I didn’t even consider you for a suspect.” Y/n chuckled at this. 

“Nobody suspects me. That’s the fun part of all of this, actually. Did you know people actually thought that it was Ms. Rosemary for a while?”

“The crazy teacher’s aid?”

“Yup. The theory, I think, was that she was so crazy that art became like her therapy or escape or whatever. I mean, it can be like therapy, but I think Rosemary needs a little more than some doodles in order to help her.”

“These aren’t just ‘some doodles,’ Y/n. They’re-”

“Beautiful. Yeah, you’ve said.” They shrugged. “It’s just scribbles on a board, Parker. Scribbles that, for whatever reason, make our brains happy.”

Peter didn’t really have a response to that, so instead he just watched as Y/n went back to work. 

————————

That was how he would spend his detentions. He would offer to go help the janitor, and then he would run around the school trying to find Y/n. Eventually, on the days where the drawings took less time to create, Y/n started to try to teach him how to draw. Basic things at first, like flowers or trying to break things down into their simpler shapes. He could barely do either of those things, but he enjoyed trying anyways. On other days, Peter would just sit and watch in silence as they drew. It was mesmerizing, and only he got to witness it. 

It became their thing. Even after detentions ended, Peter would stay after school for an hour or so just to go hang out with Y/n. They would have snacks and play music and have a good time. Peter learned that Y/n stayed after school since their parents were never home until the late evenings, so they stayed back just for the hell of it. He also learned that they were good friends with the janitor and that his name was Roger. He was the reason that they were even able to stay for as long as they did. It was pretty cool. 

It was a Friday, and Peter was spinning around in the teacher’s chair while Y/n drew a forest scene. Peter watched them for a while, a small smile on his face. They were also so concentrated when they worked, their eyes narrowing and jaw tightening as they drew the different lines and curves that made up the masterpiece. Unbeknownst to Y/n, Peter had a surprise for them. 

“Hey, N/n?” Peter asked. All he got was a hum in response. He rolled his eyes. “Come here.”

Y/n sighed and got off of the stool that they had been sitting on. “What do you want, Pete?” they asked as they strolled over, leaning over the desk when they got close enough. In response, Peter held up a small, wrapped up bundle. Y/n’s eyebrows furrowed as they picked it up. 

“What-”

“Shhhh!” Peter said with a soft giggle. “Just open it.”

Y/n narrowed their eyes at him before slowly tearing the paper away. They smiled softly as they stared at the multipack of dry erase markers, enough colors to make practically any drawing that happened to cross their mind. 

“Why?”

“A simple thank you would have sufficed. It’s an appreciation gift for all of your art. I figured by now you’ve probably killed most of the markers in the school, so I got you some new ones.”

Y/n chuckled a little and looked at him. “Thank you.”

“Of course. You deserve it.”

“I literally just make colored lines one a board.”

“And I appreciate those colored lines! They give me serotonin as do you.”

“I give you serotonin?”

“Yes.”

Y/n blinked in surprise. “Alright then...you also give me serotonin.”

“Really? Awesome.”

They both laughed for a moment, Y/n glancing back down at the markers as Peter continued to look at them.  

“Hey, Pete?” Y/n asked as they looked back up at him. “What?”

“Would you...would you like to continue to provide me with serotonin and go out with me?”

Peter’s eyes widened in surprise, but soon it was his smile that was widening instead. 

“Absolutely.”

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