#he just wants that rice krispie

[faraway-lightning]

"you don't mind that I'm here, right? Do you want peace and quiet?"

"no, I don't mind. you don't bother me."

[bookwyrminspiration]

THE RICE KRISPY CURSE HAS FINALLY ENDED IM FREE MAYBE HAPPINESS DOES EXIST

[corroded-hellfire]

April Fool's and Babies Due - Eddie Munson x Reader

An As You Wish story ❤️ Written with the best of the best @munson-blurbs

Summary: When you go into labor on April Fool’s Day, Eddie thinks it’s a prank. It’s kind of hard to deny when your water breaks, though.

Notes: The time has come, the day is here 💕

Warnings: childbirth and all that comes with it, there’s a scare but everything is okay, Eddie just about has a panic attack

Words: 9.8k

[As You Wish masterlist]

April Fool's is always an amusing day in the Munson household. A day full of mischief and trickery seems tailor-made for you guys. To no one’s surprise, Luke gets the most into it. Sometimes you think he starts planning next year’s pranks as soon as this year’s ones are done. Ryan has been known to throw a solid prank someone’s way once in a while as well. Personally, it’s hard for you to decide if his pranks against Luke or Eddie are the funniest to witness. 

Your husband can keep up with his sons in regard to the shenanigans. He can usually get one over on you before you don’t trust anything he says for the rest of the day. It’s definitely a day that’s taught you how to think on your toes. 

This year’s April Fool's is the first one Eliza is old enough to truly understand. It’s much easier for her to understand the concept now that she’s four. Of course, she wanted to join in on the Munson fun and prank her brothers and father. Luckily, the simplest tricks gave her immense joy. She placed a whoopee cushion on Eddie’s chair at the dinner table. It was quite evident to your husband that something was off when the cushion of the seat was raised several inches higher than usual. One glance at the little girl biting her lip and clenching her fists was enough to broadcast that she’s the one waiting in anticipation to see how it goes. Of course, Eddie sits down on the cushion and the fart noise that comes out sends Eliza into hysterics.

“I got you, Daddy!” She cheers. 

“You got me, sweet pea!”

The pranks pulled on you this year were pretty mild, and you give full credit to the babies growing inside of you. No one wants to truly scare a pregnant woman who is at 35 weeks. The bag of Luke’s Lucky Charms shoved into your Rice Krispies box did manage to catch you off guard. You chuckled at the rainbow in your cereal bowl as you poured in the milk. Ryan switched half of the family photos in the living room to pictures of different actors. It was certainly amusing to see Johnny Depp posing on the red carpet right next to your wedding photo. 

Eddie’s prank on you was a good one, you eventually admitted to him. For days on end, you had been telling Eddie how you were craving Chinese food. He kept saying he would pick some up this week. So, when Wednesday came and he said he was bringing home your favorite, you saw red when he walked through the front door with a pizza box. 

“Eddie, what the hell?” you’d asked.

“What?”

“You said you were getting Chinese.”

“Huh? I thought you wanted pizza, princess,” he’d said. 

You whined and rubbed your hands over your face. Part of you wanted to cry, actually. You’d been looking forward to this for so long.

“Well, maybe you’ll like the kind of pizza I got?” Eddie set the box down on the counter and opened the lid to reveal Styrofoam containers overflowing with noodles and rice. 

“You’re such a dick,” you whined with a laugh. 

“But you love me anyway.”

He had a point.

You told everyone the day before April Fool’s that you wouldn’t be pulling any pranks because you didn’t have the energy to devise any. Of course, none of them believed you and were on the lookout the entire day. Even if you did have something planned, the pressure near your pelvis kept your mind pretty occupied. The doctor said that it’s to be expected the further along you go, with the twins bearing down, ready to get into position. But the pressure seemed to be just a little worse today. 

“Feeling okay, baby?” Eddie asks as he takes his watch off for bed. 

“Yeah,” you say with a sigh as you waddle over to your side of the bed. “This damn feeling like they’re pressing on all my organs down there is a pain in the ass.”

“Literally?” Your husband gives you a playful smirk as he pulls down the blankets on your bed.

“Kinda feels like it, yeah,” you reply. 

It takes some effort to get into bed and get comfortable under the blankets. Eddie sits on his side, attentively monitoring to see if you’ll need his help or not. Once you’re settled back against your pillows, you give him a thumbs up.

“Good to go,” you say. 

Eddie slides closer to you beneath the blankets until his legs are pressed up against yours. Gently, he lifts your chin and leans in to press his lips to yours. 

“I love you, gorgeous.”

When he pulls away, you’re glaring up at him—not too fiercely, but enough to let him know you’re not exactly feeling the pet name at the moment.

“I love you, too, Daredevil.”

“Daredevil?” Eddie cocks a brow.

“He’s blind right?” You stretch your arm out haphazardly in the direction of the stairs in your home—near where your youngest son’s room is. “That’s what Luke said. Talking about that movie with Ben Affleck or something? Ugh, I don’t know.” You heave a deep breath and let your hand fall onto your protruding belly.

“And why am I blind?” Eddie asks as he scoots himself back over to his side of the bed. 

“That little term of endearment you gave me.”

Eddie sighs and looks back over at you.

“We gonna do this again?” he asks. “How many times do I have to knock you up for you to get that you’re so fucking hot pregnant?”

“Okay, I’m even putting that aside,” you say, swiping a hand in front of you. “I’m just a mess lately. No sleep. Pain. Harder to do basic shit, even like, brush my hair.”

“You’re just being a Mrs. Grumpy Gills because you’re so uncomfortable right now.” Eddie lays back against his pillows and tucks one arm behind his head.

Your eyebrows raise as you slowly turn your head to meet your husband’s gaze. 

“Did you just call me, ‘Mrs. Grumpy Gills?’”

He groans and flops his other arm down across his face.

“Ugh. You know, I appreciate the boys taking Eliza out places lately, I really, really do. But did they have to go to the goddamn aquarium? It led to this Finding Nemo phase that seems never ending.”

“How many times has she made you watch it now?” you ask.

“Shit, I lost count.” Eddie chuckles and lowers his pale, tattooed arm from his face onto his chest. 

Another pulse strikes your pelvic area and even irritates your lower back this time. Your face scrunches up as you squirm around a little, coming to the realization that there is no feasible way to rub your lower back at the moment. Last time your back hurt this way, rubbing it helped, you remember. God, it’s hard for you to even remember the last time you had that pain down there. The last time must’ve been…nah, it’s just the pressure the doctor told you about getting worse. Isn’t it?

“Goodnight, princess,” Eddie says, reaching over and ghosting his knuckles along your jawline. 

“Goodnight, Crush the Turtle.”

Eddie scoffs and playfully swats at you before leaning the other way to turn off his bedside lamp. 

The room plunges into darkness. The pain spasms in your back again and this time you sure as hell know what that was. You stretch as far as you can to click on the bedside lamp on your end. 

“Hmm?” Eddie pushes himself up onto an elbow and looks at you in concern. “What? What is it?”

“Shit,” you mutter as you try to push yourself up to a seated position. “Eds, I’m having contractions. This isn’t the carrying low crap anymore.”

Eddie’s eyes widen, and he goes to get up, but then he pauses. A smile grows on his lips, and he shakes his head as he settles back down again.

“Nice try, babe,” he says. 

“What?” You furrow your brow and rest your hands on your bump. 

“I’m not falling for it,” Eddie says with a shake of his head. “You thought if you waited until the end of the day, you’d be able to get me. But I’m wise to you.”

“Eddie, I’m serious,” you get out through gritted teeth. 

“Sweetheart.” Eddie rolls his eyes. “You’re talking to the man who once pranked his uncle by bringing a raccoon into his trailer. You’re gonna have to up your game.”

Pain rattles in your lower back once more. You’re this close to calling Wayne right now and scolding him for raising an absolute moron. But those plans are put on hold when you feel a trickle of liquid between your legs. 

You pull back the blankets and point towards your pajama shorts. “I’m. Not. Joking.”

Eddie’s eyebrows nearly scrape his hairline. “Oh, shit.” He sits up straighter, his body tensing. “Is that—”

“Yes,” you practically hiss. “And unless you want to accuse me of peeing myself to ‘keep the prank going,’ I suggest you get your ass in gear.”

“Y-Yeah. No. I mean, my ass is gearing. In gear.” Christ, this is his fourth time doing this, and he’s acting like it’s his first. “You wanna get changed, or…”

You bite your tongue to keep from making a snarky comment about hoping you get to sit in your amniotic fluid. “Yeah. Grab that god awful purple dress? I’m not putting on pants.”

After he gets you dressed, he helps you down the stairs to the ground level of your home.

“Why’d we buy a goddamn two-story?” you grumble. 

Eddie isn’t dumb, so he doesn’t remind you that you’re the one who fell in love with this house the minute you stepped inside. He leads you into the bonus room—soon to become the younger kids’ playroom—that’s between Luke and Ryan’s rooms, and gets you situated on the futon in there. 

“Ryan’s probably still awake.” Eddie instinctively looks at his wrist where his watch should be, but he forgot to put it on, all his focus securely on you. 

Even though it’s a school night, Ryan is still a seventeen-year-old boy, and he’s not going to go to sleep just because his parents told him to. He’ll give you guys going into his room at a certain time, but no way is he going to go right to bed.

Eddie knocks on Ryan’s door, hand itching to grab the handle and just barge in, but he restrains himself and waits for Ryan’s soft reply of, “Come in.”

The look on your son’s face as he tugs out his earbuds tells Eddie that he was prepared to be reprimanded about being up still, listening to music and reading. But Eddie is honestly thankful he’s still awake. 

“Ry,” Eddie says and ignores the little huff of annoyance the boy gives in return. “I need you to listen out for Eliza if she wakes up. We need to head to the hospital.”

Ryan is instantly up off his bed, his eyes wide as he pushes past his father in the doorway.

“The babies are coming?” Ryan’s head swivels until he spots you on the futon.

Mere feet away from the two Munson men, Luke’s bedroom door swings open, and his curly-haired head pops out into the hallway. Patch takes advantage of the fourteen-year-old’s door opening and darts out. 

“The babies are coming?!”

It will never cease to amaze Eddie that Luke won’t hear shit going on if he’s watching television, but he can have selected bat sonar hearing when he wants. 

Somehow managing to push yourself up off the futon, after scratching Patch’s ears and assuring him that you’re okay, you waddle over to the three of them, one hand on your belly and one on your back. You’re already practicing the breathing techniques you read about a few months ago. 

“Yeah,” you answer both boys. “Unless they’re learning how to pull an awesome April Fool’s Day gag.”

“They’re Munsons,” Luke says with a shrug. “I honestly wouldn’t be surprised.”

Wincing your way through a contraction, you move the hand on your belly to rest on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Do you have the hospital bag, Eds?” you ask.

“Shit,” Eddie grunts, dropping his head back. “Can one of you help her to the car while I go grab the bag?”

In true competitive brother spirit, they both insist on helping you. Nothing can be simple with them. 

Ryan grabs your jacket from the closet near the front door and helps you maneuver your arms into the sleeves. Luke kneels down and helps you slip into your comfiest pair of boots. It might technically be spring outside now, but it’s still chilly these Indiana nights. 

“Alright,” Eddie says as he reaches the bottom of the stairs, the hospital bag slung over his shoulder. “We ready to go?”

“Yes,” you groan and turn towards the door. 

But the sound of small, yet very heavy, footsteps upstairs gives you pause. They thunk down the stairs and you see a sleepy Eliza, one hand rubbing her eye, the other clutching her gold stuffed dragon Darla by the hand—or claw. 

“Wha’s goin’ on?” she mutters. 

Eddie steps forward to press a kiss to the top of her unruly curls.

“I’m taking Mommy to the hospital because it’s time for the babies to come.”

As he finishes his sentence, a rough contraction hits, this one feeling a little deeper. You wince and reach out to grab something to brace against. Ryan’s shoulder was the closest thing, so your fingers are curled into his pajama shirt. 

Eliza watches it all, her eyes widening as she sees her mother in pain. 

“Mama?” She dodges through everyone to get to you and slips her small hand into your larger one.

You do your best to smile through the pain, trying to reassure the little girl that you’re okay. 

“I’m okay, sweet pea. I just get a pain in my belly to let me know the babies are coming.”

The over-tired four-year-old’s bottom lip begins to wobble. Her emotions get the better of her, and the real crying starts. 

“I wanna come,” she says through her sniffles. 

Eddie crouches down and presses a kiss against her forehead. 

“You’re going to stay here with your brothers, okay? Ryan will tuck you in, and when you wake up in the morning, the babies should be here.”

Eliza shakes her head. “I wanna stay with Mama! Not the boys!” 

“You don’t have to say it like that,” Luke mumbles under his breath. 

You smooth back her hair, trying to diffuse the situation without wasting precious time. The last thing you want to do is deliver two babies on the kitchen floor. 

“It’s okay, baby. I’ll have Daddy with me, and you know he would never let anything happen to me.”

Another contraction grips you, and you squeeze Eddie’s hand in warning. If Eliza sees how much pain you’re in, she’ll never let you go. 

Luckily, Eddie receives your silent message. He crouches down in front of Eliza and offers her a reassuring smile. Fairly convincing considering the man is a bundle of nerves. 

“We’ll call you guys when the babies are born, okay? Even if it’s still nighttime and you’re still asleep. How about you go pick out a movie, and your brothers will watch it with you? Patch too, I bet. How about Mulan? Or Pocahontas?”

Ryan holds out his hand, which Eliza tepidly takes. “Come on. Let’s go pick something out.”

Eddie stands up in time to see Luke raise an eyebrow at him. 

“Isn’t it past her bedtime?”

His father leans in and whispers, “She’ll be out in less than half an hour; she just needs a distraction. Here.” Eddie hands Luke the hospital bag. “Bring this to the car, please.”

Luke dashes out to the car, drawing Eliza’s attention. She’d started to go with Ryan, but all plans for a movie are tossed out the window when she remembers that you’re leaving. 

Two little arms wrap around your thighs. “Mama, I wanna go with you!”

“I’ll see you soon, okay?” You rub her back, trying to ignore the gnawing guilt. “I love you.”

Eliza sniffles but reluctantly unravels herself. “I love you too.”

Eddie leans down and gives her one last kiss before putting his hand on the small of your back, helping you into the car.

He takes off down the road at warp speed.

“How you feeling, baby?” Eddie glances over at you before returning his attention to the dark road stretched out ahead of you. Trees line both sides of the highway and the only light comes from the full moon straight above you. 

One of your hands is gripping the handle on the roof, just above the car door. The other hand is splayed out on the console between you and Eddie, your nails digging into the leather. 

“Pain,” you grunt out. Your legs are spread, your booted feet bracing you against the floor mats.

Eddie nods, a sigh coming out of his nose like an anxious puff of air. 

“Do you want to listen to some music?” he asks. 

“No,” you shake your head and wince when another contraction starts. 

“Do-Do you want to talk? Or do you want quiet?” Eddie just wants to make sure he can give you whatever makes you the most comfortable and at ease.

“Um.” You lick over your dry lips as you breathe through the contraction. “Quiet, I-I think.”

The drive to Hawkins Regional Hospital should only take about ten more minutes, but that feels like an eternity with the rate of intense spasms that wrack your lower body. The dull roar of the engine provides a soothing soundtrack as you close your eyes and rest your head back. You are only allowed a few brief moments of relaxation, though. A pop echoes out in the space of the car.

“What was—” Eddie goes to ask before he hears you.

“Oh boy.”

“What?” Eddie asks, trying to glance over at you, but also doing his damndest to get you both safely to the hospital as soon as possible. 

A trickle of water leaks down the insides of your legs, the sound not far off from when you’re out on a walk with Patch and he lifts his back leg to relieve himself on a fire hydrant. 

Now, Eddie can see the pool of water gathering on the mat between your boots. He nods his head as he slowly increases the pressure on the gas pedal. 

“Good call on the no pants,” he says. 

Not a minute after fluid stops leaking down your legs, you feel a shift inside you. 

“Whoa.” You give a small jump as it catches you by surprise. One hand comes up to rub over your swollen belly. “Baby Number Two is squirmy right now, geez.”

Luckily, Eddie turns the car into the emergency room parking lot and pulls right up to the automatic double doors. He leaps out of the car, and rushes inside to get some help. He comes back with a small Calvary. A male and a female nurse both help you into the wheelchair they’ve brought out, and various medical team members hover by for one reason or another. You don’t have the mental energy to give a shit at the moment. 

“I’m just gonna go park the car. I’ll be right back, okay baby?”

You don’t have much of a choice as an orderly forcefully pushes you through the sliding glass doors and into the main atrium. Your wet dress beneath you is unpleasant, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the contraction that strikes as you’re wheeled into the elevator. 

The minutes feel like hours between the pain and not having Eddie at your side. Mentally, you try and calculate how long it will take him to find a spot, get back into the building, ask reception where you are, then make his way back to you. It’s too damn long in your opinion.

Mint green walls greet you as you’re brought into your room. The white linoleum floors that squeak under nurses’ sneakers and the distinct tang of antiseptic shout out that this is still a hospital room, no matter how nice they make everything else look.

“Okay, Mrs. Munson, let’s get you all set up.”

A hospital gown has never been a more welcome sight than when you’ve been sitting in amniotic fluid for the last twenty minutes. A nurse helps you change before helping you get comfortable in the bed—or as comfortable as you can possibly be. The medical team works like a well-oiled machine as they insert your IV, slip a blood pressure cuff on your arm, a finger sensor to monitor your oxygen, and two heart rate belts around your belly—one for each twin. 

Just as they’re securing the last belt into place, Eddie bursts into the room, his cheeks red and forehead dotted with sweat from exertion. With the way his breathing is labored, he looks like the one who should be hooked up to medical equipment. 

“Hey, baby,” he breathes out with a sigh. He dodges through the staff to get to your bedside. 

You’ve always known there were going to be more medical professionals in the room this time around because it’s twins, but it’s still a little nerve-wracking because it feels more intense than when you had Eliza. On one hand, it becomes scarier because you know there are more risks associated with twin births, but on the other hand, it’s reassuring that there is more help around you. 

“Eds.” You reach for his hand, and he’s quick to lace his fingers with yours. He presses a kiss to your forehead and then your knuckles. The backpack from home lands at his feet as he gives all of his attention to you. 

“How you feeling, princess?”

“I’m okay.” Both of you hear the slight shake in your voice, but Eddie doesn’t comment on it. 

“I heard someone ordered two babies today, huh?” Dr. Hahn smiles as she walks into your room. She gives you a playful wink as she grabs two latex gloves and slips them on. “Let’s check on the little rascals, shall we?”

Eddie tries to keep your focus on him as Dr. Hahn starts checking to see how dilated you are. 

“I brought the list of names,” he tells you with a soft chuckle. “I slipped it into the backpack.”

“Good.” You nod. “Still gotta narrow some of those down.” 

“Should we take bets on the sexes?” he asks.

The question brings a smile to your face, but you shake your head.

“I’ll leave the betting to the boys. As long as the babies are healthy, I’m happy.”

“The fact that it became double or nothing when they found out there are twins still brings me such joy.” 

“Not necessarily,” you counter, but giggle at his words anyway. “Could be one of each. Then they both win. Or lose.”

“Who bet on what again?” Eddie asks, wrinkling his nose up in thought. 

“Ryan said girl, Luke said boy.”

“Right. And I do love how they both have the Care Bear onesie they want the other to wear already picked out.”

“Okay,” Dr. Hahn says, not giving you a chance to respond to your husband. “It shouldn’t be very long at all. Second babies always come faster and so do twins. And you’re batting two for two there.”

“Thank you, Dr,” you say. 

When Eliza was born, you remember it feeling like a lifetime before you started pushing. You know this pregnancy and delivery are different than when you had your little sweet pea, but it’s hard not to compare this situation to the only comparable one you’ve ever been in before.

Dr. Hahn wasn’t kidding when she said it shouldn’t be very long. A glance at the clock on the wall tells you that you’ve only been in this bed for fifteen minutes before you’re told it’s time to start pushing. 

Eddie is ready at your side, one of his hands holding yours and the other squeezing your shoulder in gentle encouragement. A nurse stands on your other side, also holding your hand to help brace you for the exertion of pushing. 

“We’re about to push now, Mrs. Munson,” Dr. Hahn says from the foot of the bed. 

You nod, any words dying on your tongue as you feel the telltale signs of a contraction beginning. 

“Come on, sweetheart, you’ve got this.” Eddie rubs his hand soothingly over your shoulder blade as you lean forward, garnering the momentum to get things going. 

“Okay, Mrs. Munson, push!”

You grit your teeth and squeeze both Eddie’s and the nurse’s hands as you do what you’re told. The grip you have on both people at your sides has to be hurting them, but they’re both troopers and don’t so much as flinch. 

“That’s it, baby,” Eddie encourages. 

“You’re doing great,” Dr. Hahn adds. “Keep it up.”

Keep it up? You know you have to, but your body is already exhausted. And you have a whole other baby to push out after this one. You silently decide that any woman who has delivered triplets or higher deserves a Medal of Honor. Twins are difficult enough. 

“Ah, here we go. I see the head,” Dr. Hahn says. 

A groan that’s a mixture of exertion and pain claws its way free on your next push. 

“Almost there, princess.” Eddie holds your hand in both of his and presses kisses against your white, straining knuckles. 

“Here’s the head. Alright, Mrs. Munson, we’re going to do one more really big push, okay?”

“Okay,” you squeak out through clenched teeth.

“Big push on three, okay? One, two, three.”

A strangled scream gets caught in your throat as you put all of your effort into getting this baby out of you. 

“There we go, good job,” Dr. Hahn praises. “Almost there, almost there…”

A shrill cry fills the room, and you fall back against your pillows, drenched in sweat and breathing like you just finished running a 5k. But you smile. It’s impossible not to with that beautiful noise coming from your newest child. 

“It’s a boy!” Dr. Hahn announces. The nurses wipe down your son—your son—as the doctor turns to Eddie. “Cutting the cord?”

“Of course.” Eddie carefully snips the cord where Dr. Hahn instructs, though he probably memorized the procedure. After all, this is his fourth kid. 

Dr. Hahn checks the position of the other baby before placing your wailing son on your chest. “Take a moment before the next baby arrives,” she says gently. 

You press a kiss to the baby’s scalp. He’s so perfect, so little and sweet. Even his cries are adorable. One tiny fist rests just above your breast as he soothes himself to your heartbeat. 

“Another boy,” Eddie muses. “We have three sons now.”

“Eliza is not going to be thrilled if there’s a fourth,” you say, though you know your daughter will probably claim the babies as her own, regardless of their genders. 

Eddie kisses your forehead. “I can’t believe this. I…” he swallows the emotion choking his throat. “…I love him so much already.”

“Me, too.” You smile, glancing down at the baby once again. Tears blur your vision. “Hi, sweet boy. I’m your mommy. Aw, I know, I know. It’s bright here on the outside.”

Eddie leans in, tears leaking out as he beams at his new son. “Hi, pal! We got another Munson man here to drive Mommy and Eliza crazy, huh? Welcome to the team.”

Dr. Hahn clears her throat kindly. “Baby B can arrive any time in the next five to thirty minutes,” she explains. “When you feel the urge to push, tell us.”

You nod, barely paying attention to her directions. You’re too in love with the little boy pressed to your heart. After a few minutes of cooing over him, a nurse offers to take the baby to be cleaned and get his vitals taken. 

After both of you keep your eyes glued to your new son as he’s being assessed, Eddie leans in and presses a kiss to the top of your head.

“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” he asks.

You tilt your head up and gaze at him with a sleepy smile.

“Exhausted. But so happy,” you tell him. “The contractions don’t feel as painful anymore.”

“That’s better. Now you’re all snuggled up.” A nurse smiles down at your son as she carries him in your direction. “Do you want to see your Daddy? He’s been waiting a long time to meet you.”

“He is absolutely worth the wait,” Eddie says as he accepts the baby. Pure pride gleams in your husband’s eyes as he takes in all the details of your son. The little button nose that scrunches just a bit whenever anyone makes too loud of a noise. The already-dark eyelashes that flutter against the apples of his rosy cheeks. “He’s perfect.”

Eddie takes a few steps closer to your bed and sits on the edge, twisting so you can see both him and the baby. The sight of your husband holding your baby boy brings tears to your eyes, which you quickly wipe away. Nothing is going to obscure your vision while you’re admiring your boys—not even tears.

“Hi, sweetheart.” You reach out and run your index finger over the small knuckles that are clenched into fists. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Just like his mom,” Eddie says.

With a bashful smile, you hide your face against the sleeve of Eddie’s t-shirt. 

“Any names in mind?” Dr. Hahn looks up at you from where she’s reading over a chart. She gives you a smile when your eyes meet. 

“We have a handful of names,” you say, gaze turning back on your son. “We didn’t know the sexes beforehand, so we had to come up with a little collection to consider.”

“Smart,” Dr. Hahn says with a nod. “A lot of people who don’t find out the sex beforehand find unisex names.”

“We’ve got a few of those on the list,” Eddie confirms. 

To you, it feels like you’ve been holding your newborn for mere minutes, but your husband has been glancing at the clock every so often, his pulse speeding up every time you get closer to the thirty-minute mark Dr. Hahn mentioned. He notices you haven’t winced or appeared in pain from contractions during this time either. The last thing he wants to do is worry you as well, so he keeps quiet but keeps tabs on the medical team in the room, trusting they have control of everything. 

The moment the clock strikes thirty-one minutes past the first birth, a nurse comes over and gives you a kind smile.

“Okay, Mom, we’re going to start focusing on the next birth now. I’ll keep your little boy safe and sound over here in his cozy bassinet.” 

Reluctantly, you watch her take the little bundle and Eddie stands up from the edge of the bed. The nurse rolls the bassinet right on the other side of Eddie, so your husband is between you and the baby. 

Dr. Hahn walks over to the other side of your bed and tilts her head as she looks at you.

“I notice we’ve had contractions slowing down,” she says. “That happens sometimes, but we want to make sure we get them going again. I just sent for some Pitocin, which will kick them back into gear. Just hang tight for a few, and then we’ll get your other bundle of joy out here for you to hold.”

Eddie nods at the doctor, too nervous to thank her aloud. He doesn’t want to risk you hearing any trepidation or warble in his tone. You heard the doc, he says to himself. This happens sometimes. 

He releases a sigh of relief when the medication arrives only two minutes later. A nurse injects it into your IV line, and all Eddie can do is stare at the clock again. Next to him, your son begins to cry, so Eddie bends over him and gently strokes his beanie-clad head.

“It’s okay, buddy,” he says. “I know, you miss Mommy, huh?”

A little hand reaches up towards the sky, and Eddie slips his forefinger into the tiny grasp. He chuckles at how tight of a grip the tiny man has on him. 

“Alright, looks like we’ve got a contraction coming,” Dr. Hahn says, looking at the monitor near your head.

“Ah, shit,” you groan as a familiar wave of pain crashes over your body. 

Eddie is torn between the attention of the baby and wanting to hold your hand for support. Luckily, the bed and the bassinet are close enough that he’s able to hold both of your hands at once. Another glance at the clock tells him you’re closing in on forty minutes since the last birth. His heart hammers in his chest, the nerves right on the tipping point of becoming true fear. 

At minute forty-five, Dr. Hahn takes up her position at the foot of the bed again. 

“Okay, Mrs. Munson. It’s time to start pushing again.”

“Come on, sweetheart,” Eddie encourages. “You got this.”

You nod at him before taking a deep breath, mentally psyching yourself up for another round. 

The pushing starts off just as it did last time. But after already doing this once and having the intensity and pain of the contractions come back within a matter of minutes, you find yourself overwhelmed. You wish for the moment you had not ten minutes ago, holding your son with your husband by your side. All smiles and excitement. The stabbing pain reminds you that that moment isn’t here anymore. Suddenly, the lights in the room feel hotter. The beeping of machinery sounds louder. All senses have been dialed up to eleven, as if the medication they gave you not only kicked the contractions into gear, but every other function of your body as well. 

As attuned to you as always, Eddie gives your hand a squeeze of encouragement. That small act of affection is enough to give you the strength for another push. 

“Okay, we’ve got the head,” Dr. Hahn says. 

“Agh!”

Eddie’s brow instantly furrows. This is the third time he’s seen you give birth, and you’ve never made that exclamation of pain before.

“What?” he asks urgently. 

Dr. Hahn looks over her shoulder and calls to the medical team, “We have a shoulder dystocia.”

“A what?” Eddie asks. 

“What’s wrong?” you pant out through labored breaths, face still pinched in pain. 

Dr. Hahn turns back towards you while one nurse steps out of the room, and two others come closer to the bed.

“Your baby’s shoulders are stuck, Mrs. Munson. We’re going to help them out now.” She turns to the nurses approaching the bed. “Let’s get her into McRoberts.”

Eddie’s stomach falls through the floor. Your baby is stuck? A shoulder what? Dystocia? What the hell is that? And what is McRoberts?

“Stuck?” is all Eddie manages to squeak out.

Dr. Hahn nods as the first nurse returns with, what looks like, other doctors. That can’t be a good sign, Eddie decides.

“Stuck on the pelvic bone,” Dr. Hahn says. “Mrs. Munson, we’re going to try and get you into a different position to see if that helps.”

“Okay.” Your voice is small, a punch to Eddie’s gut. 

“Mr. Munson, could you just step back a little bit? Nurse Jennifer needs to get in on that side.”

The moment Eddie’s hand lets go of yours, he feels like he’s going to be sick. The urge to push back in and wrap you up in his embrace is strong, but the logical part of his brain tells him he needs to stay out of the way and let the medical professionals do their job. The emotional part wants to kick that logical part’s ass though. 

“Mrs. Munson, Nurse Jennifer is going to work on that leg, pushing your knee up toward your chest, and Nurse Peter is going to do it with this leg. Don’t push while they do this, okay? Just breathe. Here we go.”

Eddie watches as each nurse takes one of your legs and hikes them up towards your head. He bounces from foot to foot, his hands coming up to rub over his face, his hair, his neck, anywhere to expel some of that nervous energy. Every terrifying thought flashes through his mind. What if I lose her? What if we lose the baby? What if I lose them both? His entire world hangs in the balance and there isn’t a damn thing he can do about it. He’s never felt so helpless in his entire life. There’s quite literally nothing he can do but stand there and watch it all happen.

A deep breath doesn’t do much to calm Eddie, but it helps enough for him to take a moment to lean down and whisper to your new son, “Use some of that twin telepathy, okay? You’re both Munsons and Munsons are strong. And no one is stronger than your Mama.”

It’s hard for Eddie to see you as Nurse Jennifer stands closer to your head now, holding your leg up at this new angle. Your husband looks up and sees the other medical staff hovering, which, in theory, should be comforting, but it just adds to the stress and fear he’s drowning in. 

“Is the baby okay?” your strained voice asks. 

“The baby is fine,” Dr. Hahn assures you—assures you both. “We’re just going to have to work a little harder, that’s all. Now, big push for me, okay?”

Your pained moans make Eddie’s heart ache. Nurse Jennifer steps slightly closer to your head, so Eddie takes advantage of the open spot between her and the foot of the bed. He’s standing just above where your pelvis is and he takes in every little detail of you, scanning for any and all possible issues. Your head flops back against the pillow and weakly tumbles to the side.

“Why don’t you try talking to her?” 

Eddie looks up to see that Nurse Peter is talking to him. The nurse nods his head towards your struggling form on the bed.

“Encourage her, keep her focused,” he says.

For the first time in his life, your husband doesn’t know what to say. 

Eddie nods and licks over his lips. For some reason, he wipes his sweaty palms on the sides of his jeans. He mentally wonders what the hell he’s doing as he thinks about everything that you mean to him. His mouth opens and he just goes with it, becoming a pure stream of consciousness. 

“You’re so goddamn strong, Sweetheart. You pushed out one baby and now you’re about to push out another. Even with all of these tubes and needles and beeping things, you’re doing it. I could never do it. I mean, not just because I’m missing the, uh, parts—”

“Eddie,” you choke out as another bead of sweat slides down the side of your face.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Shut up about your ‘parts,’” you choke out with a terse huff of laughter. 

Eddie shakes his head before continuing. 

“You got this. You’re gonna push out this baby and our little family—well, not that little—will be complete. All because of you. Just keep going, okay? I’m right here.”

“Good, good, we’re making progress,” Dr. Hahn says. “Baby is coming out now. Mr. Munson, do you want to watch?”

If she had asked with the first baby, he probably would have said yes. But with all the adrenaline and emotion coursing through his body right now? He is not up to the task. 

“I think I’m gonna stay in this region over here,” he motions around your head and upper body area.

“We’re almost there. Keep pushing, Mama, you’re doing great.”

“You’ve got this, princess,” Eddie adds. “I’m so incredibly proud of you.”

“There we go!” Dr. Hahn says. “She’s here.”

“She?” you ask, pain and weariness falling to the background now that your second baby is finally out. Tears stream rivulets down your face, but you refuse to let them keep you from speaking. 

“She,” your doctor affirms with a nod. “It’s a girl.”

“Is she okay?” Eddie asks. 

Dr. Hahn looks over her shoulder at where the newly-brought-in medical staff is.

“Neonatal—check for distress.”

A man in scrubs takes the baby from Dr. Hahn and brings her over to where her brother’s vitals were taken. You feel like you’re holding your breath, though. 

The nurses who held your legs gently release them back down and step out of the way so Eddie can get to you properly. He immediately cups your face in his hands and presses his lips against yours. Both of you have ragged breaths so he doesn’t hold the kiss for long. But once he pulls away, he’s kissing every part of you he can get his mouth on. Your face and hair are both drenched in sweat, but Eddie could not care less. You’re here and you’re safe and Eddie feels like he could collapse in your arms.

It’s quiet in the room though. The machines are still beeping. Sneakers still squeak against the linoleum. But it’s too quiet and it steals the breath from your chest. Oxygen is sucked out of the room and time seems to stop as your muscles lock and you freeze completely still. A very vital sound is missing.

A few deep inhales followed by a piercing cry cause you to fall apart. She’s breathing. Your baby is breathing and crying. Sobs wrack your body, and you lean into Eddie’s touch. He gently cradles your head as you wrap your arms tight as a vice around his waist. 

“She’s okay,” you say to yourself between sniffles. 

“You’re both okay,” Eddie responds. 

A few drops of water fall onto your forehead. You look up to see Eddie crying almost as hard as you are. Seeing the raw emotion pouring out of him tugs at your already sensitive heart. Your face crumples, and you fall into another round of sobs as you bury your face against his shirt. 

Both you and Eddie get the worst of your emotions out before you try to compose one another. By the time you do that, your little girl has been checked over and cleared. Nurse Jennifer walks over with your youngest baby, all bundled up in a white blanket dotted with pale yellow and green polka dots. A small pink cap is situated on her tiny head, and you couldn’t be smiling any wider as you accept her from the nurse. 

Every emotion and every hormone are surging through your body right now. The adrenaline crash has left you worn out and weak. But the moment you hold that baby girl, none of it matters.

When you look down at her, you see that your daughter is looking right back at you. A brighter grin than you would’ve thought possible to muster lights up your face. Slitted eyes take in your face almost as much as you’re taking in hers.

“There you are, gorgeous.” Your words are soft and as gentle as the newborns’ skin. 

Eddie wipes at his eyes and leans against the side of the bed. His head tilts to the side while he takes all of her in. The pink puckered lips. The sparse eyebrows that already twitch as if she’s displaying all of her emotions through them. She has him wrapped around her finger already.

“Hi, little angel,” Eddie says. “You’re already trying to upstage your brother, huh?”

You let out a soft chuckle.

“Oh boy. Are we gonna have two dramatic little girls on our hands?”

You lean down and press a kiss to her smooth, unblemished forehead. The last thing you want to do is take your lips off of her, but you know Eddie is itching to hold her. 

Gently and carefully, you transfer your baby to her father. 

Once she’s in his arms, he does his damndest not to cry. To no one’s surprise, it doesn’t work very well. The memory of always wanting a baby girl when he was younger comes rushing back to him. Something in him always knew he was meant to be a boy dad and a girl dad, and he was just waiting for the opportunity for the second one to come along. And now here he is. The father to two daughters. Three boys and two little girls with the woman of his dreams. 

A faint beeping is the first thing you register. A phone? No. A smoke detector? No. Oh shit, that’s the monitor you’re hooked up to. 

Slowly, your eyes blink open only to be assaulted by the bright fluorescent light directly above you. You squint and shield your eyes as they adjust. 

A deep soreness permeates most of your body, but you feel rested and refreshed after getting some sleep. Eddie could see how tired you were and was eventually able to talk you into a nap. Something you assumed he would also take. But when you look towards the window, you see your husband sitting in an armchair, completely bleary-eyed, as he holds one of your babies. The baby is asleep though, so that’s something, you suppose. 

“Eds?” you call, voice a hair above a whisper. “Did you get any sleep?”

A tired smile graces his lips as he shakes his head. Gently, he stands up and lays the baby (who you can now see is your daughter) in her bassinet right next to her brother’s. 

Eddie goes to take a seat on the edge of your bed, but you carefully move over so there’s enough room for him to properly sit next to you, side by side. 

“I called the kids,” Eddie says as he situates himself. 

“Were they awake?” You look up at him and let out a large yawn. “Wait, what time is it now? What time did I even give birth?”

Eddie delicately wraps his arms around your shoulders to tuck you into his side.

“It’s almost 3 am now. I called around two, and the boys were still awake. Eliza fell asleep around half an hour after we left. The boys asked if the twins are girls or boys, but I told them they’d have to wait to see until they can meet them in the morning.”

You let out a sleepy chuckle as you let your head rest against your husband’s shoulder.

“Gonna keep the suspense on that bet going for as long as possible, huh?”

“Absolutely,” he says with a grin. “And Baby Boy Munson was born at 12:28 and Baby Girl Munson was born at 1:26.” 

Though he doesn’t say anything else, you’ve known Eddie long enough to know that he wants to. His lips keep moving, as if he’s trying to psych them up to form words. You’re not going to pressure him, though. You give him time to gather his thoughts. It only takes a few minutes.

“Sweetheart, I…” he trails off and tears fill his eyes. “I was so fucking scared before. First, the baby is late, and your contractions went down. Then she gets stuck on the way out. Babe, every horrible scenario was running through my head. I was terrified I was going to lose you and a baby at the same time.” He sniffles and shakes his head, a hauntingly devastated look in his eyes. “Even if we hadn’t already decided that we’re not going to have any more kids, this would’ve convinced me. I can’t bear thinking about that, or something worse, happening again.”

“Oh, Eddie…” You slowly reach up and cup Eddie’s face in your hands. One thumb traces along his cheek bone. “It was scary. All I kept thinking was that I need her to be safe.”

“What about you?” Eddie asks. 

You take one hand off of Eddie’s face and wave it dismissively in the air. He gives you a reproachful look before you speak.

“I wasn’t thinking of me. Just that little baby who’s been with me for nine months. She was all that mattered in that moment. And Eddie?” You do your best to sit up a little straighter so you can look him in the eye. “If we hadn’t decided to not have any more kids, I’d have so many more of your babies. This didn’t deter me at all. It was a scary few moments, but now we have the rest of our lives with these little miracles. I’ll take that trade any day.”

Eddie sighs. He knows it would be a moot point to argue with you. Though you might not be a Munson by blood, just the name is enough for you to be considered stubborn and hard-headed. Nothing he could say would get you to put the importance of your own safety on the same level as your baby’s. But he knows if the roles were reversed, he would be the same way. You know it too and would absolutely wield that against him in a debate. The thought makes Eddie chuckle softly. He loves how he knows you so well, and how stubborn you can be—though he’s careful to never admit that out loud. 

“I love you so goddamn much,” he mutters.

“I love you, too.”

Eddie shifts carefully, handling you like you’re as fragile as porcelain. Part of you wants to tell him to cut it out, but the amount of pain you’re in makes it hard to argue with his gentle demeanor. His moves are slow and intentional as he cups the back of your head and presses a light kiss against your lips. Now this, you won’t stand for. Your hand that doesn’t have the IV needle stuck in it curls around your husband’s neck, and you force more pressure into the kiss. 

You feel his chuckle rumble against your lips. 

“You’re so difficult, you know that?” he mumbles once he pulls away.

“So I’ve been told.”

Despite how he shakes his head in bemusement, there’s a smile on Eddie’s lips as he pulls you against his chest. You happily mold against him, contorting to lay your head against his shoulder. From how you’re both positioned, you have a perfect view of both babies snoozing away in their bassinets. The two of you stay silent, enraptured in watching the newest members of your family. Each of them has a pacifier in their mouth, but your son’s moves up and down faster, his suckling more insistent in his sleep. Your daughter moves more in her sleep, though. Her little arms move in small circles, reminiscent of rowing a baby-sized boat. 

Eventually, you break the silence in a hushed voice.

“I guess we should finalize those names, huh? Unless we want to stick with ‘Baby Boy’ and ‘Baby Girl’ Munson.”

“Those do have a nice ring to them.”

Moving slowly and carefully so as not to disturb him, Eddie reaches out and pulls your little boy’s bassinet closer to the bed. It allows you both to see his face better. 

“Well,” you say with a sigh, “since you won’t let me name him Edward after his dashing father…”

“Hey,” Eddie argues, “I agreed to it as a middle name. And I still think Charles would be funny.”

Narrowing your eyes, you lift your head to stare down your husband.

“Charles Munson? With us, his Munson family?”

Eddie laughs softly, burying his face in your hair.

“I’m just kidding, you know that.” He presses a kiss to your temple. “I’m strictly against naming our children after murderous cult leaders.”

“What about cult leaders that didn’t commit murder?” you question.

“Those I’ll consider.”

You huff a laugh, half fueled by exhaustion, as you nuzzle your face against Eddie’s t-shirt. A large, warm hand rubs up and down your back in a soothing manner.

“Out of the few boy names we narrowed it down to, which do you think fits him the most?” he asks. 

You turn your head to look back at your newborn son. A couple of the names on the list automatically are scratched off the list in your mind; they just aren’t him. Next, your brain scrolls through the unisex names you can recall. 

“He looks like Hayden to me,” you finally say.

Eddie grins and looks down at you. “I was just thinking the same thing. Hayden Edward Munson.”

“H.E.M.”

“Sounds like a good name for a band, those initials,” Eddie comments. “Alright. It’s your sister’s turn, Hayden.”

Eddie gingerly pushes Hayden’s bassinet back to where it was and pulls your daughter’s forward. Once she’s in the position her brother just held, Eddie hums as he rests his head against yours. Most of the names the two of you had on your list were for girls, so this task is going to take a little more time and deduction. 

“Wanna try out a few?” Eddie asks. “See how they feel?”

You nod and pick your head up to address the bundled-up baby. 

“Hi, Chloe.” 

Immediately, your nose wrinkles up and you shake your head, Eddie shaking his as well. It doesn’t suit her. 

“What about Dianna?” Eddie asks. He pauses for a moment, considering. “Nah, don’t think so. Amy?”

As if voicing her own opinion, your baby girl starts to whine. She squirms around more than she did in her sleep and lets the pacifier fall out of her mouth. Her little lungs inhale a few breaths, and Eddie carefully slips out from underneath you to scoop her up before she can start properly crying. 

“Okay, okay, not Amy,” Eddie says as he picks her up. He sways back and forth next to your bed, gently bouncing the little bundle.

“Her least favorite March sister, I guess,” you joke.

“Well, duh,” Eddie says with a scoff. “She stole Laurie from Jo.”

“No, that’s not…” You smile to yourself and give a slight shake of your head. “That’s a topic for another time.”

A nasally “wah” rings out of your daughter, Eddie’s preemptive strike not enough to keep her from crying.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Eddie frowns and tries bouncing her with a little more fervor. “Do you want your mommy? She’s right here. It’s okay.”

Eddie gives you a few moments to situate yourself on the bed, readying to accept the baby from him. You hold your arms out and he delicately transfers her. 

The moment she’s in your arms, her name strikes you. It’s as if the moment you had contact with her, she spoke to you, telling you what you’ve always been meant to call her.

“You’re Scarlett, aren’t you?” You grin down at her.

Immediately, her cries cease. She turns her small head and nuzzles her little button nose against your arm.

Eddie watches, an adoring smile on his face. He cautiously sits down on the edge of the bed.

“Well, I guess that settles that,” he says. “Hello, my little Scarlett. You almost gave Daddy a heart attack today, you know that?”

“No offense,” you say, quirking an eyebrow up at your husband, “but I think she put my body through more than yours today.”

One corner of Eddie’s mouth kicks up in a smile as he nods his head in agreement.

“What about a middle name?” he asks.

“Can I see the list?” you ask. 

The backpack had been kicked halfway under the bed during the course of events this evening, so Eddie bends at the waist to retrieve it. He slips the worn paper out from the front pouch and holds it up for both of you to look over. Your eyes scan down the numerous names, some scratched out or spellings changed over these past nine months.

“How about Aurora?” you suggest.

“Scarlett Aurora Munson. Sounds pretty damn beautiful to me.”

Already as dramatic as his father it seems, Hayden begins to fuss about not being part of the conversation.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Eddie says as he picks Hayden up. He cradles the baby to his chest and lightly boops the tip of his nose. “So does Hayden Edward Munson.”

You watch in adoration as Hayden settles down. Your husband holds him with such tenderness and care. A look back down at your daughter shows she’s drifted off to sleep again. A warmth bubbles up from your stomach, settling in your chest. 

“I can’t believe we’re the parents of twins,” you say in breathless wonder.

Eddie steps closer as he sways back and forth.

“Sometimes I still can’t believe I’m a parent.”

Light as a feather, so as not to disturb her, you run your finger over Scarlett’s tiny knuckles. It doesn’t matter that you’ve held countless babies before, it still astonishes you how small they truly are when they start out. Eliza was once this little. So were Luke and Ryan, even if you didn’t know them then. 

“You guys are going to love it here,” you tell the twins. “You have the best big brothers and big sister.” 

“Who can’t wait to meet you,” Eddie adds. “And there’s a crazy dog named Patch. He’s a good boy.”

“And your room looks just like you’ve walked into the Hundred Acre Woods.”

“Or, if we carried you in there,” Eddie says. “Since you guys can’t walk yet.”

“There’s Pooh Bear and Piglet and Tigger and Rabbit,” you go on. “All the cool ones.”

“And it won’t be long until your sister introduces you to the princesses. I give it less than twenty-four hours, honestly.”

You chuckle, knowing your husband is absolutely correct. A mental image of Eliza bringing out the little chalkboard that’s in her room tickles you. You can picture her setting it up in front of the twins while they rock back and forth in their swings. She would give them a thorough education, that’s for sure.

“You two have so many people who already love you so, so much,” you tell the babies. “Lots of aunts and uncles and cousins to play with. And the coolest grandpa.”

“And you have me and Mommy,” Eddie adds. “And I’ll tell you a secret…we love you guys more than any of those other people do.”

You let out a soft giggle and nod in agreement. 

“We’re so glad you’re here. Welcome to the world.”

“It’s not always great,” Eddie says, “but you’re always going to have your family behind you when things get tough. Cause Munsons stick together.”

Scarlett smacks her lips together and turns her face up in your direction. You carefully lean down and press a kiss on her forehead.

“You made our family complete, guys. And we’re so happy that you did. Our little Hayden and Scarlett.”

[muwapsturniolo]

Sweet tooth 🍬 C. Sturniolo

"You're right, I do have a sugar problem, and it starts with you."

⟢ nothing but fluff tbh (tiny bit of angst? i think?) !!! kissing and spanking but nothing inherently sexual!!

@bernardsbendystraws for dividers

"How the hell do we make these?"

It was currently 11 PM, and the couple was in the kitchen, getting ready to make a sweet treat - rice krispies to be exact. He watches as the girl moves around the kitchen, her mind set on making the rice krispies.

"Bun come on, I can just doordash you-" He stops talking when she slams the box of fruity pebbles on the counter, a frown on her face. She crosses her arms and stomps her foot, a clear signal that showed she was frustrated.

Chris was all too familiar with this habit of hers, so familiar that he quickly tried to diffuse the situation before she blew up.

"Bun-"

"No! I don't want them door dashed, I want to make them!"

Bun-"

"If you don't want to spend time with me then don't! Just say that you don't want to spend time with me!'

He sighs and pushes himself off the counter, lazily strolling towards her and pulling her closer. " Hey hey hey, calm down yeah? I was kidding, you know I love to spend time with you, don't get mad at me." His thumbs rub soft circles against her hips, attempting to soothe her.

"Well, it doesn't feel like it sometimes...I ask to do something with you and it seems like you complain the whole time, like you'd rather be doing something else. It's frustrating and it hurts my feelings."

He watches the way she looks everywhere but at him, another habit of hers that he's too familiar with. She only tended to do that during a confrontation, the idea of looking at the person she's confronting being too much to handle.

He listens to her concerns, processing her words and where she's coming from before responding.

"And I'm sorry for making you feel that way or making you think like that. Like I said, you know I love spending time with you, I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's clear we have different ideas of spending time with each other, and I haven't been as open to your form of it as I should be. That's not fair to you and I'm seeing that now. So, if you want to make your rice krispies, I'll help."

Her eyes finally find his, her arms uncrossing as she holds his biceps. "You will?" She questions softly, her whole body relaxing. Chris nods, trailing one hand up to her cheeks and caressing her face.

"No complaining?"

"No complaining." He confirms, a smile breaking out on his face as her own smile forms. She stands on her toes, pecking his lips quickly.

"I love you."

"I love you too Bun. Now, let's make these Rice Krispies."

The couple resumed their activities in the kitchen, melting the butter and browning it, pouring the French vanilla-flavored marshmallows into the pot and melting them, before pouring the fruity pebbles in.

"These smell good as fuck," he murmurs to himself as he watches her scoop the sticky mixture into the dish, patting it down with the spatula so it's flat.

" I wish I had white chocolate to drizzle on top, that would make them taste so much better." Chris eyes her as she pops a marshmallow into her mouth, her tenth marshmallow to be exact.

He chuckles and shakes his head, use to her addiction to sweets.

"You have a really bad sweet tooth, you know that?"

"I know Mr, "Oh I need to have about 5 Pepsi's a day" isn't commenting on sugar intake." She looks back at him as she fills the pot with water to soak. He shrugs and pulls her closer, the girl quickly shutting the water off in the process.

He gives her a firm kiss, humming at the sweet sugary flavor left over on her lips from the multiple marshmallows.

"You're right, I do have a sugar problem, and it starts with you."

She squeals and giggles as he lands a firm slap on her ass, the girl quickly moving away and going to put the rice krispies in the fridge.

"What if I started calling you sugar tits?"

"Chris!"

"Alright alright, sugar tits is out the window."

[lostinlovingrevery]

Logan When You're Pregnant

I got baby fever rn, some here's some headcanons for when you get pergananant (am I pergot?) with Lo's baby

(breeding kink go brrrrr)(nsfw section below the fluff stuff)

First off, I think we can all agree that no matter what variant Logan it is, whether it's planned or an accident, he's gonna freak out initially when you both find out your pregnant

He'll keep the initial freakout under wraps though.

70s!Dofp Logan, Old man Logan, and Trilogy Logan would probably be the most freaked out

The others, like Origins, Future DOFP, who are a bit more settled in would probably be more ready

Worst Logan? You're gonna need to give him a hug

Moving on

They all step up though, don't worry

Even 70s DOFP, he may be a menace but he sure as hell ain't gonna leave you or his baby alone

ANYWAY

Logan is so supportive of you. He'll constantly be checking on you. He'll be nesting almost immediately so get ready

He will definitely become more protective too. Like a lot. He'll try his best to not be overbearing but he's went lot of his life losing those he loves. He absolutely cannot afford to lose you and ya'lls baby

Lets say for this that you two are in an established relationship, planned or not, I'll leave that to ya'lls lovely imaginations

hes there for every doctors trip, exam, sonogram, etc etc. he doesn't miss a thing and holds your hand the entire time

The first trimester is rough. Mood swings, morning sickness, aches and pain. Logan handles your mood swings like a pro. He always knows just what to say, and he never really can take it personal when you get an attitude with him- mainly bc he likely deserved it with his own sarcasm

He's patient with you when you get snippy at him. He'll give you space when you need it, or will be extra attentive. Whatever you want. He's learned to read your emotions

He'll hold your hair back and rub your back whenever the morning sickness hits. Get you some tea, maybe a little toast if you feel like you can hold it down

One day you just couldn't hold anything down, by evening you're in tears, frustrated with everything. You attempted to eat some saltines and couldn't even hold those down. You're crying on the bathroom floor and Logan sits with you, cradling you in his arms as he says soothing things,

"You're so strong bub. You're gonna be okay. I'm right here."

You'll get backrubs and footrubs anytime you want

The food cravings and constantly being hungry becomes a lot too. It's fortunate that Logan had learned to be a decent cook over time.

He'll insist that you eat only healthy good foods for the baby, but when you look at him with pouty lips and pleading eyes because you REALLY want that extra cheese pizza topped with extra pepperonis and peppers, along with those garlic knots, and chocolate chip peanut butter ice cream, AND caramel sea salt chocolates. He has to give in. he's grabbing his keys and wallet to get what you want

Listen, you totally want to eat healthy for the baby too, and you do! You take your vitamins, you incorporate so much fruit and veggies and whatever else in your meals

But dammit sometimes that baby just wants fries dipped in ice cream and you learned how to sneak those unhealthy snacks under Logans radar

(or so you think, hes' got heightened sense of smell. he DEFINITELY smells the weird junk food you're sneaking)

You're tossing and turning one night, feeling restless and just wanting to eat. You wake him up, chatty as hell and eventually you tell him you want something to eat

"Bub you just had a whole meal 2 hours ago"

"I know just something small. Like a poptart. or a rice krispie"

He sighs. "No more poptarts or rice kripies. I'll make you something."

He closes his eyes, expecting to get another few minutes of sleep before he goes to the kitchen, but he can't feel you staring at him. Hard. He took a breath, pushing the blankets off as he got himself out of bed, heading to the kitchen to make you a good healthy snack

don't worry, he's not mad. he actually finds he loves the pregnancy quirks of yours

when you start getting those random hormone rushes, bursts of energy, running around doing anything and everything he gets so amused. but he loves it too when you also start getting sleepy

he really loves it when you get sleepy because then all you want to do is snuggle with him.

you get borderline violent about cuddling with him. you wrap your entire self around his body and you do not let go. even with his strength it's nearly impossible to peel you off him and if he does (he made the mistake once) you get extremely pissy and teary eyed

He will not let you do anything

and by that i mean you're not carrying groceries, you're not cleaning, you are not allowed to stand on ladders or counters, no picking up heavy things

You and him have a time of night and morning where you snuggle, and he'll designate time to talk to you, give you kisses and say sweet things, and then he'll move to talk to your belly

"Gotta make sure the lil one knows my voice"

He loves resting his ear on your belly, hearing both of your heartbeats.

he'll give you a kiss, then the belly, then you again

You better be ready to be touched a lot. He's always gotta put his hand on you somehow. It's not just about feeling your preggo belly but just you too.

NESTING

yeah, hes gonna drive you insane. He gets the urge to redo everything. the babys room. your room. the entire house/apartment if you're living in one.

He makes your bed the comfiest spot every so that's a perk. tons of pillows, only the fluffiest and warmest blankets

while you make decisions on the babys room together, he really wants to put the stuff together, so you sit in your rocking chair in the room and watch him as he gets angry over the crib instructions

it's really cute when he insists on a more foresty/woodland themed room for your baby.

As you get bigger, he gets more and more protective

he actually growled at someone once for attempting to touch your belly without permission. not a bad thing to have at least

it's a little more embarrassing though when it's your friends that you did say could touch your belly and logans hackles raise over it

he tries to recognize when he's doing too much but he can't help it, instinct.

Logan is over the moon when the baby kicks the face time

he just happened to have his hands resting on your belly

when he felt it, you both jumped, staring at your belly and then each other

when you realized it was the baby kicking, you both were like giddy teenagers

logan puts his head against your belly, waiting for it when the baby kicks again- right on his face

he gets slightly offended

but he kisses your belly anyway, promising your baby that he's always going to love them and take care of them

it pulls on your heart strings a bit

you and logan don't care if it's a boy or girl- and decide to leave it a surprise,

arguing over baby names though wasn't fun. you eventually though land on a name if its a girl, and a name if its a boy, names that you both adored

when you start shopping for baby clothes, logans looking at the little girl dresses and you could see the softness on his face, the way he adored the little dresses.

he can't even get embarrassed

it's so cute watching logan sit in the middle of the girly baby aisle, surrounded by pink bows.

he gets equally excited over the boys stuff too.

forever believe logan will just be a great dad in general

when you get big enough where doing things are hard on your own, logan starts definitely not leaving you alone very often

he helps you out of bed

with your shoes

if hes around and you're trying to get up from a couch or chair- even if you aren't struggling he'll still be there to help you up

you ever see those trends where dads hold mommas belly up to provide some relief? logan will insist on doing that.

he just thinks your so damn cute with your round belly

logan will eventually express his nerves about being a father. he'll need reassurance here and there that you think he'll do good.

you think logan would be an absolutely wonderful father of course. look how good he takes care of you

not to mention his non-bio daughters like jubilee, rogue, and kitty

and if lauras around too, it won't be like he never had any experience

logan will definitely stay calm and collected when you go into labor

he supports you every step of the way

if you're going to a local hospital, you bet your ass he'll be speaking for you and protecting you from anything unneccessary

all the while supporting you every way possible. don't worry about squeezing his hand too hard. he literally survived a nuke

despite the amount of things he's seen, it is still hard for him to see you in so much pain. he may even hold back a tear or two. he has to focus on you though

when the baby is here, he's all over you first, making sure you're okay. then his instincts kick in and he's all over the baby

that first cry breaks his heart and he doesn't like how the nurses and doctors seemed pleased by the whole thing. okay sure, it's a good thing. his baby is still crying though and he doesn't appreciate the smiling

you guys ever see that picture of Hugh bottlefeeding his newborn, i think it was during the x-movies filming. that is such a cute picture honestly it makes my utereus clench

he's so proud and supportive of you by the way. He takes wonderful care of you both when you get home

all that worrying for nothing. he was a pro with yours and his baby.

NSFW (mention piv, breastmilk, body worship)

yes i had to include an nsfw part here dont judge me

Logan should have known it would happen eventually. the way he always needs to finish inside you. even if you were using protection, he should have known that it would fail one day

he'll pick up on the hormones quickly, the smell of you triggers something in him and once you both figure out you'll pregnant itll all make sense

at first things are pretty usual with your sex life but the hormones start kicking in

you start gaining a little fat, your breasts get bigger, maybe your ass

you were already irresistable to logan before. now though, pregnant with his baby?

like i said, the mans always touching on you. when youre in private though hes REALLY touching you

don't worry, you feel the same. your hormones start to really kick in and you're aroused 24/7 and he can smell it

"you look so fucking good like this bub." he'll moan when he's thrusting into you, seeing your swollen belly and breasts.

it's not just about you being pregnant but you two just can't keep your hands off each other because you're happy.

your sex life was already very active, now it's even MORE active, like, you cannot keep your hands off him. he's the same way. you look and smell so damn good he can't take it, he HAS to fuck you

logan being a dad to your baby is making him 10 times hotter

logan probably cuts back on being rougher if you both are into that, much to your disdain. your hormones are on fire and you need him to fuck you hard

it takes a little begging and he breaks, giving you what you want

"look at you bub, fucking begging for it. as if i hadn't given you enough already"

logan practically drools anytime he sees you naked

as you get really big, sex becomes less common because you're not really comfortable, and maybe doctors tell yalls to slow it down for a bit.

logan will of course not do anything to risk you or the baby but fuck when you walk around in that tight black dress, tits and belly all swollen. he can barely stand it.

fortunately even if you aren't having penetrative sex, you're still fairly aroused so logan gets to get off to your hand or mouth. he'll return the favor with some light oral

he'll want to help you shower all the time

you're just so beautiful to him.

when you start getting self conscious over your weight gain, logan won't have it. he'll be doing some serious body worship doing your pregnancy, don't worry.

kissing your stretch marks, his hand rubbing soothingly all over your body as he whispers how beautiful you are

when it's closer to your due date, the doctor gives you a list of recommendations to help get things rolling

when logan finds out sex is one of those things, he's over the moon.

you personally, just want to get the mini canadian out of there at this point

it's not the first thing you try, because youre self conscious despite logans affirmations that he thinks you're so sexy

eventually you give in

lets just say you both were on the way to labor and delivery soon after

he adores your body after birth too. like i said. body worship to the maximum. even when you're not banging cause you need to heal first, he's kissing every inch of you to make sure you know he adores you. he sees how you've looked at yourself in the mirror and he isn't gonna have it

oh btw he'll definitely accidentally taste your breast milk straight from the source at some point. he really doesn't do it on purpose, he just got lost in kissing and sucking on you.

lost in the sauce if you may

he wants you to heal and feel good though, so even after the 3 months are up, he'll want to wait a little longer, because he doesn't want to hurt you. he's a big man.

EXTRAS: (random stuff )

the people who are around you are ecstatic over the announcement of your pregnancy

charles is just glad he gets to be a grandpappy (as if he isn't already)

maybe jean and scott are expecting too, or already have their little one, so you guys bond with the couple over parenting as well

wade immediately refers to himself as uncle wade

will also say "our baby" when referring to you and logans baby. logan does not like that.

wade makes a deadpool onesie. you have to stop logan from tearing it apart

okay but a onesie based on logans suit would be so goddamn cute

i said before that logan doesn't like ANYONE touching your belly. even if it's a trusted friend

if someone asks, very politely, you have to make sure logan isn't around before you say yes.

one time hank asked and you said yes, not realizing logan was coming around the corner. it was really embarrassing the way logan ran up so fast, immediately pushing hanks hand off.

hank laughed it off

im sure yall have your own ideas for what yours and logans baby names would be. I think Charlie would be really cute, naming the baby after charles (and it's a gn name!)

rogue, jubilee, and kitty, would be over the moon. they would be so supportive of you and logan

laura would be so excited, a bit curious. you and logan will make sure she doesn't in anyway feel neglected or replaced during the entire pregnancy and when the baby comes

laura is obviously a great big sister.

they would definitely tease logan too btw

you guys don't even need to register. due to the people you love around you- you basically get everything you need before you 3rd trimester even starts

you and logan can be assured that your baby will always be safe and loved no matter what because of the family you both have found. (yes even with origins and old man logan)

[driaswrld]

city boys! — gojo satoru and geto suguru.

wc : 1.4k

summary : you go grocery shopping with satoru and suguru and they're just idiots tbvh (gn! reader)

part of : the star paradox collection.

notes : i have shamelessly brought my calculator to a kfc drive thru and yes i do it at the grocery store bcus i have dyscalculia math sucks don't @ me. also i have so much satosugu brainrot i can't breathe. yay to the satoru themed era of the blog :))

other : this can be read as platonic or poly just however you wanna see it! (like three curse words i think - mentions of cunnilingus) I SWEAR ITS NOT WHAT U THINK

current casette : city boys - burna boy

There’s something about summer that makes Satoru and Suguru hang off your shoulders more than they ought to. In the most mundane situations too.

“—and it’s not even that serious!” Satoru groans, dragging his feet on the floor, reluctantly marching behind where you’re pushing the trolley. “Who cares what kind of curry it is? Curry is curry.” He reasons with a huff.

Suguru nudges you in the middle of the supermarket aisle from time to time, pointing out things you usually buy, brands you usually prefer over most, and you grab whatever you find remotely necessary and toss in the cart, both of you collectively ignoring Satoru’s whines.

“C’monnn… Listen to me!”

You pick up a can of diced pineapple and look at Suguru. “Nah, that one’s too sour,” he murmurs and you put it back instantly. Afterall, Suguru’s the best taste tester you could ever ask for. Satoru just scarfs down everything in a forty mile radius.

“The design on the can was pretty though, ‘s a shame.” You sigh.

Satoru’s groans fall on deaf ears.

You turn a corner and head into the fruit aisle. Suguru’s eyes flick to something over your head and his steps falter for a moment. While you’re pushing the trolley ahead, a soft smack! noise comes from behind you and before you can turn your head—

“No! I wanted the other one—”

“This one’s better—”

You ignore them, albeit barely with all the commotion both boys are causing in the supermarket. Leaning over an array of cherries on display, you hum to yourself, carefully picking the pretty ones to add to the cart, perusing at the other assortment of fruit and if even possible, Satoru and Suguru’s bickering gets louder.

“That tastes like shit—” “You look like shit—”

“You kiss your mom with that mouth?”

“You eat pussy with that mouth?”

You strain your head forward as an old lady strolls past, her eyes a little wide and eyebrows knitted with a look of utter shock and you shrink. With a stiff, humorless giggle you turn your back to her, suddenly finding a bunch of grapes oddly interesting.

Embarrassing.

And when you breathe a breath of relief as the old lady passes by, Satoru swings his arm over your shoulder, pouting. “Suguru’s a dumbass—” He’s cut off by a smack to the back of his head, and despite yourself you can’t help but laugh a little.

“Will you two just behave and,” you shift out of Satoru’s hold to take the mini package of ridiculously sweet m&m infused rice krispies he has in his other hand.

You toss it into the cart. “—help me pick some stuff for my fruit salad?” Satoru shrugs with a sigh, he hates shopping. It’s so boring—

You laugh and pull up the list you typed up on your phone : Raspberries, check. Kiwi, check. Watermelon, check. Grapes…

“What else do you need?” Suguru asks, and he sidesteps Satoru, leaning casually on the trolley, one foot pushing it forward and backward as you look through the fruits. “Grapes—” you murmur, suddenly feeling indecisive as you look through the different bunches. Green or Purple. Purple or Green.

Satoru pushes his sunglasses down to the curve of his nose. “Green, ‘s prettier,” he says and you turn to grab a bunch of the green grapes as Suguru straightens his body, pretending to look over your shoulder as he sneakily drops a package of plain marshmallow rice krispies into the cart. “Yeah, green would make it look way more appealing, wouldn’t it?” You whisper to yourself.

“I saw that—” Satoru begins to say.

“Purple’s better, healthier than the green ones.” Suguru says with a straight face. Behind your back he flips Satoru off.

You shrug your shoulders and grab a small bunch of both. If anything, it’ll be shared well between you and Shoko in the bentos you make. Hopefully she appreciates the struggle.

Sliding your phone unlocked, you glance at the list again as you step off. Grapes, check. Suguru pushes the trolley, following close behind you as Satoru trudges behind him. “Wait—” You halt immediately, and Suguru has to steer the trolley left so he doesn’t run into you, but Satoru steps on the back of Suguru's shoes, and looks away with a bashful whistle.

“Other aisle, we need to turn around.” You say, sliding your phone back into your back pocket. Canned Pineapples. You forgot you put back the last one. “How many damn aisles are there?” Satoru mumbles as you turn and make a beeline for the next corner, going back where the three of you came. Suguru chuckles.

Kneeling, you grab the canned pineapples opposite to the ones Suguru said were sour. Hopefully that much distance in the store is enough of a difference between the two brands.

You check the list one more time. Pineapples, check.

“Right, that should be it.” You mumble and both boys internally celebrate — well, Satoru makes a show of letting out a long dramatic sigh of relief while Suguru nods.

Taking a look into the cart, Satoru pettily moves his package of rice krispies on the other side of the cart, away from Suguru’s and when Suguru looks at him incredulously, he sticks a tongue out, “Your flavor’s trash.”

Suguru rolls his eyes and is about to push the trolley forward to run him over when he sees you pull out a scientific calculator from your tote.

A scientific calculator. The same one you use for school. “The fu—” Satoru is about to say, and Suguru glances at him, both of them trying to at least read each other’s minds about what the hell is going on.

You however, are so hyper focused on your little task, pushing the buttons of your calculator, tongue poking the inside of your cheek. Satoru and Suguru watch you for all of two minutes. One minute spent with expressions morphing from confused, to even more confused, to utterly amused. The second minute spent snickering quietly and snapping silent pictures for the groupchat.

“Huh, I went over a little.” You hum and though they haven’t wiped the sheer amusement off their faces, they both find themselves intrigued. “By how much?” Suguru asks, quickly sending off the pictures to the groupchat.

“Seven hundred yen.” You reply as you step forward to peer into the cart, willing and ready to discard one unnecessary item to drop the price.

Three of your phones chime. Satoru checks his own notification.

[Gojo Fanclub]

Nanaminn <3 : who added me to this???

Nanaminn <3 : delete my number gojo.

“Bet it’s the curry.” Satoru mumbles absentmindedly, typing at his phone screen. “The curry’s like—” he pauses, shoves his phone in his hoodie pocket and counts silently on his fingers. “A thousand yen or something — they must’ve put the god of curry in there or something.”

“It’s not the curry,” you reason scouring the cart for any discrepancies. And there’s quite a few of them. Including but not limited to some Sakura tarts, sour candies, an extra package of rice krispies—

“The curry powder we picked is five hundred yen, it’s not the curry.” Suguru shrugs, and Satoru leans against one of the shelves of seasoning, letting out a quiet sneeze.

“Bless you— I need to recheck these.” The calculator comes out again as you murmur to yourself, the click clacking of the buttons drowning out your own thoughts.

“I’m just saying— maybe it was the rice krispie Suguru snuck into the cart—” Satoru mumbles, all while he bends his body at the end of the aisle, reaching blindly around to the shelves on the other side.

“You put one in, I was only balancing the trolley weight.” Suguru interrupts, and he turns his head away when you look up from your calculator at him accusingly.

“See?” Satoru grins, almost victoriously as he grasps a package of baumkuchen, wheeling his hand back as he sidesteps Suguru, moving to slide the pastry into the trolley. “Who knows what else’ll just drop into the cart?” And your calculator is forgotten as you snatch the pastry from Satoru’s hand. “Nothing else is dropping into the cart—”

But something else catches your attention as you’re about to scold him.

Two bright green bags, hidden at the bottom of the cart, stuffed under the packaging of Sakura tarts.

“Who the hell put Kenpi chips in here?”

Satoru and Suguru both freeze, and suddenly their accusing fingers are pointed at each other. But instead of scolding them like they expect—

“Should’ve at least put one for me.”

You're never going to the grocery store with them again.

Bonus :

“Satoru’s paying for the extra snacks—”

“Not fair! Suguru shouldn’t get to just stuff his face—”

“Only two of those snacks are mine. Two. Out of ten.”

A notification sounds on the three of your phones.

[Gojo Fanclub]

Nanaminn <3 : is that my calculator that you borrowed???

@todorokies gets the privilege tag cs i told knives ab this first😭

[spicycinnabun]

“Steve, something is wrong with Christofern!” Eddie entered Steve’s room, cradling the potted plant in his arms.

He’d come home after work, ready to greet his bud-dy, but one look at him had made Eddie gasp. His leaves were shriveled up like sad little green raisins. Usually, they were puffed up like oversized Rice Krispies.

Christofern had been Robin’s, originally. It had been in a very sorry state on her windowsill before she’d left for college—a lot worse than it looked now, under Eddie’s care, thank you—and she’d told him, “I honestly can’t stand the thing. You keep it. It sheds worse than my aunt’s Great Pyrenees, and I’m tired of vacuuming. Just don’t throw it out, or Steve might murder you.”

And that had been that.

Christofern didn’t look like a typical house plant. He wasn’t a fern, which Steve kept reminding him. Steve was more practical. He didn’t give his plants names but called them by their designated labels.

Christofern was a Donkey’s Tail, or sedum morganianum, part of the succulent family. That term meant absolutely nothing to Eddie unless it was referring to a big bowl of pasta—he had no idea there was a whole plant category called delicious.

“But maybe he wants to be a fern, Steven,” he’d argued. “Ever thought of that? He doesn’t have to be a succulent just because he was assigned so at birth.”

“You’re fucking ridiculous,” had been Steve’s reply.

At first, Eddie had enlisted Steve’s help purely because he’d wanted his attention, and talking about plants was an easy as hell way to get Steve’s attention. Steve was a very passionate plant dad. But later, Eddie grew to love Christofern, and the trials and tribulations of learning how to care for him were almost like raising his own child.

Christofern had not just one but seven long, thickly spiked green tails. Seven tails. He reminded Eddie of a mutated dragon. He was adorable but occasionally grumpy and high-maintenance, like a certain someone Eddie knew. (Perhaps Christofern was more of a prince than a dragon—a dragon prince?)

If he didn’t get enough sunlight, his leaves shed, and he wilted. If he wasn’t rotated daily, he got yellow and sunburnt. And if he didn’t get enough water…

“I swear I watered him... uh, recently.” When had Eddie last watered him? Not the day before, but maybe Wednesday? Or had it been Tuesday? Shit. Eddie pouted. “I just gave him a drink now, anyway. It’s not too late, is it, Doctor Steve?”

He clasped his hands and watched Steve’s attentive eyes rove over his plant, waiting for the diagnosis.

“Eddie, how could you neglect Christofern like this? I should call Plant Protective Services.” Steve grabbed his hand, startling Eddie and his overactive heartbeat.

He took Eddie’s index finger and pushed it into Christofern’s soil right down to his second knuckle. It felt inappropriate. Eddie made a noise, appalled. “Steven, why are you making me violate Christofern?”

Steve ignored him. “What do you feel? The soil is soaked down there, isn’t it?”

Eddie wiggled his finger. It felt goopy. “Yes,” he admitted.

“You’ve overwatered it,” Steve chastised. “Now, the leaves might rot instead of rehydrating themselves. You’ve got to make sure you don’t drown it. Christofern only needs a moderate amount of water every two weeks, okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie said meekly. “I’m sorry, Christofern.”

Steve pulled his finger out of the soil and gave him a look bordering on amusement. “Leave him with me for a few days, and I’ll get him back to where he should be.”

“Thank you, Doctor Steve. How can I ever repay you?” Eddie imagined repaying Steve with his mouth, his tongue, his hands (after he washed the soil off)…

“You can clean the bathroom,” Steve said.

Eddie’s fantasy shattered. He whined. “Does it have to be that?”

“Yup.”

“Damn it, Steve, just make me suck your dick next time,” Eddie grumbled on his way out.

He missed the way Steve’s jaw dropped.

[nizhspo]

genre: haikyuu imagine, minor angst

pairing: kotaro bokuto x fem!reader

warnings: drug use, addiction

summary: breaking bad inspired. frank ocean lost inspired (please have a listen!)

you were good once.

not perfect, never that, but good.

had a planner. a part-time job. a bullet-point life you were trying to keep from falling apart. second-year at a state university, your loans stacking faster than your credits. business major. something practical. something you told your aunt would pay off someday. you worked the closing shift at a laundromat that doubled as a convenience store, just off the highway, neon lights buzzing even when the ice machine was broken.

that’s where you met him.

kotaro bokuto.

he used to have it all. back in another lifetime, he was a star. starting outside hitter for a D1 school, full ride, a future in his hands so bright it could blind you. recruiters calling at all hours. NIL deals coming in hot. they called him showtime. highlight reels, gym posters, shirts printed with his number.

but it was too much. the pressure cracked something in him. he started skipping lifts. started partying harder. started missing practices with no reason but that hollow feeling in his chest that nothing really mattered.

eventually, he just left. packed his bag and drove out west with a friend-of-a-friend who had a connection, said he could show him how to make real money without ever picking up a ball again. that was two years ago. now, he’s got scars on his knuckles and burn marks on his arms. hasn’t seen a clean gym in eighteen months.

but he’s magnetic. even now. especially now.

you meet him in that gas station-laundromat. he comes in for rolling papers and red gatorade. wears sweat-streaked tank tops and gold chains with no shirt underneath.

something about him makes your stomach twist, the loose way he talks, the heavy-lidded stare, like he’s constantly hovering somewhere between awake and dreaming.

at first, he’s just a regular.

then he’s leaning over the counter longer. asking about your classes. offering you rides. telling you to call him ko.

then one night your car won’t start. and he’s there. joint in his fingers. half smile on his lips.

“want a hit?”

you take it. and it’s smooth, sweeter than you expect.

everything about him is sweeter than you expect.

…

at first, it’s harmless.

it started with joints. rolled effortlessly, tight, clean, always burning even. his fingers worked with the kind of ease that only came from muscle memory. he never looked down while doing it, just kept talking, lighter flicking like punctuation.

he passed them to you without asking. never pressured. just held them out like an offering. like smoke could be communion.

then came the cart. “no smell,” he said, grinning, tapping the mouthpiece against the counter. “you can keep it under the register. no one’ll know.”

you found it later, tucked behind the paper towels. sleek. gold-trimmed. a sticker on the side with a smiley face and your name, spelled wrong.

next came edibles. rice krispies, melted marshmallow fingerprints on the baggie, your name again in sharpie, this time spelled right. little hearts around it. he asked if you liked the taste. told you he’d make more.

and he did.

you tried shrooms on a tuesday. just a cap. maybe a stem. he sat with you in the break room after close, lights off, vending machine humming like a lullaby. he gave you a hoodie when your arms started to shake and let you trace the stitching on his knuckles while your pupils blew wide. when you told him the soda cans looked like planets, he leaned in close, whispering, “which one do you think we’re on?”

you laughed for ten minutes. he didn’t mind.

now it’s the desert.

his truck, rattling loose down some nameless stretch of highway. stars above. cassette in. otis redding. tevin campbell. marvin gaye. the stereo warbles between tracks, and he taps the wheel in time, window cracked just enough to let the wind bite.

you bite your lip to keep from laughing.

you just passed a cop car doing eighty. he doesn’t slow down.

he says things you shouldn’t believe. stories that don’t add up. names that change.

but you believe him. you believe all of it. even the lies.

especially the lies.

because when he says you’re safe with me, you want it to be true.

because nothing else feels safe right now.

not the laundry card that keeps declining. not the rent hike notice slipped under your door. not the way your boss at the laundromat keeps slashing hours and calling it budget cuts. college tuition emails go unopened. your fridge hums louder than your phone rings. even your shoes feel tired.

but him?

bokuto doesn’t flinch when you cry in the front seat. doesn’t ask questions when you show up empty-handed. he hands you lighters like you need them, lets you roll down the window as far as you want. he laughs like you’re still someone soft, even when you don’t believe it.

and in that moment, in the hum of tires, in the bass line of stolen soul records, in the smell of weed and old vinyl and the wind tangling your hair:

it is safe.

just for a little while. just long enough to forget the difference.

he never takes you to the same place twice.

when he works, it’s always late. always hot. always quiet. he tells you don’t ask. you nod like you mean it. but you do. of course you do.

you start noticing things. coolers packed tight with baggies and twist-ties. coffee filters stained brown. burner phones. lighters with no cigarettes. his hands always smell like iodine and citrus.

he keeps you out of it. makes you wait in the truck, windows cracked. sweat pooling in the dip of your back.

you don’t mind. not really.

you love being near him. love when he leans over to kiss your jaw and calls you his good girl. love the stacks of cash he counts on motel beds. love how he still holds you like he’s scared you’ll vanish in your sleep.

you think it’ll stay like this. you think you’re smart enough to keep your head above water. but the tide’s already coming in.

and one night, you find him cooking.

you weren’t supposed to be there. he told you to wait at the station. but you came anyway. traced the route you knew by heart. the back lot. the rusted trailer. the porch light blown out.

you open the door, and the smell hits you first, pungent, acidic, like something sour rotting in plastic.

he’s bent over a table, mask pulled up, latex gloves on. beakers bubbling. a hot plate glowing red. steam curling from a pot.

you freeze.

he doesn’t notice at first, until you shift and the floor creaks. then he looks up. eyes wide. face pale.

“what the fuck are you doing here?” he barks.

you blink. don’t move. don’t breathe.

“ko…”

he strips the gloves fast, peels the mask off, grabs your wrist. “you weren’t supposed to see this,” he says, voice hoarse.

but you can’t stop staring. not at him. not at the lab. not at what he’s become.

“is this what you’ve been doing?” you whisper.

he doesn’t answer.

just looks at you, like he’s already ruined you by accident.

you step forward. touch the edge of the counter. glass jars. pill bottles. lye. ammonia. crushed cold pills. everything.

and still, you say, soft and steady: “let me help.”

his face twists.

“no,” he snaps. too fast. too loud. “absolutely not.”

but you don’t flinch. you know how to talk to him now.

you remind him of your hours getting cut at the laundromat. how school feels like a rich kid’s joke. how your mom hasn’t called in three months. how you’re already with him on every drop, every drive, every late-night cash swap under flickering gas station lights.

you promise you won’t get in deep. you just want to help. just want to be useful. just want to breathe for a little while without feeling like the world is chewing through your skin.

he doesn’t say yes.

not at first.

just stares at you, jaw locked, hand raking through his hair like he’s trying to dig a hole through his skull.

his voice is tight when it comes out. his whole body trembling.

“fine. but you don’t touch anything. you don’t cook. you don’t sell. you don’t lie for me. you sit. you watch. you keep your fucking hands clean.”

and that’s what you do.

for a while.

…

you knew he used.

not because he told you. not because he ever did it in front of you.

he kept his highs away from you, like a secret. like a stain he didn’t want to smear on your hands.

but you saw it anyway.

you saw it in the track marks. little bruises blooming along the inside of his arms, half-faded and rearranged every time his sleeves slipped up while he was driving. sometimes you’d catch him rubbing his wrist absently, fingertips brushing the skin like he didn’t even know he was doing it.

you saw it in his eyes.

some nights, they were clear. steady. warm in a way that made you forget where you were. but other nights they turned glassy. sharp. too still. like he was watching the world from two feet behind his own body.

he never used in front of you. never touched you when he was high.

but you knew the signs.

the jaw that clenched too hard when the silence stretched too long. the way he’d press his knuckles to the bridge of his nose like he was holding back something ugly. how he’d go hours without speaking, then burst into laughter that didn’t reach his chest.

how he slept sometimes for a day and a half, and sometimes not at all.

you never asked. you told yourself it wasn’t your place. you told yourself he’d stop if he could.

but you saw it all. and still, you stayed.

because the highs were part of him now. not the best part. not the worst. just there.

woven into the threads of who he’d become.

you saw it. and maybe—maybe some quiet, shameful part of you wondered what it felt like.

…

the first time you ask to try it, he flinches. hard. his whole body jerks like you slapped him.

“no.” his voice is flat. but shaking. “you don’t need that. don’t even say that shit.”

“but you do it,” you say. petty. childish. desperate. “you do it all the time.”

he turns away. his hand curls into a fist, then relaxes. then curls again.

“because I’m already fucked up,” he mutters, jaw clenched so tight it trembles. “because i don’t have choices anymore. but you—you still have a way out. you could leave right now. go back to school. go back to someone who isn’t like this.”

you step closer.

he doesn’t look at you.

“don’t do this to yourself,” he says, quieter now. his voice breaks on the last word.

but your mouth is already dry. already aching with a want you don’t understand. you want to know what it is that keeps him coming back. what it is that lets him float when the world drowns everyone else. maybe, if you feel it, you’ll understand him better. maybe, if you feel it, you’ll feel closer.

“please.”

you say it soft. too soft. like a wound being kissed.

it breaks him. he stares. shakes his head. curses under his breath.

and then, slowly, he lines it out.

a single line. smooth. pale. on the back of an old mirror with a cracked corner.

he doesn’t smile. doesn’t gloat. he just holds the mirror steady and watches you lean down.

trembling. wide-eyed. mouth dry as paper.

his hand rests on your back. not pressing. just there. warm. steady. alive.

your breath catches. your pulse screams.

then the high hits like god. not light. not air. not clarity. fire. everything burns and sings and pulses.

you feel like you could lift the world in your bare hands. your heart’s a hummingbird. your skin buzzes like a stereo too close to the amp.

the trailer melts into gold and orange. sunset dripping down the walls.

his hands on your hips feel like velvet and lightning. you kiss him. you can’t not kiss him. you laugh so hard you cry. you cry so hard you moan.

your body shakes from the inside out.

you grab his face, breathe him in, press your forehead to his and whisper, this is it. this is the best thing I’ve ever felt.

he nods. but his eyes are hollow. his jaw is tight. he holds you like a man watching someone walk into a fire they can’t come back from.

and then— you crash at dawn.

hard.

your mouth is sandpaper. your chest is collapsing in on itself. your nerves scream. your legs won’t stop shaking.

the world is too bright. too loud. even the silence hurts. you cry. ugly, cracked, wet sobs. you curl up on the mattress and press your face into the crook of his arm like it might save you.

he holds you. rocks you. whispers against your hair. “you shouldn’t’ve done it, baby. you were good. you were so good.”

you cry harder.

and he just holds you tighter. like if he squeezes hard enough, the poison will leak out.

you shake until you sleep.

and when you wake up— you still want it.

…

from there, it’s a blur.

you lie to yourself.

say it’ll be the last time. say you’ll stop before it’s too late. say you’ll only help when he really needs you.

but the late nights come fast.

so do the favors. the exceptions. the can you just hold this and watch the door and keep the engine running.

you start picking up lingo. you learn what the codes mean. what a “half” looks like in a ziplock bag. you learn how to measure without a scale. how to tell when someone’s trying to short you. you start carrying a burner. you stop asking who the product’s for.

you’re not cooking. not yet, but you’re there.

mixing. breaking down. packaging with trembling fingers while he checks the blinds. he teaches you how to keep your prints off glass. you learn how long it takes to cut and cool and double-bag.

your hands stop shaking after a while. your heartbeat slows. you get good at this.

…

one night, a guy talks to you.

it happened outside a gas station just past dusk, the air thick with heat and the smell of fried food, rubber, something faintly chemical. the sky was still bleeding color, oranges melting into purples, the neon from the ice machine sign flickering against the hood of bokuto’s truck as you leaned against it, arms crossed, waiting for him to come back with change for the quarters you forgot.

the guy is too close. too greasy. he sees your face before he sees bokuto, and he gets stupid. asks if you come with the product. laughs when you don’t answer.

you try to move past him. he grabs your wrist and bokuto’s there before you can blink.

not yelling. not dramatic.

just calm. deliberate. a kind of stillness that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

his hand dipped under the driver’s seat like muscle memory, like it wasn’t even a decision. just instinct. he pulled the piece without blinking, without flinching, without looking to see if anyone was watching.

it was simple. dull black. heavy in his grip.

you didn’t catch every word. the blood in your ears was too loud. but you heard the tone, cold. deep. old.

“say that again.”

the guy froze. hands raised. tried to laugh it off. started stammering apologies you couldn’t hear over your own heartbeat.

bokuto didn’t move. didn’t speak again. just stared.

and then, without a word, the man backed off. quick. turned. disappeared into the night like he’d never been there at all.

bokuto holstered the gun slow, like he’d done it before. like it was routine. like it was just another part of the job.

he didn’t look at you right away. didn’t ask if you were okay until nearly a full minute later, eyes scanning the dark before finally shifting to your face.

“you good?” he said, like nothing had happened.

you nodded. but something cracked open inside you. not fear. not exactly.

just something ugly.

something you couldn’t name. because the truth was, in that moment, watching him fold danger back into silence like it had never existed, you felt safe.

and that? that was what scared you most.

…

the mirrors go quieter after that.

you stop checking them. stop picking up your phone when it rings. you don’t know how to explain this. you miss your cousin’s birthday. you miss rent. you miss the way bokuto used to laugh before all of this swallowed him whole.

you’re still getting high. but it’s not about feeling good anymore. it’s about not feeling anything.

you tell yourself it’s just until things settle down. just until the next drop. just until you can breathe again.

but you haven’t taken a full breath in weeks. and bokuto watches you.

starts using less. starts hiding the stash in places you can’t reach.

beneath the trailer floorboards, covered in duct tape and loose insulation. inside the back of the toilet tank, double-wrapped in a freezer bag. once, tucked into an empty pack of marlboros sealed in a ziplock, jammed behind the rusted car battery.

he thinks he’s being careful. thinks he’s protecting you. thinks you don’t notice.

but you do.

he’s different now. quieter. hollow in places he didn’t used to be. you can feel the way he pulls back when he kisses you. not because he loves you less. because he’s afraid.

he touches you like glass. like if he’s not gentle, you’ll splinter. washes your hair when your body aches too hard to move. sings under his breath when you can’t sleep. old soul records. songs you recognize in pieces. you think that maybe he’s singing to who you used to be.

…

you go looking on a tuesday.

midday. no clouds. the kind of heat that peels paint. makes your knees sweat just from standing still.

you tear the trailer apart. not slow. not careful. frantic. guttural. hungry.

the drawers, the vents, the mattress. behind the fridge. under the couch. in the crack where the wall doesn’t meet the linoleum.

your breath is clipped. your fingers twitch. your vision pulses like your brain forgot how to filter light. you’re halfway inside the cabinet beneath the sink, hair wild, knees bruised, fingers bleeding from the sharp hinge, when he finds you.

and the second your eyes meet you snap.

“where is it?” your voice is sharp. hoarse. already broken.

he steps in slowly. arms down. voice low. “baby,” he says. “you don’t need—”

“don’t,” you hiss. “don’t call me that. just tell me where it is. please.”

your throat is dry. tears spill before you feel them. your voice climbs high and helpless. your fists dig into your own ribs like you’re trying to hold yourself together from the outside in.

“i’ve been good, haven’t i ko? i’ve been so good. i didn’t ask yesterday. i didn’t use last week. i just need something. just a little. i won’t go too far. i swear. please.”

he’s frozen. his face cracks in real time, eyes raw, mouth barely moving, grief written across every inch of him like bruises.

“stop,” he says, almost choking on it. “please don’t do this.”

he moves to kneel. to hold you. to reach for your wrist like he’s done a thousand times when you’re spiraling.

but you jerk back like his skin is fire.

“you made me like this.”

and that—that ruins him. he doesn’t speak. just flinches. back hits the cabinet. he slides down slowly, hands limp in his lap. his face crumples without collapsing. the kind of expression that doesn’t scream. it just dies.

you’re sobbing now.

fists in your hair. rocking. nails dragging across your scalp. everything in your body screaming. everything outside of it quiet.

“just—just tell me where it is. please. i need it. bo, i need it.”

still, he doesn’t speak. doesn’t move.

then slowly, he reaches into his hoodie pocket. pulls out a folded bit of foil. unfurls it. tiny. half a hit. barely anything. not even enough to feel.

he doesn’t say a word as he lays it out on the lid of an old film canister. no torch. no mirror. just desperation and dust.

you’re already nodding. crawling across the floor into his lap. fingers trembling. face soaked.

your voice is wet. gravel and glass.

“thank you. i’m so sorry i said that baby, i love you. i don’t blame you. i swear i don’t. i’ve just been feeling so bad, and this doesn’t even make me feel good anymore, but it helps. it helps. i promise it’ll be the last time.”

he holds you after. arms around your waist. cheek against your spine. body still. his hand rubs circles into your back. slow. careful. afraid.

but his eyes never leave the wall. blank. burned out. gone.

but he won’t leave you. he can’t.

not when you’re the only thing he’s got left that still feels like anything. like home. like maybe he didn’t ruin everything.

and you—you’ve given up too much to turn around.

school. home. your body. your breath.

…

you kiss him in the truck with the windows rolled down. the wind is hot. your neck is sticky with sweat. the gun rattles under the passenger seat.

the cooler between your feet is packed with bills.

you tell him you love him. he says it back.

the drive stretches on forever. the desert opens like a wound. wide. flat. aching. the sky burns low, yellow at the horizon, then orange, then a red so deep it feels like drowning.

the road hums under the wheels. sand dances in the rearview. everything around you is nothing.

he drives with one hand, and the other rests on your thigh. his jaw tense. his eyes far.

the radio crackles. worn. warped. one knob missing. the deck held together with duct tape, loose wires, and hope. you glance at the display. the green light flickers, half-burnt out.

frank ocean – lost

the tape warps slightly under the heat. the vocals slide soft and slow through the cracked speakers, syrupy and half-muffled like a dream underwater.

“she’s at a stove, can’t touch her soul…”

it almost feels ironic. mocking, even. like the song knows. like it’s watching you from inside the tape deck, whispering truths you’re not ready to admit.

your throat tightens. not from emotion, not at first, but from the way the lyric lands right in the hollow of your ribs.

you feel it in your molars, in the ache at the back of your jaw. in the gums you’ve bitten raw from the come-downs. in your chest, where the breath doesn’t always come easy anymore.

it settles like a weight. not heavy enough to crush. just enough to remind you that it’s there. that it’s always there.

and still the song plays. and still you listen. and still, despite everything, you don’t reach for the volume.

you just sit there, staring out at the open desert, wondering how you became the kind of girl a song like this makes sense to. the kind of girl who lives in metaphors and motel rooms and the passenger seat of someone else’s bad decisions.

you weren’t always this. but now you are.

and no one’s coming to save you. not from the sun. not from the heat. not from him. not even from yourself.

the sun is bleeding across the sand.

painting everything in gold and rust and regret. and for a second, you remember something else.

your name. your laugh. your bedroom walls. your mother’s perfume. the way you used to hum in the kitchen while waiting for coffee to brew.

that girl is gone. burned up. buried under powder and smoke and him.

lost. in the heat. in the love. in the ache. in the hum of tires. in the crackle of tape. in the steady weight of the backseat that smells like cash and death.

and somewhere in your bones, you know. you’re never coming back.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 2: I’m The Son Of Rage And Love]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Jesus Of Suburbia” by Green Day.

Word count: 6.2k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

On the shores of the Susquehanna River, just north of Harrisburg, you find a Wawa with no gas: bags on all the pumps, cars with their fuel caps unscrewed and dangling. This is a common courtesy adopted en masse, like rationing during the World Wars or flying American flags after 9/11. It signals that a car has already been siphoned, no gasoline to be found here, no transparent flammable gold made of eons-past decomposition. You wonder if in a few million years, some unfathomable new apex species will be drilling your liquefied remains from the lightless layers of the earth to power their spaceships.

“Then we got sent to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling,” Rio continues, gnawing on a piece of beef jerky, Jack Link’s in a red bag, teriyaki. Mercifully, whoever took the gas left some of the food. You are sitting in the parking lot, a quaint zombie apocalypse picnic, trail mix and Rice Krispies Treats, Herr’s potato chips and Tastykakes, warm soda sipped from plastic bottles. Luke and Rhaena are on the roof of the Tahoe. Jace is tearing the convenience store apart; he is convinced the employees must have kept a gun somewhere in case of robberies. You know he’s fine. You can hear him banging around and swearing in there.

“Then we built some schools and a hospital in Djibouti,” you say.

Aegon is baffled yet intrigued. “Djibouti…?”

“It’s on the Horn of Africa, near Ethiopia and Somalia.”

Luke snorts. “It’s nice of you to assume he knows where Africa is.”

“Huh.” Aegon tosses a green M&M into his mouth. “Djibouti is horny.”

Rio says: “And after that we spent like six months in Key West, and then we got shipped to Corpus Christi, where Chips very narrowly avoided getting impregnated by, marrying, and inevitably acrimoniously divorcing a Marine.”

Everyone laughs except Aemond, who gives you a teasing smirk. “Did you really?”

“Uh, no. He asked me out, I ghosted him, that’s as far as it went.”

“Why’d you ghost him?” Baela says, crunching on Utz Cheese Balls.

Aegon turns to Rio. “You want a Honey Bun?”

“You’re my Honey Bun,” Rio replies. Aegon smiles, his sunburn flushing darker.

You shrug, eat a handful of candied almonds, tell a half-truth. “I just didn’t like him enough.”

Rhaena yelps and points: a snake, black and maybe five feet long, is slithering across the parking lot. It passes beneath the shade of the Tahoe and then continues towards the bushes. A moderate amount of panic erupts.

Helaena glances up from her notebook. “Rat snake. Not venomous.”

Rhaena shudders. “Well, I still don’t like it.”

“Where were you stationed next?” Daeron asks Rio.

“Chinhae, South Korea. Wicked cool place. The people love Americans, the food is incredible. We were there to rebuild a pier that got wrecked in a typhoon. They have these cute dolphin-looking things, they’d swim right up to the edge of the water with fish in their mouths to try to give to us. Like cats bringing home mice for their owners.”

“Finless porpoises,” you say.

“Yeah, those. And after Korea, it was Diego Garcia.”

“Diego…what?” Rhaena says.

Aegon turns to Luke. “Try to act like I’m stupid for not knowing where that is.”

“Diego Garcia is a tiny little island in the middle of the Indian Ocean,” you say, a bit wistfully. “It’s technically owned by the British, but we share a base there, we use it for airfields and to refuel submarines, things like that. We were renovating the housing facilities for Camp Thunder Cove. At night we’d go to the beach, have a few beers, look out into the ocean and it was just…nothing. Wide open dark nothingness for as far as you could imagine.”

“That’s what we need now,” Helaena murmurs as she makes elegant cursive annotations in her notebook, the cover picturing different species of spiders, a pinktoe tarantula, a green lynx spider, a black widow. “Someplace to go where no one will find us.”

“So you’ve known each other since basic training.” Aemond’s remaining blue eye shifts between you and Rio, like he’s still trying to puzzle it out. There’s really no mystery. You’re friends, and you’ve always been friends, and you’ve never been more than friends, despite many of your fellow seamen’s jokes to the contrary.

You tear open a Slim Jim. Aemond rebandaged your hands this morning, though they barely hurt anymore; he touches you with a clinical, focused restraint. “Not quite that long. Rio enlisted a few months before I did, so we weren’t at Great Lakes together, and then carpenters do technical school in Gulfport, Mississippi near Biloxi, and electricians train at Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas. We met after we were both assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 1.”

“The First and The Finest,” Rio quotes the motto, grinning. “The original Seabees, founded during World War II. People called our battalion the Pioneers, which…is kind of ironic now.”

Aegon says, munching noisily on trail mix: “It’ll be so appropriate when you end up dying of a broken leg or the flu or in some other totally preventable way.”

“It’s so crazy, people died of anything back then,” Luke marvels gravely. “Tuberculosis, pneumonia, infections, starving, freezing, poisoning, getting kicked by a horse, giving birth…”

Rhaena shoots him a fearsome look and Luke shuts up, but of course he can’t take it back. There is a long uncomfortable silence punctuated only by birdsong and Jace’s muffled outbursts from inside the Wawa. Everyone looks at Baela, concerned, pitying, entirely unable to do anything to improve her situation. She is still eating Cheese Balls with one orange-stained hand, but the other rests on her belly.

“Clearly, the timing is less than ideal,” Baela says after a while, and if she’s terrified she doesn’t sound like it. “It wasn’t planned to begin with, but I was determined to make the best of things. I figured that I could still finish up my master’s degree with a baby, and Rhaena and our parents could help, and Jace would be done with law school soon, and it might be stressful for a while but we’d all get through it. And now…” She shrugs wryly. “Now all those plans are gone. Just gone.”

“You’re going to be okay,” Aemond says; a fierce low determination, a promise, a vow.

Baela smiles at Rio. “How old is your baby?”

He is caught off-guard, clears his throat, averts his gaze. Aegon looks over at him, alarmed. “Oh, he, uh…he’s little. Really little. He…” And Rio, so rarely at a loss for words, can’t continue. He eats his beef jerky instead.

You explain for him. “Sophie’s due date was right around the time the phones and internet went down. The last we heard, she was headed to Odessa to stay with Rio’s parents.” Aemond and his companions nod and don’t say what they’re thinking, but it’s swimming in their eyes: Sophie could have died, the baby could have died, they both could have died, you and Rio might be risking your lives to cross the continental United States for nothing. “Rio’s parents live in this…well, I joke around and call it a doomsday prepper cult, but that’s not really what it is, it’s just a farming community out in the middle of nowhere. People who have their own chickens and gardens, churn their own butter, don’t wear deodorant, make medicine out of tree bark…and a lot of them have kind of a survivalist mentality, they stock pantries and collect guns. So we figure we can reunite Rio with his family and then carve out lives for ourselves in relative peace.”

Rio reaches over to bump his fist against your shoulder. He is grateful. You punch him back, fairly forcefully; it’s like hitting a brick wall. Rio is as tall as Aemond but probably outweighs him by a hundred pounds.

You ask Aemond: “What’s in the Bay Area?”

“Our parents have a beach house. It’s up on a cliff by itself, pretty isolated, and surrounded by state parks. That’s where they were when everything shut down. I assume they’re still there.”

“Beach house?” Rio raises his eyebrows. “On a cliff?”

Rich kids. REALLY rich kids. “Your parents couldn’t just fly you to California in a private jet or something?” you say.

“Our pilots stole the jets,” Aemond replies, not realizing you were joking.

“Oh.”

“Jace and Luke’s parents were home in London, so getting there isn’t really an option, and then Baela and Rhaena…”

“Mum and Dad were on a business trip to Moscow,” Baela says. “I’d like to think they weren’t eaten, but…they were probably eaten.”

“I am so sorry,” you manage awkwardly.

A single zombie goes shuffling past the Wawa on the main street, a woman in a floral church dress, hair falling out of its curls, one pink high heel that clicks on the pavement, blood all over her mouth and chin. She notices the nine of you and begins to hiss, lurching closer. Daeron shoots her down and then trots over to retrieve his arrows, yanking them out of her cheek and eye socket. Rhaena winces. Aemond, distracted, bites into a Nature Valley granola bar. Aegon opens a can of Pringles, pizza-flavored.

Luke is peering through his binoculars, looking south towards Harrisburg. Faintly, you can see sunlight glinting off the gilded statue of a woman—the Spirit of the Commonwealth—that tops the green clay tile dome of the state capitol building. “What is that?”

“The sculpture?” you say.

“No. Farther away. Those big concrete towers, right on the water.”

Now you know exactly what he means…and you’d forgotten all about it. It’s an oversight you hope doesn’t cost too much. “That’s Three Mile Island. And we should leave so we can put more space between it and us.”

“Oh, fuck me…” Rio mutters.

Now everyone else is squinting to see the facility, barely visible from the Wawa. “Why?” Aemond asks you.

“Because it’s a nuclear power plant. And since the electricity is out everywhere, as soon as its backup generators fail, it will melt down and the whole area around it will become radioactive.”

Aegon puts two Pringles into his mouth so they look like a duck bill. “How do you know?”

“Did no one else go through a Chernobyl obsession phase in high school?”

“The professor mentioned it in one of my chemistry classes,” Aemond says, but he sounds doubtful; this must have been years ago, when he was consumed by med school prerequisites and had no space left in his brain for mere curiosity.

“Okay, listen up.” Rio knows the key points; he’s had to study different sources of electrical power. He demonstrates with dramatic hand gestures. “You have super radioactive reactor fuel, usually uranium or plutonium. You have a pool of water around it that circulates continuously. The heat of the fuel evaporates the water, which makes steam, which spins turbines, thus creating power. But if the external electricity fails, the water stops circulating, and the heat vaporizes all of it, and when there’s no more water the reactor fuel overheats and melts through the floor and poisons the earth, air, and groundwater. Any questions?”

There is a chorus of distressed chattering as people swiftly rise to their feet, clutching armfuls of snacks for the road. Jace comes trudging out of the Wawa, conspicuously not in possession of a firearm.

“No luck?” Daeron asks.

“Obviously not.” Then Jace snaps at Aemond: “Why were you stomping around all pissed off in the medicine aisle earlier? What were you looking for?”

“Nothing,” Aemond says quickly.

“Seriously, dude, what was it?”

“Nothing!”

“Damn, Plankton, calm down.” Jace shields his face from the sun, following Luke’s nervous eyeline towards the concrete cooling towers to the south. “What’s that?”

“Three Mile Island,” you say. “And we’re leaving now.”

Aegon yawns loudly. “I’m so full! Rio, can you carry me to the car?” And before anyone can tell Aegon to shut up, Rio has crouched down to let him scramble onto his back. Aegon cackles and waves his can of Pringles around as Rio sprints to the Tahoe. Now there are a few more zombies stumbling up the street, but you don’t waste arrows or bullets on them. Baela runs them down as she swerves out of the parking lot and drives northwest, heading towards Clarks Ferry Bridge where you will cross the Susquehanna River in a less populated area and commence the long slog to the Ohio border. She turns up the volume on the CD player: London Bridge by Fergie. Immediately, Rio, Aegon, Daeron, Rhaena, and Luke are singing along.

Baela checks the fuel gauge and looks at Aemond in the rearview mirror. “We have half a tank left.”

“We’ll find gas somewhere.”

“Aemond, it’ll be alright. Don’t worry about me.”

“You’re not going to be able to walk to California.”

Baela can’t think of a response. He’s right. Outside, the miles roll by in a blur of radiant, reptilian, early-summer green.

~~~~~~~~~~

Each time the interstate is blocked by a snarl of crashed vehicles or a backup too thick to navigate through—both common occurrences—Aegon digs the folded map out of his shorts and charts a new course for Baela to follow. This particular divergence might prove fortunate. The Tahoe has rolled into Distant, Pennsylvania, an Appalachian speck of a town, churches, coal mines, dilapidated old sheds. On the outskirts, perched on a hill and surrounded by oak trees, you find a small single-story brick house with a myriad of banners on the flagpole: an American flag, a Confederate flag, a black POW/MIA flag, Don’t Tread On Me, Trump 2024.

“Yeah,” Aegon says, scratching his scruffy chin as he peers up through the windshield. “I feel like they probably owned guns.”

“How do we know they’re not still home?” Baela asks warily.

“No car in the driveway,” Aemond observes. “No windows boarded up. They probably ran into trouble while they were out somewhere and never made it back.” Then he waits, the question upspoken. Are we going to risk it?

“We’re down,” Rio says after exchanging a glance with you.

Aemond turns to Jace. Jace—curly dark hair down to his shoulders, eyes on the house, chewing his full bottom lip apprehensively—doesn’t reply at first.

“You said you wanted a gun, Jace. All the Walmarts are cleaned out. This is what shopping looks like now.”

“Fine. Okay. Let’s go.”

Baela parks the Tahoe in the gravel driveway and tells Rhaena and Luke to stay inside with Helaena until the property has been cleared. The rest of you climb out, afternoon sun and mountain wind, dandelions crushed under your shoes. There’s a barn behind the house, you see now, gaps between the wooden boards and flaking red paint.

Luke is standing up through the open sunroof, inspecting the scene with his binoculars. “No movement.”

“We’ll take the house, if you want,” Rio tells Aemond. You’re clutching your borrowed baseball bat with bandaged hands, though it still feels unnatural; your M9 is in its holster in case of emergencies. Jace, Baela, and Daeron start plodding across the yard towards the barn. The grass is tall and mostly shaded, the oak trees decades old, massive, weaving a patchwork canopy of leaves.

Aegon trots over and slaps Aemond on his left shoulder, his blind side. Aemond says without looking at him: “I’ll go with them. You wait out here.”

Aegon drives an imaginary ball with his golf club. “I’m very sensitive to rejection, you know.”

“You’ll survive.” Then Aemond follows you and Rio to the house.

Rio tries the knob, locked. He doesn’t waste a bullet by trying to shoot the lock off the door, something that is far less reliable than movies would have you believe. He kicks it open instead, three tries and then the screws that secure the latch give way and the door swings ajar. You wait, counting seconds in your head, listening for growls or footsteps. There are no sounds except the breeze sighing through the trees, the warbles and wing flaps of birds. You steal a glimpse of the barn. Jace, Baela, and Daeron have unhooked the rusted iron latch and are venturing inside, Daeron last and glancing around watchfully, his compound bow already drawn. Rio steps into the house.

It’s hot, stifling, all the windows shut. But this has its advantages. You inhale deeply: no trace of decomposition, no black swampy nauseating rot, just dust and lemon Pledge and old-people staleness.

“Smells fine,” Rio says. And then, loudly: “Anyone home? We’re just looking for supplies. We don’t want to hurt you. If anybody is here, just let us know and we’d be happy to leave. And, uh, sorry about the door.”

You stay close to Rio as he sweeps through the living room—floral couch, television turned off, crosses on the walls—and then the kitchen, where bananas are turning black on the counter. Aemond is to your right; he’s placed you on his blind side. He trusts me, you think. When did that happen? You haven’t heard anything from Aegon or the barn. That must be going well.

In the bedroom, Aemond pulls the curtains open to let some light in. You search the drawers, the closet, under the bed. No weapons. The bathroom has 1950s-style pink porcelain, the dining room table is set for a meal that never happened. There is a deer head mounted on the wall, ten points, not bad.

“I can’t believe these fuckers didn’t have guns,” Rio says. “But where the hell are they?!”

You have always watched more than you’ve spoken. That’s why you’re good at shooting things, and why you’re still alive. Rio talks and you listen; Rio acts and you reflect. “Wait.” You turn to Aemond. “Did you see a cellar outside?”

“A what?” He is perplexed. “Like…a wine cellar…?”

“No. A regular cellar.” You walk back into the midday heat and circle the house, Aemond and Rio hurrying to keep up. Over by the barn, everyone else is stretched out across the grass, joking, relaxing, Baela with her hammer on the ground and her hands laced over her belly, Helaena cradling a praying mantis in her palms and showing it to Rhaena. Aegon is teaching Luke how to smoke with a pack of Marlboro Golds he found at the Wawa. Luke, game yet somewhat anxious, takes a puff and then immediately coughs until he starts retching.

“I want to try too,” Daeron says.

Aegon shakes his head, taking a nonchalant drag off his own cigarette. “Nope. Not for you. Illegal. You’re under eighteen.”

“I want to try!”

“Shut up, you can’t even vote.”

“Nobody can vote, the government has collapsed!”

You find it at the back of the house: a pair of large metal doors leading down into the underground cellar. The weeds have begun to encroach on them, wild violets and black nightshade.

“Awesome!” Rio says, lifting the doors open one at a time, the hinges shrieking. They’re heavy, but they cause him no trouble. Underneath is a staircase and a room dark with shadows; you can see a light switch that won’t work, the electricity long gone. Rio unclips the flashlight from his  belt—taken from Saratoga Springs, waterproof with a 90-degree head so it doesn’t roll, known as a Moonbeam—and ducks down into the cellar. It’s a small room, easy to clear, and then you can start inventorying your findings. Rio is laughing, ecstatic. There is a workbench, a coil of thick rope, an array of tools—screwdrivers, wrenches, hammers, saws—some homemade leather wallets and holsters, cans of Brillo color spray…and then a treasure trove of weapons mounted on the walls.

You scan the collection. “We got Marlin .22s, we got Ruger Magnums, we got Remington 12 gauges, we got hunting knives…and one Glock 20.”

“A lot of ammo under here, Chips,” Rio says, yanking boxes out from beneath the workbench and stacking them on the floor, organized by caliber.

“No scopes?”

“Not that I’ve seen yet.”

You lift one of the Remingtons off its hooks and examine it: dusty, unloaded, vines of rust on the receiver. “We’ll have to go through and sight all of them. I don’t think they’ve been used in a while.”

“That’ll be a lot of noise. But here’s the place to do it, I guess. Low population, and we’re not staying.”

“Exactly.”

“Sight them for close range, like ten yards?”

“Yeah, that should work.”

Aemond says, eyebrow raised: “I didn’t know the Navy used shotguns.”

“Everyone hunts where I’m from.” You put the Remington down on the workbench then pick up the Glock, a box of 10mm ammo, and a can of Brillo. “Come on. Grab one of those hammers. I’ll show you how to shoot.”

You bound up the cellar steps and out into the shade of the oak trees, not stopping until you are at the edge of the property. Across the backyard where he lounges on the grass, Aegon gestures to the barn and asks Luke: “What’s in there anyway?”

“Nothing. Saddles and a few dead horses.”

“Oh, dynamite, I gotta see the dead horses.”

Jace says: “Aegon, man, what is your diagnosis?”

You use the can of Brillo to spray a large chocolate-colored circle onto a tree trunk, then make another two feet above that. You count your steps as you walk back towards Aemond: approximately ten yards. You load a single bullet in the Glock, aim for the bottom circle, and fire. A hole appears at the very edge of the circle. You take the hammer from Aemond and give the rear sight a few knocks. “This isn’t recommended, but it usually works.”

Aemond is smiling. “Okay.”

You load the full magazine and try again. The bullet hits closer to the middle this time. “Here. Both hands.”

Aemond takes the Glock but hesitates. “Is…my eye…?”

“It shouldn’t be a problem. A lot of people close one eye anyway when they’re aiming. I always do.”

He is relieved. “Oh. Good.”

You tap the underside of the Glock. Aemond obediently lifts it. “The line of sight is slightly higher than the barrel, so you have to account for that. And then gravity will pull the bullet lower, and the longer the range of the shot, the more it will drop. So when you fire, the barrel should be angled upwards just the tiniest bit, not horizontal.”

“Like throwing a football.”

“Yeah, exactly. It’s an arc, not a straight line. At first it’ll feel like you’re trying to do all these calculations in your head, and it will be overwhelming, but then it becomes muscle memory and you don’t even have to think about it.” Jace, Baela, and Daeron are now eagerly crossing the yard to help Rio carry the guns out of the cellar and receive their own lessons. “Alright, we’re going to start with a really terrifying enemy. I want you to shoot that tree.”

“What a formidable tree.”

“Aim for the top circle. And if you hit it, then you can practice on Jace.”

Aemond laughs, butter-yellow sunlight filtering down through the trees, the shadows of leaves flickering over his skin, a mosaic of flesh and earth. You ghost your open hand down the length of his arm as if adjusting the angle. Really, you just want to touch him, to feel his warmth and his stillness, the tension of his muscles, the rhythm of his pulse. He’s watching you, lips parted, goosebumps rising beneath your fingertips. Birds are chirping, sparrows and blue jays. High above, squirrels leap and scrabble through the branches. You pull your hand away.

“Look through the sights. The rear sight at the back of the barrel is shaped like a U, and the one at the front is an I. Is the I in the middle of the U?”

“I have no idea.” A pause as he reconsiders. “Yes.”

“Right, it is, and the bullet should go exactly where you want it to because I already sighted that Glock. I’ll show you how to do it later. Now shoot the tree.”

Aemond aims but doesn’t pull the trigger. He’s nervous; he doesn’t want to seem incompetent, pathetic. You imagine it is rare that he isn’t the one with the solutions.

“Hey,” you say softly, and he looks over at you. “You don’t judge me for not knowing how to cure people. I won’t judge you for not knowing how to kill them. Deal?”

Now he’s smiling again. “Deal.” He returns his attention to the tree, lets a few more seconds tick by, and fires. He hits one of the branches. “Oh, that is…embarrassing.”

“It’s not that bad. You hit something. Try again.”

More seconds, more birdsong, more wind through the grass and the leaves. Aemond’s second bullet pierces the trunk about six inches above the top circle. “Yes!” he cheers, boyish triumph on his scarred face.

You resist touching him. It is startlingly difficult. “That was really good.”

He lowers the Glock, and you click the safety on for him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” you say.

“Why’d you ghost that Marine at Corpus Christi?”

“I told you. I didn’t like him enough.”

“Okay, sure, but actually. What was wrong with him?”

“I’ve known you for like twenty-four hours. You think you’ve earned all my secrets?”

“Well, not all of them,” Aemond says, grinning. Rio is showing Jace, Baela, and Daeron how to load the .22s. Aegon is swinging his golf club in circles as he follows Luke into the barn. Helaena and Rhaena are giggling as butterflies land on their outstretched fingers. “But our time together could be very finite. It seems unwise to waste it by trying to preserve some amount of mystery.”

“You’ve convinced me.” You want to be known by him, you want to be understood. That is a frightening thing to realize. It’s like handing a stranger the keys to your home. Will they visit graciously, or will they rob you, ruin you, burn you down? “I haven’t seen many examples of love working out for people. I’ve seen couples who hated each other, and couples who split up, and a lot of women having to raise kids all on their own and turning into these…bitter, exhausted, hollowed-out versions of themselves. I never wanted that to be me. And for as long as I can remember, I’ve felt like that was just one wrong choice away from becoming my life. I don’t want men to disappoint me. So I don’t give them the chance.”

You think Aemond is going to say something cheap, flirtatious, awful: Give me a chance, baby. I won’t disappoint you. Instead he says: “I haven’t known many happy couples either. I mean…Luke and Rhaena would be the closest, I guess. But they’re so young. I’m not sure if they count.”

“Rio and Sophie seem happy. But they’ve also barely seen each other in five years.”

“It does things to you, when you start to believe love might be doomed to end or tear you apart or turn to hatred. If it’s just an evolutionary mirage to trick us into reproducing, what’s the point of giving someone that power over you?”

“Exactly.”

“I feel like one of us should be trying to talk the other out of being so fatalistically cynical.”

“Yeah, totally. Okay. You talk me out of it.”

He chuckles. “No, I don’t think I can. You talk me out of it.”

You’re watching Aemond, realizing you like everything about him—his smirk, his height, his hands, the clear direct blue of his eye—and wondering what the hell you’re going to do about it. Then there is a scream from the barn.

What?? Who??

“Luke!” Aemond shouts, and takes off across the yard. Now you’re all running, even Rhaena and Helaena who don’t have anything to fight with. Everyone is yelling, their lungs heaving in wild June air, their shoes pounding against the earth.

Inside the barn, on a wooden floor strewn with hay, Luke is shrieking as he tries to push a zombie off of him with his bare hands. She’s an older woman, grey hair in rollers, yellow nightgown stained with gore. Something has happened to her feet. Both of her legs end in exposed tibias and flapping strips of purplish, rotting skin. Aegon is beating her with his golf club, but he can’t get a good shot at her head. If he accidentally hits Luke, he could make it worse, he could stun him or even knock him out, and he’ll be bitten in the few seconds it takes anyone to remove his undead assailant. Rio lunges to grab the zombie. She snaps at him with bared teeth and he retreats, drawing his M9.

“Don’t shoot!” Jace is saying. The air is putrid: dead horses, dead people. “You’ll hit Luke!”

Your own M9 is suddenly in your hands, the safety clicked off, one eye closed. “Luke, don’t move.”

“Kill it, kill it!” he pleads hysterically, pushing the zombie as far from him as he can, his palms sinking into the decomposing bruise-colored tissue of her chest and throat.

“Don’t shoot!” Jace orders, but you ignore him. He fades into the background with all the other frenzied voices. Your finger on the trigger, a boom like thunder, bits of bone and brains against the wall. Luke shoves the corpse away, trembling, sobbing. Rhaena flies to him.

Aegon spots the fresh blood on Luke’s right hand and panics. “Is that a bite?!”

Luke notices the wound for the first time. “I don’t know!”

“What do you mean you don’t know?!”

“I don’t know!” Luke wails, tears flooding down his pink face.

“I thought you cleared the barn!” Aemond roars at Aegon.

“It fell out of the loft, we didn’t think anything was up there!”

Luke is blubbering: “I hit my hand against one of the stalls, I think that’s how I cut myself, I was just…I was pushing it away…I didn’t think it bit me…oh my God, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t want to die…”

“It only takes once, kid,” Rio says grimly, fidgeting with his M9, looking at Aemond as if for permission.

“Don’t touch him!” Jace hisses, stepping in front of his brother and clutching his bat. “No one is going to hurt him, it’s not a bite, you can’t prove it’s a bite!”

You reach for Luke’s bleeding hand. “Can I see—?”

“Get away from him!” Jace swings his bat. The tip of it connects with your skull, just a graze fortunately, but still enough to rattle you. Rio charges Jace, tackles him to the floor, starts throwing punches. Baela has apparently forgotten she’s heavily pregnant and is trying to pull them apart. You join her.

He’s going to demolish Jace. He’s going to break his nose or jaw or something. “Rio stop, I’m fine, stop!”

There is another gunshot, a cataclysmic earth-shaking explosion that makes the pain in your head surge from a ripple to a wave. Aemond is aiming his Glock skywards; a hole has appeared in the roof of the barn. “Stand up!” he commands. Rio and Jace reluctantly comply. You help Baela to her feet.

“Aemond,” Jace says. “You have to stop them, they’re going to kill Luke—”

“No one is killing anybody.” Aemond lowers his Glock. “Maybe he’s been bitten. Maybe he hasn’t been. And even if we knew for sure that he was going to turn, we don’t just execute people like this, threatening them when they’re terrified. We have humanity. We have compassion.”

There is a silence that strikes you as heavy, laden, holding meaning that escapes you. Aegon points at Luke. “So what the fuck are we going to do about him?”

“We’ll tie him up,” Aemond decides.

“What?!” Luke exclaims.

“There’s rope in the cellar. We’ll tie his arms and legs so he can’t do anything and keep him like that for a few days until either his hand heals up or he turns into a zombie. Someone will always have to be with him to help him eat and take a piss and also…you know. Deal with it if he turns.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Rhaena says immediately.

Aemond’s voice is now gentle, sympathetic. “I don’t think you want this.”

“If Luke has to die, I should be the person with him.”

“You’ve never had to put someone down before.” And in this statement lives another: Aemond knows what that feels like. Aemond has had to kill someone when they turned.

“I’ll stay with him,” Rhaena says again, this frail harmless doe-eyed girl, and you see a steeliness in her that you hadn’t thought existed.

“Okay,” Aemond relents. “When you’re asleep, Jace or I will take over.”

“It’s not a bite,” Jace murmurs, like he’s trying to convince himself.

“We’ll all find out soon enough,” Rio says, casting him a glare, then goes to fetch the coil of rope from the cellar.

Aemond cleans and bandages the wound on Luke’s hand. Then the weapons, ammo, and newly immobilized Luke are loaded into the Tahoe. Aemond asks you once everyone else is inside: “How’s your head?”

“Fine, I think.”

“Hurts?”

“Just a little.”

“Dizzy? Double vision?”

“No, nothing like that.”

He takes a quick look, parting your hair with his fingertips, feeling gingerly for blood and swelling. And this is becoming a serious problem: every time he touches you, you want more.

“Aemond…who did you have to kill?”

He doesn’t answer. For another moment his hand lingers by your temple, then Aemond turns away and climbs into the Tahoe. This time, no one sings along to the next song on the mixtape. Heads rest on windows, eyes are vacant and misty. Baela steers the Tahoe westbound on Route 1004, the Chainsmokers drifting through the speakers: All We Know.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Pick a card, any card,” Aegon says when he’s done shuffling. He fans out the entire Uno deck face-down and offers it to Rio, Aemond, and Jace. They each select a card, then Aegon picks one for himself. Finally, he holds out the deck to Luke, who stares up incredulously from where he’s still bound with rope and sitting on a curb in the parking lot of a Burger King just outside of Yarnell, Pennsylvania.

“Are you serious?”

“You’re an adult male, aren’t you? You think being in the middle of transforming into an undead murder machine exempts you from gasoline siphoning duty?”

“I’m fine!” Luke insists.

“Great. Then pick a card.”

“I can’t move my hands, you idiot.”

“Pick it with your mouth.”

“I hate you.” Luke bites his card of choice and waits with it clasped between his teeth, glowering.

“I want to pick a card,” Daeron says cheerfully.

Aegon refuses. “No. Too young. A baby.”

“Aegon, I’m seventeen!”

“Can’t enlist, can’t do jury duty, can’t buy lottery tickets, can’t sign up to drink gasoline. Okay, everybody show their cards.”

“I got a three,” Jace says, then yanks Luke’s card out of his mouth and reads it. “He got a skip.”

Aemond’s card is a nine, Rio’s a five, Aegon’s a reverse. “That means you lose, Jace,” Aegon announces, admittedly rather gleeful. “You had the lowest number.”

“This is bullshit, I had to siphon last time!”

“Then stop picking bad cards.”

“Jace, I can do it,” Aemond says.

“And get to be the martyr, as usual? No thanks. Give me the damn hose.”

Aegon roots around under the Tahoe seats and produces a long, semitransparent siphoning hose. “All the ones with the little pump attachments were sold out everywhere by the time we thought that might be useful,” he explains to you and Rio.

“That sucks, Jace,” Rio says. “I mean, literally, it sucks.”

“Next time we cross a bridge, I’m pushing you off it.” Jace takes the hose from Aegon, pops open the gas cap of the Dodge Ram 3500 you’ve found, and threads the hose down into the tank. He sucks on the other end and then shoves it into the Tahoe once the gasoline starts flowing. The fuel gauge was hovering just above E. Hopefully you can get at least a few gallons out of the Ram, another fifty or a hundred miles, maybe even two hundred, enough to get you across the Ohio border.

Jace is bent over and vomiting gasoline onto the pavement. Rhaena and Baela sit with Luke as Aemond feels his forehead and peers into his eyes. Daeron accompanies Helaena as she goes to scavenge inside the Burger King, her burlap messenger bag slung over one shoulder. Rio is now holding the siphoning hose and watching the liquid gold pour into the Tahoe, his smile growing with each passing second. Your eyes fall on Aemond and stay there, his careful hands, his brow knitted with concentration.

A whisper from behind you: “We could fake date to make him jealous.”

You whirl to see Aegon, mischievous smirk, neon green plastic sunglasses. “That is a super generous offer and I appreciate the thought you put into it, but no.”

“Why not?”

“It’s dishonest. It’s manipulative. If something is going to happen with Aemond, I want it to be real.”

Aegon sighs. “No, you’re right, it was a dumb idea. I just figured I have a lot of experience.”

“Experience with what?”

“People pretending to love me.” He flashes a strange, sad smile, then follows Daeron and Helaena into the Burger King.

[toge1kiss]

That Girl In Front Of Me! V2

📢 | What its like having the second years sitting behind you and how you became their friend!

Heavily based from a tiktok video by @erikadayshawn!

Jjk second years x Fem!Reader ( can be seen platonic or romantic ) Reader is heavily implied quiet & very feminine!

˚·˚ Panda ｡˚

🎧 | Ahaaa, he'd give the most weirdest first impression out of you. Simply just his appearance says it all.

🎧 | Once you found out he can actually speak the human language, everything seemed possible now. It was so bizarre.

🎧 | When you were instructed to sit in front of him, you were very awkward since you didn't know what to do or say.

🎧 | One time in class, you can literally hear his chair and his table scraping against the wooden floors, you can tell it was inching to you.

🎧 | "Hey, hey, sorry to bother, but uh.. I sorta smell, y'know, rice krispies in your back and I was wondering if I could have some?" He randomly asked in a not-so subtle manner since the rest of the students were looking at you.

🎧 | "Huh?" You muttered back in total confusion. You blinked twice with a baffled expression because how did he managed to even smell that. "Oh yeah, sure. Just take it quietly.."

🎧 | You then did random movements with your pen then turned back at Gojo who was still teaching.

🎧 | Over all, a very chaotic classmate.

˚·˚ Zenin Maki ｡˚

🎧 | Definition of RBF I fear. Except she actually is pretty irritated

🎧 | You guys NEVER spoke as in EVER. It was more on your part since you were too scared to ask. It feels like you'll get beaten up if you even look at her

🎧 | But there was this one time where an unnamed classmate of yours started to bother you mid-lecture, constantly pressuring you to give you your notes even when you said you have NONE ( you in fact do, you just didn't like them )

🎧 | Maki was like watching from the back with an irritated expression and decided to speak up. "Do you wanna talk to them?" "No-" "Then speak up! She doesn't wanna talk to you, stop!" She exclaims while making that shooing hand gesture and scoffed.

🎧 | That interaction really baffled you because 1. that was the first time you spoke and 2. it actually worked..??

🎧 | "Thank y-" "No. Don't even. Stand up for yourself, that's just embarrassing."

🎧 | But after that, you heard from Panda that Maki has been keeping an eye on you for a long time because people wanted to mess with you

🎧 | You both became friends eventually due to Panda and you both would bond by training!!

˚·˚ Okkotsu Yuta ｡˚

🎧 | Not only is he very approachable, but he's very kind as well. Probably one of the first people you've became friends with.

🎧 | The first time you met him and you were instructed to sit in front of him, he literally PULLED the chair out for you with a smile.

🎧 | "Hello! I hope you're doing well." He would greet with a respectful bow and the lecture just started

🎧 | fast forward, a few weeks passed. You both were acquaintances, not close, but definitely improving.

🎧 | One day you didn't have notes, he was quick to offer you his and quickly handed you his notebook.

🎧 | Another day, he gave you a paper flower as a gift. A 'just because' gift with the words: "I thought you'd like it. The whole.. paper flower was my personal preference since they don't die. I hope you like it!"

🎧 | Then after that you'd get random trinkets from Yuta. Safe to safe, he's definitely fond of you.

˚·˚ Inumaki Toge ｡˚

🎧 | It wasn't like he was mean, he honestly just had that mysterious aura that gave you the creeps..

🎧 | The few days you sat in front of him, he never really spoke to you and vice versa. You thought he appreciates his peace so you just don't say anything.

🎧 | One day though you were doodling mindlessly because you were bored out of your mind and you felt a tap on your shoulder. When you looked back, Toge gave you a short wave and pointed at your doodle.

🎧 | "Oh my drawing?" "Tuna." "Oh, you like it..?" "Salmon, salmon."

🎧 | Though you couldn't understand him, his nod and thumbs up makes his message clear. You gave him a soft chuckle of relief when you understood him and thanked him.

🎧 | At break, you were about to leave until Toge handed you something and what do you know, he gave you a doodle of a little kitty with the note "hope we can be friends =)"

🎧 | Eventually, months passed you two became super closed due to your mutual quiet nature.

🎧 | Sometimes on your desk, you were even surprised with makeup products that you always use. When you texted Toge about it you always get a reply of: "Kugisaki said you use it"

🎧 | Confirmed a very sweet boy!!

CONCLUDED!

MASTERLIST

[roosterforme]

The Younger Kind Part 19 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: You and Bradley have resorted to planning accidental run-ins as an excuse to see each other. When Penny insists that Bradley joins her and Maverick for dinner on Thursday night, you agree to watch Noah. But dinner doesn't turn out the way he thought it would.

Warnings: Angst, fluff, swearing, and age gap (18+)

Length: 4100 words

Pairing: Single dad!Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x babysitter!female reader

Check out my masterlist for more!

After Meredith managed to throw off Bradley's entire week, he was really antsy to see you, and he could tell Noah was, too. He really couldn't fathom how Meredith got the hearing postponed, and every time Bradley thought he was prepared, she threw him for a loop. 

He couldn't stand the thought of Noah worried and upset, being forced to answer questions about his home and his life in the courtroom. Even the idea of Meredith being allowed in the same room as Noah had Bradley clenching and unclenching his fists as he left work on Wednesday. He could tell Maverick was getting a bit annoyed that he kept asking to use his time off and then changing the schedule. 

When he checked his phone as he climbed into the Bronco, Bradley saw a text from you.

Babysitter: I'm going grocery shopping tonight. I thought maybe there was a chance I could "bump into" you boys at the store?

Bradley could always groceries anyway, and he knew that spending a little bit of time with you was just what he needed. He asked you which store and what time, and then he picked up Noah and took a few minutes to get changed and fix his hair. 

More than anything, he wanted to be able to invite you back to his place, do the bare minimum to help you make a perfect dinner, and then clean up while you and Noah played with the blocks. The option to make that a routine was in Bradley's brain now, and he knew it wasn't going to go away. You should be here with him.

"Let's go shopping, bub," he told Noah. "I'll get stuff to make ants on logs."

"Just like my babysitter?" 

"Just like Princess," Bradley agreed, and soon they were on their way to the store. 

Bradley had Noah buckled in a shopping car, strolling aimlessly through the produce area, looking around for you. He tossed some bananas and carrots in along with some apples, and then Noah was smiling and trying to climb out of the cart. Bradley looked over his shoulder and saw you pushing your own cart toward them. Then you let go of it and rushed over to them.

"Hi," you said to Bradley, barely glancing at him before you wrapped Noah in a tight hug. "Can I help you shop? Make sure your dad buys you all the good stuff?"

"Yes!" Noah cheered, and Bradley just shook his head. He really wanted to kiss you, but he kept his lips to himself. After running into Meredith at the coffee shop, he was a little hesitant.

"Hi, Princess," he whispered in his Daddy voice, and you finally looked up at him with a smirk. 

Then you and he pushed your carts along slowly, adding groceries and sharing some subtle touches. When you reached for him in the cereal aisle, Bradley didn't stop you. He let your hand come to rest on his chest, and when your lips met his in the softest kiss while Noah picked out some Cheerios, he pulled you a little closer. 

"I can't stay away from you," he whispered as you took a small step backwards out of his arms. 

You looked between him and Noah, and Bradley could see longing and sadness in your eyes. "I don't want you to. I miss being at your house. Do you think you'll be able to come to my graduation?" you asked, and Bradley would have done anything you wanted. 

"Of course," he promised, hoping like hell he could make that happen. He wanted to be there to make you happy. And because he was so proud of you. And because Noah loved you. "We'll be there."

You slipped your hand in his and kissed Noah's rosy cheek. "You should get some Rice Krispies too."

Bradley added a box to this cart and followed you around the store, soaking up your presence and attention and hoping he'd get more of you soon.

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

Bradley was at home, unpacking bag after bag of groceries. You didn't let them leave the store until he had plenty of food, and he told you he wanted to take you home and unload you from his car, too. You laughed, but he was pretty fucking serious about it.

Noah was coloring as Bradley put away some pasta sauce when his phone started blowing up. He got texts from Nat and Penny at the same time, but before he could respond to either one of them, Tracy called him.

"Apparently Meredith was in breach of contract with her lawyer," she told him immediately. 

Bradley held onto the jar of sauce and asked, "What does that mean?"

"Could mean a number of things, but the bottom line is, her lawyer walked out because of something Meredith did intentionally. And apparently she found new representation, and the judge is adamantly refusing any further postponements. So please, be ready for next week. You and Noah both."

Bradley swallowed hard and nearly dropped the jar as his eyes landed on his son. "We're ready."

He finished with the groceries and made two sandwiches. Nat was already bugging him about Thursday night, trying to get him to stop by her place for a drink. And Penny was asking if he was free to have dinner with her and Mav. Apparently she wanted to chat with him about his future.

Bradley sighed and bit into his sandwich, watching Noah eat his as well. He knew everyone was concerned about how he was dealing with everything, but he just wanted them all to fuck off. A movie night with you and Noah was the only thing he really wanted. The three of you could watch a Disney movie before Noah's bedtime, and then Bradley would take you to his bed and spend hours making you cum with his lips all over your body.

He leaned back and sighed. Nat wasn't going to leave him alone until he texted her back. And Penny was likely to get Mav to side with her until Bradley agreed to meet them for dinner. So he texted you.

Princess, any chance you can watch Noah tomorrow night? Penny wants me to have dinner with them.

Your nearly instant response of "I would love to" had him smiling. 

"Hey, bub, wanna play with your babysitter again this week?"

Noah had jelly all over his cheek which made Bradley smile. "She can cook the food so you don't do it," he said innocently. And Bradley thought he made a very good point. If Bradley tried to cook half of the groceries he just bought, he and Noah would be starving in no time. 

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Bradley told his son. And now he could look forward to tomorrow, knowing he'd see you then.

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

You dressed for the evening with Noah like you were going on a date. Because you were hoping Bradley would take one look at you and rush back home after dinner to spend some time with you. Having a sleepover was probably out of the question, but you were definitely interested in recreating some of your dirty moments on the living room couch with him.

You moaned as you applied some eyeliner. You already packed up your bag with some new coloring books, and you made a playlist of kid friendly songs for Noah. He loved singing with you, and you knew Bradley was a bit of a music buff. With a little luck, Meredith would be out of the picture soon, and you could spend more time with your boys, listening to music and hanging out. 

When you checked the time, you dashed downstairs to slip your shoes on. Bradley asked if you could be there by 5:30 which seemed pretty early for dinner. But you promised him you would be. You grabbed some skittles to share with Noah and ran out to your car. When you caught your reflection in the window, you smiled. You looked good. You couldn't wait to see Bradley.

The front door was unlocked when you arrived. "Hi! It's me!" you called out, and Noah came running right for you. "Noah! I missed babysitting you!" you laughed, scooping him up as your tote bag slipped down your arm. "I brought songs and stuff to color and a snack."

"What kind of snack?" he asked, and you smiled.

"I'll show you after I make you dinner."

And then Bradley was in the living room doorway, looking so good, your mouth was watering. Snug jeans, fitted dress shirt, slightly messy hair. Fuck.

"Princess," he rasped, walking toward you with a smile on his handsome face. He leaned down and kissed your cheek while Noah was in your arms, and that thrilled you. Then he held up a key. The house key you practically threw at him when you stormed out in tears after he was so mean to you. "Will you take this back? Please?"

When you nodded, he slipped it inside your tote bag and then slipped the straps down your arm and set it down for you. He was examining your face, his eyes trailing down your neck and body while Noah rambled about a cartoon he had seen. The subtle flush of Bradley's cheeks as his eyes returned to your face had you squeezing your thighs together. 

Somehow he could tell. He knew what he did to you. The little grin on his lips as he kissed your neck made you want to roll your eyes. "I'll see you later, Princess," he whispered, running his fingers along your arm as he kissed the top of Noah's head. 

And then he was gone, and you were left with Noah. "Mac and cheese? Or spaghetti?" you asked.

Noah yawned as you set him down on the carpet next to the snag. Next to where you and Bradley had sex the very first time. You sighed, already counting down the time until he'd be back home. 

"Ummm, mac and cheese."

"You got it!"

You taught Noah some new songs while you cooked the pasta, and he colored a spaceship purple. But you noticed he was a little quiet, and he was yawning a lot. 

"You okay?" you asked him softly when you set his dinner down in front of him. He just nodded as you poured him some milk. "You wish your dad was home?" He nodded some more, but at least he was eating and drinking. But when he was done, he was reaching for you with his cheesy hands. You cleaned him up a bit and tried to play with blocks on the floor. You even offered to get the paper crowns. But he only seemed interested in watching a cartoon on the couch.

So you let Noah curl up on your lap, but soon he was asleep. And when you pushed your fingers through his soft, curly hair, you noticed his forehead felt warm. You let your palm rest softly against his skin. He definitely had a fever. 

You managed to slide out from beneath him, letting him rest on the couch while you went in search of a thermometer. After tearing apart the bathroom and the drawers in Noah's dresser, you were getting frustrated. You backtracked to the bathroom and then checked the first aid kit in the kitchen. Nothing. 

Before you dug around in Bradley's bedroom, you thought you ought to text him. 

Hey Daddy, I think Noah has a fever. Where's your thermometer? 

But you got no response from him. And when Noah woke up a little while later, crying for you, he had very rosy cheeks and a runny nose.

"It's okay, sweet Noah. I'm right here," you promised, picking him up and carrying him around with you. "You don't feel well, do you? Do you know where your daddy keeps the thermometer?"

"No," he whined, crying a little harder. His forehead felt even warmer now as he rested his face against your neck, so you decided to run a bath to help him cool down. 

You checked the time on your phone again. It was pretty late, and you wished Bradley would answer your text or just come home. You poured out a dose of the children's Tylenol you found in the bathroom and knelt down next to the tub. 

"Drink this up. It tastes like cherries," you promised, coaxing the liquid into his mouth. Then you brushed your fingers through his hair as you ran a washcloth all over his skin. 

At this point, you had sent several unanswered texts, so you decided to call Bradley and interrupt his dinner with Penny and Pete. He might even be on his way home. You weren't worried, exactly; you were studying pediatric nursing. But you really wanted to know exactly what Noah's temperature was, and you wanted to care for him the way Bradley always did when he was sick. You figured that would make Noah feel better. 

"It's okay," you whispered to Noah. "I'm sure your dad will be home soon." 

You wiped tears away from his eyes while you called Bradley. But when someone else answered his phone, your heart sank, and you could feel tears in your own eyes. 

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

Bradley lounged on Nat's couch and sipped a beer. He had about an hour until he was supposed to meet Penny and Mav, and it was so nice to just spend some time with her here. 

She plopped down on the couch next to him. "So your babysitter is with Noah tonight?"

Bradley snorted as he peeled away the label from the bottle. "I wouldn't call her that."

Nat rolled her eyes and asked, "So would you call her your girlfriend then?"

"Nope," he murmured. "Not allowed to do that yet."

"Yet?"

"Yet," he replied, taking another long sip. "But as soon as I can get Meredith out of the picture, I'm asking her to move in with us."

Nat whistled. "Wow. Skipping right to the point, I guess? No more dating apps ever again?"

"Nope," he said with a smile. And then he did absolutely nothing for a full hour except bullshit with his best friend. 

"Have a nice dinner with Penny," Nat said as Bradley stood to leave. "You know she worries about you, right? Kind of wants to be a stand-in mom and grandma to you and Noah?"

"Yeah," Bradley grunted. She meant well. Penny always meant well. And she was a huge help with Noah, even going so far as to keep him when Bradley was deployed. "She just wants to be helpful. I gotta get to dinner with her. See you at work tomorrow."

"Yeah, you should be in a great mood after Penny buys you an overpriced steak and you go home to your dream girl."

"Goodnight, Nat," he said with a grin before he walked out to his Bronco. 

He was really looking forward to the overpriced steak now. He knew was running a little late as he left Nat's place, but when he passed a flower shop that was still open, he quickly stopped to get you a bouquet of flowers. Wildflowers. They smelled just like you. He set them on his passenger seat, and he couldn't wait to get home after he ate dinner and give them to you. 

He found a parking space right in front of the restaurant, and after he hopped out, he jogged inside, ready to apologize for being a few minutes late. "Hi," he said when the hostess smiled at him. But before he could say anything else, he heard someone calling his name.

"Bradley."

He spun to see Helen stand up from a table and make her way over to him. She was wearing a very short dress and some high heels, and it struck Bradley that he had never seen her in anything other than a Hard Deck shirt. He'd also never seen her anywhere except the Hard Deck. It was kind of surreal. 

"Helen," he said with a nod, but she strolled right up to him and wrapped her hands around his forearm. Her nails were a boring shade of pink, and he started to imagine your purple nails and soft skin. 

"Come on, Bradley," she said with a laugh, trying to pull him away from the hostess. "I already have a table."

He cocked his head to one side slightly and then glanced down at her hands still on him. "I'm actually here to meet Penny for dinner."

She was shaking her head and biting her lip as she tugged on his arm until he started following her. "You're not here to have dinner with Penny."

"I'm not?" he asked with a laugh, looking around and seeing no signs of her or Maverick. 

"No," she said, planting her palm on his chest and guiding him toward an empty chair. She patted his chest as he sat, and she took the seat next to him. "I got Penny to get you to agree to come here so we could have dinner together." Bradley's heart was pounding as she put her hand on his knee, but he was completely frozen now. "After she told Missy and I that you were dating again, I told her I've had a thing for you for years, Rooster."

"Oh," he managed, still thoroughly confused as to how this had happened exactly. "Okay."

She laughed and sipped a martini as she rubbed his leg. "I just thought you and I could definitely have a lot of fun together. Either dating or just... you know."

He knew. He knew exactly what she meant. And right now he was absolutely livid with Penny. But he was also livid with himself, because he had never taken the time he should have with you. Because even in spite of Meredith, he should have been in a real relationship with you by now.

"Uh, Helen," he murmured, pulling his phone out of his pocket as a means to get her to move her hand. He set his phone down on the table and said, "I'm kind of seeing someone."

"Oh," she said softly. "Penny told me you weren't. She said you were too focused on Noah and your ex."

Bradley cradled his head in his hand. "I mean, I am. But I'm also seeing someone else. It's new. Penny didn't know."

Helen looked dejected, but she shrugged and said, "If you're just kind of seeing someone and it's new, staying for dinner wouldn't hurt anything. I already ordered you a beer. I know exactly what you like." He couldn't help but notice the way she leaned toward him and pressed her breasts together. And then he saw his favorite kind of beer sitting on the table next to her martini. 

Suddenly an overpriced steak was the last thing he wanted. "Just the drinks, okay? Then we'll call it a night. Excuse me for a minute." 

He stood and headed to the restroom as she nodded at him. But he made it all the way to the men's room before he realized he left his phone on the table and couldn't even text you to check in. All he wanted was to get back home to you and Noah as soon as possible, but he was going to have to have a drink first. He really hoped Helen could finish that fucking martini quickly. 

After he splashed some water on his face, he rolled his shoulders back and sighed. He would need to have a discussion with Penny about this. But when he saw Helen talking on his phone as he approached the table again, he started walking faster. 

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

A woman had answered Bradley's phone. And it definitely wasn't Penny. It wasn't even Natasha. You were frozen, one hand on Noah's forehead and the other gripping your phone to your ear. 

"Hello?" came the woman's voice again. "Hello?" She sounded annoyed now.

"Where's Bradley?" you asked, your voice breaking pitifully. 

"He just ran to the restroom."

You swallowed hard and managed to ask, "Who are you?"

"Helen," she replied, and you nearly dropped your phone into the bathtub. Why was he with Helen? 

"Where are you?"

"We're out to dinner," she replied, and you could practically hear the smirk in her voice. "Shouldn't you know that if you're the babysitter?"

He lied to you. He lied to you again. He told you he was going out with Penny and Pete. He told you that you meant something to him. That he was waiting to be in a relationship with you. That you were the only one. 

"Put him on the phone. Now," you said with as much force as you could muster. Noah was crying again, and now your eyes were filled with tears, too.

"I'll have him call you back when he comes back to the table." 

The sound of her voice was grating on your nerves as you abruptly stood. Noah was looking up at you, his pink cheeks streaked with tears. "Tell him his son is sick, and I don't appreciate any of this!" you shouted. 

Helen said something about having Bradley call you back, but you were too busy trying to end the call before you burst into tears. 

"I'm cold," Noah whined. You looked at him and then dropped back to your knees to fill the tub up with some warmer water.

"Sorry," you whispered, swiping at your tears before you pushed his hair away from his damp forehead. "I'll fix it for you."

And then your phone started ringing. Bradley was calling you back.

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

"Okay, well, I'll have him call you back, but we're still in the middle of dinner," Helen said, and then she ended the call and set his phone down.

"Who was that?" Bradley asked, startling Helen as he loomed over her. 

"Your babysitter," she said with an eye roll. "I saw that's who it was on the caller ID, so I thought I'd answer it for you. She said your son is sick, but it's probably just a tummy ache."

"Noah's sick?" he asked, sinking down into his chair and fumbling with his phone. If you were calling to tell him there was something wrong with Noah, then it was definitely more than just a tummy ache. Then he noticed that he had somehow missed some texts from you as well. 

"I'm sure he's fine," Helen said smoothly. "Are you sure you don't want to order dinner? I'm starving, and I've heard the steaks here are excellent."

But Bradley barely heard her as he tried to call you back, listening to it ring and ring before you picked up. 

"Hi," you muttered without emotion. 

"Is Noah okay? What's wrong?" he asked. He was met with silence. "Princess, what's going on?"

He heard your humorless laugh before you said, "That's what I should be asking you. And Helen."

Fuck. Bradley knew what you must be thinking right now as he stood and glared at Helen across the table. "Baby, I'm on my way home. What's wrong with Noah?"

"He has a fever, and he's miserable. And I can't find your thermometer. And don't call me baby," you spat, and Bradley quickly tossed some cash onto the table and started heading for the exit.

"I'm on my way home right now, okay? I'll take care of everything. I'll explain everything." 

But you had hung up on him. And now he was panicking. About Noah and about you.

"Bradley!" Helen called, running after him. "Can you at least give me a ride home? I took an Uber to get here."

"Fine," he growled, barely listening as he stormed out to the sidewalk. When he opened his door and climbed in, the Bronco smelled like the flowers he had purchased for you on his way to the restaurant. 

"Fuck!" he nearly shouted as he drove away. He was vaguely aware that Helen was with him. He'd worry about that later. You and Noah were his primary concerns right now, and he'd figure that out first.

"Your babysitter is the girl you're kind of seeing?" she asked as he neared his neighborhood.

"Yeah," he grunted. "And it's actually not that new. And it's not casual at all." 

She remained quiet as he pulled in and parked next to your car. He left her in the Bronco. Hell, he wasn't even sure if he closed the driver's side door as he ran up his sidewalk and unlocked his front door.

"Princess? Noah?" he called out, frantically looking around the kitchen and Noah's bedroom before he saw the bathroom light was on. "Baby, what's going on?" he asked when he saw you kneeling on the mat next to the tub while Noah sat in the bath.

Slowly, you rose to your feet and turned to face him, and Bradley had never seen your beautiful face so angry before. Tears were dripping from your eyes as you took a step closer to him.

"Daddy!" Noah called out. And between the look on your face and his son sobbing in the bath, Bradley had no idea how he was going to fix any of this.

"I can't believe you lied to me again," you gasped. "I can't believe I let you lie to me again." 

And when he reached for you, trying to explain what happened, you pushed his hand out of the way.

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

Oh, shit. Hope you enjoy your fic, @beyondthesefourwalls And thank you @mak-32 !

PART 20

@hotch-meeeeeuppppp

@swthxrry

@chassy21

@yaboid19

@solacestyles

@avoirlecoupdefoudre

@daisyhollyxox

@callsigndiamond

@harper1666

@throwinsauce

@beebslebobs

@awesomebooklover17

@wintercap89

@whosyourgnomie4

@rosesinmars

@blog-name6996

@bcon24

@wishfulwithwine

@backinwonderl4nd

@monte-carlando

@tetragonia

@gingerbreadandpaper

@emptyloverofmine

@apparently-sunshine

@chaoticassidy

@missmirandafe

@topgunbb

@changlingkhat

@sugarcoated-lame

@callsign-jupiter

@avada-kedavra-bitch-187

@katiebby04

@marantha

@averyhotchner

@abaker74

@andycanbeemotional

@heli991113

@k-k0129

@noz4a2

@tallyovie

@shanimallina87

@starlightstories

@teddyluvs2sing

@little-wiseone

@ccbb2222

@lilyevanswhore

@o-the-o-grim-o-reaper-o

@xoxabs88xox

[fairlyang]

dad!miguel headcanons 🕷️

dad!miguel who always prepared gabi’s lunch in a hello kitty thermo (if he made her sopa de letras, her fav) or a hello kitty sandwich box because he knew how excited his little girl would be when she’d see how her lunch was packaged

dad!miguel who would write cute little messages or corny dad jokes on little post it notes with whatever sweet treat he’d leave her

“How does a penguin build its house?” he wrote on one side then flips it over to write the answer

“Igloos it together.” he signs it with “te amo<3” then rereads his joke to laugh at it before sticking it to a rice krispie

dad!miguel would definitely know how to do gabi’s hair (because he would do absolutely anything for her) so when she asked if he could do elsa’s braid you can bet your ass he searched up easy tutorials on youtube

dad!miguel who will make or buy whatever snack gabi may crave, have it be chicharrones, brownies, or a popsicle de gansitos, he will make sure she gets whatever she asks for

dad!miguel who would sing gabi to sleep, songs ranging from lullabies to boleros to vicente fernadez’s whole discography

dad!miguel that signs her up to whatever her little heart desires. an art class? say less. ballet? he’ll sprint to buy the shoes

dad!miguel who accidentally falls asleep on the couch after watching barbie movies with gabi

extra points knowing he’d be sitting legs spread, head against the cushion with his mouth wide open letting out the loudest of snores imaginable which would just make gabi giggle in shock

dad!miguel who’d get drunk at the neighbor’s kid’s birthday party and be one of those mexican dads to be singing so obnoxiously but somehow sounding not so bad

“le dedicó esta para mi niña hermosa.”

cue piel canela playing and dad!miguel snatching the mic from one of the tios

he tries to find gabi through drunken eyes but once he spots her in her bright pink dress he sings to her, pointing to her when the lyrics say “me importas tu y tu y tu y solamente tu.”

gabi with wide, glossy eyes watching her papi give her yet another serenata because she was spoiled rotten in all aspects, this being one of them because she loved his singing

dad!miguel who would call up his friend’s mariachi early in the morning on gabi’s birthday but ask the favor that he can sing for her instead because he always wants her day to extra special

[twistedwonderlandshenanigans]

"Gingerbread Houses" -HCs

Finals did not, in fact, kill me. Anyways, depending on how things go this may be my last real post of this year, so happy holidays and happy New Years if I don't see y'all til January ^^ --------------------------------------------------------

Heartslaybul

Riddle

He's never made a gingerbread house before OTL and his perfectionism will be his biggest pitfall. At least he's using Trey's cookies and icing so that it's not a matter of the quality of materials, but it's still something he's going to spend HOURS on, making sure every line is perfect and sharp. He's seen the sets before in stores, so he will pull up a reference photo on his phone to try and match the box as closely as possible. By the time he's finished, he's a mess. There is icing everywhere. He is ready to pass out. His hands hurt from piping. And he realizes too late he could have decorated the inside just for fun. He still enjoyed it, but he's going to aim for an easier design in coming years. He also only takes a few pieces of candy and a gingerbread man, before letting the first years eat it. (He got a picture before it was devoured though).

Trey

Oh he's so tired of baking. Are you kidding me. This time of year COULD be fun but he has finals on top of being resident big brother AND BAKER to a dorm just to go home and be Big Brother with his siblings. He's so tired. He will bake everything off for people after they submit what shapes they want/need for their creations and then while everyone is making their gingerbread creations he's going to his room and taking a fucking nap. Good for him. He'll munch on left overs if he feels like it, but he knows there's going to be mom and dad's baking at home so he'll just wait. Once he does go home though, it's a competition, half the family against the other half to make the largest, most impressive gingerbread creation. They may involve the community to vote on which one is better, and then they just let the elementary school kids in the area eat them both.

Cater

He buys one of the boxed ones just to put it together for the sake of social media. Makes it all cute and near perfect, it takes significantly less effort for him to do so than Riddle, mostly because he has some artistic background. He knows between that and Trey's baking, nobody is really going to want to eat it so he brings it to PMC for Lilia lmao. He already knows he's going to do the same thing again when he goes home, so his mom has something to post on social media.

Deuce

He's also never made a gingerbread house! His mom didn't have the means to buy all those ingredients or to buy a set she knew he wouldn't eat, so they always made stuff out of rice krispy treats. They're easier to mold into the shape you want anyways, especially when they're warm, so it prevented tantrums when he was younger too. He still does it, not just for traditions sake but because gingerbread just...isn't his favourite flavour.

Ace

Growing up, his mom was the only one really capable of cooking or baking, so when she passed (HC), his brother would just take him out to the dollarstore to buy a SHIT TON of different wafers and candies. They would make a candy wonderland of sorts before gorging themselves on their creations. Ace doesn't mind gingerbread all that much, but he likes how stable the wafers are in comparison when it comes to attaching them with icing. Sometimes he'll build a foundation with wafers and then attach the gingerbread to the wafers so it has something stable to lean against. It's really just an excuse to eat more candy. He also decorates the inside of his builds, usually using gummy bears as people. When he was a kid he used to bite off their heads and then scatter them around the build 💀

The rest are under the cut!!

Savannaclaw Leona

Could not give a flying rat's ass about gingerbread creations. The closest he gets is Cheka spamming his texts with pictures of his creation. Leona ends up paying Ruggie to make one so that he can send one pic back and the rugrat will stop bothering him 💀

Ruggie

They never really made anything like sculptures. Latino Ruggie is real in my heart, so Christmas time is when they would have saved up as much as they could to have a massive feast with the community. That being said, he can't exactly build with them but empanadas, you know the plantain ones with custard filling and a sugar coated outside??? Those ones? FUCK ton of those. Sometimes though, when Sam has leftovers in January of the kits, he'll take the kits back to the kiddos to enjoy.

Jack

Oh his family loooooves making gingerbread houses, the only rule is, no rectangles are allowed >:) (squares are technically a form of rectangle too) so every year his mom heads up the competition. Jack tries to help his younger siblings but he tends to break things by accident and they get mad at him lmao. He never makes a house himself, he just grazes on the candy, and eats his siblings houses after they've picked them clean of candy, leaving him with plenty of cookies to eat. His siblings also use a lot of coloured icing to decorate the "lawns" outside of their houses. (His mom always includes "ducks" on hers)

Octavinelle

Azul

Having been from under the sea, he hasn't made them before either, nor does he really want to. To me, he does not like the texture of icing. I think that would be gross to him. And why would he want to eat all that candy? He would rather go home and eat a dessert Nonna's whipped up, or even attempt to make cannoli's on his own. He may host a competition at the mostro lounge with a bring your own supplies event and whoever wins a competition gets free meal vouchers for a week.

Jade + Floyd

They also have not made gingerbread anything before, but wHEN they do. Jade meticulously puts his together, every detail, every drop of icing, everything is planned. He has a sketch he did in a planner next to him and he's GOING to replicate it. He's grumpy at Floyd because he's eating gingerbread over his shoulder and it's crumbling and falling onto his work space and into his shirt but if he acknowledges it he knows it's going to get worse. Floyd does not have the patience to put his together. He essentially makes it one giant cookie/poptart thing and layers candy on top. He does ask if he's allowed to break Jade's when he's done (they will brawl after when Jade says no and Azul has to rescue Jade's creation for the sake of keeping what little semblance of peace he has.)

Scarabia

Kalim

The concept is new to him but once he's introduced to it - he loves it. And not a surface is safe from flying icing. He wants icing in every single colour and all the candies from all over the world. He'll try dipping gingerbread in eggnog. These traditions aren't widely celebrated back home, so he's going to make the most of it while he's with friends! He ends up eating so much candy he throws up rainbows. Sorry.

Jamil

He has no interest. You thought Leona was disinterested? No, Jamil is. He'd rather be doing nearly anything else.

Pomefiore

Vil

When he was a kid, it was tradition for him and his dad to decorate lebkuchen together. He looks forward to it more than he'd care to admit, because it's the one constant date he knows both he and his dad work to ensure they have free. Neither of them are very GOOD at decorating, but it's more of an excuse to catch up with each other. The nostalgia also just generally helps Vil show a little more holiday spirit and loosen up a little bit.

Rook

:) He and his sister never really got those kinds of things, but they loved making paper snowflakes together.

Epel

He never had the patience for gingerbread houses when he was a kid, so his meemaw would only make gingerbread men for him while his parents built a house. He would squeeze icing bags so hard they popped, and layer on the subsequent icing in a thick, uneven swab to the point when he went to go eat it it made him sick. He loved it though. Nowadays he tries a lot harder to make them pretty just because he thinks it's a fun activity, like apple carving, where every little detail can make a huge difference on the overall composition. Meemaw's baking is peak, and not even Trey can beat it.

Ignihyde

Idia + Ortho

When they were kids, they loved the pomegranate smashing tradition their dad used to do. Their dad would also make kourabiedes - while not exactly ideal for building with, they were delicious. Instead of building things out of food, they would build a "karavaki" (wooden boat) out of scrap metal as a family instead and decorate it instead of a tree. It's been a long time since Mama and Papa Shroud have managed to convince Idia to celebrate...anything with them, but this year they started a new tradition with Ortho, with high hopes for years to come. This year, they designed and built a cat cafe gingerbread house, just for the fun of it, but there were still plenty of kourabiedes to go around. (Mama Shroud is NOT allowed in the kitchen but she would make little reindeer button cookies if she could. However, that is one field of chemistry she just can't seem to handle OTL)

Diasomnia

...uh

Diasomily

Because of Lilia's many travels, he picked up on different traditions and cultures over the years. As a result, every year (that they've all been together), they celebrate a different tradition from around the world. Yes they've made gingerbread houses before. Malleus has gargoyles on his. Lilia's is completely inedible. Silver has icing on half his face bc he passed out. Sebek essentially made a giant cookie-face of Malleus and got pissy when he ran out of black licorice to make his horns. They're so sillayyyy

------------- LMAO I lost the plot about half way through but we bring it back

anyways

@nemisisnemi @fluffle-writes @my-cursed-brain @distant-velleity @elenauaurs @lumdays @starry-night-rose @theleechyskrunkly

lmk if you want to be added/removed

happy holidays and please take a fat nap on my behalf at some point lmao

[punkeropercyjackson]

I want legit Batfam rep.None of that 'Core Four Batboys ft.Girlboss Babs™️' nonesense,i want:

Afrolatino/third gen dominican inmigrant on both parents' side Jason who went to Ethiopia to find his 'real mom' because he discovered he had ethiopian ancestry and that black diaspora trauma took over even with all the connections to his dominicano roots his guardians made sure to give him

5th Robin Duke who gets officially adopted by Bruce at 11 due to Elaine and Doug's Jokerization happening way earlier and is autistic as the cause of his troubled kid status and fem/punk presenting just naturally and runs away from home post a Year One run and ends up getting taken in by The Outlaws as their Robin,most of all Jason(who is also autistic)'s and Jason's Duke's Robin right back

(And a complete overhaul of Rhato 2011 and Rebirth Rhato except Artemis as a member since everything about it except her was layer after layer of bigotry and just poor writing choices)

Blasian/jamaicain-korean Stephanie with a silk press in her early Spoiler days but starting to wear her hair natural as Robin which escalates into butterfly locs and purple hair dye and who's fat because fat black girls deserve to be confident and pastel and fun and smart and punk without masculinization and seen as beautiful without her love interests having to 'learn to love her beyond skin deep' first and also has an addiction to bubble waffles specifically

Butch comphet lesbian Cass with a deeply complicated relathionship to femininity and girlhood she can't even begin to put into words a good deal after she learns how to talk but has a gender journey of learning she dosen't need men to be a woman nor white western femininity or white western masculininty to be a valid lesbian.Also,her employing her tradgoth subculture with her chinese roots too and befriending other easian/woc tradgoths

Transfem4transfem Stephcass consisting of Cass and Stephanie falling in love with eachother's girlhood as much as they do eachother as people and Stephanie as an early egg crack that diy's her own estrogen and gender affirming clothes guiding Cass in transfeminism as both best friendship and a flirting/seduction tactic.Them growing to start a big biofamily too as Cass didn't want bottom surgery

Cherokee on Janet's side Tim and not malicious but white ass ignorant dad Jack that didn't teach him his culture so Tim takes it into his own hands and ends up a long haired skapunk urban eco-activist with a huge collection of shirts with messages/memes that make white people uncomfortable and doning the mantle 'Hawk' as an adult and visiting his mom's reservation in her hometown during Red Robin 2009

Sinti Dick who's Discowing fit takes both Disco and Bollywood influences and talks with his hands all the time and carries around homemade puffed rice candies out of habit of feeding them to his siblings as they grew up and tweaking whenever somebody calls them rice krispie treats and was gifted a rroma flag by Bruce as a 'welcome to the family gift' and jewish/romani solidarity

Kory as an official Batfam member through marriage to Dick and bonding with The Batkids,including Robin!Jason as a massive Starfire fanboy(platonically + not of Wonder Woman.Jason's black,he wouldn't view a white woman as the ultimate form of 'women i look up to'),and Mar'i and Jake as extended Batfam members too

Damian not actually being unknown to Bruce,just a surprisingly by Batfam standards well-kept secret as Bruce and Talia had him unambigiously consensually and it adding juicy angst to their relathionship as it broke Bruce's heart he could not only never see Damian but that Damian couldn't even know he existed for his own childhood safety

Talia as a stepmom who's sort not really dating Batdad but nonetheless treated Jason as her own son in his Robin days and extends it to Robin!Stephanie as an older woc and earns her the title of 'Bird Mom' by the Dead Robins Club.In the meantime,she also took over Lexcorp to turn it into an international solarpunk organization and renamed it 'Taliacorp'

Damian's team aka the All New Teen Titans consisting of an afrolatino Jon,a 6th Robin Maps,Maya,Surren,Colin,Nell,Kathy,Irey,Bobby,Nika,Keli,a transfem Laurel and Tai and mentored by Jason,Adult!Signal!Duke,an even older adult Batwoman!Stephanie and Wonder!Cassie(and even more queer heroes of color!!!)ft.T4T autistic4autistic Damimaps

Black biracial natural redhead Babs who's found siblings with Dick from the get-go and keeps trying to deny her feelings for Dinah not out of internalized lesbophobia but out of emotional constipation and refusal to let her win after all the shameless deliberately embarrasingly flirting she put her through

Bear Jason,midsized Duke and Tim,dad bod Dick,scrawny flatchested narrow-hipped Babs,stocky Damian,boft(buff but soft)Cass

Batgyal Tam given the mantle by Luke post-waking up from her comma and joining the Rhato lineup as an Honorary Outlaw

I just love the Batfam so much,okay?But DC clearly dosen't so they're mine now

[lostinlovingrevery]

Can you write an insecure!reader who has stutters or nervous tics or anything that prevents her from talking easily so she just rathers to keep quiet because it kind of embarrases her, even with her boyfriend Logan

It can be any Logan you picture!! Be free with the idea too

Glossophobia

Trilogy! Logan X F! Reader

You prefer to stay quiet, keep to yourself, and do your work, but you're asked to do something that fills you with anxiety, and Logan talks it out with you

A/N: I'm sorry this took me so long! I really wanted to write this properly. I had to take speech therapy when I was a kid (had a LOT of trouble with my S, C, and Th sounds), not to mention I would get tons of anxiety speaking to groups of people or people I didn't know. It hits a lil close to home. Hope you enjoy! Also Idk why trilogy Logan called out to me for this one...

Warnings: Sort of a subplot included, reader is a scientist apart of X-men, a bit of angst, reader gets frustrated, anxiety, a small moment of comparison to others, Logan being a sweetheart and supportive, Charles jumpscares reader (there's no way Charles randomly popping in your head wouldn't scare the shit out of you), open ending

“Can you explain these results to me?” 

You looked up from the microscope, examining the broken down elements of a particular Rice Krispie cereal, the cereal box sitting nearby- the cartoon character on it seemingly staring at you in a mocking manner. Hank stood there with a stack papers in hand, looking at you questioningly past his glasses.

You took a deep breath, pushing yourself from the table, you reached your hand out for the papers, taking them gently from his hand. A deep sigh as you glanced over the papers, words forming in your head in what to say- how to explain it. You understood it completely, you wrote the paper.

Just, talking about it went a little differently. 

You let out a breath, “Okay…” You paused, as you read the results again. Hank waited patiently. Then you dropped the papers in your lap and you looked up at Hank with a raised eyebrow. “There's no way that you don’t understand this, Hank.” You point at him. “You are a doctor after all” You say. 

“I just want to hear your interpretation, not the science. I don’t quite understand the section regarding biological functions. That is your specialty you know…”

You looked up at him, with a displeased expression, before taking the papers back in your hand, flipping through to find the section Hank is talking about. “Okay.” you reread them for the third time. “Um, S..s..so, this is basically just an explanation about how drugs affect the system.” You begin. 

“Right.” Hank nods, he turns grabbing a chair nearby, and pulls it up to sit next to you. “You write about how it binds to DNA cells, which then affect the hormone cycle.”

You nodded. 

“How?” Hank asks, a small shake of his head indicating he didn’t understand. 

“It’s…It’s the same way alcohol affects hormones.” You explain. “It…affects the um, the levels of testosterone, in a man’s body. The oestrogen, in a woman’s. Except with this- it doesn’t reduce the fertility. It c-c-lings to the spermatozoa or ovum of the individual, and…” You pause to take a breath, sitting straighter in your chair. Hank was staring at you, listening intently. While you appreciate the fact that he wanted to hear your explanation….

All the research is. Right. There!

“It attacks the cells that uh, have the potential to include or actually, form a mutation.”

“Fascinating and terrible.” Hank shook his head. “This is an amazing discovery on your part dear.” 

“I wish it was for something better.” You force a smile to him, as you look back down at the papers. “Is that all you want to know?”

“Actually-” Hank sat up, leaning over to the papers as he began to point at various sections, he began to talk about different points in your paper, asking for clarification as you stare at him with silent dread. 

After that grueling conversation, you were finally left alone in your lab. Thankfully. 

It wasn’t that you didn’t enjoy talking to Hank, you were both like-minded people, who enjoyed hardcore science, and drama-ridden soap operas. You just weren’t a talker, which is why you preferred pursuing research over medicine. 

With research, you’re sitting in a quiet room, focused on your own tasks, and writing your notes to type up a paper later. Occasionally quiet small talk over the water cooler, a little;

“How's your day?”

“Fine, yours?” 

A goodbye and back to work. 

Hank pushed you to explain and explain. Which was fine, totally fine, at least he wanted to make sure he understood everything before he brought the papers up to Congress, your papers, evidence, and commentary of the genetically modified food you have discovered. You rather not have your research being mistaken, especially since it was dire that things change, and fast.

It’s just the more you talked, the more you paused, the more you stuttered, the more you misused a word, or went “um” for the 4th time in a sentence; and the more anxious you got as you began to wonder if Hank was getting annoyed. Not once did his expression change as he listened to you attempt to explain your research in more casual wording, patience was always a virtue of Hanks. 

It still left you overthinking.

You attempted to go back to your work, resting in the silence that filled the room. Your nerves settled as you forced yourself to ignore your anxiety over the conversation with Hank. Just as you were getting ready to peer back into the microscope, to finish taking your notes on the most recent discovery of yet another popular food, genetically modified to attack mutant cells. 

It’s too bad, this type of cereal were yours and Marie's favorite and now you can’t be bothered to eat them. It makes you cringe to even have to buy the damn things just so you can confirm that yes, this major brand is also poisoning mutants and damning your futures. 

What a bunch of dicks

Just as you placed your eyes over the ocular lens of the microscope, Charles voice appeared in your head- scaring the hell out of you and making you jump. 

“Jesus!” You yelped, jumping out of your chair and tipping over the box of the cereal. You heard Charles apologize sympathetically for startling you, then requesting you to come to his study. 

You sighed, standing there as you watched the cereal pour out onto the floor, creating a mess. You watched the grains form a small pile, a conceding expression on your face as your shoulders slump. 

Deciding to clean it up later, you left the lab to go to Charles study, and find out what he needs you for. 

“I think you should present this research.” 

Your face fell at Charles words. “Ex..Excuse me?” You ask, your blood running cold at the sound of presenting. You let out a small nervous laugh. “No…No way.” You shook your head. 

Charles smiled sympathetically, “Now I know you don’t like doing it, but you’re the one who discovered this. You deserve the credit.” 

“That’s why my name is on the p-p-paper!” You exclaimed. “Besides no one, is-is going to want to listen to me.” 

“Now that’s not true.” Charles says, straightening his shoulders, clasping his hands together on top his desk. 

“There’s no reason for me to present!” You hands flew out. “Hank- can do it just fine. I…cannot do it Professor. You know I hate t-talking a lot, much less in front of people.” You attempt to keep your voice steady, not allowing much emotion to fall through but you were unfortunately failing terribly. 

Not that it mattered anyway, Charles could easily read your mind and see how you felt about it. You enjoyed the telepathy Charles and Jean both had, which allowed you to not always have to talk out loud with them. Nonetheless it become a tad bit awkward eventually when Jean and you are in a lab together in complete silence, and she randomly blurts out responses to things you were thinking about. 

“Think about it.” Charles says gently, and you purse your lips together, and force yourself to nod. 

You knew Charles had good intentions. He was always trying to get you out of your shell, especially ever since you came here. You just can’t do it. It’s hard enough on your own, talking to people you considered family. You found yourself embarrassed at your own voice most of the time, preferring to just stay quiet. Talking in front of strangers? Congress?

Absolutely. Not.

You were now at your desk, your chin resting on your clasped hands; staring down at your papers with a frown. You weren’t reading the papers, you weren’t even seeing the papers. Looking past them, as you obsessed over the conversation with Hank, and Charles earlier in the morning. 

Why can’t you just do it? 

You hadn’t noticed Logan slipping inside. A big goofy smile on his face as he walks up to your desk, slowly fading as he notices the intense look in your expression, the way you were glaring down at your papers. He recognized the grumpy look, the look that tells him you were having a bad day - and was gonna need some TLC. 

He came up from your side, standing behind your chair as he leaned over you, a hand pressing to your desk to brace himself. 

You still hadn’t noticed his looming figure yet, until your eyes just happened to flip over to his hand, in which you lifted your head up in confusion, before turning to look up, scanning the familiar and muscular arm, and landing on Logan's face. He quirked a brow, a small smile spread across it, as he leaned down to press a soft greeting kiss to your lips. 

You returned it, eventually melting into it as a smile formed on your face. He parted from you, a loud smooch echoed in the room. 

“What’s it take for a guy to get noticed by ya, huh bub?” He teases. 

“Sorry...” You mutter bashfully looking away. He moved to lean against your desk, crossing his arms. 

“Still working?”

“Uh, no.” You shook your head, not looking up at him. 

“You were glaring at these papers pretty hard like they said something to offend you.” 

You fiddled with some of the papers, not saying anything. He observed your body language, the way you were closed in on yourself, avoiding looking at him, and not speaking much. Meant that you were having a really bad day.

“Hey.” His voice low, as his hand reaches over to tip your chin up at him. His brows creased together in focus, but his expression was lighthearted. “You okay?”

“M’fine.” You mutter. 

“Something happen?” 

Your eyes finally reached his. You waited a moment, “Lo?” 

“Hm?”

“Does…Do how I t-talk..Bother you?” 

He blinks, his chin tipping back a bit, as if he were baffled by your question. Then he tilts his head, brows creasing as he examines you. “How you talk?” He shook his head, “What do you mean?” 

You sigh looking down, removing yourself from his hand. Chewing on your lip, you began to pick at your nails - already thinned down from your encounters this morning. “You know what…I mean.” You glance back up at him. “I s-s- stutter, a lot. I can never just…Say what I want to say.” 

His brows creased, he tilted his head, examining your face. “I….Don’t get it. I mean, is there stuff you want to say?” 

“No I mean- When I talk, I…. have trouble getting it out and I start to s.s..stutter- Like that!” Your hands went in the air in frustration. 

“Woah, woah, settle down.” His hands went to your arms. “I don’t notice it, and I don’t think anyone else does, and if they do, who gives a shit?” 

You sigh in frustration, a little embarrassment overcoming you. You never really talked about this with Logan before, only mentioning in passing during the timing of your friendship. When you got together, you really couldn’t bring yourself to talk about it to him. You were afraid of pointing it out, that he would notice it more if you did. Maybe he would get sick of it. Especially when the other ladies here, like Ororo, or Jean, seems to speak perfectly clear with no hesitation in their words. 

You didn’t want the way you spoke noticed, or to be compared in anyway to your peers. So you simply chose not speaking much. When asked for your opinions, inputs, etc, you simply opted for the easy answer, or simply redirecting the conversation to someone else.

Your conversation with Charles put you on edge though. On one hand, you don’t want to turn him down. You knew he meant well and has high hopes for you but that merely filled you with more anxiety that if you really went up on that podium and spoke in front of congress- representing X-men and mutants alike, you were going to be an embarrassment. You certainly held a passion for this research, and want to contribute to protecting your fellow mutants, but this…

“Hey-” Logans voice cut through your thoughts again. “What is it?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Stop that.” He says firmly, then moving to kneel in front of you, his hands on your knees. “We talked about this before.” He says, referring to your conversations from the past, about opening up to each other more. You weren’t the only one who didn’t like to talk much, yet Logan’s “talking” was more about his feelings, rather than physical speaking. You let out a small sigh.

“The way I t-talk. It’s like I…swallow my words. It doesn’t annoy you?”

“Of course not.” Logan says. “Did I…Ever act like it did?”

You shook your head, and a small bit of relief came across his face. “So what’s this about bub?”

“Charles…Asked me to p-p-present my findings to Congress, instead of Hank.” You look down at where your hands were on your lap, Logans hands resting over yours. “I…don’t want to.” 

“Then don’t.” Logan replies with a small shrug. 

“But Charles-” 

“You don’t gotta do a damn thing just cause Chuck asked you to.” He says with a shake of his head. “If you want to do it, do it, if you don’t want to, don’t. You don’t need to prove anything.”

“It’s just with this…This..The way I talk…” You forced yourself to look up at him. “I, I’m c-c-constantly wondering when people are going to snap at me.”

“Fuck em.” 

You blinked in surprise, and a small laugh escaped you. “Lo!” 

“I’m serious.” He raised a brow, his expression and tone evident that he was indeed serious. “Someone’s gonna be a dick, fuck em. Tell em that to their face. In fact I’ll do it for you. Don’t need to waste your time on someone like that.” 

You giggled, shaking your head and closing your eyes as you tipped your chin downwards. A faint smile appeared on Logans lips as he watched you. You opened your eyes and looked back up at him, and for a moment he felt his breath taken away. His hands squeezed yours, as he leaned up to capture your lips in a soft but urgent kiss. Parting from you, he rested his forehead against yours, your noses bumping into each other. 

“You sure it…doesn’t bother you?” You ask softly. 

“It’s you baby. Everything about you.” He replies, “There ain’t a single thing I don’t like about you. Don’t hide yourself from me. Got it?” 

You let out a small hum and nodded. 

“So…About this presentation Chuck wants ya to do…” He leans back a bit. “What worries you?”

“Making a fool of myself.” You mutter softly, as you felt a heat in your cheeks from admitting it. 

“You?” Logan raised a brow. “The only people making themselves out to be fools is the assholes who created the whole…food…thing.” He waved his hand in annoyance. “..and everyone with those damn suits but that’s another story.” 

You laughed. “You’d look g-great in that.” 

He rolled his eyes. “Focus.” He says in a warning tone, before pausing and winking at you. “Look, if you really don’t want to do it. Don’t. You don’t need to. Beastie will be fine. Just, don’t do it just because you’re worried about others judging you.” He reaches out, brushing some of your hair back. “Guarantee you’re 10 times smarter than all the assholes in Congress anyway. Don’t let others scare you from being yourself, and speaking up for yourself. Got it?” he adjusted himself on his knee. “Whatever you do, wherever you go, I got your back.”

Just when you thought you couldn’t love the man more. 

You bit your lip, and nodded. A genuine smile came across his face. He brought your hand up to his lips, kissing the back of it, and then the other. 

“So, what are you going to do?” He asks looking up at you with a raised eyebrow.

[jayflrt]

𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐑'𝐒 𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐁𝐔𝐂𝐊𝐒 28. 12th date’s the charm

YOU COULDN’T STAY CALM.

You were waiting for Saw X’s stupid post-credit scene to wrap up while your foot was tapping against the carpet floor anxiously. After you slipped up in the group chat, calling Heeseung your boyfriend, you could only wait and face the consequences after the movie. It was clear it was weighing on the others’ minds; you could see the corner of Sunoo’s mouth fighting to stay down, and although Sunghoon and Jungwon were high, you noticed them stealing a glance and playfully nudging each other.

But it was Heeseung you were the most concerned about.

His reaction was the most important one to you and, as if the world hated you, his reaction was the only one you couldn’t read. He sat completely still, staring ahead at the theater screen with his lips pressed together. 

The screen went dark and the end-credits started rolling. Now, you had to deal with the aftermath of your text. It was one thing to let the word out loud, but over text? If you were able to unsend that message without anyone reading it before it went through, you would’ve. 

Then, a horrifying realization struck you. 

After you and Heeseung parted ways with Sunghoon, Jungwon, and Sunoo, you two would have to sit in a car together. Alone. 

You felt your heart drop to your stomach. 

It was clear that Heeseung had feelings for you. He was the one pining after you from the beginning, after all—having the entire workplace be aware of his (initially delusional) crush on you. 

For some reason, though, you were still restless. 

“I think I would just let my life end if John Kramer put me in one of those traps,” Sunoo blurted out as soon as your group exited the theater. You and Heeseung were finishing the last of your popcorn behind him.

“I’d survive it,” Sunghoon said. “I’m built different.”

Heeseung nudged you with his elbow, taking you by surprise. “Did you like the movie?”

You scrunched up your nose. “I don’t usually like gore, but I liked the story before they all started dying.”

Everyone turned their attention to Jungwon, who was strangely quiet. The guy was fiddling with the sleeves of his sweater, eyes cast down to the floor. 

Sunoo asked, “You good?”

“He’s gonna get me,” Jungwon mumbled. 

“Oh my god.” Sunghoon groaned. “For the last time, Jungwon, John Kramer’s a fictional character.” 

“He’s real in my head.”

Heeseung let out a snicker. For every single date following your first failed one, Heeseung swore to stay completely sober so that his high wouldn’t interfere with your dates. You thought it was cute that he committed to it for you, but part of you also wanted to take care of him for once. 

“Yeah, get this guy home. He’s gone,” Heeseung said, patting Jungwon’s back firmly. “Hoon, you’ve gotta stop spiking him.”

Sunghoon frowned. “Why do you think I spiked him?”

“Motherfucker,” Jungwon spoke up, raising his head with a sudden fire in his eyes, “I wouldn’t be this high right now if you didn’t leave your stupid cannabis-infused pretzels out on your table.”

“You also wouldn’t be this high if you didn’t steal my pretzels, so I don’t get why you’re complaining.”

“Didn’t he also accidentally drink your cannabis-infused coffee the other week?” Sunoo recalled, grimacing as he remembered Jungwon walking into Starbucks and attempting to order a cheese burger.

“Before that was the cannabis-infused Rice Krispy,” Heeseung mentioned. 

“You’ve seriously gotta stop trusting whatever’s in Hoon’s fridge,” you told him, “or just anything that’s remotely edible around him.”

After some more commentary on the movie was shared, Heeseung made up some excuse about needing to get you home before it got too dark. The two of you had gone on dates that lasted well into the night, so your heart fluttered pathetically at the thought of him wanting to be alone with you. 

You said your goodbyes to the three boys, reminding them to get home safe, and you and Heeseung parted ways with the group. It was cool outside, but you felt like your entire body was hot and buzzing as you remembered that being alone with Heeseung meant that he could potentially interrogate you about your accidental ‘boyfriend’ text. 

He did nothing of the sort on the walk to his car. You and him cracked jokes about John Kramer all the way to the parking garage, and you started to feel the tightness in your chest unravel slowly. 

That was, until you reached Heeseung’s car. 

Instead of unlocking the doors, Heeseung’s hands slid into the pockets of his gray sweatpants as he leaned against the exterior of the car—right in front of the passenger door. You blinked at him, wondering if he was going to move, but he just held direct eye contact with you as the corner of his lip curled in amusement. 

He cut straight to the point, saying, “So, your text…” 

“My typo,” you corrected with an awkward grin. 

He hummed. “No, you clearly typed ‘my boyfriend’ in the group chat.” 

Your heart was racing. You could feel your pulse in your neck, your arms—every body part that was buzzing uncontrollably. This wasn’t how you wanted to confess to him. Not in a damn group chat, at least. 

“Well, you’re not my boyfriend yet. You’re gonna be my passenger princess if you don’t hurry up and get in the car,” you started rambling faster than you could think, words spilling out before you were even able to properly filter your thoughts. “I’m gonna drive us home, then.”

As soon as you turned to walk around to the other side of his car, Heeseung reached forward to grab your wrist. With a firm tug, he had you stumbling right into his chest. 

And, oh, you never realized just how big he was. 

“H-hey,” you stuttered out, looking up to catch the smirk playing on his lips. “You’re not playing fair.”

“We never decided on any rules.”

Then, your back was pressed against the frame of the car, the cool metal chilling your flushed skin. You swallowed hard as Heeseung towered over you, his hands gripping your waist to hold you in place. Your heart was beating erratically at this point, but you didn’t want to budge and let him win just yet. 

Heeseung dropped his head so that his lips were by your ear. You swore he could pick up on the way your breathing hitched because of his low chuckle. 

“Come on.” His voice was silky and velvet as he murmured against the shell of your ear. “Just let me ask you out already.” 

Although his words were irresistibly tempting, you were firm when you said, “No. I need to be the one to ask you out, and I didn’t wanna do it like this.” Your hand moved up to play with the loose strands of his hair at his neck. “Just wait a tiny bit longer for me. Please?” 

Heeseung sighed, but you could hear the smile in his voice. “Well, I couldn’t ever say no to you, anyway.” 

He pulled back to look down at you, still keeping his hands firm on your waist. 

You held up your hand, making a pinching gesture with your pointer and thumb finger. “Just a little longer.”

“Mmhm,” he agreed. “Can I kiss you, though?”

Your face burned with the heat of a thousand suns. “K-kiss?” 

“Like”—he poked your cheek—“right here.”

“Oh.” Still blushing furiously, you beamed and turned your cheek for him. “Go ahead, sir.”

With a soft giggle bubbling from his lips, Heeseung cupped your jaw gently so that he could press a chaste kiss to your cheek. He was dangerously close to your lips, and you knew that he intended on teasing you as much as possible.

Afterward, he pulled away and fished his keys out of his pockets. “I plan on kissing you for real once we’re dating, though.”

With that, he unlocked the car for you and walked over to the driver’s side. You had to catch your breath to regain your composure before you were able to get into the passenger’s seat. 

On the way home, all you could think about were how pretty the stars were and how much prettier Heeseung was. 

And, man, you really, really liked him.

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SUMMARY ▸ in which you work at the starbucks where heeseung is a regular at (and considered a public enemy). also he only goes when he’s stoned off his ass.