#i will forever be bringing this group to the house of grief after seeing their post about it

[elleaitch22]

Love on Fire

Chapter 7: Peanut, Forever Carried in Love

Pairing: Paige Bueckers x Azzi Fudd

A/N: This was so hard to write omg. I think it is a mix of sleep deprivation, the gravity of the content, and the hope that I can honor those who have experienced miscarriage. I hope you love it! xx Elle

Warnings: Pregnancy loss, grief, medical discussion, therapy,

Word Count: 4.1k words

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When Paige and Azzi finally left the hospital the next morning, Paige didn’t take them home. Her parents were kind enough to rent them an AirBnB for the next week. They didn’t want Azzi to have to come back to the place she’d lost her baby so soon.

“Where are we going?” Azzi questioned quietly after thirty minutes.

“Dad and Katie set up a house in Phili so you can relax.” Paige said, squeezing her thigh. “I already let Carol and Sarah know. They said you can’t come back until the 17th.”

Paige was expecting her to say something about not being able to stay away from her bakery for two weeks, and when she didn’t say anything, she got a little more concerned.

She was going to do everything she could to help Azzi get back to her normal, happy self.

Azzi didn’t say anything for the rest of the drive, just sat back and watched the trees blur until she fell asleep.

The reservation was a small cottage on the outskirts of the city. The sleepy little neighborhood looked like something out of a Hallmark movie; orange leaves dusted the sidewalks and fall décor graced porches. It was the kind of place she could see Azzi raising a baby.

Paige turned the car off and looked next to her. Azzi was deep in sleep, tension wasn’t present on her face for the first time in days, and the blonde said a silent prayer, thanking God that she could get a reprieve in her slumber.

God, she is so beautiful, Paige thought. Blue eyes traced the gentle roundness of her nose, the fullness of her cheeks, and the perfect pout on her lips. Azzi Jazlyn Fudd was proof that God existed.

She let herself look for a few more seconds before sliding her phone into her pocket and getting out of her truck. She went to unlock the front door and wasted no time looking around the rental. She just left the door cracked a little before heading back to her car.

She opened the passenger door, slowly to make sure Azzi wasn’t distrubed. With a soft click, she was able to free the woman from the seatbelt. One arm went around her back. She pulled gently until Azzi’s face met the space between her neck and shoulder. Her free arm went under her knees, and she slowly pulled her out. She took slow, gentle steps, making sure she didn’t jostle Azzi’s body too much. After she laid her best friend on the couch, she released a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.

Paige walked around the house until she found a small reading nook that looked comfortable enough for her to curl up on and catch back up with life.

She pulled her phone out and went to her messages. Her notifications were flooded.

Support Staff (Unpaid)

Paige 💜: made it. thanks again!

Katie 🌻🥧: Of course, baby!

Katie 🌻🥧: There’s a delivery with clothes, toiletries, and groceries. It should be there in an hour.

Pops 🛠️🏡: Katie and Tim came over today. Do you want us to tell them?

Paige 💜: would have to talk to her first

Paige 💜: she’s sleep. not gonna bother her. will lyk tmrw

Pops 🛠️🏡: Drew and Mari?

Paige 💜: they’re fine. just tell them not to tell jose or jon til i talk w her

Katie 🌻🥧: Will do! We’re thinking of you always. Call if you need anything!

She closed out of her the group chat with her parents and switched to the one with Caroline.

Carol ✨: just checking in. miss our girl

Paigey 🤪: made it to res. will keep you posted

Then, it was on to the chat with the most unread messages. She sighed deeply, not even wanting to talk to them right now.

Station 22

She skimmed through some of the tread, but she didn’t catch most of the messages.

Flau 🎧🎤: Ayo P! U missed my best mix so far! U better bring ur ass tm!

SGA 👟: I’m winning the pushup contest. Who want second place 👀

Cam 📸🧁: Paige, can you ask Azzi if she will make some strawberry cupcakes for the next shift?

Her hands shook as she typed out her message, still not wanting to believe what happened to Peanut.

PB 🧑🏼‍🚒: azzi was ten weeks pregnant and had a miscarriage. i’m out for a week. no treats until she feels better.

DT 🧯🍷: Take as much time as you need, Paige.

Curry 👨🏽‍🍳🙏🏼: Let Azzi know we are praying for. Do what you gotta do.

Stewie 🧠👀: so sorry, p. we’ll be here when u get back

Cam 📸🧁: Tell Azzi Ray I love her! Call me if you need anything, P!

Ant 🐜💥: Damn

Phee 📝💪🏽: That’s so rough, Paige. Hoping for healing and peace.

Kea 💅🏽👑: sending healing and baby dust her way!

J 💯🧸🏁: fuck bro. so sorry

Finally, there was no one else who needed to know. Well, outside of the Fudd’s, but she wasn’t sure when Azzi would feel comfortable telling them.

She switched over to enter the tracking number for Azzi’s birthday present. Yesterday when Azzi was curled into Paige, she was able to find something she hoped would be a good birthday present for Azzi, and it was set to get here the day before her big day.

Even though it was something small, Paige wanted to bring her a little comfort, a little extra love until she felt okay again.

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Azzi woke slowly. She looked at the wood beams stretched over her head.

She was not at home.

For a second – just a second – Azzi forgot.

She forgot Peanut wasn’t growing anymore.

She forgot Peanut wasn’t in her anymore.

She forgot that she felt empty.

But then she sat up.

She sat up and liquid rushed out of her.

Her breath hitched as all the memories replayed in her brain.

The cramps. The blood. Paige. The shower. The hospital. Olivia. Paige. Bob and Katie. Paige again. Socks. Paige again. A mask. Paige again. Sleeping. Leaving the hospital. Paige again. Sleeping.

Paige was always there. Where was she now?

“Paige?” She called, voice raspy from lack of use.

The blonde came in quickly, body trying not to show how panicked she really felt. But Azzi knew her body language, her facial expressions. Azzi knew Paige better than she knew anybody.

“Hey Az. You have a good nap?” She asked gently.

Dark brows furrowed and brown eyes traced the wood grain on the floor. “When I woke up, I forgot. Everything was normal. Peanut was fine. But then I remembered.” Her breath hitched. “I feel like something’s missing, Paige.”

Paige moved towards the sofa at the crack in her voice. Her hands came up to gently cup her face, “Someone is missing, Azzi. You’re allowed to miss Peanut because they are supposed to be here.”

“I just don’t know what to do now.” She muttered, eyes glossy.

Paige’s tone was soft, but firm. “You feel whatever you’re feeling. You don’t owe anyone anything, and there’s not a handbook to teach you what to do when you lose a child, Azzi. You’re safe here. You’re safe with me, and you can let yourself break if you want.”

Azzi’s chin wobbled as she nodded. Silent tears flowed from her eyes, and Paige pulled her into her chest. And then the sobs started.

And just like she said, Azzi was safe to break down.

Paige held her through it all, pressing kisses and words into her skin.

“Let it out, Azzi.”

“I’m right here.”

“You’re the strongest person I know, Azzi Fudd.”

“You are not alone.”

“I love you, Princess.”

When the tears had subsided, Azzi laid sprawled out on top of Paige.

“I feel dirty almost.” She whispered. “Or like my body’s broken.” She paused.

Paige didn’t rush her to speak, just ran her hand up and down her spine.

“I don’t know what I’m saying or what I mean. It’s just…it’s just this feeling.” She finished.

The living room was silent for a while.

“Do you wanna take a warm shower?” Paige offered. “I can wash your hair if you want. Detangle it and everything.”

It got a small smile from the brunette, so Paige counted it as a win.

They stepped into the shower together, tension melting from their shoulders as the hot water ran over their shoulders.

Paige got to work quickly, tilting the curly hairs into the stream of warm water.

She was gentle as she worked shampoo into the strands. She was intentional about scrubbing Azzi’s scalp, but she was the opposite of rough. She sectioned the curls into four sections, working conditioner into each strand.

While the conditioner sat, Paige grabbed a cloth and got to work. She washed every inch of skin like she was cleaning the most important person in the world – well, Azzi was the most important person in Paige’s world.

She rinsed her hair and body before the water cooled. She wrapped her hair in a t-shirt, wiped the water from her body, and helped her get dressed. Azzi sat on the bed, leaning against Paige’s legs as she gently detangled her hair.

“You’re the best person I know, Paige Madison.”

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The rest of the week followed a pattern.

They woke up and went on a walk before eating breakfast at a little café down the street. Paige pressed a heating pad into Azzi’s belly while she read on the couch. They cooked lunch together because Azzi didn’t trust Paige not to set the house on fire. The blonde was on clean up duty while Azzi slept. They lounged around until dinner before going to bed and doing the same thing the next day.

Paige didn’t say anything when tears fell on Azzi’s waffles.

Azzi didn’t ask why Paige had been crying when her blue eyes were rimmed with red.

Paige didn’t hesitate to throw the peanut butter out when Azzi’s eyes got wet after she saw it.

They talked about Peanut a lot.

About if Peanut was a boy or a girl. What sport they would have played. If they were going to be a teacher’s pet or the class clown. What Peanut’s future should have been.

Azzi talked about Peanut, and Paige was thankful for that. “I feel like I may have done something. And I know Liv said that I probably didn’t, but nobody knows that for sure.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Az. We’ll get the results when we go back to the doctor next week.” Paige would reply.

“Do you really think I’ll have my own baby some day?” Azzi would whisper at night, right before they went to sleep.

“Even if I have to carry the baby myself,” Paige was always half-asleep when she answered, but they both knew she was telling the truth.

The blonde was always gentle. In the showers they took together. In the gentle way she brushed her hair. In the way she wedged a heating pad in between their torsos when Azzi’s cramps returned. In the way she told Azzi that she was enough. In the space she left for Azzi to break whenever she needed.

Azzi was so in love with her.

They spoke with Bob, Katie, or both of Paige’s parents once every day they were away. Katie helped Azzi process loss and was a listening ear when Paige needed to voice her complicated feelings without making Azzi feel guilty.

Azzi sent Caroline, KK, Ice, and Sarah a check-in text every day.

But both avoided calls from Azzi’s family until her birthday.

Azzi was standing behind Paige in the kitchen, observing as the blonde added lemon zest into the mixture for shrimp scampi. “Love Language” by SZA was cut off by Siri’s voice.

“Call from Katie Fudd.”

Azzi sighed deeply, looking at the ceiling. Before Paige could decline the call, the brunette pressed the green button.

“Hello?” She answered.

There was a brief pause. “Azzi?” Her mom’s voice came through the device.

“Azzi, where are you? You turned your location off.” Tim called.

“I’m in Phili with P.” She replied casually.

Paige’s head cocked to the side, almost like she was asking her why she was doing this.

“We were just calling to see if you were okay.” Her mom hesitated. “When do you want to do your birthday celebration?”

Azzi chuckled dryly. “I’m not celebrating with you.” She swallowed, getting frustrated. “And no, I’m not okay. My baby is dead.” She gritted out.

The line went silent. Even Paige was frozen in place.

“Azzi…” Her dad started, shock evident in his voice. “You were pregnant?”

She dropped the phone to the counter, not even caring anymore. “I was. And my baby died a week ago. I’m sure that makes you real happy. At least my baby won’t grow up without a father!”

Azzi was furious. She didn’t let her parents get a word out before she ranted.

“My baby died before I could ever hold it. And you weren’t there, but you know who was? Paige. Paige rushed home. She bathed me and took me to the hospital. She held my hand the entire time, even when they put me out, she was right there. She held me while a sobbed in the bed.” She breathed.

“I needed you there. I needed my parents, but you guys were nowhere to be found. Just angry that I was thinking about having a baby without having a husband!” She didn’t care how her words landed, but she needed someone to feel the same pain she did. Someone else needed to know the pain of losing a child. Someone who wasn’t her – wasn’t Paige.

“But you know who did show up? Bob and Katie.” She heard her parents gasp into the phone, but she didn’t give a fuck. “Yeah, Bob and Katie were at the hospital as soon as P told them. They brought Paige food. They came in and talked with me. They rented us a house in Phili so I could heal in a different space.”

Paige felt a small sense of pride knowing her family was taking such good care of her girl Azzi.

“They cared for me when you didn’t. So no. I don’t want to spend time with you for my birthday.”

She hung up the phone and leaned over the countertop, breath rapid and uneven.

“I’m proud of you, Azzi.” Paige said, wrapping her into a hug. “You did a good job standing up for yourself – for Peanut.”

She walked the duo over to the couch.

“I know we leave tomorrow, but it’s your birthday, so I couldn’t leave before giving you this.” She pulled out a shiny pink gift bag. “Happy birthday, Azzi. I hope you love it.” She finished with a whisper.

There were three black boxes in the bag. Azzi chose the skinniest, longest of the boxes.

“You got me a chain?” She giggled. Paige had never gotten her a chain before, but there’s a first time for everything.

The blonde chuckled. “Open the rest, I promise it’ll make sense!”

The next box had two bluish-green studs. The color of the earrings would complement her skin nicely.

The last box contained a ring. It was simple, but absolutely stunning. It features the same color stones as the earrings.

“It’s a promise ring.” Paige blurted. “When you started IUI, I promised you that you’d have a baby. And this week, I’ve been promising you that you will get to hold your own baby.” She continued.

“So, this ring is a promise. A promise that I will never give up on you. You will have that baby to hold.” She took the box with the ring in it. “This is alexandrite. It’s one of the birth stones for June.”

Azzi’s breath hitched and her eyes filled with tears. “For Peanut?” She gave a watery smile.

“For Peanut,” Paige nodded, taking the ring out of the box to show her the inscription.

Peanut, forever carried in love · 06.12.26

Tears streamed down her face, but Azzi was still smiling. “You’re the best person I know, Paige Bueckers.”

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The next weeks pass in a blur.

Azzi was still off the week after they got back from Philadelphia. Paige was with for the majority of the days, but she went back to the station twice that week. And each time, they sent home enough food to last until her next shift. When Paige was working, her stepmom was at her house with Azzi.

They weren’t worried about her, but they didn’t want her to have to struggle alone. And it was a good thing that Katie had been so involved because she persuaded Azzi to see a therapist.

They met on Zoom once a week. Colleen helped her process her feelings. The relief she felt once Liv called with the results. The anger she felt at whatever genetic mutation killed her baby. The anxiety she felt about being pregnant ever again. The anguish she felt thinking about different milestones with every passing week.

But her sessions were working. By week three, Azzi was baking again. Even though it was for work, not fun, she was able to push past her grief to do her job.

The real testament was during the first week of December, the fifth week since losing Peanut. Paige walked into the kitchen after a nap to discover Azzi cooking dinner at the stove.

She stood in the doorway and watched the woman she loved move around her kitchen like it was hers. Paige honestly had half a mind to tell her she was in love with her right then. Azzi was magic in the kitchen. She didn’t pick seasonings before she started. She didn’t measure anything. She didn’t even set a timer for the chicken to cook. She just moved off of sheer instinct, and Azzi already knew it would be one of the best things she’d ever made.

“Whatcha making, Az?” She pushed off the door jamb.

Azzi didn’t even look back, but Paige could hear the smile in her voice. “It’s supposed to snow tonight, so I made a soup.” She answered casually.

“Azzi, what kind of soup?” Paige whined, still a little tired after back to back shifts.

The brunette giggled. “Sausage tortellini soup.”

Paige dropped to her knees in the kitchen. “Marry me. Please. Right now.”

The light giggles turned into a cackle. “Get up, Paige. You’re so dramatic.”

“You love me this way. Or else you wouldn’t have made my favorite soup!” Paige huffed.

Azzi didn’t say anything for a bit. Her smile was small, like her own little secret. “Yeah, P. I love you exactly the way you are.”

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Azzi sat crisscross applesauce on the beanbag in Paige’s gaming room. She toyed with one of the strings on a hoodie much too big for her. The silence between the two was much longer than usual.

“Azzi, did you hear my question, or are you ignoring me?” Colleen asked, voice firm.

The curly-haired girl tossed her head back. “I like staying at Paige’s. I don’t have to be alone. She takes care of me. And she doesn’t expect me to be anything when I’m with her.”

“That’s good, Azzi. But do you think it’s sustainable to live in your best friend’s house for the foreseeable future?” Colleen was trying to get Azzi to move back into her own home, but Azzi wasn’t interested in doing that. At all.

“If Paige doesn’t mind, why should I?” Azzi shrugged.

Colleen sighed. “Why do you want to live with Paige instead of go back home?” She questioned. “Is it because of your feelings for her or something else.”

Azzi huffed, crossing her arms. “I should have never told you about my feelings for her.”

The therapist looked to the side before making eye contact with Azzi again. “With everything you say about her, I would’ve been able to figure this out in two sessions.” She smirked. “Now, tell me why you want to stay with Paige.”

The brunette was quiet for a beat. “I don’t want to be in the house where my baby died.” She whispered, fiddling with her Peanut ring.

“That’s more than understandable, Azzi.” Colleen said softly. “You’re allowed to do everything at your own pace. I just think it’s important to know why you’re doing what you’re doing.” She explained.

Azzi nodded, winding the hoodie string tight around her finger. “What if I want to try again? Try to have a baby? Does that make me crazy? Or would that mean I’m –” She paused, looking for the right word. “Disregarding Peanut?”

Colleen’s brows furrowed, but not in concern or disappointment. “Not at all, Azzi. You can try again whenever you’re ready. Having another baby doesn’t take away the love you have for your own.” She smiled. “The best part about a mother’s love is that it increases with every child she has. You’ll never run out.”

“It’s weird,” Azzi finally said. “I thought losing Peanut would make me never want to do this again.”

Colleen nodded, her expression calm and open. “And has it?”

Azzi swallowed. “No. I mean — yes. I was sure I couldn’t do it again. But I keep having these dreams with more a few kids. And now I’m thinking about them more. What they'd look like. How they’d laugh.”

“You’re still picturing the future,” Colleen said softly.

Azzi nodded, voice low. “But I’m scared. I’m scared of doing everything right and it still going wrong. I’m scared I’m not strong enough to do this again. I’m scared if I say yes to trying again and I get pregnant and I have another miscarriage, I’ll break into pieces I can’t fix.”

There was a long pause. Colleen smiled again. “Azzi, I want you to hear me when I say this. Wanting again isn’t weakness, it’s brave.”

Azzi blinked. Her eyes didn’t tear up, but something caught in her chest. “It doesn’t feel brave.”

“It rarely does,” the therapist said. “Sometimes bravery just looks like choosing to keep hoping. Even with shaky hands.”

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The walls of Liv’s office were much more encouraging and welcoming than Dr. Caldwell’s. Instead of only having a grid of brochures, there was a wall of family portraits. Seeing all of the families Liv had helped made her proud of her friend and (cautiously) excited to start fresh.

When Liv came into the exam room, she greeted Paige and Azzi with a smile. “Are you thinking about next steps?”

Azzi nodded. “Paige said that IVF is a better option if a miscarriage happens. I think I’m ready. I just... I want to know what I’d be signing up for.”

Liv pulled up a chart on her tablet. “IVF is a more involved process. You’d take injectable medications to stimulate your ovaries. It’d be everyday. And they are a lot stronger than the pills used for IUI. You’d need frequent monitoring: bloodwork, ultrasounds. Then we retrieve the eggs, fertilize them, and transfer two or three embryos back after a few days.”

“And the risks?” Azzi asked.

“There’s a small chance of ovarian hyperstimulation. Some people have bloating, headaches, mood swings. Emotionally, it’s intense. Physically, it’s no walk in the park either.”

Azzi nodded, taking that in. “And the timeline?”

“We could start with your next cycle, if you're ready.”

Azzi sat back, lips pressed together. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Liv confirmed.

“I want to talk to Paige first,” Azzi started. “But I think I want to do this. I’ll let you know in the morning.”

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The sky was already going dusky when Azzi got back home. The soft click of the door closing behind her felt like exhaling after holding her breath all day.

From the kitchen came the rhythmic sound of a knife on a cutting board. Paige stood at the counter in a pair of sweatpants and a sports bra, slicing apples into a bowl. The smell of cinnamon hung in the air.

Azzi didn’t say anything at first. She just walked into the space that had become a kind of home and watched Paige move.

“I’m ready,” she said finally.

Paige didn’t look up. “For what?”

“To try IVF.”

The knife stopped mid-slice. Paige’s hand stilled on the half-cut apple. “You are?”

Azzi took a breath. “I can’t promise I’m 100 percent ready. But Katie said no one ever is. Paige, I want this. I really want this.”

Paige turned to her then. Her voice was quiet, but her eyes were full. “Then let’s do this.” A beat.

Then softer: “Together.”

[burningembers91]

When You Smile - Jeong Yun-Ho x Fem!Reader

Follow up piece to: The Therapist

Synopsis: Consumed by grief, you stop living life. But when you finally get up the courage to seek help from Dr Jeong Yun-Ho, you don't realise that you're setting in motion a path that will change your lives forever.

Warning: This fic will deal with themes of grief and pregnancy loss.

A/N: This is a deeply personal fic for me. As someone who has unfortunately experienced multiple pregnancy losses, I wanted to draw attention to a subject that affects 1 in 4 pregnancies. I never see it spoken about in TV or film, or even in books that I read, but i think it's really important that people know that it's more common that you realise. Losing a baby can be incredibly alienating, and people treat you so differently. I've included some resources below for anyone who may need them. These are all UK based charities, but the online advice is accessible to anyone. I've been really struggling lately, and I found writing this piece equal parts cathartic and heart breaking haha. The story will get happier, but I really wanted to highlight the feelings that come with pregnancy loss and show that you're not alone, even though it can sometimes feel like you are.

Pregnancy loss resources: The Miscarriage Association The Worst Girl Gang Ever (they also have a podcast which has really helped me) Tommy's.org

If someone had told you a year ago that your life would be in tatters around you, you wouldn’t have believed them. You had it all, the picture-perfect life that most people could only dream of. You had an incredible fiancé, who worshipped the ground you walked on, you had a stunning house in an upmarket area of Seoul, you had a job you loved and a group of friends who had your back no matter what. The day you found out you were pregnant was the best day of your life. Those two little lines boldly staring you in the face completed the life you’d worked so hard for. You’d aways wanted to be a mum, had always pictured your life filled with the love and laughter that children would bring. You never imagined you’d never get to hold your baby.

Everything had seemed fine; you had strong pregnancy symptoms, and your bump seemed to pop overnight at 11 weeks. But then you went for your scan, you and your fiancé excitedly holding hands as you waited to see your baby on the screen. The sonographer was silent, the clicking of the keyboard as she searched your baby’s tiny body the only sound in the room. And then she uttered the worlds that tore your world apart entirely. “I’m so sorry. There’s no heartbeat.”

You stopped functioning after that day, stopped living and merely began existing. It was three weeks before you got out of bed, not bothering to even brush your teeth or wash your hair. You stopped eating, you stopped talking, you stopped doing anything that didn’t involve lying in bed staring directly at the ceiling. You and your fiancé drifted apart over the months, your grief too strong and his inability to understand why you couldn’t face the world the final straw. He moved out of the house your shared, and that’s when you found out that he’d been cheating, that for the last few months he’d been seeing someone from work. He’d finished the affair when he found out you were pregnant, but once your baby passed, he went right back into the arms of his office assistant. Your friends didn’t know how to help, didn’t know what to say and couldn’t never begin to understand how you felt. They distanced themselves, your grief too uncomfortable for them to stand. You lost your job, although they’d given you plenty of leeway and had been so gracious and understanding. You couldn’t afford your house anymore, moving out of your dream home and into a tiny, dilapidated apartment that smelled like damp and stale cigarettes.

You lost sight of yourself, your grief so all-consuming that some days you feared it would swallow you whole. You were angry; angry that world continued to turn, and that people continued to live their lives while yours ceased to exist. You were doomscrolling through Instagram when you saw the picture, your ex-fiancé cradling the bump of his office assistant girlfriend, their healthy baby growing happily inside her tummy. It had only been six months since your breakup, but he’d worked fast. That picture broke you, and from that point on you barely even ate. It wasn’t until the little white feather floated down from the sky and in through your open window that things began to change. You’d done a lot of reading about grief and the afterlife in recent months, and you’d read that white feathers were a message from a loved one no longer on this earth. You convinced yourself it was your baby, coming to tell you that you couldn’t give up. You weren’t sure if you believed yourself, or if you were merely looking for an excuse to get yourself out the hole you’d spent so long wallowing in. That day, you took your first shower in days, combed through your hair and brushed your teeth. You even made it to the local convenience store to grab some food, before sitting down at the kitchen table, the white feather perched on the table in front of you.

It took you a few more weeks before you got up the courage to look for a therapist. You were achingly lonely, your friends still too uncomfortable to witness your grief. You spent weeks researching before settling on Dr Jeong Yun-Ho. You weren’t sure what it was that drew him to you, but you felt compelled to book an appointment. The morning of your first session, you put makeup on for the first time in months, swapping your pyjamas for jeans and a pastel cardigan. You looked like you again, and that only served to reduce you to tears once more.

You were late to your first appointment, too embarrassed by the tears that wouldn’t stop falling to go inside. When you finally sat down, you spent the entire session crying, going through an entire box of tissues and leaving his office with your cheeks puffy and red. You almost didn’t go back the next week, but one look at the feather you now kept by your bed, and you somehow found the strength to go.

Jeong Yun-Ho was an excellent therapist. He listened to you, made you feel seen, and for the first time in months you felt like you weren’t going insane. Grief could be all-consuming he’d told you; it could feel like a suffocating wave that dragged you under the water, threatening to drown you. He taught you small coping mechanisms, simple ways to help you breathe a little easier when the world seemed too heavy.

He sat with you as you removed your ex from social media, deleting the man who had betrayed you when you were at your weakest. He sat with you as you penned a note to your friends, explaining your feelings and how hurt you’d been when they turned their backs on you, but that you understood why. He sat with you as you applied for a new job, as you filled out the application with shaking hands. It was Yun-Ho who made you smile again for the first time in eight months, who coaxed a soft, gentle laugh from you, one that made your eyes twinkle. It was Yun-Ho who encouraged you to start doing things that brought you joy again, to go for a coffee, to walk along the river, to put on an episode of your favourite TV show and get lost in the world the writers had created.

You began to look forward to your weekly sessions, stared to enjoy sitting with the handsome therapist, just talking. You wished your sessions were longer than an hour, wished you had more time with the man who’d taught you to smile again. He was so patient and kind and had shown your more grace than anyone had in a long time. Most of the time, his sessions didn’t feel like therapy, it felt more like a catch up with a friend, and you never wanted to leave at the end of the hour.

Yun-Ho could see the change in you, could see you blossom before his very eyes. You’d made incredible progress over the last few months, and your smile lit up his entire office brighter than any sun ever could. When you smiled, it set his heart on fire. You’d been so broken, but slowly, you were starting to heal. And for the first time in a long time, Yun-Ho could feel his body ache with desire. You were beautiful, and funny, smart, witty and kind and Yun-Ho looked forward to your sessions. If he hadn’t been your therapist, maybe things would have been different. If he hadn’t been so broken, maybe he could love you, could give you the adoration and affection you so deserved. But life wasn’t fair, and he was forced to sit opposite you at a professional distance, instead of holding you while you bared your soul to him like he so desperately wanted.

Yun-Ho was watching you heal before his very eyes, while he remained a broken, hollow shell. He couldn’t have the one person that lit a fire within him, couldn’t be with the only woman he’d ever felt anything for. He found himself looking forward to your sessions and dreading the moment you’d walk out of his door for another week. He’d committed the smell of your perfume to memory, thinking of you on the nights that sleep evaded him.

He'd already known that life was unfair, but now it just seemed like a cruel joke. Yun-Ho had never had any intention of falling in love with anyone, especially not a patient. But he was forced to admit that he was head over heels for you, a woman he would never be able to have.

With each passing week, his feelings only grew, his desire to take your pain and shoulder the burden himself almost overwhelming. He’d never felt like this before, had never been so infatuated with anyone.

Yun-Ho was playing a dangerous game, one that wouldn’t end well. But as he watched back the video of your latest session, his eyes glued to your beautiful lips, he knew he was already in too deep to care.

[cheerfullycatholic]

I am free to feel that grief and acknowledge the remorse of my "choice"

Melanie Illinois, United States

I was around twenty and in college.  It was a time of darkness, depression and confusion in my life.  When I found out I was pregnant, I "heard" my mother's voice of instruction about the proper order of things (college, career, marriage, house, children).  I must have felt that the pregnancy would disappoint my parents because I didn't tell them about it until years later. I remember thinking I wished I hadn't been brought into the world so why bring someone else into the world.  

I had been through a series of broken relationships.  I did not want another relationship but still wanted to have sex.  Although I had 2 or 3 partners during this time period, I was "pretty sure" who the father was. I didn't tell anyone about the pregnancy except my older sister and this young man.  I remember my sister saying my life was over... it would no longer be my own.  I realize now that is because from her perspective she had missed out on career and was raising 4 children and living a bit vicariously through me.  I remember the young man seeming relieved when I told him I wanted to get an abortion.  

When I indicated I did not want to have the baby, my sister helped me call and set up the appointment at the abortion clinic in campus town.  She also advised me to drink a bottle of wine and smoke some weed to deal with cramping that I would have afterwards. She offered this advice from the perspective of having an abortion herself. 

I do remember seeing the doctor, maybe a few days or a week before the procedure.  He indicated I was very early along. I wanted to schedule the procedure right away because I was afraid, if I waited, that I wouldn't go through with it. I remember the probable father went with me for the procedure but I do not remember him being in the "counseling" session with the nurse prior to the procedure.  It was during that session that I remember asking the nurse if the baby would feel anything.  She responded, "Oh, honey it's just a blood clot the size of a peanut" and assured me it wouldn't feel anything.  I found out, years later, through an exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry that this information was not accurate.    

I remember the monetary cost of the abortion was about $300 at this time.  I was not aware, until later, of the additional "cost" (psychological, physiological, etc.) of having an abortion.  The day of the procedure, the probable father and I went to the office and paid cash in advance.  It is still difficult to talk about the procedure, as it was quite traumatic.  I remember it seemed to take forever, even though it was probably all done within an hour.  I remember crying from the onset... silently at first but building to openly weeping.  I remember they couldn't get me to dilate and they were trying to calm me so they offered me some type of intravenous Valium.  I remember feeling something deep inside screaming "noooooo" but I tried to stifle it and make myself go through with the process.  Whether that cry was God, the baby or my inner self I do not know but I wish I would have listened and I wonder if they would have stopped the procedure if I had made that cry vocal.  But I did not.  So they got me dilated enough to suction out from my womb the "blood clot the size of a peanut" which would have most likely been my first born child.  

After the abortion procedure was complete, I was shuffled to the recovery room.  Before long, I was at my apartment, taking my sister's advice about weed and wine.  I tried not to allow myself to feel anything and would stuff it anytime it tried to come into my thoughts.  I used lots of drugs and alcohol to numb feelings.  That led to getting mixed up with a not so great group of people and I ended up dropping out of college anyway.  I ended up moving back to my hometown and getting involved in another relationship. I tried marrying that one and when we tried to get pregnant, it never happened.  My periods were all messed up.  I kept thinking I was pregnant because I would be 2 or 3 months late on my period but tests kept coming back negative.  Doctorss tried to say it was just my body getting regulated from going off the pill but after missing period for 6 months with negative pregnancy tests, I was referred to an OB/GYN.  They diagnosed PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome).  Prior to my abortion, I had never had problems with my period or experienced any of the other symptoms of PCOS that I have since become acquainted with.  My husband and I divorced. He made a baby with another woman.  

During this time, God re-initiated my childhood faith and I returned to the church.  Somehow, I heard about a bible study for woman who have had an abortion being done in a town nearby and I got plugged in with this group of about 5 women, found forgiveness and began healing.  The healing process has been a long process considering the abortion was such a short procedure.  At 40, I conceived and birthed my first child.  At 42, my second child was born.  After twenty years of infertility, both children were miracles, without medical intervention for conception.  Healing is a process.  

I had a miscarriage a few years ago as well.  I have noted a real difference in how people respond to miscarriage vs. abortion.  It's as if society allows women to grieve the loss of their children through miscarriage but not so with abortion.  People offer sympathy to women who have had miscarriages but not so to women who have had abortions.  While it is not deemed illegal and thereby deemed acceptable, we are not supposed to talk about it... that is deemed unacceptable and people act real uncomfortable if one acknowledges it.  At least that has been my experience and that of other women who have had an abortions that I have talked to.  It's crazy.  Society will allow you to take the life of your own child but does not allow you to grieve the loss of that child's life.  Grief is a natural response to death.   

There are always days when I find myself calculating how old that child would be if he or she had lived. I would probably be a grandmother by now.  Instead, I am an old mother trying to rear young children.  I thank God for His mercy, grace and second chances.  But having the children I have now and experiencing motherhood with them makes me wonder, at times, what life and memories were missed as a result of this earlier decision.  

Sin has consequences. Taking someone's life is a sin.  Forgiveness removes the guilt and shame that are natural consequences of sin. But forgiveness doesn't necessarily remove remorse.  Allowing oneself to feel remorse is actually what leads to forgiveness.  Remorse for wrongdoing keeps us humble enough to choose right-doing. I believe I have received the forgiveness I requested from God, my child and myself. But one of the consequences I have to live with is that I will always grieve the loss of the experiences of mothering that child.  

Because of forgiveness, I am free to feel that grief and acknowledge the remorse of my "choice".  This acknowledgement means I no longer have to deny or hide that remorse.  It means I no longer have to deny or numb that grief.  See it is because of that forgiveness that this remorse is without shame.  I can stand forgiven, in Jesus Name!  It is because of this forgiveness that I am silent no more!  

I want other women who have had abortions to experience this freedom in forgiveness.  If you have had an abortion and have not found this freedom, please seek out some help to find it. Help for healing is available! If you are pregnant and considering having an abortion, please choose life.  Even when things seem crazy, dark and dangerous in the world, life is ALWAYS the best choice!  God is good and ALL life is valuable to Him.  If you choose to value what God values, He will be faithful to provide EVERYTHING you need to walk out that choice.  Trust God.  Trust God to guide you into right choices. Trust God to provide for your needs.  Trust God to forgive, heal and restore.  Whatever is going on in your life today, trust God over it all.  God is good and loves us ALL more than we may ever be able to fully comprehend!  Trust in that LOVE!   

Find more testimonies at Silent No More  

[paradisetemporarilymisplaced]

So I was being a basic bitch the other day and listening to my true crime podcasts when it occurred to me just how suspicious Nile’s “death” would look to everyone not in the Guard, leading me to a train of thought that, 2200 words later, absolutely got away from me but I can’t let go so I’m inflicting it on all of you!

To set the stage, we know the movie takes place over approximately a week. Here’s what happens to Nile from the military’s point of view:

She dies is very seriously injured

She heals without a scratch

Just before she’s supposed to be shipped out to Germany, she vanishes, leaving two men concussed (and presumably reporting being knocked out by a woman with short hair wearing civilian clothes)

She goes AWOL for several days

They get word from the CIA that she is to be reported killed in action (details unclear)

So, at the beginning of this very weird week, the USMC has to tell Nile’s family of her death critical injury. What her family was told depends on how long she was dead – a Google search tells me that family will be notified in person within 8 hours of a soldier’s death, but we don’t know how long her first death lasted. For an injury, however, they’d get a phone call to notify them and the unit would arrange for them to visit as soon as the soldier is transferred out of a combat zone. Like I remember when I was in high school, a guy from my church who was a Marine was really seriously injured in a helicopter crash in Iraq and from what I could tell, his parents were told immediately and were flown out to Germany to see him, so it stands to reason that Nile’s family would have been informed relatively quickly after her throat was slashed, one way or another.

And then, she goes AWOL. Her family would be notified while the USMC tried to figure out where she went, not least because the military would want to know if she’s contacted them. (And it’s possible that her family may have been on the way to Germany to see her since we know that’s where she was supposed to go!) So for several days:

Nile’s mom and brother have no idea where she is

They know she was seriously injured and most certainly should not have been moving around on her own

They can’t get a hold of her

The military can’t tell them anything

And the next thing they know for sure is that she was “killed in action.” After being injured and vanishing into thin air. And they presumably cannot produce her body or any concrete evidence of her death. In any case, something sketchy is going on, so they’re like. SMELLS LIKE A MILITARY COVERUP.

In a surprise to probably no one, there is a well-documented legacy of mysterious US military deaths, particularly of women of color (TW for sexual assault in these links). The cases of LaVena Johnson and Vanessa Guillenin particular have made national news because of their families’ persistence in seeking justice. Likewise, Nile is a Black woman, and her mom and brother are most certainly hypercognizant of (a) state violence against Black people and (b) these high-profile cases of suspicious military deaths. So her family are seriously side-eyeing the situation, knowing that (a) the military has a serious incentive (and a documented history) of covering up things that make them look bad and (b) nothing about Nile’s disappearance and supposed death are adding up.

And Andy’s right. Nile does come from warriors. And you know who else does? Her brother.

Don’t get me wrong. Nile’s mom would absolutely not back down. She’d know something was up and want to get to the bottom of it. But based on what I know about Gen X parents (mine), they’re not the most technologically savvy. Like they can use the internet, but they didn’t grow up with it the way we young millennials and Gen Z did. So Nile’s brother takes the lead. And what do zillennials do best?

Social media.

Nile’s brother starts going hard on any site he can, trying to get the word out to see if anyone knows what happened to his sister. He starts a Reddit thread. He starts a Facebook group. He reaches out to the media and true crime bloggers and podcasters à la Sarah Turney, getting loud and being a general nuisance in hopes of getting some answers. He gets his friends and Nile’s friends involved. Maybe eventually Dizzy, Jay, and others from Nile’s unit hear about it and reach out, telling him what they saw and how weird it all was. He’s drumming up interest, and soon “Nile Freeman” becomes a household name (at least among the true crime fans).

Copley is, of course, trying his best, but at this point there is just so much that it’s impossible for him to scrub everything. Sure, he can erase new footage of Nile and the Guard, but what can he do about Reddit threads and podcast episodes that are speculating something weird has happened? Maybe he could hack the sites and shut those things down, but honestly, that’s the last thing he’d want to do, because that only adds weight to the theory that Nile’s disappearance is a military coverup. So eventually he has to tell Andy what’s going on.

Andy, obviously, does not take the news well. However, she is also completely computer illiterate, because that’s Booker’s job and he’s the only one who ever bothered to learn what the internet is in any meaningful way. (She probably calls Booker for advice, and for the record, I think Booker would have no qualms about shutting down conspiracy threads, tinhats be damned, but Copley is too concerned about the consequences. He’s ex-CIA for crying out loud, he knows how it’ll look if they scrub every mention of Nile’s name from the internet.) Maybe she confers with Joe and Nicky but, let’s be honest, they’d be equally unhelpful. So at this point, she knows they have to bring in Nile.

But the thing about Nile is that she, too, knows how to use the internet (duh). Aside from her being a young millennial/digital native, we know from the cave scene where she’s giving Booker suggestions on how to track Copley that she clearly is even more computer savvy than the average person. And for that reason she almost definitely took over the day-to-day tech stuff after Booker’s exile. So I think it would be foolish to expect her to be unaware of what’s happening. She’s not contacting her family or posting on the message boards or anything, but she knows what’s up. So Copley and the team probably sit her down to “break the news,” but we know the girl does not have a poker face (see: literally shooting herself in the foot and not being able to play it cool whatsoever) and cracks immediately, telling them she’s seen everything about her case – she’s not interacting with any of it, she certainly didn’t instigate anything, but she knows. (And she is so goddamn proud of her brother.)

At this point, I’d like to pause and consider Nile’s role in the overall narrative of this movie. She’s set up as a foil to Andy, obviously, but she’s also a foil to Booker. Booker, who, like Andy, is a serious pessimist, but who, unlike Andy, still has very fresh memories and trauma associated with being the new kid, which have destroyed him. In his mind (and Andy’s), if Nile communicates with her family, she’ll become just like him in a century or two – bitter, alone, and stuck with her grief and memories of watching her family die and knowing they died resenting her. It’s a small sample size, but this is the only experience they have to go off of.

But it doesn’t have to be like that.

There’s been a lot of discussion of TOG being a fundamentally queer movie – a group of people brought together because of something inherent about themselves that is different, that must be hidden, that causes others to hate, fear, and reject them. Booker’s backstory is the archetypal traumatic “coming out” story – his family learns who he is, hate him for it, and attempt to cast him out of their lives. He’s stuck with his trauma, his pain, his loss, and it consumes him.

But what if Nile’s family would be the opposite? What if her “coming out” to them as immortal is met with acceptance, love, celebration? What if her family is just overjoyed to have her back, and they don’t care what the circumstances are? I'm reminded of this incredible post from @shitty-old-guard-deaths a while back, where Nile’s mother hits Booker with a frying pan because “my baby let me believe she was dead for FIVE YEARS based on your bad advice???” (which may or may not have inspired this whole tangent). Nile takes the advice of someone who did the same thing she wants to do because she doesn’t want to risk her family’s rejection. She wants the good memories with her family and is afraid that showing them her true self will bring her unbearable pain, forever replacing those memories. But, with high risk comes high reward.

Anyway. Nile and the team are trying to come up with a plan for how to handle this whole thing, but she’s not really participating because she’s too afraid to hope. Until finally, quickly, so she doesn’t lose her nerve, she suggests she reach out to them, knowing that, realistically, that’s the only solution before things snowball even further out of control. The team is shocked, but realize that she has a point. They decide that Copley should actually be the first point of contact, posing as a US government official to talk with them and test the waters.

So Copley goes to Nile’s family’s house to talk with her mom and brother. They’re probably distrustful and apprehensive, but nonetheless secretly ecstatic that their work has paid off. They talk and review all of the information that they’ve collected, including testimonials from the people on Nile’s base and recent sightings (along with photos) of Nile (with the same three people) over the last few years that people have sent them but they haven’t posted publicly. At this point, Copley’s like, yeah this is about to blow up, we gotta put our cards on the table. He convinces them to come with him to some safe house/black site/whatever he can get that is technologically impenetrable (I’m picturing them in like, an interrogation room at a police station kind of deal), takes their phones, locks the doors, and brings in Nile.

What follows is the most delightful reunion scene of all time, bringing Joe, Nicky, and even Andy to tears as they watch and listen from outside the room. With Copley’s help, Nile tells her mom and brother about her immortality and what’s been going on since she died (within reason, of course), and they are thrilled. They don’t understand why (because no one does) but they don’t question it and they see it as a gift from God – she’s been resurrected, she will live, and she has a purpose. Her mother and brother are so happy to see her again and are willing to agree with pretty much anything to stay in her life as long as they can.

So. They set up some complicated agreement (they bring in the other three for support/intimidation as needed) setting the terms of their relationship. They swear Nile’s family to secrecy, maybe bringing up the lab to show how high the stakes are, and they readily agree. They come up with some cover story for Nile’s brother to share on the message boards (maybe that the government has opened an investigation but because it’s an open case he has to shut it all down? Tells people to direct their tips somewhere else? Something to that effect). There’s still speculation, of course, but without Nile’s brother at the helm providing the energy, the hype dies down as news stories are wont to do without any movement. And Nile’s family goes to work for the team. The experience has taught them that Copley can’t possibly do everything himself, especially when it comes to social media, so Nile’s brother takes the lead on the day-to-day tracking/social media while Copley and her mom focus on finding jobs and scrubbing their traces afterward.

So there you have it: Nile gets to integrate her biological family into her found family and spend the rest of their lives with them as it should be, Copley gets some badly needed help managing the reality of social media, the team finally has a positive narrative surrounding outsiders Knowing About Them AND about interacting with people from their previous life, and the audience gets the happy ending to this very lovely and very queer story to counteract the pain associated with Booker’s family.

Plus, you know, I’m a sucker for both a good government conspiracy theory and for Nile getting every good thing she deserves.

[randomshyperson]

Wanda Maximoff x Reader - Sorry for your loss - Part III "I will get better"

Serie Masterlist here || Part II| | Read on AO3 

Summary: When your wife Natasha passes away in a car accident, a part of you dies with her. It takes a few months of mourning for your psychiatrist thinks the best alternative is for you to join a grief group. And there you meet Wanda Maximoff, and learn to live again.

Warnings: (+16) mentions of death, panic attacks and anxiety, grief, self sabotage, mentions of abusive family background, mutual attraction pining, explicit consent, therapeutic conversations about death, self-deprecation, healthy methods of coping with grief, possible triggers about anxiety, domestic Wanda, hurtful behaviors.

Tag list: @imapotatao / @aimezvousbrahms/ @ensorcellme/ @helloalycia / @mionemymind / @abimess / @stephanieromanoff / @yourtaletotell / @tomy5girls / @justagaypanicking / @thegayw1tch / @idek-5

//-//

Chapter III - I will get better.

Your mother has an insinuating look on her face when you wake up after hearing noises of voices and walk to the kitchen, finding her sipping coffee on the table. With Wanda.

"H-hey." You greet clumsily, your sleepy brain had completely forgotten that the redhead was in your house.

"Good morning honey." Your mother said, her gaze following you all the way to the cupboards and as you served yourself. "I was just telling Wanda how I've been suggesting that you schedule a coffee so we could get to know each other, and what a coincidence it is that I come home and find her lost in my kitchen."

You yawn, shrugging your shoulders.

"Yes, fate is incredible." You mumble sarcastically, and your mother laughs lightly patting you on the arm as you sit down next to her at the table. "Did you sleep well, Wands?"

The redhead looks up at you and smiles as she nods. You stare back for a moment, but feeling your cheeks flush, you look away to your coffee.

"How was your date, Mom?" You ask next, not missing the opportunity to tease her.

"How was yours?"

You choke on your coffee, and your mother laughs. You don't risk looking at Wanda after that joke. But your mother is quick enough to change the subject.

"I need to talk to you about something, by the way." She comments stretching her arm to reach for the work case she left on the empty chair at the table. "Darcy came by the store yesterday afternoon, looking for you."

You frown in surprise, turning your head to look at your mother. She rummages through the files inside her bag, and then pulls out a red folder, handing it to you next.

"What's this?"

"Your contract."

You blink in surprise, and then open the folder. Running your hand over your face momentarily, you sigh.

"Mom..."

"Honey, give it a try." Your mother pleads touching your shoulder. "You are so talented honey. It would be so nice if you would write again."

You laugh humorlessly, running your hand through your hair. Taking a deep breath, you close the folder.

"I'll think about it."

Your words are far more than anything you have done regarding work in many months, so your mother lets out a contented exclamation and gives you a kiss on the cheek, making you laugh.

"Now, let's change the topic, okay?" you ask clumsily, making your mother laugh. She straightens up in her chair, and you look at Wanda quickly, blushing at the fond look in her eyes in your direction.

"Tell me, darling, what do you do?" Your mother asks Wanda. You go back to eating, holding back a giggle. You knew that now your mother would interrogate Wanda the same way Pietro did you, but she was far less subtle than the man was.

Several minutes later, Wanda managed to evade questions when she said she needed to go home, and you nudged your mother lightly in the ribs to get her to leave the other woman alone.

You stood up, grabbing the pots and pans from the table to take to the sink before walking Wanda to the front door while your mother pretended to read the newspaper while watching you two.

"Thank you for letting me stay the night." Wanda said at the door. You smiled, telling her it was okay. She hesitated next, and then moved closer, kissing your cheek good-bye. You nodded dismissively as she walked away, a silly smile on your face as you closed the door after she returned to the car parked in the driveway.

"I liked her." Your mother says as soon as you close the door. You give a short laugh, turning to go back to your room and take a shower. "Don't let that one get away."

"I'm not going to talk about this." You tell her with a mixture of embarrassment and impatience, looking back. Your mother laughs, glancing back at the paper.

//-//

Non-Reader Pov’s

Wanda sighed as she opened the door to the house. The boys were with Pietro, because they had insisted on spending the night after the party. And honestly, Wanda was so tired that she didn't even argue.

Erik was in the living room and didn't take his eyes off the newspaper when his daughter entered the room, throwing her shoes in the doorway and her purse on the couch.

"Should I ask where you spent the night?" he says with a slight hint that makes Wanda's face heat up, but she just continues toward her own room.

"Please, don't." She asks embarrassed, and Erik smiles, not speaking again.

After taking a shower, and getting dressed, Wanda stared at herself for a few moments in the mirror. You are fine. Everything is fine. She repeated these words a few times before leaving the bathroom.

When she returned to the living room, her father was still in the same position, but this time he lowered the newspaper to look at her.

"Honey, I ended up not meeting the friend you said you were bringing to Luna's party yesterday." He counters and Wanda presses her lips together as she goes to the kitchen, starting to sort the ingredients for lunch. "Pietro told me she left early."

"Yep." Wanda agrees a moment later. "It was my fault really. But it's okay now."

"I'd still like to meet her."

Wanda grumbles in agreement, washing some pots. Erik gets up from the armchair, walking over to the counter.

"There is something else I would like to talk to you about." He continues as he rests his hands on the marble. Wanda murmurs signaling that she is listening, but does not turn around. Her father sighs before speaking. "I need to get back home."

One of the pots slips from Wanda's hand, making a noise, but she catches it before it breaks. With a racing heart, she wipes the soap from her hands and the pot, and then dries her hands with a cloth, turning to look at her father as she rests her back against the sink.

"R-right." She agrees with tears in her eyes, but forces herself to smile. Erik looks at her with concern and guilt, but still stands firm as he says.

"Wanda, it's time." He says. "Charles misses me, I can't stay here forever."

"It's okay, papa." Wanda adds in a hoarse voice. She clears her throat lightly, trying not to despair at the thought of being home alone for the first time since Vis died. "I'll be fine."

Erik went around the countertop, moving closer to his daughter to place his hands on her shoulders.

"You can call me anytime you want." He says tenderly. "This is your home, Wan. You'll be able to make it. I'm sure."

Wanda nods, letting the tears flow. Her father hugs her next, and she responds, relaxing against his grip.

Erik breaks the embrace a moment later, smiling at his daughter before pulling away.

"I need to get things organized." He says. "When Pietro arrives with the boys, tell him I need a ride."

"You’re leaving today?" Wanda asks in surprise, and Erik sighs as he agrees. She swallows dryly, nodding frantically in assent.

Her father turns toward the second floor, and Wanda rests her hands on the countertop, taking a deep breath.

She tries not to be too anxious about the fact that starting tomorrow, when the kids go off to school, she will be all alone at home. Actually alone.

//-//

Reader’s Pov

Leaving your monthly appointment with Agatha, after spending an hour telling her about all the progress since you last saw her, you were quite hungry.

You hadn't spoken to Wanda since the day before, but when you thought about texting, you were surprised to realize that she had tried to call you while you were in therapy.

Dialing her number, you waited for her to answer.

"Hey, sorry, my cell phone was off." You say as soon as she says "Hello," slightly worried that it was important. "What did you want?"

" To see you." She says simply, and you ignore your quickened heartbeat. "I...I've been sitting in my car for ten minutes. I can't get into the house."

You frown at Wanda's tearful tone.

"What happened?"

"I just..." She starts half breathlessly. "My dad's not here. I dropped the kids off at school, and I don't...I don't want to be alone."

Your heart breaks for confession, and you shake your head.

"Wands, take a deep breath okay?." You ask her. "Send me your address."

"No, you don't have to..."

"Wanda." You interrupt with a short laugh. "I don't mind, really. Let me help you."

The woman on the other end of the line sighs heavily, and then thanks you. You smile when she hangs up and there is an address on the message app.

//-//

It takes about half an hour for you to arrive, and you walk slowly to the car parked outside, tapping the window lightly to attract Wanda's attention.

She is briefly startled, distracted by her cell phone, but smiles when she realizes it is you, then opens the door and steps out to hug you. You ignore the feeling of how good it is to have her against you as you respond.

"Everything okay?" You ask softly, and Wanda denies it with her head as soon as she lets go of you. You bite the inside of your cheek, unable to resist stroking her cheek for a moment before pushing your hand away.

"I can't get in." She confesses with water-filled eyes as she leans against the car. You sigh, standing next to her with your back to the metal. Her hand slips into yours, but neither of you say anything about it.

"Why not?"

Wanda is silent for a moment, and you imagine that she is not going to answer. But she does.

"Vis bought this house for me." She begins, and you resist the urge to wipe away the tear running down her cheek, imagining that your touch might intimidate her into shutting up. "I never...I never thought I would live in it without him."

"Is that why you asked your dad to move in with you?" you question.

"I think so." She murmurs. "I...I didn't want to be alone here. I mean...I have the boys. But they stay with Pietro so much, and there's school and karate, and music class. When Vis was alive, he worked from home, and I always had company." She explains. "Dad is retired so he’s always around, and he didn't mind staying. I don't think I've been alone here in eight months." Wanda sniffles softly, wiping away tears. "But his husband needed him to come back, and Charles is right to ask. Dad can't keep babysitting his grown daughter who can't put her life together."

"Don't talk like that." You interrupt by squeezing her hand lightly. Wanda shakes her head, running her hand through her hair and taking a deep breath. "Wanda?" You call out to her after a moment, and wait for her to look at you. "Do you want me to come in with you?"

She looks at your lips for a moment, but your head is elsewhere, so you just smile. Wanda nods in agreement.

After you help her get the groceries from the car, you wait behind her until she opens the door. Wanda takes a deep breath, and turns the handle.

Her house is very nice. Clean and organized, although the common characteristics of a house inhabited by children are visible. Wanda leaves a paper bag on the countertop and helps you with the one you are carrying, picking it up and placing it next to the other.

"So?" You ask with your hands in your pockets, looking intently at Wanda, who is trembling slightly as she puts away the items in the kitchen. "Wands?"

"I just..." She begins half impatiently. You don't get affected however, standing your ground. "I don't want you to leave."

You let out a short laugh, feeling your face heat up.

"But I need to go eventually." You say shrugging. "But while i'm here, why don't you show me around? I'll spend the afternoon with you until the boys arrive. But someday you'll need to do it alone."

"Like you moving back to your apartment?" She retorts bitterly and you blink in surprise, and Wanda is already assuming an apologetic expression, but you laugh and she looks at you with confusion.

"Ouch." You joke. " All right, smarty-pants. That was mean. But it's okay, I'm not mad." You assure her approaching as you take your hands out of your pockets to raise them to Wanda's shoulders. " Let's make a deal then?"

"What?"

"I'll keep you company at your place ." You say. "And you help me with my apartment?"

Wanda looks at you a moment, thoughtful. And then she smiles, nods, and circles her arms around you, burying her head in your neck. You don't mind that this hug lasts much longer than a hug between friends does.

//-//

You are laughing at a funny story from Wanda's college days when the front door opens and three small children come running in, throwing their shoes and backpacks on the floor. Pietro is surprised to see you too as he walks in and closes the door.

"Look who's here." He comments with a smile approaching to greet you. "How are you?"

"Good, Pietro." You reply gently. "And you?"

"Yeah, it’s all fine." He says looking at Wanda for a second. "Everything okay around here?"

Wanda bites her lip, looking away to the floor before speaking.

"She's keeping me company."

"Okay?"

"Because papa's not home." Wanda adds, and it takes a moment for Pietro to understand. He exchanges a look with you, but smiles, squeezing Wanda's shoulder for a moment before the boys join you all.

"Hello, who are you?" One of the boys asks, who hugs Wanda's right leg.

You bend down at his height, extending your hand.

"I'm your mommy's friend. You're Billy right?" You say and the boy looks quickly at his mother before shaking your hand. You shake very quickly and repeatedly without squeezing making him laugh as you tell him your name.

You turn your face to the other boy, hugging Wanda's other leg. "Good to see you again, Tommy. How are you doing?"

"I'm fine, thank you." He replies politely, making you laugh.

"Do I know her, daddy?" You heard Luna shyly ask Pietro next as she was hiding behind her cousin Tommy. Pietro smiled, nodding.

"Yes, dear, she was at your party don't you remember?"

"She helped Tommy with his headache didn't she daddy?"

Wanda frowned in confusion, but you didn't notice, your gaze on the child as you smiled. Pietro agreed again, and then Luna approached you.

"Do you want to be my friend?" She asked and you thought your heart was going to melt with such cuteness.

"Of course I do!" You replied excitedly, imitating the hand gesture you made with Billy, drawing a laugh from the girl.

"Let's take her to see our room!" Tommy suggested next, and you let out an exclamation of excitement to play with them. Exchanging a quick glance with the other two adults in the room, you let Tommy and Billy hold your hand and lead you upstairs, Luna following behind.

//-//

Non Reader’s Pov

As soon as the children were completely up the stairs, Pietro let out a giggle that attracted his sister's attention.

"What?" Wanda asked.

"Oh, nothing." He replied with a little smile. And only when he and Wanda were in the kitchen, intent on preparing lunch, did he add. "I like her."

"Shut up." Mumbled Wanda with reddened cheeks, understanding exactly what Pietro meant.

The man laughed again, walking over to stand next to his sister and chop some vegetables while she stirred the pots.

"I'll just say one more thing about it, and I promise I'll wait until you feel comfortable telling me." He says and seeing his sister's lack of response, he continues. "It's really good to see you smiling again. I'm glad you're moving on."

"Pietro..."

"Hey." The man interrupts his sister who looks clearly uncomfortable. He drops the knife he picked up to cut carrots and approaches her, holding her hands.

"There's nothing wrong with that." He says tenderly.

"Stop saying those things." Wanda asks releasing her hands to run her fingers through her hair, sighing as she leaned against the sink, breathing deeply. "I don't... I have the boys to take care of, I don't even have time to think about those kinds of things right now."

Pietro sighs, shaking his head.

"You know what, Wanda?" He begins. "Ever since we were kids, all you've done is take care of someone. You took care of babushka, and mamochka. You took care of me all my life, and then you got married and Vis joined the list too. Then came the twins." He said, and Wanda frowned, not understanding where the conversation was going, but Pietro's firm tone encouraged her not to interrupt. "When Vis died, you needed to breathe, and I really didn't mind helping you take care of the boys. But what about you. Wanda? If you're looking out for everyone else, who's looking out for you?"

"I..."

But Wanda doesn't know what to say. She opens and closes her mouth a few times, and Pietro sighs slightly, smiling to reassure his sister.

"You've been through hell the last few months, Wands." He adds. "There's nothing wrong with wanting some heaven."

"You're getting so cheesy, P." Wanda mumbles with flushed cheeks, causing Pietro to laugh lightly. The woman wiped a few tears from her face, and sniffled before shaking her head. "Come on, enough of this talk. The children must be starving."

"Yes, ma'am."

They prepare lunch in silence for a few moments. It is only when Pietro hands Wanda the cut vegetables to throw into the pot, that she remembers to ask about what happened at the party with Y/N and Tommy.

"Oh, she ran into him in the office." Pietro counters. "I think he was feeling sick again. I found them in the kitchen, eating some hot dogs. You were lucky to find a girl who does very well with children, eh?"

Wanda smiles with reddened cheeks, nudging her brother lightly with her shoulders as she mumbles at him to shut up.

//-//

Reader Pov’s

You sat on one of the twins' beds as they filled your lap with toys.

Doing your best to follow all the lines and get on with the fun, you pretended to drink imaginary tea when Tommy handed you a cup, and made a funny voice when Billy asked you to pretend to be a policewoman. Then Luna asked you to imitate a dragon and you spread your arms, running around the room behind the three of them.

Several minutes later, they got into a game of pretend play and forgot all about you, so you looked around at the posters, not sure if you should leave them alone.

Looking around, your gaze caught the pictures on the boys' dresser, and you smiled as you ran your fingers across the pictures.

You bit the inside of your cheek when you picked up one of the frames, the picture of the whole family in it.

"Careful not to break it." You heard Billy say out loud to you. From the tone, it sounded like something Wanda probably said to him a few times.

"I promise I won't break it." You assure him with a smile, turning your gaze to the photograph.

It is probably the picture of the day when the kids came back from the hospital. Wanda is holding one of them, and a tall, blond man is holding the other baby. They have contented smiles on their faces as they wave to whoever was taking the picture.

"Were you friends with dad too?" Tommy asked suddenly. You were slightly surprised to realize that he had stood up and was standing next to you.

"No, Tommy." You respond by stooping down to his height. "I didn't know your father."

"Did you know he died?" He asked next, shifting his gaze to the floor. You held your breath before letting go.

"Yes."

"Mom said that dying means you don't come home anymore." Tommy said and you felt your heart tighten.

"Yeah, honey."

"I miss daddy." Tommy confesses next, and you feel your own eyes fill with water at the scene. But not wanting to make him nervous, you swallow your emotion and smile weakly to calm him down.

"Yeah, I know you do." You tell him, extending your hand toward him for him to hold if he wants. When he accepts, you squeeze it lightly. "But the people we love never really leave us. When you think of your daddy, you feel a little pain in your chest don't you?" You ask and Tommy nods in agreement. "That's the part of your father in you. The love you feel for him stays inside your chest now. Before, you could spread that love with hugs and kisses and smiles. But now you have to keep it to yourself." You say tenderly, and Tommy seems to absorb your words. Billy and Luna are also listening to the conversation and look at you as they sit on the floor in front of a dollhouse. "Do you understand what I say?"

Tommy nods. "Yes, I'm already five."

You chuckle lightly at the quick response.

"I don't want to keep love in my chest." He grumbles. "I want daddy back."

You swallow dryly, watching the thick tears stream down the boy's face. Your gaze quickly catches Billy's, and he is crying, too.

"I'm sorry, kids." You say reaching out to wipe away the tears of the boy in front of you. "That's how death works. It's not fair, and it hurts. But that's what happens. But you all aren't alone, okay? You can always hug your mommy, and your aunt and uncle, and me too if it hurts too much.”

Tommy sniffles and throws his arms around you. You hug him back, hoping he will calm down. It doesn't take long before Luna and Billy join you.

You want to make them feel better, so you open your arms as wide as you can to squeeze them all together, and wait a few minutes before you make a noise with your mouth like a monster. And it works very well, because the next moment they are laughing.

You let them go so that they run, and you laugh as you chase them around the house. When Wanda yells from downstairs for them to come to lunch, you change direction so that they dash downstairs.

"No running on the stairs!" You quickly warn. "The monster catches those who run on the stairs. You need to go slowly."

The children exchange quick glances and then obey. You pretend to walk in slow motion so that they come down without hurrying. They run again as soon as they get down, making you laugh.

Downstairs, Wanda guides everyone to the kitchen table. You exchange a quick glance with her, putting your hands in your pockets.

"You're going to have lunch with us right?" Wanda asks with a smile. You bite your lip, thoughtfully. "Please say yes." She adds the request making you laugh lightly.

"But then I need to leave." You say with a raised finger in jest, Wanda smiles, nodding in understanding, and taking your hand to pull you into the kitchen.

Neither of you mind the look Pietro casts at your linked hands as Wanda leads you to the table.

//-//

Your week goes by very slowly.

At group therapy on Wednesday, Stephen brings games, and it is as much fun as any other time. Before you leave for lunch with Wanda, Stephen asks to speak with you both.

"I have some questions about your checklist." He says as the gymnasium empties out and you guys help him put the chairs away. "I noticed that you crossed out all the questions about grief." He begins, and you and Wanda exchange a look. "But of course it's okay, it's not a script to be followed really, it's just ideas to break the ice. And you guys are making progress, so as long as it's working for you, it's working for us."

"Stephen you are diverting from the subject." You grumble with your hands in your pockets, and the man laughs.

"Sorry." He says as he finishes folding the metal chairs in the corner of the gym. "I imagine you also realize that you have completed the vast majority of your monthly goals. With the exception of one."

You sigh, looking away. Stephen tries to smile to reassure you.

"I understand that this is difficult for you." He speaks again. "And you should also know that it's not mandatory, okay, but I would like you to try."

You swallow dryly, and it takes a moment, but you nod in agreement.

"I will." You say. "But I need time. I'm not going to drive off the first time."

"Don't worry about deadlines." He interrupts. "Find a way that works for you. Besides, you won't be doing this alone."

Stephen gives you both an encouraging look, and you take a deep breath trying not to overthink his request. When he nods in farewell, Wanda holds your hand and stands in front of you.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" She asks and you smile, running your gaze over her face.

"Only if you stay with me."

She smiles. "I will."

You both walk outside next.

//-//

During the following week, you set small goals with Wanda regarding her house.

Wanda is always home alone in the morning, because the kids go to school. And since you don't do anything at home, you come to spend the morning with her.

On the first day, you leave her house five minutes before the time she usually pick up the kids. You smile, hug Wanda goodbye, and tell her she can take being alone for five minutes. She catches up with you at the front door, shaking as she hugs your back. You don't have the heart to leave her alone after that, and you go with her to pick up the boys at school.

On the second day, you try again. Five minutes of solitude. Wanda is nervous as you walk out the door, but she doesn't follow you. You smile proudly as you leave.

On the third day, you leave ten minutes early. And then fifteen. Then twenty. By the third week, Wanda can be alone for hours. On week four, you don't come.

Wanda calls you, laughing and crying, saying that everything is all right. That she can breathe, and that she is not panicking anymore. And you also cry and laugh while telling her that you are proud of her.

You have started writing again by then.

Because you needed to find something to keep you busy while you were at her house and Wanda worked from home with the administration of the flower shop, and she didn't mind you bringing some books and your laptop to try to write something.

For the first few days you just watched television, occasionally chatting with Wanda when she came to ask if everything was okay and if you were comfortable before going back to her study room. But then you run your fingers through the photographs of the house and get an idea about a small story. It's brief, and simple, but it's sweet and the first thing you've written in a long time. Wanda loves it when you show it to her, and you laugh shyly when she puts the paper on the refrigerator door.

You call Darcy the second week you are helping Wanda. Your colleague is happy to hear that you are working again, and even happier to hear that you will accept the contract. It's a quick thing, and the timing is good, just what you need to get used to again. Wanda sets up a second desk in her office and you smile in appreciation, saying that she would get tired of your presence like this, but she assures you that that would never happen. You enjoy having her company while you write.

Soon you tell her that you are ready to try driving again. And Wanda sighs, saying that she is also ready to go back to the flower shop.

You agree that after she drops the kids off at school, she will pick you up at home with her car, and you will go to the flower shop together. And you can try to drive her car on the way back.

"Everything okay?" You ask Wanda when you arrive in front of the establishment. The flower shop is very nice, even from the outside you can tell. It is a small brown building, with many vases and floral decorations outside, and a sign at the entrance. You can see Monica at the counter through the glass but she is distracted by a customer and doesn't notice you two at the door.

"Yeah, I just...I just need a moment." Wanda clarifies looking at you quickly. She takes a deep breath, and then enters.

"Wanda!" Monica greets you two cheerfully as soon as the customer leaves, and you two approach her around the counter. The woman quickly hugs Wanda, who laughs lightly. "I am so happy to see you here again. And look at that, I think even the flowers have cheered up."

You smile at the interaction, letting your gaze wander around afterwards.

Flowers are not exactly something you know well, but you think they are very beautiful. And you absolutely love photographs of flower arrangements, and flowers in nature.

"And how are you, Y/N?" Monica asks loudly, attracting your attention. You take your eyes off the white flower in front of you to smile at her.

"I'm good, Monica." You reply. "It's good to see you again. Is everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah." She says gently fiddling with some vases. Wanda disappears beyond the back doors, probably getting used to being around again. "It's been pretty quiet today, so I've had plenty of time to look around the web page."

You smile in understanding. You knew that Monica had an online store that she and Pietro ran, but you couldn't remember exactly what they sold, so you didn't comment on it. But you were glad to know that she was taking the time to check out the shop even though she was working at Wanda's flower store.

"Are you going to stick around today?" she asks next, and you put your hands in your pockets.

"I don't really know." You reply. "If Wanda stays then I'll stay."

Monica raises her eyebrows suggestively, impressed by your words. You feel your face heat up.

"B-because she's my ride." You clarify quickly, and Monica lets out a chuckle, turning to take a vase in her hands and move it around the place.

"Got it." She murmurs humorously.

Wanda joins you next, her purse was no longer with her, and you figured she was ready to work then.

"Mon, I'm going to stay in the back today, okay?" She says to Monica, who just nods encouragingly. Wanda looks at you hesitantly. "Is it okay if I leave you alone?"

You laugh lightly.

"Don't worry, Wands." You tell her. "I'm here for you. Do what you have to do."

"I'll keep you company, honey." Monica adds with amusement. Wanda laughs, glancing one last time at you before turning toward the office. You look at the other woman next. "Tell me, have you ever tended a garden before?"

//-//

You are washing the dirt from your hands when Wanda finishes. She was only inside the small office for at most three hours, much less than a normal workload, but you don't say anything and Monica doesn't care either.

After thanking Mon for teaching you how to grow a garden, you say goodbye to her with a kiss on the cheek, wishing her a good rest of her shift, and leave with Wanda from the flower shop. You were anxious because you are going to be in the driver's seat now.

Wanda left the car in the supermarket parking lot at the corner of the place, at this time the surroundings were relatively empty.

You two were standing facing the driver's door.

"Here we are." She said beside you. You took a deep breath.

"Here we are." You repeated her words.

Wanda slipped one of her arms around your waist, hugging you from the side, waiting for you to be ready to open the door. And it took a moment until you did.

As soon as you sat down in the driver's seat, Wanda turned around the car and got in, sitting next to you in the passenger seat.

Your heart was racing, and you were static. When you risked looking down, you had a flash of memories, and your breath hitched and your eyes filled with tears. Wanda noticed, and reached for your hand quickly. You sat there in silence for about forty minutes until you stopped crying.

"Sorry, I'm wasting your time." You muttered breathlessly, and Wanda shook her head, squeezing your hand and raising the other to make you look at her. She stroked your cheek tenderly as she spoke.

"Don't say that. I want to be here and help you." She whispers while wiping your tears with her thumb. "As you have done for me."

You sniffled, trying to smile a little. Wanda just looked at you as you closed your eyes, trying to normalize your breathing.

"Let's try again tomorrow, okay?" Wanda murmurs to you. You gasp slightly, agreeing.

Then you switched places, and Wanda drove you home. You mumbled a thank you, giving the woman a long kiss on the cheek before getting out of the car. You didn't notice how she squeezed the steering wheel and her face flushed when your lips touched her skin.

//-//

[writing-in-april]

MGG Characters Masterlist

This is my Masterlist for characters that Matthew Gray Gubler portrays. They are sorted by fluff, angst and smut and from first posted to last. Requests are open for this actor. Upcoming fics are on my main Masterlist. ♥️=Author’s Favorite⚠️=Major trigger warning Main Masterlist

Spencer Reid x Reader

SERIES (2+ chapters):

Chronological series:

The Five Stages of Grief : Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer going through the stages of grief after the death of the Reader. (ANGST) ♥️⚠️ —completed—

- Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader meets a mysterious man at the library during book club. ♥️ -in progress- -prompt/request—fic swap— (18+)

Unlinked series:

Spencer Reid & Letters: Group of fics exploring how Spencer and different types of Readers correspond through letters and their relationships.(Fluff- may contain angst & smut in the future) -in progress-

Fluff:

Oneshots:

- Ghost Story : Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer tells Reader a ghost story before the power goes out.—request—

- Curl Recovery : Post Prison Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Curly Hair Reader: Spencer’s hair took a beating in prison along with the rest of his being. Reader helps Spencer gain a little back of what he lost. ♥️-Hurt/Comfort-

- 9 o’clock : Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Barista Reader: Reader is an owner of a coffee shop and learns the identity of her late night regular as well as the reason why he likes so much sugar in his coffee.

- Dahlias :Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer over analyzing what type of flowers to get for Reader for their first date ♥️-fic swap-

- Happy Coincidences : Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: You keep running into Spencer before work will you ever get his number? -request-

- The Best Time To Wear a Striped Sweater: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Where does Spencer’s striped sweater go after the first episode?—1000 follower celebration—

- My Knight in Shiny Armor: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Reader is a fantasy novelist and writes Spencer into their story. ♥️ —fic swap—

- The Melody Lives On: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Seeing Spencer after so long apart makes past feelings come to the surface again.

- Cinematic Coincidences: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer can’t bring himself to go on another date that’s been set up for him- so he stands his date up. Spence seemingly can’t catch a break and runs into the date he stood up. -30 fics in 30 days-

- Origins: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader (Reader is from a specific geographical location): Reader feels homesick after a particularly gruesome case. Spencer can’t buy a plane ticket, but he can try to help recreate part of home with them. -30 fics in 30 days-

- Question and Answer: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Garcia gets Reader to answer some questions about their feelings for Spencer. -30 fics in 30 days-

- Shining Bright Above You: Spencer Reid x Male Reader: Spencer finally gets to go out with his boyfriend after getting out of prison and gets to see the light despite the overwhelming darkness. ♥️-30 fics in 30 days-

- Unwinding in the Vines: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Reader can’t get enough of cuddling Spencer. -30 fics in 30 days-

- Manicured: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer finally lets Reader paint his nails. -30 fics in 30 days-

Blurbs/Ficlets:

- Lactose Intolerant: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader : Spencer loves dairy despite his allergy, it comes back to bite him and reader takes care of him. ♥️

- Spooked: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Reader really wishes Spencer hadn’t picked a haunted house as a team bonding exercise.

- Four More Months & No More Months Spencer Reid x Pregnant Female Reader: Spencer talking to their baby while Reader pretends to sleep.-1000 follower celebration-1250 follower celebration-request-

Angst:

Oneshots:

- Jinxed : Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader : Reader is deeply affected by a case and is comforted by Spencer, at the end of the case Reader gets injured. (ENDS HAPPY)

- Too little Too Late : Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer isn’t sure what he’s fighting for anymore and feels abandoned by Y/N and his team. Set post Revelations. Major Trigger Warnings ⚠️ (SAD ENDING)

- A Greek Tragedy: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader (Masc. coded) :Spencer and Reader’s lives now resemble a Greek tragedy after Spencer returns from his kidnapping. ♥️⚠️(Hurt Comfort) (Light at the first of a tunnel sad ending)-prompt/request-

- Off the Table: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Based off the Ariana Grande song off the table. Reader wants to ask Spencer- I’d love off the table? ♥️⚠️ —1000 follower celebration— —request-

- Converging Parallels: Spencer Reid x Female Single Mom Reader: Spencer goes to a support group Penelope suggested after the death of Maeve. He quickly connects with a single mom who’s experiences have been similar to Spencer’s. -30 fics in 30 days-

- Tiny Vessels: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer is done lying to himself about his true feelings for reader, but isn’t done lying to them. ♥️-30 fics in 30 days-

Smutty (not full on smut, smut is further down):

Oneshots:

- Yeah: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: When Reader’s favorite song comes on while they’re out at a bar with the team, Reader can’t resist wanting to dance with Spencer even if it outs their secret relationship. -request-

- Training Wheels: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Years ago Spencer taught Reader to drive despite the fact that he hates driving. When they become good at driving enough to learn how to ride a motorcycle they get Spencer to come along for a ride.

Smut:

Oneshots:

Sub!Spencer Reid x Reader:

x Gender Neutral Reader:

- Georgia Peach: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: Spencer sees reader eating a peach and goes a little crazy. ♥️ -request-

- Helping hands: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader: After a bad case Spencer needs help shaving after getting injured, he gets help from the least likely person to help in his life. ♥️ (Enemies to lovers) -prompt/request-

- Slapped: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader x Elle Greenaway: impromptu little fic that @sparklinspence and I ended up writing quickly in the reblogs about Spencer getting his cock slapped while away on a case. ♥️

x Female Reader:

- Surprise Pretty Boy  :Sub!Spencer : Spencer Reid x Female Reader : Reader hasn’t had any sex in what feels like forever, so she seduces Spencer. When they get to Reader’s apartment she has a surprise waiting for him.

- Solaris: Sub!Spencer : Spencer Reid x Female Reader : Spencer and Reader finally get a vacation, so they go and see a Russian film called Solaris. Reader coxes Spencer into getting freaky in the theatre.

- Painted Nails: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer’s dom paints his nails for date night and she goes crazy at the sight of them.—-request—-

- Plot twist: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader buys a new pair of heels but they aren’t for her. ♥️ —750 follower celebration—

- Keep Reading: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader brings a surprise for Spencer at their picnic date. -♥️—750 follower celebration— —prompt/request-

- Braided Brat: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer lets Reader braid his hair, he can’t help but tease her. —750 follower celebration—

- Pleasent Surprise: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader asks Spencer if she can try to be more dominant in the bedroom. —750 follower celebration—

- Guest Lecturer: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: gets Spencer riled up during class while he’s guest lecturing. ♥️—750 follower celebration—

-Taking care: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer needs Reader to help him relax after some people were unkind to him —750 follower celebration—-request-

- Good in Red: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer really likes the color of your lipstick. ♥️ —1000 follower celebration—

- Green with Envy: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer gets mad over something reader can’t control and a fight ensues- plus heavy makeup sex after the fight.

- Soured Nostalgia: Sub!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: When Reader moves their stuff in to Spencer’s apartment they find photos that he kept over the years. One photo of the past springs up memories of Spencer’s precious relationship with Elle. ♥️-30 fics in 30 days-

-Erotica Explained: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer finds Reader’s erotica writing. ♥️-30 fics in 30 days-

Dom!Spencer Reid x Reader:

- Star Trek vs. Star Wars: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader Smut: Spencer and reader get into a heated argument over which is better Star Trek or Star Wars, Reader in turn breaks some of Spencer’s rules. —fic swap—

- The Case of the Missing Coffee: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader Smut: Spencer gets on Reader’s nerves just a little too much one day.—fic swap—

-Occupied: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer and Reader get caught in a bar bathroom by one of their coworkers after Reader couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. -500 follower celebration- -prompt/request-

- Birthday Spankings: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: A normally shy reader decides to tease Spencer on his birthday thinking she could get away with it —request—

- Poker Face: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader thought she could get away with speaking her desires out loud as long as they were in a different language. Turns out, someone could understand her. ♥️

- April Fools: Dom!Spencer (not as harsh as others): Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer needs to one up Reader just as he’s about to loose a prank war. —30 fics in 30 days-

- Dressed in Crimson: Dom!Spencer: Spencer Reid x Female Reader:(Royalty AU)Spencer is a stable boy with a passion for learning and Reader is the princess of the palace that he serves in. They’ve been in a secret relationship, the two grow restless about not being able to be out in the open. ♥️ -30 fics in 30 days-

Non specific dom Spencer Reid x Reader:

- Russian Roulette: Non specific dom: Spencer Reid x Female Unsub Reader: Reader and Spencer formed a relationship during an investigation, turns out she was the unsub they were looking for. Spencer finds the Readers hiding place cornering her, but he can’t let her go yet. Major Trigger Warnings ♥️⚠️ (SAD ENDING)

- Mismatched: Non specific dom: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader is Spencer’s roommate and they have been pining after each other for a while. One morning they finally get to act on their feelings.

- The Big Bluff: Non specific dom: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Spencer goes up against a professional poker player. ♥️-500 follower celebration-

- Any Iteration: Non specific dom: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: Reader is nervous that this new iteration of her won’t be something Spencer will like. ♥️

Blurbs:

- A Snowy Morning After: Part One, Part Two: Non specific dom: Spencer Reid x Female Reader: After being snowed in after a one night stand, Spencer wants to go for a round two. -1000 follower celebration—30 fics in 30 days-

Chip Taylor x Reader (MGG character from 68 kill)

Fluff:

Oneshots:

- Chipped: Chip Taylor x Gender Neutral Reader: Chip Taylor watching Beauty and the beast for the first time with Reader. -500 follower celebration- -prompt/request-

Angst:

Smut:

Oneshots:

Sub!Chip Taylor x Reader:

- Party Play: Sub!Chip: Chip Taylor x Female Reader: After Reader gets Chip to voice one of his deepest desires Reader takes him to a play party Reader’s friend hosts. ♥️-30 fics in 30 days-

Raymond Wadsworth x Reader (MGG character from Suburban Gothic)

Fluff:

Oneshots:

- Unsolved: Raymond Wadsworth x Gender Neutral Reader: Raymond runs into the buzzfeed unsolved duo investigating the same place he is, plus their cute camera operator. -500 follower celebration- -prompt/request-

Smut:

Oneshots:

Sub!Raymond Wadsworth:

- Spooks: Sub!Raymond: Raymond Wadsworth x Female Reader: Raymond starts sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong at the next haunting he’s investigating. ♥️ -30 fics in 30 days-

Angst:

Oneshots:

Blurbs:

- Birthday Blues: Raymond Wadsworth x Gender Neutral Reader: Raymond wants his partner to come back from the dead.

Franklin x Reader (MGG character from Beginner’s luck)

Fluff:

Oneshots:

- Bowling Ball Baby Franklin x Pregnant Female Reader: Franklin and Reader get into a fight about him not being there for Reader’s pregnancy. He has a unique way of apologizing.♥️-Hurt/Comfort-

- Gutter Balls Franklin x Male Reader: While meeting up for a friendly game of bowling with Franklin’s team some very rude people try to insert their opinion on yours and Franklin’s relationship. (Has some angst but is v happy). —request—

- Chili Cheese Fries: Franklin x Gender Neutral Reader: Franklin tries to make bowling alley food taste better during a first date. ♥️ -30 fics in 30 days-

Angst:

Smut:

Oneshots:

- The Owner’s Office: Dom!Franklin: Franklin x Female Reader: Franklin won’t stop pestering the owner of the alley about getting a discount. —1000 follower celebration— —prompt/request— ♥️

Lesley Smith-Juniment x Reader (MGG in Hot Air)

Fluff:

- Unintentionally Unrequited: Lesley Smith-Juniment x Gender Neutral Reader: Reader holds in their love for Lesley after his broken engagement. -30 fics in 30 days-

Angst:

Smut:

-Will be adding more characters in the future-

[songofwizardry]

after everything is done, the mighty nein stay with each other.

not all the time, of course—but they have Sending spells, and letters, and at one point Essek gets hold of an extra sending stone, but still. they stay together.

Caduceus visits them all, one by one. makes the long journey down to Nicodranas, and meets Jester and Fjord and Kingsley on the beach. he brings dried fruits from his garden. they picnic in the shade of the Wildmother's lighthouse. he finds work to do wherever he wanders—there are hundreds of people, dozens of towns, in need of a healer, or someone to help with a farm, or someone to listen to them through their grief. the Wildmother occasionally guides him, the winds urging head East, or, find this gnome in this town. usually, though, he lets his feet guide him.

Fjord and Jester make their way up, down, the Menagerie Coast. after so long in the Empire and the Dynasty, they both find they've missed the coast they grew up on. Fjord picks up new crew, sometimes—young people looking for work on the docks, older ones who give obviously-fake names and don't answer questions. he pays them fairly, and teaches them the ropes, and treats them with kindness as someone once treated him with kindness, and lets the salt water and sea-air do their work. Jester finally sees Port Damali, and Feolinn, and Port Zoon, and they are lovely, even if she still thinks Nicodranas is the best. she leaves dicks in temples and on street corners, and once or twice, she sees a green-cloaked figure admiring her work. she sends messages every day, working her way through their family—just updates, about the dragon turtle they just saw, or how Kingsley is trying his hand at painting, or about the new crew members they've picked up.

the two of them find trinkets wherever they go. it starts off as a joke, Fjord saying, oh, we should definitely buy that box of buttons for Veth, I can tell her we found Buttonbeard. but then they keep going—a book of Lucidian folk-tales for Caleb, a strange pepper plant for Caduceus, an ocean-blue set of fighters' gloves for Beau. wherever they go, they find something that reminds them of their family, and they bring it back.

an expositor's work is never done, so Beau ends up back in Rexxentrum or Zadash at least once a year, often more (and maybe she goes back more often than she strictly needs to, but nobody needs to know that). she sees the house Caleb's found, a small place, not on the academy grounds, but close enough. she stays a few nights, and watches Caleb light the stove with a snap of steady fingers, and is introduced to a loud, demanding black cat, who doesn't have Frumpkin's infinite patience for their bullshit.

the seeds Caduceus gave her serve Yasha well. she goes back to the Blooming Grove in the spring, spends time with the Clays. learns more about the earth. gets more seeds. she and Caduceus spend time together, walking the grounds, tending the plants, tilling, and they don't say much.

when Marion goes back to Nicodranas, they all visit. Jester stays for the longest time, bouncing between spending time with her mother and teaching Luc prank ideas catching up with the Brenattos, but eventually, all of the Nein end up there. they take over several rooms of the Chateau, and stay up far too late (and let Luc stay up far too late with them), swapping stories and sharing drinks: Is Vandran re-reading Tusk Love again? You need to introduce him to more literature! and Wait, so when you say you and Essek were stuck in a snowstorm without the tower, that to-tally means you had to cuddle for warmth, right? and Did you actually just... walk to Uthodurn, Caduceus?

they don't let Essek disappear for long. sure, he does eventually drop off the face of Exandria, researching this or that, at one point sneaking back into the Dynasty to see his brother, but he always shows up again. Jester sends him messages. he and Caleb keep up a continuous stream of letters, eventually finding magical means to get them to each other faster. and with Teleportation spells, he's always visiting—a week in Rexxentrum, heavily disguised; almost a month with Caduceus, using his rose-patterned gardening gloves; a brief stint in Nicodranas, helping out at the Brenatto Alchemists. (a few years after Aeor, he spends more time in Rexxentrum. stays a month. then two. then six. then a year. eventually, he and Caleb get a second cat. and he cannot stay forever, but he still stays.)

for the first time in his life, Caleb has time. and so he takes it. slowly, he walks the streets of Rexxentrum, learning to love it again (he's not sure if he ever really stopped loving it). he works, slowly, with Beauregard—it might take their whole lives to dismantle the mess of power and abuse that the Assembly is; it will probably take even longer. but he keeps at it anyway. he goes back and forth between the Academy and the Soul; when Beau combs through questionable documents, Caleb asks questions; when the mages of the Academy and Assembly hold meetings, Caleb goes to them and keeps his eyes on the Martinet.

he starts teaching. he's not sure about it, at first—the Academy hurt, not just him, but so many others. but with Trent gone, he thinks—there can be a change. and he wants to feel the joy of new magic again, to watch new eyes come alight with it, he wants to show people how it can be used to help, and heal, and love, instead of hurt. so he starts teaching. it's joyous, and energising, and exhausting, and he watches his students – his students – all the while, for the slightest hint that they are being hurt, or forced, or coerced, or trained into something they don't want to be. he watches them grow, and learn. he pushes the envelope of treason, just a bit, talks of magic and wonder beyond the empire and its structures. and with every group, he teaches them the spell find familiar.

the Brenattos open up a new apothecary in Nicodranas. it's bigger, and brighter, and busier than the one in Felderwin—they get more herbs and more customers here, and with both Yeza and Veth in the lab, they're soon coming up with new concoctions, experimenting together. when Veth gets the itch in her bones (and she does, numerous times), she tracks down one of the nein, and wanders with them for a bit—visiting Rumblecusp with Beau and Yasha, a trip investigating Halas' halls with Caleb, a few weeks on the Lucidian ocean. she never stays long, and she always comes home. she hasn't broken that promise yet.

Luc grows up on the coast, and learns to swim. sometimes, she joins him.

when they get a house, she and Yeza – by unspoken agreement – find a place with two extra rooms, a sitting room large enough for several people to fit on the floor, and a garden. Yeza's food is almost as good as Caduceus', so it's no surprised that the nein come and visit, often. Yasha helps them grow beds of flowers in the garden. Jester and Fjord bring all manner of strange mementoes from the oceans. when the academy is closed, Caleb stays for months on end, helping her teach the teenagers of Nicodranas basic cantrips and how to pick locks during the day (we are unleashing a menace, he warns her, but he's smiling), and reading to Luc in the evenings.

they gather, together, in her house, too. sometimes for a special occasion (she and Yeza renew their vows in the garden), but often, for no reason at all. just to be together. there is space for all nine of them—she made sure of that. they talk, and laugh, and fall asleep in a chaotic pile in the Brenatto's living room.

in a few days, they will embrace, and separate, and head back to whatever they've been doing. but they will come back together, eventually.

after everything, the mighty nein stay together.

[drabbles-mc]

Game Night

EZ Reyes x F!Reader

Request by @beardburnsupersoldiers: If you are still doing the roommate prompts....maybe number 3 with Angel, EZ, and reader???? Bonus points if all that delicious tension is happening between reader and the Reyes of your choice! (Prompts are from This List btw)

Warnings: language, alcohol, EZ being a sore loser 

Word Count: 2k

A/N: This was really fun to write! I don’t think I’ve ever written a fic quite like this one before so it was a neat little dynamic. Hope you enjoy! xo

Join my group-chat here: (X)

EZ Reyes Taglist: @ly--canthrope @noz4a2 @queenbeered @sincerelyasomebody @sadeyesgf @thesandbeneathmytoes @appropriate-writers-name @tomhardydallasstarsgirl @multiyfandomgirl40 @sillygoose6969 @louisianalady @gemini0410 @paintballkid711 @chibsytelford @yourwonkywriter @sesamepancakes @mayans-sauce @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @plentyoffandoms​ @georgiaaintnopeach​ @twistnet​ @themoonandthewicked​ @garbinge​ @bucky-iss-bae​ @enjoy-the-destruction​ @encounterthepast​ @everyhowlmarksthedead​ @rosieposie0624​ @mylittlelonelyappreciationtoo​ @mijop​ @xladymacbethx​ @blessedboo​ @holl2712​ @lakamaa12​ @masterlistforimagines​ @kkim120​ @toni9​ @shadow-of-wonder​ (If you want to be added to any of my taglists let me know!)

“You grab beer for tonight?” you had your phone pinned between your ear and your shoulder as you tossed your grocery bags into the back seat of your car.

“I was supposed to grab beer?” EZ chuckled.

“You can’t even try to pull that shit, Memory Boy,” you laughed.

You could hear the smile in his voice, “Yes I grabbed beer.”

“You’re perfect. I think I’m still gonna go to the liquor store though.”

“What for?”

“…liquor?”

You could envision him rolling his eyes at you, forever fed up with your remarks, “I feel like that’s excessive.

“Live a little, Ezekiel,” you joked, “It’s game night.”

It wasn’t long after you had moved in with EZ you started up game night with him and his brother. It was a good way for them to unwind and forget about the stress of the club, and you just genuinely enjoyed their company. It was nice to play host every now and then, even if it was just for one extra person. You and Ezekiel made quite the pair.

You knew how potentially messy it could get, having feelings for your roommate. That’s why you kept your thoughts and emotions to yourself. But you couldn’t deny that there was something about EZ that was really hard to tear yourself away from. There were moments when you could swear that he wanted you too, but they were fleeting and you always ended up writing them off for the sake of your sanity. When EZ wasn’t paying attention, Angel gave you grief about it. He was at least gracious enough to keep his mouth shut in front of his brother, although on more than one occasion he would shoot you a suggestive look, and you would respond with rolling your eyes and shaking your head.

You popped open the door to your apartment, multiple bags hanging from each of your arms. EZ turned and looked over at you from where he was situated by the counter, pulling together food for the three of you to eat later. He laughed as he walked over and offered to take some of the bags from you, but you waved him off.

“I have a very delicate balance here, Ezekiel,” you laughed, “If you take one I’m gonna tip over.”

He laughed as he stepped out of your way, “Got more in the car?”

You gave him a disbelieving look, “You think I was raised to make more than one trip from the car with groceries?” you shook your head as you carefully started sliding bags off your arms onto the floor, “It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

He held his hands up in surrender, “My bad. Didn’t mean to insult your honor.”

He helped you put the groceries away before he got back to getting food ready. You made your way to the closet in your room that housed an absurd number of card games and board games. You had always meant to bring Cards Against Humanity to the clubhouse because you felt like it would make for an extremely fun night. You’d have to just put it in EZ’s bags one of these days so it would turn up there on its own.

You heard the sound of your apartment door shutting, and moments after Angel’s voice echoed through the apartment, “What game am I whopping your asses at tonight?”

You laughed loud enough so that he would hear you from the other end of the apartment, “You’re toast, Reyes. You don’t stand a chance.”

He appeared in the doorway of your bedroom, “Stand a chance at what? What’s the game of the night?”

“Wanna do drunk Uno?”

He laughed, “That sounds dangerous.”

“Really? Less than two minutes ago you were saying that you were gonna whoop everyone’s ass tonight. Now you’re backing out?”

“I didn’t say that. Gimme the fucking cards,” he swiped them from you with a laugh before heading back towards the living room.

Plates and beer bottles were scattered on the edges of your coffee table while the three of you took up the center of it with your Uno game. The bottle of tequila rested next to the deck in the center of your table, waiting for one of you to lay down a draw four and make the next person take a shot along with their cards.

Angel had been sitting back and watching you and EZ trying to destroy each other all night. Angel was the king of talking smack, but tonight he was more interested in spurring the two of you on than getting you riled up himself. It was an effective tactic, too, because the amount of tequila he’d had to drink was minimal. Instead, he happily worked his way through a couple beers with little to no interruptions. He was really just waiting for one you two to get enough alcohol in your system to do something about your feelings. He was sick of watching the two of you dance around it.

“Angel shuffles next game,” EZ said with a shake of his head, “There’s no way you fairly ended up with all of those cards.”

“You’re just mad because you hate the taste of tequila,” you teased, “But fine. If it makes you feel better,” you handed the deck over to Angel, “Here you go.”

“Told you he was a sore loser,” Angel chuckled as he shuffled the deck of cards.

“Shut the fuck up,” EZ laughed as he threw a loose bottlecap at his brother.

Despite Angel being the one to shuffle the cards, EZ was looking at another loss. You were kind enough not to say anything, but the look in his eyes as you smiled across the table at him let you know that he knew exactly what you were thinking.

“You’re about to go 0 for 3, little brother,” Angel laughed as he put a card down.

“Thank you, Angel, I wasn’t aware,” EZ chuckled and shook his head as he looked over the cards in his hands.

You stretched your legs out underneath the coffee table, not realizing that Ezekiel had done the same thing not too long before you. Your foot brushed lightly along the inside of his thigh as you stretched and he instantly jerked his leg, causing his knee to slam into the bottom side of the table. He cursed under his breath and Angel looked completely lost, not having realized what happened.

You, however, were sitting there with a smirk on your face as EZ looked over at you. The look in his eyes gave him away and you could see him make a concentrated effort to take a deep breath.

“Suck it,” Angel completely moved on from the tension between you and EZ as he threw down his last card, “Alright. That’s it. I’m out,” he slowly rose to his feet.

“Leaving already?” you laughed as you looked up at him.

“Already? Listen, querida, you make me take any more shots I won’t be able to ride home. Some of us have shit to do tomorrow. Imma take my win and leave,” he walked over and kissed the top of your head, “Keep whooping his ass for me. It’s good for him.”

He and EZ gave each other a brief hug, EZ not getting off the floor to do so. Angel looked back and forth between the two of you one more time before shaking his head and making his way for the door. Once it shut behind him, you looked back to EZ with a smile.

“Just you and me now, Ezekiel,” you said as you placed a card on top of the one Angel had just laid down.

“Yea, Angel isn’t here to team up on me with you anymore. You’re done for,” he chuckled.

That was the last thing that was said between the two of you for a few turns. You kept looking at each other, trying to figure out what the other was thinking as if it weren’t already painstakingly obvious.

“Uno,” you said as you got yourself down to one card. You paused, waiting for EZ to get enthralled with making his next card choice, “How’s your knee, by the way?”

He flicked his eyes up to you, “It’s fine.”

“Oh,” you nodded, a smirk on your face, “good.”

He lowered his cards, “What?”

You shook your head, “Just wondering. Sounded like it hurt. Thought it might’ve thrown off your game a little bit.”

He narrowed his eyes at you as he set a card down, “I’ll be alright. Draw four,” he pushed the bottle towards you.

You chuckled as you poured yourself a shot and got back into the game. The two of you were able to drag it on for a while. By the time you were getting towards the end of it, both of you were kneeling, leaning onto the coffee table as you tried to beat each other to the last card. You were down to two cards left, EZ only had four. But you could see him sweating it out, not wanting to have yet another loss for the night.

You laid a card down, chuckling as you said, “Uno.”

He groaned, clearly agonizing over which card he was going to put down next. You bit back a laugh, not wanting him to accuse you of trying to distract him. With a deep sigh he finally picked a card and set it on top of the deck between you. You looked back and forth between that card and the one in your hand multiple times, dragging it out.

Finally, you looked up at him and smile, laying the card down, “Take a shot, Reyes.”

His eyes grew wide as he looked down at the draw four that was staring him in the face. He looked up at you, “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“Read ‘em and weep,” you laughed as you sat back on the carpet.

“You’re so done,” EZ laughed as he stood up off the floor.

You let out a scream that turned into a laugh as you jumped up off the ground, trying to run to your bedroom and shut the door before EZ could get to you, “Angel’s right, you are a sore loser,” you laughed as you scrambled.

You threw open the door to your bedroom and were about to jump inside when you felt an arm wrap around your waist, his hand landing firmly on your stomach as he pulled you back towards him. You laughed as he spun you around, but your breath quickly got caught in your throat when you realized how close he was to you.

“I won fair and square,” you tried not to let your nerves shine through.

“Fair and square seems like a stretch,” he chuckled.

You couldn’t help but to focus on the way his fingers pressed into your skin. You swallowed hard, “Why is it more likely that I cheated than me just being better than you at Uno?” you laughed, “What you do want, a consolation prize?”

As soon as you said it, you almost wanted to take it back. Almost. EZ smirked, “What kind of consolation prize?”

You wanted to look anywhere but at him because you could feel what little resolve you had fading away quickly, “What’re you thinking, EZ Reyes?”

He leaned in close so that his lips were practically touching yours, but not quite. You took a deep breath before closing what little distance was left, hands resting on the back of his neck to keep his lips pressed to yours. When it clicked in his brain what was happening, that you wanted the same thing he did, he wrapped his arms tightly around your waist, pressing your chest flush against his as he kissed you. Your fingers traced along his jawline as his lips moved against yours—it was everything that you had thought it would be and then some.

When you finally took your lips off of his, you both let out quiet chuckles. EZ loosened his hold on your waist slightly, pulling back so he could get a better look at your face.

You smiled at him, “That a good enough consolation prize?”

He laughed, nodding, “I’d say so. I’m willing to forgive you for rigging the deck for that.”

[emcon-imagines]

what would daily life in the post-snap world look like?

life in the post-snap world thoughts/ideas (that i’ll definitely be using when i get to that part in my oc work but i wanted to post now askdf) also if anyone feels inspired by this tag me lol i want to read!!

Weeks go by where you don’t know who survived and who lived. You call hospitals. Check social media. Text friends. 

Months of confusion as supply chains are disrupted. Blackouts. Trash collection stalled. Storms come and no one is around to clean up.

Gathering names through word of mouth, writing the names down in a notebook, a page for those that lived and a page for those that didn’t

You spend weeks searching for someone who witnessed your friend get dusted just so you have closure and know they’re actually gone

And reconnecting with acquaintances who lived and becoming closer simply out of survival and a need for connection

People posting under the tag #stillhere on social media so loved ones know they’re safe

But it’s eerie how quiet social media is, people’s pages just going radio silent, their last post overwhelmed with survivors’ grief in the comments

A hotline is set up but it’s immediately overwhelmed and 911 is practically defunct

And government response is partial at best. They try to get a census out, but there’s not nearly enough organization for it to be helpful.

Entire blocks of the city covered in missing persons posters. You try to memorize the faces, but there are too many.

Going on a ton of long drives, just to see other people and other parts of your city

Your college takes forever to put out a statement, some students just up and leave in the meantime

So many people just pack up and leave. You have no idea where they plan to go.

If you’re in high school, school just sort of ends for the year. You return a few weeks later to gather your things that you left behind on the day of the Snap.

Showing up to work the day after the Snap, realizing your boss isn’t there, sitting at your desk for a few minutes while other coworkers shuffle in, and then collectively deciding to go home

Visiting your friend’s house just to sit on their front porch and pretending like they’ll be out any minute

Not opening the last Snapchats they sent to you because you don’t want them to disappear

Of course you’ve heard of the Avengers, and though you look to them for guidance, they seem to be as lost as you are

All your favorite shows and sports teams have gone off the air

Some sports leagues pulling up players from the minor leagues, but it’s not the same without your favorites

And it’s so hard when shows go back on air and shows have to explain the loss of half of their main cast

Lots of tough tribute episodes come out of that era of television. Tons of cancellations are announced.

Two months after the Snap, SNL returns to air once, also a tribute episode. You cry.

Two days later, Sesame Street airs an episode on "adapting to change." Half of the cast is gone. Mr. Noodle is without his brother. Elmo misses Big Bird. You cry even harder when you see your little cousin that's moved in with you post-Snap watching it.

Seeing commercials on TV and wondering how many of those people are gone now

The quiet, the quiet is the worst part. The highways, the skies, the airwaves, everything is quiet.

Hangouts with your remaining friend group, where mostly everyone just sits in silence around a bonfire

Or driving around, walking in the woods, talking about the friends you lost

Substance abuse out the wazoo

People you went to high school with posting crazy conspiracies on Facebook

When school does return in the fall, it’s hard to tell how many were Snapped and how many couldn’t bring themselves to return

For high schoolers, the grief is tangible in the halls on the first day of school. Classes are tiny, the lunchroom is only half-filled. Your school comes up with a stupid motto like “Stay Strong” or something that makes you feel even worse

High school seniors are pushed to start applying to college and so many end up just deferring for the time being

And tons of colleges have to change their application packet because things like the SATs and ACTs are still unorganized and aren’t administered

Homecoming feels like a funeral that year and the homecoming game is super emotional

Using “with everything going on” as an excuse for why you didn’t do your homework, or make it to work, or forgot a responsibility and people understanding exactly what you mean

Lots of people living with relatives or friends in makeshift households

The New York Times putting out an entire edition that’s just the names of the lost

Lots of local newspapers following their lead

It becomes a regular section in newspapers as stats are updated

fucking charity concerts man

[fireemblems24]

Dimitri's Supports

I have waited FOREVER for this. Let's go. And I decided to put my patience to the test, saving Dedue for last.

Since it's Dimitri and I love him, and like Dedue who I also love, he's the only one unlocking all his A-Supports, I'm going to blog all my reactions to them like I did with Dedue. Part of me wishes I thought of this for the other characters, but honestly it would've taken forever lol. Plus Dimitri and Dedue get special treatment because I said so.

Raphael

Starting off with something light hearted, I hope. I do wonder if I'm going to regret not saving this one for the inevitably heavy-handed stuff coming later.

I'm seriously betting this is a support you're supposed to get in part 1 lol. Dimitri sounds young (or maybe I'm just haven't heard non-growl part 2 Dimitri enough yet?)

Dimitri's training made Raphael think he was dying lol. Dimitri's strength is really meme tier.

I need fanart of Dimitri and Chrom co-miserating their mishandled strength breaking something. And Lucina.

Lamo, Raphael has never felt a cramp before. Lucky bastard.

Raphael is a sweetie, going to apologize to his muscles. I really wish they gave him something else to talk about other than muscles and food. Not everyone needs Dimitri tier development, but I think I'd like Raphael a lot more if he just got a smidge more depth.

Got to say, it's a bit jarring to go from "moments away from a suicide charge in the rain" to "lol, Raphael, it's muscle pain." As glad as I am that I got this support, I do think some should've been locked to part 1.

And this isn't just for Dimitri's development. I also saw Marianne and Raphael's B before this support and she reverted back to her part 1 self too.

Catherine

Maybe it's just me, but he does sound a bit older.

OMG - Dimitri's back. 😭😭😭

Sorry, it didn't really hit in that first one since that seemed like a part 1 support.

Oh, cool! I was wondering if anyone would bring up Catherine returning to Faerghus. My bets is she's too loyal to Rhea. (I guessed right)

Catherine be simpin. That's ok, I get it.

So it's not because Catherine dislikes Dimitri, or that she's absolutely needed to rule House Charon, so I think Dimitri just likes her. She's cool though. I get it.

Lamo, she told him he'd better get his sleep like he's a kid.

Curious how the A+ support will play out.

Mercedes

Team Mom's support!

Oh, no, this one's taking a serious turn isn't it? But their initial supports were so light and cute.

Mercedes just told Dimitri that he's kind to a fault. Somehow I know he's going to deny that.

Annnnnd I'm right 😭😭😭He's still calling himself a killer and disgusting monster 😭😭😭

OK - so THIS seems perfectly in tone with his recent character development. But it's so sad hearing him still talk about himself that way.

Mercedes is such a therapist. I can't. She's too pure. But savage. I saw that Lorenz support.

"I am scared . . . so scared that I will forget their faces." 😭😭😭😭😭😭 Dimitri why????

Mercedes telling Dimitri to live in the present. Her supports are always so good. I legit think she's easily a top 10 favorite in this game.

Wow, Dimitri saying if someone told him that 5 years ago, he'd be different. DID NO ONE EVER GIVE HIM ANY HELP AT ALL???

I love how she's talking to him as a classmate, and equal, and not talking up to him. He's always wanted that.

Dimitri's never given his own dreams any thought 😭😭😭He really was just 100% living for other people most of the time. 😭😭😭

Awww MERCEDES, I can't. She says she just wants to keep being his friend. This is so damn sweet. And heavy. But still sweet.

It just hits super hard knowing how badly Dimitri just wanted friends in part 1. And looking back, Mercedes and Sylvain were really the only two who were pretty casual with him.

Aww, yeah, Mercedes not putting up with the bullshit, Dimitri. Telling him to quit the self-deprecation! God, I love her.

Oh, God, they both said the old FE code for "we're married" i.e. I want to "stay by your side."

Ok, @garlandgerard, I totally get why you ship this. Mercedes loves to nurture people, and Dimitri's emotionally needy, so they match pretty well. She also didn't put up with the constant self-put-downs, but stayed gentle about it. And they talked like equals too, like friends, which is what Dimitri always wanted. It's all very sweet.

Annette

Yeah, see, this one starts off with "your highness," but Mercedes it was just Dimitri. No hate for Annette. She's my girl.

These two always give me sibling vibes.

Haha, Annette "I thought I already knew you, but I'm not sure I really do." Hmmmm wonder what Dimitri did that made her think that maybe there's parts of him she didn't know. No. idea.

Hey, Annette, no one blames you for not knowing what to say to Dimitri when they reunited lol.

Annette too pure too, wanting to cheer Dimitri up with his favorite food.

Her not knowing what he likes to eat is 100% that moment when you realize you don't know someone's favorite color.

HOW can Dimitri have no strong feelings about food. I'm having pizza right now. Let me tell you, I have strong feelings about some food.

I love how easily Dimitri deflected from talking about himself lol.

Awwww, Annette wants to live with her family again. I'll make that happen, Annette. Don't worry.

Haha, they're conspiring together behind Gilbert's back.

They still have an A+ support, which is weird, because that seemed pretty well ended? Like I see why Catherine's needed more, but not this one. Still, not going to say no. I like their dynamic.

Ingrid

OCF they're training. God I love all the Faerghus childhood group though.

Oh, fuck, here comes Glenn again. My heart's not ready for this with Rodrigue dead. Poor Felix.

Ingrid being Dimitri's knight 😊😊😊 as it should be.

Haha, Dimitri asks her for an interpretation. Just make her your knight.

Glad he hasn't started saying "I'm not worthy!" Because right now it's about Ingrid's feelings.

Wow, there, Ingrid. "However you please, Your Highness." That . . . that sounds like an invitation. To "staying by your side."

Dimitri laughed. 😊😊😊

Oh, God, this is so cute. His pause asking her to support and defend him as his knight. 😊😊😊 OMG. I'm not sure that's all she had in mind though, good Sir, have you LOOKED in the mirror?

Seriously though, Ingrid's just surrounded by studs, isn't she?

Oh, God, I'm right. She didn't just mean knight. But Dimitri's too dense in that area to notice. She crushing hard. Girl, I get you.

She blushing, saying "for the Kingdom," naw, she just like him. Me too, Ingrid. Me too.

Dimitri always makes people promise not to die on him. It's so sad considering . . .

Flayn

With Flayn it's always a toss up. Sometimes things are super light hearted, and other times it's way heavy.

On a random note, does no one wonder why Flayn hasn't aged a day in 5 years?

Flayn having nightmares. Not allowed. I bet it's fucking Jeritza's fault. I'm glad you get to rip him a new one so many times in this game.

Why is Flayn apologizing?? She's never done a thing wrong in her life.

Right, Flayn's other support with Dimitri was pretty heavy. And it started so funny with him stomaching her food.

Oh, good grief, what's he apologizing for? Ok - so Dimitri did do some things wrong. But not to Flayn.

He lied. Let me guess. Her food actually sucks.

Aw, got it. He went right to the meal. Is he really going to come out and say, well it actually sucked 😂

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE MEALS???? AND THE TEA an embarrassing amount of tea.

Wait. He can't taste ANYTHING??? Like. How? Did he hide that????

Ok - I need to look at his team and dining dialogue.

OMG. He really never says a word about how anything tastes? He always just talks about smells????

OMG. How did I NOT NOTICE. I've taken Dimitri to dinner a million times. And tea timed him too many times to admit too.

AND I NEVER NOTICED HE NEVER ONCE SAID HOW ANYTHING TASTED. HOW.

OMG that support with Annette hits different now 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

OMG and Dedue's support with Flayn hits different now. Since he wanted to badly to find food Dimitri loves 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Does Dedue know? Is that why he's so dedicated to cooking??

Can I headcannon that?

OMG, I feel so awful about that jab about pizza. Dimitri CAN'T TASTE pizza or anything 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Please someone tell me there isn't any more "this awful thing also happened to Dimitri and he's failed to tell you" like learning he almost fucking died at Duscur. And now this. Dimitri needs to learn how to fucking complain.

The writers are so fucking mean to Dimitri. OMG. OMG, how am I supposed to take him to dinner and tea now, knowing this?

Why does everything hit so differently now? And so many Blue Lions supports are about food - but Dimitri can't relate

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

This game needs to stop bullying Dimitri.

But like, God, can you imagine? Not tasting anything? I'd starve. I'd actually starve. I never really get hungry. I really would starve.

On the flip side, he's good for Flayn then, since someone can eat her cooking I guess.

"I was just saying what I thought you would want to hear . . ." Dimitri - a summary.

Naw, that's a kind lie. That kind of lie doesn't really hurt anyone.

Oh - dear God. Flayn. Stop. No sampling pungent food.

Oh, she blushing. Dimitri got her blushing

Please tell me in their paired ending Dimitri gets his taste back.

Oh, there's an A+, does he taste something. Please tell me he tastes something.

This support though. It wasn't really one on my radar but

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Gilbert

Oh, man, this one right after Flayn's. God, I'm going to need the Alois one after this. Gilbert and Dimitri are two of the most somber characters in the franchise.

And I haven't forgotten that heartbreaking B support.

Haha Lambert sucked at lying too. Dimitri too pure. Weirdly, despite everything, it's still pretty true.

Oh, shit, oh shit, we're back to Dimitri's demand that Gilbert kill him. I'm betting you usually get that in part 2.

God, imagine seeing Dimitri recover only to see him beg for death again 😭😭😭😭😭😭

I need alcohol.

I need the Alois support.

OMG, shit, Dimitri. No. Don't. Stop.

Like, I know Gilbert won't really kill him, but damn. This support is heavy.

No, Dimitri, no Gilbert is not cruel for not killing you. God.

Oh, not sure about this. I get what Gilbert's going at here, but telling Dimitri that he's not allowed to die because he's got a duty is . . . I think Rodrigue's and Mercedes' live for what you want/the present is a LOT healthier.

At the same time, this is a pretty effective way to make sure Dimitri won't go and try this again, because he really takes duty seriously.

Dimitri doesn't wish to die? 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Oh, thank God.

"Many times I have felt that I cannot afford to die . . . But this was the first time I truly feared the prospect." 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

"Is it really right for me to live?" Oh, dear God. I'm so soft for Dimitri. I can't.

Gilbert answered that one right. 100%.

Damn, these supports.

Alois

OK. I need this one. I really need this one.

I really hope Alois' inspiration is bad puns. I need bad puns right now.

Pretty sure this is a part 1 support though. I love how Alois, not Dimitri, is leading this. And that the person the Kingdom NEEDS is running around and getting attacked by monsters lol

Ok, bad puns. Bring them.

There we go. Thank you, thank you, Alois.

OMG no one's laughing 😂😂😂

Dimitri's laughing 😭😭😭😭😭😭

That's it. This is always getting saved for part 2. I need to hear part 2 Dimitri laugh.

I'm also so glad someone finds Alois funny. Dimitri and Petra need to start a club.

OMG I love the two other confused soldiers. I needed this 😂😂😂

Marianne

These two were so sweet in their C and B supports.

I swear I'm going to end up shipping Dimitri with everyone. Except maybe Annette, no hate, they just seem so much like brother and sister to me.

And Felix x Annette 100%

Survivor's Guilt - the pairing. Both wondering why they survived 😭😭😭

"There are so many others who are much more deserving of life . . ." - who said it? Marianne or Dimitri?

These two just understand how each other feels so well. It hits so different compared to Marianne's other romantic possible supports where they just try to make her smile.

Instead these two take comfort in finding someone who understands how they feel so well and feel relieved they can share that with someone.

Haha - "I must go on living. I cannot give in to death so readily." This coming right after his support with Gilbert. Good job, Gilbert.

They've both had it so rough 😭😭😭😭😭😭

"There is no need to force yourself to smile as your soul bleeds." Dimitri always gives such good advice that he never follows.

Aww, now at least it's getting cute instead of just heavy. Marianne laughed too 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Yesss, Girl, preach. I got a little sick of her other supports all being "cheer up!" Like I know it's all in good faith, but I'm so glad this chain exists. It just hits different.

Dimitri doesn't think he's strong enough to live his life. 😭😭😭 this game. I swear.

ohhhh - ohhh, Dimitri blushing now. And all she needed to say was they've been brought closer together. Congrats Marianne!

OHHHH tables have been turned. Now someone's making Dimitri promise he needs to live!

"I don't know what I'd do with myself if we lost you . . ."

"I promise to the goddess of Fodlan that I will never give you cause for despair."

OMG these two are being so sweet, I can't. 😭😭😭😊😊😊

Felix

Oh, boy, here we go. This should be . . . interesting.

Oh, we're starting off good I see. Felix telling Dimitri he needs to answer quickly or get cut in half 😔Felix. No.

Dimitri sounds so somber 😭

Dimitri admitting both are him - the vengeful "boar" and the friendly good person. And this is why I love him.

Dimitri feels the need to shoulder all the regret the dead feel, please don't. They wouldn't want that 😭😭😭😭😭

"The dead won't acknowledge your loyalty, they don't care." - Felix not wrong there.

I partly agree with the idea Dimitri is "serving his own ego" by claiming he's acting for the dead. I think it's a bit more complicated than that, but I think that's part of it.

Felix saying some good stuff here about the dead being dead and the living being living.

"If you keep stringing gravestones around your neck, you'll snap." - Felix, I don't know if you noticed but . . . uh . . . he sort of did.

Felix telling Dimitri to become a grave keeper is a bit funny. Not going to lie.

"I'm not immune to emotion you know." - just tsunderes things

Aw, Felix is upset his father died 😭😭 after all that shit-talking about Rodrigue 😭😭

Wish Felix didn't cut Dimitri off when he said "more than anyone you-" (care about other people, unless he joins CF and just kills everyone)

Oh, God, Felix is such a tsundere. "I couldn't stand the pathetic look on your face. That's all." Sure, Felix.

Kinda wish these two had an A+ though. Seems like there's more to do than the A+ with Annette and Flayn.

Really curious to see what their paired ending is like after that. Seems they're still learning to learn about each other. Well, Felix is. Dimitri didn't seem too upset lol.

Dedue

Ok guys. Here we go. I can't believe I managed to wait for this for last. Everyone hyped this one, so let's hope.

Really? We open with Dimitri having scars on his back? 😭

From 9 years ago? So scars from Duscur then?

Images of shirtless Dimitri now. though Not bad images.

He got scars protecting Dedue?

"It makes me think that is was worthwhile that someone like me survived." 😭😭😭 he's talking about protecting Dedue? 😭😭😭

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

"But I saved someone - saved you. That and that alone has been my crutch." 😭😭😭😭😭

I always knew these two were co-dependent.

Dimitri really out here saying that saving Dedue helped him "justify" surviving. 😭😭😭😊😊😊

OMG THAT'S THEIR STORY

OMG, poor Dedue. And Dimitri 😭😭😭did he literally "take a bullet" to save Dedue 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 and still has scars? No wonder Dedue's so loyal. Some kid he didn't know did that. That's one hell of an introduction.

And picturing little Dedue just resigned and angry and waiting to die and just 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Oh, Dedue, you've repaid that debt ten-fold I'm sure.

Ahaha, Dimitri's doing the "you'd better accept your worth!" discussion this time lol.

Dear God these two. Now Dimitri's bringing up that Dedue busted him out of the jail.

I swear, these two have more of a plot off screen than some routes do on screen.

And now picturing Dimitri resigned and just ready to die. And then Dedue busts in. 😭😭😭

"That was nothing more than my duty as your vassal." Stop that Dedue. Dimitri doesn't want you to be his vassal. He wants more.

Holy shit.

"You are irreplaceable. Cherished." 😭😭😭😊😊😊😭😭😭😊😊😊😭😭😭😊😊😊😭😭😭😊😊😊

Not to be that person - but I tell all my "friends" that.

Yes, Dedue, stop saying insisting you're just a "vassal" - that's a worse joke than Alois' puns from earlier.

"Please . . . do not look at me that way." What way, like you're about to make Dimitri cry, or like . . .

"You promised me you would build a Kingdom that is proud to boast of Duscur blood." - shit, man, these two. I just . . .

OMG so much emotion from Dedue. The only time I ever heard that before was in VW when he learned Dimitri died. But let's not remember that right now 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Oh shit. He called him "Dimitri." 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

And it made him blush.

OMG.

Guys, these two.

Aww, Dimitri looks so surprised. 😊😊😊😊😊😊

Oh, these two are so soft for each other. I can't. I just can't.

"To be your friend . . . is what I have always wanted." You're going to get it.

Man, I feel almost guilty S-Supporting Dimitri. He needs to pair up with Dedue pronto.

Dimitri sounds chocked up. OMG.

"So please call upon me when you walk alone at night." Ok. Dedue. Ok. Yes. Guys. This is all very straight.

I'm not saying it's - you know - cannon, but there's some big feels here.

Oh, Dimitri, stop it. You like Dedue's overprotectiveness. Don't lie.

Man, you guys were so right. Dimitri really just came out and said Dedue was "cherished" and "irreplaceable." Like, I'm not making this stuff up. And Dedue blushing hardcore just saying Dimitri's name.

They're both just so soft. I can't. I literally cannot. This support was gold. It was worth all they hype.

And learning more about how they meant. Dimitri really taking a bullet for Dedue there. I just . . .

I just want all the happiness for both of them. They're really something special towards each other. Like I legitimately think this is one of the most two-way loyal relationships in the whole franchise, and definitely the tightest bond in this game.

Like in past games you had Seth for Ephraim and Erikia and Soren for Ike and it's not like Ike, Ephraim and Erikia and etc don't care, but it wasn't the same level, you know? But this is such a two way street.

And I'm so weak for bodyguard with a crush. Like Seth/Eirika? Yes. Geoffrey/Elincia? 100%. Riza/Roy (Fullmetal Alchemist) there again. I'm sure there's more, but those are my top ones. Even Merlin/Arthur sort of counts even if Arthur doesn't know Merlin's his bodyguard lol.

I need to read fanfic for these two. I really don't want to spoil anything, but I'm dying. They're both just so sweet, and I just really love their dynamic. I really want to do a write up on it once I get to the end of the game.

[tryingmybestpls]

Hurt

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Fem!Reader

Summary: In a post-snap world, the reader and Steve are falling apart.

Rating: R

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: Talks of death, talks of a dead child, infidelity, depression

A/N: this kinda just a fucking bummer. Sorry.

Almost an entire lifetime ago, Director Fury himself had told her that marriage and children only complicated life. At the time, Y/N had brushed it off. She was going to be an SHIELD agent, so she wasn’t going to have time for a spouse and children. And she was completely fine with that at the time.

Now, a part of Y/N wished that she had listened to her boss as she glances down at the shiny granite headstone.

Y/N didn't mean to fall in love with her teammate. Steve and her had a great friendship and it just sort of transitioned into an equally great relationship. Life happens and all that. They had gotten married shortly before the Accords caused the team to fall apart. A year into Steve, Sam, Natasha, Wanda, and Y/N being on the run, a smaller, tinier person joined the team.

Steve and Y/N were over the moon about the new addition to their family. Their son James (named after Steve’s best friend) was the sweetest little boy and had both of his parents wrapped around his tiny finger. They quickly adjusted to being parents, managed to balance their new roles and being on the run almost effortlessly. Sure it wasn't ideal, but they had to make do with the situation they were in. Things were fine and the little family was happy.

And then Thanos showed up.

Everyone had lost someone the day that Thanos snapped his fingers. No part of the universe was left untouched. Both Y/N and Steve were still reeling from the losses of their friends and teammates as they rushed back towards the royal palace. They had left James with Queen Ramonda and both of them needed to make sure he was safe, needed him to be okay. Death and destruction was all around them and dust hung in the air was they moved their legs faster and faster.

Instead they were met with the Queen Regent's sobs and a pile of dust amongst James's toys. It was an image that would be ingrained in Steve and Y/N forever.

Once both of them settled into a new apartment in Brooklyn, Y/N had joined a group for mothers who lost children in the Snap. Upon entering the meeting for the very first time, she was met with the glares of every mother in the room. Each one of their gazes seeming to scream at Y/N "This is your fault. You're the reason why our babies are gone.". The leader of the group took Y/N aside and asked with faux sincerity if the Avenger could leave. She couldn't blame them. Y/N would ask herself to leave too if she was in their shoes.

Y/N never told Steve what had happened. She knew he wouldn't understand. No one would ever turn Captain America down, no one would feel uncomfortable by his presence. Y/N on the other hand? Well she wasn't a cherished hero. She was just on the team.

Y/N didn't mean to distance herself from her husband, but it just happened. The day that James turned into the dust, a part of Y/N died. It was hard for her to put her feelings into words when everything just hurt. Y/N tried to talk about it, but her throat would just tighten with emotion as she tried to gather her words. Her days would blur together and Y/N would find herself unable to leave her room. She tried not to sleep, knowing that if she did all she would see is that pile of dust amongst his toys. Steve was patient at first, letting her take her time. Yet as one year without their son turned into two, his patience grew thin.

Y/N was trying her best, she really was. Sure it didn't seem like a lot of progress to just leave the house for short amounts of time, but it was just so hard. She’s lost people before, but none of those losses made her ache in such a way. Her arms felt empty with no child to carry and she felt so alone. Everything reminded her of James. A child laughing, the bounce of a ball, the crunch of the leaves underneath her feet as the seasons changed-everything reminded her of her son. She couldn't even look at her husband without her heart aching in her chest because their son looked just like him. She knew that Steve just wanted her to find a way to get through it and get over it. He had given up on helping her, spending more and more time at his meetings. Y/N just kept telling herself that they were helping him, so it wasn't a big deal if he was gone for most of the day. If he wasn't here, they didn't fight.

Before Thanos, they really didn't fight. Sure they would argue about stupid little things and make up almost immediately, but now? They fought about everything. Y/N asking if Steve could handle grocery shopping for the week would turn into a three hour long screaming match. Steve got pissed off about every little thing she did. Fighting with Steve was exhausting because somehow he always found a way to make Y/N feel shitty about anything she had and hadn't done. There wasn't anymore making up after their fights, no sweet kisses and I love yous. Only doors slamming shut and a lot of words that shouldn’t be thrown around so carelessly.

She tried to ignore it when he'd leave their apartment after they had a fight. Tried to ignore how loud the door would slam, how'd he'd mutter something under his breath as he grabbed his coat and keys. She even tried to ignore the smell of a perfume that wasn't hers when he'd come home, slipping under the covers without bothering to shower. Y/N even  tried to ignore it when he left her alone on Mother's Day, stuck in the apartment surrounding by images of the son she had lost while he was out doing whatever he did before coming home smelling like that perfume.

Y/N knew exactly what he was doing and she didn't know if had it in her anymore to fight with him. She tried to pretend like it wasn't happening until she just couldn't anymore.

"He's cheating on me, Nat." Y/N told her friend over their weekly coffee date-a sign of her progress. Natasha was stunned by the confession and was even more shocked by her friend's tone. Y/N said it like she was talking about the weather, her voice lacking any sort of emotion. The red head sitting across from her slowly put down her cup of coffee.

Y/N has been trying to tell Natasha since it started, but she just didn't know how to say it. Steve was one of Natasha's best friends and Y/N didn't want to tear them apart because of what Steve was doing. However, Natasha was Y/N's friend too and she had no one else to talk to. Y/N was at a crossroad and both of them ended in disaster. It just finally got to the point where she just had to tell Natasha and Y/N knew she shouldn't feel guilty about finally saying it, but she did.

"What do you mean?-I-Are you sure?" Natasha questions as Y/N keeps her eyes down, just nodding in response. Nat's eyebrows furrow together as she continues, "When-When did it start?"

"Two months ago. He-He started to leave after we'd fight and he'd come back smelling like perfume. It's more frequent now. No fights needed." Her tone is so matter-of-fact that it makes Natasha's heart ache. There was no anger in Y/N's words, no resentment. Natasha hates how her friend has come to terms with Steve's infidelity. To Y/N, it felt cathartic to finally say what has been happening. She didn’t want Nat to go and knock some sense into Steve or anything like that. All she wanted was to finally say it aloud, to tell someone what was going on, even though it just made the whole situation real. Y/N turns her head to look out of the window, letting out a shaky breath as Natasha reaches out to hold her hand. Her other hand was left holding her mug of coffee, the gold wedding ring seemingly weighing a tons

An hour later, Y/N sees them as the cab she is in pulls up to the curb. Steve and a young brunette laughing and smiling as they walk out of the apartment building and it feels like Y/N is being stabbed in the chest. Ignoring the pain she's in, Y/N forces herself out of the cab, some sadistic part of her just needing to get out. The other woman sees her first, eyes widening. It takes a second for Steve to realize what had happened, the smile dropping from his face.

The three of them stand there for what feels like an eternity, Y/N still holding onto the cab door. Steve opens his mouth and closes it, not even knowing how to work his way around this.  Y/N was seething, sadness quickly turning into rage. It was one thing for Steve to be sneaking around at night, for him to be hiding the fact that he was cheating. It was another thing entirely for him to be walking around with the other woman, not caring who saw.

Y/N knows that grief manifests itself in different ways, but this is straw that broke the camel's back. Steve had found a way to completely forget about their son and his wife, distracting himself with his stupid little grief circle and a young mistress. Y/N wants to scream at him and make a scene, but she just doesn't have it in her. Tears fill her eyes and as Steve moves to take a step forward, Y/N slips back into the cab, shutting the door behind her.

-

There's a chill in the air as she walks through the cemetery, wrapping her coat around herself a little tighter. It was freezing out and Y/N knows that she should've gone somewhere warm, but here she was. Her feet carried her where she needed to go, working on pure muscle memory. The hero comes to a stop in front of a small stone headstone.

Their therapist had told them that having a place to visit James would bring them comfort in a way. She had also said that burying him would ease some of the pain and help with the grieving process. Y/N didn't want to say that burying that tiny box filled with the dust they had gathered had only made her feel worse. Steve and Y/N had tried to visit as much as possible, even decorated his grave for each holiday, but then Steve stopped showing up.

There's a bouquet of wilting sunflowers in the little hole by his headstone, which she had left for James on Thanksgiving. They'd be replaced in a week or two by bright red poinsettias to signal the change of seasons and holidays. Another Christmas without her baby boy would turn into another year without him. Y/N's throat tightened as she realized that James has been gone longer than he was alive.

As she stood there, the cracks in their relationship became apparent. Y/N knew Steve wasn’t the perfect partner, but all of their big issues had been washed away by all of the good things. When they were dating, everything came before Y/N, which she understood at the time. Saving the world comes first and all that, but as she looks back on it, it wasn’t just saving the world. Others were just put in front of her and she had just chalked it up to Steve just being selfless. He’d miss dates and anniversaries, always giving her a half assed excuse and that thousand watt smile. Steve would always come apologize, holding a bunch of red roses. Each time, he’d look down at the flowers and say that he gotten her favorite flowers. She never had the heart to tell him that her favorite flower was peonies. When they were married, the search for Bucky always came first. Y/N hadn’t minded at the time because she knew how important Bucky was to Steve, but that mess quickly turned into the Accords.

Steve never told her that Bucky had killed Tony’s parents. Hell, he didn’t even really discuss choosing Bucky over the team with her. Steve had just assumed that Y/N was going to stick with him regardless and because Steve had assumed it, so did everyone else, so she was just forced to go along with it. She had been forced into a pair of restraints while Steve jetted off to Siberia with Bucky. Steve never asked if she even wanted to go on the run with him, once again he just sort of assumed. Y/N just fulfilled her role of the dutiful wife

When Y/N found out that she was pregnant, she wanted to take a plea deal like Scott and Clint did. A life on the run of was no life for a baby and Y/N knew it. She was on the brink of reaching out to Tony when she had told Steve that she was pregnant. The thought of her child having a normal life immediately disintegrated as Steve told her that they were going to make this work. The cracks just keep getting bigger and bigger, spreading further and deeper into their relationship. While she had originally thought there was just a few issues suddenly turned into dozens and dozens of red flags.

Time seems not to touch the cemetery, so she doesn't know how many minutes or hours have passed when someone walks up to stand beside her. Y/N knows who it is immediately, but she doesn't bother to greet him. Instead, her eyes just stay on the headstone and they stand in silence for awhile, Y/N slowly coming to terms with what she was going to have to do.

"I'm not doing this anymore, Steve." Y/N finally announces, forcing it through the emotion that currently strangling her. Her  glove covered hands are shoved into her pockets, her wedding ring burning her flesh as she continues, "I want a divorce."

"Y/N, I-" Steve starts, his body turning towards her. Y/N simply shakes her head. She’s utterly exhausted and doesn’t have it in her to fight with him anymore. She feels like she’s aged three lifetimes in the past few years. Y/N loves the man beside her, she truly does, but she knows that she can’t just let this cycle of hurt continue. She couldn’t just forgive Steve and pretend like he hadn’t been cheating on her because there was just so many things wrong in their relationship. Their marriage was damaged beyond repair and Y/N couldn’t find it in herself to fix it. Somethings just don’t need to be fixed and somethings-well somethings shouldn’t be fixed at all.

"Don't. Not here." Y/N tells him cooly, not wanting to fight with him in the last place that is left untouched by their deteriorating relationship. Her eyes study the small Virgin Mary engraved on her son’s grave. They had so many choices of what to put on his headstone, but something had told her to choose Mary. A remnant of her Catholic upbringing, she had told herself at the time. Now she just hoped that the Virgin was watching after her son wherever he was.

“You can keep the apartment. I didn’t even want it. I-I’ll stay upstate with Nat.” She’s leaving no room for arguing, so Steve just nods in response, putting his hands in his pockets. Y/N wanted to tell him to leave, that there was no reason for him to be standing there with her, but James was still his son too, no matter how little he seemingly cared.

So the two of them stood in silence as the cold afternoon turned into an even colder evening in December, the sky darkening quickly. Lampposts flickered on in the cemetery, covering everything in dim, eerie glow. Their breaths came out in small clouds and their toes went numb in their shoes, but they continued to stand there, looking over their son until the sky tuned black above them.

[brothermouse]

I'm just thinking about the first Christmas.

Mary feels a new blister forming and curses under her breath, so quiet Joseph can't hear. She fought too hard to come along on this trip to let him see an ounce of regret. She didn't have to come. Any sane person would tell her to just stay home, especially with how far along the pregnancy was. But she would walk hot, dusty roads and be covered head to toe with blisters for the rest of her life it it meant she didn't have to put up with the other women in the village.

They always seemed ready with some sharp catty comment, some new way to say the obvious without saying the obvious. She had been pregnant longer than she had been married, and everyone knew it. They would excitedly mention how big she was getting, almost as if they knew that she felt like an overstuffed cow. They would causally ask when she was expecting and then ask to be reminded when her wedding was, smugly implying that they had already done the math. It might have been better if they just came out and called her a slut. At least then she could yell at them. Then she could fight back. Then she could run crying into the strong, protective arms of her husband and he'd hold her and tell her that both she and he know the truth, and that's all that matters.

But even Joseph was different. Before all of this, he had been kind, loving, maybe a little clueless and awkward, but she found that part of him cute. But now? Now he seemed cold and distant. He didn't touch her anymore. No hugs and kisses like other newlyweds. He barely held her hand as her ever bulging self waddled about the house. He seemed almost afraid of her, like she was made of fragile glass or was some wild animal, ready to bite his hand off if he got too close. To be fair, some days she did feel like a strange beast, but her wild wrath was always meant for the town gossips. Towards Joseph she only felt sadness and grief for the kind man who seemed to vanish overnight.

Joseph, for his part, wasn't afraid of Mary. He was afraid of that thing growing inside of her. That Messiah. 'What even is a Messiah?' he would ask himself, 'What would it even look like?' Question after question after question filled his head and choked his tongue. Would the Messiah pop out, fully formed and armed for battle, before riding to Rome to behead Caesar, slaughtering heathens and gentiles along the way? Would it be like a rabbi, and call him and his wife to repentance for some yet unknown slight against God? Why does a Messiah need a father?  Does a Messiah need a father? Doubts filled him and crippled him.

He would steal glances at Mary. She was sweaty and dirty and a little angry-looking. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He wanted to grab her, lift the small delightfully plumped woman over his head and tell her all the ways she made him feel. But what if that broke the rules? What if his own uncleanliness some how befouled her? She was a holy vessel, like the Ark of the Covenant, and he was just...Joseph, the guy who cut wood.

Even without the angels and prophesies, Joseph would have felt unsure. Technically he was a grown man. He had lived the appropriate number of years, gone through the right ceremonies, done everything that everyone says make you a man. But still, whenever he saw those broad-chested, thick bearded men who seemed to have all the answers he saw he gap between himself and them. Real men had the answers. Real men knew what to do when their children were born. Real men could manage to say more than three words to their own wives.

Late in the day they arrive in town. Joseph curses himself. He should have known the trip would take longer with Mary. He should have planned ahead. Mary quietly curses again. Seems the baby didn't like all that walking and is kicking her kidneys in rebellion. She looks at Joseph, hoping he can see her pain, hoping he'll at least acknowledge it.

“I'll find an inn. ” He mumbles to her, knowing that a real man would have scooped her up in thick, strong arms and said “Not to worry, my radiant jewel! I'll have a roof over your head before the stars can grow jealous of your beauty!”

The sun dips below the hills and still no inn. Joseph wants to tell his wife that he's sorry. That she deserves better. That she deserves a real man by her side. One who would wrap her up in the finest silks and build a grand palace around her, wherever she wishes. But the most he can manage is rushing to the next inn, and hoping there's room for two.

Mary is growing concerned. What started as the baby rebellion has turned into all out war. Why didn't she just stay home? Why did she want so badly to spend time with a husband who seemed more concerned with chatting with unhelpful innkeepers than his own suffering wife? If she wanted to have a baby and be ignored by Joseph, she could have done that at home! At least at home she had her cousin Elizabeth to talk to. The contractions were getting closer now. Elizabeth had warned her about this. It was only a matter of time before the baby arrived.

As soon as Joseph wandered in arm's reach Mary snatched his robe.

“It's coming.” she says through gritted teeth.

“What is?”

“The baby!” Mary grunts.

Joseph turns pale. A thousand new questions and doubts fill his mind. “Where-”

“Anywhere!” Mary hisses through the pain. “An ally, a hut, a stable! Anywhere that isn't here!”

They enter a stable, a stubborn cow is woken up and moved to make room. Joseph feels remarkably out of his depth. He always though that when this day came, Elizabeth would be there to handle things and he would help by looking after little baby John. Only a few months old, John was a funny kid with an unparalleled knack for getting bugs in his mouth. Joseph liked John. Would a Messiah eat bugs? Joseph shakes his head back to the present. In a panic he asks Mary what he should do.

Mary meets Joseph's eyes. They are big and brown and filled with concern. They are the eyes of the man she loves. She wants to bask in the warm, manly kindness of those eyes forever, but another contraction cruelly pulls her away.

“Water!” she grunts, remembering what she can from Elizabeth's occasional words of advice, “and cloth!”

Joseph scrambles for the needed materials, but the pained screams of his wife tear at his soul. A real man wouldn't need to scramble for scraps with his wife in pain. In his heart he cries to God. He begs for an answer, just one answer to any one of his endless questions.

Mary lies on a pile of hay, eyes filled with tears, body filled with pain, and heart filled with loneliness. So few people could understand the pain of her soul, and the one person who she wanted most to understand, the one person who was physically closest to her was worlds away. She prays between agonized gasps for relief.

Mary screams to high heaven and Joseph's heart shatters. He can't do anything for her. She deserves so much more than he can give, and he can't even bring himself to give her a competent hand.

“I'm sorry” he gasps. And he runs out of the stable into the street. He shouts and screams and cries for help. A city of strangers huddles in their beds and ignores him. He spies a group of men. Desperate, he rushes upon them, grabs their woolly, sheepskin robes and begs them to help. Through childish tears and snot and sobs he explains his predicament.

One of the younger men huffs. He says they have something important to do tonight. One of the oldest men waves a hand and his young companion and claps an arm around Joseph. “We're used to delivering lambs,” he says, patting Joseph on the back, “But I think we can manage a child, just for tonight.”

In the stable, Mary clutches her belly. She's been abandoned. Her only companion now is an irate cow glaring at her from the the corner. Another contraction comes and she clenches her eyes. Suddenly something grabs her hand. She slaps it away, thinking it's the cow, getting impatient. It gabs her hand again. She opens her eyes and sees Joseph. His big, kind, brown eyes filled with tears. She squeezes his hand back. Suddenly she is surrounded by a small army of strangers.

“They're here to help.” Joseph says.

And they do help. With practiced precision each one fills a task. Water is fetched, clean cloth is produced. Shortly a tiny, pink, screaming baby is introduced into the stable. The cow wanders out, giving up getting sleep in this stable on this night.

The strangers hand the baby to Mary. She is tired. She feels like she's been stretched out a mile. She looks at the baby, wondering if she had been screaming this loud a moment ago. She's about to fall asleep. She shakes off the exhaustion and remembers something Elizabeth told her. Wrap the baby up tightly as soon as you can, so he can grow up nice and tall. She tries to calm the baby while fishing for spare cloth.

Meanwhile the strangers are beginning to leave, but Joseph delays them. He wants them to teach him. He wants to know how to be a man, a father, a husband. He stumbles over his words, trying to get the question right. The strangers are insistent, though. They have something important to do tonight.

Mary has finally got the baby wrapped up, and that seems to have calmed him. Exhaustion is pulling at her eyelids like iron weights. The baby needs a place to sleep. A nearby manger has relatively clean hay. She puts her baby there and lies back for her own long sleep.

Joseph is stumbling over his words as the strangers grow more insistent that they have to leave. Suddenly one of the younger men begins to tremble. He tugs at his elder's robes and points to a corner of the stable. The older man looks at the manger and the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and begins to weep. The rest of the strangers follow suit, some weeping, some praying, some just standing and staring in awe. Joseph manages to eek out one more question, “What's wrong?”

The oldest man wipes the tears from his eyes and answers, “Absolutely nothing is wrong. It's just...well...” he scratches his bald head, looking for the words. “Earlier... when we were watching the sheep...there was this...angel.”

Instantly Mary snaps awake, all fatigue dispersing at that one word. “Angel?”

“Yes ma'am.” the old shepherd says sheepishly, “an angel, and-”

“I've seen one, too.” Mary says. “They're incredible!”

“And terrifying.” adds Joseph.

“And beautiful!” the Shepherd

The strange group spends the next few hours trading stories of their visions and the strange coincidences that brought them together.

While the shepherds and Mary are eagerly trying to explain the strange musical quality of an angel's voice the old Shepherd pulls Joseph aside. Joseph tries to ask twelve questions at once, but the shepherd stops him.

“She doesn't need you to have all the answers.” He tells Joseph, “She just needs you to be there.”

“But, how am I supposed to raise-”

“A day at a time. Children, sheep, men. Everything grows a day at a time.”

He gives Joseph a few more specific points of advice. And the begins to gather up his companions. He explains that the mother needs her rest, and they have sheep to feed. Slowly and reluctantly the shepherds are herded out.

Mary now feels more tired than ever. The baby begins to fuss. Joseph steps in and rocks his son.

He lies down next to Mary.

Haltingly, unsure, she moves towards him. His arm wraps around her and draws her in close. She rests her head on his chest and stares at her little baby boy. Her thoughts turn to the catty gossips of Nazareth. Without thinking she voices her fears, “What will they say when we come back home with a baby?”

Joseph squeezes her tighter, “Whatever they want. We know the truth. Besides, if it gets too bad, I'll bet we can get those shepherds to beat them up for us.”

Mary looks at Joseph, her tired mind trying to grasp what he just said. The joke dawns on her and she beings to laugh. Then as the emotional dam begins to burst the laughter turns to tears, and tears eventually fade into sleep. All the while Her husband holds her in his strong, protective arms.

And that's what I think the First Christmas was like; messy, loud, and full of people who had no idea what they were doing. So don’t feel bad if your Christmas is messy, loud and full of doubt. It puts you in good company.

[translationandbetrayals]

My top 6 of favorite anime horror

Recently I've been thinking that we have been full of anime about isekai, heroes or shōnen, which doesn´t mean that is bad, but it makes me miss other genres like one of my favorites, horror, supernatural and psicologic. That's why i made a top list of my favorites horror animes that might not be so popular

Another: It tells the story of a school in which a young girl called Misaki, a student in the third class of Middle School passed away in the 70s. Affected with grief, the classmates decide to pretend this never happened and carry on until the end of the school year as if none of them died at all. 

But after 26 years in the present, Kouichi Sakakibara transfers in the same class where the above tragedy took place, soon after he transfers into  class 3-3, he finds strange things about the school, and only get creepier when he meets a classmate called Misaki Mei (the same name of the victim), who is ignored by teachers and students alike as if she doesn't exist. Also, a curse begins mysteriously and violently claiming lives ( just like final destination), leaving everyone else trying to figure out a way to stop it before it's too late (again, just like final destination).

Another is full of unpredictable twists and turns, with a scare level that's reminiscent of such iconic horror movies, and at the same time trapped you  wanted to know how it is gonna end.

Corpse Party: Tortured Souls: Based on a survival horror game by the same name, Corpse Party: Tortured Souls follows a group of 8 students and her teacher who get together to perform a special friendship ritual so that they'll be friends forever as one of them will transfer to another school. What they manage to do instead, however, is transport themselves to an entirely different dimension in the Heavenly Host Academy, place where a teacher died by an a terrible accident falling for the stairs and a group of children disappeared, but now is a place where the ghosts of the former Heavenly Host Academy prey to gruesomely kill them off.

What follows is a gory and sickening 4-episode murder-spree, seeking for revenge. With all the classic scare elements of any good horror show, Corpse Party: Tortured Souls is one of the most short an good horror animes.

Hell Girl: Hell Girl is based on the urban legend of the Hell Correspondence website, which can supposedly be accessed only at a specific time at night, and if you ask Hell Girl could take your enemies to hell. The show starts with self-contained episodes about different people who are so sick of being tormented by their bullies, that they access the creepy website to get rid of their enemies. When that happens, Enma Ai, (the Hell Girl), appears to take the target to hell, but those who request her, will have to pay with the same final as well.

This anime is one of the few that describe the psychological conditions so good, that will make you feel angry and desperate along with the characters. 

Shiki: In the quiet, peaceful village of Sotoba, nothing ever happens, until a mysterious family moves to this town. The history in Shiki starts as an epidemic that kicks off following the death of a young girl and threatens to turn the entire village into a living dead hell. The vampires, or Shiki, (as they call themselves), still desire to live, but this puts them in direct opposition with the villagers who don't want their home to turn into a vampire ghost town.

The anime brings the rules of the old tales of vampires, here they have true disavanged , such as being unable to enter houses unless invited or walk out in the sun. Shiki tells a spine-chilling vampire story unlike any other, has unsettling imagery, gore, and troubling moral dilemmas that make you question who's the real antagonist and who's the protagonist here.

Higurashi No Naku koro Ni: Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni is the horror anime by excellence, here, we see the different paths the main character can take explored in different arcs. The story revolves around a small town that may or may not have a dark demonic past. When Keiichi moves to Hinamizawa, life seems good, making new friends, including Rena, Mion, Rika, and Satoko, but it's not long before their beautiful summer turns into a nightmare.

As the annual festival approaches, Keiichi learns about several murders and disappearances that took place recently, and his friends are very enigmatic about these incidents and soon, Keiichi realizes that no one is safe, and no one can be trusted.

There's something creepy about small villages, they create a suffocating feeling of "you never gonna get out alive of here" similar to games of survival, and in this anime it's expressed so well that it will play with your expectations, painting the picture of an a beautiful town and then twisting it in horrible ways. Exist some scenes will stay with you for a long time (maybe forever), but the truth is different from anything you could possibly suspect, which makes watching Higurashi so worthwhile.

Junji Ito Collection: As his name says Junji Ito Collection, is a collection about the work of the master of horror, Junji Ito. The worlds he creates are truly unsettling and his style is very unique and recognizable, (you can't easily forget the girl with the slug growing inside her mouth, or the boy who liked to drink oil). Sadly, the anime has received mixed reviews, with some thinking that it didn't do justice to the works of Junji Ito (might be true), but it is still an anime that you must watch.

Macarena Carreño

[sobdasha]

had a few more thoughts about the Honda family

and all the Souma parallels.

(and by “a few” I apparently meant “a lot”, I did not mean to write this many pages)

In the other post I’d made a comment about how Katsuya’s romance with Kyouko, severe age difference issues aside, is just plain pathetic, a point which I believe to be Upheld by canon. And I wanted to talk more about that, the implications of that, and how that further builds the Akito and Tohru parallel. And also, Why Tohru Can’t Love Her Mom And Kyou At The Same Time.

The ideal, in Fruits Basket, is that when you make a connection with one person who loves you and sees you, this will enable you to make further connections with the people around you. Tohru does a whole heck of a lot of this; for one example, see Yuki explaining this to Kisa in the liking-yourself speech. Yuki does some of this for bitty Haru and later for Machi. Kazuma does this for Kyou. And so on and so forth. The positive experiences are meant to have a ripple effect.

It’s important to be grateful for what you have (Yuki and Machi’s “just one person would be enough” scene), but it’s human to crave more than that (Kyouko telling Saki that it’s probably normal to want other people to accept you even if you already have a loving and supportive family). It is important to crave more than that.

This was, in fact, the entire point of the curse. God meets cat. Cat’s companionship allows god to form connections with other animals. Cat is dying and god decides that 13 friends is the perfect number of friends and starts the reincarnation cycle. Cat says, “god you never once left your house. I wanted to see you go down and make friends with the humans. I wanted to see you experience the world and laugh in the sunlight. God you made 13 new friends but you’re still lonely and closing yourself off to the world forever, this is wrong and I am sad.” The banquets were supposed to be the gateway drug of friendship and meaningful connections, not the place where 14 souls stagnated alone and isolated until it became a curse.

That same wrongness happens in Ren and Akira’s relationship, where finally making a connection with one person who loves you and sees you made their world smaller and smaller. It wasn’t healthy, probably because 1) they remained in a toxic environment, 2) Kureno implies that Ren has mental health issues and I assume those existed prior to Akira’s death and were exacerbated, rather than created by, her grief; also I can’t imagine she actually came from a non-toxic family herself, and 3) Akira’s “you’re going to die an early death and the only thing we need from you first is a successor” trauma. Akira never found anyone other than Ren who understood how upset he was. Ren never formed a relationship with anyone other than Akira, partly because she was now trapped in a toxic family that despised everything about her and she refused to Prove Them Right by leaving. They both viewed their child as an object rather than a person; Akira seeing proof that he and Ren were definitely OTP and the Souma could go shove it, and Ren seeing a Rival.

I have a memory that I said at some point—probably in a Talking About Shigure post—that Kyouko helps Katsuya connect with other people. But this, I think, is not really true. I was thinking of how Kyouko helps bridge the non-relationship between Katsuya and his father. But that’s just one person.

Really, Katsuya and Kyouko are more like Akira and Ren.

Marrying-someone-who-just-graduated-ninth-grade aside, the fact that Katsuya and Kyouko meet is genuinely a good thing. Katsuya finally connects with the humanity in another person. Kyouko is finally cared about as a person. Their misanthropic-jackass-and-abandoned-cat relationship improves both of them, probably. Their connection is definitely the reason Kyouko decides to go to high school and quit her gang. It’s harder to tell with Katsuya, but you could argue that seeing Kyouko struggling and fighting and screaming against the world, as honest about her joy as she is about her loneliness-channeled-into-rage, causes Katsuya to say screw it and pursue the career in pharmacy that he’s interested in, instead of fake-politely submitting to the world’s expectations and internally resenting and disdaining everyone around him.

Katsuya softens in his relationship with his father. Both Katsuya and Kyouko see their child as a person in her own right, Tohru, rather than an object. Katsuya, in fact, is adamant about that fact when Kyouko is terrified of her pregnancy—that they can treat their baby as her own person, and if they aren’t perfect parents and they hurt their child, they’ll apologize—because Tohru is a person and an equal—and admit that what they did was wrong and why it’s wrong. They’ll treat Tohru with the respect they should have gotten all along.

But I don’t think it ever goes any farther than that. Like god, the Honda family becomes more and more isolated.

Does Katsuya make any work friends? We don’t really get a complete view of their lives, because Takaya is one person who can only do so much and space is very precious, so we only see what’s crucial to the story. But I would be really surprised to find that Katsuya had made any close friends outside of Kyouko. I honestly doubt that he has anything more than casual work acquaintances. (In contrast, we repeatedly see Kyou together with the two guys who got names in the anime that I forgot in his class; his friendship with them doesn’t get explored much in the manga, presumably because it doesn’t do any heavy lifting for his character development, but Kyou clearly has casual friends who seek him out and whom he doesn’t mind being with. See also the way Saki and Arisa also interact with those guys as a part of the group, while Tohru really only interacts with Saki and Arisa or the Souma.)

And I don’t think Kyouko fares any better. Does she have any close friends, other than her husband and daughter? Does she make friends at work? I don’t know what kind of work Kyouko does, and if she would have the opportunity to take her breaks socializing with coworkers. But it appears she spends her work breaks in an abandoned area socializing with a first or second grader. Kyou is the only person, as far as we know, that mid-twenties Kyouko can start to open up to. She doesn’t get all the way there—Kyou doesn’t connect the dots until much later—but it’s the closest she comes to talking about how she hurt Tohru after Katsuya died.

Where are the family friends? It doesn’t strike me as weird that the Honda family doesn’t have them, because I have also grown up in a poorly socialized household, but even I am used to running into unfamiliar people in public who explain that they know my mom or dad. I’m pretty sure family friends are a normal thing, and that’s how you get aunts and uncles that aren’t related to you, much in the same way that I’m pretty sure it’s normal to be friends with your cousins (especially if they’re in a similar age range and live nearby) and it is very common for grandparents to bring grandchildren with them to the grocery store because the grandchildren are staying over and they’re having a relationship.

Where is anyone but the Honda family at at Kyouko’s funeral? Kyouko made friends with Arisa and Saki, but did she ever make friends with Saki’s parents? Where are Saki’s loving and supportive mother and father and grandmother when the Honda family is arguing about who has to take on the burden of Tohru? Where are they, if they knew of the bad blood between Kyouko and the Honda family (and the disinheritance between Kyouko and the Katsunuma family), to sweep over Tohru’s protestations and tell her that it will all be fine, they’ll make it work out (they packed up and moved house for Saki, after all), it’s not Tohru’s job to worry about being a burden, it’s the job of people who love her to take care of her?

It can be both “because of the necessity of the plot” and “because they didn’t know.”

Tohru inherits this small, isolated world. And because of the trauma of being abandoned by her grieving, depressed, absolutely-not-coping mother, Tohru picks up on that Souma curse mentality. Tohru’s dad left, and Tohru’s dad tried to take her mom with her, leaving her with no one but Grandpa (who is not intimately part of their world but is not fully outside it either). Tohru’s dad is now a Rival. Tohru’s dad is now an Outsider. Clearly, a bond with an Outsider weakens the True Bond that Tohru had with Kyouko. Clearly, Tohru’s dad is Not Needed (because the other alternative is that Tohru is Not Needed). Clearly, only one of them can have Kyouko.

And it’s going to be Tohru.

Tohru picks up Katsuya’s fake-polite speech, equally disingenuously but from the opposite direction (ie, Katsuya was fake-polite to be an asshole, and Tohru is genuinely polite but faking the words). Tohru is pretty sure this is a form of wicked manipulation (much like Yuki is convinced that “be kind unto others as you would have them be kind unto you” is a form of wicked manipulation). Tohru keeps up with it anyway. Kyouko, as Kyou suggests, was probably comforted by this; rather than going full Akira “you exist to prove that I lived and loved a woman”, seeing Katsuya’s mannerisms in Tohru reminds her that her husband did exist without having to erase Tohru as a person. Kyouko does a lot of growing on her own, but with no support system and no friends outside the family and being fresh-out-of-college age, it’s not surprising that she fails to talk with Tohru about this, and tell Tohru that she knows why Tohru’s doing this, she knows how she hurt Tohru and it was wrong, you don’t have to do this anymore. This is a hurt between them, a grief, that they never talk about, even though they both know it’s there and Kyouko tries to smother it with love and affection and Tohru tries to shut it up in a box of denial.

Tohru’s world is now just Tohru and Kyouko. Tohru doesn’t make any friends until middle school. We know she gets bullied and doesn’t fit in throughout her entire school life. She is a riceball in a fruits basket and probably just manages to scrape by in conformity culture. When she does make her first friends, Arisa and Saki don’t count as Outsiders who compromise Tohru’s bond with her mom because Arisa and Saki are also misfits on the fringe. They are outcasts Tohru can bring into the circle. They are all monsters together, like the cursed Soumas (the only reason no one refers to Akito as a monster to her face, the way they do the rest of the Zodiac, probably has less to do with the fact that Akito doesn’t transform and more to do with the fact that Akito being in a position of power is useful for their own ends, so best not to undermine the head of the family by pointing the whole monster thing out).

And then Tohru’s mom dies.

Tohru isn’t god and she can’t make an eternal banquet. Tohru doesn’t know how to process her grief and how not to fall to pieces. Tohru knows how to empathize with other people, but she doesn’t know how to be vulnerable. Did she remember Kyouko wanting to follow Katsuya, and think about doing the same? But Tohru also wants to keep living, somehow.

So she makes her mom not be gone. Her mom is dead, Tohru knows that, just like Akito knows that Akira’s soul isn’t in the box choosing her over Ren and showing her the way to happiness. But maybe. So she talks to the portrait of her mom. She tries to rescue her mom from suffocating inside a mudslide. She takes her mom on holiday to the onsen. Her mom gets kidnapped once by Hiro. Tohru’s mom is definitely not gone. Tohru and her mom definitely still have an eternal bond. Tohru’s mom will always be first in her heart, so that Tohru will always be first in her mother’s heart. Tohru will never abandon her. Tohru will never leave her behind.

(Tohru will never be left behind.)

Tohru’s world is just Tohru and her mom.

Tohru has two best friends, Arisa and Saki, but she won’t let them in. She won’t depend on them. She won’t tell that that her grief is crushing her and that she’s living in a tent because she’s terrified of being abandoned. Tohru makes a lot of new friends in the Souma family, and she’s very happy, but she won’t let them in either. Tohru can’t open up to any of them freely.

I don’t think I saved it anywhere the survived the computer death, but I saw at least one post in the fandom talking about the growing disappointment of the reboot anime, and they had a valid point, so I’ll bring that in now.

I really like the reboot, but I am losing my passion in the final season. Adapting a story from one media to another is hard, and at the beginning I thought they were doing a good job. Small things were being cut, scenes were being rearranged and stitched together, but there was a definite purpose behind it. Instead of literally following each chapter, each episode tried to be a self-contained theme in the same way a manga chapter would be. Because themes repeat again and again in Fruits Basket in a slow build, this was working well. But small things that didn’t quite fit got cut. Scenes I liked and was sad not to see, but that I accepted had to be left out to make the episodes stronger.

But they’ve been piling up and piling up. Small holes have accumulated into big plot holes that the third season is tripping over. I’m sad that we don’t see the small progressions of Yuki and Machi’s relationship, the quiet scenes that show Machi is trying to pay attention to Yuki the way he has paid attention to her, and also all the Mogetas. I’m sad Komaki is the new manga-only character. If we don’t get Kyouko’s full backstory, we lose a lot of the context that’s in this post. I could go on and on.

But most importantly, as that someone else pointed out, we missed out on the progression of Kyou and Tohru’s flirting. It’s too late to cram all of that into a montage episode, and so now we’ve been given episode after episode of Mom Tohru, and hardly any Tohru Struggling With Romance In Addition To Struggling With Grief before suddenly everyone is confessing their love and I’m not as into it in the anime as I am in the manga.

So many of the Souma love and accept Tohru, but Tohru remains an Outsider—not because of the curse, but because she hasn’t formed close friendships with them. Tohru has a lot of people among the Souma she likes who like her, but she’s always a Mom to them. Tohru shares some of her own pain with them, but it’s shared for their benefit, not for Tohru’s own catharsis. Tohru shares so she will be loved, not so that she will be accepted.

Except Kyou.

Kyou, who looks at Tohru and thinks, “I’m pretty sure she’s that lonely person even now, even while she’s smiling and genuinely enjoying every moment with us.” Kyou, who’s falling in love with Tohru. Kyou, whom Tohru’s falling in love with.

Kyou is the only one that Tohru takes a desperate risk with. Kyou is the only one Tohru ~disillusions~ and ~disappoints~ in the hope that he’ll accept her regardless.

Kyou is the only one Tohru tells, “I don’t talk about my dad because I kicked him out of the family. I know my dad loved us and I loved him back, but I pretend to talk like him so my mom will forget about him and love me instead. He came between me and my mom and now I pretend he doesn’t exist. And I know I’m an awful person for behaving like that, so I keep his picture and pretend I don’t, and I pretend he’s the Bad Guy who earned it.”

The idea that Tohru can’t love both her mom and Kyou is, in a way, true. (I think that same post I’ve been referencing also talked about how dropping the budding romance also dropped a lot of the clues that this is Tohru unable to process her grief? Which is also very true. But if Tohru has the Souma mindset, then actually she has a legit point about not being able to love two people at once despite being a very loving person. Both can be true. Multitudes.)

Kyou is an Outsider to the world of Tohru and her mom. And if Tohru chooses to love him, it will weaken her bond with her mom, which is predicated on loving her mom more than anyone else. If she expands her world to include him in it, she will be betraying her mom. Tohru will be the Bad Guy who left her mom behind and abandoned her. Tohru will be her own villain, condemned for the same crimes she pinned on her dad.

Kyou 100% gets where she’s coming from with this, because he turns this exact argument on her when she confesses to him and he panics (akin to when Tohru chases him down in his true form and he slashes her and, in the reboot, yeets her into the lake, so that she will be hurt so bad she’ll never pity/love him again). He asks her if her love for her mom—her bond—was just a lie.

Tohru making friends after Kyouko’s death has been a lot like Akito letting Yuki and Kyou out into the world, certain that it would drive them back to the bond. Yuki getting character development is a huge betrayal. Tohru wanting to be together with Kyou, when she should only want to be together with her mom, is a huge betrayal.

Tohru has no model for expanding her world. She’s good at loving people, but bad at letting them in (Kyouko was bad at that too—like Mom Tohru, she was very good at sharing anecdotes about her violent youth, but very bad about sharing how she’d failed Tohru as a mom). Like Akito, she only really knows the bond—the certainty that her mom would love her. She’s been so terrified of not being loved that she’s acted this entire time like her mom is still around. When Kyou’s love is a possibility, she can only conceptualize it as a betrayal of her relationship with her mother.

It always seemed a bit too abrupt that Tohru looked at Akito with the knife and went “oh shit we’re literally the same”, but now that I’ve thought this all out, it makes eloquent sense. The whole time Tohru’s been working against the curse, she’s been in denial about her own blessing-burden-curse. Now that she’s just admitted it and had it thrown back in her face, she can look at Akito and see another person in an insular little world, isolated and lonely and walled-off from the world. Of course Tohru desperately wants to make friends with knife-wielding Akito—she just decided to let go of her ties to her mother that were suffocating her, and take her first steps into the world, and got immediately dumped by the person she loves. Of course she wants to make friends with someone who knows exactly where Tohru’s coming from and how terrifying what Tohru just did is and how awful it is to be rejected even though she’s got other friends she loves out here in this world she’s decided to finally step into.

Tohru is so damn lonely, and Akito is there, also lonely and screaming and crying and undeniably human.

(Smile, Tohru tells herself in the hospital. Smile and tell Kyou you were happy to meet him and just let him go. Don’t be a curse. Smile and let him find his own happiness. Which is more or less the same struggle Akito is also going through. But maybe they’re going through it together. Maybe they used their words, together, when they couldn’t confide in anyone else. Although it feels a bit unlikely that Tohru let herself break down about Kyou in front of Akito, and Akito already had one pity-party in front of Momiji and may not have wanted to burden Tohru with a second.)

One thing I really love about Fruits Basket Another is that Hajime alludes to the fact that Kyou probably won’t inherit Kazuma’s dojo after all.

Kyou inheriting the dojo is something both Kyou and Kazuma have wanted, and it gives me many warm fuzzies. It is very narratively satisfying. The dojo, while Souma property, is not actually part of the main estate.

What I love is that Kyou probably won’t take over the dojo specifically because he and Tohru have made so many friends in their new town that they don’t want to pick up and leave. Kyou finally succeeds in freeing Tohru from that small, lonely world, much like he’s been freed from the fate of the Cat Room. Their relationship enriches them personally and also enables them to make so many new connections. Kyou has friends at the dojo! Tohru has friends at work maybe! Friends where they buy groceries, friends among the parents of their children’s classmates, friends outside of their extended Souma family! They’ve kept ties that don’t hold them back and made new ties that don’t weaken or steal away any of their old ties!

When they left Tokyo, Tohru was prepared to go anywhere as long as it was with Kyou. Now, she and Kyou both don’t want to leave because their world is so much larger than just their nuclear family and they’ve put down roots. They’ve seen each other not only lonely in the moonlight and worn thin by death and loss, but they’ve gotten up and gone down the mountain to where the people live and made friends among them, laughing in the sunlight. Just like the cat always uggghhhhh I’m not crying I’m just so damn happy for them I can’t

[imaginesmai]

Peter Parker - In your corner

Enjoy this fluffy fic I forgot I had in my drafts!

Plot: Peter is having a hard time in college, and a visit from his favourite girl is just what he needs

The sun was bright in the sky, one of those rare days in early November where you still could wear only a thin jacket. Life was buzzing around you; students that were leaving their classes, teachers that were almost running to their cars, and the occasional reunion that made you smile even wider. Because you had your own waiting for you, somewhere between the entrance and the huge building of MIT.

You tried to stretch your head as much as you could to search for the curly haired boy that you wanted to surprise. He wasn’t that hard to find; Peter had grown that summer a few inches, and his shoulders were bulkier than before. But Friday seemed to be the chosen day to create as much noise as the students could, so between shoves and uncomfortable crowds, you were finding it hard to see him.

Someone behind you whispered your name in what they thought were discreet words, but you heard the giggles and the laughs. It was hard to miss them, when it happened a few times while you skipped the students in your way to find Peter. You felt the uncomfortable itch that they always gave you, and that in the last few months had turned into the horrible grief that you were still carrying. Knowing that you wouldn’t like to find any articles about Y/N Stark lashing out on some students, you pulled the bag closer to your body and lowered your head.

You had to bear with a few more pushes until finally you collided with one that was too familiar. Looking up, you met Peter’s warm eyes and his cheeky smile.

“Hey Stark” Peter whispered, but you could hear him perfectly. “Didn’t take you for one of public places”

“I would have taken the jet, but I didn’t want to embarrass you” you rolled your eyes.

Not noticing the audience that you had besides him, you leaned forward and caught Peter’s lips with yours. It had been three weeks since you last saw him, too busy with SI and with your life back in the lake house. He seemed to leave the shyness aside and leaned further into the kiss, until someone coughed and you had to break apart. If it was possible, he looked even more handsome.

“I’ll see you on Monday?” Peter spared a glance to the group of people he was walking with, while his hand gripped your own.

“Y-yeah, I guess. Uh – have, a… good weekend” a boy you didn’t know stuttered out.

Peter nodded to him and quickly scrambled out of the big crowd. You earned yourself another bunch of shoves and almost got stepped on by a guy as tall as the Hulk. The boy dragging you seemed much more eager to leave the place than yourself, but you didn’t dare to say anything. College could be stressful, from what he had told you, and you didn’t want to pressure him anymore.

So you just stepped to his side and hung yourself from his arm, supporting the bag on your other shoulder. Peter gave you a tight, tired smile and kept walking through the people. What had seemed like a nice day was quickly turning into one too hot, and you were tempted to get rid of the jacket you had brought with you. Knowing you had the car parked a few streets down, you resigned yourself to keep walking and receiving shoves.

After a few long, silent minutes, you were out and you breathed in relief.

“Oh God, that was stressful” you sighed, not tearing away from Peter. “Those are your friends?”

“Yeah – I mean, kind of. They’re my roommate’s friends, and I got along with them although I talk more with him alone”

“That’s good” you said, not really convinced by the answer. He seemed a little dull, almost not there. “I bet they’re not as good friends as me. I bought the car, no more peasant bus or walk”

“Probably, but I don’t feel comfortable doing this with my friends”

Peter shoving you into the wall and crashing his lips to yours wasn’t really a surprise, because you loved to do that all the time, yet the strength he followed the kiss with was a bit of a surprise. One of his hand made its way to your cheek and the other rested wrapped around your waist, making you stick to his body like a magnet. Your noses touched for a second until he tilted back; and then, he just left his lips there.

There was no fire burning like when he had initiating the kiss, just the need of touching each other. It was slow, too slow, and you smiled. His thumb was drawing small circles against your skin, warm and soft.

Peter ended the kiss, but instead of tearing apart, hugged you tighter and hid his head against your shoulder. It was a little awkward, since he had his backpack on and you couldn’t fully hug him. But whatever you did was enough, because he relaxed against you.

Your father’s death had been hard for the both of you, the blip and the separation with the university too. Sometimes, you just needed the comfort of each other.

“Everything fine?” you whispered, knowing he could hear you even with all that noise. Peter nodded against your shoulder and waited a few more seconds before tearing apart for real.

“Yeah. Just needed you, a lot” he answered truthfully, but you sensed it was more. “I hope the expensive car comes with a decent lunch. I’m not eating cafeteria trash again”

“Who do you take me for?” you teased, and grabbed his arm again to keep walking. “I’m the Y/N Stark, I do not eat food for less than 50$”

Peter chuckled and kissed your forehead. Instead of letting you just hang by his arm, like you usually walked, he put his arm around your shoulder and dragged you closer, until there was, once more, no space between the two of you.

-

The rest of the day ran uneventful, except from the nagging thought that there was something wrong with Peter. You ate in a Burger King and he ordered two kids menu, moving the toy around while you finished your own. It was strange seeing him so quiet and withdrawn, yet so close. He had chosen to sit beside you instead of in front, and when you had gone to the bathroom he looked as if he had been kicked.

You had asked him at least ten times if there was something wrong, but he either shrugged his shoulders or shook his head. The walk around the city was short and too hot, and not wanting to tell Peter that his arm around your shoulders was going to make you melt into a puddle of sweat, you had proposed going back to his dorm, the one you still hadn’t seen.

With Peter’s computer in the wheeled chair and his roommate out of the dorm, you watched a movie and laid close. So close, that in the middle of the movie you found yourself on top of him. Peter, as he always did, took his time to start talking – and when the credits rolled down, he talked.

“I’m not fine” you frowned at his tone, trembling and not as strong as always. A soft song played on the background, and you waited for him to continue. “I feel like – like a failure”

“Why would you say that?” you lifted yourself from where you were laying, landing on his left side with your head propped up in your hand, and the other one still resting on his chest.

“It’s true” he whispered, looking to ceiling lamp to your right. “I think that I don’t… maybe this is not what I’m supposed to be”

“In MIT?” you tried to get more information out of him, using one of your hands to brush the hair out of his forehead.

“I’m falling behind in two of my classes” a lonely tear ran down his cheek. “And… I failed the first physic test”

Peter started talking about how the exam had been too difficult for him, and even if the rest of the students had gotten not so good marks, he felt like he didn’t even understand what they were asking for. One thing led to another, and then he was talking about how he felt alone there too, because his real friends and you were away, and his roommate efforts for including him into his group weren’t enough.

He avoided talking about your father, but still a last ‘and I miss him’ left his lips. By the end, silent tears of frustration were running down his cheeks. You could guess that the mess of the desk was his, not of his roommate, and that he had been having a hard three weeks.

And if there was a part that broke your heart the most, was that he kept saying that he wanted to go home. The fierce protective instinct that you carried with your last name Stark-Potts took over you for a second and you wanted to pay every single thing he could need to finish college from home – but you reminded yourself that you didn’t have a say in the matter.

“I’m sorry you’ve come to visit only to hear me crying about nothing” Peter dropped one arm across his eyes. “It’s pathetic”

“Peter” you called him out, but he didn’t move his arm. “Come on, look at me. I don’t like talking to arms”

“I’m sorry” he repeated, sniffling softly.

“For what?” you insisted. “For talking about your feelings? For being honest with me? Come one, Peter. We’ve already been over it. You know you can tell me anything”

You remembered a few months ago, after the final battle, a similar situation. You had been destroyed by your father’s death, and it had taken a huge toll on you. Not going out of your room, barely eating, nearly zero talking; just lying in bed and crying. It was one of the hardest time of your life, and it had been Peter’s too. But the boy had ended up bringing you out of it by sitting with you a few hours each day, reading a book or watching a show. He had been hurt too, and sometimes he had to make a quick break to the bathroom with the excuse of getting emotional with the book. Still, he had helped you and you were forever grateful.

The problem was that he still hadn’t said anything real about your father’s death. You had seen him carrying everything like nothing, college and moving away. And you knew him well enough to know he wasn’t as good as he said.

Peter lifted his arm slightly at your words, his eyes glassy and red. You used it to push his arm out of the way fully, and stare at his gorgeous brown eyes.

“You don’t have to do this alone, Pete. What happened – what it meant for us… we can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. Sure, everyone suffered the blip. But they weren’t there, and you deserved the peace they’re searching for too” you explained.

“But I – it’s my first year, I can’t… I can’t…”

“If you need to, no one is gonna judge you for coming back home for a while” you comforted him, running a lazy finger across his jaw. “You saved them all, after all”

“So what? That’s not gonna take me anywhere, Y/N” he scoffed, finding the hem of your blouse and moving it between his fingers. “Engineer was my dream. It still is. I don’t want to leave it behind, but – but… I can’t – it’s too much, and –“

Peter’s chest started shaking under you, and his eyes looked away again. There was again, the panic he had been feeling since the begging of the year – maybe after the battle, or even before, when he learnt about five year gap. Unknown to you, Peter hadn’t even touched the suit since he arrived MIT. He spent the nights worrying about tests, studying and assignments, going as far as locking himself in the bathroom, away from his roommate, to have break downs in the shower.

He cursed himself as another tear rolled down his cheek, the lights from the forgotten movie only making the worrying look on your face more prominent. He had so desperately trying to hide it from you, but sometimes he forgot that you’re too similar to your father. Tony Stark noticed everything that was going on with him, so did you. After three weeks of bolting everything, he felt like digging himself in a hole and never coming up.

“You don’t have to leave MIT if you don’t want”

“But I’m failing! I can’t get any work done, I don’t understand anything and –“

“Look, it’s November already. You have winter break next month. And turns out, I have a very capable mother who is also worried about you and is willing to take up with the SI stuff until I come back” you smiled at his wide, surprised eyes. “What about I stay here? We can crash in a hotel, or you can make room for me in your bed. I’ll stay here until winter break, and then you will come home with me”

“I can’t ask you to stay” he squealed out, his voice too high pitched to be against the idea.

“You aren’t asking, I’m imposing, cause I’m a Stark and I’m in charge” you shrugged. You let your head fall back against his shoulder, hugging him close to you.

Both of you knew that it was still too long for winter break. You still had more than twenty days to come, that’s if MIT stopped their classes in early December. And even if you weren’t in college, you still had duties, a little sister and a mother to go back to. Yet Peter knew better than to say anything, so he turned his eyes back on the movie and blinked the tears away, already feeling a bit of that chest pressure lifting off.

“I’m in your corner, Pete” you mumbled softly, caressing the sink on his arm. “I’m always in your corner”

Want to read more? Check out my side blog @imaginesmaimasterlists​, where I keep all the masterlists! Feedback is always appreciated

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[flameohotwife]

'Til We Meet Again

Aang has passed. Katara is heading to the South to start anew without him, and finally begins to process her grief along the way. Written for the @kataang-week 2021 prompt: the sea & the sky

Read on ao3 or ffn

Everyone who remained was gathered outside at the dock on Air Temple Island. Saying goodbye to the gang was always hard, but this time was different. This time they were missing one of their own, and he wouldn’t be coming back. Not as they knew him, anyway.

They’d held a private sky burial almost a week ago, and the public memorial the previous day, so most of the dignitaries had finally gone. Katara looked out to Yue Bay and willed herself to keep it together just a little longer. The low hanging clouds were pale orange in the early morning light, reminding her of when they’d bent the clouds together a lifetime ago. A sob rose in her throat and she hastily swallowed it. Not yet.

Her friends and family huddled around her. Toph, Sokka, Suki, Zuko, and even Mai came in for one of Team Avatar’s notorious group hugs. She closed her eyes when a breeze blew by, trying to pretend it was him. That he was still there. If she could keep pretending, she might be able to make it.

Bumi, Kya and Tenzin came out of the house and down to the dock, bags in hand. “Everybody ready?” Bumi asked. He fidgeted uncomfortably with his bag, unsure what to do with so much negative energy.

“There’s been a change in plans,” Katara said carefully. All eyes sprung to her. She hadn’t mentioned this to anyone, yet. “You all are going on the ship as planned with Sokka and Suki. Tenzin, dear, I’m going to take Oogi. We’ll meet you in the South Pole.”

Tenzin’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open comically. He had inherited the need to intricately plan every detail of their trips from his uncle, and this was surely throwing a wrench into his itinerary. “Mother, please, come on the ship with us,” he begged. “Or at least let one of us come with you. Are you sure you’re…”

“I’m fine,” Katara snapped, cutting Tenzin off and assuring everyone there that she was anything but. Sokka stepped forward to put a strong hand on his nephew’s shoulder.

“She’ll be okay, buddy,” he said. “She needs some time in the sky on her own.”

Katara smiled thankfully at her brother. Of course he would understand her grief. He had been with her throughout all her worst times, after all. She obviously hadn’t taken to the skies when their mother died, but she knew he remembered the nights she spent out by the ocean alone, after the chores were done and the family in bed. She’d often returned to find him waiting up for her, a pot of tea over the fire. And now, after a week of being smothered by friends and family and strangers alike, all bringing condolences, Katara needed some air. She pulled her babies--now so much taller than her--in for a group hug of their own.

“You’re all so strong,” she started, fighting the tears pricking at her eyes. Just a little longer. “We’ll be together again before you know it. And I’m going to make you all go penguin sledding, since your Dad won’t be there to do it.” She pulled back with a twinkle in her shining blue eyes, kissing them each soundly on the forehead in turn before heading over to where Oogi had been patiently waiting to get on the ship with everyone. She nuzzled his face affectionately. “Ready, boy?”

Oogi grunted and licked her and a laugh escaped her throat. “Toph, Zuko, Mai,” she said, turning to face her friends who wouldn’t be joining them in the South Pole, “Thank you. For everything, especially this week. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”

“Don’t be so sure about that, Sweetness,” Toph laughed, “I’m going back into hiding. That was too much people-ing for me. Maybe in another 66 years.”

“Well, you’re welcome at the palace anytime,” Zuko said. “We should get back to Izumi, though. Have a safe journey south, okay?”

“Yeah, don’t be a stranger,” Mai added dryly. Katara nodded, but Mai knew she wouldn’t be coming to visit the palace again. She and Aang had shared too many memories there. Maybe they’d see each other at smaller events, but it seemed Katara was going to retire from public view as well. She watched as her friend climbed up onto the giant bison’s head and Tenzin airbent her bags into the saddle for her. Her long hair, drawn up in a bun with her signature loopies, was more white than brown now, and Mai noticed far more wrinkles and worry lines on Katara’s face than she’d had the last time they’d seen each other, only a few months prior. Aang’s illness and subsequent passing had taken a physical toll on her, as well.

“Bye, everyone,” Katara waved one last time, sad eyes sweeping over each cherished face, and the place that had been her home for the majority of her life so far. That she had built with him. She could feel her heart squeezing in her chest, and knew she had to get out of there. “Yip yip!”

Finally, the wind whipped around her as they soared into the sky. It was such a familiar feeling, even though it had been months since she had left Air Temple Island while she tended to Aang, refusing to leave his side. But there was nothing tying her to this place--this home that they had dreamed of together and made so many memories in--anymore. Her children were grown and would be fine on their own, and her tether was gone.

Katara closed her eyes and just listened to the sound of the air moving against her ears. She had never felt as at home in the sky as Aang had, but after traveling with him so much throughout their lives, flying on a bison gave her a warmth in her chest that had been missing since he’d passed. She felt the walls she had built, trying to be strong for her children and friends, begin to crumble, and after keeping them in for so long, let the tears flow freely, sobbing to the sky.

Suddenly, she was 14, bending the clouds atop Appa with her best friend. She remembered being in awe of their ability to combine their elements to make something new, how much fun it had been; how it had felt like dancing, and how he had referenced that moment later, when they began to have children together, calling Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin their little “cloudbabies.”

She was soaring through the sky beside him on his glider to deal with the Harmony Restoration Movement. Learning to fly side-by-side on his glider with him had been something of an adventure, but when they did, it was like nothing she had ever experienced before. They were perfectly in sync, especially when they flew over the ocean. She remembered staring at the horizon, where the sea touched the sky, and the wispy clouds made from both of them coming together, and feeling so at home, like she had always been meant to be there, with him.

She was flying over the ocean with Aang, sitting back in Appa’s saddle and leaning into his warm chest. He was asking her to stay with him forever, and she was telling him she couldn’t live without him. Katara felt her heart shatter for the thousandth time since he passed, and he wasn’t there to glue her pieces back together again, like he always had been.

She knew she was resilient. That she had lost before, and would lose again, and that this pain--though it would never leave her--would become bearable with time. She knew her life didn’t revolve completely around Aang, and it never had, but she had spent so much of her life loving him so completely that now, with nowhere left for that love to go, she felt swallowed by it.

Alone, up in his element, without the people she always felt the need to be strong for (and the one person who had never made her feel that way), Katara let herself break. Again and again, as often as she needed to. The wind was comforting in an aching sort of way, and the crying was cathartic. She hadn’t felt this free since before Aang had fallen ill. Since the last time they’d flown together. She wanted to close her eyes and pretend he was sitting next to her, that the breeze was him teasing her, that this was all a dream. Instead she forced her eyes to the horizon, tears still streaming.

The sun had risen much higher in the sky since she’d left Air Temple Island. There was no more orangish-pink sky, but there was still a string of low-lying clouds that blocked her view of the sky and sea coming together. All of a sudden, that freeness she felt dissipated and an indignant anger rose in her. She was angry at those clouds and angry at the circumstances that caused Aang’s early death and angry that he wasn’t there to comfort her. It wasn’t fair. She felt cheated out of decades more time with him, of the chance to be grandparents together, or to really enjoy their golden years together. She erupted with a mournful wail, slashing at the clouds with her bending until they too exploded in a downpour.

Katara took some time then, to breathe, and to feel. To really, truly, deliberately feel everything she had been trying to avoid in the week since he died. Since he left her. She recalled another time her grief and anger had gotten the better of her, and how he had calmly, gently advised her, “let your anger out. Then let it go.” She could still hear his sweet twelve-year-old voice and see the concern in his grey eyes in the back of her memory. She took another centering breath, like he had taught her to do after the war when they were both haunted by nightmares and panic attacks, and as she exhaled, she tried to push out all the anger with the air. To rid her body and soul of any animosity surrounding her feelings about him.

She resolved to be at peace. To let her waves of anger and frustration flow like water, and let it go. She didn’t have a choice in the situation, after all; the only choice she had was how she responded.

“I love you, Sweetie,” she whispered to the sky. The tears were still tracing paths down her face, but it was calming, again like before. “I know you had to go. And...I know you would have stayed with me if you could. It’s just another Avatar trip--another Spirit World journey, only this time…” Katara paused, closing her eyes to allow the sorrow to pass through her in sobs before continuing. “This time, it seems so permanent. I know you said it’s not goodbye forever, that this will only last ‘til we meet again in the Spirit World, and then we’ll be together for eternity. But it just… it hurts so much more, being without you this time. I know I can be strong. I will be. I just miss you, is all.”

There was a gentle breeze that swirled around her hair and kissed her face. She opened her eyes in shock; it seemed so intentional, like bending, but he wasn’t there, of course. She smiled, though, and then she laughed, because she knew she would always find him. She had been destined to find him in that iceberg, and she would continue to find his spirit now in the playful air currents, or in the beauty of a field of flowers, or in the laughter of children, until she could find him in the Spirit World and they would be united once more.

She knew that as long as she could keep his spirit with her, she could get through this. That she could be happy again, for him, for their children, and for herself. She also understood that her decision to move to the South Pole was the right one, not only because it would be the best place to train the next Avatar in waterbending, like she had promised Aang she would, but because the open space would be perfect for her healing heart. Katara could live out the rest of her days there, surrounded by both their elements; by the sea and the sky.