#i feel like those miserable seal pictures

[axoqiii]

another p5r art dump hiiiiieii 😢😢😢

[hannahssimblr]

Chapter One (Part 3)

When the year mark starts to approach and August is upon me once again I start to get angry every time he comes to my mind, because I don’t want to be this way anymore. Last September I cried myself to sleep every night over him, and then woke up in the morning to a moment or two of bliss before I remembered that he was gone, and that familiar black feeling slithered into me again. It doesn’t overcome me so much anymore, but there are still times when it does, and those are the days I’m most angry. These feelings can’t keep coming around. It should have stopped by now. 

I was sent to the school counsellor in October, because my teachers were worried about my slipping performance as well as the generally tortuous air that trailed me wherever I went like a miserable spectre. At the parent teacher meeting, one of them described me as grey faced, staring out of the windows onto rainy hockey pitches for forty minutes at a time. After we’d established that I wasn’t on drugs or being bullied, the counsellor told me that breakups are hard and that I’d be fine soon. I told her that the pain of it feels almost physical, and she mused that I must have really liked him.

“Sometimes it’s harder when a relationship ends before it gets started.” She’d told me. “You’re left with the ‘what ifs, rather than a realistic picture of what was. When people break up after some months or years, it’s often for a good reason, and you can look back at the relationship and pinpoint the things that weren’t so perfect about that person, the things that you aren’t going to miss. When someone just leaves you, especially at this crucial limerence phase it’s infinitely worse. There’s only good feelings and good memories. The possibilities of what could have been have been torn from you. It’s very painful.”

“Well, yeah, it feels infinitely worse than anything I can imagine.”

“Because you���re grieving.”

“Will it end?”

“Eventually, yes.”

“Good.”

On results day, Claire and I show up to school together. We hold off going until the end of the day so that we won’t run into anybody else. It feels like we’re sneaking into the building under a cloak, hoping that nobody will see us and try to peek into our envelopes, and thankfully we’re the only ones there apart from the secretary. 

“Good luck girls.” She drawls before locking the doors. “I hope ye get what ye’re looking for.”

We don’t open them until we drive to Starbucks and order coffees. We don’t make a thing of it, it’s not ceremonial to us, we just tear them open and start counting up the points. 

“Three twenty.” I say. 

“Two ten.” 

We re-seal the envelopes and never talk about it again. I go home later and tell my parents what I got, and they greet the news with lukewarm enthusiasm. I know it’s not what they hoped for me, but it’s enough for me to get into college, so it’s fine. I bring the envelope upstairs to my bedroom and toss it into my desk drawer where I keep other things that I never want to look at again; That stolen copy of Goodnight Mr. Tom, the corner of the cereal box with Jude’s note to me, and an application form to the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts I got from the guidance counsellor and never ended up filling out. 

A week later I am offered a place at NCAD. I accept. 

Prev // Next

[yikesbin]

13 ways of looking at a fat girl : a review from an actual fat girl

**CW: eating disorders, body image, fat phobia, sexual fetishizing

Mona Awad invented the "fat girl gaze" with this book. Or at least, she put it into words.

I have never felt more seen & understood through a work of fiction in my entire life. I've struggled with body image and its effects on my females friendships since I hit puberty. And although I have never been an actual bitch straight to the faces of my skinny friends, this novel captures a perfect rendition of my internal monologue. Here's some of my thick girl thoughts about some of the themes discussed!

The Fat Girl Sexual Experience™️ :

The fat girl sexual experience is highly discussed throughout most of this book, and it is as similar to real life as it disgustingly could be. Because what is being a fat woman if not constantly being perceived as a piece of meat merely used for fucking? Or maybe it's the constant older-male sexual gratification that seals the deal. Either way, Awad does not shy away from the raw truth that dating as a fat girl is packed with weird fetishizes & the constant stripping of innocence. And something I find that this book does well, is explaining how fat women lean into a sexualized culture. Although that is not a want or a goal for me, it almost feels like I've had to appear from sexual to get any "attention" from men at all. Even if I'm not wanting to be sexual. And if attention is received, it's almost always in a negative, two-toned connotation, because apparently being a woman with boobs means I'm only here to fuck you. You can throw interpersonal communication out the window - my top says "skip the gentleness & just get to work!". So you lean into it. You become a sexual fantasy. At least you're not alone anymore. It's easier this way.

The Fear of Fat Loss :

But then comes after. Awad paints a picture of one my my greatest fears; losing my all my weight & somehow becoming more mad at the world than before.

When scrolling through many weight loss videos online, I often am reminded of how cruel society is, in ways that seem almost ingrained into the start of a person. How people become kinder to you after the weight is gone, or how those around you seem to keep the fat girl you once were in the back of their head. People hold open the door for you now, or they smile at you more.

And then I'm remember that looking at myself after weight-loss would be more grueling that being fat itself. Because you now feel foreign in your own body. You begin to judge others that looked like you at one point, and question how they can live such a happy life when they look like that. I finally got what I wanted, why am I so miserable? The truth is, you are not happy. Because skinniness does not equal happiness. It merely makes shopping easier. And maybe you can feel like you fit in with your friends more. But it's hard to accept yourself as skinny and happy when it took you bitterness & internalized fat phobia to get there. "Congratulations!" they say, and you sit there wondering how strange it is to congratulate someone on their own self-hatred. You are haunted by the fat girl inside.

As a final conclusion, I'll state that these are my opinions based on experiences I felt connected with the topics addressed in this work of FICTION. You don't have to agree, and I don't care if you disagree. Be kind. I'll leave this post with some one my favorite quotes, feel free to analyze them in the comments.

*Content Warning Reminder : eating disorders, body image, fat phobia, sexual fetishizing

“I’d spend hours hunting for something—anything—that would render me moderately fuckable. And if not fuckable, something in which I could grieve over the fact of not being fuckable with unbaubled dignity."

“Later on I'm going to be really fucking beautiful. I'm going to grow into that nose and develop an eating disorder. I'll be hungry and angry all my life but I'll also have a hell of a time.”

“My father has always felt that being fat was a choice. When I was in college I would sometimes meet him for lunch or coffee, and he would stare at my extra flesh like it was some weird piece of clothing I was wearing just to annoy him. Like my fat was an elaborate turban or Mel’s zombie tiara or some anarchy flag that, in my impetuous youth, I was choosing to hold up and wave in his face. Not really part of me, just something I was doing to rebel, prove him wrong."

“There was always that shadowy twin, thin when I was fat, fat when I was thin, myself in silvery negative, with dark teeth and shining white pupils glowing in the black sunlight of that other world." - Margaret Atwood

[stalkedbytrains]

Dead Letters, Missing Wife; Letters 4 & 5

History

You wish you had a better excuse for why it took you almost a week to open letter number four. But really it was just nerves. There was something about the ring and everything. It makes everything feel so much more real.

You can't really picture how Siobhan looks, at least not how she would look now, with the years and maturity changing her into someone else.

But you can picture her hands. Burned, cracked, dry and peeling, looking like someone spilled acid on her hands and she's still dealing with the wounds. You don't know why that image is so stuck in your mind, but it is.

As is the image of those same hurt hands sitting down to write you a bunch of letters that couldn't be sent, couldn't be read until you did the work to get them, to open them, to choose to read them.

You spent longer than you'd like to admit, in your bed, just staring at the pile of mail that isn't addressed to you (you're trying to not look at the mail that is addressed to you).

There's this massive weight that you feel coming down upon you. Something like an ocean overhead that is struggling to remain in the air, in defiance of the natural laws and the efforts of the earth to call it home. You feel the massive weight of the water will come down and crush and drown you at any moment.

You put off the next letter a bit longer by trying to sort through the mountain of other mail of Siobhan's. You figure if you can start on a different puzzle, a less personal one, you can make progress without having to deal with that overhead ocean.

But you only get so far. You start to sort the mail by the cities that Siobhan was supposedly in. You have to stop when there's an address in your city. Close by. Super close to where you've been living your entire life. All the evidence points to Siobhan moving back to your city, only a mile away, and the dates on the postmarks seem to suggest that she was back as recently as two years ago.

And she didn't come find you.

That thought haunts you, like a spike through your soul.

You find yourself running your hands along the seal on letter number four.

You open it and read, trying to ignore the rain from the ocean above.

"My sweet,

This journey that I have sent you on must feel deeply overwhelming and I can never apologize enough.

There is something profoundly terrifying for me in doing this. I crafted this mask out of myself. I made something pretty and nice and wore it for so long. I'm afraid of letting you see what is beneath it, because it might be too much. And there are only so many secret things that I can share without revealing the things that are best left buried.

I know that part of this journey that I have set you on, must include pieces of myself, show you how I have grown and changed and who I have wanted to become all these years.

It is hard for me. The being that I am supposed to be, the thing that my father crafted me to be, is a miserable pile of secrets. That is not who I want to be, but it is the nature that has fostered me so I am working against all my better instincts.

I am sorry.

I know you disliked my father, even as a child.

I can't say that I blame you. He is an exacting man. Precise and distant and cold.

I was supposed to be a perfect little one. I was supposed to be quiet and just as cold and distant.

There was a plan. Some great architecture that we can't see when we are small.

We weren't supposed to stay in this one spot for as long as we did. I wasn't supposed to make such a good friend. I don't even know if I was supposed to have friends.

Everything changed for me on that first day in kindergarten when I was first dropped off by my father. He told me to watch and learn.

You loudly declared, "I don't like him! He's weird!" Pointing right at my father.

The teacher scolded you and told you to not say such things about the other kids parents.

As soon as she was done telling you that, you walked over to me. I thought you were going to apologize. Instead, you cupped my face and told me, "I'm sorry your dad is weird. You seem nice."

Not exactly an apology, but it did make me laugh.

It still makes me laugh.

That's when I knew you were someone special. And that was the start of us staying in one specific place for far too long.

I regret nothing, because it meant that I was allowed to stay with you for as long as possible.

I just wish it could have been longer.

But father is an exacting man. And there is a plan. I must follow the plan. Even if I don't want to be that person anymore.

I wish to simply be yours,

Siobhan"

You close the letter and just sit with it in your hands. This whole thing is starting to get much much bigger. Much heavier.

You sit and you think.

Does Siobhan need to be rescued from her father? Is that what this is all about? Is she stuck in some weird abusive cult? Are these dead letters the only way for her to communicate with you?

With a sick feeling in your stomach rising, you reach for the next letter to grab it and open it.

If Siobhan needs to be saved from her father, from her situation, and the only way to find her is to read through the letters in sequence, then it's on you to hurry up and finish.

You break the seal of the next letter and it already feels different from the first words.

"I'm sorry my dear.

It was only after I finished writing that last letter and sent it, that the realization set on me.

I am not in any danger. My father, while he is what he is and I am what I am, is not threat to me. I am not in any danger from him any more than he is from me at this point.

I simply wanted to explain, and perhaps vent my frustrations a little bit at you. I wanted you to understand the situation I am in.

There is no abuse or mistreatment beyond the attempts to make me the perfect tool for the cyclopean plan that I am but a tiny part in and my family is but a moderately larger cog.

There is no abuse. No danger or imminent threat.

I promise.

I would have told you if there were.

It is simply like being in class. Something you have to do, even if there are benefits and positives to it, it seems hard to discern at the moment you are in it, and you are always wishing you could be somewhere else, with someone else, being happy and doing whatever your heart desires.

I'll be more careful with my words in the future,

Siobhan"

You close the letter and you find that your heartbeat has been raging out of control.

You feel at once, reassured that there's nothing to concern yourself over, and a deep sense of worry that whatever this is will be more than you can handle.

i have a kofi with the rest of my work

[pithyorangecurd]

Okay going into this you have to understand, @jup1tersparx, that looking for quotes I was like. Facing the common man's problem.

^ it feels like this, bc in a way I'm like oh yeah so like you know how OBVIOUSLY we all know night vale died so long ago and is in a recursive loop of falling in on itself. The dark planet and all. Looks at my watch. Does everyone know about the end of the universe? The destroyer? I hope so....

Anyways.

So like, night vale is caught outside of time

^ context for the world ended in the 80s.

So uhm. Sometimes you just have to trust women here, and understand that night vale is being run by cecil, he's uhm. He's their voice, he guides the pathway of the story to a reality that works, and fixes things. Cecil grew up miserable and alone, and rejected, frustrated, and denied a lot of things [re: department of disposal, bedtime story, cassette] and we can see afterwards a lot of those things were taken care of in current night vale. Those things just don't exist. I forget which episode but a stranger in town talks about how he doesn't need to make money, all of his needs are provided without him doing anything. Cecil doesn't understand money, doesn't know he is paid at all, education is both wildly available and completely denied, science is looked at as a comedy and scientists comedians, and things you shouldn't know are redacted completely, and talked about openly anyways. I think it's maybe a story about you or the frank Chen story?? Maybe.

Random halfway implied cecil has control over the universe things

Etc etc etc. Happens a bunch, just believe women here. Annnnnd then the homophobia.

It's uhm. It's in the coding. You have to look between the words, sometimes cecil says things and you have to understand what he means from them. Like the last one is ambiguous but this is the context of cecil talking about memories from his childhood he wants to get rid of, while remaining out of the headspace of this being his memories.

I have some guidelines from the Sanitation Department, received via the pneumatic tube that I discovered beneath the floorboards of my office, under layers of cement bricks, chains and padlocks, [chuckling] as if someone wanted to keep it sealed forever!

^ it stopped letting me put pictures. Anyways sorry I said all this. I love you forever.

[stalkedbyplanes]

Dead Letters, Missing Wife; Letters 4 & 5

[Letter #1][Letter #2][Letter #3]

History

You wish you had a better excuse for why it took you almost a week to open letter number four. But really it was just nerves. There was something about the ring and everything. It makes everything feel so much more real.

You can't really picture how Siobhan looks, at least not how she would look now, with the years and maturity changing her into someone else.

But you can picture her hands. Burned, cracked, dry and peeling, looking like someone spilled acid on her hands and she's still dealing with the wounds. You don't know why that image is so stuck in your mind, but it is.

As is the image of those same hurt hands sitting down to write you a bunch of letters that couldn't be sent, couldn't be read until you did the work to get them, to open them, to choose to read them.

You spent longer than you'd like to admit, in your bed, just staring at the pile of mail that isn't addressed to you (you're trying to not look at the mail that is addressed to you).

There's this massive weight that you feel coming down upon you. Something like an ocean overhead that is struggling to remain in the air, in defiance of the natural laws and the efforts of the earth to call it home. You feel the massive weight of the water will come down and crush and drown you at any moment.

You put off the next letter a bit longer by trying to sort through the mountain of other mail of Siobhan's. You figure if you can start on a different puzzle, a less personal one, you can make progress without having to deal with that overhead ocean.

But you only get so far. You start to sort the mail by the cities that Siobhan was supposedly in. You have to stop when there's an address in your city. Close by. Super close to where you've been living your entire life. All the evidence points to Siobhan moving back to your city, only a mile away, and the dates on the postmarks seem to suggest that she was back as recently as two years ago.

And she didn't come find you.

That thought haunts you, like a spike through your soul.

You find yourself running your hands along the seal on letter number four.

You open it and read, trying to ignore the rain from the ocean above.

"My sweet,

This journey that I have sent you on must feel deeply overwhelming and I can never apologize enough.

There is something profoundly terrifying for me in doing this. I crafted this mask out of myself. I made something pretty and nice and wore it for so long. I'm afraid of letting you see what is beneath it, because it might be too much. And there are only so many secret things that I can share without revealing the things that are best left buried.

I know that part of this journey that I have set you on, must include pieces of myself, show you how I have grown and changed and who I have wanted to become all these years.

It is hard for me. The being that I am supposed to be, the thing that my father crafted me to be, is a miserable pile of secrets. That is not who I want to be, but it is the nature that has fostered me so I am working against all my better instincts.

I am sorry.

I know you disliked my father, even as a child.

I can't say that I blame you. He is an exacting man. Precise and distant and cold.

I was supposed to be a perfect little one. I was supposed to be quiet and just as cold and distant.

There was a plan. Some great architecture that we can't see when we are small.

We weren't supposed to stay in this one spot for as long as we did. I wasn't supposed to make such a good friend. I don't even know if I was supposed to have friends.

Everything changed for me on that first day in kindergarten when I was first dropped off by my father. He told me to watch and learn.

You loudly declared, "I don't like him! He's weird!" Pointing right at my father.

The teacher scolded you and told you to not say such things about the other kids parents.

As soon as she was done telling you that, you walked over to me. I thought you were going to apologize. Instead, you cupped my face and told me, "I'm sorry your dad is weird. You seem nice."

Not exactly an apology, but it did make me laugh.

It still makes me laugh.

That's when I knew you were someone special. And that was the start of us staying in one specific place for far too long.

I regret nothing, because it meant that I was allowed to stay with you for as long as possible.

I just wish it could have been longer.

But father is an exacting man. And there is a plan. I must follow the plan. Even if I don't want to be that person anymore.

I wish to simply be yours,

Siobhan"

You close the letter and just sit with it in your hands. This whole thing is starting to get much much bigger. Much heavier.

You sit and you think.

Does Siobhan need to be rescued from her father? Is that what this is all about? Is she stuck in some weird abusive cult? Are these dead letters the only way for her to communicate with you?

With a sick feeling in your stomach rising, you reach for the next letter to grab it and open it.

If Siobhan needs to be saved from her father, from her situation, and the only way to find her is to read through the letters in sequence, then it's on you to hurry up and finish.

You break the seal of the next letter and it already feels different from the first words.

"I'm sorry my dear.

It was only after I finished writing that last letter and sent it, that the realization set on me.

I am not in any danger. My father, while he is what he is and I am what I am, is not threat to me. I am not in any danger from him any more than he is from me at this point.

I simply wanted to explain, and perhaps vent my frustrations a little bit at you. I wanted you to understand the situation I am in.

There is no abuse or mistreatment beyond the attempts to make me the perfect tool for the cyclopean plan that I am but a tiny part in and my family is but a moderately larger cog.

There is no abuse. No danger or imminent threat.

I promise.

I would have told you if there were.

It is simply like being in class. Something you have to do, even if there are benefits and positives to it, it seems hard to discern at the moment you are in it, and you are always wishing you could be somewhere else, with someone else, being happy and doing whatever your heart desires.

I'll be more careful with my words in the future,

Siobhan"

You close the letter and you find that your heartbeat has been raging out of control.

You feel at once, reassured that there's nothing to concern yourself over, and a deep sense of worry that whatever this is will be more than you can handle.

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

If I Fell For You (Part 10) - Take Care

Summary: The reader gets to meet Danneel’s parents in a somewhat unorthodox way but receives a warm welcome to her surprise. Meanwhile, a minor medical scare makes Jensen anxious that he takes too much and doesn’t give enough to the reader...

Masterlist

Pairing: Jensen x nanny!reader

Square: Playing With Their Hair

Word Count: 4,800ish

Warnings: language, minor frightening situation, minor medical situation, anxiety

A/N: Please enjoy! Also written for @supernatural-jackles​​ Tell Me A Story Bingo...

________

One Week Later

“Y/N, can we get orange?” asked Arrow from where she sat in the shopping cart. She pointed at the tubes of frosting and you took one off, handing it to her as you went back to searching for a box of red velvet mix. 

“Come on,” you sighed, squatting down. You saw one shoved in the back and you bent down, reaching back to get it. You huffed when you pulled it back, the expiration date still plenty good. “Score. Okay Arrow what other color…”

She wasn’t in the cart anymore as you stood, her bright pink shirt and shorts nowhere in sight. 

“Arrow!” you shouted, people from the farther end of the aisle turning to look at you. You breathed hard and spun around, exiting the aisle and looking at the checkouts. “Arrow!”

“Mam,” said a man in a white dress shirt and slacks, walking over with a headset on.

“I had a little girl with me and she’s missing and she was in the cart and I would have heard her climb out,” you said, walking quickly, the man following with you as you checked down aisles. “Arrow!”

You heard the guy talk into his headset when you caught pink and a guy near the front of the store. She spun around and you ran over, the manager not too far behind you. You didn’t say a word when you kicked the back of the guys knee and grabbed Arrow, picking her up.

“What’d I do?” he said, Arrow turning away. He looked more angry than you were expecting and you swallowed, the manager urging you back. “She’s the one that took my granddaughter!”

“She’s not your fucking granddaughter, pervert. I’m her nanny and soon to be step-mom so you can back the fuck off.”

“Step fucking what?” he said, his face going blank. 

“Grandpa I told you Y/N’s my friend,” said Arrow. You blinked and stared at the man.

“Prove it,” you said. The man angrily pulled out his wallet and ripped out a picture, turning it around. It was a large group photo but you could clearly see Jensen and the kids in it along with… “You’re her father. Danneel.”

“Who the fuck are you,” he said. You took out your phone and went to your pictures, showing him one of your backyard bonfire from the weekend before. 

“Is there a problem?” asked the manager. You shook your head and he rolled his eyes and left.

“Sir, I’m so sorry,” you said. He nodded and glanced down. 

“Well, I can’t blame you. I understand the feeling,” he said. 

“Can we...talk?” you asked.

“I think that’d be best before somebody else gets their ass kicked.”

Fifteen minutes later you had your bag of baking supplies in your trunk, Arrow was playing on the jungle gym and you were sat at a picnic table with Danneel’s parents.

“You guys came down early for JJ’s birthday, huh,” you said.

“We had to come down this weekend instead. Something came up last minute next week,” said her mom. You nodded and took a deep breath. 

“I am so sorry. That is absolutely not how Jensen and I wanted to tell you both.”

“I’m old but I’m tough. I’ll survive,” said her father. You looked over to where Arrow was playing, gnawing on your bottom lip. “You said you were the nanny and soon to be step mom. Mind unraveling that for us?”

“I uh, I started working for Jensen in January as a nanny to help with the kids. The relationship part came a few weeks later. We’ve been engaged very briefly. Don’t even have a ring or anything yet,” you said, shaking your head. “Please don’t be mad at him. It’s taken him so long to stop feeling guilty for having feelings for me. Please don’t be upset with him. I don’t...I’m not trying to replace anyone or anything. I didn’t want to like him. But I did and I love him and he deserves to be happy again.”

They looked at one another and back at you.

“Good,” they both said. 

“Excuse me?”

“We think he deserves to be happy too. He was in such a bad place after the accident,” she said. “He’s sounded like himself again recently.”

“Plus if you’re willing to kick my ass for thinking I took Arrow, that gets you some brownie points,” he said with a smile. You nodded and looked down at the table, swallowing. “Not what you were expecting?”

“Your daughter’s husband is engaged to a younger woman. I wouldn’t blame you at all for whatever you might think,” you said.

“He’s got a lot of time left,” he said. “He doesn’t have to be miserable for it. We don’t want that for him. It’s not what she’d want. He’s doing exactly what she’d want from him and that’s all we can ask of him. Well and maybe stick around the country for a bit so we can see the kids some more.”

“Yeah, no plans to be anywhere but home right now,” you said. You looked over at Arrow and watched her jump off a high platform. She fell down to her knees but got up and brushed them off before she was running again.

“She’d like you,” you heard, your attention going back to the two of them. She was staring at you and you smiled.

“You don’t know a thing about me mam.”

“I think we know the important parts,” she said. You nodded and glanced down. “What do Jensen’s parents think of all this?”

“They know he’s dating but that’s it. I’m supposed to meet them next week,” you said.

“We’ll keep our lips sealed for the time being then,” she said. “What about your folks? What do they think of Jensen and the kids?”

“The kids probably haven’t met either parent yet, right?” he said. 

“It’s kinda complicated...I was adopted. My mom died a long time ago. I don’t have a dad or family really,” you said. You pursed your lips and picked at the corner of the table with your fingernail, the air heavy. 

“Well we approve of him,” he said. “He’s a good kid.”

“I know. He’s very special,” you said. “I just wish something so horrible didn’t have to happen to him and your daughter in order to meet him.”

“We can’t change that fact,” she said. “She’d want you to take care of him, keep an eye on him. Oh and remind him to take a break and slow down every once in a while. He always gets so caught up in work and being on the go. She had to calm him down sometimes.”

“I have noticed that trend,” you said. “I hope you don’t feel like he’s going to forget-”

“No we don’t worry about that. If we learned anything from this it’s just that you have to live while you have the chance,” he said as Arrow ran over.

“Y/N, I’m hungry,” she said. 

“Alright, munchkin. Why don’t we head home and maybe your grandma and grandpa will have lunch with us?” you asked.

“We’d love to,” they said. “We’ll meet you two there.”

“That went shockingly well,” said Jensen late that night when you were having an extra slice of JJ’s early birthday cake. “Those guys loved you.”

“I think we both got a little too worried over the parents situation. Dee’s parents were great, especially considering I nearly broke his knee. I’m really excited to meet yours next weekend.”

“It’s not too long of a drive up there. I haven’t been home in a long time. I’m looking forward to it too,” he said, a big smile on his face. “I’m really glad they liked you.”

“What’s not to love?” you said, Jensen smirking around his piece of cake. “You’re so hard on yourself. I’m really happy they like me too but even if they didn’t, there’s no problem there. You’re allowed to live your life. Dee wants you to keep living it.”

“I still wonder if she was just like ‘this boy is driving me nuts again, he needs a girl,’ and somehow shoved you into my life,” he said.

“Maybe. I mean, it was good timing that I was looking for a new job the same time you were looking for a nanny.”

“Did you ever report that last guy as an inappropriate employer?” he asked.

“I tell the agency but nothing criminal no. I mostly feel sorry for the families. Nannies are stability in the kids lives and leaving them isn’t easy. Unless they’re little shitheads but even then I don’t blame them, it’s the parents that turned them into it,” you said. 

“What’d you think of those three, when you met ‘em I mean,” he said.

“They’re all a little shy like you but they open up if they like you. They’re pretty damn funny. They got wit and sarcasm, even if they don’t know it yet. They’re kind and intelligent and they look to you in how to act like most kids. I knew they were good kids from the start.”

“You’re gonna be a great mom,” he said. You smiled and watched him eat a piece of cake, Jensen tilting his head. “You know they have called you mom before. All three of them. Accidentally but still.”

“Being a nanny has some of the roles of a parent but there’s still a difference,” you said.

“Yeah but you’ve never just been the nanny,” he said, scraping up some frosting with his fork. “Speaking of your sudden thrust into motherhood, the whole kids thing...how many of your own were you thinking of?”

“I don’t know. I don’t need to make a baby to love it. I was adopted and my mom loved me so much. I mean there’s already three of ‘em to chase after.”

“I’d like to have a baby with you. Someday,” he said. You dabbed your finger across some frosting on the plate and sucked on it, staring at him. “I know you do. Y/N there’s no more secrets. There’s never gonna be a secret between us ever again. Sometimes you get nervous but we have to talk about these things and everything. The big choices and the little ones we make together.”

“Honestly? I don’t want you to think I’ll love them less than a kid I make. I won’t. I will treat them all the same but I don’t know how to prove that to you.”

“You told me the day I hired you that I needed to hire someone I could trust, that trust was going to be so important. Y/N, I’ve never doubted your feelings for them. Shit, I’m pretty damn sure you were in love with them before me. And I get it because they aren’t scary. They can’t hurt you like the adults can. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if I had a shred of doubt.”

“I gotta think about kids more I guess. How many, when. I don’t know that right now.”

“We’ll figure out all that when we’re ready. Just let me know and we’ll come back to this conversation,” he said, wrapping an arm around your waist. “You know...hearing about what you did at the store...that’s kinda super attractive you know.”

“Uh what?” you said, Jensen pulling you into his lap.

“You, going protective badass...that’s very, very hot you see,” he said. 

“You’re such a guy,” you said while he picked up the last piece of cake on his fork. 

“Well we-” he said as you leaned forward and wrapped your lips around the dessert, pulling back with a smile. “Oh you shouldn’t have done that.”

“What are you gonna do about it?” you smirked. He narrowed his eyes and set his fork down before he was standing and flipped you over his shoulder. “Jensen! Put me down!”

“Do the crime, do the time!” he said, walking over to the stairs. “Hm...what to do with you...ah I know…”

“You know…” you said before he flipped you down onto the couch and plopped down on top of you, catching most of his weight on his hands on either side of you. “Troublemaker.”

“You love it,” he said. He leaned down and kissed you, your hands wandering to his hair, holding him close. You grinned and wrapped your legs around his waist, Jensen kissing you sloppy and cheeky and like a teenage boy making out for the first time. 

“Dad,” said JJ, rushing down the stairs. He dropped this forehead to yours and sighed.

“What is it?” he asked. He sat up and you both looked at her, spotting the pale tint of her skin. “Feel okay?”

“Jensen call an ambulance, now,” you said, pushing him off and going over to her. He sat up and you kneeled down next to her, her lips slightly blue. You put a hand on her chest and felt the labored breathing. “Did you eat something new tonight? Or did a bug bite you?”

“I stepped on a prickly in the bathroom a minute ago,” she said.

“Jesus,” said Jensen as he rushed into the kitchen. “She got stung by a scorpion.”

He grabbed a bottle from the cabinet and started unscrewing it.

“Jensen go see what the scorpion is and get rid of it before the twins find it,” you said. He left the bottle with you and shoved the phone against your ear. “Hi, sorry how much of the anti-venom do I give her?”

“There should be a child dosage on the bottle, half the cap,” the person on the other end said. You unscrewed the lid and poured some out, having her swallow it down. She whined and you didn’t blame her based on the smell. “An ambulance will be there shortly.”

“Thank you,” you said, spotting Jensen at the top of the stairs. He was holding his wrist and had a slightly smushed object in one of the clear plastic cups from the kids bathroom. “We have the scorpion.”

“EMT’s should be able to identify it,” she said, Jensen walking down slowly. He took a seat on the bottom step and shook his head. 

“Jensen?” you said, his hand reaching for the bottle. You moved his hand from his wrist and saw two dots there. “Shit. My fiance was stung too.”

“There’s a nest in the bathroom vanity,” he said, pouring himself a dose and knocking it back. “I blocked off the door but get the twins out of there, please.”

“JJ,” you said as you saw her color get better while Jensen was getting paler. You took your phone out of your pocket and dialed, handing it to her. “Tell Uncle Jared to come over right now.”

Five minutes later Jared was there, JJ and Jensen sat in the back of an ambulance, Jensen getting a shot of something in the leg.

“We’re taking them to West County,” said a paramedic.

“I’ll see you guys soon,” you said, JJ staring worriedly at Jensen who has holding his wrist again. Jared looked around as they took off and you sighed. “Hey.”

“JJ said she and Jay got stung by a scorpion?” he asked.

“She got one as far as they can tell. Jensen got three. There’s a nest in the bathroom cupboard,” you said.

“Idiot,” mumbled Jared. You raised and eyebrow and he shook his head. “He forgot to get the pest spray done this year I bet. Dee always handled that kind of stuff. They’ve had a scorpion problem before when they first moved in.”

“Oh.”

“I’m gonna take the twins and stay the night. I’ll call and get the spray guys in first thing in the morning. You go take care of those two,” he said. You nodded and he grabbed your arm when you headed for your car. “Wait five minutes to calm down.”

“Jared I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You just don’t know it. Go inside, get your purse, Jensen’s wallet, take a beat, okay?”

“Okay,” you said. “Make sure-”

“I got it. Go on,” he said. “Make sure he’s not freaking out. Last time he was at a hospital it wasn’t good.”

“Right. Okay. Call me if you need something. And stay away from the kids bathroom.”

“Y/N. I know. It’ll be alright, I promise.”

One Hour Later

“Is dad okay?” asked JJ from where she sat in your lap. Jensen peeled an eye open and smiled. 

“I’m okay. Sleepy is all. We’ll be home in a few hours,” he said. His wrist was bandaged and he had an IV in his arm but he’d taken the anti-venom soon enough that they had enough time to get the proper medication in both him and JJ. She was already discharged but you didn’t want to leave Jensen by himself.

“Mr. Ackles,” said a doctor when she walked in the room. “Your bloodwork came back and everything looks good.”

“Awesome,” he said, sitting up in bed. “Can I get out of here?”

“You got about fifteen minutes left on that IV drip but I’ll let the nurse know to start the paperwork. I want you to take it easy tomorrow. Nothing strenuous.”

“I got it,” he said with a nod. “Nothing strenuous.”

“Jensen,” you said around noon the next day, catching him unloading some wood from the back of his truck. “What are you doing?”

“I was gonna work on those shelves for the kid’s playroom,” he said. You crossed your arms and he threw his head back. “I feel fine. The nest got cleared out and the house got sprayed. I wanna work on this.”

“You have all the time in the world to do it. Work on it tomorrow,” you said, picking up the wood plank. He tried to take it out of your hands and you growled. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Please do what the doctor said and rest today,” you said. He bit his lip and you moved the pieces of wood into the garage, Jensen leaning back against the side of the truck when you shut the trunk. “You’re scared, aren’t you.”

He nodded and glanced at his wrapped up wrist, then down to the ground.

“Hospitals freak me out now,” he said. “I don’t like bugs. My body hurt and knowing I forgot to do something so simple put them in danger sucks. Knowing if she hadn’t come downstairs it might have been real bad sucks. If you hadn’t noticed I don’t know if I would have and it scares me not knowing.”

“Close your eyes for me,” you said. He shut them and took a deep breath, letting you take his hand and walk around to the back of the house. You spun him around a few times stopping him so he was facing the pool about twenty feet away. “Know where you are?”

“Somewhere in the middle of the backyard,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“You said not knowing scared you. Lots of times you don’t know. It’s kinda just how life works,” you said, dropping his hand and moving a few feet away. “Take a big step forward.”

“Y/N, I don’t like this,” he said, fidgeting his hand along the bottom of his shirt. 

“I know you don’t. But would I hurt you?”

“No,” he said. 

“So listen to me. Big step forward.” He took a step and you looked around. “Jump backwards.”

“What?”

“Jump backwards.” He frowned and took a small bunny hop back. “Again.”

“I feel ridiculous.”

“Says the guy who plays pretend for a professional career. Now hop back and then step to the right,” you said. He groaned and did as asked. “Jog forward until I say stop.”

“Are you trying to kill me out here cause I feel like I’m about to break my neck slipping in the pool.”

“I’m trying to get your anxiety out in a non-life threatening way, okay?”

“By having me jump around the backyard like an idiot.”

“By having you get comfortable with the fact that most of life is spent not knowing and you can’t change that fact. You can’t see it all coming.”

He threw his head back but kept his eyes shut. He stared to run towards you and you wrapped your arms around him when he got there, Jensen peeling them open slowly.

“See? I wasn’t gonna let anything bad happen,” you said. He nodded and rested his forehead on your shoulder, pulling you into a squeezing hug. “You okay?”

“I’m sorry for being short and not doing what the doctor asked,” he said.

“Hey, it’s alright. I got scared too last night. Everything is fixed now so no need to worry over it. Why don’t you take a nap and maybe we have a real quiet lazy day while Dee’s parents got the kids for the day,” you said. “Sound fun?”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll take quiet today.”

Three hours later Jensen was curled up with a blanket, his head resting in your lap as you watched a movie together. You played with his hair, Jensen turning into the touch every so often. 

“I know you’re worried about me,” he said. He turned and faced up at you, your fingers swirling in his strands. “I know I’m kinda clingy today which I’m normally not.”

“You can cling all you want, honey,” you said, stroking his cheek with your thumb. “I wish life would give you a break for a second. No work, no badness. Just some peace and quiet for you.”

“My parents lived here after the accident. For a few months. They were here, Jared and Gen were over every day, my siblings would stop down every week. The first few months I understood. I had an injury I had to recover from. But I felt like a child those few months once I recovered. Everyone taking care of the kids, of me. I was barely a father to them. Playtime. A story at bed. Someone else made most of their meals, did everything for them.”

“You’re a father but you’re still someone’s child,” you said. He blinked and you shrugged. “You were hurt, possibly the worst out of anyone. I know taking care of everyone else is your default but people get to take care of you too. I get to take care of you.”

“I feel like all I do is get taken care of by you,” he said. “I never give it back.”

“You’ve given me a family again. You take care of me every single day.”

“I never see you getting upset. It’s always me. I’m always the fuck up,” he said. You slumped down and took a deep breath. 

“I get upset Jensen. I got upset that very first time we fought, that night with the ice cream. I got upset when you got jealous of that nanny in Canada and we saw my father the first time. I got upset telling you the truth of it all because you of all people don’t need problems like that dumped at your feet. I got upset when we saw him again because I was scared and I was scared he might hurt you too. I got upset when we fought when you got home and I got upset when you proposed because you were so scared and I get upset Jensen. I get upset when you’re hurt. I get upset when I hurt. But I don’t have all those safety nets under me that you do, remember? I just got a couple right now and you’re my last resort. I’ve been my own support system for so long that I can’t undo that all overnight. I know it’s been months but the fact I even let you see me cry, the fact I can even talk about this stuff with you and know all you’re thinking about is how to make me feel better...I still need to heal too. You’ve done so much already. I’m gonna have my moments where this is switched, believe me. But today’s not my turn for that, it’s yours.”

“I love you,” he said, staring up with the softest green eyes you’d ever seen on him yet. “Even more than five minutes ago if that’s possible.”

“I love you,” you said, bending down and kissing him. “You’re the expert on the falling in love stuff though so I’ll leave that up to you.”

“It’s very...it’s what you think it is and it’s not at all what you think. There’s falling and nerves and then calm and then falling and calm and you spend the rest of your life doing that. It’s not magic and it takes work to keep it alive sometimes but all you gotta do is talk. Just talk and it always seems to work out for me,” he said.

“Can I tell you a secret?” you asked. He nodded and smiled as you went back to playing with his hair.

“You know I really like when you do that,” he said.

“I know you do. It relaxes you,” you said.

“Makes me feel safe too,” he said. “But what’s your secret cause eventually I’m gonna want to know them all.”

“I was very attracted to you when we met. But that kinda freaked me out a bit. I found myself liking you a lot that first day I was here. You got me a birthday cake. I realized how kind you are that night. It wasn’t for anyone’s benefit other than my own. I had a crush on you, even though I knew it wouldn’t go anywhere.”

“I had a crush on you from when you made me a cup of coffee. You’re so good and kind yourself,” he said. He reached up and cupped your cheek. “I’m really happy you had your mom eventually. I would have liked to have met her.”

“Maybe she and Dee are hanging out wherever they are.”

“I hope so. She won’t mind sharing me with you,” he said.

“You honestly think so?” 

“You gonna mind sharing me with her?” he asked.

“I’ve always shared you. Just hope that wouldn’t bother her.”

“I used to think maybe it would but no, she wants me to be happy and that’s you so you got all eternity to get to know each other eventually if you think about it.”

“Well when you put it that way we got nothing to worry about,” you said.

“Oh don’t worry about that. I think your mom was right. I get to have two people is all, kinda like she did,” he said. 

“She would have liked you. Would have said you’re a little old for me but she would have liked you.”

“Wasn’t she older than Ray?” he asked.

“Yeah. She was. She was only fifty,” you said.

“You grew up too fast,” he said quietly.

“Maybe. But it got me here and I don’t think I would have done anything different. I wouldn’t want to screw that up. Well I’d do one thing different.”

“What?”

“Drop by this house, have a conversation with a certain someone.”

“Say hypothetically you had that ability, you’d really do that knowing what you’re giving up?”

“I’d give her back to you right this second if I could.”

“I appreciate that, really,” he said. He let his hand fall down and reach around your back, curling around your waist. “But she’s not more important than you are. I miss her. Everyday. But I lose one of you either way in that scenario. And I can’t choose. I’ll never be able to. If she were here and you weren’t, I’d still be just like this. It’d still hurt.”

“Make me a promise. I keel over early, you try again. Try for both of us.”

“I will if you will,” he said. He held up his pinky finger and you grabbed it with yours. “But he can’t be hotter than me.”

“Equally as hot?”

“Slightly less hot but that’s my final offer,” he said. 

“Eh, fine,” you said. “You’ve worn me down.”

“Always words I want to hear,” he chuckled. You slid further down the couch until you were practically laying back, your arms wrapping around him. He got up and lay down with you on the wrap around side of the couch, pulling you into his chest. “Can I take you to dinner tonight? Just us.”

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Okay, honey,” he said, kissing your forehead. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Just thanks. For what you said. What you did earlier, just being with me,” he said.

“Lucky for you I like being with you a whole lot,” you said.

“Very lucky for me,” he said. “Very lucky indeed.”

______

A/N: Read Part 11 here!

[milliedazzledust]

Favorite Crime (Loki imagine)

Words: 1504 words

A/N: this is just something I've had in my head for the past couple of days. Needed to write it out so I could focus on the other stories I've still got to work on lol. Fair warning, this is sad af

He knew he shouldn’t have. It was a mistake to be there, so close to her, but he couldn’t help himself. Ever since he had seen those images of her dying he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head. He hadn’t escaped the TVA surveillance to plot against them, his motivation had been more selfish than that. He needed a way to be sure she was still alive somewhere, that he hadn’t failed her in every single timelines. That although he wasn’t there anymore, she could still exist without him, unstained from the consequences of his mistakes. He had just needed a stolen moment, out of reach, to say goodbye.

He hadn’t had the time to miss her, because he hadn’t known he lost her. In his lifetime, she was still in Asgard, waiting for his return. He had escaped the rest of his life by stealing the tesseract, missed countless of memories they had shared, but also had avoided a fate that had broken his heart in pieces.

What Loki didn’t know was that she was destined to be his redemption, to stand by his side and fight, to become his family and die by the hand of his enemy.

“Loki ?” He heard her calling.

He closed his eyes and pursed his lips to keep himself from crying. There she was, in the middle of the garden he had built for her on Asgard. The place was magical with its cosmic-blue river running down the valley and the daffodils and peonies blooming everywhere in a rainbow of colors. It was a sanctuary filled with life and beauty. And in the middle of this magnificent scenery she stood, looking everything like a pigment of his imagination, a distant memory he could so vividly remember. The sun washed over her with a golden glow and birds sang their joy in an age-old melody as he silently took a tentative step toward her.

“You shouldn’t be here” She warned him in a hurry. She rapidly closed the distance between them and gently laid her hands on his chest. “You’re supposed to be locked in a cell. Loki, I know you’re grieving the loss of your mother, we all are, but you can’t be here”

He wasn’t listening to a single word she said. Instead, the world around them disappeared and all he could focus on was her face. He wished he could seal the picture of her smile as a perfect photograph in his soul forever.

For a second he felt angry, so deeply angry at a universe that had conspired against his chance at happiness. It felt unfair to see her yet never be able to be with her ever again. They were both dead, living a moment that wasn’t supposed to happen. The brutal pain that came with that realization was so unexpected he almost regretted being there.

“Are you listening to me ?!” She was irritated and it made him smile. She was a fierce woman, a force of nature, he used to secretly love that side of her so he would annoy her any chance he got to get a reaction.

“You look exactly the same” He whispered. “So beautiful”

She furrowed her brows in confusion as he gently stroked her cheek.

“What’s going on, Loki ?” She could sense his pain but only attributed it to the loss of his mother.

She took a step back to look at him. That was when she noticed it, the million words behind his eyes, spoken in a silent story she couldn’t possibly know yet still felt on a deeper level.

“You look… different” She finally said, breaking the silence. “Broken”

He humorlessly chuckled.

“You used to be the only one who could do that” He sadly smirked. “Read me like an open book”

“Used to ?” She repeated.

“We don’t have much time, darling” He told her in sorrow, grief so obvious in his voice.

She tilted her head to the side, bothered by something she couldn’t quite place. He didn’t feel right, even to her. Almost out of place. His eyes didn’t hold any resentment for his family anymore, he wasn’t animated by rage or fury. He only looked crushed. Miserable.

“You’re not him, are you ?” She softly spoke. The answer was already evident to her. “You’re not my Loki”

“I’m a version of him” He truthfully replied.

“What happened to you ?”

He couldn’t tell her everything, he didn’t have the time. He knew he was working against the clock, creating a breach that couldn’t exist. The TVA was probably aware and already on its way.

“I failed you” The invisible ache in his heart was almost too much to bear.

She didn’t say anything, but stood closer to her lover and laid her head on his chest, encircling his waist in a tight hug.

“You could never” She muttered loud enough for him to hear.

She felt his body shake, crying for the missed time he would never have with her. His hands folded around her back, drawing her impossibly closer.

“I wish we could run away, so far they’d never find us. Create our own place out of time” His body was shaking as he buried his head inside her neck and took a deep breath, trying to imprint that scent of safety and comfort. Of his home.

She couldn’t comprehend any of the words he was saying but still she stayed locked in his embrace.

“Three days ago, I learned that I lost you” He started to tell her. “I saw a memory that wasn’t mine yet, and I failed to save you”

“You’re not making any sense” She replied in bewilderment.

“I don’t expect you to understand, darling”

“Where do you come from ?” She was so confused.

“Another lifetime”

He pulled his head back and cupped her face, softly stroking her skin.

“I had to find a way to see you one last time, to carve this last image of you in my mind so I won’t forget you when I’ll go” He ran a calloused finger on her cheek to brush away her tears. “I wish I could tell you what happens next, convince you to stay away from Midgard so you’ll never cross paths with Thanos.”

He stopped himself for a moment, desperately trying to keep from breaking down. This was his last chance to talk to her.

“You’re going to die” He whispered with a heavy voice. “Whatever I do, however I try to save you, I’m still going to lose you in every single timeline”

“How can you be so sure ?”

“I’ve seen it, Y/N. I’ve spent hours searching for a sign that you were still alive, somewhere, that loving me hadn’t led you to your death. We were not supposed to become a tragedy you and I, we had a future. I wanted to give you the world, to make you a queen. My queen”

“Did you love me ?” She only asked.

“Until my last dying breath” He swore.

“Then that’s all that matters. I couldn’t have dreamt of a better life, Loki” She muttered with a smirk, as she was telling him a secret. “And what an epic story than to fall in love with the god of mischief”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you”

“I forgive you” She stood on her toes to kiss him. It was sweet, gentle, and tasted of their tears.

They stayed there for a while, enjoying their last moment together. Loki felt like a part of him was being ripped from the core, like an outside force was draining him of his energy as an endless loop of memories kept playing in his head, recounting every second they had shared. He knew his feelings would never go away, he would love her forever, and with that love would come an emptiness filled with pain that only time would partially heal.

Reaching for the small device he had kept hidden in his pocket, he gazed into her eyes one last time, knowing the moment he would use it, it would reset everything.

“I love you” She smiled through her tears.

“Forever”

And then he pressed it. In a matter of a second, time took its place back and erased a branching reality that couldn’t exist. He turned into a variant that didn’t look familiar to her and thus couldn’t create unnatural alteration.

As Y/N blinked her tears away, she lost all memories of the past hours. Back to the woman she was supposed to be in this timeline, she came face to face with a complete stranger staring at her with the saddest expression she had ever seen.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere ?” She questioned him.

That was at this exact instant he truly started to miss her, when it hit him like a ton of bricks, when the pain became visceral.

“No, I don’t think so” He answered.

“What’s your name ?”

“I’m…” He shouldn’t. He couldn’t. He had to go. “I’m no one”

[gaiuswrites]

King of Cups || Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Judgement

Archive: ao3 | masterlist | seven

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!Reader

Summary: Things have changed, things have stayed the same.

Word count: 3.7k~

Rating: Mature

Warnings/tags: e m o (i can't stress this enough), illusions to mental health issues (?), emo, mature themes and language, EMO, family-trauma related angst, emo

Notes: I wanted to completely cut Din's perspective out of this chapter to emphasize the reader's pov. Hopefully it tracks? Big lovey-dovey shout out to @pedros-mustache for bonking me in the head with a proverbial pool noodle. ily friends. Be kind to yourself. Cheers x (gif credit: @bestintheparsec)

This is fine. You’re fine.

You’re okay with this.

You’re okay with this.

You’re okay

You’re

You think, perhaps, the sting is made worse by the normalcy of it all.

You think, perhaps, that this stabbing—this splinter in your gut, prodding prodding prodding—would not be so sharp if it were different between you—if things were different; if it were clumsy and cumbersome and mauled. Ruined.

But it isn’t; it’s the same. You and Din and his boy, his adi’ka—it’s ordinary. Evergreen.

You suppose you should be grateful—grateful your dynamic hasn’t shifted, hasn’t sullied any. Grateful you still have your Mandalorian piloting you home. Grateful you have his foundling to keep you company, to keep you preoccupied.

But you feel false.

It’s as if you slipped into an alternate reality—one where you and Din touched each other, held each other; one where he buried his frustration to the hilt in your womb and you moaned his name like your tongue was formed for it—and then were snapped back to this one here—this nothing, this void—without anyone taking note of your absence. Because your routines—those domestic tableaus—remain unchanged. They are well-oiled and operate regardless— undeterred, succinct.

The days start the same.

You set aside a warm bowl of fruit and porridge, steam rising to greet him as it fans over his helm. Good morning.

Exiting the fresher, you find the dishes washed and dried—the towel folded neatly into a square beside them. Good morning.

You return the bowls to their shelf, nestling them right next to your unfulfilled expectations and embarrassing desires—butted against your silly, silly heart.

“Anything good?” he asks one night, passing through the galley as you thumb through the news on your holopad

You nearly choke on it—your throat closing up tight around the casual banality of the question. Because that’s what you two share now: you have things. You have quips and lines and normal and none of that disappeared after you’d made each other unravel not four paces away, pressed there against that wall—the wall that stands there even now, a tall and mocking reminder.

You wonder, if you sealed your ear to the bulkhead, could you still hear yourself? The symphonic reverb—your girlish pants, Din’s hoarse rasps— trapped there in the seams of the steel siding like the grooves of a record, to be played and played again.

“Never,” you say, like you’ve always said, and do your best to flash him a grin—the one you’ve worn before, the one, perhaps, you hope he likes. The one where you go dimpled and dove-like.

And then he makes for the cockpit and you are left

without.

The afternoons stretch familiar, too.

Din flies the ship and you watch the child—steering him clear of disasters and shenanigans the best you can. He tugs gentle at your hair; you nip at his little hand until he’s dissolved to giggles—the same the same the same, all of these acquainted patterns continuing to revolve on. Din lands and prepares for his hunt—banging around the belly of the ship, gathering weapons and ammunition and rations—and your eyes skitter along after him, following his hulking figure as he steps past where you and Munch are seated, heading towards the mouth of the Crest.

Din.

You’re half afraid of what it will sound like now— what it will feel like, bruised and jagged in your mouth. Like it doesn’t belong there, like it has no right laying claim to your tongue.

“Din,” you call hurriedly to the span of his broad back as he leaves the ship, your spine straightening out of the chair. You say it; you speak his name and to your surprise find it is none of those things—none of those ugly fears, none of those roughened gums. It’s worse.

Because scarier still, it comes out cotton soft; it comes out comfortable and true. It tastes like home maybe — like a version of home where people could come and go and laugh and not be frightened. Where they could hold little children in their arms and sleep and breathe and be and say I am here with you. Here we are. How special. I have chosen this. I have made this with you.

Din.

His shoulders tense and his feet stop short, just before the apex of the ramp. He turns to you, slow. Controlled.

“Good hunting.”

Din looks at you, the heavy umber of his eyes settling on your own, and he freezes—stock-still, his blood and muscles and bone thickened to paste, rendering him motionless. His dark gaze scans over you—the wisps of hair dancing around your face, the sag of your shirt lolling from your shoulder, his son in your lap. You bounce Munch on your knee and he gurgles out a quieted hum, glancing between his surrogate parent and you.

“Thank you,” Din replies, stilted, and you think you discern a subtle scrape of his modulator; you think you sense his lips part, pained and breathy, the cusp of another thought—of more, anything more— corralled by his sense of duty, hampered by the armor that plates him.

You untangle the boy’s claws from your hair and slip your fingers around his wrist, waving his green hand in a delicate to and fro.

Goodbye, it says. We’ll be right here when you get back.

He stays. For another glimmer of a millisecond he remains, sunlight pouring in through the opening of the Crest—shining off his beskar, off the gunmetal grey covering his body—focus trained on you both—before he pivots, cape whipping behind him as Din vanishes like he does without fail—away. Away.

To vapors.

Three days of this—three miserable days. Seventy-two suffocatingly mundane hours.

You figured this would be easy. You figured it could be as painless as you chose to make it. You were two consenting adults, after all—you both had needs, and you both met them—and you thought that this would be simple.

What you failed to take into consideration however, is that Din Djarin is anything but a simple man.

Because he is all these things, paradigms and paradoxes, coiled into one very tightly wound warrior—a warrior who can dismember a blaster just as effectively as he can sop up baby vomit from his foundling’s brown robes—one handed, no less. In flight. Din is all sharp edges and smooth silver, he’s cold and calculating and roguish and endearing and you can’t grapple with the dichotomy of him—with all these mismatched pieces at odds with themselves that somehow fit perfectly, inexplicably together.

You were naïve to assume you could go back—as if you could unremember the shape of his fingers as they filled you; as if you could make yourself forget how needy he bowed against you, how hot and thick his cock rested in your palm when he pitched his hips and released his desperation in white streaks along your skin.

And when your mind isn’t wholly consumed—smothered with the crushed velvet sin of that time-capsuled memory—it’s tortured in other ways, with crueler techniques. Pointed. Specified.

You watch him. You wish you could look away, but there isn't anywhere else to look. There isn’t a corner you can escape to, nor an inch of the Crest that isn’t him—isn’t an emblem of him, isn’t an extension of his personage.

You see him - day in, day out - interact with the child and Maker, it’s so precious and he’s so damn good. Two arms, cradling Munch snug to his chest—you know their strength now, you know their weight—and you observe as Din holds this boy with the same hands that unmade you—that molded you like clay and parted your wet heat. You see this man—so stoic, so reserved—dote on his child in a way that you never were, and bit by bit, it breaks you.

You caught them napping together once, compressed in that dingy of an alcove by the refresher. Your feet halted in their tracks at the sight and you held your breath—he’s a light sleeper, you didn’t dare wake them—Din’s helmet nodded to his chest and the kid, open-mouthed and adorable, nestled into the crook of his arm.

It made you want to sing. It made you want to cry.

You had to pry your boots from the floor and force yourself to move, to scram. You had to be anywhere else but there, ogling like a spectator at a zoo, nose smushed against the glass, watching the last of some great species simply be as nature intended—calm, drowsy, at peace.

You busied yourself then, scuttling preoccupied about the Crest but the image never evaporated, it never faded—it dogged you, tacking itself onto your psyche: the picture of him there, Din and his boy, holding on to one another like anchors while they slept, and you can't resist drawing the question.

Is that what it’s supposed to look like, to feel like—a father’s arms around your shoulders? Is that what safe looks like? Is that what family is?

You wouldn’t know. You cannot recollect the glow of it—the memory of such an embrace—on your own skin, and isn’t that what makes it all so achingly befitting, so inevitable. As if the Moirai—those weird sisters—spun this string of fate tailored to your being and plucked it like a harp, curating a melody for you and you alone.

Because you see Din give what you never got, and it makes you want. You want him. You curse yourself for it, but fuck you want him—every sordid part of you is tugged and pulled in his direction. You want him, magnetically, you want him you want him you wa—

And Din is fine. A Mandalorian pillar, undisturbed. He is bedrock. This is the Way.

And while he withstands the weathering, you crumble beneath it. It's eroding you. Like tides crashing monotonous against a beaten shore, you are in granules—and these morsels, ever-fine, they nick you - gritting - sanding you raw, abrading you rugged.

You thought you could ignore them at first. They were but lace whispers behind your ear—muted and tickling and just far off enough to deflect. But with each passing moment those feathered words grew loud—rude and vocal and you couldn’t keep them out. Round and round, they wriggled into your most tender swathes of skin. Skipless. Poison.

He regrets it.

He didn’t want it.

He didn’t enjoy it.

He didn’t want me He doesn’t want me I’m not wanted

These thoughts, insistent and pervasive, they are sewn into the bed of your mind one ugly seed at a time. You water them. You don’t mean to, you don’t wish to cultivate these errs but you know they will fester and grow with or without you. So you tend them—watchful, you garden—and they push up through the soil, sprouting weeds, choking the dirt. Marring it fallow.

But you’re okay with this. You’re fine—look at you, you’re fine.

///

The planet of Jelucan is bustling.

It’s got a pulse of its own, energetic and thrumming; there’s an electric current charging the cool air. It’s alive. This place is alive. Towers and buildings are chiseled into the cliff faces of the mountains framing the city, reaching tall towards the pale blue sky overhead. The capital—Valentia, you learned—is almost offensively busy— far busier than any of the backwater territories you and Din had explored in the recent months. There’s so much noise, it’s cacophonous— speeders dodging pedestrians milling about the throughway, engines whirring and backfiring, merchants arguing, hawking foods and goods from their windowed shops and brightly colored stalls, politicians and well to-dos seemingly gliding above it all as the common rabble of varying species and origins mingle and mix.

You suppose it reminds you of Coruscant. You suppose that makes you nervous.

Because you’ve been holed up in his ship and flitting through the Outer Rim, seeing the stars and the moons and planets and there’s just so much life—everywhere, everywhere— this galaxy is chalked full of it; it’s spilling over the sides with it all. And Maker, these months have felt like an adventure; they’ve felt like a fantasy, like an escape. You’ve eloped, caught in the whirlwind romance of it all—shirking your duties, your career, absconding from your shitty, shoebox of an apartment back home.

But Valentia is all too quick to ground you, all too eager to remind you of that blissfully forgotten reality; it taps on its wristwatch, gutting you with a look:

your time, my dear, is up.

The cobbled pavement underfoot is stony and industrial, each step landing too hard, too hollow—like everyone can hear your chipped heart pounding through your boots—exposing you, coloring you a liar.

This is fine. You’re fine. You’re okay with this.

You’ve been telling yourself that—bargaining, pleading—attempting to manifest into fruition; speaking it to yourself like a chant in hopes it’ll stick—in hopes you’ll fall for the ruse.

But it’s as if each dulled footfall shakes the rust from your neglected truth, revealing all too plainly that no. No, you’re not. You aren’t.

You and Din do not walk in tandem—his gait is longer, and he’s a stride in front of you—but there isn't so much space between your bodies that his presence doesn’t distract you completely, doesn’t eat you up and make you fizz. Your gaze could latch anywhere in this packed, teeming city, and you would still see him. Still feel him—on the nape of your neck, in the wet pink of your cunt. Throbbing reminders of the man that has knotted himself so seamlessly into your world.

You shake your head, locks rustling— as if you could rock him loose from where he clings on to your mind— when you feel a spindled hand at the wing of your back. Startled, you spin towards the touch.

There’s a woman— she isn’t human, but judging by her general appearance she’s some species close to it. She’s old. Whittled. Her maroon eyes are clouded, her silvered hair swooped back into a low bun, wiry frizz haloing the crown of her head.

She’s petite, but it looks wrong— inorganic. Too knobby, she’s all elbows and boney angles where she shouldn’t be. It’s as if she’s shrinking, right there before you. Time, pressing her in— pressing her down.

She’s lived a life in the sun; she wears lines on her face, deep and haggard, and her skin is pulled taut around her skull like hide stretched over a tanning rack. She’s ancient, prehistoric.

She’ll probably outlive you all.

An alien language you don’t recognize comes spilling fast from her thin mouth. You can’t decipher the string of words rushing like river water, the current unstoppable, but you garner she’s insistent; there’s no misconstruing the earnest fervor in her voice. Something woolen is held tight in her grasp—a blanket, by the looks of it, intricate and pleated—and she’s handing it to you like her very existence depends on it.

“I’m sorry,” you begin, confusion evident on your brow, “I’m sorry I don’t—”

She continues speaking, urgent and desperate and pleading—gesticulating as she offers you the throw, the shiny golden thread needled into the patchwork winking in the afternoon sun. The child slung at your side chirps curiously, saucer-large eyes following the shimmer of the fabric.

“I’m sorry, it’s beautiful - really - but—”

You’re jobless and blowing through your savings at a blistering speed. You barely have two measly credits to rub together; getting supplies is tricky enough as is. Purchasing something as ornate and superfluous as a blanket was out of the question. Munch coos sadly, a twitter of his voice, and it ruptures your heart to say it, “I can’t afford something like this.”

The bell on the door to the adjacent shop grabs your attention, producing a Twi’lek as it opens. She’s younger, perhaps around your age, and her lilac lekku bob as she bounds over to you.

“Hi,” she breathes, lips pulling back to reveal a charming smile as she glances between you two. “Everything okay?”

Before you can get a word out the elder resumes chattering, incensed as she addresses the other store attendant—you think it might be Old Corellian, some archaic dialect you presumed died out eons ago, predating the Battle of Yavin by centuries.

Just how old is this woman?

There’s a hushed exchange between them—the Twi’lek’s attempt at the language proving stiff. Her cadence is clunky, nowhere near as smooth and lilted as the other woman’s, but they must come to some sort of a conclusion, because they face you—two sets of eyes, burrowing blinkless into yours. The girl takes a small half step towards you, speaking - blessedly - in Basic.

“The blanket. It’s for you. She wants you to have it,” she explains, “for the little one.”

A twitch notches your eyebrow, gaze flickering back to the older woman, something akin to a crinkled smile worn into the grooves of her wizened face. She nods, fervent and solemn—a seriousness set in the desperate way she bores into you, urging you to understand. To see.

More foreign utterances pass between them— the younger woman listening to her soft vowels and gritting consonants for a beat, before continuing to translate.

“She says, you have a beautiful family. It makes her—” the Twi’lek pauses, choosing her next words, “yearn for the past, to reclaim time.”

Family. A beautiful family. A beautiful—

You consider telling them.

You consider correcting her, informing these kind souls that you’re only temporary. A fleeting thing— like the seasons, autumn dying cold into winter— you’ll leave when the time comes. You consider telling them that that’s the arrangement you agreed to, and that you’ll be delivered back to Coruscant and deposited off at your doorstep with nothing but a cheap, portable cot and an unused blaster the bounty hunter had unfathomably given to you once upon a time. That they’ve mistaken you for someone else—someone important to Din and his foundling. Someone relevant. Someone permanent.

But, you don’t.

You don’t rectify their assumption. Your silence betrays you, confirming the lie, and you grant yourself to revel in it. Like slipping into silk sheets, you roll in the luxury of the imaginary sentiment— letting it swaddle you, comfort you, kiss your skin.

And just for a moment, maybe you allow yourself to believe that this is real: the three of you, a perfect band of misfits; entwined together, fated and star-crossed.

A family.

“She hopes you know that what you have is special. She says, she hopes you hold onto them—never let go. Never.”

Fuck.

Can they hear it? Can they hear the way parts of you fracture like slate and quake to the asphalt in shards? Can they see the shiver in your knees—how your nails dig into the rough tweed of the satchel hung long beside you?

You steal a trepid glance back at Din who has since stopped and stands idle in wait—there in the middle of the lane, a single stone splitting the sea of people passing through. He’s unreadable, his visor illegible. He appears statuesque, arms immobilized in plaster by his sides—inhuman under all that effacing steel as life moves in flurries, eddying around him.

The kid babbles, snapping your focus off the Mandalorian and returning it to the two women. They adorn their sincerity openly, as one would a badge, extending the blanket to you—you, a perfect stranger.

Shit. Tears prickle the wells of your eyes. There’s something lodged in your throat— a canary in a cage, batting violent against its bars. You attempt to swallow it down with an ugly gulp, but it provides no relief. This emotion you’ve leveed—your joy, your pain and embarrassment, your desire and need—it swells in you, threatening to slosh over. You blink it back, keeping it confined safely behind your lash line.

“I—thank you,” you manage, looking between them. Awed and humbled, you accept their offering, handling it with the care of something holy—something sacred—and drawing it to your chest. Immediately, Munch latches a claw into a drooping corner of the woven material, a happy hum sounding from his droll grin. “Thank you,” you murmur again, reverent and breathy, reversing away from them—refusing to drop their gaze until you must—before finally righting yourself and walking on.

You’re shaken. You’re shaking.

And it is on shaky feet that you meet Din some steps later, pausing once you arrive next to him. His helm shifts; you register the sweep of his eyes roving over you—the burn of them along your shoulders, sloping down to the blanket folded against your breasts, slipping lower to his adi’ka sitting in the satchel at your hip. He’s clutching at the new token, dipping the edge of it into his tiny mouth to teethe.

And then,

he lifts at the wrist, orange glove tips raising - reaching - towards you. Din takes the hem of the quilt between his fingers experimentally, massaging the feel of the fabric—his knuckles brushing the exposed skin of your arm, searing into your flesh like a hot iron, lingering there mesmerizingly.

It’s the first he's touched you. It’s the first he’s touched you since, since—

His hand drops, hinging back to his side.

“Ready?”

His modulated voice crackles indiscernible and your stomach leaps to your neck. Are you breathing? Kriff, you’re not sure. You have to check—deliberately drawing in a gust of chilled air, the rush burning your lungs as you suck it down. With a nod of your head, a placid smile glosses over the shudder of your features, dousing the singe of your nerves.

“Ready.”

///

You think about that old woman later that day, and the many days that follow, her visage marked with centuries and regret and history. Life, evident in the spider’s web of wrinkles engraving her. But there was love too, clearly wormed into the lines of her face. So much of it— almost too much for a galaxy this hard and war-torn. The things she’s possibly witnessed: the atrocities, the devastation, the loss.

The wisdom she has gained while all of those she’s ever known succumb to the inevitability of age, as her past decays around her. The knowledge she absorbs while she withers—while time does nothing but skip by. Blameless. Forever onward.

In your dreams that night, she appears in front of you like mist rising off a lake, astral and ephemeral— there, but not. Haunting you, inescapable wherever you fix your eye. The woman nods silently. She’s mouthing something to you, but the words never come.

You understand.

tags:

@girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @pedros-mustache @djarrex @djarinsbeskar @bookloverfilmoholic @keeper0fthestars @misguidedandbeguiled @bookishofalder @helmet-comes-off @grumpymuffinmama @niiight-dreamerrrr @spideysimpossiblegirl @janebby @greatcircle79 @gracie7209 @thatonedindjarinfan @altered-delta @email2ash @stevie75 @shegatsby @onebrownoneblue @sammysdaisy @uniquebiscuitmongerdonkey

[pompadourpink]

hey mom this might be a bit heavy and long, sorry!

how do you live past your mental illness? i graduated after having been convinced i wouldnt make it for years. now im in college and its hard to actually imagine a real future for myself, or even feel motivated for it, yanno? ive been studying french for like 5 years and im still in intermediate/beginner purgatory, so self studying isnt going well either. i guess, how do i set goals and stick to/feel accomplished by them? i dont think i ever learned how

thanks!!!

Hello dear,

I had chronic depression for more than a decade and thought from the bottom of my heart that I would never survive it or beat it and I did, so I have loads to say.

The stuff that torments you most likely exists only inside your head - as in, no one else thinks that. It sounds stupid but it is not: if someone tells you that you're bright, if someone likes you, if someone trusts you with something, don't tell them or think that they are wrong. They made their decision and stand by it. In high school, I convinced myself that I was unlovable, ignored/pushed away anyone who liked me, then spent years complaining about being completely lonely and miserable, and that was entirely my doing. I could have been happy, and I wasn't. Trust others and allow them in your circle, even if your brain tells you it's a scam. It's not. Don't make yourself sadder than you already are.

Rebrand. I used to see myself as a plate that had been thrown on the floor many times and kept being broken into smaller and smaller pieces, which made it harder and harder to reconstruct fully. I also used to picture my depression as some type of vicious little demon that was riding on my back, biting and wounding my shoulders with its sharp teeth and long claws, and taking all the pleasure in the world in never letting me have one moment of peace. After making many changes in my life (cutting ties, better people, therapy, prioritising myself), I began seeing my wounds as bruises that would eventually heal, and, more importantly, after watching The seventh seal, I started picturing depression/Death as No-face from Spirited away: massive, a bit creepy, silent, always by my side, but not evil, not malicious, just there. After a while, it felt like a reassuring presence who had been standing next to me faithfully for most of my life, and when I beat depression, my oldest friend waved and went away. So long, my dear, until we meet again!

Obviously, get a therapist if you can afford one, but even if you can, talk to as many people as you can and read a lot, especially about psychology and psychiatry. I started feeling better in 2018 and beat depression in March 2020, ironically, because everyone on social media started getting symptoms of depression (feeling like crap, gaining weight, having issues with hygiene, etc.) which no one normally talked about, and I realised I wasn't broken, I just had been having a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. Hear as many points of view as you can so you can make an educated decision.

When it comes to the future, think of what you've loved your entire life. When I think of my current life, everything I have has been carried since childhood. Don't study for a particular job, but work for a particular life. Identify what makes you happy, what you are good at, what you love, and focus on that stuff and that stuff only. Become excellent at those things, and find a way to make a living out of it - you don't have to follow the regular path, everything is temporary anyway, and what matters is that you're happy. That's it.

When it comes to goals, the first step is to find out what meaning you want to give to your life: two questions here, the first being what is my greater purpose? And the other what is my biggest personal goal? The second step is to declutter. And I don't mean declutter your wardrobe - declutter everything. Your house, head, diet, relationships, beliefs, habits; anything that doesn't serve you, brings you closer to your main goal or purpose, makes you miserable, has to go. The third step is to question constantly why you want to do things: do you actually (why?), or are you trying to impress someone, or to reach another person's dream? If you can't manage to do something, either you need to cut it into smaller pieces and treat yourself after reaching each milestone, or admit that you don't actually want to do it. In the case of French, check out my Google drive and read Goosebumps, or tweets, or sing along karaoke on Youtube. Make it fun, easy, frequent but short, and be nicer to yourself.

Love and power,

Mum

[whump-town]

In With The New, Out With The Old

Hotch packing Jack up for college

None of it feels real.

For two years after he and Haley divorced he lived in an apartment of boxes. It was some sort of punishment he created for himself while also creating a dissonance he could be lost in -- that he didn’t need to unpack just in case. He had his suits in the closet, his work would not take the fall for his personal life’s failings. The coffee maker sat on the counter, one of the only appliances hooked into a light socket. The necessities followed -- two mugs for coffee, a glass tumbler for the whiskey sitting on the counter, and one plate for when he ordered take-out he couldn’t just eat out of the box.

It had taken him months to buy a mattress, he was perfectly miserable sleeping on the couch. He had only taken Jack to the apartment once, needing to switch into more park-appropriate clothing. Between them, he and Haley agreed that the best thing for Jack was consistency so he would spend all day with Hotch but he would always go home to Haley. He knew this could be used against him in court, Haley could take Jack from his so easily it terrified him but he also knew he’d let her. He was more powerful, he had more strings to pull and more people on his side but the thought of getting on the stand and having his friends call her a bad mother made him feel even worse. So he knew that if it came down to it, he would let Haley have Jack rather put either of them that sort of grueling case.

This was a shared thought between them. Both are aware of the other’s power over the other. Neither will act on their own.

He had only bought a mattress because of New York. Limping home he’d sunk down into his old faithful couch only to wake up the next morning with achingly stiff sutures in his leg and his face stuck to a throw pillow, the blood drying like glue. He had to call Emily and Derek that afternoon. Unable to drive himself with his concussion and consequential blurred vision Emily had come over to pick him up, never said a word about what he’d been sleeping on in the months before. Neither did Derek when Hotch got too dizzy coming up the stairs, the stitches in his leg bleeding through his jeans and so pale Emily had to hold him upright to get him to the bench in the lobby. He was left there, listening to Derek and Emily bicker their way into forcing the mattress into the apartment through the pounding sound of blood rushing in his ears.

That was years ago and yet they’ve created its mirror image once again in his living room.

All of Jack’s belongings in boxes spread out in every room of the house. Packing up to leave.

“Art?” Emily mumbles disapprovingly. She’s knelt down in front of Jack’s bookshelf, dismantling the organized shelves to pack them into boxes. It’s a different method than the one that Hotch uses. Jack has them categorized by author and general theme and as Emily takes down all the books she’s gotten him about cults and psychology and crime she can’t help but feel a little cheated. Jack knows all about crime. He’s had Macdonald’s Triad memorized since he was five -- could give that method of thought its critical analysis as not a precursor to antisocial or serial killer behavior but more as a demonstration of a child’s poor coping skills or as the indicator of a dysfunctional home environment. He’s a well of information about cults, knows the “B.I.T.E.” system.

And he’s throwing all that away because Hotch took him to too many museums as a child?

Jack doesn’t say anything when he hears her grumble about art again, he’s had this conversation so many times. He knows she’s not really mad and she’s not even that irked but she needs to do something with the feelings she has about him leaving and this is just the best way she’s come up with. Better than crying -- which she’s also done far too much of.

“I think art is a great idea, kid.” Derek teases his hair as he passes, sweaty and hot from dragging Jack’s belongings around the place.

Hotch works slowly where he’s been assigned. They all work around him. He’s more freelance than the others. His job is to do what he can and leave the rest for someone else. Today his physical capabilities are not in the way. Derek does all the heavy lifting that Hotch knows is supposed to be assigned to him, it’s his duty as the father of the freshman moving away. He finds himself in the living room, one of Haley’s old photo albums on his lap. Thumbing pictures he can remember going with Haley to print. Pictures he can remember being in. Ones that he took.

He’s crying again.

Emily comes out with a box of books on her hip, having figured out the perfect ratio of books to box to prevent them from falling out the bottom. She sees Hotch wiping his face with a tissue, hiding away but unable to fully pull away right now. The hurt raw. The fear is too much.

The second that Hotch got the chance he left home and never came back. Over the years he returned to his hometown only when he had to -- when Haley’s parents couldn’t be convinced to come to see them. It didn’t matter how down bad he was, Hotch did it on his own. When his mother died when he was thirty he’d talked to her only once since moving out. Then it had only been for the benefit of Sean, who he had driven all the back to Virginia to collect and drove to college.

He fears Jack will do the same and it terrifies him in so many ways.

His own death will come quickly, he knows he’s only made it this long because he’s not alone. Without Jack, there’s no reason to keep going on, not with the way his body aches from years of abuse and neglect. More than that, he knows what growing up that fast did to him. As a child, the things that happen to you are out of your control. Children are sponges, not yet able to take control and mold themselves. So their reactions to abuse and neglect and even just trivial everyday things are but a reaction they are taught to form or never corrected on. But Hotch never corrected his behaviors as a young adult. He couldn’t bring himself to trust anyone, not at twenty, or thirty, and still at forty.

He spent his twentieth birthday on the side of the highway in a broken down car freezing his ass off with negative twenty-three cents in his bank account. No one to call because he couldn’t bring himself to believe anyone would come -- but Haley would have, or Jessica, or the sociology professor who gave him his number for emergencies or “just anything you can think of, just in case you need me”.

He doesn’t wish anything like that on Jack.

The cycle of self-destruction and fear and loathing.

But Jack knows how to form healthy relationships with people. He’s more worried about Hotch.

The car ride is nearly silent.

Jack cranks his window down and lays his head on the seal, lets the wind blow his hair back from his skin, and closes his eyes. There’s no air conditioning but it’s not that bad. The air has cooled off, the thunderstorms taking over the area sucking the humidity from the air as the wind picks up. It’ll get bad again in a day or so but today is nice and Jack wants to enjoy it. To sit contently with his dad and just try to soak it in before he’s thrown into the world of college.

Emily had promised him several times she’d make sure that Hotch didn’t turn himself into a hermit. Jack has grown up watching those two spar off so he knows she’s perfectly capable of getting Hotch out of the house. More than that, Jack knows he’s just going to miss his dad.

“Please--” Jack’s in the middle of trying to reorganize his stuff when he sees Hotch come in with one of the big boxes, one of the heavy ones. “Dad!” Jack takes it from him, not listening to Hotch’s complaint about being able to carry a few boxes. That he won’t break that easily. “Please, just leave the heavy stuff to Emily and Derek. Help me put my clothes away? Please?”

He nearly cries again folding Jack’s t-shirts away. Once upon a time, Jack’s shirts were about the size of his hand. Tiny delicate little things about the size of rags. Now he’s wearing the same size as Hotch, a grown man standing there racing to beat Emily to the heavy stuff because he doesn’t want her lifting it all either.

“Well,” Derek announces, setting the minifridge down, “that’s the last of it.”

Emily offers Hotch her hand and he takes it, grunting as he moves his body back upright.

“Well,” he declares, looking around the room. “We’ll leave you to it. Let you get everything sorted out how you like.” Hotch smiles and Emily and Derek step in to take their hugs, imparting half-wise ideas and a no-questions-asked ride home from anywhere.

“I love you,” Hotch says, he’s quick because he knows he can’t keep his composure if he stays here for too much longer. “I’ll send you care packages, you’ll just have to text me if you think of something I don’t send.”

Jack nods, pretending to make himself busy putting away the rest of his clothes. Trying to downplay his own feelings.

“Ok.”

Hotch nods and they leave, he doesn’t want to make a scene. They’ve hugged and Jack needs to unpack. He’s done. He’s only two doors away when he hears Jack’s door gets thrown open.

“Dad!” Hotch turns and stumbles, an armful of the little boy who was once the size of his forearm. He squeezes Jack tight, laughing through his tears when Jack holds on. “I love you too.”

Hotch holds him for a solid minute, just balanced there with his hand on the back of Jack’s head. “Alright,” he whispers. He sniffles a little, smiling as he cups Jack’s cheek wiping away a tear with his thumb. “I’m just a phone call away, okay? Any time of the night, you know where I am. You’ll be fine. You’re going to make mistakes and you’re going to fail tests and cry over boys and drink too much but you’ll be okay. And-- And if you’re not…”

Jack nods, smiling as he says, “I’ll call Emily.”

Hotch smirks, “well.. After a certain hour, yeah I suppose you’ll have to but yeah. Just call, okay?”

“I’ll call.”

Hotch nods and he has to force himself to let go and walk away. To let Jack do this.

They’re halfway down the hall, far enough away now that Jack won’t see or hear when Hotch starts to cry. He forces himself to keep going. Not to look back. Emily takes his hand, squeezes his fingers and he looks over at her tears in his eyes, and tries to smile.

Emily drives his truck home, she plans on feeding him chocolate and ice cream, and wine this afternoon to improve his mood. He gets a text and he smirks, he actually laughs.

“Let me know when you get home, old man. Tell Emily not to keep you out too late.”

[raleighcarrera]

saved by the bell

foreign affairs | m!blaine hayes x mc (kennedy monroe)

blaine springs kennedy from her date in chapter 10.

catch up: knockout (E) / on the ropes (T) / outpoint (T) / parry (E) / pulling punches (T) / ringside (T)

tagging: @pixeljazzy ; @zigtheeortega ; @pixelsandkink ; @writinghereandthere ; @choicesarehard ; @dakotawinchester ; @flyawayboo ; @withbeautyandrage ; @blainehellyes ; @levineseth ; @gryffindordaughterofathena ; @thefirstcourtesan ; @josieplayschoices 

~3.5k words | T

he’s not going to look.

no matter how much his phone lights up with incoming notification after incoming notification, he’s not going to look. blaine refuses to torture himself by checking for photos of kennedy’s date, though his curiosity is eating him alive.

it’s a nice reprieve from worrying about her, at any rate, even if it is maddening.

lately it feels like all he’s done is worry about her, though that’s mostly because kennedy looks to be about an inch away from tears every time she’s around -- not that it’s often, anymore. there’s absolutely nothing worse than seeing her suffer from the sidelines; he still feels just as helpless as he did when he watched her give that first disastrous press conference in his dorm, the day after the pictures hit voyeur. 

it’s unbelievably frustrating, being forced to sit on his hands and watch everyone else try to control her life. kennedy’s under a microscope like neither of them have ever been before, and for the first time in his life, he’s in the uncomfortable position of having to be careful -- not because he gives a shit about himself or his own reputation, but because of her, and what it might do to her if he was reckless.

he’s bitten his tongue more times in the last week than he has in his entire life. it’d taken every last ounce of his self control not to snap and defend kennedy at the pet store, not to panic when she’d clued him in on her mom’s newest pr strategy, not to keep her locked in the teacher’s lounge with him for the rest of the semester and refuse to let her go when she snuck out to meet him.

already he knows he’ll never forget the names and faces of the classmates of theirs that’d picked on her. if he ever really does wind up in charge in ardona, one day, he’ll come to power with a ready-made list of enemies, all because of the way they’d made her look when she sunk down low into her seat in class, her shoulders hunched in shame.

he’s laying in bed, moping miserably, thinking over it all when peter pokes his head in with a hesitant knock. “how’re you holding up?” he asks, tactfully, given that blaine’s pretty sure he looks utterly awful. “those daily post photos were... rough.”

blaine groans, burying his face in his hands. “i’m not looking at them. i don’t want to know.”

“that’s probably for the best,” peter says sympathetically, and that does it -- seals the deal completely. he reaches for his phone, snatching it off the nightstand.

dionne’s also texted him, which means the photos are as bad as he’s hoping they won’t be. his stomach twists into knots as he navigates to his favorite gossip site, certain the pictures he’s looking for will be plastered all over the homepage.

sure enough -- there they are: kennedy and alexei, huddled together outside of some swanky restaurant, hand-in-hand. she’s all dressed up for the occasion, because with alexei she’s allowed to be; she doesn’t have to sneak out to see him, hidden under a baseball hat in some far away place where no one will recognize either of them. the point of this date is to be seen, and judging by the crowd of flashing lights surrounding them, they’ve done a perfect job selling their relationship to the press.

so the second picture accompanying the story is an unnecessary twist of the knife -- complete overkill. they’re kissing, in this one, lips pressed together chastely just outside the limo. he feels nauseous.

“they’re probably having a terrible time,” peter says, though blaine’s still staring at his phone, eyes fixed on the photo in his hands. “i heard that restaurant is horrible.”

“it’s fine,” blaine says hollowly, tapping back to his texts to answer dionne. she wants to know how he is, too, and he gives her the same answer: fine. everything is fine.

“you’re so full of shit,” dionne says, when she shows up at his dorm twenty minutes later, her arms folded across her chest and her expression unimpressed.

yeah. he forgot she knows him so well. “well -- whatever,” blaine sighs, dragging a hand down his face. it doesn’t matter. it has to not matter, for kennedy’s sake. “it’s not like i can do anything about it. this is the way it has to be.”

the look in dionne’s eyes grows distant, and he sits up slowly as a smile starts to overtake her face, cautiously optimistic while what’s obviously an evil plan begins to unfurl. “no,” dionne says, “it’s not. i think i have an idea.”

so -- that’s how he finds himself sweating through his jacket, overthinking this whole stupid plan while he waits for kennedy to slip out the back of the stupid opera house and meet him and his stupid rental car in the alley. he thinks back over all the ways they’d had to cover his tracks to get him here: how peter’d had to call in the car, how dionne’d had to threaten and sweet talk alexei at the same time, how there isn’t a single hurdle he wouldn’t leap or hoop he wouldn’t jump through for even just half an evening alone with her.

this is probably a terrible idea. at the very least, it’s dangerous, and sure to get them fucking caught again, no matter how careful they all were in making it happen.

maybe he should call the whole thing off. call dionne and get her to tell kennedy to forget it -- to go back to her date and take the easy way out, because who is he kidding, anyway?

the sound of heels on the cobblestones takes the decision swiftly out of his hands. blaine looks up to see kennedy standing in front of him, admiring the rental with a gentle smirk on her beautiful face. she looks even more ridiculously gorgeous than she had in the daily post pictures, as annoying as that is. 

she’s alone.

“no limo? that’s not very romantic, mr. hayes,” she teases playfully, mouth stretched wide with a smile.

he leans over to pop the door open for her, grinning to cover up his nerves. just having kennedy around is going a long way towards keeping him calm -- he feels undeniably more sane out here with her than he had in his room, pouting with fruitless jealousy. “take it up with dionne,” he shrugs, eyes raking up and down her outfit. she really does look nice. “now hop in.”

“we have three hours and forty-five minutes,” kennedy says helpfully, as soon as they’ve slipped out of town unseen and headed to the highway, “i have to be back by curtain.”

“i know,” blaine hums, sighing with relief as soon as he glances in the rearview mirror and sees they aren’t being followed, “dionne briefed me. she figured out a whole plan.”

“oh,” kennedy says. she sounds... happy. “that was really nice of her.” there’s a pause, and he fidgets with the steering wheel for a moment before shifting his left hand up to the top to steer so his right arm is free to drape across the back of kennedy’s seat. she leans in closer to the center console and continues, “i really wish it was you in there with me.”

he exhales heavily. more relieving than not being followed, than being with her at all is hearing that -- that he’s not alone in his insanity. lately he feels like a completely different person, and he has no idea what’s come over him, so it’s comforting to know that it’s all for something, beyond just making kennedy smile. evidently, she wants to be his stupid girlfriend just as badly as he wants her to. “me, too. you have no idea. i’ve really missed you, these past few days.”

“i know. it’s weird,” kennedy agrees, “hardly seeing you. not being able to text you, and tell you about my day... i mean -- i barely even get to talk to you, outside of class.”

yeah. he knows. and when there’s other people around he has to watch what he fucking says, too. it’s far from ideal, and he knows he’s gotten sloppy, but...

part of him almost wants someone to catch them. blaine knows it’s selfish and stupid, but he wants it all the same. because if someone found out the truth and spilled the beans... they’d be free, and the impossible decision of what to do next would be out of their hands.

he could never ask kennedy to go public on her own. he would never ask her for that, no matter how badly he wants it. but a slip-up... that would be beyond their control.

blaine shakes his head. “it’s fine,” he says again, clearing his throat, “i’ll plan some secret meet up for us every night, if you want. even if it only buys us a few minutes.”

he glances to the side just in time to catch the look that crosses her face. kennedy’s quite obviously touched by his offer, her teeth digging into her bottom lip as she stares down at her hands. forcefully, he drags his eyes back to the road. “i’d really like that,” she murmurs, so quietly he almost misses it. when he only nods, she raises her voice and asks, “so, where are we going?”

“you’ll see,” he directs, taking the exit that’ll bring them to the drive-in, mentally cataloging the travel time it’d taken to get up here and making a note of the minutes he’ll need to account for to get kennedy back, especially if he has to circle the block until the street is empty before he drops her off. 

her eyes light up when he pulls into the parking lot. “a drive-in theater, seriously? i used to love going to the drive-in back home. i didn’t know they had them near vancross.” her nose is practically pressed against the window as she looks around excitedly while he idles.

“this is my first time,” blaine admits, though how eager kennedy is definitely bodes well for the experience. even if it completely sucked, he’d still bring her back every weekend, just to see her smile like that. “we don’t really have these in ardona, but dionne talked it up.”

kennedy finally peels her eyes away from the window to smile playfully at him again, her eyes sparkling. “so you’re a drive-in virgin? interesting.”

his face feels hot, suddenly. blaine rolls his eyes at her, gesturing at the map of the venue in front of them. they’re kind of holding up the line. “yeah, yeah. pick your movie, rutherland. it’s just background noise for the real show, anyway.”

if he’s being honest, he barely hears her make her choice, the instructions on where to go flying in one ear and out the other. all he cares about for where he parks the car is that it’s secluded, and dark, away from prying eyes and any other people in the lot.

fortunately, blaine finds them the perfect spot, and he doesn’t even waste a second pretending like he gives a single shit about the movie at all, his eyes on her just as soon as the gear shift’s out of his hand.

kennedy’s turned in her seat and already looking back at him. she smiles and says, “thanks for doing this. it’s nice to have a normal date. i never pegged you as the type of guy who was all about carnivals and drive-ins and making these fun experiences for us.”

he shrugs, more nonchalantly than he feels. “probably ‘cause i’m not,” blaine answers honestly, “but everything’s different, with you.”

kennedy makes a soft sound of disbelief, lifting her hands to cover her face. when she peeks out from between her fingers, he sees that she’s smiling widely again. “you keep saying stuff like that. it’s so charming.”

blaine laughs, reaching out to tug her hands off her face. “that’s kind of the point.” he clears his throat, then continues more seriously, “but... i want you to know how i feel, you know? you shouldn’t have to guess. the truth is... i’ve been all-in for awhile, now, and -- those pictures were just a shitty setback. they don’t change the way i feel about you at all.”

she reaches out for his hand, and he lets her lace their fingers together, squeezing affectionately. “you have no idea how nice it feels to hear that,” kennedy sighs. “honestly...” the hesitation in her voice makes it clear she’s unsure of whatever she’s about to say, but she continues, “it kind of just felt like i ruined everything. things were actually going pretty well, for once, but now it’s like there’s this... dark cloud hanging over everything i do. i can’t even hang out with you without worrying we’re going to get caught again.”

his expression softens. he’s not usually one for optimism, but for her, and in the interest of getting some of that thick sadness out of her voice, he’ll try. “well, we’ve done a pretty good job avoiding that so far.”

“that’s true.” kennedy’s head tips back agains the carseat, and she smiles at him again. “i guess we’re making it work, in our own way. i love that i can always count on you to be real with me. it’s so -- refreshing, after all the fake posturing we deal with.”

well -- that’s probably as good an opening as he’s ever going to get. he spares a moment to silently thank whatever god is listening for the chance to ask the question that’s been eating at him for hours, the one thing he’s most desperate to know, beyond even the other stuff that usually keeps him up at night, everything from the simple inner workings of kennedy’s mind to why he’s so tripped up over a girl he’s only spent a few short months with. “speaking of fake...” blaine pointedly looks somewhere beyond her, staring out at the parking lot, “how’d your date go?”

kennedy’s quiet for long enough that he has to look back at her. there’s a knowing little glint in her eyes that he decidedly does not like. “are you jealous?”

“what?” he scoffs, “of course not. you left alexei to go out with me.”

“right,” she laughs, one small word injected with endless disbelief. “well, we had a good time. alexei’s not so bad.”

he’s an egomaniac and a self-centered prick, actually, blaine thinks. out loud, he says, “oh. cool. glad it worked out. cool, cool, cool...”

he fidgets restlessly. kennedy’s visible amusement only grows. “you know it was still a fake date, right? neither of us have any interest in the other.”

“i know,” blaine insists defensively. kennedy only arches an eyebrow at him. with a groan, he slumps back in his seat, a hand rubbing at his jaw. “fine, maybe i am a little jealous. give me a break, okay? this is kind of a unique situation for me.”

“if it helps, i think you’re doing a pretty great job.” she’s still smiling at him, but less like she thinks he’s being funny and more like she thinks he’s being sweet. she leans in a little closer, and -- it actually does help. the knots in his stomach that’d been coiled there since she first said her mom’s team was planning a pr relationship for her are finally starting to unwind.

“yeah?” he asks, gratified by the immediate nod she gives. “that’s good. i don’t wanna half-ass this boyfriend stuff just because it’s new to me.”

there’s a long stretch of silence. he realizes what he’s said all at once and starts to feel nauseous all over again, staring silently back at kennedy while he waits for her to say something -- anything.

“boyfriend stuff?” 

“ah.” his hand slips around to rub at the back of his neck sheepishly. “sorry. slipped out.” he should probably just cut his losses now -- bring her back early to be on the safe side and go back to his dorm and drown himself in the shower, because he is an idiot and that’s what an idiot deserves. “i know you kind of already have a boyfriend.”

kennedy huffs out a quiet laugh. “i kind of do.” she tilts her head to meet his eyes, forcing him to look at her again. his heart stutters painfully in his chest, picking up into a pace that’s almost frantic. “but... that’s not a ‘no.’”

their hands are still linked together. he looks down at where their fingers are interlaced, hoping his palms aren’t as sweaty as they feel. blaine disentangles his hand to lift it instead to kennedy’s face, pushing a lock of hair out of her eyes with a hesitant smile she immediately returns tenfold. 

it’s also not a ‘yes,’ but he’ll take what he can get. 

as it turns out, three hours and forty-five minutes is kind of not actually a long time at all.

or maybe it would be, for some people, but with kennedy in his lap, squished between him and the steering wheel so she can kiss him senseless, the time flies by. they watch what’s probably ten minutes total of the movie, they’re so busy kissing and talking, his hands wandering along her new outfit to show his appreciation for it the only way he knows how.

for her part, kennedy gives as good as she gets, tugging his hair out of place and messing up his jacket and making him forget his own name, with the way her hips are pushing into his lap and all the sweet little sounds she makes when he whispers something dirty in her ear and presses her in closer against him.

no amount of agonizing over her fake dates and not being able to kiss her in public is ever going to drive the way she shivers with her whole body when he says something she likes from his mind.

still, the drive back is somber. it’s time to bring kennedy -- kiss-swollen lips and raised hemlines and all -- back to the opera house before he knows it, and he’s really not looking forward to everyone who sees her thinking she spent four hours fooling around in the private box with alexei, of all people. he’s looking forward to driving home alone and going to bed by himself even less.

tomorrow he’ll have to sit by her in class again and pretend like everything’s fine.

because they had tonight, and he knows he should be content with that. the problem is -- he’s not. 

“you okay?” kennedy asks, checking the time on the watch on his wrist with a frown. she’s holding his hand in both of hers. “and don’t say you’re ‘fine.’”

“i am fine,” blaine insists, running his thumb across her wrist. “this sucks, but it’s what we have to do. if you’re good, then i’m good.”

she studies his expression for a minute, then sighs. “i’m as good as i can be,” she murmurs, “but things will get better.”

he knows that, too. even if no one ever finds out it’s him in the photos, even if they have to spend the rest of their lives sneaking out and ditching their bodyguards so they can find a few hours alone together -- things are good. the alternative -- winning the fight with his parents to keep him away from vancross, never getting the chance to know kennedy as well as he does... that’s a future that seems bleak, now that he’s seen the alternative.

“it’s really alright,” blaine assures her. “i’ll miss you, but... do what you gotta do.”

something about the way he says the words seems to instill new confidence in kennedy. she straightens her shoulders and glances back at the opera house door with determination. “thanks,” kennedy sighs, squeezing his hand one last time before slowly pulling away. she probably has only seconds until the finale starts up, though he’s desperate for a way to make them stretch longer. an eternity would be a nice place to start.

“will you... text dionne goodnight before you go to bed?” she asks, looking so hopeful he finds it’s impossible to do anything other than nod.

he grins widely at kennedy, leaning in to steal one last kiss. “dream about me, will ya?”

“every night,” she promises, and blaine lowers the window to get a better view of her and the sway of her hips when she slips out of the car and back inside, sighing heavily once she’s gone and he’s alone again, whacking his head against the carseat.

this is some mess they’ve gotten themselves into.

but, he figures, as he pulls away from the curb and starts back towards campus, the image of kennedy walking away in the heels and skirt she’d been wearing playing over and over again in his mind like a highlight reel, it’s definitely not without its perks.

[yeojaa]

( ROSERAIE. )

What you had - so brilliant and beautiful and bright it was almost impossible to look at head-on - was what was tearing you two apart.  It was your love that would be your demise.  

pairing.  jjk x f!reader.

genre + rating.   my take on a hanahaki!au.  pretty heavy on the angst.  general.

tags / warnings.  mention of minor character death, breaking up, soulmates, angst, unrequited love, sick character (hanahaki), bittersweet, non-idol.

wc.  3.2k

beta reader(s).  my forever queens, @hobi-gif​ @snackhobi​!  you both bring such hope and joy (hahahaha) to my life!!!  and of course, the loveliest angels @joheun-saram​, @pars-ley​, and @ditttiii​ for reading through and giving me excellent feedback!

author note.  this is a part of @goldenclosetnetwork​‘s 23 | jungkook’s birthday project.  it’s my first time writing a hanahaki au so...  i have a lot of headcanons for it but i’m not sure whether it all came across in the story.  😰  eep.  anyway, please enjoy and feel free to leave any feedback.  i would love and appreciate it!  most importantly:  happy birthday, kook!  💖

Your parents were a young match.  Together from the tender age of eleven, they’d shared pieces of themselves readily, trading secrets in tree houses and blanket forts.  Nothing was held back - a childhood crush brought to life by playful ribbing and sugar-coated snacks.  Where your mother went, so did your father;  she was his light as much as he was her shadow.  Two halves of a destined whole, earnest and pure.  Friends first.  

It made perfect sense when they shared their dreams - the same one they’d had since they could remember - and it was identical:  swimming in the ocean with a faceless friend, families on their respective four and three-week long road trips.  They’d recognised each other immediately, felt the click the moment they stepped off the camper van.  Your father had called it cooties;  your mother said butterflies.

It didn’t matter that they’d never seen each other’s faces until that moment.  There was the spark.  Recognition.  The rest was history. 

Jungkook’s parents have been soulmates since the early 2000s.  His father had lost his wife - his first soulmate - exactly one year prior to their meeting.  He didn’t have his recurring dream until a fortnight before he met his wife.  Hadn’t expected it, either.  He’d been talking about his day in his local support group (it never got easier, he’d discovered) and he’d mentioned it in passing, glossing over the details of the vivid new pictures painted against his eyelids.  His second wife - his second chance - had attended after losing her son.  A complete chance.  Serendipitous. 

It wasn’t always simple, though.  The heartbreaking endings came just as often as the happy.  

There were people who lost their soulmates before even meeting them.  They’d never know they’d lost their first one until the next dream came - if it came.  If they were lucky enough.  

There were message boards and dating sites.  Places people stripped themselves bare and spilt their secrets to the world.  Desperate for love, they detailed their dreams and hoped that their other half was somewhere out there, reading those same words.  

Some, though, never found their special someone.  Life came at you fast and from all directions - or it never came at all, caught somewhere across the globe in the form of someone you’d never meet.  Those were the most painful circumstances, as if fate was cheating the system.  Here’s a love you know you have, but that you’ll never experience.  It was terribly cruel. 

(But when was life ever fair?)

There were stories about those that never found their puzzle piece and how it felt, whether it hurt.  Most said it was a quiet ache, something you never really noticed until you thought too closely about it, like a scar that had healed over or a loved one gone a long time.  Painful in an explicable way and only - luckily, miserably - softened by ignorance. 

Others spoke about it like death, missing an integral part of themselves.  It played a large part of their life, shaping and changing them with each passing day.  They couldn’t fully live without their person, even if they’d never met them.  It was simply the principal of the matter. 

You’d never quite existed in either camp.  You’d always wanted to find love but you hadn’t rushed it.  You figured you’d meet your happily ever after at some point.  Maybe at your work - caught between the shelves or returning an overdue book - or maybe out with your dog, walking the same route you took every day.  They’d show up one day.  You were sure of it. 

Love had a way of surrounding you. 

Your best friends - because of course the two of them would fall for each other (it was nauseating) - had found each other young too, on the grounds of the elementary school you all played on.  They’d been bonded since the beginning, secrets exchanged in art class and atop monkey bars.  You’d cheered them on the whole way, giddy in a way you couldn’t describe.  Being around it  felt like standing beneath the sun, scorching heat warming you all the way to the core.  It didn’t matter that you didn’t have it for yourself (yet). 

They’d come.  Eventually.  You felt it in your bones and later, you’d learn, in your shins.

He’d come around the corner fast as a bullet, headphones in and hood pulled over his head.  You’d barely have time to avoid him, poor coordination lending itself to disaster when only one of your feet would make it out of his path of destruction.  

BANG!  

It was something right out of a campy romance novel.  Guy goes jogging, runs headlong into his dearly beloved and nearly gives her a concussion.  He feels bad for her scraped knees and falls in love with her dog.  His morning runs become theirs and six weeks later, over a late night bite of contrasting gelato flavours - green tea for him, bubble gum for her - they fit the pieces together.

Jungkook’s the faceless boy you’d always dreamt of, one hand on the wheel, the other resting easily on your thigh.  He was the one with the slick black AppleWatch and long fingers.  You’d never imagined he’d be covered in ink, immaculate designs running the length of his forearm all the way back and across his shoulders.  In fact, you’d never thought about tattoos at all. 

You get your first and only one with him - intricate red looped around your wrists and over your pinkies.  Your own, very real string of fate, sealed and signed forever in rouge. 

He was your Prince Charming, your best friend, your bonafide soulmate.  You’d done everything together - skydiving, snorkelling, silly photos atop the Eiffel Tower.  He’d adapted to your distaste of onions and took them all, meticulously picking them out of stir fries and sauces until not a single sliver remained.  You’d learnt to tolerate his unbearably fast driving, white-knuckled and silent when he’d tear around corners too fast in a car too low. You fit perfectly, filling all the spaces he could never, keeping him whole even when he was broken.  

Your love was of fairy tales but it was better than that too.  Real.  Concrete.  Solid.

Until it wasn’t.    

The two of you had never had any other choice.

That’s what it feels like, at least.  He’d done his best - tried every little thing he could’ve possibly imagined - and it’d all amounted to nothing.  He’d gone through all the motions, explored every avenue, given everything he had.  It wasn’t working.  This thing he wanted with every fibre of his being, that he’d hoped for his whole life, just wasn’t working.  It wasn’t for him.

“I’m sorry,”  he cries, and he knows you know he means it.  You can read it between every line of his expression, tucked among the neatly scrawled india ink in faded red, underlining the passages you’d written together.  He is sorry.  He’d never meant to do this to you, nor you to him.  He’d wanted to give you it all - make all your hopes and dreams come true.

Sometimes, fate just had other plans.  

Because what the two of you had - so brilliant and beautiful and bright it was almost impossible to look at head-on - was what was tearing you apart.  It was your love that would be your demise.  

And he can’t bear to hurt the one he loves.  

He’d tried so hard.  Really, he had.  You had too, more than he ever deserved. 

There was simply no other option.  You’d always come up short.  You weren’t the one for him - not anymore - no matter how badly you wanted to be.  You weren’t the one meant for him.  You’d fumble for that ledge - held so impossibly high, just barely out of reach - before falling right back to where you began.  The bottom.  He couldn’t stand to see you there, brought to your knees once, twice, a hundred times.  

He’d lose count if not for the petals.

Little ones, at first.  Tiny pieces of silk you’d found on your pillowcase, outside the shower, in your water glass.  They’d been unassuming - reminders you could easily ignore.  

Then they’d grown, velvet softness that made it hard to breathe, that had him rubbing soothing circles over your skin, earnest vows winding like vines around your airways.  Neither of you had had any idea why it was happening.  You were soulmates - bound to each other and destined since the beginning.  Your love wasn’t unrequited. 

“We’ll figure it out,”  he’d said.  Sworn.  “We’ll get through this.”

Your heart had broken with each promise;  his had too, differently, but in perfect tandem.  

(Spring still came, steadily, with a rose garden blooming within your insides and freesias in your nose.) 

It wasn’t his fault.  You would never blame him, even when it was his fist that broke yours, splintered it into a million pieces that cut worse than the thorns in your lungs.  You knew this was just as hard for him.  He’d had to watch you wither away, even as a patchwork of flowers blossomed in the spaces he’d thought he could keep safe.  He hated it - could barely take it.  It kept him up all night, tears in his eyes.  Even when he slept - managed it, every few days - it’d prompt him awake in a cold sweat.

If he’d known then what had changed, maybe he could’ve fixed it sooner.  Maybe he could’ve saved you the heartache.  (Weeks later and during a coffee break with the new girl at his startup was not how he’d expected to find his answer.)

“I love you,”  you tell him, an ocean of sadness.  He loves you too, more than anything, more than there are stars in the sky.  He loves you with every part of himself - and yet he knows now that’s what’s causing this.  He loves you, but not in the right way.  Every touch he offers is wrong, leaving you bruised, broken, barely breathing.  It’s a disease - a venereal infection that seeps beneath skin and bone, settling within the marrow.  It changes you from the inside out, realigns your DNA until you’re mutated and miserable. 

The realisation is devastating:  his love causes more harm than it heals. 

So he stands there now, caught in the distance between you, eyes melancholy blue.  His composure is frayed, crippled beneath the weight of your circumstance.  He tries to memorise your face in these last moments - the colour of your hair, the shape of your stare.  How you sound in the morning - voice raspy with sleep, dust caught in your eyes.  The way you hold him close and the feeling of your eyelashes against his neck in the early hours.  

Jeon Jungkook doesn’t want this to end.  He doesn’t want to lose you, give you - this - up but he has to.  He has to, for you.  To give you a chance.  

Even after having so little - only five short years - you were about to lose the rest of your lives.  

You pack your bags - he helps, folding your favourite sweater (one of his, in truth) alongside your toiletries and undergarments - and you prepare to do the thing that you should never have to do.  You sign papers, dot I’s and cross T’s, and put all your treasured memories away into cardboard boxes to never be touched again.  You label them neatly and dress tape over edges;  Band-Aids meant to hold together the deepest wounds.

You’re going under by anaesthetic and he’ll be here, where he has everything he wishes he could give you.  A love he doesn’t deserve, within arms he wishes were yours. 

He wonders whether he’ll still feel the pull once it’s done or whether his heart will stay there, tucked somewhere beneath the dug up roots.  Whether it’ll be safe, undiscovered like a long lost treasure.  

It’s best this way.  He tells himself that - loops it on repeat until it’s the only thing he can think.  It has to be better.  For you, for you, for you. 

He knows he’ll carry you with him forever.  Like the air in his lungs, you’ll keep him going.  

He’s snapped back to the present, to the small hallway of the home you’d built together.  The traces of you are gone - all the photos hidden away, your row of shoes missing from beside his.  It’s strangely bare.  He knows it won’t last long.  She’ll be here next week.

Your hand pushes against his cheek, thumb caressing along the seam of his bottom lip, right where the freckle sits.  He’s a thief - a criminal, a sinner - when he dips his head, presses back into the warmth of your palm.  This isn’t for him to take but he does anyway, eagerly and with deep regret. 

“I love you.”  Your voice cuts through all the white noise and agony - a beacon in the night, guiding him home.  

He smiles, half-hearted and weak and not even his.  Every part of him screams at him to beg you not to do it, to accept him for the man he is - lost and weak and sorry.  He almost drops to his knees - fights tooth and nail against his aching limbs not to - and brings a hand to yours.  The red threads looped around your wrists fit perfectly together, the ends of inked rope caught around your pinkies matching when his fingers slot between yours. 

Don’t do this, he pleads, without words or hope. 

“I’ll love you forever,”  you tell him - promise like he had you.  “You’ll always be the brightest star in my sky, Jeon Jungkook.”

He almost cracks - seams near splitting, adhesive tearing from skin - when you return his smile and he can see how hard it is.  You’re already broken, all the pieces of your puzzle in terrible disarray. 

You’re trying, for him. 

“I’m so sorry,” he answers, because that is kinder than an I love you that doesn’t mean what you need it to.  Because you deserve better - you deserve it in the same way you mean it. 

So he’ll let you leave and he’ll pray this isn’t the worst decision of his whole life.  

“I’ll see you.”  

He hopes so.  He can’t bear the idea of losing you again.  He doesn’t think even she could fix him if he had to. 

“Be safe,”  he whispers, in a voice that stutters your stare and shatters what little resolve you have left.  He sees it in your eyes - all the crystallised parts of your composure turned to ash.  He wishes he could be sorry.  He’s not.  

“I love you,”  you repeat with an air of finality. 

Jungkook does the same:  “I’m sorry.” 

You leave, ushered into the back of your mother’s tiny sedan.  She helps you with your bags and your seatbelt, rubbing your shoulder carefully when baby’s breath slips past your lips and falls all over your lap.  She meets his stare when she climbs into the driver’s seat.  He tries to read her expression.  Understanding?  Resentment?  Gratitude?  

The car pulls away with a groan, disappearing down the tree-lined street.  Jungkook stands in the doorway for far longer than he should.

He’s moved on - settled down with the girl of his dreams.  Literally.  

She’s nothing like you, sarcastic and stubborn with a staunch refusal to ever come second best.  She laughs maybe a bit too loud, giving him shit when he orders in another car part.  She’d eat an onion raw, if she could, and takes showers hot enough to slough the skin from her bones.  They have a home together and in a year’s time, he thinks he’ll propose.  He’s not in any rush, though, because he knows she’s his forever.  

(Knows it, even though you’d once been that same shining star to him.  He has to believe it won’t happen again.  Life can’t screw someone twice, right?  Lightning never strikes the same spot or something like that?)

Still, he tries to forget the feeling of you.  

It isn’t as hard as he’d thought it would be.  The love exists as it always has, just differently, in the palm of his hand and not the space behind his ribs.  You’re his best friend and he is disgustingly, unbelievably lucky.  

He’d gotten his second chance.  Even if he’d once resented it, he had everything now.  

You still go for your morning runs and he still changes your oil because you’d never learnt how to.  His parents invite you for Sunday dinners;  you’re gracious enough to decline them.  You don’t see it as pity - you just don’t want to intrude.  (It isn’t your place any longer.)  You accept all the changes readily, without regret.  You promise you’ll go by one day.  

Your parents never speak to him.  He doesn’t blame them.  At the supermarket, on the street, in passing when he’s coming and they’re leaving - it’s radio silent.  

It’s been six months and you haven’t dreamt at all.  They’d hoped - prayed - that you’d find someone new after him, someone to treat you right.  You don’t mind, you tell them.  I’ll meet my special eventually, you say (again, again).

He wonders whether you resent them for it - their concern, perhaps a bit overbearing and offered with a heavy hand.  If you do, you say nothing, playing along each time they suggest you meet another friend’s son, another junior at your father’s accounting firm.  You don’t understand the sad way they watch you. 

“I’m sorry,”  he mumbles one night, seated at the neighbourhood cafe you’d frequented on your first date.  Your idea, because you loved coffee and, in your old words, this was your place.  The start of it all, where he’d knocked you hard onto pavement and stolen your heart in the process.

You don’t remember it now.  Not in the same way. 

This is somewhere you come for their great matcha lattes, where you waste a few too many evenings when you just want to get out of the house.  It isn’t the place he’d told you he loved you or where you’d resolved your first fight.  

(It’d been stupid.  He’d forgotten to pick up groceries for your first dinner with your parents.  You’d been so stressed you’d snapped at him, carrying tension into the rest of the evening.  He’d apologised with an almond croissant and your favourite green drink.)  

It’s like a wall has gone up, splitting your heart in two.  The part of you that’d once been Jungkook’s remains out of reach, caught behind a gate neither of you have the key to.  

“For what?”  You quip, a milk moustache presenting itself over the rim of your mug.   

Jungkook shrugs.  He can’t make you understand.  “Y’know,”  he mumbles into his red bean mochi bun.  It sticks to his teeth and coats them in soft white flour.  “Just— everything.”  It’s not enough, either as an explanation or an apology.  It falls terribly short, barely worthy of a participation trophy.  

“It’s fine.”  You say it every time, clockwork in response to the same apology he always gives - out of the blue and vague.

“No, but I’m—”

You level him with a glare.  It might’ve hurt once but now it settles like a scolding from a sibling.  He reminds himself this is how it should be, you there and him here - two parallel lines.  

The guilt never goes away. 

tag list.  @neverthefirstchoice​​ @youwannabelostandnotbefound​​​ @snackhobi​​

[yanderecrazysie]

Hello, I just binge read everything on your blog. I’m so excited for that Scp thing! If you don’t mind could I please request the yandere alphabet with nishinoya? Thanks anyway!

Thank you so much, I'm so honored!!! And of course you can request that!

I hope you enjoy this! :D

Nishinoya Yū (Haikyuu) -The Yandere Alphabet

🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣

Warnings: yandere themes, kidnapping, violence, implied murder, mentions of suicide.

A is for Affection: How do they show their affection for their darling? How often do they show it?

💖 Nishinoya is EXTREMELY affectionate. Like, this boy would be hugging on you at all times if he could. He's kinda clingy.

💖 He just wants to be able to touch you. I think he'd prefer his arms around you with him cuddling his face into your hair, but as long as he's touching you in SOME way he's happy.

💖 When is he NOT affectionate? That's the real question. If he's not touching you, it's not by his choice and he's not happy about it.

B is for Blood: How messy are they willing to get for their darling? Why?

🔪 Nishnoya is loyal af. Like, if you're bullied or hit on, he's having none of that. Those bullies/flirts are in for a bad time.

🔪 Would he kill? I don't THINK so. Unless, of course, he HAS to. Or he goes overboard when beating someone who had the AUDACITY to grope you into a bloody pulp.

C is for Care or Cruelty: How would they treat their darling when they kidnap them? Would they mock them?

💔 Nishinoya is not going to mock you at all and he's not going to be cruel. He's a worshipper (have you SEEN him with Kiyoko?) and you'd be treated like a goddess.

💔 You'd be taken care of better than you've ever been. Everything you could ever want will be in your hand before you can ask for it. He knows you so well, after all!

D is for Delusion: How delusional are they when it comes to their darling? Do they believe their darling loves them?

💭 How delusional? Yes. Just yes. Nishinoya is one of the most delusional yanderes out there.

💭 He doesn't EXACTLY believe that you're in love with him, but he knows you will be soon. As long as he treats you right, and he sure as heck is, you'll see just how much you two are meant for each other.

💭 Nishinoya knows that you're happy with him! Your tears and begging to go home is just you being a little confused. It just means he has to try harder!

E is for Expose: How much of their heart do they bear to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling? How much time will it take to trust them?

💧 You can know anything you want to if you just ask him! Even if you don't ask, he'll at least rant and rave about how amazing you are and every minuscule reason you're absolutely perfect.

💧 Nishinoya doesn't even need a second thought, a single hesitation. He'll tell you anything, anything!

F is for Fight: How would they react if their darling fought back?

👊 Nishinoya would be HEARTBROKEN. But... you're just confused, right? You're... You're just confused, yeah! This is new for you! He'll do better, he swears!

👊 He'll sit back and let you tire yourself out, just dodging you or closing you away in your room until you calm down. He'd never raise a hand against you, even if you punch him to death.

G is for Guilt: What would it take for them to feel guilty about their actions? Or do they feel guilty from the start?

😔 Nishinoya probably will never feel guilt. He's extremely delusional, like I said. He honestly believes he's improving your life by removing you from society.

😔 The only time I can imagine Nishinoya feeling guilty is if you got hurt somehow. He's supposed to be improving your life, and now you're hurt? He screwed up-

H is for Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

🔥 To be honest, it'd be hard to have a bad day with Nishinoya. He worships the ground you walk on, why would he make you miserable?

🔥 I guess resistance is futile though. You don't want to cuddle today? Well, he'll just squeeze tighter until you realize you do! You want to go home? This is your new home, silly!

I is for Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

👩‍❤️‍👨 Nishinoya really believes in a forever with you. When you both die, you'll go to heaven together. But before then: you'll grow old together.

👩‍❤️‍👨 He really cares about what you want. If you don't want kids, he won't force them on you. If you want as many kids as possible, he's your man! And he'll be the best father in the entire world!

J is for Jealousy: How easily do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

💢 It doesn't take much to get Nishinoya jealous. He's the one that loves you, adores you, and worships you. No one else treats you as well as he does, so they don't deserve to be in your vicinity, look at you, even breathe the same air as you!

💢 Did... did you just smile and laugh at his joke? Nononono- Nishinoya can be funny! And... and how DARE that guy tell you a joke? It better not have been a dirty joke either-

K is for Kidnap: How would they go about kidnapping their darling? How much do they plan it out?

🔒 Nishinoya wanted to kidnap you the moment he fell in love with you. That's probably not healthy (definitely not healthy) but he knew this twisted world could never take care of a goddess like you.

🔒 I think Nishinoya wouldn't be able to plan too far ahead. He's not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. All it takes is one good opportunity and you're suddenly finding yourself in a cozy bedroom decorated in your favorite color and filled with your favorite things.

L is for Love Letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

💌 One day you're living your normal life and the next day you've got a small guy with black hair (except that little blonde streak) trailing after you like a lovesick puppy.

💌 Can you really complain when he's giving you cute little plushies of your favorite animals, your favorite treats, lots of chocolate, and literally everything you like. Wait... how does he know what you like?

M is for Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they acted before?

🎭 Uhhh kinda sorta? I mean, his friends wouldn't expect him to kidnap you BUT it just seems to them like Nishinoya moved on to the next Kiyoko. And, considering how he treated her, it's not all that surprising to see him acting obsessive towards you.

🎭 Honestly, I don't think anyone would notice the difference in obsessions. Tanaka would think it's totally normal and be super glad he no longer shows interest in Kiyoko or his older sister. Asahi might notice that Nishinoya's love for you is way beyond even his previous love for Kiyoko but I don't think it'd concern him too much.

N is for Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

🚓 He wouldn't. You're perfect in his eyes. The most I can see him doing is giving you some "alone time" in your room, but that's honestly just to calm you down if you're freaking out. You get a break and he can't access you. So it's more of a blessing for you and torture for him anyways.

O is for Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling? What rights can be earned with time and trust?

📜 You'd have free run of the house, mostly, but you aren't leaving. You're not safe out in the evil world out there, so please don't go near that locked door, okay?

P is for Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

🕊️ Nishinoya doesn't really know the meaning of patience but he'll do his best to give you the time you need. He genuinely doesn't understand why you're resisting his love so much and he keeps trying to speed up the process.

Q is for Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

🏃‍♀️ If you die, so does he. He can't live without you, so he'll follow you into the afterlife.

🏃‍♀️ To be fair, you probably can take advantage of his delusional mind and unwavering trust to escape. But that wouldn't be the end, unfortunately. Nishinoya would literally search the ends of the earth for you until he finds you.

R is for Rage: How do they act when angry? How do they calm down?

👿 Picture a toddler throwing a fit because he didn't get the toy he wanted. That's Nishinoya.

👿 You aren't getting hurt or anything, don't worry about that. You do, however, have to deal with him wrapping his arms around your legs and sobbing into them.

👿 He'll calm down when he's got his arms around you, his face buried in your hair, and you finally going limp in his hold.

S is for Soulmate: What made them fall in love with their darling? How did they first meet? When did they realize they loved their darling?

💍 You're so beautiful in your own unique way, and Nishinoya can't get enough of you. His biggest wish, the moment he met you, was to stroke your hair and soft skin.

💍 If you're a smarty pants, you were tutoring him. He specifically asked for a girl tutor. If you're not a smarty pants, he met you in class or you were both getting tutored in some sort of study group. It'd probably have to do with tutoring, okay?

💍 It was love at first sight. And if you called him senpai you sealed your own fate, okay? That's on you.

T is for Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

😭 You absolutely shatter Nishinoya's heart when you cry. He wants you happy! Seeing you sad means he's failing. He wants to try harder but you keep saying nonsense about how you "want to go home" or that you "miss your family". Why isn't he enough? He thought he was doing so well!

😭 Isolating yourself is the biggest punishment for Nishinoya. Being unable to touch you is enough torture, being unable to see or hear you? God, are you TRYING to kill him? He can't take this- please come out- PLEASE- He just needs to know you're okay! He loves you so, so much!

U is for Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

👌 Nishinoya is a worshipper x100. You could screw up as much as you want and he'll still think you're 100% perfect. You don't have to worry about him hurting or punishing you too harshly. Honestly, you're relatively safe with him.

👌 You actually have a good chance of escaping. He'll likely pick a house far away from society though and he DEFINITELY won't give up just because you got away. You better have a good plan because you really don't want him upping the security "until you get used to your new home a little more".

V is for Visit: Would they allow anyone else to visit their darling? Do they trust their darling to talk to their loved ones (in person, on the phone, etc.) or not at all?

🧳 Simple answer is no. You only need him. He's the only one worthy to be in your presence.

W is for Weakness: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

❌ You're literally the embodiment of his weakness. He's weak for you. Fake a pout or smile and he's wrapped around your finger in an instant.

❌ Although you can't negotiate your release or the ability to contact/visit the outside world, you CAN get practically anything you want. Which means you can use things he gives you to escape. Or you can just enjoy your life of being worshipped and spoiled.

X is for Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

🛐 Nishinoya would do ANYTHING for you. He would literally drop to his knees and kiss your feet- and he probably will. He may not be able to let you leave him or return to society, but he'll make up for it in every way possible.

Y is for Yearning: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

😍 Nishinoya wouldn't last long without you. He loves you so, so much and just wants you in his arms. The more you hang around others and the longer you go about your normal life, the more stressed you make him. He needs to rescue you from this awful world...

Z is for Zero Tolerance: What is the thing that always makes them snap? What things will they not allow their darling to do under any circumstances?

0️⃣ The thing that Nishinoya can't stand is you trying to escape, but he doesn't exactly "snap". It's more like a panic attack and tantrum as he drags you back into the house, begging you to explain what he can do better and what he did wrong.

🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣

I hope I did okay! I think it was shorter than Akaashi's, but Noya's a simpler creature!

Thank you for the request, my lovely Anon!

[burritoscully]

Unsung Melody

1.3k | angst | ao3 | tagging @today-in-fic

Summary: Mulder finds a letter addressed to him in a box of Scully’s old things.

-- 

Mulder closes the attic door behind him quietly. The cardboard box labelled Dana stares at him so menacingly, he can barely take the three steps needed to reach it. He does it. He drags his feet, but he does it.

He takes deep breaths to stop his heart from racing, to stop his throat from clogging. To stop his eyes from watering. To stop him remembering.

The box has not been opened since it was sealed shut in November of 1997. It has been staring at him for the better part of three years, pressing into the back of his mind, tormenting him. He has to though. He needs to move on. He needs to be able to be happy without thinking of it.

He makes his decision.

The box had been cleared of dust when he moved his things into his new place, but had remained untouched since 1997. Unopened since 1997.

He runs his fingers on the creased, crackling masking tape, hoping it will peel itself open. Hoping the effort needed to even touch the box is the hardest part of what he is about to do.

If he repeats it, maybe it will make him feel calmer about it.

1997.

He scratches the tape off with his nails but it tears, leaving the box as it had been, closed. He tries again and again and only on the third try does the tape come off, taking the first two layers of cardboard along with it. He runs the pads of his fingers along the torn cardboard, squeezing his eyes shut and taking slow deep breaths.

This is so much harder than he expected.

The first item in the box he has no memory of ever seeing. It is an envelope, addressed to him. In her handwriting. His hands start to shake as he flips it in his hands and eases the envelope open. As expected, it tears and a shaky breath leaves his mouth. He pulls out a letter that he was unaware ever existed.

May 1997

Dear Mulder,

As I’m writing this, my health is deteriorating rapidly so if you’re reading this, it means I didn’t make it. It means my illness has taken me and that I haven’t had the chance to tell you everything you deserve to know.

His eyes start to burn rapidly, his pulse quickens and he feels his fingers go numb.

I— this is very hard for me to say. Write. I’ve always pictured telling you in person, not like this. Not when I’m no longer here with you. I always worried over how you’d react. So much so that I’ve left it to the very last minute. And it has only harmed. This was always supposed to be happy — well, I’d always hoped it would be happy, anyway — but I’ve gone and made it painful.

Mulder squeezes his eyes shut, hoping to calm his heart and stop his nose from running. He doesn’t want his tears smearing her words. Her letter. Not this one. Not if it is what he thinks it is.

I figured it would be cruel to tell you like this, when I’m not here with you, but would it really be more merciful that not telling you at all? My feelings for you… they’re complicated.

No. That’s a lie. They’re very simple. They’re just complicated for me to process.

Mulder wishes he’d told her about his. About the way his heart sped up every time she entered the room, every time he picked up the phone and she muttered “Mulder, it’s me,” every time she so much as raised her eyebrow at him. He wishes he’d told her about the way he loved seeing her blow that strand of hair out of her eyes. That he loved the little smile she got when he said something ridiculous and he loved the little yawns she tried to stifle on night-long stakeouts. He still does.

You see, it didn’t take long for me to know you were different. At first, I just thought you were spooky. Then I met you. I thought you were incredibly intelligent. I was right. Then, my feelings started to shift. You see, within the first year that I’d worked with you, I’d started to become nervous about the idea of seeing you every day. I was so confused but— Melissa had to spell it out for me — it was not a bad nervous. It was a good nervous.

Mulder smiles at the shift in handwriting that Scully’s words go through in those very few, yet significant words. He can tell that she was nervous when she wrote this. That she wanted to get it right.

She did get it right. To Mulder, Scully could do no wrong. Ever.

You see, I was falling in love with you. There, I said it. It’s out. Now you know. It’s too late, but at least you know. I’ve been falling in love with you — slowly but surely — since the day I met you. I just wish I’d had the guts to tell you when I was still healthy. When I was still around. When I could still show you.

Mulder puts the letter down. The burning behind his eyes becomes overwhelming and he is unable to stop the tears from spilling down his cheeks. He violently rakes his sleeve across his face, not wanting to spill tears on the precious words Scully had written. Words that he had so desperately wanted to hear from her.

At least he knows, now.

I could sit here and write pages and pages about everything you do that makes my knees weak. I could sit here for the literal rest of my life trying to tell you just how in love with you I am, Mulder. I should have told you sooner. I really should have.

Mulder tries so hard to hold in the whimper, but it tears through his chest like a rabid animal. The emotion that had been building up finally set free. He is no longer able hold the tears back. He sobs audibly and the sound echoes through the attic, bounces off the walls and down the stairs.

Mulder I don’t want you to be miserable. I want you to live a long and happy life. I want you to know that you, Mulder, are and will always be the love of my life and I can only hope that you love me, too. That being said, Mulder, I have one request.

He doesn’t hear the gentle footsteps over the sound of his hiccupping cries. He doesn’t hear the door creak open and footsteps getting progressively louder.

I want you to be happy. I want you to find someone that makes you as happy as you have made me these past four years. I want you to live a long and fulfilling life. Please, for me.

Please, don’t forget me too soon, Mulder.

I love you,

yours,

Dana Katherine Scully

He feels small hand wrap around his shoulders, then across his chest and up to stroke his cheek. He pushes the letter away from him and wraps his arms around his legs, burying his face in his knees. When he is ready, he looks up at her.

His eyes are bloodshot and wet, his nose runny and his face contorted with distress. His breathing is heavy and the tears are relentless. Her hands creep up his face, to the back of his head and bring it to her chest. She takes his hand and presses it to the warmth of her chest. She presses it over her heart so that he can hear the thump thump thump of her heart beat. Alive. Healthy. In love.

“Mulder,” she whispers, “Mulder, it’s me. I’m here, I love you”

She continues to whisper sweet, calming words into his ears. Continues until his loud and violent sobs are just tears falling silently down his cheeks. His and hers, too.

“I love you, too, Scully. Forever.”

[suburbanbeatnik]

The short and very miserable life of Napoleon II, aka the Eaglet, aka Franz, Duke of Reichstadt: PART TWO

Although the beatings had ceased, Franz’s life continued in refined isolation until his fifteenth year, when his cousin Franz Karl married the beautiful and charming Sophie of Bavaria.

She was only six years older than he, a fine, pretty girl of sweet features and merry lips, with light chestnut brown hair arranged in great loops on her temples. She had done away with the stiff sumptuousness of her apartment at the Burg, and refurnished it in a more intimate atmosphere. In her salon, with its mahogany furniture covered in yellow velours and minus the usual gilding. Reichstadt would often come and sit beside her, looking through the pictures in her albums while she would paint, or play graceful Italian airs on her piano. And they would talk. She sided with him when things went wrong, pitied him, loved him. She was the only one to whom he could talk to with an open heart. Thanks to Sophie, in those troubled years of adolescence when the child is disappearing and the man is trying to find himself, he had at last found what had been refused him for so long: a friend.  [Aubry pg 140]

Franz was growing into a handsome young man, with his mother’s blue eyes and blond curls, but his father’s striking bone structure and deep-set eyes, and the emotional Bonaparte temperament. Though he was robust and “glowing with health” as a baby, by the time he was an adolescent he became more frail. Doctors said he had a “scrofulous tendency,” which was 19th century medical gobbledygook for some sort of disorder connected with the lymphatic glands. It seems to me that this kid was isolated and beaten for years, and suffered from pretty severe depression— on top of that, he didn’t eat (Aubry records that he had “a poor appetite”). Throw in an inherited tendency from his mother to have lung trouble, I’m not surprised he struggled with illness going forwards.

Apart from Sophie, there was no one to really look out after him. She encouraged him, his interests, his passions, his keen desire to be a soldier, his love for his father and of France, helping undo all the years of Habsburg brainwashing. As the years passed, he even learned how his father’s executors were continually frustrated in trying to pass on the legacy his father had tried to leave to him. “They had been kept away, or driven away: or else the relics they had brought had been politely taken from them and stuffed away into strongboxes, thus cheating the son of the only material inheritance his father had left him. Who had so ordained? Metternich, none other!” [Aubry pg 154]

Metternich, the true ruler of this not-so-holy and not-so-Roman empire, was the one man who had schemed and plotted to keep Franz so isolated and alone. Metternich, and this is no exaggeration, hated every atom of Franz since he was a baby, and he never let Franz forget it. Franz was under police surveillance at all times: the Chancellor had the Corsican’s son in his grasp, and would not lose him. He wouldn’t even allow the young man contact with his own grandmother, Letizia, Madame Mère, now eighty years old and blind from cataracts. He wouldn’t even allow a single letter— a single sentence.

That statesman, who had a government for a soul, had made Austria a prison for him instead of the home it should have been! Metternich had been his father’s enemy; he was his enemy too, and always had been! The young man felt the hostility underneath the Chancellor’s icy courtesy, and he hated him. Altogether without basis in fact are those accounts of numerous conversations between Metternich and the Duke of Reichstadt during this period. Prokesch maintains that the Minister talked to the Prince just five times in seventeen years. Far from seeking to influence the Duke of Reichstadt during this period, Metternich avoided all contact with him. He hated him as he hated his father. The likeness to the Corsican which he found again in the young man’s features offended him like an insult. He could not bear the sight of that forehead, the sound of that voice. At a Court reception on the evening of the Duke’s eighteenth birthday, the Chancellor paid the obligatory compliments and turned away hastily. Those who spoke to him immediately afterwards found him more distant than usual. As soon as he could do so without attracting attention, he left the palace. [Aubry pg 162]

After years of being force-fed Austrian propaganda, Franz had started reading as much as he could about the greatness of Napoleon— obsessively reading Las Cases’ Memorial of St Helena, which he found on one of the top shelves of the library. Imagine his feelings when he read his father’s will for the first time, discovering what affects and relics were left to him, but which he would never see, thanks to Metternich’s machinations (and Louise’s clumsy attempts to lay claim to Napoleon’s inheritance, which had sabotaged the work of the executors in the first place, did not cease until 1837). Franz, fascinated with his father’s campaigns and personal history, threw himself into his studies. Through books, he vicariously experienced Lodi, Arcole, Marengo, the Pyramids, Jena, Austerlitz… He became drunk with the glory of the past. A spell had been cast, and Franz became determined to make his father proud of him. When one of his tutors began to lecture him on his father’s shortcomings, Franz replied impatiently:

“The actions of great men are not to be weighed with ordinary scales.” [Aubry pg 156]

Franz was slowly shedding the relationships of his childhood. When, upon Neipperg’s death in 1829, he had discovered his mother had contracted a morganatic marriage with the one-eyed Neipperg, he “felt deeply insulted and humiliated.” He was enraged enough to discover just that: of course, keep in mind he had no idea that she was sleeping with Neipperg and had given Franz two illegitimate half-siblings while his father was living with the rats on St. Helena. I doubt he would have ever talked to her again if that was the case. Even without knowing that, he withdrew, “his letters were less affectionate and he mentioned her name more rarely. She had been expected at Schoenbrunn for the summer. Her son learned with relief that she preferred to take a cure in Switzerland.” [Aubry pg 160]

Of course, Louise kept doing her thing, weeping for Neipperg over “gay dinner tables and at the opera,” being annoyed whenever the name of Napoleon reached her ears, and then finding “a substitute for the one-eyed general in the person of the Count de Bombelles, at first Grand Master of her Household, then her lover, and then finally her third husband.” [Aubry pg 161]

Meanwhile, for years Franz had struggled with depression. The July Revolution had happened, with the kind and comfortable Louis-Philippe installed on the throne, and even though the King of Rome was still a popular figure in France, with perhaps a chance to ascend the throne, Franz was still, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner. And the older he got, the more obvious this became. Suggestions to become a monarch in Poland or Greece were pushed asides by Metternich. Attempts by his uncles Lucien and Joseph to discuss Franz’s future with Metternich were completely blocked. All he wanted to do was to start his military career, and make himself useful, but he couldn’t even join his regiment, or even visit his mother in Italy. His health was floated as the reason why he should stay inactive, but Franz doubted this was the only reason. Bouts of rage alternated with deep sloughs of “sadness and tedium,” and he could barely summon the interest to hold a conversation. Not surprisingly, his mother lacked sympathy. In 1830, when Louise was summering in Baden, taking the waters, she “rebuked him for his apathy. She could not understand why her son could be ‘so little like other young people.’” [Aubry pg 181]

It grew worse a year later. Italy was on fire with the revolutionary activities of the Carbonari, and Louise had fled Parma in fear of her life. Franz pleaded with his grandfather to let him go rescue her, but Metternich intervened. Let the son of Napoleon, the King of Rome, go to Italy, where his father won his own fame? Of course not! Emperor Francis gave into Metternich, and poor Franz was left feeling torn between misery, fury and desperation. Even Prokesch, his best friend apart from Sophie—a major in the Viennese army, a loyal soldier, scholar and diplomat who had worked for Metternich, but had defied him on a few occasions-- couldn’t calm him.  

His despair was palpable. He knew he would spend his entire life bound and trapped, with Metternich as his jailer.

The young man had sealed himself up in a silence that was almost complete, venting his feelings at the most in talks with Sophie and Prokesch, during which he expressed many severe judgments on members of the Imperial family. He loved Sophie and he had an affection for his grandfather, but he did not like the Empress, fond as she was of him. He thought the Archduke Ferdinand, heir-apparent and King of Hungary, was a ninny. [Editor’s note: Ferdinand was actually a brain-damaged hydrocephalic epileptic who couldn’t even consummate his own marriage with his wife Maria Anna, married in 1835.] He hated the Archduke Franz Karl, Sophie’s husband, calling him deceitful, mean and vulgar. Table conversations at the Hofburg were stupid, the Court life was cheap and in bad taste. Comparing himself with those pious, submissive and conceited Archudukes and those ugly, insipid Archduchesses, he felt himself of a superior race. He even said one day— and Prokesch recorded the words in his secret notes:

“If Josephine had been my mother, my father would not have gone to St. Helena, and I would not be languishing in Vienna. My mother certainly has a kind heart, but no backbone! She was not the wife my father deserved!”

And he added, burying his face in Prokesch’s hands:

“You do not respect her, do you?”

And Prokesch replied:

“She was what she could be. The woman your father deserved for a wife did not exist. But he chose her, and she is your mother…”

Reichstadt was now weeping, and a long silence followed. [Aubry pg 207]

And that was when he seriously began to think about escaping.

While the two began to consider exactly what they could do, Franz decided that he had had quite enough of the chaperonage of Count Dietrichstein, his head tutor. This was the man who whipped him when he was five, who thrashed him when he was ten, who drilled him for countless hours on his German and his Italian translations and all the minutiae of court etiquette. He claimed to be utterly devoted to the young prince. Maybe he was, in his own weird way. But Franz was spreading his wings (or at least attempting to— even when he was 20, his imperial grandpa was still prone to treating him like a child, forcing him to dine with him in austerity if his own personal dinner parties became, in Francis’s opinion, too extravagant). In addition to the sensible and devoted Prokesch, Franz had befriended a few other young men, rakes and dandies all, like Neipperg’s eldest son and the young Esterhazy. Franz was gorgeous, brooding, romantic, and with perfect manners, and the women were obsessed with him (a Polish nun who had never met him but only saw him from a distance once swore undying love, even writing letters to this effect).

There was one woman that Franz danced with at a masquerade ball, a certain Naudine Karolyi, black-haired, handsome and bold, and not only did they manage to dodge Metternich’s spies, but they exchanged a lot of letters. This was 1831, and he was 20. But Dietrichstein soon found out about the correspondence.

At any rate, he strode into the Duke’s room, began rummaging through his desk, and finding a drawer locked, commanded him to open it. Reichstadt did not dare refuse— he obeyed, and his governor saw before him a pile of letters from Esterhazy. He opened a few, ran through them, and turned around livid with anger:

“What?” he cried. “You have a love affair?”

“Yes,” replied the prince coolly. “You can see with whom.”

“Do you write to her directly?”

“No, sir.”

“Then through an intermediary? Someone I know?”

He was besides himself with rage and almost shouting. Other persons had just entered the room and stood looking on in surprise at the strange scene. Reichstadt begged the Count to calm himself.

“Come downstairs with me,” he whispered. “You shall have all the letters afterwards, I promise you.”

The Count mastered his anger and went down with him to the Emperor. On the return, the Duke scrupulously handed him the entire correspondence, and it was forthwith consigned to the flames. [Aubry, pg 212]

But this didn’t stop Dietrichstein from trying to intercept Franz’s personal letters. At one point he saw that Esterhazy called him “the old woman,” and Dietrichstein was “extremely hurt.” He tried everything he could to break up the friendship from that day on, but didn’t succeed, as Franz could be extremely stubborn and loyal to a fault.

The affair with Naudine didn’t go anywhere, but there were others— there was even a reputed bastard daughter who later called herself the Comtesse de la Pommiere— but no matter what happened, his heart belonged to Sophie.

* * *

I’m cutting this off here, because LONG POST IS LONG, but more angst and drama will be coming with the next post!

Part One

Part Two

Part Three