#i hope this haunts everybody supporting and excusing this

[wearenotjustnumbers2]

"We're collecting our kids in bags! In bags!" "We're finding body parts that we don't know who it belongs to"

A massacre after another, and the world is silent. This has to stop.

[daqthebard]

So I’m just scrolling right, we’ll on one of the posts I found it had the tag #still not as bad as dozens and dozens of people saying Tyrannosaurus rex had wings! Like… wut

Do people actually believe this!?

This might be the funniest tag ever, I challenge you to find me a better one

Like:

GO FORTH MY MINIONS, AND BRING UNTO ME THE FUNNIEST TAG IN THE WORLD, I SHALL REWARD YOU DEARLY. MUAHAHAHAHAHA

[robroshaker9000]

I hope this haunts everyone supporting and excusing this. I hope the thought of innocent people, elders, men, women, children, babies, keeps whoever won't do anything to stop this awake at night for the rest of their lives.

Palestinian men and boys in Gaza describe the torture, humiliation, and dehumanization that they suffered during their time as captives of the Israeli occupation forces. “They forced us to make dogs’ sounds,” one man tells the camera. “If you refused to do so, they would beat you.” Another tells the reporter, “When they saw us falling asleep, they would come with a lighter and burn our backs with it.”

“Every hour was like years,” the same man says. “The torture was unbelievable.” Reports have emerged in recent days of mass roundups, torture, and execution of men and boys in Beit Hanoun and other parts of north Gaza. Detainees were identified by loved ones and others in the community who recognized them from the photos the occupation forces have been releasing.

As more footage and testimony are released, the depth of the horrors inflicted upon our people in Gaza are being brought to light. While we may never know the full extent of those horrors, what we already know is enough for any person of conscience to be able to identify as war crimes that are as depraved as they are systematic.

“My message for the world is to look at those detainees,” the final detainee tells viewers. “We are respected people. We are not animals.”

Via palestinianyouthmovement

Video Aljazeera

[loulouwrites]

CIRCUMSTANCE . ALFIE SOLOMONS

summary: alfie solomons always swore he was not suited to be any woman's husband - but a terrible circumstance has him questioning that. warnings: pregnancy, angst, mention of abotion, unsafe abortion, swearing (obviously), unedited word count: 2.9k A/N: this is a prequel to home but it can be read as a standalone :)

The first day she had been sick, she assumed she was still hungover from her birthday the night before. She had celebrated with all of her friends, who had taken advantage of the bill being footed by her 'secret lover', ordering enough gin to make even the hardest drinker queasy the next day.

The second day she had been sick, a pit formed in her stomach, a small, but haunting, realisation creeping into her mind - but she tried not to ponder on it.

She continued her week as normal. She continued to go to work, getting up from her desk every few minutes to sneakily be sick in the alley outside. She would go home and smile through her queasiness, insisting to her mother that she was just wasn't too hungry lately.

When following week came around, and she was being sick every morning, and her menstrual cycle was over one month late, she had to acknowledge that seed of doubt in her mind - she was pregnant.

It was a terrible thing to discover. An unmarried woman, pregnant with a child that belonged to a man that most agreed was terrible, was not how she had envisioned her life would turn out. She had always imagined the moment she discovered she was with child would be a joyous experience - she would be married, living in a large house with a foyer and garden with roses - she wasn't getting any of that now. Not with Alfie Solomons' child growing inside of her.

She would be lying if she had never envisioned a nice life with the gangster. It was a silly thing to think about, and she only allowed to imagine it in the dark of night, when her thoughts were only her own. She would often wonder if he felt anything for her, or if she was just a convenience for him.

He had hired her as his secretary about one year ago, but they had known each other for longer. More women were entering the workforce and he thought it would be beneficial to have one in the 'bakery', claiming women had a better attention to detail than any of the men he worked with. It hadn't taken long for him to push her against his desk and lift up her skirt, and she had been more than happy to let him.

That's all it was, really. She had never seen him outside of work, she had never been to his house, nor had he been to hers, their little affair only existed in the small confines in his office, when everybody else had gone home, and she had been perfectly content with their arrangement.

But now, she was pregnant.

And he was going to fucking kill her.

Her mother breathed a sigh of disappointment as she leaned against the kitchen bench in the small, dull kitchen, watching her daughter with a look of disgust as she heaved into the kitchen sink. It had been over a week of her daughter skipping meals and trying to quietly throw up in the bathroom, and it did not take a genius to figure out what was going on - she had been through it herself, after all.

"I hope he's planning on marrying you," she said with her arms crossed against her chest.

"Excuse me?" Her daughter said through deep breaths, lifting her head from the sink to frown at her mother.

"I'm no fool, and neither are you, we both know what's going on here," the older woman walked to stand beside her daughter. "Who's the father?"

The younger woman froze.

Of course her mother knew.

She knew everything.

"I haven't told him yet."

"That's not what I asked."

Her daughter sighed, and lifted herself completely from the sink, the sickness seemingly disappearing in that moment. Tears pooled in her eyes as she looked at her mother.

It had been just the two of them supporting her and her siblings for so long. Her father had passed suddenly when she was a younger, and her mother had began working as a seamstress to make ends meet, and as the oldest daughter, she had started working as soon as she was old enough to help support the family.

She couldn't help but feel guilty. Her mum had sacrificed so much, all for her daughter to grow up and get pregnant to a man who she was certain didn't care if she lived or died.

"I'm sorry, mum," she breathed out, the tears now freely dripping onto her puffy cheeks.

The woman sighed heavily, making no move to comfort her distressed daughter. "You will tell whoever it is, and he will marry you," she turned to leave the kitchen, "and if he doesn't - don't bother coming back here.

The bakery was buzzing with life the next day, there didn't seem to be spare moment to even take a breath. Workers approached her desk almost constantly, asking about their pay, and threatening strike action 'if Solomons didn't pay what he owed'. This wasn't rare, her workday was always busy, but every interaction was making her want to break down in tears.

She hadn't seen Alfie. He had been in his office when she arrived and hadn't left all day, despite it nearing six o'clock in the evening. She noticed Ollie giving her concerned looks whenever he passed by, but she would avoid his gaze, her eyes trained on her typewriter or the various documents spread across her desk.

A feeling of dread curdled in her stomach as more people left the building, throwing down their aprons on their way out. She would usually look forward to this time, when everybody else would clear out, and Alfie would call her into his office but this day it did nothing but cause panic to envelop her.

"Are you okay?" She looked up to see Ollie stood at her desk, his apron gone and his black coat held in the crook of his elbow. She muttered something nonsensical, that she was fine, just not feeling well, but the look the man offered told her he didn't believe it. "You don't have to stay, you know?" She just gave him a confused look, and he sighed as he continued. "Alfie isn't going to sack you or anything...if you...say no, you know?"

She scoffed at his words, his misplaced concern endearing him even more to her. "Thanks, Ollie. I know that."

He didn't say anything else, knocking his fist on her desk gently before heading for the exit.

And then there was two.

She could have sworn he was watching Ollie leave, because as soon as the sound of the heavy door slamming shut rang through the now empty building, he was calling her name.

Every step to his office felt heavy. It was as if her body was telling her to just turn around and run.

Run away.

You'll get another job, just leave now.

But she ignored the protests of her body, and the screaming thoughts in her brain, slowly opening the heavy door and stepping to his dimly lit office.

"Y'alright, love?" He said as soon as the door shut behind her. He was sat on his chair, his legs up on the desk - so nonchalant, so unaware.

Bastard, she thought.

She walked to his desk, but rather than approaching him as she usually would, she sat down in one of the chairs on the other side, instead, placing her shaking hands on her lap.

He raised a brow at her actions, swinging his feet down onto the floor and leaning forward, his forearms resting on the desk, his hands clasped together as he studied her.

A sheen of sweat formed on her forehead as she sat under his gaze, her eyes darting everywhere in the room in order to avoid his gaze. He opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it, summoning every bit of courage she still held.

"Have you ever thought of marriage?"

Her question caused him to sit up a bit straighter in his seat, his head cocking to the side and a smirk playing on his lips.

"You proposing, love?" He joked, his smiled fading when she shot him an unimpressed look, her lips pressed into a thin line. "No," he cleared his throat, "ain't for me, all that."

She nodded in response, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

"So you never want that?" He just shrugged. "Under no circumstances?"

"There is not a circumstance in the world that would get me to do that, love, no."

An uncomfortable silence filled the office. She had returned to looking at everything but the man sat across from her, and he continued to stare at her with a frown on his face.

She felt her chest tightening, her breaths coming out shorter as his words replayed in her head.

Not a circumstance in the world.

He called her name, rousing her from her thoughts and she stood up from her seat.

"Are you okay? You don't look well," he said in a tone that she would consider caring if it had come from anyone but him.

"I'm sorry, Alfie, I'm feeling a bit under the weather, I think I should go home."

"Of course, love," he nodded, beginning to stand but she briskly left the room before he could. "You be careful," he called after her, not sure she even heard.

There were days Ollie really enjoyed his job. The days where everything went right and nobody got punched, or killed, were considered good days. But, the days that went wrong, always seemed to go disastrously wrong, and they usually started with him giving his boss some bad news - which is exactly what he was about to do.

"Are you goin' to say somethin' or are you just goin' to stand there like a lost fucking lemon?"

Ollie cringed at his boss' voice, his eyes trained on the cabinet in the corner of the room.

"Ollie, I swear to fucking-"

Ollie spoke the secretary's name abruptly, causing Alfie to pause mid sentence, relaxing in his chair. "I heard back from the men you got to follow her."

It had been three days since she had been to work. She had rang in sick the first day, and seeing as how she acted the night before, Alfie was inclined to believe her, but when she failed to check in the following day, he had ordered some of his best men to 'check in on her.'

"They saw her at Mrs Levy's..." He trailed off, watching as his boss' expression went from confused, to understanding, to fury.

"When?" There was a darkness to Alfie's tone, though his posture was relaxed, Ollie knew better, this was the calm before the storm - and he was about to bare the brunt of whatever was about to happen.

"Just now. It's the first time she's left her flat in days, they sent someone straight away-"

Alfie didn't stay to hear another word, flying out of his chair before Ollie had the chance to say another word, and Ollie breathed a sigh of relief.

He also said a prayer for Alfie's poor secretary.

Mrs Levy was not the kindest woman. She had helped many girls in a similar position, but she had never claimed to do it out of kindness. If you asked her, she would say it was a way to save the reputation of girls in her community and an excellent money maker.

The young woman looked around the bedroom she was in, it was clean, if a little cluttered. There was a table next to the bed with various instruments laid out, little metal pieces that made her stomach turn if she looked at them for too long.

Mrs Levy had already explained everything to her - what would happen, how it would feel, and what could happen after - which did nothing to quell her nerves.

She had asked for a moment alone, and Mrs Levy had rolled her eyes, telling her it would be extra if she stayed there too long. She sat on the bed, her shoes laid on the floor, and her hand resting on her stomach. She didn't feel an overwhelming sense of loss about what was about to happen, but it did make her sad, and just for the moment, she allowed herself to think about the 'what ifs'.

What if she had told Alfie she was pregnant?

Would he have changed his stance on marriage?

Would he have given her the money for this himself?

Would he have confessed his undying love for her and dropped to his knees in front of her?

She scoffed to herself, shaking her head to rid the fantasies from her mind. There was no point of dwelling on it now, it was done, and he would never know. She would return to work in a few days and claim she had just had a stomach bug.

It would all just be a bad memory.

She was about to call Mrs Levy back into the room when a crash sounded from outside the bedroom door.

"You get back here, right now, you little-"

Mrs Levy's voice became background noise when the door swung open, and none other than Alfie Solomons blew through the doorway, pistol in hand.

"You and I need to talk, love," he said, causing her eyes to widen in dear. He looked at her confusedly before following her gaze to the pistol held in his hand. "Fuckin' hell, I'm not...I wasn't..." he huffed a sigh, tucking the gun into his belt and holding his hands up in surrender.

"You can't be here," Mrs Levy's voice cut in. "Get out!"

"Oh fuck off, you ol' bat," Alfie rolled his eyes, swinging an arm out as if to bat her away. "C'mon," he held an arm out to the woman who sat on the bed, her eyes wide and her hands shaking.

The car was silent as Alfie drove through the streets of London, the only sounds coming from the shouts of pedestrians as they avoided the car that sped past them, narrowly missing them as they tried to cross the road.

"How did you know?" She asked meekly, her eyes downcast.

"Had my men follow you when you didn't show up for work two days in a row - you're sacked by the way," he said simply, as if he were discussing the weather.

"What? Alfie-"

"Well you can't be workin' now anyway," he shrugged. "With you being...y'know," he gestured a hand to her stomach, "wouldn't be right to make ya sit in a distillery all day."

"I need to work now more than ever, Alfie," she protested, turning her body slightly to face him as best as she could in the cramped vehicle. "I need money if I'm going to be raising a child alone."

Alfie's head snapped towards her, a frown on his face. "Who said anythin' about raisin' it alone?"

"Really?" She raised a brow at him, as if she were waiting for him to burst out in laughter. "You said it yourself, Alfie, under no circumstances would you get married."

"Is that what all this is about? You skive work and go to see that daft bint because of I said I didn't want to get married in passing."

"Mrs Myers is not a-"

"She's killed more people than I have, love."

"That's not funny, Alfie," she admonished, crossing her arms across her chest. "So you're saying you would get married?"

"No," he replied. "But I ain't sayin you'd have to do it alone. I paid for your birthday night out but you don't think I'd pay for my own fuckin' child?"

"I can't go home, Alfie. My mum said-"

"Fuck that daft cow," he pointed a finger in her direction, he had known her mother for years, and he had hated her for just as long. "And you will be living with me."

"Unmarried and cohabitating? Are you trying to get me ostracised?"

"You should have thought about that before you let me get ya pregnant, darlin'," he looked at her with a toothy grin. Her face twisted in confusion when she looked out of the window, taking in her surroundings.

"Where the fuck are we?" She asked, looking at the big white houses with a mixture of uncertainty and wonder.

"We are home," he told her plainly, parking the car in front of what she considered to be the nicest house on the street. She wordlessly exited the vehicle, following behind him as he ascended the steps and opened the black door, holding it open for her.

"Better than your mum's flat, ain't it?" He threw an arm around her shoulder, pulling her to his side as if the entire situation wasn't an absolute nightmare.

She hummed in response, taking in the foyer, the walls were bare, and the wallpaper was dated, but that could all be fixed - and she looked forward to doing it.

"If I were to consider marriage," Alfie spoke from her side. "I would only consider it with you," he pulled away, clearing his throat. "Let me give you a tour."

Alfie wasn't lying. He proposed to her when she was four months pregnant, right after they felt their baby kick for the first time. They married one week later, a grand affair considering it was on such short notice.

Their son was born exactly five months after their wedding, in their shared bedroom.

thanks for reading! for anybody who has read more of my stories do you think they're too similar plot-wise? i enjoy writing angst a lot but get scared that my fics are too samey lmao. so if you'd like to see me write something different pls lmk

[blue-slxt]

It Was Supposed To Be Us - Chapter 5

🔞Minors Do Not Interact🔞

A/N: We have reached the end of our story! Thank you to everybody that's interacted with this series. Every like, comment, and reblog mean so much to me. I hope you guys enjoy this finale. I'm not great at writing action scenes so forgive me if it's a little mid. All characters are aged up.

Previous Part

Pairing: Neteyam x Fem!Omatikaya!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of DV, PTSD, Anxiety, Violence, Blood, Smut, P in V, Fingering, Loss of Virginity, Creampie, I think that's it

Word Count: 4.7k

Summary: Neteyam takes care of Ralu.

Sleep seems to elude Neteyam for the night. Every time he closes his eyes, he’s haunted by visions of your beaten face and body. It’s devastating. His stomach twists with nausea and guilt. He tosses and turns trying to get comfortable, but it’s useless. Before long, the sun starts to rise. Neteyam knows his father will be up soon. He’s going to need his support if he was going to pull this off without actually killing Ralu. And, as tempting as that idea sounds in his head, he knows it’s not the smart thing to do. Neteyam sits outside of his family’s home sharpening his knife and waiting for his dad. And almost on cue, Jake appears from inside.

“Neteyam, you’re up early” he says a bit taken aback.

“Couldn’t really sleep” he says continuing his work on his weapon.

Jake lets out a big exhale sitting next to Neteyam on the ground, “Talk to me, boy. Tell me what’s going on.” Jake still wasn’t clear on the details of what all was going on. When he took Neteyam away yesterday, he didn’t speak much on why he did what he did. Jake knows his son well enough to know that he wouldn’t snap like that on somebody for no good reason, but he couldn’t help if he didn’t know the entire situation.

Neteyam drops his knife and uses two fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose while he comes to grips with everything. “He is not a good man.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that yesterday, but what you haven’t said is what makes you feel that way.”

“He…he hurt her, dad…” his words trail off as he finds himself needing to literally bite his tongue to keep the tears at bay. “You should have seen what he did to her…”, one tear slips.

Jake nods solemnly understanding the situation now. “Is she okay? Is she safe right now?”

“Grandmother and Kiri are keeping her in the healing tent.” His jaw clenches in frustration, “I should have been there. A man is supposed to protect his own and I failed.”

“Do not blame yourself. You couldn’t have known this would happen. And son…she isn’t yours.” Jake doesn’t mean it to sound as harsh as it probably comes across.

Neteyam looks his father in the eye, “She is in every way that matters.”

In this moment, Jake doesn’t see just his son, he sees a man doing his best to defend what is precious to him.

“Alright, so what do you want to do?”

…

Neteyam propped himself against a tree deep in the woods while he waited to carry out his plan. Even just with the waiting, he can feel how his blood is beginning to boil. He would be lying if he said that he wasn’t nervous. But he wasn’t nervous about his plan failing. He was more worried about controlling his own wrath. As far as Neteyam was concerned, Ralu deserved whatever fate befell him, but his father discouraged him from being the one to deliver that fate. “Let Eywa handle that part.”

Neteyam hears footsteps coming his direction. It was time. He remains in his spot against the tree and watches the figures in the distance grow closer. Jake was leading Ralu to Neteyam. Jake had convinced him that he wanted to apologize for his son and get his side of the story. Jake didn’t truly care for whatever excuse or lie Ralu tried to come up with for what happened to you. Before he agreed to help with this, he had already gone to speak with Mo’at about your condition. He didn’t actually see you out of respect for your privacy and dignity, but Mo’at gave him a very clear picture of your condition. And she confirmed that however you were injured, it definitely was not from “falling in the woods” as you had described to her. He had heard all he needed to.

Once Jake and Ralu reached the clearing, Ralu locked eyes with Neteyam and stopped dead in his tracks. He looks between the two Sully men and suddenly realizes that he’s trapped. He weighs his options on if he should stay or leave. But his own ego and anger cloud his better judgement as he decides to stay and stand his ground.

“Okay, I see what this is” his arrogance is obvious in his tone.

Jake and Neteyam exchange a glance and Jake gives his son a small nod before he walks into the woods a bit. He’s close enough to come running in case anything goes wrong, but his main purpose for standing there was in case Ralu attempted to run.

“Let me guess, this is about your little girlfriend, isn’t it?” Neteyam takes one step towards him, “Don’t you dare even talk about her. Be grateful I even left you a tongue to speak with.”

Ralu smirks at him, a smug display of his amusement. “You may be the son of toruk makto, but you need to learn to keep your hands off other people’s things. That bitch had it coming.” Neteyam had heard enough and lunges for Ralu knocking him over. Ralu kicks Neteyam off and attempts to take a swing at him, but he dodges. Neteyam takes a swipe at Ralu with his knife and manages to make a shallow cut on his outstretched arm. He pulls his arm back to look at the cut.

“That the best you can do?” he taunts.

Neteyam is unphased, “Says the only one bleeding.”

Ralu launches himself at Neteyam and manages to get him into a hold that Neteyam can’t quite maneuver out of. Instead, he flips around the knife still in his hand and cuts across Ralu’s abdomen. It’s not deep enough to cause any serious damage, but it is enough to make him release his hold. This makes him retreat from Neteyam in pain and give him an opening. Neteyam snakes around staying close to the ground and grabs Ralu from behind and wrestles him down to the ground. His legs lock and hold Ralu’s while his arms have him in a headlock and his knife is alarmingly close to his throat.

Ralu struggles against Neteyam’s hold, but with no success. The threat of Neteyam’s knife pressing into his skin makes him finally go still.

“You will never come near her again, do you understand?” Neteyam hisses in his hear. “She is not yours and she will never be yours. And if I ever, ever see you even so much as look at her the wrong way, I will personally see to it that you suffer an excruciating end.”

Ralu scoffs. He doesn’t think Neteyam actually has it in him to follow through on his threat. Neteyam is seeing red as he flips the knife in his hand and jams it through Ralu’s shoulder. He screams out in pain and writhes in Neteyam’s hold. He pulls it out and presses the very tip of his knife into the skin on Ralu’s throat coaxing out a single dribble of blood. “Answer me!” Neteyam was fully prepared to do away with this man for good and deal with whatever fallout came after.

“Neteyam!” Jake calls out to him. When he turns to look at his father, he has a stern look on his face urging him to do the smart thing.

Ralu knows he can’t actually beat Neteyam and he’s ready to end this whole ordeal finding you not to be worth all the trouble. He begrudgingly agrees with a nod of his head.

Once Neteyam is satisfied, he sets him free and watches as he gathers himself to leave. “And do not go to the Tsahik for your injuries. She will not help you.” Neteyam calls out after him.

He falls to the ground catching his breath when Jake comes over to him. He had quickly looked over Ralu as he left and, from what he could see, Neteyam had done what he needed to. He checks in on his son, “You did good, son.”

Neteyam offers his father a small smile and a nod, “Thank you, sir.”

…

“You don’t think anything has happened to him, do you?”

“I already told you, I don’t even know what’s going on. But this is my brother we’re talking about. I’m sure he’s fine. Now, hold still while I check your eye” Kiri tells you while looking over your face. You had been borderline pestering her all day about Neteyam and whatever he was planning to do. Your anxiety had ramped up as the hours dragged on. He had asked you to wait for him inside the tent and you did, but you couldn’t help the worry that still plagued your mind. How long were you meant to wait? Kiri did her best to reassure you, but she didn’t know exactly what was happening either. She had minimal information as she had only partially overheard the conversation between her father and Mo’at. She didn’t know what her brother had planned to do about Ralu, but she trusted that if their dad was with him, he wouldn’t go off the deep end.

She continues inspecting your wounds from the other day and is pleased to see the swelling around your eye going down slowly, but surely. And your body no longer felt like the fire of a hundred suns. It was now more of a dull ache. You still weren’t in ideal condition, but it was leaps and bounds from how you first walked in.

“Thank you, Kiri. For letting me stay here for the night and taking care of me.” You were truly, deeply thankful that she gave you a safe place to recover. Even going so far as to physically stand in the way of danger to make sure you stayed safe.

She grabs ahold of your hands and squeezes them tight. “Mated or not, you are family. We take care of each other.”

You can feel yourself getting choked up so you try to change the subject, “So, how do I look?”

She follows your lead, “Much better than yesterday. I’d say it’ll take another day for the swelling to go completely down, but it’ll still be bruised for roughly another week.” She lets your hair fall back in front of your face. You preferred to keep your eye covered while it heals.

Immediately after, Jake and Neteyam come into the healing tent and Jake bends down to give you a once over. “How are you feeling, baby girl?” “Oh, I’m much better today. Thank you. Kiri has been taking really good care of me. I owe her a lot.”

“Don’t be silly. You never owe me.” She says standing up.

“Is she okay enough to go for a walk?” Neteyam asks her.

“Yes, just take it easy okay? Your wounds physically look better, but don’t push yourself if it still hurts.” Kiri answers from across the tent.

Neteyam holds his hand out to you and you take it. He leads you out of the tent and your eyes subconsciously dart around the area around you. Neteyam can feel your unease and notices the curl of your tail. He gives your hand a reassuring squeeze, “It’s okay. I promise.”

You swallow hard following his lead. You let him lead you through the forest and he helps lift you over large branches in your path that you would normally be able to hop over with ease.

“Neteyam where are you taking me?”

“Oh, like you can’t guess?”

You playfully roll your eyes at him. Of course, he’s taking you to your spot.

It seemed like it had been forever since the two of you came here together like this. Out in the open in broad daylight. No worries about sneaking out under the cover of night.

Neteyam leads you into the center of the clearing and helps you to sit while he kneels in front of you.

“Any particular reason you lead me all the way out here?” you ask genuinely curious. It’s not that you didn’t love being here or being here with him, but why right now?

“Actually, there is. It’s because I couldn’t think of a better place to say this.” He takes a big breath trying to calm his own nerves.

“Listen, we’ve known each other for most of our lives now and ever since the first day I saw you, I knew. I knew that I wanted to be with you forever. I knew I could never live without you again. When we promised to be together, that was the happiest moment of my life. And with everything that’s happened recently, I couldn’t help but feel like I let you down. As soon as I returned, I should have stood my ground and declared my intentions with you, but I didn’t and it caused you to get hurt. I should have protected you.” “Neteyam, you—” he holds his hand up to stop you. He already knows that you would say it wasn’t his fault and that he couldn’t have known what would happen. And even though the logical part of his brain understands that, it still brings no comfort to his still-aching heart.

“I knew I had to do something to make it right. I promised you I would take care of it and I did.” “What did you do?” you’re almost scared to ask.

“Please do not worry about it. Just know that he will never come near you again. You don’t ever have to worry about him.”

His words ring through your head while you process them. Just like that? It was over? You wouldn’t have to be on high alert anymore or live in fear? You were free? He holds your hands and locks eyes with you.

“But I wanted to officially ask you if you’d do me the honor of letting me court you and being my mate.” He smiles at you, but his eyes are scanning your face looking for any little indication that you may reject him. He, of course, finds none.

“Do you really still need to ask?” your expression is overjoyed and Neteyam takes his first real breath since he started talking.

“You couldn’t have honestly thought that I would reject you, did you?”

“W-well, it’s been such a long time and I just wanted to be sure. A-and…” Neteyam starts to ramble just like he always did any time he was flustered or nervous. It was adorable and you can’t hold back the giggles especially when you notice the slight purple color starting to stain his cheeks.

You hold his face in your hands and his words trail off at your touch. “’Teyam, stop talking. The answer is yes. It was always going to be yes.” He captures your lips in a tender kiss and your heart soars. Everything was finally falling into place.

…

Over the next week while you heal your wounds, you and Neteyam find your footing as a new official couple. He courted you just like he said he would, showering you with the most extravagant gifts. Rare beads, intricately woven accessories, beautiful flowers, your favorite foods, you name it. Neteyam probably would gift you the moon itself if you were to ask for it.

It was still difficult some days, though. Even after your physical wounds healed, your mind still stayed vigilant at all times. It would cause you to jump at sudden sounds or touches.

Poor Neteyam looked so forlorn the day he tried to reach out and hold you and your instincts made you flinch away from him without you meaning to. He insisted that he understood why you reacted the way that you did. It still made you feel awful, though. You didn’t want to still be afraid, especially not of the one person you felt safest with. The one person you never had to be scared with.

It took time. A lot of time. Some nights, you still had nightmares about it all. His voice and touch still so vivid in your mind that you would swear he was there in the room hovering over your sleeping body in the middle of the night. Of course, he wasn’t actually there. Only Neteyam resting next to you and who would hold you a little closer to himself when he felt you stir awake from your midnight hauntings. Soft shushes and whispered words of reassurance would calm you back into a state of sleep.

Ralu truly never did dare to even look your way again. You would catch sight of him among the clan and it would make you pause briefly in your steps, but he never gave you so much as a glance. Neteyam never really told you what happened between the two of them, but you settled on the decision that it was probably for the best that you were left out of the loop. If you had to guess, though, it probably had something to do with the new scar he was sporting on his shoulder. In truth, how he did it didn’t really matter. The only thing that mattered was that you were out of the nightmare. You had your person. He was yours and you were his.

…

It was finally time. The day had come when you and Neteyam would finally be mated before Eywa. Your heart thunders in your chest gazing up at him under the glow of the Tree of Souls. His star-like freckles glowed a little brighter accentuating his features.

The ceremony had come and gone fairly quickly. Your union was acknowledged by the Tsahik in front of your families as they cheered and sang prayers for you both. Prayers of a long, happy partnership and many healthy children. After the ceremony, they sent the two of you off to have some privacy for your first night together. It was Neteyam’s idea to come here specifically. And you were so happy you let him choose. The setting was beautiful and buzzing with an energy that made everything feel even more alive and connected.

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t a little nervous. You knew what was expected of mates. But you had never been touched in that way by anybody else. Your biggest fear was that it would hurt. You had tried to experiment a couple days ago in preparation for this night. You hesitantly and carefully tried to push one finger inside of yourself, but panicked at the feeling and cut the experiment short. It was frustrating. You loved Neteyam with your whole being and you wanted him to become one with your being. You wanted him to touch you. You couldn’t stand the thought of the last man who had laid hands on your body being Ralu. But could you really go through with this?

“What is wrong, yawne?” Neteyam asks you knowingly.

“Nothing. Why would anything be wrong?” you try to brush off his question.

“Your tail is doing that thing again. I know something is on your mind. Talk to me, tíyawn.”

You breathe a big sigh, “I think I’m just nervous. Now that we’re mated, I want us to��you know…do what mated people do. But I am nervous that it is going to hurt because I’ve never had anything inside before.” Your head drops in embarrassment and your eyes cautiously look up at Neteyam who is only smirking at you.

“You are too precious”, he says kissing your forehead. “We do not have to do anything that you are not ready for yet. And, when you are ready, I promise to be as gentle as possible.” “But I want to do it now. I want to become one with you.”

Neteyam thinks for a moment before he speaks again, “Here, let’s try this.” He pulls his queue forward and you follow him. “When we make tsaheylu, we’ll be able to completely feel each other and I will know how best to take care of you.”

You nod your head processing his words. The tendrils at the end of your queues dance wildly in front of you. You both bring them closer together until they meet in the middle and hold one another melding the two of you together.

Both of your pupils blow wide open as your minds take in all the new stimuli from not only your own bodies, but each others’ too. You can feel Neteyam’s breathing and heartbeat as if it were your own. Every single sensation he feels is coursing through your body all the way down to the feeling of the ground beneath his feet and the ends of his braids resting on his shoulders. It’s overwhelmingly euphoric.

You make the first move to reach out and touch Neteyam’s face and press your lips to his. He wraps you in his arms kissing you back deeply. You happily open your mouth for his tongue to explore. You both settle down on your knees and he lays you down on your back. Using one of your hands, you push your top up to reveal your breasts. Neteyam’s hand freely roams about your body massaging your soft skin. His fingers trek down your chest and waist and right past your loincloth to rub messy circles on your clit. Your breath hitches in your throat and Neteyam swallows the moan you let out. He breaks the kiss so he can watch your face.

“I’m going to put one inside, okay? Just breathe for me.” You take a big breath and as you release the air, Neteyam pushes one digit into your heat. The feeling is indescribable. It’s not quite uncomfortable, but it’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. When he slowly starts to pull out and push back in, it feels like a lightning strike in your body and you love it.

Now, Neteyam can feel himself getting harder by the minute. Feeling your tight, slippery walls squeeze around his finger has his head spinning thinking about how good it would feel around his dick. It’s even more intensified by the bond you two held, feeling your pleasure radiate through his own body.

Once he feels your body relax more around him, he pushes in a second finger. The stretch is a little more intense, but still not anything you couldn’t handle. Your breath is heavy in your chest as you look up at him. “Neteyam…”

“You are doing so well, tíyawn.” He kisses your lips again and takes advantage of the way your body melts into him to push one final finger into you. He can feel through tsaheylu the dull sting that comes from being stretched like this for the first time. He holds his fingers in place just long enough to let the feeling pass for you before he moves again.

“’Teyam…please…I want it.” Your big doe eyes look up at him pleadingly.

Fuck, you were just too precious for Neteyam to ever deny you anything you wanted. Plus, he was just about at his own limits of his patience. He pulls his fingers from your core and the sudden emptiness makes you wince lightly. He helps to pull your loincloth off and you raise your hips to help him. He pulls the knot on his own loincloth loose to let it fall to the ground.

Your eyes widen seeing him for the first time. He’s big. Too big. There’s no way something like that will fit inside of you. Your nerves are starting to get riled up. Even without tsaheylu, Neteyam can feel your anxiety. One of his hands finds your chin to lead your eyes back up to his. He reassuringly rubs his thumb against your skin, “Slowly, okay? Just focus on me.” You re-steady your breathing and nod your head. You close your eyes when you feel his tip prodding at your soaking entrance. Neteyam pushes his hips forward towards yours and his tip presses on past your folds and right into you. You gasp and grit your teeth trying to push past the feeling.

Neteyam slowly inches himself further into you. You wince and whine at the feeling. “Shhh…just a little more. You’re doing such a good job.” It was as if he was pushing your organs to the side to make room for himself inside of you. It was almost suffocating how full you felt. But his soft voice and the caress of his fingers on your face help strengthen your resolve. Suddenly, he stops moving. “You can look now.” Your eyes lower to find your pelvises pressing together and a small bump poking through your abdomen. The sight normally would’ve horrified you had it not been for the immense pleasure coursing through your veins.

“Are you okay?” Neteyam’s patience is thinning by the second, but what little is left of his better sense urges him to go slow for you and make sure your first time is a good one. But damn if the way you were choking his dick didn’t make it difficult.

You nod up at him letting your body accommodate him. “I’m going to move now.” Your eyes cross at the drag of his tip along the spongey part of your walls as he pulls out and pushes back in. A small whine leaves your lips and your fingers hold on to Neteyam’s shoulders to give you something constant to focus on while you adapt to the new feeling.

Before you know it, the pain starts to dissipate and your chest falls dramatically letting out a breath you hadn’t even recognized you were holding onto. Your body relaxes fully and lets Neteyam in. His hips rock into you a little faster testing the waters and more moans fall from your lips. “’Teyam…” Neteyam feels just about ready to snap hearing how his name drips from your tongue in ecstasy.

He thrusts into you with more force and the sounds it pulls out of you triggers a carnal desire in his brain that his eyes are desperate to see as they roll back listening to you. Nevertheless, he pulls them back into place to find your half-lidded gaze on his face and parted lips calling his name. He’s positive he’s never found you more beautiful than this moment right now. But he craves to see your beautiful expression twist into something sinful. He can’t stop himself anymore from starting to pound into you.

“Ah..A-ah! Ah, Neteyam!” your hands feel around and search the ground around you for something to hold on to as you feel the pressure building in your stomach. Neteyam’s hands find yours and he threads his fingers between yours while he pours all his feelings for you into his thrusts. Both of your eyes look down between you to see the small bump in your stomach disappear with every retreat of his hips and re-emerge with every push forward. The sight is enough to drive you both to your release.

“’T-teyam! Gonna…g-gonna..” you can’t even grasp the words as your orgasm comes to the forefront of your mind.

“Do it. Cum with me.” He’s mere seconds from painting your walls completely white.

Your orgasm hits you like a truck and it’s prolonged by Neteyam continuing to fuck you through his own release deep inside you. His thrusts grow slower and gentler as you both come down from your highs. Your vision starts to refocus and your body goes limp. Neteyam slides out of you and your body tries to remember its original shape before he had made space for himself.

“Are you alright, tíyawn?” the lustful haze of Neteyam’s mind is clearing and his expression is slightly concerned while he checks on you. But your sleepy smile reassures him and you nod your head. “I’m more than okay.” Your hands wrap around his neck and pull him down to kiss you again.

He rolls you both onto your sides and you break the kiss to rest your head against his chest. “Can we do that every day?” a small chuckle rumbles in his chest as he kisses the top of your head.

“We can do it as much as you want, yawne.”

[themenendezbrothers]

The Menendez brothers' dark family secret that still haunts me. As they stand on brink of freedom, one of their closest relatives speak out...

It's behind a paywall, but a redditor was able to get it somehow and he/she shared below:

"They are phone calls that punctuate Anamaria Baralt's day, and ones she's never too busy to pick up.

'Excuse me,' she says, politely breaking off our conversation. 'I have to take this. It's Lyle.'

She swivels away, briefly. 'Hi honey,' she greets the caller. Although it's impossible to hear the details, it's obvious the exchange is warm and affectionate. Two people with a shared history, swapping some news about their day.

They say their goodbyes after a few minutes, with Anamaria saying animatedly: 'Love you ... love you, bye.'

The Lyle Anamaria has just spoken with is her first cousin, Lyle Menendez, the elder of the notorious 'Menendez brothers', currently 29 years into a whole-life sentence for the murder of their wealthy parents in 1989.

They are the brothers whose story, entitled 'Monsters', became a Netflix sensation last year, starring A-list actors Javier Barden and Chloe Sevigny as the murdered couple, Jose and Kitty.

They are the same brothers, now balding and greying men in their 50s, who are due to appear in court in Van Nuys, California, via Zoom for a two-day resentencing hearing, starting next week (April 17), where their prison term could be modified, leading to their immediate eligibility for parole - marking another step towards freedom.

A separate parole board hearing for Lyle, 57, and Erik, 54, is due in June.

Their cousin Anamaria, a 54-year-old yoga teacher from Seattle, is one of the brothers' most vocal supporters and will be one of several family members testifying at the resentening hearing. She is fervently hoping her cousins will be freed.

Other witnesses due to give evidence include prison staff who are due to describe the pair's exemplary behaviour in jail.

The brothers' defence has always been that they were driven to kill after suffering years of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of their father while their mother, an unstable alcoholic and dependent on prescription drugs, did nothing to stop it.

It's a dark family secret that Anamaria herself has struggled to understand but now accepts as an uncomfortable truth.

Her cousins - childhood playmates with whom she grew up - have confessed to the terrible crime they committed, shown remorse and spent their entire adult lives reflecting on their actions, she says.

In the meantime, she offers daily emotional support over the phone as they wait to hear if they will be released after more three decades behind bars.

'Lyle and I speak multiple times a day,' she says. 'He likes to be in the mix, so he loves to hear all the gossip about the family and what everybody's doing, even if it's just the little things.

'They have TV and tablets, so we have conversations about everything and nothing, like my kids and my work and what's happening in The Bachelor (an American reality TV show). Erik is a little more private, but he's good.'

Anamaria, a mother of two, has lived in the shadow of this painful family tragedy for more than three decades.

She could only bring herself to watch one episode of the 'Monsters' Netflix show, she says. 'I hated the way they depicted Lyle as this hot-headed, rage-fueled person when the truth is that I've never heard him raise his voice.

'I want people to see that Erik and Lyle are real human beings, with a loving family behind them, and not characters in a fictionalised TV show.'

She and her cousins had a happy childhood - or so she thought.

Her late father Carlos and Jose Menendez grew up together in their native Havana and remained close friends after the pair moved to America following the Cuban Revolution in 1959.

Carlos married Jose's eldest sister, Terri, Anamaria's mother. Jose married his college sweetheart, Kitty, and the families settled in neighbouring houses in Princeton, New Jersey.

Anamaria has memories in the Seventies of the cousins running in and out of each other's houses, playing in her family's swimming pool, climbing trees and playing board games.

'They were typical boys – wild and fun and full of life. Very sporty,' she says.

However, she always thought something was not quite right in the Menendez household but could never put her finger on it.

She remembers a 'strange intensity and physicality' when her uncle Jose would grab his wife or sons roughly.

'I got the feeling that there was something off about their family and there were a couple of moments that I look back on with hindsight and cringe,' she recalls.

Without going into details, she says: 'There was one discussion that I had with Erik, and I should have recognised how odd the conversation was. But I was 14 and he was 15 ...' she shrugs. It haunts me.'

On the evening of the murders, in August 1989, the Menendez family had been living in Beverly Hills, California, thanks to Jose's successful career as an executive in the music business.

According to prosecutors, the boys plotted the killings carefully, securing shotguns (they couldn't get the right paperwork in time for handguns), which they used to shoot their parents at close range, as they watched television.

Jose was shot six times in a barrage of bullets and Kitty, a former small-town beauty queen, was hit nine times and finished off with a point-blank shot in her face.

The brothers then called police, with Lyle tearfully screaming down the phone 'someone killed my parents.'

At first detectives believed it was a Mafia hit following a botched business deal: Jose was a self-made multi-millionaire and an executive of RCA records.

The brothers' bizarre behaviour in the months that followed, as they burned through their inheritance, started to raise suspicions, however.

Erik hired a full-time tennis coach and started attending tournaments around the world while Lyle bought a buffalo wing shop restaurant and a Porsche Carrera sports car. Both splurged on Rolex watches.

Eventually, however, suicidal and tormented by guilt, Erik confessed all to his therapist, who couldn't inform on them without breaking the doctor / patient confidentiality code. Instead his mistress informed the police after they broke up.

The brothers, then aged 21 and 18, were arrested in March 1990.

There followed not one but two high-profile trials in which prosecutors argued the grisly murders were premeditated and motivated by greed, because the boys were due to be cut out of their father's will and his £11 million fortune.

The brothers' lawyers contended, meanwhile, that the pair acted in self-defence because they feared for their lives after threatening to expose the family's dirty secret.

'There was nothing in Erik's and Lyle's personalities that would ever have suggested to me that they were capable of that kind of violence,' Anamaria says today.

When the boys confessed and disclosed the sexual abuse that they claimed they had suffered, the family grieved all over again.

'We were devastated on two counts; that they committed the crime but also that they hadn't sought help from anybody in the family,' says Anamaria.

'I know what they did and why they did it but there was never a moment when I was mad at them or held it against them.

'I was personally hurt that they didn't feel like they could trust me with it – what they had endured, what they had done and the reason behind it,' she says. 'I imagine they felt like they were protecting me.'

Ironically, Anamaria had been planning a career as a criminal prosecutor, but the murders put an end to her law career aspirations. She later went 'into a tailspin' and ended up dropping out of college.

'For my whole life, all I'd wanted to do was put away the bad guys, but I was never going to be able to look at a defendant again and not see the grey areas in a case and the family that's hurting behind them. I was never going to be able to fight for the death penalty, which is what Erik and Lyle were initially facing.'

She was left in a very 'dark place,' she says. 'It's one thing to go through a tragedy. It's an entirely different thing to have your family be the butt of jokes on sitcoms and late-night TV shows and to have the people you love judged so harshly,' she adds, referring to the fact that the crime and subsequent trials became public fodder.

She couldn't bear to attend her cousins' first trial in 1993, which was televised and watched by millions of people all over the world and ended in a mistrial when two juries could not agree on a verdict.

The brothers were convicted at a second trial in 1996, after the judge limited testimony related to the brothers' claims of sexual abuse. The second jury found them guilty of first-degree murder and they were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

Had their claims of sexual abuse been believed the brothers could have been convicted of manslaughter, a verdict that would have brought maximum sentences of 22 years.

'Life without parole. They were so young. It was devastating to all of us,' Annamaria says.

With her cousins locked up, Anamaria and her family had to pick up the pieces of their own shattered lives.

Aged 28, she got a degree in web design and before training as a yoga teacher. She and her husband Wayne have two sons, now aged 17 and 18.

It wasn't difficult, she says, to tell her children about their infamous second cousins. 'My children have known since they were seven or eight that they have cousins Erik and Lyle who did this thing that was obviously very bad,' she says.

'But at the same time, my boys know that no matter what they do, there is room for forgiveness. I believe in redemption and that it's never too late to say you're sorry and to be able to grow.'

The brothers could have languished in prison for the rest of their lives but support for them grew online following the re-screening of their first, televised trial, during the Covid pandemic.

Coupled with the family's own campaign, for them to be freed on parole, it helped propel their case back into the spotlight.

'All these young people were looking at it from a different perspective,' says Anamaria. 'As a Gen Xer, I never spoke about my feelings, but young people today have been raised with the idea of clear boundaries and a much better understanding of the trauma caused by sexual abuse. I think they saw that first trial and were outraged by Erik and Lyle not being believed.'

After conviction, the brothers spent 20 years apart in separate prisons but are now in the same R.J. Donovan State Prison in San Diego that houses some of America's most violent criminals.

Both have married behind bars but are prohibited from having conjugal visits. Lyle was married to a former Playboy model Anna Eriksson from 1996 to 2001 and married lawyer Rebecca Sneed in 2003. They are now amicably separated. Erik married Tammi Sackerman, a former prison pen pal, in 1999, and has a stepdaughter Talia.

And after more than three decades behind bars, the brothers are closer than ever to freedom.

Factors in their favour include a recently discovered letter Erik wrote as a teenager to another family member saying he was being molested by his father, testimony from a member of the boy band Menudo who says he was sexually assaulted by Jose when he was a youth and the fact that both were under the age of 26 when given their whole-life sentences.

The brothers' apparently exemplary conduct while incarcerated will also be taken into account.

'What's been remarkable Is to watch them build very full lives for themselves in prison,' says Anamaria. 'They're not just sitting in a cell, rotting,'

She proudly reels off the initiatives the brothers have created during incarceration including meditation courses for fellow prisoners, supporting other inmates who have been given life without parole sentences and a green space prison beautification scheme.

'I know if they get out, they would both want to continue advocacy for people who have struggled with childhood sexual abuse,' Anamaria says.

She can't help but imagine what she and her cousins would do if they were on the outside. 'Erik will live with his wife and his stepdaughter �� he wants a family life,' she says.' I see Lyle taking his green space initiative to other prison facilities.

'I think they will want privacy and not be in the public eye though that will be hard, I expect.'

She has her own plans if her cousins are released. 'Since I'm a yoga teacher and Erik's a meditation teacher, I'd love to do a collaboration with him, I think that would be pretty cool.

'With Lyle, I just want to hang out and have a meal with him and do all the little things we take for granted.'

Most of all, she says, she wants to see her cousins reunited with their aunt – her mother Terri - who believes her nephews have spent enough time behind bars for the murder of her brother and his wife.

'I want to see them hug my mother because she's paid a big price all these years and she's desperate for them to be freed. She's 85 and has cancer so that would be a dream come true.'

Anamaria says she and her family cannot move on with their lives until they see the brothers freed.

'If their case was held today, we'd have a better understanding about abuse and what it does to you, and I think their sentences would have been very different,' says Anamaria.

'We have long forgiven them, and we desperately want closure as a family.'

Ana Maria Baralt

[gendervapor14]

two fights for freedom ~ chapter twenty-six: the haircut

In the dresser, she found a spare towel. She draped it around his shoulders and stood between his parted knees. She found a nice, silver-handled pair of scissors in her basket and stood before him, holding his jaw in a feeble excuse to gauge how much hair she needed to cut. Her thumb swiped over soft skin. “You shave?”

“Yeah.” The projection of his throat bobbed as he answered in a soft tone. “Otherwise I get this horrible mustache that may have worked for my father, but it’s uh, it’s not for me.”

Bell-mère laughed. “You shave every day but you don’t trim your hair?”

He laughed along and leaned into her touch, admitting defeat with grace. Up close like this, with enough time to stare, she realized his eyes were a beautiful, warm shade of brown. Something like rust and dried blood. He stared into her pretty pale eyes and she could see his pupils dilate, and then she found the problem right away. That quiet, wistful sigh was additional evidence she didn’t need.

Maybe he wanted to fuck her, (who didn’t?) but there was more in that gaze. Lovestruck. He was keeping himself away out of fear. Fear of whatever was haunting him. Fear of disaster. 

the final chapter before the great hiatus... i hope it doesn't disappoint. i rambled a lot in the author's notes of this chapter but basically the hiatus is starting now, and i'm using that time to write at least 5-7 chapters before i start posting again. maybe the whole fic if i get inspired enough. in the meantime, i will try to post something here every thursday relating to two fights for freedom using the tag #two fights for freedom. i have a playlist queued up, i might do some doodles, or some other rambles, idk. i'll try to keep posting about it so it doesn't feel like the story dropped dead in the water. you're also more than welcome to end asks or such!!

anyway, thank you so much for sticking with me so far!! i will continue for sure, and i appreciate EVERY ounce of support <3 <3

title: two fights for freedom rating: M category: F/M, gen content warnings: graphic depictions of violence status: incomplete, twenty-six chapters, 77,420 words relationships: rosinante/bell-mere, cora & law, rosinante & hatchan, bell-mere & rosinante & law & nami & nojiko, rosinante & genzo, bell-mere & genzo characters: rosinante, bell-mere, law, nami, nojiko, genzo, nako, hatchan, arlong, arlong pirates additional tags: canon divergent, fix-it, everybody lives, pre-arlong park, angst with a happy ending, angst and feels, fluff and humor, hurt/comfort, suggestive themes, sexual tension, limes (yes i'm bringing limes back), eventual smut, romance, slow burn, financial issues, broken bones, references to depression, alcoholism, mental health issues, canon backstory, mentioned doflamingo, non-canon backstory (giving bell-mere a backstory), found family, medical inaccuracies, blood and injury, trafalgar d. water law is a little shit, developing friendships, past child abuse, nightmares, self-harm, fake marriage, selective mutism, PTSD, more tags to be added later summary: freedom for one means adventure. exploring all the world has to offer, while avoiding the occasional haunting. freedom for another almost costs an arm and two daughters. a home, a village. perhaps freedom is best sought back-to-back. {a cora and bell-mère lives au}

♥

[swamp-spirit]

Am I Depressed or Just Lazy?

It’s the question that haunts most disabled people, whether the disability is physical or mental. Is it my fault? Am I just not trying hard enough? How do I know? 

It doesn’t help that everyone has their own opinion, opinions your accommodations and aid depend on. Do you need help, or do you just need to try harder?

Well, here’s my answer for you, an answer that has been very important for me: The question is wrong.

To get into why, let’s discuss different kinds of limits. (note, many disabled people have more than one, if not all of these. this is not an attempt to ‘rank’ disabilities, and all come with their own unique range of issues)

OBJECTIVE HARD LINE

This is something you can prove. You can go into the doctor, do a test, and have them clarify that this is a fixed, provable limit. For example, if you are paralyzed from the waist down, that’s a hard line. No amount of luck or willpower will let you walk that day. You might have a form of aphasia that makes you incapable of forming coherent sentences. If you allergic to gluten, you’re allergic to gluten.

SUBJECTIVE HARD LINE

This is a consistent, predictable limit that you know, but is not an exact, easily proven fact. For example, ‘if I hear about a car accident, I have a panic attack’. It’s more difficult to prove to external sources, but fairly easy to recognize internally.

UNPREDICTABLE HARD LINE

You know your disability has a clear, observable consequence, but you can’t say exactly how much you can handle before it hits. For example, if you walk to much, your hip freezes up, but you don’t know how much walking will cause it. You may know going to crowded events give you sensory meltdowns, but not know how much you can handle. There is no “I can go to your party for exactly eleven minutes”. 

SOFT LINE

These revolve around energy. Maybe your executive function issues make it hard for you to do homework. Maybe your chronic pain means going shopping leaves you tired. This is where spoon theory becomes popular. Everyone has physical and mental struggles and limits.

-----

The problem is, everybody has soft lines. Everybody gets tired if they push their bodies. Everybody gets stressed or sad or overwhelmed. There’s no exact measurement. 

It makes a lot of us push ourselves towards our hard lines. For example, I struggle with chronic pain and exhaustion, and, at a certain point, faint. After years of being told I was faking it, being dramatic, just needed to push through, starting to actually collapse was the first time people began to realize there was something wrong. I still don’t know how to believe my own body, I don’t know how to forgive myself for not pushing, so I push for the limits. Once I faint, then I’ve finally proved I’m trying, that I’m not just being dramatic or lazy. Mental illness is particularly hard to quantify, and many people are driven to self harm trying to create some proof that their pain is real.

Disabled or lazy? 

What do we do if the answer is lazy? We don’t want to be one of those bad disables who uses our health as an excuse and doesn’t make changes.. Maybe you can just push through it. Maybe if you just HATE yourself enough, you’ll be the person you want to be.

On the flipside, maybe it’s your disability. Not your fault. Out of your hands. No point in trying to fix it.

Obviously, neither of these are healthy places to stay, but if the two options are ‘it’s my disability and I have no control’ or ‘it’s my fault and I could fix it if I cared’, what else can you do? It also makes us lash out at hope. After all, if you can get better, isn’t it... kinda your fault that you aren’t? Aren’t you choosing to stay sick?

Because here’s the core problem: You are like this for a reason.

What is lazy? There’s this attempt to boil ourselves down to what’s ‘us’, the core traits open for moral judgement, and what’s ‘not our fault’, experiences outside us that shape our actions. It’s particularly obvious in the way we discuss criminals.

But we’re all the way we are for a reason. Every asshole has mental and social reasons to be an asshole. Nature and nurture, baby.

So what? None of it’s our fault and we should do what we want and blame other factors?

Of course not, but the reverse isn’t any better! Let’s look at a common issue:

I don’t clean as much as I want. Is it my disability, or am I lazy?

If you’re lazy, what do you actually do? Well, you stop being lazy! You buck up and Do The Dang Thing!

But if wanting to do it was enough, you wouldn’t be worrying about it in the first place. Maybe you’ll force yourself to clean for ten minutes, but the real thing you ingrain is self loathing. Stop being lazy. Stop being lazy. Stop being lazy. Hate yourself healthy.

That’s not constructive because you’re fixing the wrong problem. So what do you do? How do you give yourself agency without basing it around guilt? How do you change without shame?

. Instead of asking if your problems are ‘real’, here’s what I recommend:

1. Why am I not acting the way I want to act?

Don’t accept any answer that has moral judgement. Cut the word lazy. It’s useless. Don’t ask if it’s ‘your fault’ you have Type II diabetes, if you ‘should be able to’ pay attention in class. Cut moral judgement from the process.

Actually understanding why you act the way you do might take time, research, and thought, but changing behavior does!

Example: Why am I eating so much junk food when I know it’s making me feel worse?

Bad answer - I’m depressed

Worse answer - Because I’m a glutton with no self control

Good answer - My depression makes me seek out temporary highs from food because long term highs aren’t working, and I have self control issues that mean I often don’t act in my own best interests.

2. What are my barriers?

Once you’ve identified what’s stopping you, get into more details. If you find doing dishes overwhelming, why? What parts of the process do you find overwhelming or uncomfortable?

For the more general answers (motivation, energy, etc), what are your barriers to the solutions? What steps might help with your depression and what’s stopping you from taking those? Why don’t you do your physical therapy?

3. Is this something I can change? Is this something I can change now?

Earlier we talked about hard lines. Those come back in here. Some things, even with unlimited time and resources, remain fact. It’s not ‘giving up’ to accept a hard ‘cannot’. That said, be careful not to listen to mental illness ‘cannots’ in this situation. For example, I have been told by professionals I will probably always need psyciatric medication to be functional, no matter how good my self talk and lifestyle is. Accepting that, I think, is healthy. It would not be healthy, however, to decide that I ‘cannot’ have a good life.

But you do not have unlimited time and resources. When I said ‘what are your barriers’, plenty of you probably went “MONEY! IT’S MONEY, YOU ASSHOLE” Sometimes it means knowing an issue can’t be addressed until you have money/time/surgery. 

It’s okay to put things on the backburner. If you’re trying to figure out ‘how do I keep from being homeless next week’, you might decide ‘how do I eat more vegetables’ is not your most pressing issue.

You can also decide a fix isn’t worth the cost. Maybe you could afford knee surgery, but you don’t think the amount it would improve your life would be worth the expense or risk. Maybe you could take the stairs to class, but it would leave you too exhausted to pay attention.

Sometimes you realize ‘I want something more than I want to fix this’, and... that’s okay. Sometimes you aren’t ready for a change. Sometimes you don’t need to change. But if the change really is something you want:

4. Make a plan that directly confronts your barriers?

You’ve already broken your barriers into small, objective issues. Now you can start working on those issues. 

If you know you need to eat better, and your main barrier is impulse control, don’t plan to ‘stop eating junk food’. Figure out healthy, easy snacks you like and leave them in plain view.

Find ways to make chores easier. Learn to cook while seated, try playing music while you clean, find what works for you. If it doesn’t work, try something else.

Talk frankly with the people in your  life. Try to help them understand what your barriers are and make them allies in overcoming them. “I know it’s important I do this, and I am trying. Here is the specific element I am struggling with. Do you have advice for that?”

I particularly love this conversational tactic with doctors. Here is a conversation I had with a lot of doctors:

Doctor: You need to fix this habit. Me: I know. I’m sorry. Doctor: It’s really important. Here’s why it’s important.

I would get upset and defensive that the doctor seemed to think I didn’t care, and that the solution was just shaming me into caring more. The doctor would probably see me as unwilling to change.

Here is the conversation we have now:

Doctor:  You need to fix this habit. Me: That’s a priority for me too, but I’m really struggling with x and y hasn’t helped. Do you have any advice that helps people with x?

This either gets me advice on my actual problem instead of just being shamed for not fixing it, or it forces the doctor to change the topic and perhaps redirect me to somebody with more experience.

Write down lists of issues you want to address with your doctor. Focus on concrete steps and goals, and celebrate every win. People might not see how hard your fight is, but if getting out of bed in the morning is a fight, you have every reason to celebrate it.

But your barrier is NOT that you are lazy. It is not that you are bad or stupid or worthless. You cannot hate yourself healthy.

Your struggles are real, and the steps to overcome them are based in understanding, agency, and support, not self loathing.

[omgrachwrites]

Tell a Tale of You and Me - Chapter Two

Pairing: Sirius Black x Reader

Summary: You knew that  making a bet with Sirius Black was like making a deal with the devil  but you just couldn’t help yourself. You had never been a heavenly  woman.

Warnings: fluff, lil bit of cursing

Words: 2559

A/N: I would like to say a massive thank you to all you guys who have supported me with this fic, you are all just the best people!! I really hope you enjoy this and please let me know if you would like to be tagged! I love each and every one of you very much! xxx

Chapter Two

You smiled as the blustery wind blew through the trees of the dark forest; the wind was so strong that the leaves trembled as they threatened to fall. You were certain that the glass in the panes would be shaking in the Gryffindor dormitories. The material of your coat was thick and warm as you huddled into it; you had grown accustomed to getting up early over the summer and taking a stroll around the village. You thought that it would be nice to do so once you were back at school and you were right, it was nice.

Glancing over in the direction of Hagrid’s hut, you noticed that he was just leaving his home and he was struggling with his many bags. Hurrying over to him, you smiled at the wild looking man and you picked up a couple of bags, “let me help you Hagrid.”

“That’s very kind of ‘yer, Y/N,” he beamed at you from beneath his beard, “how’s your brother doing?” he asked as the both of you began to drag the bags.

You grinned to yourself, “it’s only been a couple of weeks but it’s very plain that he loves it here. He’s in his element,” you were very grateful that Dumbledore had still let Finn attend.

As you and Hagrid walked towards the forest paddock, he was saying that he could really do with an assistant, “you should absolutely get a dog,” you grinned and he let out a booming laugh.

“That’s a fine idea, Y/N.”

As you got to the paddock, you bid Hagrid goodbye and you turned to walk back to the castle before breakfast began. When you walked into the dormitory you giggled when you saw a pair of shining emerald eyes peering at you, “good morning sleepyhead.”

Lily groaned sleepily and threw a pillow at you, it missed you by about six inches, “I can’t believe you’re up and dressed this early, Y/N.”

You rolled your eyes at your friend before running a comb through your hair, “well, you know what the muggles say. The early bird catches the worm.”

She grumbled at you as she got dressed in her uniform and tied a green ribbon among her red curls and you both traipsed down into the common room. They discovered that a crowd of people were gathered around a notice.

“Excuse me, please. Thank you very much,” Lily laughed as she gently nudged a tiny little first year out of the way. You also pushed your way to the front and read the notice.

As Gryffindor’s Quidditch Captain, James had put up a notice that try-outs would be held in about a month’s time. You felt warm fingers link through your own and you looked to see that the pretty redhead was grinning at you; “you should try out, Y/N.”

You scoffed with a giggle as you led Lily through the portrait hole. Perhaps if she was away from the notice then she’d drop the subject all together, you really didn’t want to talk about it, “yeah, I don’t think so, you remember what happened in second year, thanks though,” you shuddered at the memory.

In your second year, the Slytherin Captain had aimed a bludger at you; it had hit you and broken your nose. As a result, you had slid off the end of your broom in front of the whole school. The laughter still haunted you; it had been so humiliating that you’d pretty much lost all of your confidence in Quidditch.

Lily sighed and rested her head on your shoulder, her hair smelled of vanilla and honey, “maybe you’ll change your mind.”

The Great Hall was positively full of amazing smells; breakfast was your favourite meal of the day. You looked down the long table and spotted Remus nursing a mug of something. You smirked and plucked a marshmallow from the bowl in the middle of the table, apart from flirting with Remus, messing with him was one of your favourite things to do. As you and Lily neared the marauders, you took your aim and fired the marshmallow straight into Remus’ mug.

He looked up and rolled his eyes as he chuckled at you, his hazel eyes shining, “good morning to you too, Y/N.”

You giggled, “good morning sunshine,” you sat opposite him and piled toast and eggs onto your plate.

With a charming smirk, Sirius turned round at the sound of your voice. The girl he had been talking to looked very offended, “my, don’t you simply look radiant today?”

You smirked at him as you took a gulp of orange juice, “my, aren’t you an extraordinary flirt?” you teased back, causing him to pull a tongue at you.

Lily laughed and James piped up, “yes, flirting and sleeping around are his only personality traits, Y/N,” he chuckled and lowered his voice, “did you see the notice for try-outs?”

You nodded, smiling at your friend, “yes James, I saw it.”

“Won’t you come?”

You sighed as you placed your knife and fork onto your plate, “are you and Lily in cahoots or something? I’m gonna kill her. No, I won’t come,” your tone was uncharacteristically harsh so you shot him a sweet smile.

“But, you were so great when we played it over the summer!”

“Well, there’s a huge difference when I’m just playing with you guys, and besides, that wasn’t actually proper Quidditch” you ruffled his hair and he smiled at you.

You looked over at Remus as his hazel eyes lingered on a pretty but cold Slytherin girl named Ursula as she walked by with Narcissa Black. You smirked and raised an eyebrow; you wanted to see Remus happy, even if it was with a Slytherin. He was such a sweetheart. You were about to ask him about it with a teasing grin but Sirius interrupted your unspoken words.

“What have we got first?” he asked through a mouthful of scrambled egg.

His friends looked at him in disgust, “ugh, we’ve got double potions with the Slytherins, you should really learn our timetable,” you rolled your eyes.

“But, why would I need to do that, if I can just ask you sweets?” he winked at you and you kicked his shin underneath the table.

In potions class you were brewing an Elixir to Induce Euphoria, which induced a sense of inexplicable happiness upon the drinker. If the potion was made too strongly then the mere fumes made the brewer extremely happy and giggly. It was a really good lesson. Unfortunately, you had made your potion much too strong and the fumes dissolved you and poor Lily into fits of giggles. It was a really nice feeling.

You looked over at Sirius and discovered that he was watching you with a shit eating grin on his face. His smile reached his eyes, causing crinkles around them and there were dimples in his cheeks. You had always noticed how devastatingly handsome he was, though you didn’t dwell on it much. Not anymore. Though, you had to admit it was entrancing the way his grey eyes sparkled in the low lights of the dungeon. But, that was probably just the potion talking.

“You really are beautiful, Y/N,” he smiled and you flushed at the older boy’s words.

“You’re sweet Sirius, who would have thought it?” Sirius chuckled, almost looking disappointed as he placed a lid on your cauldron which cut off the fumes. The effects gradually wore off.

You looked up and noticed that Slughorn was making his way over to you, his eyebrows set in a frown, “shit,” you cursed beneath your breath, you were nervous. You were sure that he was about to reprimand you for making your potion too strong.

“Miss L/N,” he whispered, placing his hand on your shoulder and you gave him a confused look, “Professor Dumbledore has made me aware of your brother’s affliction. As head of his house and the Potions Master, I will do everything in my power to help him.”

You were very touched, Slughorn was so kind, you blinked annoying tears out of your eyes and smiled, “thank you Professor that is very kind of you.”

As you had been explaining to Hagrid earlier, Finn seemed to really enjoy Hogwarts so far and he had a little group of friends. He wasn’t hanging around with Malfoy which you were very thankful for.

Later on that evening, the boys – minus Peter, who seemed to be going off on his own a lot – smuggled second helpings of dessert out of the kitchens. In your earlier years, you had thought that it was very impressive when your friends managed to smuggle food. You had since discovered that the house elves were only too happy to give it away.

You smirked, licking vanilla icing from your fingers – you didn’t realise that Sirius was watching you – as Lily everyone the embarrassing story of how James had asked her out. The first years giggled when Lily got to the part where James had danced and sang his way across the teacher’s table, in front of everyone. Dumbledore had seemed to really enjoy James’ little performance.

James hung his head and tried but failed to change the subject. It was eventually Sirius who interrupted Lily’s story and changed the subject. He did it by whistling at a passing 6th year, she simpered and giggled as she walked slowly, swaying her hips as she went. You scowled, wishing that she’d have a bit of respect for herself. You mimed being sick as Lily and Remus smirked at you, you didn’t really want your dessert anymore.

“You’re such a pig Sirius. It’s a waste of that pretty face.”

“So, you do think I’m pretty? I knew it!” he smirked as you gave him the finger, he was so annoying sometimes, “jealous are you, L/N?” he challenged, narrowing his eyes. There was silence as everybody waited to see what would happen next.

You laughed, Sirius was someone that you could never be jealous about, he just made his friends look bad by the way he acted, “no, there’s nothing to be jealous of but maybe James was right, sleeping around does seem to be your only personality trait.”

“Please don’t bring me into this,” James mumbled.

Sirius scoffed as he leaned back on the couch, dragging a hand through his tangled hair, his eyes alight with challenge, “please, I can go without dating or sleeping around for longer than you think, Y/N.”

“Prove it,” you weren’t so sure why you were so bothered.

“Fine,” Sirius smirked, “I bet that I can go until New Year’s Eve without dating or sleeping around, it’s gonna be a challenge for me. If I can’t then I guess you’ll have the satisfaction of being right about me.”

You knew that making a bet with Sirius Black was like making a deal with the devil. However, you were undeniably competitive and everybody knew it and you wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to humble Sirius. You were sure that he’d lose. Satisfaction of being right about him was all you really wanted.

“And, how would I know that you haven’t been with some poor girl in private?” you asked with a raised eyebrow. Sirius couldn’t go for long without messing with girls.

Sirius smirked and tweaked your nose and you scowled in annoyance, “my girls can’t help boasting when we’ve been together. They don’t abide by lies; you can trust the gossip where I’m concerned.”

You nodded with a mischievous smile, you knew that he was right though you didn’t like to admit it, “fine,” you relented, “you have got yourself a bet, Black,” you smiled at your friend and you shook on it. Your deal was sealed; you even had witnesses to confirm it.

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

About a week later, the marauders were patrolling the grounds, close to the pumpkin patch at Hagrid’s hut. They were finalising their plans for their newest prank and were consulting the marauder’s map. The boys chuckled as a dot labelled, ‘Marlene McKinnon’ and a dot labelled ‘Dorcas Meadowes’ were walking side by side.

“They’re so cute,” Peter sighed wistfully.

Sirius chuckled, “at least I know now why she rejected me,” Marlene McKinnon had recently come out as gay which made sense to Sirius. He was sure that a straight girl would never reject him.

James slapped him on the shoulder and snickered, “it’s been a week and you’re still sticking to the bet that you and Y/N made. I’m proud of you mate, I didn’t think it was possible.��

“Thanks Prongs,” Sirius chuckled; he was going to prove Y/N that she was wrong about him. Remus simply smirked at him knowingly. Sirius ignored his best mate as he huddled further into his jacket and looked ahead to the dark thicket of trees. He saw a familiar figure on a broomstick and he got an idea, “I’ll catch up with you lads in the common room, okay?” he didn’t wait for an answer as he strode off across the damp grass.

As he got closer, he noticed that Y/N’s hair was loose and wild, the wind whipping it around her face. Sirius decided that he liked it like that, “practising for the try-outs are we?” he called up to her, his voice getting lost in the wind.

Pretty, sparkling eyes looked down at him warily as she landed gracefully on the ground. Y/N looked away from him as she got off her broomstick, tucking it beneath her arm, “I wanted to try out for the position of seeker, I really did but after what happened in second year…” she trailed of, still refusing to look at him. This was very unlike her, she was normally snarky and cheerful.

Sirius chewed his lip; they often made fun of each other, their personalities clashed like fire and ice. But, he saw that this was important to her and he was in a perfect position to help her out. He walked over to her and took her hand, her fingers were like blocks of ice, “Y/N, look at me,” she sighed and looked up at him warily, and Sirius smiled, “I’ve decided not to join the team this year but I can help you with your confidence. I will help you become the best seeker that Hogwarts has ever known.”

Y/N slipped her hand from his and stood with her back against a tree, wrapping her arms around herself and she looked at him with narrowed eyes, “and, you would help me out of the goodness of your own heart?”

“Of course I would, you’re one of my best friends and that will never change,” he smiled, “and besides, I need something to do if I can’t date or sleep around.”

Y/N ducked her head and giggled, shooting him a pretty smile, “fine, every Friday and Saturday, leading up to the try-outs. Except for full moons, because of Remus,” she added quickly with a funny look on her face.

“Alright then,” Sirius beamed, he felt like a good Samaritan.

“Thank you Sirius, you’re not so bad after all,” she teased, back to her usual self as she pulled him into a hug. The scent of lavender and rose hung in the air long after Y/N had left the paddock and Sirius took a deep breath of it.

------------------- 

Taglist: open

@approved-by-dentists​ @thefuturelawyer​ @a-miserable-hufflepunk​ @firelordmillie​ @seriouslysiriuss​ @sleep-i-ness​

[sstrongstyle]

𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐚 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: Adam Cole x OC, mentions of Seth Rollins x OC 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: After nearly a decade of being the golden girl of WWE, Adaline Marin wants out. Their ring was no longer home, haunted by her first love and upon reaching her thirties, the face behind "Aspen Glory" wonders if the passion she once had was still ablaze. Instead, she gets sent down to NXT to join the Undisputed Era. The next three hundred and sixty-five days, all captured by cameras for the history books, become a year of revival, reinvention, and realization with her legacy at stake and a new flame from the past emerging. 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: All characters are referred to by their real life names (for the most part)

CHAPTER ONE.

August 11th, 2019

If Adaline had to force another wide smile for an Instagram selfie to celebrate the bright and beautiful Summerslam week that ended, she was going to completely lose it. The only person who seemed to notice was Trinity and, stifling a laugh at her irritated mood, went out of her way to buy Adaline a drink to help her get through the night. She shot her a relieved look, as she pretended to listen to Nattie talk about her cats for the nth time and trying to stay away from the Total Divas cameras.

"Hey, Addie!" Turning around, she saw that it was Kyle to her rescue. He was waving her over, presumably to join his table on the other side of the restaurant. There, most of the NXT roster and personnel had isolated themselves away from the other talent from Raw and Smackdown.

A thin smile stretched across her face. "I'll be back, girl." A complete lie, as Adaline patted Nattie's shoulder and got up to join her stable mates.

There was a different vibe to the NXT people; the family image and reputation that was painted on the Performance Centre residents wasn't far from the reality. Everyone under the yellow brand stuck together like glue and looked out for one another, something that Adaline hadn't felt in years. Initially, when she was assigned to the roster after nearly ten years on the "main roster," the Canadian felt somewhat insulted. Sure, they wanted a vet to guide the women's division, but she knew it was an excuse for the fact that creative had absolutely nothing for her.

And then, she found out that she was getting put with the Undisputed Era.

Austin smirked when he saw her approach. "You looked like you wanted to die over there." He pulled out a chair for her, always the gentleman.

"Those stupid camera guys put me on edge whenever they're nearby," she grumbled, sitting down in between him and Bobby with her drink still at hand.

"Smile a little. We had a good show," Austin nudged her. "Plus, we're in your hometown."

It was the late hours of Sunday night and as soon as Summerslam went off air, nearly all, if not most, of the on air employees that took part in the event, as well as Takeover, decided to go to a local bar and grill to celebrate. Raw and Smackdown were to follow in the next two days, but they wanted to gather while the NXT talent was still in Toronto. The city was alive and bustling, even dipping into the morning, and so was the entire locker room. Normally, Adaline would embrace the energy and take the time to bask in her surroundings—ever since she moved to Florida, she was rarely home.

Then, they walked in.

Kyle had impeccable timing in calling her over because Adaline was sure that she would have completely frozen up if she was still sitting with Trinity on the other side of the restaurant. As soon as she saw the flash of fiery orange hair, she completely turned her body away from the entrance in the hopes that it would appear as though she didn't notice the pairing appear at all. However, it was hard to do so when a round of greetings emerged from the crowd of wrestlers, upon realizing that the newest company power couple had walked into the room.

"Colby! Becky! Come sit here!" If anyone's voice on the entire roster was going to fill up an entire room, it was Ron Killings. It boomed and demanded attention from the entire restaurant and most people looked up, especially when it was the two biggest faces of the company.

Initially, Adaline thought the only good part about getting moved to NXT was getting away from Colby. He was the only constant in her life for the past decade and moving away to only see him once every few months was. . .different. Ever since the breakup, she wanted to completely erase him from her mind. Sure, that was the game plan for the few times they'd broken up before in the past—which, by the way, horribly failed every time and was the reason why they always seemed to crawl back to each other—but, this time was different. This time, it was for good. Adaline didn't know just how serious that promise was until she heard through the locker room grapevine about them shortly after the Royal Rumble.

"It's natural," Renee had told her one night over dinner at her house. "You guys were together since you were eighteen. Letting go of your first love is hard, especially when you see them everyday at work."

With a mouthful of broccoli, Mox had thought it would be smart to add on. "Yeah, especially when he's walking around backstage with the new chick that he's sleeping with." Though it was meant to be a lighthearted comment towards his former group members, Renee slapped her husband upside on the head for it.

At the restaurant, the only people who didn't care about the couple's appearance—or at least, pretended not to care for Adaline's sake—were her fellow Undisputed members. Bobby and Kyle continued to shovel food into their mouths. Austin didn't even flinch. While the couple entered, Christopher reached over the table to show the group a picture that his son drew of the stable.

Chris grinned. "There's Kyle and Bobby, still with the tag belts, obviously." The duo were at the front and although they were basically scribbles, you could tell which one Kyle was because of the guitar pose that the stick figure held. "There's Austin, with his luscious locks. There's me, handsome as ever. And then, there's you—"

"Um, why don't I have any hair?" Adaline deadpanned, thinking that she was supposed to be Austin in the drawing.

The boys peered over and started laughing. Adaline was clearly the only girl with a pink triangle body for a dress, but was bald. She was in the back, beside Austin, and the five of them were in a square that she assumed was a ring.

Kyle ruffled her hair. "Because you went and made it all white, obviously." The once black haired beauty went all the way in her transformation last month, when she cropped her curly hair to her chin and dyed the locks silver. It was supposed to be a little bonus to her heel turn, but ended up becoming more of a metaphor for her career and being assigned to NXT after all this time.

"Yeah, there's clearly white crayon marks," Austin pointed out.

"What? Oh. My bad." Adaline chuckled a bit, leaning back into her seat. The banter helped distract her easily and she was thankful for that.

She had her reservations about being lumped in as the token female member of a stable again. By the time it was decided that the female was going to be sent to NXT, Adaline had only just recovered from her past in The Shield and worse—Seth Rollins' arm candy. After making history as Smackdown Women's Champion, she thought that this would only be the beginning to the peak. Wrong. Adaline dropped the title to Becky at Wrestlemania and was subsequently shipped off the brand, never to be seen again, until emerging as apart of Adam Cole's crew. She was over it and she hated having sit back and let the men take the spotlight.

But, this was NXT. It was 2019. Adaline had proven that she was a valuable asset to the company, especially after her two years away to share her talents in Japan and thus, creating a deep hole in the women's division of WWE of the time. She wasn't being inserted into the stable to be eye candy or a joke. And, honestly? Adaline loved being around the other Undisputed guys. She was an equal in the group and her time with them completely exceeded her initially low expectations.

Bobby peered over at Adaline, who was just sitting there. "Are you not going to eat anything?"

"No," was all she said.

"We had a good weekend, why are you so down?" he asked, as she called a waitress over to order another virgin mojito.

Adaline was the life of the party. She was capable of shining with the brightest smile in the room, always made sure everyone was included, and was capable of sharing anecdotes that captivated the attention of the entire group. Tonight, she was a shell of that woman.

She replied, "Well, you guys had a good weekend." Adaline's dejected mood came from the fact that she didn't even have a match at Takeover, barely had an impact. It was different now that she was on NXT, knowing full well how methodical and planned out the booking was, as opposed to last minute changes done by Vince on the fly. They simply did not have a place for her on the card and she instead accompanied her members to their matches to support them from the sidelines.

"It's building, Addie and you know that," Bobby pointed out. "You're next in the title picture." And he was right. People in the higher ups were rumoured to be quite high on the Undisputed Era and they wanted all of the group members to be pushed to the top of the pyramid of the brand. They were all next in the title picture, it was only a matter of time.

However, she just wasn't used to it. After being one of the mainstays in the women's division even before the so-called Divas Revolution, Adaline was used to staying at the top. It was a little bit arrogant, but she felt like she had earned her place.

"I know, I'm sorry. I'm just a bit bummed out since everyone else seemed to have had a better time than I did." She discreetly glanced over at the other side of the restaurant, where everybody seemed to be talking about the main event that Colby, the newly crowned Universal Champion, had put on.

The waitress came back with her drink and set it down in front of the Canadian. She thanked her and began sipping on it immediately.

The only person who caught Adaline's quick look towards Colby was Kyle, who slapped her wrist to distract her. "Stop it."

"What?"

"It." Kyle pointed at her with his fork with a cocked eyebrow, causing her to giggle. He knew her too well and didn't want her to dwell on her ex any longer.

She replied. "Whatever. I'm fine," Adaline insisted.

The five talked a little bit more for the next while and it remained on the relaxing side. She chose to not rejoin her friends on the other side of the restaurant for the fear that she would have to interact with Colby. Maybe it was stupid, walking on eggshells around him after almost a year since their breakup and it wasn't always like that, but then he went and started dating her friend. The dynamic was different and Adaline didn't know how to handle it. The awkwardness was natural, but she didn't think it would last this long. She missed Becky and to an extent, Colby, too. Together, though, it wasn't the same.

Upon looking at her phone, the clock eventually had run faster than Adaline anticipated, but the establishment was still open and the WWE personnel dining were still lively and going nowhere. She, however, had an early morning flight to Chicago that she'd been dreading since it was planned. The notion of what was waiting for her at her destination caused a knot to form at the pit of her stomach—selling her house. Adaline took one last swig of her drink, swallowing it down along with the thought.

"I have to go," she announced, which left the boys groaning in protest.

This caught the attention of some of the other NXT roster members. "Don't tell me you're already going," Candice tried her best puppy dog eyes on her from the other table. "We just got here!"

Adaline smiled sadly. "I'll see you guys in Winter Park soon." The next set of tapings weren't until the end of the week, but she was planning to get back as soon as possible. That all depended on how quick the process was going to be once landing in Illinois.

It seemed like she was one of the first ones to leave, as it was still within the first hour of everybody arriving. A chorus of goodbye's followed from the crowd. She stood up.

"Be safe," Christopher said, also standing up to give her a quick hug. Among all of the Undisputed guys, Adaline saw him as a big brother figure the most. He'd known her since she was an annoying eighteen year old who demanded the wrestling world at the palm of her hand—now, she was just an annoying thirty year old who demanded it.

She hugged him back, waved at Kyle, and ruffled Bobby and Austin's hair. "Bye, boys." They responded with their own farewells, dejected that she was leaving so soon—as if the five never left each other's sides in Florida already.

The last beast of the night that Adaline had to conquer was grabbing her purse. It was abandoned when she left for the Undisputed boys and remained nestled beside Trinity at her original table. The occupants also included Jonathan, Nattie, TJ, Claudio, and Stephen. All she had to do was walk past the table before them. It wasn't that hard.

Speeding past them, Adaline could swear that she felt a burning sensation at the back of her head and she could only pray that it was just her imagination and not either Colby or Becky staring. It'd been months since they went public with their relationship and Adaline had effectively avoided talking to either one of them unless she absolutely had to. Maybe it wasn't very mature of her, but confronting that reality was painful and awkward. She tried to relax her body, remaining natural, as she approached her destination.

Claudio was the first one to notice her and must've thought that she was coming over to join them because he scooted over to leave a space for her. Instead, Adaline shook her head and instead leaned over to pick up her small purse wedged in between Nattie and Trinity.

"Already? What time is your flight?" Trinity frowned, watching her friend.

Adaline sighed. "In three hours. I'm just gonna grab my things and haul my ass straight to the airport, so I can sleep on the plane."

Another chorus of farewells emerged. The night was finally over and Adaline seemed to have the least amount of energy out of everybody in the room. Most of them had what was going to be, as it always was, a rowdy Raw show to look forward to tomorrow night. There was still a buzz in the air and she truly wanted to indulge in it, but there was just so much on her mind.

Her lack of spot on the card. Colby. Selling the house that she made home with him. Her upcoming contract negotiations. She just needed some alone time in her rental car with the windows all the way down and the music all the way up.

Maybe not alone.

Upon exiting the restaurant, the midnight summer chill planted a kiss on Adaline and she shivered slightly. That's when she felt the draping of a worn, light jacket over her shoulders. Taken aback, she turned around and was faced with Austin's icy blue eyes. He smiled slightly, his eyes disappearing into crescents.

"Hey."

She raised an eyebrow. "Hey." Then, she hadn't even realized it, but he snatched her keys away from her. "Hey!" Adaline yelled this time, but he was already gone.

Austin said, "I saw you having a drink. Better safe than sorry, right?" He'd already unlocked her rental car and she began jogging towards him.

"You really don't have to," she stated, even though she knew he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

A year ago, there was no way she could've imagined being in this position. Adaline wouldn't have even dreamed of being friends with Austin once again. Yet, she was standing here, fresh off of a Takeover of all things. She couldn't believe it. Something told her that this wasn't the end of this rollercoaster ride and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to not lose herself in the daze.

[kariachi]

Some Devin Lives AU, taking place during/after the Vendetta flashback

~~

“Gloves, whose bright idea was it to give the Osmosian gloves?” Max knelt on the floor of the ship as Devin pulled an armor of steel from it, covering himself and stabilizing the wound to his chest.

“Well, you’re pretty shit with your powers, so….” He couldn’t breathe. Devin didn’t normally end up hurt, too friendly and full of charm for people to fire on, and now- He’d never seen him grab an armor in response to a wound and he couldn’t help but think it was a bad sign.

“That’s no excuse. Unsafe working environment, this.” The alien threw him a forced, pained smile that didn’t do anything to help his panic. “If you could get us home? Would be appreciated.” Max didn’t want to move, some part of him horrified that if he went and repaired the ship, sent out a distress call, his friend of- Fuck, coming towards thirty years. It felt like forever there’d been Devin, trying to make peace between everybody, and he could well have been dying there on the floor. Seeing his hesitation, Devin’s smile faltered, his normal half-joking tone replaced with one filled with an authority that belied his personality.

“Agent Tennyson,” he ordered, “you will get us moving and report the situation now.” Still, Max hesitated a moment, but the longer he waited the less like himself Devin’s expression became, and he quickly couldn’t take it. He forced himself back to his feet and to the control panel.

“Don’t die on me,” he tried to order back, but his voice shook as too much to have the desired effect. Devin just smiled back.

“I’ll be fine for a while,” he promised. “‘m metal all the way through, so you can divert some of the life support to comms.” Much as he hated it Max was going to have to.

“If you die, I will haunt you.”

“Doesn’t work like that.”

“I’ll make it.” Devin just gave a laugh that made Max hurt and lapsed into a worryingly silence. “Devin?”

“Ya know, when I was shown my death, it was there.” The words sent a bolt of nausea through him. Oh, Devin had always talked about why he joined the Plumbers, a mission set by his gods that he’d supposedly been shown the end of. Shown his own death. Max had always brushed it off, not being a religious man himself and not really understanding the dedication he had to his, but- But that right there. “Have to assume they’ve got another plan for me now.”

“Well,” Max forced out, letting a flair of hope surge in him as the comms system came back online, “hopefully it’s for a long and happy life.” Devin laughed again, making Max flinch.

“Or at least one outside the Plumbers. Seriously, these uniforms are awful.”

[officialleehadan]

Chomp Chomp Poof

Hello darlings! This story kicks off Prompt Month! I'm so excited! I absolutely love seeing what everybody wants, and filling requests is my favorite kind of writing. 

This story was brought to you by CJessie, who has supported me longer than literally anyone, and is genuinely one of my heroes. Her prompt was:

"Little Wispy learns a horrifying new trick"

Here it is! I hope you love it!

+++  

“So, I think we may need to talk about Wispy,” Safiya signed to Vaen over their campfire. They were out in the wilds again, hunting for what was rumored to be a corrupted boar. Vaen was not at all sure they could handle a corrupted boar, but he was willing to be stupid for the right amount of money. “Mostly about how big she’s actually going to get.”

It was a fair question, all things considered. In the two months since he found her, Wispy had very nearly tripled in size, and could lope alongside them on the road for miles. Her build was very clearly the ‘wolf’ of the rest of her pack, but her paws were huge, and her apatite would have been a problem if she wasn’t happy devouring whatever monsters they caught for their bounties. 

“Her mother wasn’t that big,” Vaen said, signing along with his words as always, as much habit now as anything. He remembered the day he rescued what he thought was a baby, and which turned out to be a corruption-wolf pup. “her head would have been about level with my hip or so. Wolf-sized.”

“Wispy is going to be bigger than that. She’s already the size of a dog, and she’s still growing.”

“She might slow down in a bit.”

“She might not.”

That was… probably not as disquieting as it could be. Wispy was well on her way to being a beautifully trained little monster, who knew half a dozen of Safiya’s signs, knew Vaen’s spoken words that matched them, and would come at a finger-snap or whistle. Even Alektor thought she was useful, now that she was getting big enough to help with hunts.

It didn’t hurt that she could also follow a scent for miles. Now that they knew about that, they were training her as a scent-hound too.

(Your little eater-beast is becoming useful, I’ll give it that.)

“Her, Alektor. Wispy is a her.”

(Oh, excuse me. Your female demonic little eater beast is actually becoming useful. Do forgive me.)

Alright, so Alektor was still warming up to Wispy. 

Safiya knew the look of Vaen arguing with his Elementari by now, and wore an amused little smile when Alektor zoomed into the fire to sulk, a ball of hot blue flame in the heart of the orange glow. Wispy, who was almost completely asleep with her head in Safiya’s lap, didn’t even stir. 

“She’s getting a lot of food,” Vaen said after a while, and passed a bag of candied nuts over to Safiya, who signed ‘thank you’ and took them with a sigh. The nuts were an indulgence, but they were bringing in decent money with two hunters and a wolf and Vaen decided they deserved something sweet on the road. “More than the bad hunting that killed off most of her pack before I ever got there. And she keeps eating all the corrupted beasts we hunt. It doesn’t seem to do her any harm, she was born corrupted, but who knows?”

“Think she’s going to get big enough to ride?” Safiya’s signs got short with excitement and her eyes brightened. Wispy, disturbed by the bouncing, whined and abandoned Safiya’s lap for Vaen’s. “I heard stories about the corruption-wolves o the far north, and how they get huge.”

“I hope not,” Vaen said profoundly, and tilted his head when Wispy went still all at once, focused on something in the bushes. She didn’t ‘point’ the way a hunting dog did, but it wasn’t hard to read her body language when something had her attention. “Hang on.”

“Do you hear anything?” Safiya signed, already reaching for her staff. Being deaf, she relied on Vaen and Wispy to be her ears. “What is it?”

“Don’t know,” Vaen told her, switching to sign in case it was bandits. Most people could understand common, but Safiya’s sign-language was indecipherable to anyone who didn’t already know it. Useful, when they needed to talk, but noise was a danger. “Don’t hear anything. Let me see-“

Wispy lunged forward, utterly silent, and vanished in a puff of blue-glowing smoke.

Vaen stared at the empty air that, a moment ago, contained his wolf.

Something, which fortunately did not sound human, shrieked in the bushes.

Vaen went for his sword, muttering a curse, as Alektor dove into their shared magic and spread warmth to his palms, ready to use. Safiya braced herself, a deft hand with her carved staff, and a formidable fighter herself.

The bushes rustled furiously.

They braced themselves, ready for a fight.

The shriek cut off suddenly.

The bushes rustled again, and parted as Wispy emerged, tail-first, dragging something that was very nearly her own size, growling in a way that sounded very pleased with herself. When she got closer, Vaen recognized her burden as one of the corrupted rodents that tended to haunt the edges of town. They could be dangerous in packs, eternally hungry, and bold when they had the numbers to back themselves up. 

Wispy’s jaws were locked around the creature’s neck, and her cheeks bulged as her inner set of jaws took heaping bites out of the corpse. She dragged it over and deposited it,, entirely dead but still twitching, at Vaen’s feet. Bloody to the neck, tongue lolling out of both sets of jaws, she cocked her head and looked up at him, ears perked proudly. 

(Your eater-beast can teleport.)

“Uh,” Vaen said intelligently, and leaned down to scratch behind Wispy’s ears, careful to avoid the blood spatters. “Seems like. Good girl, Wispy. Wait.”

Immediately, the little wolf dropped her butt to the dirt and planted herself. ‘Wait’ was her very first command, and made sure that they had time to harvest their kills for anything useful before she ate them. Now, however, it gave Vaen time to drag the rodent out of the way, where Wispy could eat it without spattering them, or any of their gear. “Go ahead.”

With a happy yip, Wispy lunged, for her kill, vanished into glowing blue smoke, and reappeared on top of her kill, where she happily settled down to eat it, crunching through bones as easily as she did everything else, with every evidence of enjoyment.

Vaen could only shake his head, and took his seat again.

It was always something.

+++

EA - The Oathbreakers:

All of them have secrets. All of them are failures. Unfortunately, they’re the world’s last, best, hope.

Successful Failure

Boom Town

Flower Boom (Free on Patreon!)

Bone Sign (Subscriber Only!)

+++

More Stories!

+++

[sheeple]

Real thing | 3: Mr Qian

GIFS NOT MINE. THIS IS ALL FICTION. Genre(s): mafia!au / hacker!au Group(s): NCT Pairing(s): Qian Kun x fem!reader / Jung Jaehyun x fem!reader Summary: (Y/n), a college student who joined WayV ─ an international crime organization ─ for some extra cash as one of their hackers. But what happens when she gets mixed up in a lot more heavy stuff than only sitting behind a computer and disabling security cameras? Warning(s): Just mafia stuff / light torture / kidnapping [Masterlist] [Mini masterlist]

I wake up with my hands and feet tied to a chair and a lot of questions. For one, where the heck am I? Who took me? For how long was I out? Why am I here?

A door behind me opens and it makes a sound of very heavy metal. It slams closed as massive footsteps circle around me, a shiver runs up and down my spine.

A guy with dark hair and broody eyes grabs a chair from somewhere out of the room and places it in front of me, with its back towards me and sits on it. 

I know this guy from somewhere but I can’t put my finger on it.

“Well, well, well”, he says, cocking his head to the side. “Look who we have here.”

I bite on the inside of my cheek and frown. “Do I know you? I feel like I know you from somewhere.” I study him better but still can’t figure it out.

He looks too old to be in one of my lectures and too... rough looking to be a friend of a friend. Maybe he’s part from a gang? Could be WayV? Or maybe the one Jaehyun’s from.

“Go stand outside Winwin”, says a disembodied voice and I freeze in fear. I know that voice...

“Good afternoon, miss Zela. Or should I call you (Y/n)?”

I suck in my breath when I see Mr Qian take place on the chair in front of me. He doesn’t really look pleased, a pair of cold eyes boring directly into mine.

“S... Sir”, I nod with a slightly uncomfortable smile knowing I’m in deep shit right now.

“I’m going to keep it short since I don’t have all day. For who do you work?”

“For you, Sir.” My breathing starts to become more erratic and panicked. I do not know what will happen if Qian doesn’t believe me.

He angrily throws the chair across the room before turning towards me and he grabs my hair to pull my head back. “Don’t fucking lie to me, I don’t like when I get lied to”, he hisses.

“I- I don’t! I only work for you, Sir!” I start to shake and pray to God that either Lucas or Yangyang come bursting through that door to save my ass.

“Then how did you know of the poison in the food?” Qian looks deeply in my eyes with the coldest look I’ve ever seen. 

“The two who were assigned to poison you are idiots. They were talking about it just in the hallway of my college.”

Qian reaches in the pocket of his leather jacket and pulls out a knife and presses the blade against the skin of my neck while jerking my head even further back if that’s even possible. 

I let out a yelp of pain as tears start to form in my eyes, blurring the furious looking Qian.

A loud bang on the door makes Qian look up before another person throws the door open. “Stop!”, yells Lucas and he hurries towards us. He comes into view followed by Yangyang and pushes Qian away from me. 

Yangyang quickly starts to undo the zip ties that hold me in place and looks at my face with worry in his eyes. “You’re bleeding...”, he points out and I reach with shaking hands for my neck to discover that Qian pushed the blade a bit too harsh against my skin - or more into my skin.

Lucas gives me a handkerchief and makes me push is against my neck. “Are you okay?” 

I nod blankly with a shaky breath. “I... I guess? How did you found me?” I turn towards Yangyang and he shows me a red dot on his phone screen. 

“That tracker I put on your phone.”

“You put a tracker in me?!”, I say with wide eyes and he bites his lip, looking away. 

“It doesn’t matter right now, come on let’s get you home.” Lucas reaches out his hand for me to take and he pulls me out of the room, Yangyang wrapping an arm around me for support and warmth.

“Absolutely not! You think you can just barge into the room and take her away?” To be honest, Mr Qian sounds far over furious. 

“Look, Kun, I don’t fucking care. She’s one of us and innocent. She’s actually helping us, all right?” Lucas turns around and looks at me with a look saying that I have to explain. 

“Ah-ah yes! I’m currently worming myself into one of the suspects’ life! Make sure he trusts me enough to share some secrets.”

“And who gave you permission for it?” Qian folds his arms over each other and looks really unimpressed at it all. 

“Nobody. I saw my chance and took it.” Without another look, I walk out of the room supported by Yangyang.

That night I could hardly get any sleep of course. The events from that day kept playing over and over. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Qian again so I stayed up, drinking too much coffee that it isn’t even healthy anymore.

The day after is also not really working for me. The lessons are long, everybody’s constantly bumping into me, and I almost fell asleep three times during every class. 

Imagine how happy I am as I take place on my usual spot in the back of Mechatronics and lay my head on my backpack.

“Hey, you okay?”, questions Jaehyun as he places his stuff on the empty space next to me. 

I let out a groan and turn my head around, facing him. “I haven’t slept in almost fourteen hours...”

Jaehyun frowns. “That’s... really bad for your health. Did something happen?”

I chew on my bottom lip as I see him looking at me with great concern in his eyes. I can’t tell him that my boss kidnapped and lightly tortured me because he was thinking I worked against him. 

“I erm... my neighbours are... really loud... while doing you know.” I almost facepalm myself at the stupid excuse that comes out of my mouth. I was better off by telling him it was nightmares. 

Jaehyun’s face is for a second twisted in confusion before his face falls and he looks horrified. “That’s so gross! Why can’t people just be quiet when they... you know?” He whispers the last part.

“I’ve been asking myself the same question, dude.” I finally raise my head off my bag to take out my laptop and notebook when Mrs Shin walks into the classroom.

“Hey, if you want to ─ I don’t know ─ lean on my shoulder to get some sleep, I’ll gladly take some notes for you. So don’t worry and close your eyes for a bit.”

I smile gratefully and let my head drop against his shoulder and close my eyes without him saying it two times. An offer like this is rare.

“Where even is Doyoung?”, I mumble softly, half asleep.

Jaehyun chuckles and strokes a strand of hair away from my face. “He’s sick today, something to do with the flu or something.”

I answer with a hum and quickly doze off, finding that Qian for the first time since last night doesn’t haunt me in my dreams. 

Jaehyun wakes me up once the class has ended and I shoot up, wide awake. 

“I- he- what?!”, I ask, not really knowing where I am. But I see the desks, the teacher, and Jaehyun. I quickly realize that I’m still in class and a blush spreads over my cheeks.

“You okay?”, he questions with a small smile on his lips and I nod sheepishly. We pack up our things and walk out of the class while saying Mrs Shin goodbye. 

“I hope I didn’t snore”, I joke, scratching the back of my head. Yangyang has told me countless times that I snore. Imagine that I snored and that while I slept on him! Oh gosh...

“Nah, you slept like a baby. Quite cute, actually.” 

I stop in my tracks and look at him in disbelieve. He’s so... smooth. 

“I erm... thank you for taking notes... and letting me use your shoulder as a pillow.”

Jaehyun holds his hand open and motions a ‘come closer’ sign. “Give me your phone.”

I hesitantly give it to him and he starts to type away on it. “I’ll put my number and email in your contacts so if you ever need me, I’m just one call away. And don’t hesitate to call when something’s wrong”, Jaehyun looks into my eyes and I nod hastily. 

“There”, he says before handing me my phone back, “now I have your number and email too.” Jaehyun holds up his phone and I see that he has sent himself a text with my own contact information. 

We walk towards the parking space and I fetch my keys out of my bag. “Thank you. See you Monday?”, I question, smiling slightly towards the guy. 

“See you Monday”, he smiles back with a nod. “And remember, call me okay?”

“Okay.”

Jaehyun turns around and walks towards his car. I wave one last time before stepping into mine and driving away. A heavy breath leaves my lips. I’m just in but it feels like the stakes are really high.

[kiruuuuu]

Thank you for both your kind words as well as that wonderful mental image, anon 💝 :) I’m hella excited you enjoy this ship as well, so I hope you like reading about Blackbeard slowly going mad! (Rating T, BB sure loves rambling, ~4.8 words) - this contains references to underage sex!

.

Goyo is slowly but surely driving him insane.

The man is a fucking enigma. He might as well wear a question mark as his face because it’d tell Blackbeard just as much about his current mood or thoughts or expectations or hopes or fears as his actual face does (though he’s glad Goyo’s face is his actual face, seeing as it’s quite nice to look at, which isn’t to imply he’d like Goyo any less if he had no face, but it’d make kissing him a lot more complicated).

When he met him, Blackbeard thought him to be one of those quiet, cool guys who are just good at their job, and when they’re not at their job, they phase from existence because their job is all they are. Which is fine with Blackbeard. Some of his colleagues are like that: when anyone asks them about their hobbies, they’re hard pressed to come up with a reply since work isn’t a hobby, and neither is preparing for work.

But the moment Goyo first opened his mouth, Blackbeard realised his first impression couldn’t have been more wrong, because he sounds calm and sophisticated and confident and it instantly throws him off kilter. No, this isn’t some genius, this is one of those dudes who can’t take a joke, who think themselves better than everybody else, who react to things they deem profane not with honest opinions but rather thinly-veiled condescension, and they’re the worst. They’re the ones with whom Blackbeard has never gotten along, seeing as he was never sure whether they kept him around to secretly make fun of him, or out of misplaced pity, or to become more popular, or because they’re too awkward to be openly rude.

They’re the ones he can’t read. They never laugh along. They quietly sit next to him until someone calls on them and then they effortlessly trump him with whatever they have to say.

He justified his own actions with the excuse of ‘at least I’m being sincere’ for the longest time. He doesn’t like them, and so he shows it, meaning everyone knows where they’re at. After he’s declared his dislike, some kind of arrangement is made, and they never have to speak to each other again (only he had trouble keeping away because it is kinda gratifying to watch them squirm in discomfort) – and clearly, it’s better than putting up a front made up of false niceties and fake smiles which doesn’t hold up for a second longer as soon as they’re not in the same room anymore.

These days, he’s come to a different conclusion. They simply worried him.

Some of them bested him in various disciplines, causing him to push himself harder because he didn’t want to be left behind and because he can’t let someone he doesn’t like overtake him. Their indifference towards him left him insecure since he’s a people pleaser at heart, wants to be loved and admired by everybody and simply had absolutely no fucking clue how he could get them to like him. And he always thought this sentiment was universal: everyone wants to be popular, don’t they? All humans want to be liked. Only these specific people’s very existence threatened this world view. They didn’t want to be liked by everybody. So what did it mean that they got to the same place as Blackbeard, when he obeyed all the rules and played all the games? Conventions exist for a reason, and shouldn’t be ignored like that.

So yes. Goyo was one of those.

Except he wasn’t. Thermite found him hilarious. Pulse developed a sudden interest in Goyo’s field of expertise. Ash invited him out for drinks. Valkyrie appreciated his earnest nature (and really, what the hell?). The only one with whom Goyo pointedly didn’t interact was Blackbeard.

And they kept going on about how friendly he was, and how well he fit in, and Blackbeard didn’t understand. Stared hard at this mystery of a man and just didn’t understand. Goyo wasn’t stand-offish. He obeyed some rules and played most games, just not Blackbeard's favourite ones, and neither did he let him provoke him, which deprived Blackbeard of the satisfaction of making him uncomfortable as well. What the fuck was he supposed to do with that?

But there was another problem. He’s gay.

It’s a can of worms he’d prefer not to open – if his mind was a house, then he’d shoved all of… that down the stairs into the basement, never to be seen again, collecting dust and sitting untouched. (It’s only recently that he’s begun clearing some of it out, airing it, finding use for it in the living room or somewhere else.) And whenever he learnt that anyone in his vague vicinity was gay, the door slammed open and something yelled at him really loudly the two words which would haunt him for a few weeks:

WHAT IF.

Dumb. Useless.

Disruptive, even, it’s not like he’d do anything, it’s not like the guy would do anything, it’s unlikely to be a topic between them, and still he wonders what it’d be like to kiss whoever was unfortunate enough to haunt Blackbeard for a while. This happens with everyone. Intrusive thoughts he can’t for the life of him control. They do fade the longer he knows the person, fortunately, but in the beginning, whenever the name is mentioned, his brain flashes him a question à la what would it feel like to hug him. Never has he acted on it, nor has he confessed this to anyone, which… likely made it worse, alright, now he knows it, but as a terrified navy officer, his main concern wasn’t whether he might regret neglecting that unwanted basement in his head later in life.

He made a point of never joking about it. Not he himself, at least. Not about this. If anyone ever noticed, they didn’t mention it to him.

In any case, there was the fact that Goyo was there and not going to go away any time soon, and he was gay, and really handsome. The tingly kind of handsome. The car crash kind, making it impossible to look away, with his stupid beard and the weird, sexual way he sits, and how he twirls his pens around without even realising. His smile is…

Blackbeard didn’t want to label him with anything past handsome, not pretty or attractive or (god forbid) hot, because it fell too well in line with the WHAT IF still regularly being screamed at him, despite the weeks they’ve spent as acquaintances already, and for some reason, this time, it doesn’t go away.

With other colleagues, it vanished very quickly, but Goyo? Goyo starts appearing in his dreams. Just once or twice, really, nothing compromising, a few words exchanged or a laugh (and he’s seen him laugh in Valkyrie’s presence, and dear fucking lord), but it has an uncomfortable side effect.

His brain convinces him he has some kind of claim on him. Nothing insane, not like he thinks Goyo owes him anything, and yet… He knows Goyo is single, so he should appreciate any offer he gets, and Blackbeard is certain Goyo would prefer if they got along better anyway, and besides, Blackbeard is a catch, right? He’s good-looking, funny, skilled, forthright, adventurous – nothing to scoff at. Surely it’s enough to warrant a try.

And when he’s instantly shot down, he realises that he can’t read this man at all.

.

Unfortunately for both of them, it’s a recurring theme in their interactions. Even after a while, even after Blackbeard has noticed Goyo’s lips thinning when he disapproves of something, or that his ‘yeah it’s fine’ is sometimes nothing more than a passive-aggressive ‘I’d prefer something else’, even then he doesn’t know the source of it. Because Goyo just doesn’t fucking talk to him.

The basics are there.

Not only that, the basics are great and Blackbeard is fully aware of it: both of them are putting effort into their relationship. He once heard it’s the single most important aspect of anything meant to last, and his prior relationships seem to support this claim – and hands down, both of them are committed to this. There’s not a single day without any type of contact, whether it’s texting, a short call, or meeting up, Goyo keeps track of what he likes to eat and cooks accordingly, Blackbeard brings small gifts, they pay each other compliments which are heartfelt and earnest, and they compromise on how they spend their time together. They’re comfortable around each other. He looks forward to seeing him every day that he does.

And there’s the whole… other stuff. All of which leaves Blackbeard flustered whenever he even thinks about it, and he’ll say this much: Goyo is infinitely more passionate than he would’ve expected. Generous, too. And really, really good.

That said, this is where the ‘but’ comes in (and no, he’s not referring to the fun part anymore).

Goyo can’t fucking communicate. It’s driving Blackbeard up the walls. He’s totally incapable of putting his emotions into words, which makes no sense at all. Once they started dating and Goyo opened up more, the complaints began, and honestly? Blackbeard was delighted. Because Goyo didn’t just nag, he pointed out aspects which bothered him in a constructive way and either suggested a solution or appreciated it when Blackbeard corrected it himself – or he was satisfied with a compromise. Maybe not always satisfied, there are still unresolved issues like him being inept to show up on time, ever, and insisting he’s in the right, but even then he doesn’t make a big fuss over it. Banter, yes. Some teasing. Remarks delivered with a grin. Tongue-in-cheek comments. Blackbeard does exactly the same, so he respects it.

In the past, it’s happened a few times that his current girlfriend was unhappy about something but didn’t mention it, not really, not to the point where Blackbeard would’ve realised it to be as serious as it turned out to be. Instead, her dissatisfaction grew and grew, in one instance accompanied by contempt, and eventually came an outburst he couldn’t have prevented if he tried, seeing as he knew nothing about it. Having a partner this vocal about problems is refreshing.

But there are certain topics Goyo doesn’t mention. Or moments where he simply clams up. It’s impossible to tell when it’ll happen or why, but now and then Goyo gets utterly lost in his own thoughts (or at least that’s what Blackbeard thinks is happening), and then he either loses the thread of their conversation entirely, or takes forever to reply. Blackbeard gets incredibly antsy whenever he receives no reaction, so his boyfriend doing it to him is twice as bad. He’s aware Goyo lives inside his head a lot of the time, sure, and as a result, almost everything he says is well thought through and genuine (at least the non-sarcastic bits), but for him, it’s difficult to deal with nonetheless. He often panics during those pauses and wonders whether he’s done something wrong and Goyo is currently trying to work out how to break it to him.

And when it comes to Goyo’s feelings, he’s a lost cause. Blackbeard doesn’t doubt for a second that Goyo spends a good portion of his time analysing himself and introspecting, it’s just… he doesn’t seem to be very good at it.

That, or he also has a basement full of dusty, forgotten, pushed-away objects.

Goyo thinks himself ‘sociable enough’. It’s how he himself expressed it. Blackbeard begs to differ, and strongly so: Goyo hardly ever seeks out other people, regularly turns down invitations as well and is awfully quiet in groups, not to mention he takes forever to warm up to people (and there’s the not-so-small matter about his lack of punctuality too). Blackbeard finds his behaviour quite rude a lot of the time and is pretty sure the others only give Goyo the benefit of the doubt to be nice.

He says of himself that he’s not very demanding, only to keep demanding things of Blackbeard. More touching. More housework. Less gym time. No shaving. More spontaneity (and he seems to overlook the obvious irony in telling someone to be spontaneous).

This is another thing: he keeps disrupting Blackbeard's daily schedule without feeling a shred of guilt over it. Calling at inopportune times, trying to keep him in bed in the morning, suddenly wanting to eat lunch a specific place, changing plans they made weeks ago a few minutes before leaving. It’s like he’s testing Blackbeard's patience and adaptability.

And the worst thing of all is simultaneously also the best thing: Blackbeard really, really, really likes him.

If he were a dog, his tail wouldn’t stop wagging for a second in Goyo’s presence. His brain fills with exclamation marks any time he sees him. Any compliments Goyo has ever paid him play on repeat, his smile is the last image Blackbeard sees before he goes to sleep, and he’s the first person he texts whenever anything happens. He has no idea what caused Goyo’s change of heart, what made him give Blackbeard a chance, but he’s endlessly grateful it happened. The fluttering in his stomach still hasn’t stopped when they’re spending quality time together, and his heart thumps twice as fast whenever they kiss. It’s the worst crush of his life and he doesn’t even know how it developed.

When he wants to be, Goyo is exceedingly witty, charming, supportive, empathetic, patient, loving, trusting. They’ve had a long conversation about sexuality which corrected some of the preconceptions Blackbeard still held, and at no point did he feel patronised, alienated, or uncomfortable. It’s probably what keeps them together: the knowledge they respect and trust each other. Goyo knows he’d never knowingly hurt his feelings, and he believes the same of Goyo. Jealousy is no topic between them, and boundaries are regularly drawn, re-drawn, negotiated, accepted. (Though not nearly as often as Blackbeard would’ve liked. He’s aware Goyo can feel suffocated sometimes and would prefer them to talk it out properly, but it’s one of the topics Goyo usually deflects.)

.

With how communicative Blackbeard is, he’s suffered from the lack of outside feedback on their relationship. Asking for advice is out of the question as no one else knows he’s dating anyone, and not being able to gush about the way Goyo sometimes wraps himself around him when they’re watching something on his bed kills him a little inside. He wants to share it all, the good and the bad, seeks reassurance on everything he’s doing and desires normality. A state where he can throw in ‘oh yes, my boyfriend mentioned it the other day’ without earning any kind of odd reaction. A world where the others ask him about how Goyo is doing, and whether they’ve been to this restaurant yet, and so on.

He knows that he himself is the only obstacle in this, but his track record in Rainbow hasn’t been the best and he’s worried the girls will call him out on hitting on them with no intention of starting a relationship. Which wouldn’t actually be far off the mark, unfortunately. Valkyrie is his best bet since they’re thick as thieves, but she’s been side-eyeing him for a while already and he’s pretty sure she suspects something. He hates when she can go ‘I told you so’ and be right about it.

Regardless, he’s going to explode if he can’t talk about Goyo to someone soon, and Vigil will certainly not want to hear about how ticklish his Mexican colleague is.

.

“Meghan, I need to tell you something”, he blurts out, startling his best friend and nearly causing her to drop her beer. They’re on Buck’s balcony, holding on to cans as if they were their lifeline to what little bit of their sanity is left after everyone heard Maverick suggest bodyshots earlier (only half jokingly), and then Castle murdered everyone by showing off photos of his newly adopted puppy. Even Blackbeard was squealing like a little girl. He really should look into adopting a dog himself. He wonders whether Goyo likes dogs.

“Don’t tell me you want to join Sanaa on her odyssey”, Valkyrie interrupts his thoughts, looking worried. “They’re all trying to deter her for a reason, we don’t need you encouraging -”

“What are you talking about?”, he interrupts her, aghast, and once her words have sunk in, he repeats: “No, really, what are you talking about? That sounds amazing. I wanna be a part of it. Where is she going?”

“Craig.”

Odd. Goyo sounds almost the same whenever he’s displeased. Blackbeard should text him about the dog later. “Yes. Where was I?”

“You made a vague threat.”

He blinks at her for a moment, mind blank. Goyo has said before that alcohol causes his brain to misfire, and he’s beginning to believe it. “Oh. Yes. Meghan, I’m dating someone. And don’t be smug, okay? I can’t deal with smug right now.”

Valkyrie’s lips twitch in amusement. “Would you like supportive? That’s great! I’m so happy for you! I hope it’s going wonderful, you really deserve it!”

“You’re the worst”, he informs her, prompting a laugh.

“It’s been a while already, hasn’t it?” He nods. He supposes it’s obvious to anyone who knows him well enough, and Valkyrie certainly does. After all, he can’t stop smiling on some days and must look like a lunatic. Maybe he should send a nice text first so Goyo knows he thought of him. “I figured. How is it going and why is it César?”

He chokes on his beer. She doesn’t even have the grace to look guilty while he’s busy coughing his lungs out, and when he makes an inquisitive sound, she even smirks. It was bad enough to learn that Smoke and Mute found out about their relationship (and he’s still not entirely sure about whether they found out on their own or Goyo helped a bit), and now it turns out Valkyrie knew all along?

“Don’t worry, no one else knows. But neither of you were very subtle about it to me. You kept asking about him, he kept asking about you… plus you’ve been really nice to him recently.”

Oh. He asked about Blackbeard? This is relevant information. He opens his mouth to inquire some more, but Valkyrie adds casually: “And he at least is openly gay. Very open. Remember how he mentioned his male ex-fiancé on the first day? He really didn’t allow for any ambiguity.”

And hold up. Blackbeard's brain struggles to process what it just heard. Wait.

Wait what.

.

There are two cans cooking on the stove.

Blackbeard is failing to grasp reality right now. He dumbly stares at the two unlabelled metal cans sitting in boiling water and doesn’t understand what’s happening. He doesn’t understand much of what’s going on at the moment anyway, and he’s fairly sure it’s not just the alcohol’s fault. The water bubbles happily around the objects, and time and space are collapsing around him.

“Hey, Bee”, comes a familiar voice from behind him and he’s embraced in a tight hug, lips planting themselves on his shoulder a few times before he’s released again. “You’re back early.”

“Jack’s apartment flooded. A few went with him to help, but Meghan dropped me off here. The hell are you making? Tin-flavoured soup?”

Goyo laughs and though the sound would normally flood him with endorphins, right now he just eyes the other man with a frown. “No, it’s dulce de leche.”

Blackbeard tries and fails to put the delicious caramel-like substance in any relation to what’s happening before him, though he does file something away for later perusal: he should ask Goyo to speak more Spanish around him. He might be onto something there. “How?”

“Sweetened condensed milk. When you boil it long enough, it turns into gooey ambrosia. You mentioned how you were looking for new ideas for ice cream – swirl this into anything and blow everyone’s minds.”

Oh. That does sound delicious, and the fact that Goyo is staying up late to do him a favour is also heartwarming, but the question burning on Blackbeard's tongue will not sit idly for a second longer. He asks: “Why did you never tell me of your ex-fiancé?”

Goyo, checking out the timer next to the pot, responds with another question without lifting his gaze: “Oh. Which one?”

He can’t be serious. Blackbeard waits, fully expecting him to be joking, but he seems genuinely surprised at Blackbeard's dumbstruck expression when he finally does look up. “I’ve had a turbulent past involving a few poor decisions”, he admits and something tells Blackbeard there’s a good possibility this is a massive understatement. “Is that a problem?”

Is it? He’s not entirely sure. The fact that he had to hear about it from Valkyrie might be one, and then there’s his crumbling impression of Goyo as someone largely sensible. He comes across as well-mannered, composed, logical – though Blackbeard has noticed most of these waver over time. The deeper he dives, the more of the iceberg he sees. “You just… seemed like someone who has his life together”, he says weakly. Goyo has friends and family who care about him, is comfortable in his own skin, good at his job.

His words are mulled over for a while with pursed lips, until Goyo decides: “I suppose I do. Except for my love life.”

“You did say at one point that all relationships you had were long, meaningful and deep. So I figured…”

“My relationships were mostly great, yes. Anything that doesn’t fall into that category, well”, and Goyo makes an uncertain hand gesture which, once again, fills Blackbeard with a sense of foreboding dread as it screams understatement. “I did start out by paying a guy to fuck me.”

Blackbeard has no clue how to react, and so he chooses to stare at his boyfriend in horror.

“Yeah. Life was tough where I grew up. This super hot straight dude caught wind of me being a reliable source of cigarettes and asked me about it. I convinced him to fuck me for smokes – which I was buying with my allowance money, I think.”

“Allowance”, Blackbeard echoes stupidly. “Wait, how old were you?”

“I think fifteen, why does it matter, Bee?”

“How old was the dude?!”

“Early twenties? Thinking about it, he really should’ve handled his finances better.”

Blackbeard is in shock. “So… he took advantage of you. Lightly said.” Very lightly.

To his utter disbelief, Goyo simply frowns and shakes his head. “What? No. It was my idea. I had to talk him into it.”

“Yeah but – you were a minor. He was an adult, he shouldn’t have -”

“Did you miss the part where he not only sold his body for some cigs but also let a teenager get the better of him? What about that makes it seem like he’d fell any reasonable decisions in his life?”

“Did you report him? Did he get arrested?” He can’t wrap his head around why Goyo seems so calm talking about this.

“Huh? Not for sleeping with me, no. He was a thieving piece of shit though, so he did end up in jail.”

“Stop defending him, do you really think he did nothing wrong?”

Goyo eyes him curiously. “Do you think that he did?”

And of course. Of course he does, it’s not just personal opinion with this kind of shit, it’s a fact that an adult exploited Goyo and how does he not see it? How can he view it any other way? Blackbeard has trouble putting his outrage in words, so he attempts a different angle: “Are you saying you’d be alright with someone else who’s twenty sleeping with a teenager who’s -”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Generally, of course not. But we’re talking about me here. I know what happened. I can assess it from my point of view.”

“But you were too young -”

“You don’t get to rewrite my past”, Goyo interrupts him sharply and so Blackbeard shuts up, dissatisfied. Next to them, the kitchen timer erupts into frantic beeping, prompting Goyo to turn the heat off, pluck the cans out of the pot with a pair of tongs and put them on a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, Blackbeard tries to decide whether all this changes how he sees the man before him. He’s not sure.

“Laws are in place for a reason and I’d be the first one to tell any teenager not to do what I did”, Goyo continues, directed at the slightly steaming metal. “But what I did happened and it was what I really wanted at the time. We do stupid things when we’re young. You don’t get to judge me for it. Only I can, and I’m not.”

It’s hard to relate. Blackbeard wouldn’t say he grew up sheltered, but certainly privileged, and though there’s plenty of stuff he did which he’d advise against, there’s none he’d defend like this. Except Goyo might be explaining instead of defending. He refuses to condemn while still being aware of the shady circumstances.

“Look, Bee, no one got hurt. Quite the opposite. Let’s leave it at that and go to bed, hm?” Goyo kisses him briefly before exiting the kitchen, already pulling his shirt over his head and exposing his toned back in the process. The sight awakens a strong urge to touch, but not in a sexual way – Blackbeard is filled with a comfortable sense of belonging instead. He knows what Goyo’s smooth skin feels like and that he’s free to caress it as much as he wants. It’s one of his favourite perks of any relationship: being allowed to show physical affection.

A little lost and still dazed from their previous topic, he trails after his lover and watches Goyo strip down to his underwear in the bedroom. “I wasn’t planning on going to sleep immediately”, he says, knowing full well he’ll climb in after Goyo regardless.

“We don’t have to sleep.”

Blackbeard stares at him blankly, thoughts continuously trying to process their conversation.

“I’ll read a bit and you can text some people. You told Meghan about us, didn’t you? She sent me a single message an hour ago which just said good luck.”

It seems this would be all Goyo has to say on the matter of his sexual past for now, and Blackbeard belatedly realises that he avoided mentioning his ex-fiancé (ex-fiancés??) entirely, so he should prepare for a similar talk in the near future. It’s become a habit of theirs which he genuinely doesn’t like – they address a topic, argue, and then drop it without a satisfying conclusion, without being on the same page. Most of the time, it ends up merely postponing the issue as it inevitably comes up again, though he does suppose there’s some merit in being able to think it through on his own before tackling it again. Both of them can be quite stubborn, and a break to sort their thoughts (and in Blackbeard's case, engage some outside advice) is beneficial.

So maybe it’s not so bad to not ruin the night with something they’ll ultimately refuse to agree on, and instead cuddle in bed.

Goyo becomes a temporary magnet in these instances, impossible to pry off, and Blackbeard has no choice but to hold him tight and bask in his body heat. Not like he’d want anything other than exactly this.

“Was it scary?”, Goyo mutters into his hair while stroking his back. They’ll separate soon and wind down in their own way before sleeping, but right now they just enjoy each other’s presence.

“She already knew I’m bi. She likes you and I trust her. Why would it be scary?”

“Still. It’s fine if it was.”

Blackbeard is silent for a minute. “A bit”, he admits and feels Goyo’s lips stretch into a smile.

“I’m glad it seemed to have gone well. And I’m proud of you.”

And this, this is why Blackbeard basically fawns over this bastard all day in his head. His heart throbs and he pulls Goyo even closer, relieved that the prior revelations apparently don’t make a difference between them. Goyo is right, the past can’t be changed, but neither does it need to dictate the present. “It did go well, she said you’d be good for me on the way here. She also mentioned you asking about me.”

Goyo chuckles. “You know, the first thing I ever asked about you was whether you’ve got a wife.”

And it’s a relief to hear that not only Blackbeard used to be terrible at reading him.

[miraculouslbfangirl]

5 - The weight of being the Guardian

AO3

1   2   3   4   6

Chapter 5 - A peek into Adrien’s mind

Adrien wanted to smash his phone when his alarm went off. He had no idea how long he had slept, he just knew that it wasn’t much. After arriving at home he closed himself in the bathroom dismissing Plagg’s worries.

He had gone on patrol to try to sort out his feelings. His relationship with Kagami was becoming serious and she was getting impatient. She had given him an ultimatum before they parted ways in the afternoon. He wanted to move on, he really did. Ladybug had made it blatantly clear that she didn’t love him that way. However, he couldn’t help that nagging feeling that she could love him if she knew who he was under the mask. The times he interacted with her as Adrien and even as Aspik had fostered that feeling.

When she told him that he had to reveal himself to her but wouldn’t be allowed to know her identity he was disappointed, but the thought of finally being able to prove his theory kept him from getting angry. His hopes had been crushed, though. Her reaction took him by surprise and he was at a loss for what to do or think. The way she motivated him to take things further with Kagami hurt, yet gave him the closure he needed.

He was surprised to discover that all the other miraculous holders were his friends. The reason Ladybug gave him was plausible albeit suspicious. He decided that he would let that slide for the sake of his sanity. Then she had to mention his time as Aspik.

It felt like ripping a barely cured wound. The sting of her saying that they didn’t need Chat Noir and the memories of those thousands of failures had haunted his nights for weeks. It was his worst nightmare coming to life: being replaced, even if it was by himself, and losing her. He couldn’t stay close to her any longer or else she would see him cry. He made up an excuse and ran away, but not before he teased her to lessen her concern.

Adrien managed to keep the tears at bay until the bathroom door had been closed. He spent hours there, sitting on the cold floor and trying to calm down enough to not attract an akuma. If there was one thing he didn’t need at the moment was to make Ladybug fight him. He had a feeling that he wouldn’t be an easy akuma to defeat.

At some point he went to bed, being careful to not wake up Plagg. He stared at the ceiling for a long while and eventually fell asleep.

Adrien splashed his face to get rid of the sleepiness. A look at the mirror and the necessity of makeup was evident. He could only hope that Nathalie wouldn’t notice the redness in his eyes when he went downstairs for breakfast.

The night had been rough but he felt relieved. He had no idea of how much keeping all those feelings bottled up had weighed him down until now. There was also the fact that he finally felt ready to move on from Ladybug.

“Are you feeling better, kid?” Plagg asked as soon as Adrien left the bathroom. The mask of perfection already in place, Plagg knew better.

“Yeah, but I’m worried about Ladybug,” Adrien said with a scowl marring his face.

“What’s the problem with her?” Plagg had talked to Tikki enough to know that Adrien’s concern wasn’t unfounded; he was surprised that Adrien could see past his own problems, though.

“I don’t know. It’s just… she seems overwhelmed. She displayed so many emotions yesterday and tried to cover them up with jokes and fake smiles.” Adrien sat on the bed and threw his back onto the mattress, arms under his head.

“Just like you do?” The boy just sent Plagg a lopsided smile and returned his gaze to the ceiling.

“I think that I was so focused on my own feelings that I didn’t pay attention to hers. She has not only become the Guardian, but she’s lost Master Fu too. She had him as a friend. I can't forget that.”

“Wayzz said that she misses him a lot, but he and Tikki are supporting her as best as they can.”

“I’m glad she’s keeping Wayzz for company. I wish I could do more.” Adrien reached for his phone. “Well, time for breakfast.”

“The good time you mean.” They both laughed and Plagg was happy to see a bit of light coming back to his chosen’s eyes.

Breakfast went fine. Nathalie had barely paid attention to him. She was so focused on some problems they were having with investors that she allowed Adrien to go out without even consulting his father. Adrien was just relieved that he managed to get out of that stuffed house for a bit.

He tried to reach Nino on his way to the park with no success. He decided to leave a message letting Nino know where he was. Adrien sighed when he entered the park followed by the Gorilla. He had wandered some when he noticed Marinette sitting cross-legged on a bench focused on her sketchbook. While the idea of interrupting her was unpleasant, there was something about her that pulled him like a magnet. Or maybe he just wanted someone with whom he could talk to.

“Hi, Marinette,” he said being careful to not scare her which didn’t work well as she almost fell off the bench. He reached for her arm to steady her mindlessly of her flailing legs. “Ouch,” he let out as her leg hit his inner thigh inches away from his private parts.

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?” She looked anywhere but at his face and he figured what she could be thinking. Well, that would have been embarrassing.

“No, no. It just startled me,” he rushed to assure her. “I’m the one that should be sorry for interrupting you.” Seeing that she was still reluctant to look at him he added, “It’s ok Marinette.” He kneeled to retrieve her sketchbook from the ground. “Here, maybe I should just go and let you work,” he said feeling insecure about her behavior.

“Wait.” She caught his wrist before he even made a move. “Are you sure you ok?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” He forced a smile when she openly studied his face.

“You are wearing makeup. I mean… I know you do to cover up small things, being a model and all. But…” she hesitated.

“Does it show that much? Nathalie didn’t notice but she…”

“Just if you pay attention.” She gasped blushing. “Not that I pay attention to you, I mean, of course, I pay attention… well, you get it.” She giggled nervously.

Adrien chuckled "I’m glad that someone pays attention to me. Nathalie actually didn’t.” His hand flew to the back of his neck. “Humm, something kept me up for the better part of the night.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“That’s what I was hoping for when I came here. But you don’t look good yourself. Something’s wrong?”

“Well…” She motioned to her sketchbook. “Just a design idea that didn’t let me sleep. I stubbornly went to bed but it just kept swirling around my head. Guess I should’ve just gotten up and got it over with.” She patted the place beside her. “Now tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Kagami gave me an ultimatum yesterday. She wants us to date” he said as she sat resting his elbows on his knees.

“I thought you were already dating her.”

“That’s what everybody is thinking, right?” He glanced at Marinette.

“Pretty much.”

“Do you remember the girl I told you I was in love with?” he saw Marinette go stiff. He wondered if she was going to judge him.

“Wasn’t it…” she cleared her throat, “I thought it was Kagami.”

“No. It’s a girl with whom I work. Kagami knows about her.” He felt the need to mention. “In fact when I first asked your help with Kagami that girl had rejected me and Kagami was the one to encourage me to ask herself out.”

“Really?” Marinette said out loud, and then muttered to herself, “That girl really doesn’t hesitate.” He wasn’t supposed to hear, so he just ignored it.

“Kagami seems determined to make me forget her. Well… that girl crushed any hope I had left anyway. What do you think I should do?” He looked at her expectantly.

Why did her opinion matter so much to him? And why did her answer shatter his heart to pieces?

“As long as Kagami is in the know and you stay true to her, I don’t see a reason for you to not date her.”

Adrien could barely make out her words as he tried to figure out his feelings. What had he thought? That the feelings she had for Chat Noir would automatically transfer to Adrien and she would stop him from dating Kagami like someone that interrupted a wedding? He averted his gaze unable to look at her as he acknowledged that that was indeed what he, unconsciously, had hoped for.

He remembered the Bourgeois’ party, how great of a time he had with his two friends. There was a difference between them back then; where Kagami was straight forward about her feelings not letting him doubt about her intentions, Marinette had been supportive of the two, kindly stepping aside to give them privacy, and even so he longed for her. He had begged Marinette to tag along with them. He shook his head focusing on Marinette’s words.

“… I learned from a friend that losses are part of life.” She placed her hand over his. “Sometimes life doesn’t give you what you are hoping for and you have to learn to accept the changes.” There was something different about her demeanor that he couldn’t place. As if there was a hidden meaning to her words. She sent him a sad smile and he wondered what heartbreaks she had gone through.

What happened between her and Luka? They were still good friends, it didn’t seem like they had had a major issue. Had Chat Noir hurt her so badly? He wanted to ask but he wasn’t supposed to know. They had decided to keep the real reason for Tom’s akumatization between them after all.

“Dude I’m sorry. I just got your message” Nino approaching them, his eyes darting to Marinette’s retreating hand. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked with a smirk.

“Of course not” Marinette jumped to her feet gathering her belongings. “I need to go, bye.”

“Thank you for the advice. See you on Monday.” She smiled and turned her back to them.

Nino had the smirk still on his face as he watched Adrien watching her. “I thought you had a thing with Kagami.”

Adrien snorted, internally beating himself up for letting his feelings show. “Marinette is a great friend, Nino. She was actually giving me advice about Kagami.” Adrien shoved Nino’s arm playfully as his friend laughed at his expenses. “I’m regretting calling you…”

The two friends kept talking about everything and nothing. Just content for being able to hang out with each other.

[msjr0119]

Hold On

Part 12b - New York/ The Ball

Nobody got injured at the Homecoming ball, they all get separated into different safe houses- for safety.

Riley and Drake had confirmed that they had feelings for each other, however Drake believed Riley should be with Liam. Heartbroken, she moves back to New York. Only keeping in touch with Hana, Maxwell and Olivia.

Riley meets lawyer, Nate Cooper and begins a relationship with him. In Cordonia, Drake begins to court Kiara.

Nine months after Riley had left Cordonia- there is a reunion, but not the reunion the friends had hoped for.

*Characters belong to Pixelberry*

If you are under 18 please do not read this series. If you do, you are consenting that you are over the age.

Series warnings: Suicide, domestic abuse, swearing, stabbing, smut 🍋. If any of these triggers affect you do not read!

Tags- @annekebbphotography @burnsoslow @drakesensworld @ladyangel70 @kingliam2019 @bbrandy2002 @butindeed @bascmve01 @drakewalker04 @pedudley @captain-kingliamsqueen @duchessemersynwalker @insideamirage @of-course-i-went-to-hartfeld @kozabaji @texaskitten30 @ibldw-main @kimmiedoo5 @nikkis1983 @dangerouseggseagleartisan @gnatbrain @walker7519 @lodberg @fbloveschoices @cmestrella @choices97 @hopefulmoonobject @addictedtodrakefanfic

*******

Lady Riley...

Shocked was an understatement. Liam felt as if he was in a dream- Leo had told him that they wouldn’t be attending tonight’s ball. It was like a magician had waved a wand and magically transported them all there. This was reality.

“Lady Riley, it’s so good to see you looking well. I’m thrilled that you are okay.”

“Thank you, Bastien.”

“So are you all ready for the ball? Liam has been under pressure after the last one.”

“Yeah about that Bast, I told him none of us are going. He’ll be surprised... he likes my surprises.”

“Leo! Why have you told him that?”

Riley became panic stricken. It was hard enough returning to court, having all the gossip spread like a wild fire. She knew, she would be a nervous wreck. Believing that Liam knew that they was attending, gave her some hope of support.

“It’s fine Ri, we will all keep quiet. He will be happy to see us... well to see you.”

Riley rolled her eyes at Leo whilst he cheekily winked at her. Bastien pulled Riley away from the others.

“Lady Riley, I know you are under a lot of stress- but I was just wondering if you had spoken to Drake? He is beside himself. I know you’ve spoken to Liam on a few occasions.”

“No, I haven’t. I feel I need to talk to Drake, face to face rather than over the phone. It’s the least I can do.”

Bastien smiled at her, wondering how she could still be so strong and considerate about other people due to her own personal issues.

“Lady Riley, I’m so sorry for everything that has happened. I’m so happy, that you are returning to Cordonia.”

*****

Riley walked into the shimmering ballroom clinging onto Maxwell for dear life. She observed everyone’s shocked expressions, it was as if they’d seen a ghost. A lump formed in her throat, she took a deep breath. She had to face everybody at some point, five minutes prior to this she was afraid she wasn’t strong enough- Maxwell was her rock.

Maxwell stood at the door entrance to the ballroom awaiting their announcement. He linked Riley’s arm- she was shaking like a shitting dog.

“Ri, it’s okay. We can just go home if you want. I know its daunting, but I’m here with you. We are like glue.”

“I know Max, but I feel like I can’t breathe. Everyone’s going to be talking about me. I’m going to be stereotyped yet again.... I’m going to be accused of being a whore again... I can’t drink to take the pain away because of the medication, I am taking. I know I need to see everyone eventually though.”

“Blossom, if it gets too much. I’ll escort my lady back to her room or back to Ramsford. Let’s go.”

A waiter offered Riley and Maxwell a glass of champagne on their arrival- she refused. Thanking the waiter, she asked for some sparkling water instead. Taking a sip of the clear liquid, she then gazed over and saw Leo talking to Liam- she dreaded to think what they was discussing after all Leo’s torture he had given her. Biting her lip, she couldn’t help herself look over at the King, before quickly moving her gaze so he wouldn’t notice. Her thoughts were interrupted as her two best friends, came and hugged her tightly.

“Ouch! Liv, what the fuck?”

“Sorry Riley, just my stiletto. Just in case..”

“Just in case what Liv? I thought you used your fists now?”

The three women and Max laughed. They caught up, giggling like a bunch of naughty school kids.

*****

“Surprised huh?”

“Er, Sorry Leo. What did you say?”

“Oh sorry, your majesty. I assume your mind is somewhere else. Don’t worry I’ll just talk to myself Li.”

Leo knew exactly where his brothers mind was. He just wished they’d stop being stubborn and just reunite.

“Sorry, do continue. What was you saying?”

“I asked if you were surprised that we came. Riley has been nervous. You should go and speak to her. You should kiss her. You should.....”

Liam interrupted his brother abruptly. Frowning at the man who was cheekily smirking at the love- struck King.

“Leo, I will talk to her when I get the opportunity. Just let her settle back in first. I’ll ask her for a dance when it begins.”

“Tell your face that then. Because, you haven’t taken your eyes off her since she walked in.”

“How could I take my eyes off her? I love her. Of course I’m going to be looking at her. She looks beautiful as always. How was your tour of New York then?”

“Li, you need to go and get your girl. It was amazing. Although it got a bit odd towards the end.”

“I will do- soon. And what do you mean?”

“She took us to the Hudson River...”

Riley lead the friends to an unexpected place. They were all confused as to where she was leading them to.

“I’m sorry guys. I just had.. I need a bit of closure if you know what I mean?”

The friends looked at each other, bewildered. They couldn’t understand why she would want to go to a place that held such a depressing memory.

“I know you probably all think I’m crazy. I came here. Hungover. Upset. Depressed. That was where I jumped. That was where I nearly died.”

The haunting memory, made her fall to the ground sobbing into her knees.

The group of friends sat down with her- sorrow in their eyes, guilt in their hearts. Each of them were grateful for whoever saved her life.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m so grateful to have you all here supporting me. I love you all.”

Leo explained what had happened, Liam couldn’t understand why she would take them there, but he knew he would protect her from now on. He decided to mingle with his other guests before approaching Riley.

*****

Riley’s nerves had finally subsided, she felt comfortable in the company of her friends. She excused herself as she went to the bar, to get a round in for them all. Then she saw him.

Both eyes fixated on each other. Drake raised his glass of whiskey, before gulping down the brown liquid. Riley gave him a soft smile. Noticing, him drop the glass tumbler on the bar stand, he swiftly exited towards the doors.

“Woah, cowboy. Don’t rush off- I think you and I need to talk...”

“Brooks, it’s nice to you again. But I have to go.”

Riley placed a comforting hand on his arm, pleading with him to not avoid her.

“We need to talk...”

Drake held out his hand, and guided Riley outside on the balcony. The frozen air, immediately hit their lungs. Riley swallowed hard- she knew they both needed closure.

“Drake. I’m so sorry, I kept everything from you. I wanted to tell you, I really did. But circumstances prevented that.”

“Brooks. It’s fine.”

“No it’s not fine, Drake. I was scared of you rejecting the baby after what you did to me. I’d have never broken you and Kiara up. I just wanted you to have the opportunity to be there- if you wanted. I’m sorry it didn’t work out the way it should have.”

Drake didn’t respond, he didn’t know how to. Guilt. Sorrow. Regret. He didn’t know how many more emotions he could take.

“Anyway, I’m going back inside because it’s far too cold out here. You’re still my friend, Drake. I hope I am to you too. We were both in the wrong for different things. So, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. Every word I said was a lie. I’m so sorry.”

Riley stepped closer to him, her finger rested on his lips as she stared into his earthy eyes. Drake pulled her in for a hug, relieved that they could both move on- he knew he would never get her back, as his. A sudden shiver, made him come out of his trance. He could see that she was cold, so draped his jacket over her - rubbing her arms to keep her warm. Heartbroken, that things didn’t turn out better. He knew that time was a healer, but was grateful that she still called him her friend.

“Friends?”

“The best of friends, Brooks.”

“Promise?”

“Of course. I can’t say I won’t ever want more. And it will be an odd friendship. I care about you Brooks, I really do. I’m sorry for being a jerk again. If I can’t have you as more than a friend, I’d be honoured to call you my friend. It’s better to have you in my life as a friend than nothing at all.”

Riley cupped his cheek, before hugging him closely again.

“You’re the biggest jerk I know, Walker.”

“I need to go before I do something I regret Ri.”

Riley watched Drake walk through the doors. She wiped her tears, relieved that they had finally spoken. Relieved that they could still try and be friends.

****

Liam’s eyes eagerly searched the room for Riley. She had done a moonlight flit again. He had hoped that she was okay, and that no one had given her any shit regarding her return. He noticed Drake appear from the balcony without his jacket on, his friend was looking vacantly down towards the floor and was heading straight towards the bar. Typical Drake.

“Drake? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s dandy Li. What can I do for you for?”

“I was just making sure that my friend was okay, Drake.”

“Yes. I’m fine thank you, your Majesty. If you are looking for Brooks, she’s on the balcony wearing my jacket. She became cold after we had gained some closure. Go and get your Queen, you deserve her.”

Drake stood up and pat his friend on the back, smiling softly at him. Encouraging him to go to Riley, even though his own heart was breaking at seeing her back in court.

*****

Liam slowly walked to the balcony hoping she would still be there. His breath caught when he saw her holding onto the railing- observing the night sky.

She had lost weight due to not eating for days, but in his eyes she was still the most beautiful goddess that he had ever laid his eyes on. The dress, which he assumed the Beaumont’s had chosen was form- fitting. She looked elegant- imaging the true definition of a Princess. Her loose brown curls hung off her shoulder, slowly drifting along with the winds direction.

“Lady Riley.”

“Li?”

Riley turned around and ran up to Liam, jumping into his arms - catching him off guard. The embrace seemed to last for eternity. He placed her gently back on the ground, and held her tightly. Placing her head in the crook of his neck, she could hear his heartbeat increase. They both felt content in each other’s company- not moving from that position for a while.

Riley finally looked into his sparkly baby blues, smiling. Liam wiped her tears that were sliding down her cheeks- admiring her beauty.

“I’m so happy that you came back. I’ve missed you so much Ri. Are you enjoying the ball?”

“I’ve missed you too. I am now. It was hard at first, I was debating whether to come or not. I’m not stupid Li, everyone is whispering about me.”

“Ignore them. They are only bored, and have nothing better to do. You are so strong coming back, you always have been strong. That’s one of the reasons I love you. Most people would have ran a mile.”

He loves me. And there’s more than one reason why.

“Li... do... do you really love me?”

“Yes, Lady Riley.” Liam placed Riley’s hand on his heart, before kissing her forehead.

“You’ve always been in here, Ri. Ever since we met. I was an idiot, to let you go. I should have stood up to myself and made my own decisions, protected you and showed how much I loved you. It broke me when you rejected my proposal- but I understand now, why. It tore me apart seeing you in hospital, I felt like I’d failed you....”

“Liam, I love you too.”

Riley stood on her tip toes, staring at the tall man in front of her. He cupped her cheeks and placed a long, lasting kiss on her cherry bud lips. When they parted, Liam wrapped his arms around her waist holding her fragile body protectively. It seemed as if the world had fallen away, until they heard someone cough.

“About time you two! Matchmaker Leo to the rescue...”