#i meant to post about this earlier but i got distracted this week | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hellodropbear · 2 months ago

Text

17520 hours.

mapi leon x ingrid engen x daughter (ish)

angst. part of the 'it's time.' series

mapi struggles on the two year anniversary of her best friend's death. Ingrid is right there to help her but she doesn't know how to let her in.

this is a lot more angst than i'm used to posting but i hope you like it.

it was hard to write and partially based on personal experiences so i apologise if it's not very good.

also decided to put it all in one part because i couldn't find a good place to split it!

i hope you enjoy :)

~~~~~~

Two years is a long time.

Two years is 104 weeks, two years is 730 days. Two birthdays, two christmases, two easters. Two summers and two winters, two new years and two anniversaries.

Two years is a long time to miss someone. It should be enough time to have moved on.

But when their daughter is in your care, that seems almost impossible.

It was everyday that Mapi thought about her best friend, sometimes looking at her daughter and only seeing his eyes staring right back at her.

The day was one that the Spaniard dreaded, the days becoming quicker and quicker in the lead up, the night before slowing right down as she crawled into bed, tossing and turning as she tried to sleep.

Isabel was almost two. Still too young to understand that there was anything out of the ordinary in her life, anything that raised any questions. Even if Mapi tried explaining, she was sure that her daughter wouldn’t have the first idea what anything meant.

She wouldn’t understand that Mapi wasn’t supposed to have her even though she gave birth. She wouldn’t understand that her parents had died because her Mami was right there in front of her.

It was just a part of parenthood that Mapi had no idea how to conquer. She knew everything else, having spent hours and hours with her head buried in countless baby books, countless books that discussed grief and sadness in children.

But Isabel wasn’t sad, she wasn’t grieving because she never knew Luis or Isabel.

There were no books about how to tell a kid about her dead parents. It was a taboo topic, of sorts, one that many stand-in parents were reluctant to discuss with their child, hoping that they would just believe that they were their real parents. It was a bridge most people decided to cross when they had to, not at any point earlier than completely necessary.

Mapi didn’t want that, she wanted her daughter to know who Luis was, who Isabel was.

She just didn’t know when or how she should introduce the idea of them.

But the second anniversary of their death left Mapi in a numb state, entirely torn up on the inside as she tried to decide whether she would take her daughter with her on her annual graveyard visit. It was Mapi’s time to chat to Luis alone, no interruptions, no distractions.

Because while Isabel lost her parents, Mapi lost her lifelong best friend.

She lost Luis, who meant everything and more to her. Luis who had moved to Barcelona a few months after her, Luis who watched every single one of her games, the first person to text her after a hard loss or an impressive win.

She still hadn’t got out of the habit of checking her phone after a match, pain settling deep in her chest as her screen remained bare, his notification forever absent.

It wasn’t a question of where she would be on the second anniversary. She knew exactly where she would be sat and exactly how she would feel as she stared at that obnoxiously large gravestone, big bold carvings of his name, his date of birth and date of death.

‘Loving husband, son and friend.’ it read. Not father. ‘A man who lit up the lives of everyone he met.’ It was an understatement, Mapi had thought.

She had spent hours there when Isabel was a newborn, cradling her tiny body in her arms as she sat and silently stared at those few words. Loneliness ate her up, wishing for nothing other than her best friend.

But her daughter had lit up her world as everything else was crumbling down, single handedly keeping the two of them afloat as Mapi grew tired, the sheer weight of her emotions almost drowning them.

Isabel was an infant, too young to know anything was different. She was completely enraptured by her mother, smiling and laughing everyday they spent together in their small and stuffy apartment, completely unaware of the anguish that her mother was going through.

It seemed fitting on the second anniversary of their death, only a couple months before her second birthday that Isabel would finally visit their gravestones.

Even the thought of the graveyard made her feel uncomfortable, Mapi’s skin crawling at the thought of her best friend beneath her, cold and still. Someone she loved, such a warm and constant presence in her life, lying right there in the ground.

It made her feel sick. Sick with anger because he was gone too soon. With grief because she never got to say goodbye. With guilt because she got to have the one thing he had always wanted. But mostly sick with the heartbreaking realisation that he was down there, in the flesh.

Luis was dead.

~~~~~~

It wasn’t a cold day, but she shivered as she stepped out of the car, the cool breeze prickling her skin as she unclipped a groggy Isabel from the back seat.

“Where are we, Mami?”

She looked around at her unfamiliar surroundings in confusion, probably expecting to have woken up in her bed.

Mapi just hugged her, not trusting her voice to not break if she tried to respond.

Despite only visiting twice before, the graveyard was familiar, she knew exactly how to get to Luis’ plot. She walked with purpose, not looking at the grave as she laid down the rug, only facing her best friend’s name once she was sat down.

“This is your Papi, Is.”

Saying it out loud, her daughter in her arms. His daughter in her arms. It felt unusual, it felt uncomfortable. She could feel Isabel looking up at her, the confusion that radiated from the toddler’s body.

She loosened her arms as Isabel wriggled herself free, waddling towards the stone and placing her hand on it.

“Papi?”

She looked back at Mapi, a question in her eyes. She was met with tears slipping down her Mami’s face.

“Mami.”

In an instant, she was back in Mapi’s arms, reaching up and wiping away the tears.

“No sad, Mami. Brave like lion.”

Mapi nodded, a watery chuckle falling from her mouth.

“I’m going to talk to your Papi, Is. Is that ok?”

Isabel nodded, settling herself on the rug with her lion toy as Mapi stood up, walking closer to the stone and placing her hand on his name, crouching down so it was at eye level.

“Meet your daughter, Lu. She has your eyes, you know. She’s funny and smart and entirely the light of my life. I love her so much. More than I ever loved you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone, really. I promise. I promise I’ve tried my best and I hope you’re proud of her. I hope you’re proud of me.”

She bit her lip, unsuccessfully biting back her own tears.

“It’s been two years, Lu. I don’t know how I have made it through two whole years without you, really. It’s been so… hard. I still expect to see you, to hear from you. Sometimes I think I do, only to realise that it’s not possible. Because you’re dead. You weren’t supposed to die, not so soon. You were supposed to watch your daughter grow, I was supposed to be her really cool aunt that she would go to when you argued, to give her that tattoo when you said no. ”

She let out a strangled chuckle, trying to alleviate some of the pain she felt. They had discussed Mapi’s relationship with the child at length, knowing that the centre back would love the child as her own because she was always with Luis, she would always be around the couple as they raised their child. That wouldn’t have changed if she wasn’t biologically Mapi’s.

Back then, Mapi had thought she would have been fine with the situation. She knew the baby wasn’t really hers, she knew that she would still be able to watch the baby grow up, that she would still be able to love her.

It wasn’t a problem that had actually materialised, but they hadn’t expected both Isabel and Luis to die right before she was born.

“Now I have to discipline her, Luis, which is the one thing I didn’t want to have to do. But she’s such a good girl, she is so intelligent. Like you, really. She knows how I feel all the time, she definitely inherited your emotional intelligence. She loves everyone too, just like you. I was never supposed to be a mother, was I? You were always the paternal one out of the two of us, you were the one who deserved a child. But I am the one that got her.”

She swallows roughly, biting her lip.

“Oh Luis, you would have loved her so much.”

Very quickly, she is overcome by her tears, collapsing down into herself in sobs.

It’s all too much, it’s all too hard.

It’s unfair that her best friend left her, that she was left alone to grow up. Growing up was something they had discussed at length when they were younger. Obviously they were never going to be married, they’d never live together.

They had dreamt of adjoining houses, doors that connected their backyards. They were going to grow up together, the two of them. Luis would have his wife and a gaggle of kids, Mapi would have her wife and a pack of cats. They’d have their own families but their lives would be so closely connected because they loved each other in the purest way possible.

A childhood connection, one that grew and grew into adulthood.

One that was supposed to last a lifetime.

It did last a lifetime, it lasted Luis’ lifetime. Just not Mapi’s.

She calmed herself down after a couple minutes, Isabel unsurprisingly noticing her mother’s sadness and crawling into her arms as a source of comfort.

They sat there for hours, an easy silence settling upon the pair. Mapi was deep in thought, Isabel knew it wasn’t the time for play, it wasn’t the time for her mindless babbling.

It had been a couple hours when she heard the footsteps, people approaching silently.

She hadn’t expected to see anyone there, but upon reflection she realised she had been naive - it was the anniversary after all.

“Maria?”

She hadn’t heard Ane’s voice in two years. The last conversation they had was full of empty promises, of visits to Zaragoza that Mapi knew she would not go on. Promises that they would get to know the child that was growing in Mapi’s stomach, promises that they wouldn’t lose touch.

They had lost touch, Mapi unable to visit Luis’ home whenever she returned to her parents. Ane and Mikel were in too much pain to see the child, not sure how they could face it.

“Ane.” She stood up, facing the older woman and allowing herself to be enveloped in her arms.

“It’s so good to see you, Maria.”

Mapi could only nod, her eyes still watery and her face still red. It had been a long morning.

She turned to face Mikel, who was staring straight forward, his eyes only softening as Mapi grabbed his hand and kissed it.

“I have missed you both.” She smiled softly. It was a sad smile, but a real one.

They were Luis’ parents, of course, but they were her pseudo parents whenever she needed them. They were so close, especially when Mapi and Luis were in their teenage years.

“Is this… is that her?”

Ane looked down at the curly headed girl, her eyes softening as she watched her play with her toys.

“Isabel Luisa.” Mapi nodded. “I thought today would be a good day for her to come visit.”

The older woman looked down at the child adoringly, smiling as she looked up at the unfamiliar adults.

It was a bit awkward for a few moments, as Mapi, Mikel and Ane sat in an uncomfortable silence.

Mapi excused herself, moving away to the bathrooms but leaving her belongings by the grave. She knew she wanted to talk to them, that they wanted to talk to her.

She also knew they needed some time alone before they would be able to.

But she did return, sitting down on her rug right beside the older couple.

And Ane spoke, her voice soft, her voice sad.

She told Mapi how grateful she is, how glad she is that she took Isabel in, that she didn’t even question it. How grateful she is that Mapi did everything to make her son happy all throughout his life, from buying him an extra chocolate bar when they were children to carrying his baby for him when he and his wife were unable to do it.

Ane told her that she had given him his one dream, fatherhood. It was just unlucky that he wasn’t alive to live it.

There were tears in her eyes as she told her how grateful Luis would be. How much he loved her. How happy he would be that his daughter ended up with the Spaniard, the person he probably trusted the most in the world.

Mapi nodded her appreciation, sitting with the two adults for a while longer before Isabel grew tired, the sun falling down, the afternoon turning into evening.

She said a tearful goodbye, collecting her things and standing, Mikel standing up as well and walking her to her car.

“She looks just like him.” His words were soft, softer than Mapi had ever heard him. “I have thought about you every day, Maria. You and her. I am so relieved to see you here because I worried so much about you. I worried that you wouldn’t be ok, that you’d not be able to raise her. Not because I doubted you, but because I know how hard it is to lose people.”

Mapi nodded softly, looking up at the man.

“I don’t doubt that you have had a hard time, but I also don’t doubt that you’re a good Mami. A great Mami to this little girl.”

“Thanks, Mikel.”

He nodded, that was all he needed to say.

It was all he needed to say for Mapi to tear up again, picking Isabel up and holding her in his space. He looked at the Spaniard, who nodded, before placing a soft kiss on her head.

“Come visit, Maria. When you come home. Bring the little one too.”

Mapi nodded, a smile on her face.

This time, it wasn’t an empty promise.

~~~~~~

She got home to an empty apartment. Quiet, dark. She could have texted Ingrid, the Norwegian likely would have come over in an instant, her warm arms right there for endless comfort.

But she couldn’t bring herself to open her phone, couldn’t bring herself to stand up and walk over to the kitchen table where it was sitting. Instead, she stayed seated, relaxed back on the sofa with tears tracking down her face as she stared blankly at the wall.

It wasn’t often that she was left alone with her thoughts. Not when she had a chatty toddler to look after, a loving girlfriend who spent every day trying to make Mapi happy. It worked, because Ingrid did make her happy, happier than she’d ever been.

And Isabel also made her happy, she was the best thing in the Spaniard’s life.

So why did she feel so sad? Why was Luis’ death still so hard for her to process?

Two years felt like too long to still be so upset about it all. She wondered when it would go away. If it would ever go away.

His death was something that Mapi didn’t think she would ever be able to comprehend. She was able to live her life as normal again, plastering a smile to cover up the mess that she was on the inside. But it had taken such a long time to even get to that point, despite her daughter’s positive presence.

Everyone knew how long it had taken. Mapi didn’t think anyone really knew how broken up she still felt about it. A part of her was embarrassed, embarrassed that she still hadn’t gotten over it. Was still yet to move on.

Even as she thought it over, progress seemed so impossible. The thought of moving on like so many people had told her to do made her feel sick, because how was she supposed to move on when he was everything to her?

She didn’t sleep that night, barely able to smile as she fed Isabel and put her to bed. The toddler knew something was wrong, of course, a frown on her face as Mapi put her down for the evening.

Isabel had seen Mapi sad before. Lots of times, really, but her mother usually tried her best to hide it from her. She would push the emotions down and far away as she interacted with her kid but Isabel was so perceptive, so in tune with Mapi’s emotions.

She knew whenever Mapi was sad. It made her feel sad too.

But Isabel never would have known that her mother was sitting in the same spot on the sofa all night, her mind a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions, resisting any rest that tried to fall upon her.

She wasn’t sure if she regretted telling Ingrid that she wanted to be alone for the day, that her girlfriend shouldn’t come over like she usually did. The Spaniard just didn’t know if it would make it better or worse. She didn’t know how to alleviate herself from some of the pain she felt.

She realised she didn’t know much at all.

Mapi watched as the sun rose outside, the night becoming morning. The new day arriving along with the sounds of birds chirping, the city happily waking up as the clouds had gone away and the sun had finally come out.

Two years and one day.

Her daughter’s whining was audible from her spot in the main room as she woke up. Her daughter’s whining was probably the only thing that would have successfully moved her from her seat.

“Mami!” Isabel frowned at the sight of her mother as her door opened, dark bags beneath her red and puffy eyes.

“Good morning, my girl.”

She smiled weakly, kneeling beside her toddler and raking her hand through her hair as Isabel became more aware of her surroundings.

It was a slow morning; a slow rise from bed and a slow breakfast. The toddler was still in her pyjamas by 10, her hair and teeth remained unbrushed.

It was no surprise that Ingrid was on the other side of the door at 11, Isabel opening the door when she heard the knocks. The Norwegian had a bright smile on her face as she scooped Isabel up into her arms and planted a soft kiss on her cheek.

“Mami, Ingrid.” She pointed over at where Mapi was standing, and it was one glance at the Spaniard that told Ingrid that despite her promise that she’d be alright, her girlfriend was definitely not ok. Her smile faded and she frowned slightly, concern etched deep into her features,

Her steps towards Mapi were tentative, unsure how to approach the situation.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know Mapi, of course she knew her. She just didn’t know about Mapi’s grief. She had heard from teammates that she hadn’t dealt with the death well, that she had locked herself up in her house for months, over a year. But it was one topic that the Spaniard avoided at all costs, a master of changing the subject whenever it would come up.

Ingrid never felt like it was her place to pry.

But now, seeing her girlfriend so… broken, so depleted, it made her regret not being more insistent in those times. Because maybe if they spoke about it then, she would know how to help.

But in that moment, she had no idea what to do.

“Maria…” Her voice was quiet. “I’ve missed you.”

Mapi didn’t reply, but she could feel Ingrid’s free arm wrapping around her and she immediately clung onto her girlfriend. She was desperate and Ingrid was a lifeline.

“Alright. Isabel, do you want to go play with Bagheera for a minute?”

The child nodded as she was placed back on the floor, walking out of the kitchen and into the lounge where the cat was likely waking up from her nap.

Mapi, still clinging onto the Norwegian’s arm, frowned slightly, still not willing herself to make eye contact with Ingrid.

“You’re not ok, Mapi, are you?”

She didn’t nod, she didn’t shake her head. Her mouth remained completely sealed.

But Ingrid knew her well enough to recognise the tears that filled up her eyes, the way her hand trembled against the Norwegian’s skin.

The brunette softened, her worries confirmed; leaving Mapi alone for the entire previous day was probably one of the worst promises she had ever made. She shouldn’t have agreed to it, not when she knew that Mapi would need her.

“Ok. It’s ok. You’ll be ok, Maria. I just want you to sit down for me.”

She led her around to the other side of the kitchen bench, sitting down in a seat right beside her and wrapping her arm around the Spaniard’s shoulders.

The Norwegian could feel herself becoming more and more anxious at Mapi’s almost catatonic state, entirely unequipped and unsure how to deal with it.

It took half an hour of speaking to Mapi with no response for Ingrid to realise that she couldn’t do anything. A heartbreaking realisation of sorts, but one that she needed to have in order to help her.

She knew she should be able to do this herself, she wished that it didn’t have to be so hard. But Alexia had been there before Ingrid, Alexia had been there for Mapi during Isabel’s infancy, right after she lost Luis.

So she sent the Spanish midfielder a quick text, alerting her of the centre back’s state.

She felt guilty as the relief surged through her, Alexia assuring her that she would be there soon.

However, neither the Spaniard nor the Norwegian could see the toddler’s tears, her quiet whimpers of anxiety and upset.

Isabel didn’t like seeing Mapi upset, not at all. She was a happy person, usually, a permanent smile on her face, energetic as she played with the toddler.

But she sat and stroked Bagheera, silent tears streaming down her little face with one thought on her mind. Why was Mami so sad all of a sudden? And why did it make her feel so miserable too?

Alexia arrived in a flurry, her heart dropping at the sight of her friend as she rushed towards her, immediately pulling her into a suffocating hug.

“Maria, Maria. Come on, please. Say something.” Her voice sounded urgent and Ingrid could only watch, worry and confusion clear on her face.

With no response, Alexia leaned back, staring straight into Mapi’s eyes. She could read the centre back like a book and her eyes told her everything she needed to know.

“Ale.”

She frowned, tilting her head at the blonde in front of her.

“Mapi, breathe. Take a deep breath in.”

Ingrid slipped out of the room as Mapi followed Alexia, breathing in and out slowly until she collapsed into Alexia’s arms, the tears spilling from her eyes easily as she reconnected with reality.

It was her reaction to sadness, Mapi had realised a few months ago. Disconnecting from the world around her, unable to move, speak. She could barely hear anything, see anything until it was right in front of her face.

She couldn’t feel anything either, but that was a more common response, something that she couldn’t be pulled out of so easily.

She hated it, more than anything. Because when she was pulled from her state of disconnect, she felt nothing but terror, an overwhelming sadness that came rushing back as soon as that trap door opened.

It was like her body was trying to protect her from feeling, the emotions just too much. It would just shut down until she was numb, not really registering that at some point she just had to feel it because there was no way of getting away from those emotions.

Alexia had seen it all before and she was usually the one to grab Mapi, to shake her out of her headspace and bring her back to reality.

It was terrifying for her too, especially the first time she witnessed it.

“Ale.”

Mapi’s sobs had been reduced to quiet whimpers into Alexia’s shoulder after a while, her mind throwing itself through all her thoughts, all her emotions. Luis was gone, Luis had been gone for two years. She has his daughter, her Isabel who she loves so much. Ingrid was here but now she is not, where has Ingrid gone? Alexia, right in front of her, fear visible in the midfielder’s eyes no matter how hard she tried to hide it.

Luis was gone, Isabel was hers. Ingrid was gone, Alexia was here.

Luis, Isabel, Ingrid, Alexia.

Her four people.

She felt her breath hitch, Alexia’s arms tightening around her.

She felt the tears dripping down from her eyes, saturating the fabric of Alexia’s shirt, the wet fabric now uncomfortable to rest her face on.

She could hear Alexia’s breathing, the sound of her heart racing.

Feel Alexia’s arms around her, the floor beneath her feet and the chair that she was sitting on.

Taste the salty tears. Tears of grief, fear, confusion.

Luis, Isabel, Ingrid, Alexia.

“Ale, where is Isabel?”

~~~~~~

Ingrid slipped out of the room easily, not needed as Alexia dealt with Mapi’s overwhelming emotions.

Mapi’s cries were audible from the main room she found herself in, wincing as she walked towards Isabel who was still stroking Bagheera, her movements fluid and repetitive, a consistent cycle that easily could have rubbed a groove into the cat’s black fur.

The Norwegian couldn’t see the tears that had stained the little girl's face, still spilling from her eyes no matter how hard she tried to blink them away.

But her shoulders shook unnaturally, a shuddering inhale that had Ingrid picking up her pace and sitting down right beside Isabel and pulling her into her arms as soon as she noticed how upset she was.

Silently, she placed a thoughtful kiss on the crown of her head, her heart breaking at the silent tears, at Isabel's defeated demeanour.

No toddler should know how to cry silently.

"What's wrong, Is?"

At her words, Isabel promptly spun around in Ingrid's arms, collapsing into her and crying audibly, her entire body weight relying on the Norwegian to be held.

"Mami sad, Ingrid. I'm sad too!"

Her voice was broken and Ingrid’s heart dropped at the sound of it.

It wasn’t hard to leave, understanding that Isabel needed to get out of the apartment, that she needed to be away from the inconsolable Mapi who could still be heard crying in the kitchen.

So she left, slipping out the front door and carrying Isabel down to the street, holding her tight as she cried, walking over to the park.

By the time they reached their familiar bench, her cries had weakened, only releasing quiet puffs of air every few moments as she relished in the comfort of Ingrid’s arms.

The Norwegian sat down, loosening her grip on the toddler and manoeuvring her so that they were looking right at each other. Ingrid’s frown was light and her hands were soft as she reached out and wiped the tears away from Isabel’s wet cheeks, cupping her face when she was done.

Words failed the defender as she looked at the toddler, her uncanny resemblance to Mapi heightened in her upset state.

She matched her mother perfectly, Ingrid thought, trying to avoid that voice in the back of her head that she would never be enough. Their smiles were identical and their laughs sounded the same. They both carried the same exasperated sigh, the confused frown and those doe eyes that were impossible to say no to. But they carried the same tears, the same cries.

Mapi’s emotions were often reflected in her daughter, whether it was happiness, excitement, fear, sadness. Isabel was smart - emotionally intelligent. It was like she always knew exactly how her Mami was feeling, even if she wasn’t old enough to understand why, to understand what those feelings were.

This was one of those times when she had no idea what this sadness meant. She could clearly feel the sadness, feel her mother was sad. But she wasn’t even two yet, how could she possibly be expected to process those emotions like someone years older?

Ingrid wasn’t bad with kids either. There were heaps of children in her family; cousins, nieces, nephews. She’d been there throughout all of their childhoods, able to comfort them and soothe them enough until their parents came back.

But Isabel’s sadness was completely new territory, there was no waiting for Mapi to arrive because Ingrid knew she wouldn’t. It was up to her to calm down the child but for the first time, she was completely stumped.

She didn’t know what she could say to calm her down. She didn’t know how Isabel felt, she was too young to be able to express her emotions, to talk through what she was feeling.

But this wasn’t a tantrum or a small cry over a minor convenience. This was a meltdown, caused by her overwhelming emotions that she couldn’t quite comprehend.

“Ingrid…”

She spoke quietly, leaning into the comfort of the Norwegian’s hands on her face.

Ingrid nodded, encouraging the child to continue.

“Why my Papi a rock?”

The Norwegian’s face softened, her heart sinking as she tried to subtly release an exhale that she had been holding in.

Unsure what she was going to say, she opened her mouth. But Isabel was too quick, raising her voice another time.

“Why Mami sad at rock?”

“Is…”

The child looked up at her, eyes shining with unshed tears, pure innocence reflected in her eyes, her features.

“Isabel. Your Papi, he’s not a rock. Your Papi was a person, a very good person.”

The child frowned, confusion etched deep into her features. Ingrid thought she seemed entirely too concerned for a not quite two year old.

“He died before you were born though, Is. Mami is sad today because she misses him. She misses your Papi.”

She doubted Isabel would even understand what she was trying to say. She didn’t know when children were supposed to understand the concept of death, the concept of life.

Definitely not before the age of two.

So Ingrid decided to try to move away from the topic, her new goal just to bring a smile back onto Isabel’s face. It was the least she could do, really.

“But it’s ok, Is, because you have Mami and you have me and you have Alexia and you have Leila and Patri and Pina! You love all of those people don’t you?”

Isabel nodded easily, a smile creeping onto her face.

“I love them so much. Especially Mami. And you, Ingrid!”

Ingrid chuckled, her laughs a superficial cover of the anxieties and concern she felt. Because Isabel was right here calming down in her arms, but she had no idea of the state of Mapi, she had no idea how long this happiness would last.

“And everyone I just mentioned loves you too. And your Papi, he loves you as well but he loves you from somewhere else. You have people everywhere loving you!”

Ingrid beamed, trying to make the conversation feel more lighthearted. It was a successful attempt, apparently, because Isabel replicated her smile and turned herself around, sitting back down in Ingrid’s lap and leaning into her chest.

“I love you Ingrid.”

The Norwegian could only smile sadly, planting a thoughtful kiss on Isabel’s head.

~~~~~~

Mapi’s head was a mess, Alexia had realised. Her emotions all over the place, her priorities set in a weird and confusing line.

The tears had eventually ran out and she was clearly exhausted, her head in Alexia’s lap as the blonde spoke softly. The familiar Spanish was a comfort to Mapi’s ears, the words meaningful, flooded with emotion.

“You need to worry about what is important right now,” Alexia had murmured, her hands combing through Mapi’s hair. It was reminiscent of how the centre back calmed her own daughter, soft hands and quiet words.

It was reminiscent of how Mapi’s own mother used to soothe her, nostalgic and comforting.

“Luis is important, of course he is. But he’s gone, Maria. If you’re going to worry about anything it has to be yourself, it has to be Isabel. You have to think about Ingrid, how to prioritise your relationship on top of everything else.”

Alexia shook her head at that, sighing almost silently.

“Ingrid will try not to let you focus on her, but you have to try. You have to show her how much you love her like I know you do. That she’s your person.”

Mapi looked up at Alexia, her forehead wrinkling as she frowned.

“She… she doesn’t know that?”

“She does know that, of course she does. But sometimes you need to put her first. Sometimes she needs you the most. Sometimes, she needs you more than Isabel does. She wants to know all of you, Mapi, even this part. She wants to understand your grief, to know what to do when you are having a hard time. She wants me to look after Isabel while she comforts you because she loves you. You are her person, just like she is yours.”

Mapi frowned again, swallowing back the tears that threatened to fill up her eyes. Because Ingrid was everything to her, of course she was. She was the person that Mapi loved more than anyone, the first person she had ever really and truly fallen in love with. But Alexia was right. More often than not, her attention was pulled away from Ingrid, Isabel making an appearance. Maybe she was hungry, thirsty, tired. She could have been bored or overexcited or maybe she just couldn’t sleep.

Because Isabel was her baby girl, her last connection to Luis; her last connection to her person before Ingrid.

It was somewhat painful for Mapi to consider how these small things would have hurt the Norwegian, how they would have all built up over time, building Ingrid’s thick skin, the impenetrable strength and sometimes superficial happiness that the Spaniard wished to break down.

“What do I do, Ale?”

Her voice broke and Alexia pulled her upwards, straight into a hug.

“You talk to her.”

Mapi nodded, falling back down to her lying position on the sofa, the exhaustion of the day overcoming her despite it only being 12pm.

Alexia could tell the exact moment she fell asleep, her breathing evening out and her body finally relaxing.

The midfielder had expected something like this to happen today. She knew that Luis’ death was a date engraved in her friend’s mind, one that could never pass without any upset, any thought.

It was only the second anniversary so of course it would bring up all of the emotions that were left and ignored two years ago, Mapi’s grief pushed away by the little baby Isabel. The same thing had happened a year ago and the midfielder knew it would happen again in another year.

Only she hoped she wouldn’t be needed in a years time, similar to how she had hoped that she wasn’t required this year.

She had been somewhat surprised and just a little bit disappointed when she received Ingrid’s text, having hoped that Mapi finally would have spoken to her girlfriend about it, that Ingrid would have expected it and known exactly what she needed to do. It was abundantly clear, however, that it was not the case.

Ingrid’s terrified and bewildered facial expression was one piece of evidence, but so was Mapi’s silence, her heavy breathing and her complete refusal to speak while the Norwegian was in the room.

She was disappointed, really. She felt guilt overcome her as she watched Ingrid slip out of the room, a look of pure defeat written all over her face as she accepted that there was nothing she could do to help Mapi.

Mapi who was an emotional wreck, who needed support and who just needed to let everything out for once.

Mapi, who needed her girlfriend’s comfort but didn’t know how to ask for it, couldn’t bring herself to ask for it.

Alexia knew that the Norwegian would have given it to her without a second thought.

It was all she could think about as Ingrid walked back through the door, Isabel’s hand tight in hers as her eyes scanned the room and landed on the sleeping Mapi in Alexia’s lap.

Isabel inspected her quietly, satisfied with her sleeping body on the sofa. She was with Alexia and Alexia made people happy. She was sure Mapi would be happy now, so she scampered out of the lounge and into the laundry where she knew Bagheera would be waiting.

Ingrid was less convinced, sitting beside Alexia with concern written all over her face.

“She’ll be alright.” Alexia whispered her words softly, an attempt to make the Norwegian feel better. She didn’t expect Ingrid’s eyes to fill up with tears, her head falling into her hands.

“Why doesn’t she talk to me about any of this?”

Her voice sounded defeated, frustrated. Her watery eyes looked back up towards Alexia and the midfielder could easily see the anguish in her eyes.

“She’s bad at talking about it, embarrassed by it. She doesn’t like to feel all these emotions so she just pushes them away. But they come back every now and again and she has no idea how to deal with it. I try telling her that it’s normal, she shouldn’t feel embarrassed but she doesn’t listen. It makes her feel weak, she said. You saw her earlier too, she just shuts down. I think it’s because she just doesn’t know what else she can do so she turns into a robot of sorts, on autopilot to get things done. And then someone will come and see straight through her and it’s like she breaks.”

Alexia’s eyes were watering, her hand coming to rest on Mapi’s head.

“But she loves you so much, Ingrid. More than I’ve ever seen her love anyone before. I know she wants to talk to you about all this, she wishes she could just let it all out. We’ve discussed it before, what she could say, how she could say it. She’ll call me the next day and say she chickened out, she couldn’t bring herself to go through it all. It’s mentally exhausting, I think. She used to be so confident in herself, she didn’t care about anything but her happiness and the happiness of the people around her. She was the person who would cheer everyone else up, make us smile and laugh. She’s still that person, that’s the one that we see everyday. But she never learnt how to grieve or how to let other people cheer her up and this is what happened because of it.”

Ingrid was quiet for a few moments, her eyes focussed on Mapi’s sleeping figure. She looked so peaceful, her golden brown hair falling over her face, completely covering her tear stained cheeks and puffy eyes.

“Why didn’t you help her?”

She knew it wasn’t Alexia’s fault; she knew that the midfielder beside her would have done whatever she thought was right. But part of the Norwegian thought that if she had learned what to do with her emotions two years ago when Luis died, everything would be easier now. Everything would be easier for everyone.

“She just wouldn’t let us. I regret it every day, Ingrid. ”

~~~~~~

It wasn’t long before Alexia left, leaving Ingrid with a sleeping Mapi and taking the almost two year old back to her house with her.

They didn’t want Isabel to be able to understand what was going on, they didn’t want her to feel those sad emotions when she was entirely incapable of understanding why she suddenly felt so sad.

So it was Ingrid’s face that Mapi woke up to, the familiar green piercing straight through her, a sad expression all over her face.

“Ingrid.”

Her voice was hoarse, her words scratchy and her eyes swollen. It had been a difficult few hours and she felt entirely incapable of having the conversation that she knew Ingrid wanted to have.

“I don’t know how… how do I even start?”

But it seemed she was wrong as Ingrid shook her head, her arms wrapping the Spaniard up in a tight hug as she sat up from her horizontal position.

“No, you don’t need to. Not right now. You’re exhausted, physically and emotionally and I don’t want to talk now. I want you to be ok, I want to make you feel ok.”

Mapi didn’t know it, but the Norwegian’s words were exactly what she needed. Ingrid was exactly what she needed.

Her emotional perception, the unique ability she had to be so aware of how everyone felt at any given time. It was one of her qualities that Mapi loved the most, one of the things that was so intriguing, so alluring about the defender.

“What can I do to make you feel ok?”

Mapi smiled weakly, trying to bite back the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks. It wasn’t just sadness this time, but gratitude, love. Because Ingrid was perfect even when the centre back knew she had been the opposite of that. And despite all of Mapi’s own personal flaws, Ingrid still loved her.

And if everything else fell apart, Mapi knew that her love would be more than enough.

“You being here makes me feel ok.”

Ingrid smiled into the embrace, only releasing the hug when Mapi’s grip on her loosened.

“Isabel is at Alexia’s and she will be there all night. She shouldn’t be in this environment when you are so upset, not when she’s so young. So it’s just you and me, whatever you want to do.”

Mapi nodded easily, somewhat relieved that her daughter was away from all this.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.”

The evening was a slow one, relaxed and quiet in the calm apartment. They weaved around each other in the kitchen as they cooked with a practised ease, dinner cooked and plated up seamlessly.

Conversation as they ate was minimal, the Spaniard clearly distracted and the Norwegian happy to focus on her own food.

“I… I need to talk to you, Ingrid. Not right now, but soon. Maybe tomorrow. I just don’t know how to say what I want to say in a way that makes sense. It’s… hard for me, hard to talk about… it.”

The Norwegian’s attention was captured at the sound of Mapi’s voice, instantly nodding with a comforting smile on her face.

“I know it’s hard. I don’t want you to feel any pressure to tell me anything.”

But the Spaniard disagreed, shaking her head quickly.

“It’s not pressure, I want you to know everything.”

Ingrid’s forehead creased, her eyebrows drawing together as she frowned.

“But why? Why do you want to go through it all again with yet another person if you don’t have to?”

It was Mapi’s turn to frown, her head shaking as she let out a quiet exhale.

“I haven’t ever gone through everything with anyone. Alexia knows a lot, sure. I know she’s told you what she knows. I want you to know everything. Because I love you more than anything and for you to love me like that you have to know everything, you have to see all my faults, everything that I’m ashamed of.”

Ingrid stopped the tears from forming before they had a chance to materialise in her eyes, but Mapi could tell she was stopping herself from crying by the way her eyes blinked away the invisible tears.

“What’s wrong?”

Her voice was incredibly soft, her Spanish lilt calming, comforting.

“I don’t think there’s anything you could say that would change the way I love you. I couldn’t love you any more than I do and there’s nothing that will ever make me love you any less. I wish you would understand that sadness and grief isn’t a weakness or a fault, it’s not something to be ashamed of. It’s natural yet it takes a completely different path in every single person. You’re not different, Maria. You’re not weak. The opposite of weak, really. I love you for who you are, because you are funny, you’re kind, you’re caring. You look after people and you’re an incredible mother. I love you because you are strong, one of the strongest people I have ever met. The love I have for you is not… despite anything, there’s nothing that I would change because you’re perfect. So sure, tell me everything because I will listen but it will not change a single thing. Don’t tell me that I can’t love you before I know because I do, so much.”

“Thank you.” Mapi sniffled, her voice thready as she nodded at Ingrid, her eyes dropping back down to her plate in front of her.

It was exactly what she needed to hear.

~~~~~~

“Mami!”

Despite Ingrid’s protests in the kitchen, Isabel bounded into their bedroom, bouncing up onto the bed right beside a sleeping Mapi.

“Isabel! I said not to wake her up!”

Ingrid frowned from her spot at the bedroom door, her forehead creasing further at Isabel’s defiant expression. The toddler turned back towards Mapi, shaking her shoulder rapidly.

“Mami! Mami!”

Ingrid rolled her eyes, releasing a loud sigh and shaking her head as the Spaniard rolled over, groaning as she opened her eyes.

The past few days had been rough and Ingrid was sure Mapi hadn’t gotten more than three hours of sleep each day. The Norwegian was awoken constantly by the sound of her cries or her restless movements in the bed, but had stopped asking if she was ok after seeing the guilt on Mapi’s face at waking her up.

It was an obvious question anyway, Mapi clearly was not ok.

She had been distant, often unfocused. The Norwegian had to take over the parenting ropes and she hadn’t left the Spaniard’s apartment, helping with cooking and cleaning and the other mundane housework that Mapi just didn’t have the energy to do.

She would say a few words over meals, and quiet murmurs of gratitude throughout the day. Ingrid didn’t know how rapidly her notes app was filling up, full of dot points about how and what she would say to Ingrid. When she could bring up that conversation that she was so desperate yet so hesitant to have.

“Morning Is.” The Spaniard rolled over, opening her arms up for the toddler as she fell into them, snuggling easily into her mother.

“Mornin’ Mami!”

Mapi smiled, looking over at Ingrid in the doorway and motioning for her to come and join them on the bed. Naturally, the Norwegian moved towards them, sitting up beside Mapi and resting her head on the centre back’s shoulder.

“We were awake very early this morning, weren’t we Is?’

She rolled her eyes as the child nodded and Mapi bit back a laugh, squeezing Isabel softly.

“You should have woken me.” Mapi smiled, planting a kiss on the side of Ingrid’s head, ignoring her scoff.

“Ingrid said don’t wake you up, Mami!” Isabel interjected again, looking up at her mother. “But I missed you!”

Mapi could only chuckle, planting a kiss on her child’s head. “I missed you too, my Is!”

It was a slow day, but one full of quiet laughter and happiness. The small family of three spent the late morning hours in bed, before getting up and heading down to the park and tiring the toddler out. She was exhausted by the time they got back, passing out on the sofa as Ingrid took off her shoes and Mapi scrubbed the mud out of her jacket.

The girl had been put to bed by the time Mapi had returned from the laundry, Ingrid sat on the sofa with the remote in her hand.

“What do you want to watch?”

She had heard Mapi walking towards the lounge room, apparently. The Spaniard didn’t enter immediately, instead steadying herself on the doorframe and taking a deep breath.

The time had come, she realised. She couldn’t justify pushing this conversation away any longer, pretending that she wasn’t thinking about it when truthfully it was at the top of her mind at all times.

She knew it wasn’t an easy conversation to have and she knew that it was going to be hard to bring it up. But that difficulty won’t ever go away, no matter how long she leaves it. If anything it will get harder over time because time gives her fears and anxieties an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to overcome her.

And she was completely adamant that that would not happen. She would not be overcome by those terrors ever again.

She realised she had paused in the doorway for too long when Ingrid turned around, a small frown settling on her face.

“Are you ok?”

Mapi nodded, forcing a stressed smile onto her face and finally taking those steps inside, sitting herself on the sofa beside Ingrid and taking the remote from her hands.

“Yes. No, but.. Yeah.”

“Talk to me.”

And she did. She started at the beginning, all the way back when she was a small child and meeting Luis for the first time. She told Ingrid how they had been glued to each other’s sides forever, how they grew up and nothing ever changed. How grateful she was when Luis followed her to Barcelona, moving into his own apartment just a five minute walk away.

The Spaniard reminisced on times where they would eat dinner on the floor of his unfinished apartment, takeaway boxes empty but the room still full of happiness and laughter. She showed Ingrid her tattoo, the little girl and boy on the playground that she had gotten to match with Luis.

It was his first and only tattoo and he had only trusted Mapi to give it to him. She knew she had to get one the same and it was something they had treasured. A secret of sorts, a little thing that almost nobody knew about.

The centre back explained how he had always been a paternal person, all the way back when they were those little kids on the playground. He would look out for everyone, act all big and strong to protect his friends even when he felt equally as terrified. He was the person that everyone went to as they got a bit older, his emotional nature and calm demeanour always popular among their peers.

She told Ingrid that she always felt so lucky that even though he was so popular, she was still his best friend. She was always his number one and that only ever changed when Isabel came along.

Isabel who was just as lovely as her boyfriend, another person that Mapi learned to love.

Another person who proved time and time again that she was a mother.

So she lamented on the heartbreak that the young couple experienced when they realised they couldn’t have a child, that parenthood seemed almost impossible.

She explained her entire thought process to the Norwegian, how she debated with herself whether it was worth it to miss so much football during what could have been her peak years. Whether she would ever feel comfortable around a child that was half of her DNA, a child that she carried for nine months but technically didn’t belong to her.

But Luis’ happiness was always the most important thing and when he rang her up for the 10th night in a row in tears, her decision was made for her.

She told Ingrid how long it took to convince the couple to let her carry their child, having to go through the same arguments that she had with herself only weeks earlier, having to come up with rebuttals to their incredibly valid points.

But it had only taken an emotional monologue from the Spaniard to convince them, all three of them sat in tears as they finally agreed to it.

She talked her through the IVF process, every high and every low that she experienced. How easy the pregnancy was at the beginning, the only symptom her small bump and minor cravings.

But she had Luis and she had Isabel at that point, both of them so incredibly grateful that they practically waited on the centre back’s hand and foot. It annoyed her, really, so she had kicked them out of her apartment, told them to only come over if she called them.

For the most part, they respected that, only visiting once a week unless Mapi called them for the company.

She admitted how much she regretted that deal, how she wished that she made them sit with her all day every day.

Maybe then they wouldn’t have been in the car that day, maybe they would have been safe and sound in Mapi’s apartment.

She couldn’t have known that their trip to Madrid would be fatal, there was no way of being able to foresee that and to stop them from going.

Tears started to slip down her cheeks as she recalled what they told her over the phone, how both Isabel and Luis had been killed on impact. A drunk driver, it was, a drunk driver who was miraculously left unscathed.

She talked Ingrid through her thoughts that followed the phone call, after she had sobbed and screamed. Once the tears had finally ceased and an unsettling silence fell upon her apartment.

She felt lost, she felt alone. She wanted to call Luis because he was the person that made her feel better in these times, he was her company when it felt like her entire world was falling apart.

But of course she couldn’t call Luis. She should have called someone else, her mother, her brother. Alexia, even. But that would be replacing her best friend, something she couldn’t bring herself to do. Not so soon after he had died. Not when the wound was so fresh, not before she even got the chance to process it.

She admitted to her girlfriend that she still hadn’t really processed it, that it was still a work in progress. His death was one she would never understand, she didn’t think she ever would fully process the idea that he was gone.

Ingrid let tears spill from her eyes as Mapi remembered how lonely she was for the next few weeks, how she realised that now she had this child that she was just supposed to be able to raise. How she felt entirely unprepared, unfit to be a mother, unequipped to be able to raise a child to a standard that Luis would be happy with.

How she doubted herself even before Isabel was born.

When she gave birth it got so much harder, everything seemed so impossible and she couldn’t think about anything else other than that little life in her arms.

She had fallen in love with the baby immediately, guilt overcoming her at her selfish gratitude that Isabel was a living reminder of Luis, she was someone that Mapi would always have. A living being that literally carried her father around with her.

She told Ingrid how she saw his eyes as soon as they opened, the tape over her shattered heart doing little to protect it when it was forcefully thrown back on the ground at the reminder of everything she had lost.

But as she spent more and more time with Isabel, as she watched the little girl grow up she could feel her heart building itself back together, little pieces at a time supergluing themselves together, creating an indestructible structure.

Isabel had been the reason her heart was being fixed, the reason that she felt like she could finally breathe again, finally reunited with the organ that pumped the blood around her body, the organ that made her feel alive.

She smiled through the tears as she recalled how alive she felt when Isabel took her first steps, when her first words tumbled right out of her mouth. As the child laughed, as she played with the cat. As she grew up into a child, something for Mapi to love, to be so incredibly proud of.

Because Luis was gone and that was something that Mapi would never be ok with.

But he left her the greatest gift of all time, like he knew that his best friend wouldn’t be ok without him.

And similar to everything else he had done for Mapi through their lives, this gift, his daughter, had made sure that the blood never stopped pumping, that every single fragment of her shattered heart was still there, ready and waiting for its turn to be glued back into place.

Isabel had done a good job of orchestrating the reconstruction, even if she had no idea what she was doing.

“But then you came along, Ingrid, and you fixed my heart too.”

~~~~~~

alright this was very long

i've proofread a couple times and kinda hate this but it's as good as it will get :)

please let me know what you think! send me anything else you would like to see as well.

and i apologise for this taking so long, i have been very busy with uni (as usual) but on top of that i had surgery on my knee almost a week ago so am very tired and in a fair amount of pain at the minute

have a good day

#mapi leon #ingrid engen #woso fanfics #woso #barca femeni #mapi leon x ingrid engen #woso x reader #woso imagine #woso one shot #fcb femeni #alexia putellas

316 notes · View notes

lainiespicewrites · 1 year ago

Text

Coach Syverson Part 2

I really didn't think I was going to finish writing this so soon but ya'll loved the first part! and I love writing this so here it is the final part with all the good stuff! Also it's 4 am and I probably should have proof read this. but I didn't. Iwas so excited to get it posted because You guys BLEW UP the first part so THANK YOU!!!

Warnings: SMUT at the end, Oral (m and f receiving), (p in v), lots of cusring in the end , so much praising because you know he would!!

Sy was in coach mode with the team as I looked over the sign in sheet and greeted the students that were traveling to watch the game. Most of the students were loaded onto the bus now. Thank God because I was so distracted by him. There was something about seeing him like this, he was so in charge and in control. He had their full attention and he never had to work to get it. He had those boys respect the first time he walked out to the field. But he earned it too. He was such a good coach. I loved listening to the way he spoke with them.

“Alright boys,” I listened as he pulled the team into a huddle before they got on the bus next to ours. “Listen first and foremost I want y’all to go out there and pay hard. That’s what we’ve been practicing. We’ve watched their tape. These guys are a little bigger than you but that doesn’t matter. We’re faster. You come at ‘em low and fast they’re gonna go down. Matt I need your eyes on that ball at all times man! We just about lost some points last week because of misdirection and we ain’t gonna let that happen again right?”

“No, sir! I got you coach!”

“Atta boy! Derek, you keep throwing that ball like you’ve been in practice this week and we’ll be in good shape!” Derek just nodded. Sy smiled. “Alright, now boys I don’t want any messing around in the locker room. You go in, and be respectful, I want them talking about how great of character our team has just as much as they’re talking about how good we play, understood?”

“Yes coach!” The boys chanted in unison.

“Alright, load up let’s go!” The boys started cheering. I smiled. I loved watching him with them. The way he got them all fired up. And he matched their energy. He was so adorable right now. Joking around with the boys and

“Hey Miss Plummer!” right, I’m not a teenager watching my crush, I’m an adult, I have a job to do.

“Hi Caitlyn! Are you ready for the game tonight?” I smiled at her. She was all decked out with the eye under eye black and Tyler's jersey number painted on her cheek in the school colors. She and a few of the other girls made t-shirts and were wearing them to support a few of the players they were friends with.

“So ready!!” She squealed, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. She looked over toward the buses where the team was loading the bus with their equipment, where I had been staring off earlier. “He’s so cute isn’t he?” She said, I raised an eyebrow and smirked a little.

“Are you excited to watch Tyler play?” I chuckled.

“Yeah, But I meant coach Sy, are you two finally together? He totally likes you! Everyone knows it! And you two would be so cute together!! The students talk about it all the time. I mean you’re wearing his hoodie Miss Plummer!” Wow that girl talks fast. He likes… no. But if the students see it? Am I really that blind? He bought my dinner, He brings me coffee, he called me his work wife. But I’m not his body type. These things don’t happen. Are my insecurities really that deep rooted that I can’t take the advice I give my students? But still. When I was in school I remember rumors spreading about teachers seeing each other all the time and they usually…. Well actually. Now that I think about it. They normally ended up being true. Some of them were even scandals. I shook my head.

“Slow down sweetheart,” I managed to let out a chuckle even though I kind of felt like I was having a crisis. “Coach Sy and I are friends, I’m just borrowing his sweatshirt because I didn’t have one. It’s sweet that you all care about us so much. I love that. I do. But well, that’s all it is, honey.” She nodded sadly. And looked back at the other bus and over at Sy. He caught us looking at him and smiled.

“Miss Plummer,” She sighed exasperated, like me not understanding my own love life was exhausting for her. “I don’t wanna over step but I overheard him and Mrs. Spencer talking. She came into his class at the end of the day Wednesday smiling and stuff. And like I wasn’t TRYING to eavesdrop but I heard them talk about you and I just couldn’t resist ya know? Anyway, she said she had this idea, she could back out of coming today so he could hang out with you and well…. Nevermind.” I raised an eyebrow.

“Caitlyn, what have we said about gossiping?” I said.

“Girl, It’s true though, that man’s got it bad for you Miss P.” I shook my head and smiled

“Get on the bus Caitlyn,”

“Okay fine, But when you guys get married, can I be in the wedding?” I rolled my eyes. “Guess that’s a no.” She said and stepped on the bus. I looked over one last time. Sy was double checking something on his clipboard while the boys finished up. He looked up and we made eye contact. He winked and I blushed, giving him a little wave before I followed Caitlyn on to the bus. Things took off fast when we got to the other school. Sy took the boys straight to the locker room to gear up because we got a little stuck in traffic. Myself and the two other chaperones led the students to their section in the bleachers and about 15 minutes later we were at kick off. Sy was completely in his comfort zone out there.

Our boys had the ball first. Sy had his couch voice on shouting a couple of corrections from the sidelines. The team made a good play but in the end the other boys were bigger and their defense was strong. We had to settle for three points instead of a touchdown.

The whole first quarter of the game stayed that way. The boys managed to keep the other team out of the end zone. The start of the second quarter the other team had the ball. They made a play and when one of our boys Zach Owens went to tackle the player he lost his footing. It had rained earlier in the day and the He slipped but still grabbed the player by the ankle. He got him down but he ended up at the bottom of a dog pile. Another player reached out to give Zach a hand to help him up, but he fell back immediately when he tried to stand. He was hurt.

I immediately looked to Sy, I was on the first level of the bleachers standing against the railing. I was close enough to see him curse under his breath before running onto the field. The medic followed him out. I walked out to the sideline. Sy and the medic got Zach up but he couldn’t put any pressure on his left ankle. Everyone cheered for him while they walked him off the field. Poor kid was going to be out the rest of the game.

“You’re gonna be alright man,” Sy said as they got him to the bench. “This guy’s gonna wrap that ankle and then you just chill here. Just breathe,” He clapped him on the shoulder and turned back to his place on the sidelines. The boys were starting the next play and already the other team scored a touchdown on us. I walked up to him hesitantly. He shouted something about tightening the defense. I jumped a little. I'd never been this close to him in coach mode. It was kinda hot though. What was I saying? I came up next to him brushing my shoulder against his. He looked over and his shoulders relaxed a little and he smiled when he saw it was me. “Hey Sugar,”

“Is he gonna be okay?” I asked. He nodded.

“Yeah, It’s not broken but he sprained it real good. He’s gonna be down at least a couple weeks. He’s our best tackle.” He sighed softly and his lips quirked up into a sad lopsided smile

“I know, that’s gonna kill us. But the boys can pull through. They’ve got you as a coach.” I smiled. He threw his arm around me and pulled me against his side squeezing my shoulder.

“You’re so damn sweet,” he said. I blushed and turned into his shoulder to hide my face. “You’re freezing, darling,” He ran his hand up and down my arm for a minute “shit,” he mumbled. He pulled out a 10 dollar bill from his pocket “I told ya I pay for coffee tonight, meant to give this to you earlier.” He looked down at me, his blue eyes briefly holding my gaze as he grinned.

“Logan you don’t have to do that,” I said trying to push his hand away. He raised an eyebrow and shook his head.

“You say that an awful lot. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to. Now quit arguing with me and take it.” He narrowed his eyes at me and nodded down at the cash in his hand. I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“You know, you can be a real diva when you don’t get you’re way.” I said taking it from him.

“Are you complaining about free coffee?” He smirked and pulled me close to his side again keeping me warm.

“No,” I chuckled softly. I looked back at the bleachers watching some of my kids for a second. A few of them were a little two close for comfort. “I’d better get back up there,” I said sadly. I really liked being next to him.

“Yeah, I guess you should.” He left his arm around me a few seconds longer before he finally let me go. He was such a teddy bear sometimes. As I was making my way back to the bleachers I heard. A few of the boys on the team talking,

“OOOOH Coach you look at you,” One of them said

“That was smooth. Can you teach me how to do that?”

“You gonna be gettin some later coach.” The last one spoke. Logan’s voice was stern but still playful.

“Y’all wanna match zach on the bench next week? I won’t hesitate. Watch it! What is that an extra 3 laps to the 5 you were already running on monday Tyler?” He smirked.

“Damn Coach!! You Savage!” One of the other boys piped in.

“You wanna join him, Jake?” He mused.

“No Sir, I’m good!” He spoke quickly and I laughed to myself as I walked back up the bleachers.

I sat with the students for a while breaking up a few young couples trying to get a little too close while they were away from mom and dad. I hated to be a buzzkill but they know the rules.

Sy was back on high alert. At the start of the third quarter the boys were down by 10 points. They shouldn’t have been the refs missed and obvious penalty against the other team for shoving one of our guys. I was definitely part of the crowd that was screaming at that point. But right now Derek, our quarterback had gotten the boys down the field and they were set up for another touch down. They made the play. He threw a complete pass to tyler and they got the points! Every was cheering. With the extra kick good the boys only need one more touch down to get ahead.

The rest of the quarter went by and then only 2 minutes left in the 4th quarter. The team was still down by 3 points. The clock was running out they had 45 seconds left we had the ball but we were only at the 40 yard line. We needed a miracle. But Sy taught our boys well. Derek found an opening and through a perfect pass down the field to Matt. The whole crowd was on their feet. He Caught the pass at the 20 yard line and ran the rest of the way down the field into the end zone with 10 seconds left. We got the touch down. The student section was shaking the bleachers jumping around. The game finished and we let the kids run down to wait by the gate to make�� a tunnel for the team to run through. I walked down to the side lines to wait in a crowd of people to see the winning coach.

While I looked over keeping an eye on the kids while they celebrated with the team. I held my coffe close to my chest too keep me and my hands warm. I loved seeing Sy like this. This is totally where he belonged. He looked famous talking with the other coaches and people asking him about what he was working on with the team. I over heard two ladies having a conversation a few feet infront of me.

“Their coach is so handsome,” The first one said. She was tall, Thin long blonde hair. Wearing some sporty leggings the looked super expensive and the other teams spirit wear.

“Oh I know! You think he’s single?” The other said she looked similar to the other woman but a little shorter and her hair was darker.

“I don’t know I saw that lady with him earlier but, he’s gorgeous and well, I mean I don’t wanna sound rude but she seemed a little big to be his type.” The blonde said.

“No I know what you mean when I saw him with his arm around here I was like… if that’s his wife… well he could’ve done better.” My heart dropped. I knew they were talking about me. I felt like I was going to be sick. I knew it. Everything, I’d always felt, every reason I told everyone they were wrong. These two just confirmed it. Logan would never see me as anything more than a friend. My insecurities just kept bubbling to the surface the way I felt about my body and what I’d worked on for years all came rushing back. I ran right passed them missing the shocked look on their faces. They hadn’t realized I’d been so close. It didn’t matter they were right.

I didn’t hear him either. Excusing himself from the other men he’d been talking two and calling after me. I ran into the bathrooms locking the door behind me and took a deep breath. You’re not crying not here. You’re a big girl. Hold it in until you’re alone. I calmed myself down and took one last deep breath before walking back out.

Logan was leaning on the wall outside the door waiting.

“Hey Sugar, you alright? You looked like you were gonna be sick? Feeling okay?” Shit I didn’t even know he’d noticed me walk by. I nodded taking another deep breath and staring at the ground.

“Yeah, just um, felt a little off for a second.” I said. “I’ll be alright. You’d better get back to the boys.” He put his hand on my shoulder and I shrugged him off. I looked up and saw the confused look in his eyes.

“I’m meeting the boys at the bus, it’s a late night so we’re headed straight back.” he stated. “You sure you’re okay sugar, why don’t you ride back with me, I can keep an eye on ya. And the boys wanna thank their good luck charm for being here.” he smiled.

“No, I mean. No that’s sweet of them. And nice of you to offer but. It’s not fair to the others. I said I’d chaperone I can’t just leave them short like that.” I said.

“They won’t be Carol will be …”he paused and groaned.

“What do you mean Carol will be there? She couldn’t come tonight.” I was confused now.

“Damnit this isn’t how I wanted to do this. She was always going to be here. Uh she was helping me out… with…”

“Caitlyn was right,” I cut him off.

“I thought she was listening,” He chuckled and shook his head. “She told ya huh? Well cats out of the bag then, I uh,” He laughed and let out a shaky breath rubbing the back of his neck. “I really like you Darlin’, I have for a while.” He smiled sheepishly and bit his lip. My hands were shaking and all of a sudden I felt sick again. This is what I’d always wanted but I didn’t feel real. I couldn’t be here right now. Surely there was a punchline waiting there always was. This was a joke right. Those women from earlier are right around the corner somewhere recording. How could I be so stupid. I shook my head. Tears were welling up in my eyes.

“I, I have to go, they’re gonna need my help loading the buses.” I said and ran past him toward the parking lot. He called after me but I kept walking. When I got to the parking lot only one of our buses was still there. I let out a slow breath and then sighed. “God I’m a fucking idiot,” I groaned.

“I uh.. Sent the other bus ahead” I heard Sy say from behind me. I stood there for a second quietly and then just nodded. “Wait here, I gotta talk to the boys and then we’ll head out,” He said.

I watched him walk over. Some of the boys started to whistle and holler. I couldn’t hear Logan but he shut it down quick. The boys loaded up into the bus and gestured for me to follow. He gave me a soft smile and followed me on sitting in the seat across from mine. Other than the boys celebrating the game in the back ground it was a silent ride home. How did I screw this up so bad. He planned out this whole thing. But, somehow I still don’t believe this. My phone lit up with a text from the girls.

“How was the game? I saw you guys won!” Skyler sent. I needed them right now. I looked over at sy he was scrolling on his phone, or looking out the window, I didn’t know what to say right now. I texted the girls back.

“The game was good, But I’m an idiot.” I replied.

“How so?” Hayley texted back quickly. I poured out everything into the text. They knew why I felt he shouldn’t like me, even if I never said it. So I’m sure that was no surprise to them. I told them about what those women had said. And my little panic attack. Sy telling me how he felt and how I ran off. And when I finally clicked together that he had put this together so he could ask to take me out. And How I royally fucked it all up.

“Oh Alayna, I’m sorry. That really sucks. But have you tried talking to him about any of this.” Skyler said.

“I didn’t have the time, and I can’t, He probably already hates me now and realizes I was never worth it anyway.”

“Stop it dude! I don’t wanna hear that from you. Clearly he thinks you are. He went through all that effort because he wanted to make sure he got the right opportunity. So he would care if you told him! You need to tell him what you’re feeling. I know it’s scary but you have to.” Hayley sent back.

“She’s right Alayna, I know this is hard, but he’s not in this to hurt you, I know people have before but girl, You can’t believe for the rest of your life every man is the same. Pull him aside when you get back. You can fix this. We love you!!”

I knew they were right. But I didn’t have much time to muster up the courage to do anything. When I looked up from my phone we were pulling back up to the school. The team got off the bus. “Alright boys! Get home safe, I’ll see you Monday morning for practice,” Sy said before letting them go. I grabbed my things from the bus and headed to my car. But when I got there I noticed something wasn’t right my shoulders slumped. I’d left a light on when I was searching for a jacket. God I hope it didn’t drain my battery. I got in and tried to start it. But of course. What’s that saying. If it can go wrong it will. I got out and slammed the door shut. “Fuck!” I shouted. I couldn’t help it now the damn broke and I couldn’t help but start crying “I’m so stupid!” I kicked at tire and slammed my fist on the hood of my car. “Ow fuck!” I held my hand that was now throbbing.

“Woah, Hey, What’s going on?” Sy asked coming up behind me quicking after hearing me shouting.

“It’s nothing, I'm sorry. My… battery died. I left a light on. My car won’t start.” I hiccuped trying to control my breathing. He pulled me into his chest and hugged me.

“Okay, It’s gonna be alright. Breath. Good girl. Calm down.” He spoke softly. “Now,” he pulled away slightly to look at me in they eyes. “Do you have jumper cables?” I shook my head

“No I, had some old ones and I threw them out and never replaced them I… forgot.” he nodded. And let go leaving me against his car to go check the tool box in the back of his truck.

“Shoot. Yeah, I thought so,” He mumbled to himself, “Sorry, sugar. I left mine in my garage.” He said. I nodded. “It’ll be fine here tonight, I can take you home.” Again I just nodded. I heard him let out a deep breath. “Did I,” He paused. “Did I do something wrong? I, I just thought... Maybe I was reading it wrong. I was just sure that you felt…”

“I do,” I said cutting him off. “ I do feel the same. I just don’t understand why, you feel the way you do. I …” I didn’t know what else to say I just kept staring at the pavement.

“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I? You’re gorgeous. Shit, I’ve been flirtin’ with you since I met you. You really couldn’t see it?” I shook my head.

“No,” I said finally looking up at him. “I wanted to. I really wanted to, but I just couldn’t believe that a guy as good looking as you would find me attractive.” I said. He chuckled softly. “Don’t laugh at me!” I pouted.

“I’m not, it’s just, baby, you might just be the dumbest smart girl i’ve ever met. Seriously, that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. And I coach teenage boys!” I smiled a little. “There she is. You wanna tell me what’s goin on in that pretty little head of yours? He asked. I took a deep breath. It’s now or never.

“I was waiting to talk to you after the game, and I heard these women talking. They were talking about how handsome you are. And if you were single. One of them had said they’d seen me with you on the sidelines. She made a comment about my weight and that there was no way I would be your type. And The other girl said some things too. I felt really insecure. I already didn’t believe that you would be into me but when I heard someone else say it, it solidified it for me. And then when you told me how you felt. It felt like a joke. I felt like I was in high school again and everyone was going to gather around and start laughing. And to be honest. My experiences since then haven’t been great. I haven’t been with good guys. I just I was afraid I was going to be hurt. Honestly sometimes I don’t even know how I do this job because I can’t even take my own advice.” I looked down again. It was a relief to let it all out but if I looked him in the eye I was going to start crying again. I was already weak enough in this moment.

Sy stepped back around the car to where I was standing. He gently put his hands on my hips and pulled against him. He brought one hand up brushing the hair out of my face and resting it on my cheek. “I wish you could understand how wrong they are. I know you don’t not right now. But I’m gonna help you see yourself the way I do Sugar,” He didn’t hesitate any longer. He pressed us further against the car and leaned down pressing his lips to mine. His lips were soft and his body was warm against mine. He kissed me slowly and soft his beard tickling against my jaw. I snaked my hands around his neck pulling him closer. And I felt him smile against my lips. He pulled away slowly eyes fluttering open still holding me against him. “Baby you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that. I don’t know what other people have said to you. Or what you’ve been through. But when I tell you you’re beautiful I mean it. And when say I wanna take you home with me, it aint no joke baby. Do you trust me?” He askes staring down at me holding my face in his hands.

“I trust you Logan, so much that is scares me.” I admitted.

“I’d never hurt you like that Darlin’ that’s a promise.” I pulled him down and kissed him again. Harder this time. He groaned against my lips and squeezed my hip pulling me closer. He slid his hand into my hair holding me there as he started to gently suck on my bottom lip. We pulled away to catch our breath and had big goofy grin on his face as he leaned his forehead against mine. “I’d love to do this all night baby,” He chuckled. “But its late and its only gonna get colder out here, I need to get you home.” I blushed.

“Yeah, it’s almost midnight. We really should get going.”

He opened the passenger door of the truck for me and made sure I got in okay before he shut the door and got in on the other side. He started the truck and we pulled out of the parking lot.

“Sy?” I spoke softy.

“Yeah baby?” He looked over just for a second to let me know he was listening.

“Did you mean it, when you said you wanted to take me home with you?” I asked. He literally snorted.

“What do you think?” He smirked taking one hand of the wheel and resting it on my thigh. I could feel my heart rate speed up and I was blushing. How the hell was it so easy for him to turn me on?

“I want to.” I said. He looked like he was about to choke.

“Yeah? You don’t have to Sugar, I didn’t mean… I mean I want you to. But I don’t want you to fee like I’m pressuring you or anything. Shit I ain’t even taken you out yet. Not really.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it softly.

“Logan, I really want to.” I said. He just smiled.

“Alright, baby.”

He drove us back to his place parking the truck in his drive way. “Right this way Darlin,” He smirked leading me up the front steps and unlocking the door. I followed him inside and he quickly shut the door behind him backing me up against it. “You really have no idea what your doing to me do you baby?” He licked his lips looking me up an down hungrily. I’d never seen him like this. The look in his eye was almost, animalistic. And it was so. Fucking. Hot. “Here I was thinking you were an innocent little thing.” He pinned my against the door holding me there in his hands. He leaned down crushing his lips against mine. This was different than the kisses we’d shared earlier , slow and sensual, this was hungry, needy. “Practically begging me to bring you home. You know how long I’ve been thinking about this? Getting you home with me? Under me? Fuck.” he breathed

He pulled me away from the wall and pulled at the bottom of his hoodie I was still wearing. I lited my arms and let him pull it over my head along with my shirt leaving them in a pile on the floor. We walked a little farther into the house. He pulled his shirt off tossing it next to us as he pulled me into his lap on the couch. I leaned back to admire his toned chest running my fingers throught the soft curls there. He slid his hand into my hair groaning into my mouth as he pulled me in for another kiss. He bit my bottom lip slowly dragging it between his teeth. He started. Peppering kisses down my jaw before leaving wet kisses along my neck.

His hands were everywhere roaming over bra squeezing my breasts, running them down my sides and around grabbing my ass. I felt his hand move around my back plaing with the clasp of my bra. “Need this off baby.” He mumbled against my chest. He managed to undo it and I let it fall tossing it to the floor. “Mm fuck yes,” He moaned dipping his head down taking one of my nipples into his mouth and teasing the other with his thumb. I moaned and rolled my hips against his. I could feel his hard cock straining aginst his jeans. He groaned against me giving the other nipple attention.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous.” He said stood from the couch picking me up and wrapping my legs around his waist.

“Sy!” I Squealed. He carried me to his bedroom setting me on his bed. He crawled on top of me. His hands were already on the waist band of my leggings.

“Is this okay,” He paused. I nodded eagerly and he chuckled. “Good girl.” He pulled them down swiftly with my panties leaving me completely bare infront of him. “Fucking beautful” he said as he starting kissng down my stomach. He nipped at my thigh leaving wet kisses there. He pushed my legs open a little further and pulled me to the end of the bed. I was completely exposed to him but I didn’t care. I trusted him completely. He met my gazed and ran his and up my thigh before brushing his fingers through my folds. I moaned as his fingers brushed across my clit “God damn baby, all this for me? Fuckin soaked. “ He smirked He pressed his thumb to my clit rubbing in rough circles.

“Fuck!” I moaned “Logan please!” I grabed his wrist the sensation already feeling overstimulating. It’s been so long.

“We’ll get there baby.” He teased. Finally he kissed down my inner thigh and brushed his tongue against my clit.

“Oh my god!” I whimpered ran my fingers over his hair as he sucked on my clit. He slid two finger inside me pumping slowly. I squirmed against him but he used his other hand to hold my hips down. God he was so strong.

“Keep still sugar. Don’t make me tell ya again,” He said before going back to work on my clit and curving his fingers in side me pumping them a little faster. I was seeing starts. I pushed his head down holding him there.

“Oh my god, don’t stop!” I moaned. I came hard around his fingers and he slid them out and licked them clean.

“Mm you taste so good baby. So fuckin’ sweet.” He stood up from the bed finally ridding himself of his jeans and boxers. His hard cock rested against his stomach. He was huge. I bit my lip and he chuckled.

“I’ll go easy on you baby,” he said as he started crawling on top of me again.

“Mm wait,” He stopped raising an eye brow. I pushed him back against the pillows and kisses his lips softly. I kissed down his chest and finally settled between his legs. I bit my lip and looked up at him innocently “Just wanna taste it,” He smirked.

“Dirty little girl ain’t ya, mm” he pulled my hair back guiding me down. I licked the length of his cock. He groaned softly. I loved the sounds he made. So deep and almost feral. I finally took the tip in my mouth and slowly started to suck him off. I took him as far as I could letting him hit the back of my throat. He growled. “That’s it baby, good girl.” I kept bobbing my head on his cock and wrapped my and around the base where I couldn’t fit him in. I felt him tug on my hair and pull me up. “That feels amazing baby but I’m not gonna last if you keep that up.”

He kissed me again and laid me down pulling leg over his shoulder. He ran the head of his cock up and down my folds getting it nice and wet. “You ready baby girl?” I nodded. He slowly pushed in. He held him self up bracing him self on one arm. He pushed in slow inch by inch letting me adjust to him. When he bottomed out he stayed there for a minute. “You okay baby?”

“Logan, it’s sweet that you’re asking but please fuck me.” He let out a low growl and pulled almost all the way snapping his hips back into me. I moaned feeling him deep inside me. He grabbed my hip pulling me closer and kept thrusting into me. He moaned as he reached between us finding my clit with his thumb. The rythem of his thrusts and hitting just the right spot had me seeing stars. I came again around him moaning his name and other obscenities falling from my lips. “That’s it good girl.” He pulled out and flipped me over onto my stomach. He pushed back inside of me this new angle hitting that spot over and over again but I was so sensitive.

“Come on baby, you got another one for me?” He growled against my ear.

“Mm I can’t sy, It’s too much,” He reached around rubbing my clit in cirlces with his thumb.

“One more baby, please for me?” He picked up his pace hitting that spot over and over. I Moaned pulling at the sheets beneath me.

“Fuck I’m cumming!” I moaned letting go around him

“That’s my good girl, cum on my cock.” His thrusts were becoming erratic and he stilled and groan cumming inside me. He kissed my shoulder and layed down beside me. He pulled out slowly and pulled me to lay on his chest. “Holy shit,” He breathed. He fingertips brushed up and down my back. He smiled down at me. “You’re incredible. I don’t deserve you.”

“Shut up Logan,” I blushed Hiding my face against his chest.

“I mean it, your too good for this world Darlin’,” He smiled and kissed my head. “I’m gonna marry you someday, I know I haven’t even really taken you on a date yet. But baby when you know, you know,”

“Yeah?” I smiled “I think I know what you mean.” He pulled the blankets up over us and held me for a while.

“Good, now get some rest Darlin’” He said running his fingers through my hair. I smiled snuggling up against him.

“Goodnight Sy,” I smiled.

“Goodnight sugar.”

433 notes · View notes

yutasbimil · 10 months ago

Text

Raincheck

woozi x fem!reader | seventeen ff. [one-shot] !!! also posted on my ao3 acc! { here } tags: fluff cw: hogwarts!au, slytherin!woozi, prefect!woozi, sly gf testing jihoon's nerves lol, teasing, couch cuddles, you're different houses with jihoon, established relationship, fluff! note: this is an old piece I wrote! just wanted to share it here as well :3 ! also, not that comfy w/ 2nd POV, tho hope 3rd POV is good for y'all ♡ word count: 1.1k

do not repost © yutasbimil (2018)

The rain pouring hard outside can't seem to be heard well in the Slytherin common room.

The only thing that can be heard from the dimly lit room was the mild crackling embers by the fireplace, and the blond Slytherin humming along as he got himself comfortable on the couch.

Maybe it is actually the resounding, non-stop downpour outside or is it that Jihoon got too engrossed in a book he got from the Restricted Section that got him too preoccupied, that he didn’t even notice someone creeping into him.

"What are you doing here?" He says, almost a hiss at the figure of the person he's so familiar with.

He almost flinched at the sudden presence, as if she apparated in front of him. His voice reverberates a bit too uncomfortably due to the lack of people occupying the room, it's as if both their breathing echoes along the droplets of rain.

Y/n just comes in and sneaks into the Slytherin common room as if it's her usual thing— quite a common… room occurrence to put that pun lamely out of the box.

Well, it might as well be, but it isn't as settling for the older male as she's so casual about it.

His eyebrows remained knitted together, looking at the girl standing before him. He was so sure that everyone was out since there are still classes on-going...

"Y/n, seriously, this is not the time that..."

She shushes him quickly. Not even bothering about the daggers he's shooting at her as she quickly makes herself comfortable on the couch.

This is definitely not the time I am in a particular mood to see my girlfriend busting into another house’s territory. Let alone her breaking the rules.

‘Rules are meant to be broken,’ a smug tone rings in his ears. Jihoon could already hear her mischievous lips saying those exact words to retort to him.

He remains his glance over her, following her every move like a hawk hunting for its prey. He suppressed a sigh. Even seeing her in her pajama pants, feeling way too comfortable and home-y to be even in a different house common room.

Jihoon just grips on the book at hand and then settled to place it on the table nearby.

“Come on. I’m asking you. Answer me,” he pressed with a tone full of authority.

But she gave no flying broomsticks about it.

“How bossy,” she snickers, finally talking after being silent at Jihoon.

He just glares at her.

“Come on. Jun told me how to get in… And I know things around here already.” She says nonchalantly, as if it’s gonna convince him. He just puffs, way too distracted to even go back to the book he’s reading.

He stares right at her.

“Have you even forgotten about that ‘raincheck’ we talked about, Ji?” she slightly tilts her head sideways, then puts her lips into a thin line. “Earlier? …this week?”

More staring.

“You told me? Because you were busy and…” She bits her lip, necessarily pausing to give time for him to put the puzzle pieces together, but he’s just left with more pieces. Y/n suppresses a huff. “Nothing…?”

She crosses her arms when Jihoon looked more confused than he already is with handling plants in their Herbology classes. And FYI, he got an E on his O.W.L.S. result.

“I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.” He says in defeat. Y/n only nods absentmindedly, leaning in close to him to remind him of some things.

“You told me that I can come by this week since your schedule’s more free, and that if I can come by at my convenience… I can then spend time together with you in the dorms...” she says, as if laying out a parchment of proof for him to remember. Exams might’ve taken a huge toll on his brain power hence being so absentminded.

Jihoon goes back to his stern look at her, as if he really can’t trace back on anything that he might possibly said.

Y/n slumps her shoulders yet again.

“At least look like you’re happy to see me.” Y/n cooed, gesturing a bit of affection to trickle out of the male’s sharp expression.

Finally, Jihoon’s features soften.

Okay, he does remember some of it coming off his lips, but I didn’t mean it in a sense you barging in here like a mad woman… He holds back a sigh.

“Well, I am, but still…” He looks away for a moment, worrying his lower lip. Being a prefect he is… he’s also bothered of course. She might get in trouble. Not on my watch that she’ll get away with it, that is.

“Stop worrying too much, and let me be…” She says in retort, automatic as if reading his mind. But that’s full of guts for her to express. “Besides, the seniors know me too well. I assure you I am safe here.” She stretches a bit, and even gets comfortable by the toasty fire nearby. It contrasts with the cold stares the older male is giving her, along with the cold weather cooping them inside.

He rolls his eyes at her, letting out a chuckle.

“This is why you get issued on how much of a Slytherin you are.”

“And do you think I care, Oppa?” Y/n sat right up at that, then pouts her lips, playing with the ends of her sleeves. “I don’t think that’s a bad thing though.”

“Like I said, so Slytherin-like of you.”

Y/n emits a soft laugh at that, standing up to even do a curtsy for him. “Thank you, my good Sir.”

It remained quiet after a while.

Even as she gives him a smirk, she still gets silence from the older male. The coldness surrounding them reflects the feeling like the foggy glassed walls enrapturing the muddled stares between them. It’s a distinct type of tension, no words are needed to be exchanged to reveal it.

Y/n shakes her head lightly, perking a brow at him followed by a cheeky smile. “So that means to say I am welcome here anytime then, huh?”

That finally got a reaction from him.

“Unbelievable.”

“Dude , you’ve been seeing bizarre, floating things and disappearing objects on and off for almost two decades,” she throws her hands high, then gesturing at him and to herself, “and you do not believe in an enchanted lady like me?”

“I do agree with the ‘enchanted lady’ part.” He responds and then clears his throat.

Jihoon avoids his gaze as he begins to feel he’s letting himself loose. He shrugs off the blush across his ears and cheeks with a question he had been throwing at the younger.

“What actually brings you here, Y/n?”

She laughs at that, putting both her hands behind her. “Oh, come on, babe. No need to sound so casual.” Y/n smiles.

He just sounded stiff there at his probe.

She pats him on the head. “Lighten up a bit.”

In these instances, he begins to question if they really switched houses. He gets quieter and curious-er whenever she’s around, and her being the sneaky and more of the talker between them.

“I will, now that I got you here.”

Without a word, Y/n envelopes Jihoon in her arms, giving him a light peck on the side of his face. Jihoon wraps his arms around her as he kisses the top of her head.

He breathes in her scent, feeling her legs wrap around his. Jihoon stares at her. “You missed me too much, huh?”

Y/n just warmly beams, nodding in response.

Jihoon then puts a stray hair of hers behind her ear, tucking more of her hair behind her jumper. He leans closer to her again, seeping in more of her warmth.

She scrunches her nose at that, with Jihoon’s eyes forming into light crescents as both of them are immersed into each other’s world again.

They just let the sound of the loud pouring rain seep into them, letting the warmth of each other be enough to ease the coldness they feel.

“What are the odds to have both our classes cancelled, huh?” Jihoon asks after a while, content as the sound of the rain is still evident outside. Y/n finally has done her explaining to him.

“And what better way to spend it like this then.” She leans more on his chest, breathing in his fresh scent with ease as she felt vibrations from him as he lets out a chuckle.

“It does feel nice…” he says, more of a thought out loud.

“And come on, champ, let’s not use our spare time thinking about that and just spend it wisely instead.” she prompts with a pat on his shoulder, scootching closer till they’re no longer hair strands apart. So clingy.

“I’m just saying.” Jihoon moves his arm above the shoulder, playing bits of her hair.

She feels his shoulders relaxing as he heaves in a deep breath.

It feels nice here, it gets more comfortable as time passes, she thought, closing her eyes.

Like home.

She lets the silence envelop them, a smile slowly forming a similar curve on both their lips.

Maybe she does belong here after all.

She accepts her Slytherin side more so in these instances.

And imagine if they were in the same house though… She can get all the time she needs and wants to have him at arm’s length and look after him.

But for now, she can manage very well to slither in their dorm to her convenience.

※ my masterlist | #enjeiwrites ※

#woozi #lee jihoon #seventeen #svt #woozi fluff #woozi x reader #slytherin!woozi #hogwarts!au #kpop imagine #fanfic #enjeiwrites

120 notes · View notes

red-winter-is-coming · 1 month ago

Text

The reasoning behind the Masterminds.

(or, a post I was suppose to make hours earlier but got distracted, explaining Why The Fuck Eight People are second-round Masterminds in an AU)

This will be very.... fic like? Because I feel like it flows better that way!

@smol-creecher anything to add? I'm LOVING your imputs :D

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

It wasn't like this was their first choice, being told to run a killing game. Really, they didn't know what they were signing up for until it was far too late.

XF-Ture Tech approached them, one at a time. They were vulnerable, grieving the death of their classmate, the one who held them together.

They were offered something they wanted so desperately in their heart, that they signed a contract, signing their soul away for any one favor of XF-Ture's choosing.

They looked at Min, their prize student, the one who they could easily convince with one conversation: 'If you do this for us, you can be free. We'll find you a well paying job, one you can pick out, doesn't that sound nice?'

They found Rose, lost in her rotten world. 'We can get you out of here, give you your freedom back, get you home, if only you sign this paper.'

Eden and Whit, perhaps two of the kindest in their class left, were offered a very simple deal: 'Do you want a distraction from Mai?'

They tracked David down, giving an offer he wouldn't refuse. 'Come with us, and you will never need to keep up this front again.'

Charles, ever the loner, was offered a deal more simple then the others. 'Give us one favor, and we'll net you a high paying and comfortable job, and all the answers you're seeking.'

Ace and J, stuck in their own lives, wishing to get free, were offered just that. 'Come with us, and we'll get you out of there. Come with us, and you won't need to bother with your mother, or your job ever again.'

Stupid deals to make? In hindsight, yes. But they were nineteen years old, and mourning one of the few good people they ever knew.

They really should've said no.

The first few weeks were fine, amazing, even. They got warm food, a place to sleep, and they had each other for company. They spent their days exploring the huge building XF-Ture kept them in, as they found new hobbies to pass the time.

Then, they were called in to redeem the favor.

Run a death game until only you are left, XF-Ture told them, Run these games perfectly for freedom.

Really, had they all been together, instead of leading separate games, maybe they would've succeeded. Certainly, things like Charles almost getting brained after the second trial, or J's most hidden secret getting out to the worst person, wouldn't have happened.

They excuse their failure to kill their remaining classmate as weakness. They say it was too soon after Mai.

They couldn't let XF-Ture know how much most of them cared for the classmate in their group.

In the end, all of them defied their one final order: Kill everyone else in the game.

Failure meant death, and they were walking closer towards it at every moment.

So, when the higher executives came to them, and told them to fix their mistake of leaving people alive, they asked for one more chance. A chance where they'll be killed at the end, if they even make it there. Maybe, just maybe, with a little more time, and the ability to plan together, they'll find a way out.

Sure, things aren't going... as smoothly as planned. Nico's memory wipe didn't work, so now they're onto Ace. Rose is struggling to do anything, David has started arguments with everybody & has a HUGE target on his back, Min lost a hand, and Charles is worried about what the survivors might do.

But they bounced back before, and they'll bounce back again. (provided that Charles doesn't die, then they'll be fine. Whit's one of the glues holding them together and if his one lifeline gets cut, it'll spiral from there.)

#mastermind chaos AU #drdt #danganronpa despair time #something I didn't mention cuz I couldn't find the space:#Whit ended up making Charles custom glasses that automatically filter any blood to be pink; so he can actually help in the game #ofc Charles keeps trying to get used to blood; and won't always wear them #charles cuevas #david chiem #whit young #ace markey #j rosales #rose lacroix #min jeung #eden tobisa #mastermind au #tbh as I've been planning out this AU i've grown attached to the idea that they're a little fucked up found family #they understand each other on a level nobody else can touch; so ofc they keep each other close #that's not to say they're perfect; oh no.#Charles and whit are (almost dangerously) codependant; Rose's memory is getting worse with each day; David refuses to see the others as #anything but below him (even if he's just putting up an act; he pretends its the truth);#J and Ace are contsently bickering and trying to pull each other off their high horses; Min is drowning in guilt and regret; and Eden.#actually Eden is relatively okay. not great; but she's a bit more well adjusted then the others #-------------#if anyone is curious as to what I was distracted with; well I finished up my designs & names for a drdt warrior cats au :p

35 notes · View notes

poetrysmackdown · 1 year ago

Text

some informal thoughts

hello! hope the holiday season has been kind to all of you. and i hope all my jewish followers had a lovely hanukkah! anyways, since i said a few months ago that i’d pick poetry smackdown back up sometime around this time of year, i thought i should make a post. the gist of it is that i’m still quite busy, i have a break that’s about three weeks shorter than I was planning on, and i don’t currently have the mental bandwidth required to read, contemplate, and sort through poem submissions in a way that does justice to them, even if i were to recruit some friends to help out. since running a tournament format requires at least five weeks of continued engagement once it’s underway, and since i’m not at capacity to offer that right now due to the change in my schedule, i’m gonna have to bow out for now. sad bc i was looking forward to it!

my hope is that i’ll have some more time over the summer to hunker down with it, in which case you’ll be hearing from me. it’ll frankly depend on the kind of job i land in for the summer, but i find that my unemployed spirit can typically keep me doing stupid shit regardless of workload...to a point. i don’t want to make any promises because i don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up just to let them down again LOL. i do admit the amount of exposure the first tournament got has made me feel like more of a perfectionist this time around, doubly because i don’t feel that i’m very suited to being a public online presence (even a relatively quite small one)—i’m bad enough at responding to emails for my own real life responsibilities, let alone tumblr asks for the silly responsibilities i invent for myself lol. that’s not to say i no longer want to do it, or i don’t enjoy it, or even that i don’t feel capable of making a really interesting bracket—just that if i am working to put something new together, and if people are taking the time to submit poems they care about, then i don’t want to half-ass it.

my second admission is something like this. I made the original bracket as a celebration of poetry and our relationships to it. yes it was silly and competitive, and the poems were very tumblr, but still, celebration was the intention—I wanted to have conversations about poetry. I stand by the bracket format as a fun and valuable way to foster conversations about poetry, but truthfully, the poems i’m wanting to have conversations about right now—the poems that we should be talking about right now—are ones that i'm not comfortable putting in a bracket. I reblogged The Baffler’s Poems from Palestine collection on here earlier, and Najwan Darwish’s “Who Remembers The Armenians?”, which I still often find repeating through my head when I'm traveling from one place to another, walking home or riding the bus. I came across this beautiful thread recently where people have been translating Dr. Refaat Alareer’s “If I Must Die” into their own languages (this just makes my translator's heart sing!!!!!!). @havingapoemwithyou has been posting some great poems from and for Palestine as well—check out their tag here.

There's always more to add, and I'll be posting more on here as I come across it, but that's what I feel anyone should be focusing on right now when it comes to poetry. i think poetry can be an escape but it should never be a distraction. does that make sense? i wouldn't be against doing a one-off poll here or there, but it feels weird to be making a tournament for poetry right now, or anytime soon. i feel like what free time i have right now is still best utilized helping my friends with organizing in the real world. and god, a bit off-topic but while I'm talking, fuck poetry foundation—I have so much respect for all the poets keeping up the boycott, because while i think it's a simple decision, it's not always an easy one (Aurielle Lucier discussed that here).

anyways, if you read all of this, thank you for your time!! I could go on and on, but really this was just meant to be a message telling y'all that there won't be another tournament for a while lol. even so i'll be trying to use this small silly platform as best i can until palestine is free because that's the absolute least i can do.

#not a poll #also i'm closing my ask box for now because i know i don't have the bandwidth to answer anything rn. sorry :(#but feel free to reply here with your thoughts and any resources and i'll do my best to respond #or even messages might be fine. something about the ask format just gives me anxiety sometimes lmao #cannot stress this enough i am so so so bad at responding to things #even when i want to or enjoy doing it

98 notes · View notes

greenhikingboots · 2 years ago

Text

Jon’s Pre-Canon Crush

Okay, Jonsa fam. I’ve seen a lot of great posts, especially in the last few months, about Jon’s reactions to Val. Among them, there’s one particular vein I like to assume everyone loves as much as I do. That is, when Jon thinks of Val’s hair as silver vs. when he thinks of it as the color of dark honey. You’ve seen those metas, right? They explain the likelihood of Jon’s future connection to Dany being negative — The air tastes cold. / My tongue is too numb to tell. All I taste is cold. — while his future connection to Sansa will be positive — It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.

Well, in this post I want to expand on the angle of Val-is-sometimes-a-stand-in-for-Sansa. Only, I don’t want to speculate on what will happen between Jon and Sansa in the future, if we ever get GRRM’s last two books. Enough people have already done that, and they’ve done it so wonderfully that I have little to add. Instead, as the title of this post says, I want to focus on Jon’s pre-canon crush. More specifically: I want to focus on what Jon’s thoughts and feelings about Val say about his thoughts and feelings about Sansa.

But let me lay some groundwork first, okay? Until a few weeks ago, I went back and forth on pre-canon crush theories. I agreed they held a lot of potential and were a lot of fun to daydream about — a great premise for a one-shot, to be sure! Oh, and I’ve always loved it when people said things like, “Hey, Jon, your Targaryen is showing.” That’s classic stuff. But did I really think GRRM meant to hint at prior feelings rather than just laying a foundation for future feelings? Again, until a few weeks ago, I wasn’t totally convinced either way. But now I am fully committed to the Pre-Canon Crush Camp, assigned to cabin Jon-Had-Feelings-for-Sansa. [Did Sansa have feelings for Jon too? Ummm maybe? I think there’s some evidence to support that, but not as much. But, hey, that’s not the point of this post. Sorry. Moving on.] So what changed? Well, basically some ideas I’d previously had sunk in on a deeper level. It started with this post from @sherlokiness. It talks about GRRM commenting on a discrepancy in the books, two occasions where Jeyne Westerling’s physical descriptions do not match up. GRRM said the discrepancies were a mistake, a really unfortunate one because it distracts from the times when he intentionally included discrepancies of physical appearances. And basically us Jonsas loved it. Like, “Yep! Make sense! We assumed as much already, Mr. Martin.” And that’s because of the canon line mentioned earlier, right? You know the whole thing, don’t you? Oh, but you want me to quote it here anyway? Okay, fine, I’ll oblige.

They [Ghost and Val] look as though they belong together. Val was clad all in white [bleh, bleh, bleh] …but her eyes were blue, her long braid the color of dark honey, her cheeks flushed red from the cold. It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.

Direwolf. Lots of white. Suspicious ellipses. Blue eyes. Long braid the color of dark honey. Right, okay, got it. [BTW. Did you know there’s also a point, early on, where Val’s described as having high cheekbones? You know, a feature Sansa has as well!?!?] Anyway, when I saw sherlokiness’s post about GRRM’s comments and the Jonsas relating it to that canon scene with Ghost and Val, I reblogged it. Naturally. And in the tags I said something like, “I’ll have to double check but I’m pretty sure the willowy creature line comes after this line. As in, maybe Jon knew exactly who Val reminded him in that moment and he was trying to talk himself out of his pre-canon crush coming back to the surface.” I’m paraphrasing here. My tags were probably not as clear as that. Also, I was being a bit facetious. It was a thought I’d had before, but just a passing one. Again (AGAIN! Do I say that too much?), I’d been going back and forth about pre-canon crush theories for a long time. But @agentrouka-blog saw my tags and was like, “You might be onto something there.” And then @zimshan saw my tags too and did the double check for me. Thanks! And guess what? GUESS WHAT, JONSA FAM!? I was right about the order. First, Jon sees Ghost and Val, thinks her eyes are blue and her hair is like dark honey, and it is a lovely sight. Second, this line:

Val looked the part [of a princess] and rode as if she had been born on horseback. A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her.

But guess what else? The order isn’t even the most striking thing. The most striking thing is how closely these two lines appear to one another — within just a few pages!!! That's what zimshan said. So I went back to read it myself. Not just the two lines to check the order, but a little before, and a little after, and everything in between. If you want, you can do the same. It’s ADWD Jon XI.

Want to know what stuck out to me most? The willowy creature line actually seems… so odd, and out of place, and unnecessary. I swear to you. Let me try to explain.

Basically, by that point in the chapter, Jon has already clearly established his take on Val. She’s beautiful, everyone knows it, but she’s more than that. She’s strong and capable. She found Tormund and brought him back to Castle Black when Jon’s Night’s Watch Rangers couldn’t manage it. Like, Jon’s thankful for Val, okay?

Oh, and he also seems aware that he holds her in higher regard than the rest of the men who keep calling her a princess even though she’s not one. I think he feels smug about it, to be honest. Like, he wouldn’t use these words because it’s ASOIAF, but he knows he’s a budding feminist and he’s proud of himself for it. Like, “I’m so much better than these asshats who don’t respect women and think all Val has to offer is her pretty face.”

How great is that? I love book Jon so much.

Where was I, though? Oh! Oh, oh, oh! This next part is key. Up until the willowy creature line, Jon has not had a single disparaging thought about Val. Val being cruel about Shireen’s greyscale hasn’t happened yet. But for some reason — *Getting too executed. Brain malfunctioning!*

AH! I SWEAR JONSA FAM! If you read the willowy creature in fuller context, it comes across as if Jon’s correcting himself for having a disparaging thought about Val, like he’s reminding himself of who she truly is. She’s a warrior princess, not a willowy creature. But like, why? Why does Jon feel the need to do this? He hasn’t had a disparaging thought about Val, so why correct himself as if he has?

Just because she’s beautiful? Just because he’s tired of other men calling her a princess? I mean, I guess that could be the whole story. That’s certainly how we’re supposed to take it, if we’re taking it at face value. But I’m not convinced. Go read it again, and I think you’ll see that when the willowy creature line happens, it actually feels like a weird logic leap.

The dots aren’t connecting because one dot is missing!!!! Let me put a pin in that for a moment while I turn to other mini metas in our Jonsa fandom. Antis like to say, “Jon doesn’t like girls like Sansa. He doesn't like willowy creatures, he said so himself.” But we know that’s crap, right? The boy who liked Ygritte’s gentle side? The boy who helps Alys Karstark by marrying her to Sigorn? The boy who dreamed his mother was a highborn lady with kind eyes? The boy who wanted to show his hypothetical wife Winterfell’s glass gardens and bath with her in the hot pools?

Yeah, that boy is a budding feminist, like I said.

So again I ask (AGAIN!) why would Jon — who is not especially critical of women in general and has not been critical of Val at all up to this point — feel the need to correct himself by thinking this critical thing about willowy creatures? In other words, why does he lift up Val by putting down some vague idea of other women he’s never had a problem with before?

Well, obviously it turns out that I believe my facetious, tongue in cheek tags more than I realized when I wrote them. My position is that somewhere in the two pages between ...a long while since Jon had seen a sight so lovely… and ...not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair… Jon realized Val reminded him of Sansa, he felt guilty and ashamed about it, and then felt the need to do damage control. And because guilt and shame are icky, confusing feelings, his damage control took the form of being critical of Sansa even though he isn’t normally critical of such women.

Am I making sense? How do I explain myself further? Like, why am I so stuck on this idea Jon’s willowy creature line being two pages after the Ghost and Val looking lovely together line must mean Jon had a pre-canon crush?

I think the crux is what I said about the willowy creature line feeling like a weird logic leap — like the dots aren’t connecting because one is missing. The missing dot is Jon being aware that he’s mentally swapped Val with Sansa. He just doesn’t acknowledge this on the page.

Let me be extra clear. I’m now differing from several others who have written about pre-canon crush theories in that I think Jon was aware of his crush. I’ve seen many say it’s all subconscious. But this stuff with Val makes me think otherwise.

I mean, I know Jon has a pattern of dissociation. For him, thinking, and speaking, and acting from his subconsciousness is a common occurrence. So, yes, he could have subconsciously thought Val looked like Sansa and subconsciously felt guilty and ashamed and therefore subconsciously decided to do damage control by subconsciously reminding himself Val is a warrior princess and therefore not a willowy creature.

But I think GRRM was hinting at an exception to Jon’s pattern with these canon lines. Because if the first part is happening subconsciously — Jon thinking Val looks like Sansa and that it’s a lovely sight — then he wouldn’t feel the need to do damage control afterwards? If he wasn’t aware of thinking of Sansa in that moment, isn’t it more likely he’d just carry on with taking Val to meet Selyse, and the odd, out of place, unnecessary line about a willowy creature wouldn’t have been included? What else, what else?

I said earlier that I think Jon’s crush is an innocent, not sexual thing. Let me expand on that. And uuuuuhhhhh... let me clarify that I think that might be changing some over time. My guess is when Jon was younger, his thoughts were more along these lines: “Sansa is pretty, and a proper lady, and everything men are taught to want. She’ll be a good wife for someone someday. Obviously not me. That’s sinful, I don’t want it, and I’m a bastard so I can’t marry a highborn lady anyway. But objectively, Sansa’s a good catch.” Which kinda matches how Jon thinks of Val at times, right? Like, she’s a catch but he doesn’t want her. He’s not taking Winterfell and a Wife because Winterfell belongs to Sansa and he’s a man of the Night’s Watch, dammit! But hang on a second. Sometimes Jon’s thoughts about Val are more elicit, aren’t they? He thinks about the size of her breasts and she’s the hypothetical wife he pictures romancing in Winterfell. Don’t worry, I’m not saying I’m secretly a Jon/Val shipper. What I’m getting at is this other thing we’ve talked about in the Jonsa fandom. Jone projects his general desires onto Val. He’s getting older. He’s unhappy at the Wall. Winterfell isn’t Robb’s like he thought it would be, and Bran and Rickon are thought to be dead. And Stannis is offering Winterfell and Val to him. Plus he’s now been intimate with a woman, Ygritte. So he knows that sex feels nice. All in all, Jon’s becoming more in tune with wanting Winterfell, and a wife, and a family, and wanting to fu—

You get the idea. ;)

Soooooo. If you buy into the premise that A) Jon considered Sansa a good catch when they were younger B) He’s thinking more and more about romance and sex C) Val is also a good catch and easy to project feelings onto and D) Woopsies, Val just reminded me of Sansa! Well, then where does all that leave Jon? Feeling like he needs to distance himself from positive thoughts about Sansa, right? But without ever thinking her name because of his pattern of dissociation and because GRRM is tricky like that. Am I making my point clearer, or just talking in circles? Like, I know plenty of people have already said Val is a switch-back-and-forth-stand-in-for-other-characters. The first two short paragraphs of this post mentions those metas. But holy smokes! If Jon is aware of A-D mentioned above, that adds a fascinating layer of subtext to his scenes with and thoughts about Val. Let’s talk about it forever!

Just kidding. I think I’m almost done here. Basically, I think the willowy creature line is Jon knowingly saying to himself, “Yikes, the thoughts I had about Sansa in the past didn’t bother me much because they were 99% innocent. But they are less innocent now and that’s a problem! You can’t like Sansa! Don’t confuse Sansa with Val, dummy! Val is a warrior princess! Sansa is a willowy creature and willowy creatures are bad!”

Okay, sure, Jon. Let me wrap up with one more canon line.

Of Sansa brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow.

We often link this line to Ygritte for obvious reasons, but I’m now in the habit of linking it more to Val and the canon lines mentioned previously. I think GRRM wrote a the three lines — a sight so lovely + willow creature + of Sansa brushing out Lady’s coat — as a subtle continuation of one another. Us Jonsas saw the potential for underlying romantic feelings in the last one, that’s nothing new. But I want to add that it’s a direct contrast to the willowy creature line. As Jon is bleeding out, he can no longer be bothered to put up a front and pretend he doesn’t have feelings for Sansa, feelings that have gotten more complicated as of late.

Oh so subtle. Really not that much different than what others have said before me. But different enough I wanted to mention it. Now someone put it in a fanfic!!

#jonsa #jonsa meta #jonsa pre-canon crush #did this make sense?#it's a blur #i almost gave up on writing it #but people seemed interested #so i hope i don't sound like a crazy person

209 notes · View notes

pavedinashes-if · 1 year ago

Note

how would the romanced ROs deal with an MC that sometimes just forgets to eat... all day. because they got distracted

Finally getting back to this Q, from what feels like a century ago. But, I have to say I was jumping around from excitement when I received it. This is such an amazing ask and it took me a while to get it done properly so it fits the ROs just the way I imagine it would... enough of this tho, here's the A to your Q: L-O-N-G RESPONSE BELOW [author's comment: dear followers, pls remember, these Qs addressing all ROs are from a time I had my inbox open for these kind of long scenarios. atm my inbox is closed. thank you 💜]

Your Neighbour: They are a bit surprised they didn't notice any earlier, and they feel ashamed for it. From now on, they will make sure to have some light snacks ready in their fridge - always something different to prevent boredom and perhaps even inspire your appetite. They will also leave you little messages on post-its and send mobile check-ins. If their schedule allows, they want to eat together with you to establish a healthy habit and combine it with some quality time. There will be an equal mix of eating at home and dining out.

Your Ex: They know you struggle with eating regularly, and they hate seeing you go through it. They worry a lot because of this. Therefore, they came up with an ultimate plan. While they admit they're not great at cooking, there's one dish they excel at: their signature lasagna. So one thing's for sure: there will always be some lasagna in the fridge that they'll feed you if necessary. Furthermore, they've developed a strategy of placing little treats you enjoy everywhere, like a tasty protein bar in your jacket, an apple in your backpack, or a self-made shake with your favorite ingredients in the fridge - hoping to remind you to eat, keep your mood up, or prevent your blood sugar from reaching hell.

Your New Foe: They're fuming. Seriously? You're not a kid anymore. They will definitely scold you about your careless behavior. Damn, this talk will be uncomfortable. What you don't know though, is that they are deeply worried. Unfortunately, their coping mechanism with worrying sucks. They're really mad at themselves for not seeing it sooner. Suddenly, they storm out of the room, and you think it's because they're still mad at you. When they don't return and you hear noise from the kitchen, you decide to check what's going on. "What are you...?" you ask, but all you get is some Polish mumbling, and although you don't understand it, you're sure they are cursing. Besides this, you don't get any attention for now; they are fully focused on cooking. Lucky for you, they are incredibly talented, and you can expect a table full of mouthwatering dishes. I mean, what you don't finish today will surely feed you for the rest of the week.

Your Best Friend: They sigh. They know you tend to skip meals, and they've tried to talk to you to figure out how to fix this, but until today, nothing has helped. When they find out it's one of those days again, they'll suggest going to eat something - maybe some deli, some fries, just something quick because their priority is to ensure you eat something as soon as possible. It's a nice side effect that the time meant for a quick meal turns into a fun exchange and a sorrow-free 2-hour talk. They'll set a reminder on their phone to check in on you and call at least once a day. In the evening, they will order food from your favorite restaurant and enjoy it with you at home.

Your New Friend: Your new friend is confused. To them, eating is almost a holy ritual, which they celebrate properly - maybe even a bit obsessively. "Wait a sec, imma be back real quick." A raised finger demands you not to move. They hurry out of the room, and 5 minutes later, they return with three plates full of... um... food? You take a skeptical look. You're not sure if it's some art project or something that your body will reject the moment it enters it. You try to recognize what's served. Are these flowers? Truffles? Gold leaves? WTF? Your brows furrow. When you look up at them, there's this expectant expression all over their face. All you manage is to send them an awkward "Thank you?" before you take a fork and cautiously explore the contents of the plates.

Your Childhood Friend: Bianca is surprised to hear that there are days when you don't eat. She only remembers that you had a healthy appetite when you two were friends as children. Fortunately, she always carries some snacks around. Maybe they're not the healthiest, but at least you won't faint. Besides, she will come visit you at work/university, etc., and bring you some fresh smoothies and cupcakes. Okay, okay, it's still all sugar, BUT (!) the smoothie has fruits in it, okay?

Your Rival: "The fuck do I care?!" Sigh, sorry, MC.

Your Best Friend’s BF/GF: It’s rare to see them so serious, and that’s because they suffered from an eating disorder for a very long time and only recently managed to regain control. They understand that food can be a sensitive topic. Suddenly, something in their expression changes, a smile growing on their face. “You know what, amore mio? We will eat together from now on. I will make sure you get some proper authentic Italian food. Nobody can say no to that. You don’t need to take care of anything, capisce? Let me…” they send you a seductive smirk, their finger gently running over your forearm, “…take care of you.” accompanied by a flirty wink.

Your Boss: You two sit in their office and talk, and then, out of nowhere, you drop the bomb. You didn’t eat anything today, and obviously, this is something that keeps happening to you. They look at you with an emotionless expression on their face, their eyes not betraying their thoughts - yet you notice their jaw clenching. Then they stand up without a word and leave the room, but before you can figure out what’s going on, they’re back and sit down again. None of you is talking. It’s an awkward atmosphere. To ease the strange energy, you begin to speak about your day, and they listen - still no emotion visible. About 20 minutes later, there is a knock at the door. “Come in,” they respond, without taking their eyes off of you. One of their employees enters with a plate full of food. Once it is placed down in front of you, you realize it’s your favorite dish, together with a glass of water. “Eat.” This single word makes you look up at them, their arms crossed as they expect you to do as ordered. They won’t leave before the plate is empty. And neither will you. Oh, and this will be the last time you didn’t eat anything in a day.

Your Doctor: Worried wrinkles on their forehead, their head resting on their hand, a heavy sigh with closed eyes. “Ok, that’s not working. We need to…” they hesitate, thinking which words to pick next. “figure out a way to avoid this in the future. Tell me, is there a reason this happens?” They’d like to find out why you don’t eat and since when this is the case. They will worry, a lot, and their thoughts will circle around this topic so much, they’ll be zoning out mid-day, thinking about you and whether you are okay. Knowing just too well about the consequences for your physical and mental health, they will make it their mission to help you develop a healthy coping strategy. To them, this means cooking for you in the evening and preparing little bento boxes for the day. Congrats, you’ve just added another thing to their long daily bucket list. Fun fact: Your meal plan is way superior to their own.

Your Supplier: Oh? They forget to eat too. It seems like you’ll both starve, and it’s just a question of who’s first. They’ll joke about it. Though, to your surprise, your admission changed something in them. It’s from this day on that they will finally eat regularly, just to make sure you do too. Who would’ve thought this was possible, turning this chaotic being into somebody taking responsibility for themselves and somebody else. Spending time together eating, creating a ritual out of it, this feels like a gift to them, and they discover emotions they never experienced before. Finally, your relationship takes another turn, a more serious one.

A Stranger: They noticed - of course they did - and while they tried to make sure you two eat when you are together, they cannot control your eating behavior when you are not together. They didn’t want to address it directly to avoid making you uncomfortable, but now that it’s out, they will ask if it is okay for you if they… take care of it. “What do you mean ‘take care’?” you ask them, confused by their remark. From tomorrow on, there will always be a delivery with the most delicious dishes for you, no matter where you are - at home, at work, wherever. And it will always be something you would kill for. Of course, when you two are together, you’ll be going to the fanciest restaurants in town and even abroad, because why not fly spontaneously to Paris for the freshest baguettes and croissants in the morning? Yup, they’re good at these kinds of things.

61 notes · View notes

masterwords · 1 year ago

Text

all is bright

Summary: After a long series of failed dates, Hotch and Morgan finally come to their senses thanks to some well-placed mistletoe.

Pairing: Hotch/Morgan

Words: 6.3k

Warnings: stomach illness mentioned, migraine, foyet mention...99% mutual pining turned first kiss

Read on AO3: all is bright

Notes: Hey there! It's been a hot minute since I posted anything. A long holiday vacation and some major flooding in our town and our house has meant not much writing time. But, I have this for you today. <3 The first of many wintry Christmas themed fics this month, and one of two that are not Secret Santa gifts! This one was written for @imagining-in-the-margins Office Party Challenge using the prompt: Characters end up beneath very suspiciously placed mistletoe at the holiday party. (I have a 2nd story in the works for this challenge as well, different prompt but same pairing of course.)

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“I saw you last night,” Derek said casually, stepping into Hotch’s office with his bag still slung over one shoulder. To Hotch he looked a little tired but he was dressed up in a black button down and slacks, put together in a way he wasn’t usually and it was a little distracting. “At the bar.”

“And you didn’t say hello?” Hotch barely looked up, just a flick of his eyes, then back at his paperwork. Derek entered like that was an invitation, just a little further. He’d wait another minute before coming in completely, let Hotch warm up or push him on his way. He didn’t have a lot of time anyway.

“You looked...occupied. A date?”

“You could call it that. It was an attempt anyway.”

“Good for you!” He meant that, too. Haley had been dead a year, and it seemed to rock him right back to the moment of his divorce, maybe worse. He’d been paralyzed completely, but the loneliness had started to feel crushing. Hopeless. And the longer it went on, the harder it felt to claw his way back out. Derek took his opportunity to drag a chair over and perch himself right in front of Hotch’s desk, to sit and talk with him for a moment. A spot of real connection after a long period of silence. He thought things would be different, but they’d settled back into uncomfortable silence as Hotch retreated into himself.

Hotch couldn’t help looking up at the sudden intrusion.

“It didn’t go well.” He didn’t look too upset by it. He kept his features carefully guarded, but it did sting to admit. He’d met Noel at the gym, not exactly the best place to meet someone but not the worst by a long shot. They’d started going around the same time, Hotch because he needed to supplement his physical therapy as he attempted to regain his fitness after Foyet’s attack and Noel because he was trying to lose ten pounds for a part. Of course he was an actor. He thought Haley would have laughed at that. In any case, they’d managed to talk about theatre while running on the treadmill, avoiding any topics of real import. After a couple of weeks and a successful audition, Noel casually asked Hotch out for a drink. “To celebrate,” he said and Hotch found that he had no real good reason to say no.

He was so damn lonely.

He gave himself a fifty fifty chance at success, having been out of the dating game long enough to be rusty but he still had a pretty firm grasp of the basics. By the end of the night he knew it wasn’t a match. Even when Noel said “I’ll call you,” and tried to kiss him on the cheek, he knew that was it. And that was okay. Like Rossi told him earlier that morning, at least he went out and tried. He got out of the house, he met someone new, he tried an appletini for the first time because his date insisted it was the best drink the bartender made (and hated every second of it, the cloying sweetness making him gag on every sip). He got out of his comfort zone and the loneliness was abated some, overall a success even if the attempt at a match was an abysmal failure.

“How is that even possible? Aaron Hotchner doesn’t fail at anything.”

Hotch sighed and put his pen down, knowing that he was unlikely to get out of this conversation without giving up some details. He put on his bravest face and sucked in a breath, not thrilled about admitting this failure to Derek Morgan of all people. There were layers to that reasoning. “For starters, he was attached to his phone the whole time. His notification sound was Minnie Mouse. He wanted to get all of my social media handles and seemed incredibly concerned when I told him that I had none. He asked me how I could possibly live without having at least one.”

“Yeah, I run into that a lot too.” Derek wouldn’t comment on the Minnie Mouse bit, but the guy sounded like a disaster. He was a little glad it didn’t work out because from his vantage point, that guy was hot as hell and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been a little jealous. From where he sat, it looked like Hotch was smiling and having a good time. He had to fight every instinct in his body not to go break in and ask Hotch to dance when the jukebox kicked up with some old Dwight Yoakam.

“He wanted to take photos of me and I asked him not to. At one point he insisted that SnapChat was safe for me to use because the photos disappeared. I tried to be polite but it’s hard to tell someone you can’t be in their photos without explaining why. They tend to think you’re just a jerk.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Just that my job requires me to operate cautiously.” That was an understatement, of course, and there was a lot more to it than that. He’d been stalked and stabbed in his own home, it wasn’t just his job that made him operate with an abundance of caution. He’d always been reserved even with people he knew well, more since Haley died. He’d practically sealed himself off. This date...he was stepping so far outside of his comfort zone and realizing quickly how very not ready he still was. He might never actually be ready.

Derek just nodded and smiled, leaning back in the chair. He crossed his legs and couldn’t hide the jaw cracking yawn that followed the movement.

“Late night?” Hotch asked, changing the subject abruptly. He’d had enough of talking about Noel, in fact if he never talked about him or saw him again he thought that would be just fine. It might have been a worthwhile experience but it still hurt. There was an ache in his chest he couldn’t quite shake and it didn’t have as much to do with Noel as it did simply being aware that he didn’t know how to do any of this. He wasn’t used to that feeling. And if he didn’t know how to do this, then he couldn’t shake the loneliness of an empty bed. “I saw you too, you know.”

“Yeah? So you saw me get my ass kicked to the curb huh?”

“It looked a little heated, but I figured you had it handled.”

“I don’t know if I’d say that, but I’ll bounce back. Plenty of fish in the sea.” He was so tired that he’d started using his mom’s words now. Every time he told her about a heart break, which was more often than he’d like to admit (and more often than anyone would believe) she told him the same thing. “You’ll be okay, my darling boy. You’re a catch.” He was starting to seriously doubt that statement.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”

“Classic BAU problem. I don’t make time for him. He’s been asking me to go on this cruise with him. And okay, yeah, some time off would be nice...but you know how that is. And I love beaches and sand and cocktails...but a cruise? Man, I don’t wanna be on a boat for a week with a bunch of screaming kids and drunk retirees.”

“Sounds like a nightmare.” Hotch had been on a cruise once with Haley and her family, before Jack. It was worse than Derek could imagine, of that he was certain. It had been a sensory nightmare for a man who enjoys peace and quiet. Even the room was overstimulating, and when he got back on land all he wanted was to hide in his backyard for a week recovering, tinkering, gardening. For a man who loves boats, the novelty wore off fast. He didn’t think Derek could do it.

“Right? That’s what I said. But he got these tickets, all inclusive, and he’s been after me for weeks.”

“I’d approve the time off, if you wanted to give it a shot.”

“Nah. I realized last night that we’ve been trying to force something that wasn’t right anyway. The physical stuff was fun but that’s about it. We’re incompatible. He likes soccer.”

“I like soccer,” Hotch said a little indignantly, his lips ticking up at the corners in a little smirk. Derek laughed.

“Well there’s no accounting for taste, but I can forgive you for it.”

Hotch let out a small laugh and lifted his pen again, just for something to do with his hands. He ran his fingers along the smooth line of it and flipped it over his knuckles. There have been times over the years that he’s wondered about he and Derek, if things were different, if they’d met under different circumstances. Playing in the land of make believe, that’s what his dad would have called it. No what ifs, those didn’t exist and would never exist because the time had passed. They were compatible in nearly every way, sometimes to the point of it being a little ridiculous, but he simply could not indulge himself in that way. He couldn’t ask Derek out, not ever, because it would be so wildly inappropriate of him to cross that line. And Derek would probably not be interested in him anyway, that was a pipe dream. Having things in common didn’t exactly mean romantically compatible, he was smart enough to know that.

Except when he glanced up again and met Derek’s eyes, there was something there that looked dangerous and inviting. Like he was indulging the same thoughts. It was so hard to turn the inner profiler off, especially when you can’t do anything about what’s on your mind. He’d be silly to think Derek hadn’t ever considered it too, really, even if it had only been a passing thought. Another what if. It took them almost no time at all to discover that each of them was bisexual, even if Hotch was married at the time. Haley made it well known to Derek over plenty of late night dinners and too many glasses of wine that Hotch was a theater kid, “if you know what I mean”. And Derek, well he was simply confident. It had taken him a long time to gain that confidence, a lot of years of hiding and shame built up before he decided it didn’t serve him and he was losing precious time to be happy. Plenty of fish. He was a catch. He deserved to be happy, or so his mother said. Fran Morgan said a lot of things, he had come to find out.

Except as he sat in that chair across from Hotch, he knew that kind of real happiness was just out of reach. Because he’d come to realize that Hotch was that happiness. And so he became Captain Ahab and there weren’t plenty of fish, there was one white whale. Hotch’s principals were too strong, his code when it came to work was ingrained in him so deeply that he would never ask Derek out, and he couldn’t just ask his boss out. None of it was fair.

“I suppose things could be worse,” Hotch said finally, offering a small ray of hope. “Single isn’t the worst thing in the world. It does get a bit lonely, though.”

“At least you got the kid. He’s great.” Now. He had the kid now. Because Haley died and now he was forced into being a single parent. Derek felt awful for saying it but Hotch didn’t seem to think too hard about it, he just nodded in response.

“You have Clooney.”

“Well then we’re both doing just fine, huh? Anyway, I’ve got a meeting with Strauss in fifteen. I should drop my things off in my office before I have to see her.”

Hotch hummed in response and watched Derek lift his bag, heading for the door. He paused there in the door frame and looked back, only for a moment, offering a small smile.

“Plenty of fish in the sea,” he said, a little sadly and his white whale nodded. “Don’t lose hope.”

“I won’t if you won’t.”

(x)

The holidays always seemed to creep up on him. One minute it was summer, he was spending every minute with Jack he could outside of work, soaking up the sunshine and the little adventures that felt huge in the eyes of his young son. They spent a lot of time by the small courtyard pool, Hotch lying in the shade of a huge sun-bleached umbrella with a nostalgic 90s pattern still barely visible while Jack and his multitude of bright floating toys find endless amusement in the pool. Occasionally some of the neighbors would pop down, offer him a beer, let the other kids play a while, but it was always them first, them every day. It was their little sanctuary surrounded by cast iron gates and a bright blue sky. All day, camped out. He couldn’t go far, couldn’t take big long trips, he was tied to his job but they could go to the pool. Every day, sometimes. He’d pack up some hot dogs or take a frozen pizza from the oven and they would eat and enjoy the water well into the evening. It seemed to last forever and be over in the blink of an eye. Suddenly they were back to school, carving pumpkins, trick-or-treating, cooking a little Thanksgiving dinner for two (or three if Jessica didn’t have plans). And then he blinked again and it was Christmas Eve and he hadn’t done anything but work his tail end off and try to squeeze in some shopping when he could. It was Christmas Eve and he hadn’t taken Jack to see Santa, he hadn’t done much of anything.

Part of that this year he could chalk up to illnesses that had stacked up, one after another in their home. School had away of sucker punching them, and just when he thought they were coming out of one they’d be hit with another. The last illness was a brutal stomach virus that terrorized his home for a whole weekend. First Jack, then Jessica, then him, all taken down. None of them felt well enough to do anything more Christmasy than turn on a holiday movie and lay on the couch hoping not to need the bathroom. Hoping to sleep. Dreaming of eating something again, anything at that point. Hotch could have killed for a bite of dry wheat toast, but even that was too much during that awful weekend.

Jack bounced back first, followed by Jessica, and finally his body got the memo and allowed him to start eating and drinking again. “You’ve been through a lot in the last year,” Jessica said when he moaned about taking longer to feel better. He didn’t bounce back, he was crawling. “You have to give yourself time.”

He was still not feeling great, but he was back at work after almost a week. That awful weekend left him drained, and though he’d intended to go to work the following Monday, his body had other plans. He was knocked on his ass by a migraine from hell, no matter what tricks he employed it was completely debilitating. Three full days on his couch unable to do anything but the most basic functions of living. Jessica called it his illness hangover, everyone was feeling better and his body finally ran out of fumes to run on. He’d been taking care of everyone in spite of his own needs and when Jess went back to work and Jack went back to school, he all but collapsed. It wasn’t pretty. He cried more than once out of sheer frustration, a particularly low point he wasn’t proud of. But Jack made him a bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon and raisins and Jessica picked up his dry cleaning and did his grocery shopping and somehow he saw his way through it to the other side.

Three days was his limit. By the fourth day he was at least able to be upright, he could function. He’d be able to work at his desk and push through a pile of consults and administrative work. His jaw ached down into his neck and shoulders and he was wearing his glasses instead of his contacts out of pure necessity, but otherwise he was doing alright. Just exhausted. So exhausted, he didn’t even care that Christmas was almost over. And neither did Jack, really. They were all sort of ready to be done with it. He thought the hardest part would be dealing with the grief of a full year without Haley, their first real Christmas without her (because he could barely remember the first one, it was all such a blur of pain and work that he wasn’t even sure they did anything at all).

His routine upon entering his office was simple. Flip on the overhead light, do a quick walk through, set his briefcase in a corner within arm’s reach, turn on the space heater beneath his desk. After that first round, he would walk back and turn on the lamp, turning off the overhead light. Headache lighting. Finally, he started a pot of coffee. He could get a cup from the common area, but he had the stuff he liked right here and it would hide the dusty smell of his space heater.

With that done, he sat himself down and reclined in his chair, breathing a few times just to settle himself. Bring him here into the moment, ease the throbbing in his temples. He would make it a few hours at least if he moved slowly, if he was deliberate about how he spent his time.

His eyes caught on a small envelope, bright red and addressed in glitter pen to Sir Hotch. Penelope’s looping scrawl with a heart in place of the o in Hotch. He wondered how long it had been sitting there and he felt a small pang of guilt over it. Ridiculous and misplaced guilt for not being here, for leaving his team in the lurch. With a little hesitation, he grabbed his letter opener and sliced through the top of the envelope, sliding out a small white invitation emblazoned with brightly wrapped gifts and other various Christmas drawings. Hand drawn, he could tell. She made it herself.

A party invitation, at first glance. His eyes scanned the little pictures first, then lit on the actual information and he felt his stomach twist.

That night. 7pm. Bring a white elephant gift.

“Sir!” Penelope exclaimed as he read through the note a second time. “I didn’t realize you’d be back today. I sort of thought you’d be out until after the holiday...how are you feeling?” She didn’t bother to try and mask the way she looked him over with concern in her features. He didn't hold it against her, he knew he looked like death warmed over.

“Better, thank you,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I’m only seeing your invitation now.”

“No, no, don’t worry about it. You don’t have to come. I’m sure you still need to rest. I actually just wanted to come up and say not to worry about it...I didn’t know you were sick when I brought it in here.”

He scanned the invitation again and offered her a smile. “You know, we haven’t done a single fun thing this season. I’m hoping to take Jack to the mall to see Santa tonight as a last ditch effort to save the holiday, it’s near your place. We could stop by afterward.”

The way Penelope’s face lit up set his heart on fire. She never expected him to come, that much was clear. Even if he hadn’t been sick, she had already prepared herself for him to politely decline. And he almost did, too. He knew he wasn’t likely to feel up for a party that night, he didn’t feel up for one right then either, but something told him he had to go for it. Even if it was just a quick pop in.

“That sounds...so great. Thank you sir. You don’t have to bring a white elephant gift...just...you guys just come. That’s the gift. Having you and Jack in my home.”

“I’ll bring something. I don’t want to throw off the count.” He smiled at that, hiding the fact that while he’d always been good at gift giving, white elephant exchanges had always eluded him. He was better at sincere than silly or broad. He’d have to ask Jessica, she would know what to buy. “Is there anything else you need? Food or drinks, utensils?”

She was beaming now, hardly able to contain herself. He could scarcely believe that him coming to her party was such a good thing. “Nope. Nothing. Just come.”

(x)

From the street, they could already see Penelope’s apartment. Jack had been there a few times for gatherings and once or twice when Hotch was in a pickle and needed someone to watch him for a few hours. She had really come through for him more than once. Her apartment window was lit up with bright twinkling lights from the inside, a gaudy Christmas tree drenched in decadent decorations right in the middle of the display. Shadows moved at the periphery, everyone was already inside. He knew he’d be late but he hadn’t realized just how late. The line to see Santa was shockingly long this late in the season, he really thought he’d be one of very few failures standing in line waiting for the last glimpse of the man in red. He had to leave early to begin delivering gifts, of course, so they were on a pretty strict clock. He made it just in time.

“Are we late, dad?” Jack asked as they entered the building, the air inside warming their cold noses and fingers. He was parked a few blocks away, somewhere with easy access to the mall and her place.

“A little,” he replied, nudging Jack past the elevator. They took the stairs up, Hotch insisting they’d warm up faster if they get their blood pumping. Jack didn’t think that was true, he just guessed his dad was afraid of elevators. He never took them if he didn’t have to.

They could hear Christmas music coming from Penelope’s apartment when they entered the hallway, and as they got closer they could begin to make out the song. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, the good version Hotch thought. The classic. He enjoyed all Christmas music, but he had a special affection for the oldies, the stuff his mom used to play on crackling vinyl when he was a kid.

“The Home Alone song!” Jack squealed, rushing toward the door and knocking excitedly. They had just watched that movie over the weekend and he’d been cleaning up all sorts of Jack’s little traps ever since. No wet bandits would be getting into their apartment on Jack’s watch. Penelope answered the door in a dress that almost hurt Hotch’s eyes, twinkling lights all over that reflected off of his glasses matched the biggest smile he’d ever seen.

“You made it! Did you see Santa?” She crouched to talk directly to Jack right away, leaving him standing there watching. He scanned the party and noticed that the entire team was packed inside of that little apartment.

“Yeah! I did!”

“What was he like? Did he smell like cookies? I always remember him smelling like sugar cookies.”

“He smelled like...candy canes!” Jack wrapped his arms around her neck when she extended her arms to him without hesitation. His hug was full and tight.

“What did you ask him for?”

“It’s a secret!”

“Oh, oh yeah...I guess I forgot that part. Come inside you two! It’s cold out here!” As Hotch entered, he extended his hand with a small wrapped gift inside. It was a little box, the smallest thing on the table and he was a little concerned he chose the wrong thing. He’d had plenty of ideas, all of which Jessica said were wrong or boring – she made the choice in the end, insisting that he would bring the one thing everyone in this crowd would need and no one would ever think of. No one would ever see it coming, especially from him. He wasn’t sure that was such a great thing, but it was done now. He’d committed.

They dove into the gift exchange almost immediately. He barely had time to get a mug of coffee in his hand before they were choosing numbers and stealing gifts from one another. His little box stayed put for a long time, almost insultingly long really. The big gifts were pulled first, followed by the more obvious secondary gifts. By the time his number was called there weren’t many left, and his options were slim so he decided just to take the box he’d brought and slink back into his little corner. Worried the gift was wrong, or might be interpreted incorrectly, he hoped he could just go back home with it and maybe return it after Christmas.

Once everyone was holding a gift from the pile, the real fun began – Penelope announced that one at a time, in their original order first, everyone could begin stealing gifts. One exceptionally large box made the rounds the longest, not because anyone thought the gift would be particularly good so much as they were curious what was hiding inside. Reid had brought the gift, Hotch knew it just by the look on his face as people passed it around and around curiously and he imagined it probably had a sock or something of equally little value but high amusement inside. For someone from Las Vegas, Reid's poker face left a lot to be desired.

Out of nowhere, Derek appeared in front of him with a grin. “I want that,” he said, indicating Hotch’s little gift. Reluctantly Hotch handed it to him and accepted what he had in his hand in return. They couldn’t trade back. That was it. Derek was the final trade and everyone was stuck with what they had.

His heart sank at the thought of Derek opening what he brought, of all people.

“Okay, on the count of three...everyone open your gift! Good luck!”

Hotch let Jack open his gift, even though Jack had a pile of gifts beneath the tree of his own to open when it was time. The little boy scrunched his nose once he got a peek and handed the gift to his dad to finish opening – it was a pair of mittens, nothing interesting to him. Nothing fun at all. He rushed back to where Henry sat beside the tree, eager to get into the really good stuff. Hotch examined the mittens, pulling them gingerly from the rest of the wrapping and holding them up to his hands – they would fit. Penelope made them, he could tell her handiwork (and he’d seen her in her office toiling over them during her lunch hour more than once in the last month). Mittens weren’t exactly his style but his hands did get cold easily and they were a deep, rich gray flecked with blue. He could wear them when the arctic chill in his office got unbearable. His circulation wasn’t what it used to be, if it ever was good in the first place. He tried not to watch Derek too closely when he opened his gift – pulling the little velvet bag out of the box and examining the contents with an amused smile on his face. There were three oversized wooden dice inside with words and little pictures burned into the sides. Date night dice, Jessica insisted they all needed this gift. She’d been hoping JJ would get it, probably, but each of them could use the help in that department. Date nights were spontaneous at best in their line of work, and you didn’t have time to sit and talk it out or make long term plans...it had to be quick and it had to be fun. Make the most of whatever time you get. She’d picked out the appropriate dice, simple food & activities, though she did try to push the sexy ones at him more than once. He drew the line at sexual gifts for his subordinates. Well, he drew the line quite a ways before that even, but that was definitely not going to happen.

The look on Derek’s face as he read the sides of the die made him smile in spite of himself. He seemed pleased with them, or amused maybe, and carefully slipped them into his pocket before heading back to the kitchen for a new drink. Hotch thought about following for a topper on his coffee but Jack’s voice called him to the tree where Penelope wanted the kids to start tearing into their pile of gifts before they went rabid and did tore apart her whole apartment. He made his way through the crowd and stood beside JJ and Will, the feeling of joy at seeing their kids happy and the dread of having to take all of this mess home and find places for it almost palpable between them. JJ was holding a small disposable camera in her hand that looked like it had been pulled right out of someone’s attic. “That from Reid?” he asked and she nodded, smiling. A little yellow Kodak disposable camera inside that enormous box. Reid outdid himself.

“I haven’t seen one of these since college. You think it still works?”

“Only one way to find out,” he replied, hoping she might test it out. The film was probably long since ruined, but the thought of having some of these memories preserved in that way was enticing. He’d always loved the look of real film. Or maybe he was just a nostalgic, sentimental old man now.

“They really went all out,” JJ said, shaking her head as her son ripped wrapping paper to shreds like a wolverine. “I don’t think Henry’s room is big enough.”

Hotch smiled and nodded in agreement, watching as Jack made it into the first of his many gifts. The whole team brought something for the kids, it was too much. Superheroes, books, legos, everything he loved. “Dad, look!” It was squealed over and over as Jack held up gift after gift and Hotch rubbed at the bridge of his nose where his glasses suddenly felt heavy and tried not to let on just how anxious all of that stuff made him feel. Knowing it would have to be in his home, exploding out of Jack's room. The boys finished and rushed around the room, hugging everyone before returning to their spoils and ripping into the boxes, comparing, relishing, delighting in the bright shiny new. Hotch’s head was starting to throb again, the heat and sound of the room was too much. The coffee wasn't helping as much as he'd hoped, but alcohol would have only made things worse. He began thinking about leaving, before it got bad enough that he didn’t think he should be driving Jack around on icy roads. This was the most time he’d spent off of his couch just about all month and he was feeling it now.

“Hotch?” Derek asked, touching his elbow from behind. He turned and took a few steps away from the crowd, getting close to where Derek was so he could hear him over the conversation and Bing Crosby crooning. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” he replied a little too quietly. The room was spinning in a way that made him feel intoxicated, a side effect he often felt being a little too close to Derek. Smelling his cologne, sandalwood and spice, something deep and woodsy and warm. It momentarily distracted him from the pain in his head. “I hope my being out hasn’t been too much strain on you.”

“Nah, it’s all good. Everyone pitched in.”

“Good,” he said, unable to pull the words he really wanted. He’d like to say thank you, say how much it meant to him knowing that Derek could step into his role and let him have time off when he needed it, he’d like to say a lot of things right then but his mind was a blank pulsing throb. He could feel every nerve ending in his body when Derek closed the distance between them and, with one lithe finger, pointed casually to the ceiling above them. Hotch let his eyes follow the line Derek’s finger drew, up up up to a plant hook with a big mangled bunch of leaves hanging from it. A fist sized ball of green and white, and suddenly his mouth was going dry.

Mistletoe.

Right above them. He was no expert on the rules, didn’t have a lot of experience in this arena, but he knew what you were supposed to do. Did that apply now? At an office party? Who did Penelope hang it for, anyway?

“Right.” He said it and regretted it immediately. He wasn’t even sure what he meant by it. Derek laughed and nodded in agreement for some reason. Maybe he understood. Maybe he just thought it was funny.

“Right.”

On bated breath, Derek hooked his hand on the back of Hotch’s neck like right was an invitation, and maybe it was. His warm palm rested against Hotch’s skin, rough finger pads pulling him close until their lips met. Gently at first, a little timid, just a brush and a pause, searching eyes and held breath before pressing harder. Hotch wasn’t sure what to do with his hands, whether he should fall into the kiss or wait it out. What he wanted and what he should do were battling it out in his mind until he found himself nipping helplessly at Derek’s lower lip, smiling into the kiss, into his rich wine breath, and then his hands were settling on Derek’s hips and squeezing. His thumbs were hooked in Derek’s belt loops, and he had become acutely aware that the noise and chatter in the room had died out, left with nothing but the skin tingling intoxication of Otis Redding singing White Christmas.

It was Hotch's favorite Christmas song, and he knew he was helpless to do anything more than enjoy this moment. Derek began to sway along with the music, one hand still hooking the back of Hotch’s neck, the other cradling his jaw. He traced Hotch’s jawline, to his lips and back with one thumb, fingers splayed over his face a little possessively. He broke the kiss, coming up for air only briefly, smiling against Hotch’s lips. “Been thinking about doing that for a really long time…”

Their foreheads touched and rested against one another, each of them coming to terms with this moment. The first time, the first kiss. A long-awaited, fat chance, when pigs fly kind of kiss that hardly seemed real. Hotch closed his eyes and breathed out. “Me too.”

“Think maybe we could give those date night dice a spin sometime?” Derek asked and Hotch felt a flush rise in his neck, his cheeks burning. He’d forgotten all about them, honestly. He’d sort of forgotten everything in the moment. He nodded, just a slight movement.

“Sure,” he said before he couldn’t think about words anymore and found himself going in for another kiss. Derek’s lips, cherry chapstick and wine, were intoxicating. “Merry Christmas Derek,” he whispered between breaths, between kisses that made him forget where he was and how many people were watching. Who was watching. How many rules they were violating.

And if that realization weren't damning enough, Hotch heard a small clicking sound followed by a quick blinding flash and a shout of joy. JJ had used her little Kodak disposable camera on them. She wound the film excitedly and began wandering around the room clicking photos as quickly as she could, distracting everyone momentarily.

“Merry Christmas Hotch,” Derek replied, anchoring him in place, blinking the flash from his eyes. Holding him there in the moment a while longer. He could feel it starting to slip away.

Everyone in the room was trying not to watch and failing miserably in their pursuit. JJ and Will were helping Henry clean up the mess of boxes and toys he’d created while Emily and Rossi argued over the names of Santa’s reindeer. Reid was frowning as he looked through a rather pornographic tarot card deck he found in one of Penelope’s kitchen drawers, simultaneously repulsed and intrigued.

Jack tapped on Penelope’s arm, pulling her attention from her kissing friends. She wasn’t even pretending not to watch. Quickly she crouched beside the little boy, never taking her eyes off of Derek and Hotch. “Yes hun?” she asked and Jack began whispering in her ear.

“I can tell you now,” he started with a huge grin, his lips tickling her ear as he cupped it with his little hands. Kid whispers were always a little wet and hot and she could feel a shiver at the base of her spine when he talked again. When he divulged his secret. “I asked Santa to give my dad something that would make him happy.”

“Oh,” she gasped, tears in her eyes. Of course he did. He would know that his dad would take care of any presents he wanted, and it was silly to think he hadn’t noticed how sad and lonely his dad was now that he lived with him full time. Surrounded by photographs of the life he’d lost. “Oh Jack. You did good. You did so good.”

“No...Santa did good. I only asked.”

Hotch hoped that little camera still had some life in it.

He'd like to see that photo.

#aaron hotchner #derek morgan #hotchgan #criminal minds #mentioningmargins #writing challenge

29 notes · View notes

things-about-cars-in-posts · 1 year ago

Note

OMG I'm such a dumbass I knew you did one on the GR Yaris before too, and I love her ALSO, but I actually meant the GR Supra 😳🫣 (slip of the tongue)

Gotcha.

Since I managed to take some two weeks to answer this (got distracted both by real life obligations and other posts that were meant to be very quick to make. Meant to.) y'all may have forgotten, but our dear friend of the blog had asked for opinions on the GR Yaris, hinting to its controversial status. Turns out the GR Supra is what that request, and thus that hint, was actually about - so let's talk about the car and the controversy that engulfs it.

In 1993, Toyota launched the fourth generation of its rear wheel drive sportscar (well, arguably a bit of a Grand Tourer, i.e. something more oriented to cruising than a sportscar) the Supra - which was born a quarter century earlier as a more upmarket, six cylinder version of the Celica, graduating from Celica Supra to its own dignified name with the third generation I talked about that one time I forgot to check what blog I was reblogging with.

But this time, things would be different. Most notably because the inline six the Mk4 Supra came out with was an absolute MONSTER.

Remember how I talked about the GT-R's RB26 engine being one of the greatest, most coveted production engines to ever come out of Japan? Well, the 2JZ-GTE is the other.

It was larger at 3 liters, no less powerful, and to reduce turbocharger lag it used two of them sequentially: first air goes in the smaller, more responsive turbo, then gradually some of it gets sent to the bigger turbo to make it start spinning, then when it gets going the two are finally used in conjunction. (Imagine the big turbo as a hung husband that takes a while to get it up and the small turbo as an eager stepson ready to take over until the hung one can join in for a spitroast. Or something. I don't watch porn with real people, but from what I gather the plots seem to resemble how sequential turbos work.) It even at one point got Variable Valve Timing, i.e. the ability to vary the time in which the valves open depending on engine speed, which allows to optimize tuning for performance and efficiency! (Cool thing to go over in detail if y'all want me to.) And also, the kind of things that engine is able to take make me wish I hadn't used up my porn analogy quota.

See, to chop off eons of nuance, an engine is just a big block of metal with a lot of bits attached, and the two main measures of an engine's potential are the slope of the line in the Bits Fiddled With / Power Output graph and how far up (It's up, right? The second axis you specify is the vertical one, right?) you can take it before the block becomes the weakest link - with another important point being when you need to start messing with internals, i.e. the components inside the engine, e.g. pistons (the things the boom pushes down), camshaft (the thing the pistons spin) and connecting rods (you can guess).

So for instance, just to make the point that an engine can be beloved without having much overall tuning potential, in one of Toyota's most beloved engines, the 4A-GE four cylinder illustrated above (yes, the one from that white and black car in all the eurobeat videos), some pin the block's limit as low as 250hp. The 2JZ, tho? It can take 800hp without even messing with the internals, and once you get your grubby hands on those you can keep pushing the line to some 2000hp. That is two Bugattis. That is 40 times my car. That is well above the power level where "tires that will at any point grip" and "tires that are in any way road legal" stop intersecting.

I am not in the slightest exaggerating when I say that this and the Skyline GT-R are widely regarded as the top of Japan's 20th century automotive production. The Messi & Ronaldo of the Japanese Domestic Market. It is absolutely no coincidence this was the hero car in The Fast And The Furious.

And then in 2002, as all things, its production ended, and given the abysmal sales and catastrophic recession, Toyota decided that would be that.

And then, years later, The Teasening began.

I want to stress, almost half of my conscious life (I choose to believe the stretch from birth to kindergarten is just run-up) the world was in some state of getting teased with talk of a new Supra. The trademark on the name was renewed in 2010. In 2014 they dropped the FT-1 concept, and of course that became speculation about what the production version would look like.

Because come the fuck on, it's not gonna look like that.

Or was it?

Only five entire years and much more teasing later would we officially get an answer, when after seventeen years, the Toyota GR Supra (and for those wondering what GR means, y'all should've clicked the Yaris link >:C) hit the streets.

You know what, good enough.

Good enough to earn itself a sea of words of praise, Jason Cammisa's "The most punch-above-its-weight sportscar ever made" just some among them.

It did have its share of problems at the start, like its power being 335hp and not 382, a lack of manual transmission, and the inability to spec it with a less powerful 4 cylinder engine - well, I don't know who considered that last one a problem, but Toyota's updates solved that one too.

The Supra has a much bigger problem than those though, one no little update can solve. That red car in the background.

See, the new Supra is actually a joint venture with BMW, who made a new model of its Z4 roadster out of the platform. And unlike with the other joint-venture sportscar Toyota sells, people are big mad about that. Why?

See, the interior is engulfed in BMW switchgear and the drivetrain is all BMW (the manual gearbox took until this year to come out because BMW did not have one for that engine so Toyota had to modify another BMW transmission to fit), giving people the impression that this was less of a joint venture and more of a BMW project that Toyota tacked its design on top of, which is a problem whether true or not.

See, a range-topping sportscar is supposed to represent what the brand is capable of - having it done by someone else (or so the criticism goes) is a bit like performing Hallelujah in playback.

Actually, a better musical analogy: You know "I'm back bitch" singles? When a humongous artist drops a new record with a humongous lead single about absolutely nothing but reaffirming they're the biggest fucking deal in the universe? Without Me, Bad, Gimme More, so on. Well, think of SexyBack - one of the most monumental phenomenons of its decade, most incontrovertibly proving Justin Timberlake sat atop the goddamn world. Now, imagine if, after all the years that went by between that record and the next, when he finally came out with Suit And Tie all the verses were Jay-Z. Going from a humongous statement about having the power to reach the top of the game and stay there to having to get absolutely carried by what in this logic is essentially a competitor. Basically, that's the critics' complaint: the supra went from 2JZ to too much Jay-Z.

And therein lies the other problem of the Supra: the Supra.

See, any time you evaluate something, you do so relative to its context - and when you give it a nameplate, you make that context include where else that nameplate has been. An undeserved name may not just be stupid, but even outright kill the car in some's eyes, see the case of the Dodge Dart, or get me to talk about the Ford Capri prototype recently spotted if you want to find out what I'm like when I lose my cool. (I'd liken this phenomenon to undeserved Grammies but I already used my music analogy quota too.) So the Toyota Supra does not just need to be good, it needs to deserve the name. And some argue it doesn't. But why? This thing is no less powerful, no slower, hell it's not even any bigger or heavier and we've gone over how rare that is these days! So is it the lack of backseats and a targa version? No, no one gives a crap about those. It's something deeper.

Sometimes, the problem with a revival is people base their expectation not on what the original was like in the context of its time but what it's like in the context of today (for example, I've heard people call the latest GT-R "too computerized, too assisted, far from the pure driving experience of its predecessors", when its predecessors had some of the most technologically advanced driving assists of their time and could only be called "pure" and "analog" by comparison with cars decades newer). But of course, that'll only be some people - so if what the original car looks like to modern eyes and what the original car represented at its time are two different enough concepts, any revival will receive some criticism for not being one of the two.

But for the Supra, this compounds with another problem: the original Supra (as in the previous generation, since no one gives a crap about the first three), to modern eyes, looks like a thousand-horsepower flame-spitting beast, because that's what all Supras have been turned into, and that's why you know of Supras in the first place (it sure isn't because people bought it!), and that, consciously or not, exacerbates the problem of misplaced expectations to a level akin to hearing an NBA player is about to have a brother and expecting the baby to be a 6'4" three-shooter.

But I wasn't asked about the controversies, I was asked about my take. And my take is: no realistic expectation of what a Supra would look like today was disappointed - at least not by where the car stands today. Well, unless the expectation involved backseats.

"But it was made by BMW" and so? This is a new Supra, and a good one - what does it matter how it got here? Especially when this is an upgrade over the Z4 in every way - looks way better, drives better, and now has a manual that the Z4 doesn't.

Okay, almost every way: the Supra's roof won't get out of the way. If only though, if only. Could you imagine a Toyota product that looks this good, sounds this good, goes this fast, and has a drop top? ...and maybe backseats?

Well, I can.

Yes, the badge and core concept may have some people consider it from midlife crisis mobile to old man's car. (though we know it's not a car bought by old men because if that was the case someone would be buying these). But just try to imagine sitting in this thing.

Take a couple of seconds to take in that picture and truly immerse yourself. You're in a Lexus LC500 Convertible, with a V8 at your right foot's command, its spectacular sound ready to battle the perfect sound system serenading you with your fanciest CD, because of course Lexuses still come with CD players.

Are you immersed? Okay: Someone just called your Lexus a midlife crisis car. See? You don't give a shit either, do ya.

Automatic only though. The pain. Oh, and it kind of costs as much as two Supras. But, you know, neither of those Supras will be convertibles!

Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

#revivals #toyota supra #2JZ-GTE #lexus lc500 convertible

49 notes · View notes

nerdieforpedro · 8 months ago

Text

Scarlet Stains and their Echoes

Part of “Post Apocalyptic Fluff and Stuff” Collection

Joel Miller and Celeste (plus size OFC)

This fic and my blog is for readers 18+ MDNI

Word Count: about 2k

Warnings: PTSD, mention of death, mention of murder, fire use (a type of weapon), very heavy on the angst, one character has a mental breakdown, very bad jokes

Summary: The memories of how she came to Jackson haunt Celeste. Joel takes her out of the rain and enters her home.

Notes: Not sure why I’m writing so much angst as of late. I came home earlier this week and wrote this. 👀 I really meant for this to be fluff and for a challenge I was working on. My bad. 🫣 Celeste’s memories are in italics and her speech is in pink.

There's a little fluff at the end. 🥹

Main Masterlist/ Joel Miller Masterlist/ Post Apocalyptic Fluff and Stuff Collection

“I don’t see why I would listen to you, that last call was bad, and you know it.”

“It was good. You’re the dumbass who went too far out and drew two here. We killed them but now there’s less ammo and we need to figure out how to get rid of the bodies. All for some…never mind.”

“Say it. I know you want to.”

“You doomed us for tail you bastard. If any of the people with us turn-“

“She part of the group now and will pull her weight. We’ll be fine. You’re paranoid as always.”

“I’ve lived this long by being so. You may want to start.”

Exposed feet make their way slowly along the dirt street if that’s what one would call it. “Shaa…Shaa…lala….shaa…” Rocking side to side, the ground sloshes underneath her feet. She stumbles stepping into a deep puddle but laughs as she sees it. Sees all of them.

“I know deep down you’re happy aren’t you? You get to be fucking right again. You always have to be right dammit…”

“This is the worst thing to be right about. There’s nothing to do but try and get out.”

“We traveled with them. Hunted and ate with them, we can’t just-“

“Put up or shut up. This is your mess we have to try and clean up. Supposing all of us aren’t all infected and just slow to turn. You were man enough to chase that ass, you better buck up find that same backbone when you told me I was paranoid.”

“We’re shit out of luck aren’t we?”

“There’s no motor or paddles on this boat and there’s a gaping hole in it. We’ll figure it out or die. Our only options Ron.”

The street is oddly lit from the moonlight peeking in small breaks of the clouds. Despite the flashes of brightness, the sky is still pouring down. Crying with her as she walks, hands waving in circles, holding a small fuchsia primrose. The memories are usually pushed away, in a place that isn’t touched within her. Any skirmishes occurring on patrol with clickers, raiders or smugglers weren’t enough to have those dangerous ruminations return.

The one raider she’d shot because he’d had a gun trained on Joel’s back – he looked like Ron.

All day, since looting their supplies and reporting back, she been able to distract herself from the nagging thought. It ate at her, inch by inch until after getting ready for bed, it struck. Thankfully she lives in a small house alone, so no one heard the wailing that slowed to sobs. Getting up and pacing, nor finally opening that bottle of whiskey Tommy gave her and drinking half of it made her numb. It needed to be gone, the pain, the evocation of these associations.

“You’ve got to use them.”

“I’m going to blow the place to hell if I do that! You idiot!”

“Celeste, I was bit. It’s only a matter of time. I’m sorry I was a horny asshole. Everyone is-“

“There might be some people left, we can save them and get out of here!”

“Put up or shut up Lace. This can’t spread out of here…”

“You’re leaving me with the shit job again Ron, damn.”

“Kinda my thing? My bad.”

“Well, fine. I think I remember how to do it.”

“It’s lighting and tossing some bottles. They’re Molotov cocktails. Turns out fire’s cleansing too.”

“Cleansing and destructive. I’ve got it Ronald.”

“I know you do Celeste.”

Can they be erased? Washed away by the rain? It’s supposed to be cleansing and healing, right? Like that night, it was pouring outside when she sabotaged the building. Raindrops stained her face as she left with the supplies she’d gathered, making her way to Jackson – their group’s goal.

The only one who did. It rained the first night Celeste had arrived at Jackson too. It had long washed away the blood but never the smell. Charred clothes and skin.

“Damn cocktails and a leaky boat.”

Joel didn’t sleep unless exhausted. Elle was over a friend’s house from the makeshift school they had here in Jackson. At least there were some kids her age. Hopefully she minded her language while over there. He sits at his downstairs window, no lights, just nursing the one drink that he told himself he could have tonight. It had been one to his credit. He was hoping the steady heavy rain would have lulled him to sleep, but he’d already been upstairs awake in bed for a few hours. The ceiling would need some reinforcing by his estimate after looking at the thing so long.

Miller thought his drink was too strong, maybe he can’t handle his liquor anymore. His patrol partner was in the street, barefoot with that same flower he’d given her when she found out he had allergies in a damn apocalypse. She is wearing gray shorts and a t-shirt, nothing crazy for sleepwear. It doesn’t suit being out in a downpour at three in the morning. She appears to be talking to someone, but he doesn’t see anyone outside.

“Can’t be any good.” Leaving his drink, slips on his boots and makes his way outside after grabbing a blanket and an umbrella he was able to find on one scouting outing. Calling her name does nothing and even shaking her shoulder didn’t have any effect. Joel doesn’t like it, but he pulls her by the arm back to her home, he’s never been to it but knows what it looks like. Easy to find because the door is open. He closed it when they both were in and left her at the foyer to check the house. No one had come in thankfully, not that he expected anyone to, but it pays to be safe.

“Celeste, Celeste!” He holds her shoulders and continues to call her name. She is shaking but he’s not sure if it’s from being wet, cold or in whatever trance she was in. Joel knows that he is way out of his depth, but he doesn’t think leaving her alone is a good idea. She might end up outside again or do something else, he shudders at the thought.

Joel takes a step back from Celeste. This isn’t the woman he knows, not from patrol. He’d just recently started talking to her, mostly about the weather of what’s going on in Jackson, but it was something instead of their nearly silent patrols save for different commands given when avoiding danger or neutralizing threats. He appreciates that often she didn’t talk unless it was needed. Even her shock at his horrible puns he’d borrowed from Elle had grown on him. Who was this woman in front of him? So haunted with empty eyes filled with sorrow. The flower he’d given her had lost most of its petals and leaves.

“I broke it. I’m sorry. It was important. It meant something. All of it slips through my fingers.” Joel’s never heard her sound so vulnerable. She drops the flower and finally her eyes look like they have some focus. “Joel? What are you doing in my house? I was trying to…to…I’m soaked.” Her head turns toward the window where droplets cascade against the house’s frame and windows. “Did I go outside? Is that why you’re here?” Nodding, Joel lets her work out the rest and scans her living room for a blanket. There’s a small knitted one so he picks that one up off the couch as she follows him over and sits down. Draping it over her shoulders, it dips along her back and covers the tops of her thighs. “Thank you, Joel.”

“I’m your partner. I’ve got you. Just maybe don’t be out in the rain anymore. Ain’t good for ya.” Joel states, making her chuckle. Even now, he could make her laugh. The glimmers of days past are still lingering near the surface. He plops down next to her, his left knee touching her right one.

“I’m not talking about it. I am going to go change and then we’re splitting the last half of my bottle before you go home. As thanks and in case anyone else saw me, I can tell them I was drunk, and I’ll have the hangover to prove it.” It’s Joel’s turn to laugh now. He understands the drive to burn, bide and bury the nagging demons that tear at your soul. Through meeting Elle and finding his brother again, it dawned on Joel to try and drown those dark impulses with better experiences.

They’ll never go away, never fully be gone.

“Ya took me away from the one glass I was gonna have so I’m owed.” He crossed his arms with a grin as Celeste went upstairs to take off her wet clothes. She put on her black pain of shorts and sleep t-shirt. She’d have to wash the other one later. Returning with the bottle after washing up, she brought her glass down and got a one for Joel. She returned to her seat next to him, but placed a towel down so her other sleep clothes wouldn’t get wet. “Fill ‘er up.” Miller clapped his hand around his glass as she poured his first and then hers. Once full, they clinked glasses and sipped in silence, he was worried that she might float far away again.

“It wasn’t from the drink. I think. Many other things. I’m not going to again, calm yourself Miller.” Joel sucked his teeth as he took another swallow of whiskey. It’s not that he didn’t believe her, he just knew would promise himself that he wouldn’t be so violent except when required. There’s always a small part of him that points in that direction, he avoids it, but all it takes is one time to fall back into old patterns. Today had been different, after defending themselves against the raiders, she’d been solemn, never happened with any other raiders or smugglers he’d taken down with her.

“Know one of them today? I take it they were important.”

“Didn’t know any of them. He just looked like an old friend. I thought I’d put it behind me Joel.”

“Celeste, none of this is behind any of us. It’s just kinda there and we act like it’s not. Just to function. Tonight was a bad night. We’re all entitled to them. Any adult who’s made it this far ain’t clean at all. We’re all just stained, nothing’s getting washed out. Not even with that stuff that guy used to yell on the TV about late at night.” Both partners laugh to relieve the tension in the air.

“I was with you until you mentioned the Oxy-Clean man Joel. You remember that, but nothing about the Spice Girls, BackStreet Boys, Boys II Men or N’Sync?”

“Not any of the songs you hum when you fill the canteens. Not a one” With his glass tipped all the way up, he finishes it and stands, not moving for a minute to keep his balance. Tommy had given her a strong whiskey.

“Here drinking my liquor and lying to me in my own house. Damn shame.” Putting her hands on her hips and standing next to Joel, she started toward the door, and he followed her this time. “Thanks again Joel. Dry off after you get in.”

With an affirmative grunt and the opening of Celeste’s door, Joel stood in the frame, he raised a hand, but chose to place it on the side of the frame before grasping her shoulder. “Take care Celeste.” Instead of returning the gesture, she placed her hand on top of his.

“Of course. Don’t get sick on my account.” They parted and Joel began a slow jog down the street to his house.

A deeper accord had been reached in their partnership.

#pedro pascal characters #fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #joel miller #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller imagine #joel miller angst #Joel miller comfort

11 notes · View notes

a-small-batch-of-dragons · 2 years ago

Text

Frozen

*screeches in delight* Ok so I just finished the TSS masterlist (also please add me to the taglist) and at least in the past, you did literal interpretations of sayings. My question is, does this apply to fight/flight/freeze or brain freeze, and if so, do you have the spoons to write a fic? - diamond-blade

So I just saw this post (do links work in asks? It’s by orbmanson7), and now I want a Logan angst fic where the other sides literally silenced him. Or just any Logan angst, I’m not picky! - anon

Read on Ao3

Warnings: paralysis

Pairings: gen

Word Count: 2284

Out of all of the ways he envisioned the argument ending, this wasn't one of them.

"Look, if we could all just get on the same page—"

"Same page? You're on a different chapter, Pocket Protector!" Roman throws his hands up. "Matter of fact, a different book! A different library!"

"There really is no need to be so dramatic."

"No—no need?" Roman splutters. "What do you think my job is?"

"It's not to be a constant nuisance!"

"I dunno," Virgil mutters, "could've fooled me."

"Oh, like you can talk!"

"Now, now, everyone—" Patton raises his hands in what is supposed to be a placating manner— "let's stop with all the name-calling and just settle down."

"Oh, I haven't even started name-calling."

"I think the point was to pre-empt any name-calling you may have done," Logan points out, pinching the bridge of his nose.

There really was no reason for this argument to spiral out of control so much. It was simply to decide whether Thomas would spend the day writing—as he had planned for the week and had already declined other weekend activities for, he had expressed multiple times that he wanted to write and in fact, missed it—or whether he would accept the invitation for coffee from someone he'd met a few days earlier.

Logan, of course, had maintained that they decline. They had plans, they had projects, ones that Roman himself had been advocating they work on.

Roman, however, being as fickle as he always is, had the prospect of romance figuratively waved under his nose and he'd been derailed faster than—well, a train derailing.

"Logan's got a point, Princey, you're the one who's been pushing for us to do the projects for like, a month." Virgil leans back against the stair rail. "You realize that this is likely the only time Logan's gonna be agreeing with you on…anything for the next year, right?"

"Logan, on average, how long does 'getting coffee' normally take?"

"Well, based on most estimates the actual act of procuring the coffee takes about five to ten minutes depending on the density of the other customers, extending to forty minutes if during peak rush hours—"

"You know what I meant."

"—but the act of 'getting coffee' in a romantic setting normally lasts at least an hour."

Roman gestures emphatically. "One hour! One hour! We can spare one hour from our busy day of writing to go and get coffee with someone."

"Interrupting your creative process has rarely shown such productivity. Additionally, it is unlikely that it will remain one hour when you account for travel time."

"Aren't you the one who's always advocating for healthy scheduling and taking breaks? I seem to recall a lengthy conversation with both you and Janus about pacing myself." Roman gestures at the door. "This is a way for me to take a break! For all of us to take a break!"

Virgil snorts. "Speak for yourself, Princey. Both you and I are gonna be on the clock."

"Plus—" Roman points at Patton— "the other day you and I were talking about how I need more inspiration! Because we decided that going on quests in the Imagination wasn't good enough, so I need new material! This is how I get new material!"

Patton falters and inwardly, Logan curses. If Roman can get Patton on his side…then the argument is as good as over.

"You also have a tendency to get distracted very easily by new things," he points out, "and it is likely that you will become so preoccupied with fantasies about this new potential suitor that you will lose all motivation or inspiration to work on these projects."

Virgil hums, pointing at him. "He's got a point."

"…he does, kiddo."

Roman makes an affronted noise, all but wilting. "Come on, this'll be good for Thomas!"

"Good for Thomas," Logan asks, "or good for you?"

"What's the difference?"

"Well," he continues, adjusting his glasses, "what's good for Thomas can also be working on these projects he's been letting sit and stagnate for almost a month now to help appease his Anxiety and maintain a consistent level of productivity."

He raises an eyebrow.

"And it allows more than one of us to take 'center stage,' if you will."

"I appreciate the theater reference, but come on, I'm asking you for an hour! Two, tops!"

"We've kinda already set this day aside for you, Roman," Patton says warily, "you—don't you think you're getting a little greedy?"

There are points, Logan has realized, where, in hindsight, he can label them as the moments where the nosedives begin. And while he will grant both Roman and himself the respect to admit they'd been somewhat antagonistic towards each other, Patton's remark had…well.

"Greedy?" Roman draws himself up. "Excuse me, what exactly am I being greedy about?"

"We have already decided this day shall be for writing. That means that you will be the one who is 'in charge,' so to speak, or at the very least your connection to Thomas will be prioritized." Logan gestures around at the others. "However, as Thomas's creative process revolves around us as well, as characters he has created and such, that means we shall also have a part to play, even if yours is disproportionate to ours."

"Okay—"

"However," Logan continues as Roman tries to interrupt him, "if you choose instead to go on this…coffee date—"

"I didn't say it was a date!" Roman holds up a proclamatory finger. "Let the record show I never said it was a date."

"That's kinda what you implied, though," Virgil muttered.

"—if you choose to go," Logan says, speaking over them, "then it will very much be a 'one-man show,' if you will, save for the occasional inputs you deign to allow the rest of us."

"Except me," Virgil adds, "you get no say in that matter."

"So, yes, Roman." Logan crosses his arms. "Trying to force an activity where you have more of a say could be considered greedy."

Roman splutters, looking back and forth as if expecting someone to deny it. When no one does, he puffs himself up and clears his throat. "I am trying to ensure Thomas gets adequate socialization and continues to meet new people! I-if anything, it's Logan who's being greedy for insisting we stick to his strict schedule!"

"Oh, god."

"Roman…"

Logan draws himself up too. "I have at least taken the time and care to make sure that everyone is content with the schedule, whereas you—"

"I"m not content with it! In case that is very much unclear—"

"—insist on blundering through things as you always do and expecting everyone else to cater to your needs—"

"—no, I am not happy with it. And you're the one who insists I have only 0.5% of any given day, were you just looking for an excuse to—"

"—without realizing that we have to work together. I understand that might be a difficult concept for you to grasp—"

"—shut me out? Oh, and here we go again, el principe es estupido, is that the only insult you have?"

"—but I assure you it is a worthwhile endeavor. Perhaps if you were capable of seeing beyond yourself—"

"I don't know how to put other people first? Why do you think I've let this project be pushed off so much, because none of you—"

"—then you might realize that the world does not, in fact, revolve around you and whatever you think is important—"

"—seem to think it's worth doing even though it's Thomas's source of income! You don't understand how hard it is to—"

"—and since you clearly cannot afford even the basic respect of listening to me and letting me speak uninterrupted, then clearly you are not capable of considering the fact that you are not—"

"Shut up!"

—worth having this argument with, is what Logan would say, or perhaps even don't tell me to shut up!

What he ends up saying is nothing.

Nothing at all.

Which is, of course, because he has been frozen.

His arms go rigid at his sides. His lungs refuse to inflate. His eyes begin to water from their inability to blink. His mouth dries up and he stands there, hangs there, freezes there as something horribly cold and deadly seeps into him.

I can't move. I can't move. I can't move.

An interesting thing about pain; pain requires functioning nerves. If you can't feel anything, then you can't feel pain. But if you can't feel pain, then you can't tell when something is wrong. And if you can't tell when something is wrong, you can't tell when it's getting worse.

Mouth open, one hand slightly raised, his weight imperfectly balanced on one leg because he'd been in the middle of shifting, Logan freezes in place. He looks at his hand and for a moment, he doesn't quite recognize that it's his hand because he can't feel it. He can't move it. He can only stare at this thing a few inches in front of him that looks like a hand that used to belong to him.

Then he remembers he can't scream.

"What the fuck did you do?"

"Logan? Logan, are you okay?"

"What the fuck did you do, Roman?"

"I don't know! I didn't—I don't know, I've never done this before!"

"Well, fucking undo it then!"

"I don't know how! I don't—don't shut up! Talk, Logan, say something! Move!"

"It's not working!"

"I can see that it's not working!"

"L, L, you gotta move, you gotta—come on, bud, you gotta."

"Un-shut up! Anti-shut up! Move again! Undo whatever I just did! I take it back!"

"That's not working either!"

"Fuck—I'm sorry, Logan! I didn't mean it, I just got angry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"Roman, I swear to god, if you can't fix this—"

"Unfreeze!"

Logan gasps, sensation flooding back into his body so quickly it's almost painful. He collapses into a heap as blood rushes through him, pounding so heavily in his ears that it's almost deafening. His hands—his hands, he can move them now—scream with pain as he clenches and unclenches them, his muscles trying slowly to reacclimate to moving, to feeling, to being unfrozen.

"Easy, bud," comes Virgil's low voice, "in for five, okay? One…two…three…four…five. Good, good job. Hold now…"

He lets Virgil walk him through a breathing exercise until he can breathe normally. He looks up and nods when Virgil gives him a quiet you okay?

"Logan, kiddo? You okay, sweetheart?"

"Yes…yes, I think so."

"Go slow, okay," Virgil warns as he starts to stand up again, "you just gotta go slow."

Standing is…challenging, but he manages. The whole ordeal had lasted barely a minute and now that he's able to move again, the panic fades and he can start to function once more. He takes a few more deep breaths to steady himself before he looks around.

Patton is hovering, concern written plainly all over his face. Virgil is next to him, there if he needs to grab onto his shoulder or sink out. Roman is—

Roman is standing on the other side of the room, his hands held over his mouth in horror. There are tears on his face.

"I'm sorry, Logan," he whispers, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it, I didn't even know I could do that, I—are you okay?"

"Yes," and surprisingly, he is, "I'm alright now. I would…appreciate if that didn't happen again."

"No, no, of course, I won't—I won't do it again. I promise."

"Thank you."

Roman nods, his hands finally moving away from his face. He swallows and draws himself up, although this time it's far more similar to a child trying to save face than an arrogant prince. "I, um…we can…I'll be ready to write on Saturday."

"That would be great, thank you."

"Do you…need or want anything else right now?"

He pauses, considering, before slowly reaching out for him. Roman balks, confusion and fear warring on his features before he slowly crosses the room to let Logan grab onto him.

"You're the warmest," Logan mumbles, lurching forward to hug him—only it ends up being more like leaning his entire weight on Roman while Roman holds him up— "I'm still cold."

"Oh, of—of course." Roman wraps his arms carefully around him and Logan hums. "Would—do you want to sit on the couch?"

"Mm."

"…was that a 'yes?'"

"Yes."

Roman helps him carefully over to the couch as Virgil and Patton pull out the coffee table to make room for everyone's limbs. Logan turns his face against Roman's shoulder and closes his eyes.

"I'm going to sleep here now."

"Okay." Roman adjusts his grip so he won't get a strain in his neck. "I really am sorry, Logan."

"I know." He blinks up at him. "We can't do Saturday, but maybe…we may be able to do Sunday?"

Roman smiles. "We can talk about it later. You should sleep now."

And so he does.

General Taglist: @frxgprince@potereregina@gattonero17@iamhereforthegayshit@thefingergunsgirl@awkwardandanxiousfander@creative-lampd-liberties@djpurple3@winterswrandomness@sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes@iminyourfandom@bullet-tothefeels@full-of-roman-angst-trash @ask-elsalvador @ramdomthingsfrommymind@demoniccheese83@pattonsandershugs @el-does-photography @princeanxious@firefinch-ember@fandomssaremysoul@im-an-anxious-wreck@crazy-multifandomfangirl @punk-academian-witch@enby-ralsei@unicornssunflowersandstuff@wildhorsewolf @thetruthaboutthesun @stubbornness-and-spite @princedarkandstormv @your-local-fookin-deadmeme @angels-and-dreams@averykedavra @a-ghostlight-for-roman @treasurechestininterweb @cricketanne @queerly-fluid-fan @compactdiscdraws@cecil-but-gayer@i-am-overly-complicated@annytheseal@alias290@tranquil-space-ninja @arxticandy @mychemically-imbalanced-romance@whyiask@crows-ace @emilythezeldafan@frida0043 @ieatspinalcords @snowyfires@cyanide-violence@oonagh2@xxpanic-at-the-everywherexx@rabbitsartcorner @percy-07734@triflingassailantofmyemotions @virgil-sanders-the-gay-emo@cerulean-watermelon@puffed-up-bees@meltheromanstan@joyrose-fandomer@insanitori@mavenmush@justablah65@10paradox10@uhhh-hi-there-i-am-nervous@cutebisexualmess@bella-bugatti-frogetti-baguetti@ultrageekygirl

#dragonbabbles #sanders sides #logan sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #fic

40 notes · View notes