#i was on hold with hp support for hours and i just wanted to cry lmao

[pxlheaux]

my old computer crashed and DIED i was so sad and stressed because i use that one for the sims but also for my college work, but thankfully my mama still loves me and bought me a new computer so i'm working everything out and i'm hoping everything saved but if not, i'll just have to start with a new family :(

[swtki]

HP Boys: Surprise Pregnancy Head Cannons

Summary: The HP boys and their reaction to their s/o (afab) being pregnant when its not planned.

A/N: This takes place post Hogwarts so all characters are 18+, though no real smut happens in this so its not an 18+ fic.

WARNINGS: UNPLANNED PREGNANCY, MENTIONS OF PRO CHOICE OPINIONS, MENTIONS OF SEX IN LITE TERMS, SWEARING, FLUFF, MENTIONS OF ALCOHOL, ALSO THIS IS SUPER LONG SORRY LOL

Draco

So everything is going great for the happy couple, you two just moved into a flat together and are working normal jobs, drinking wine like adults.

And sure, Draco knows he wants to marry you, but he knows you’re not ready to settle down like that so he just plans and dreams.

Due to poor choices, when you’re late by two weeks, you know what it probably is.

Draco doesn’t even notice that you ran out to the store and came back and hid in the bathroom for 10 minutes. CEO of minding his own business ig

You just kinda...walk up to him and hand him all 3 tests while your eyes fill with tears because what if he demands you get an abortion?

Or what if he fucks off to god knows where?

But instead he just looks at you with the most un-draco like smile. Like his face was soft and it looked like he could cry any moment.

“Oh my god,” He says, putting his hand on your belly, “I can be ready for this, but if you aren’t then we can you know...”

“No, I want it” then both of you rejoice bc yay baby!

Cut to 6 months later when your feet hurt so bad you have to lay down and watch while Draco fails to put a crib together.

He eventually gets it done tho.

And when the time comes, he’s built and arranged everything for your bundle of joy.

Harry

So you guys are probably already married, but with everything at the ministry going on, it makes Harry less than a family man.

You both agree that it’s probably better to wait so you can be home and yk...raise it.

Well smart man Harry forgets that to not have a kid you need to use protection.

So of course when your period is late you don’t think about it, until its four weeks late.

That night, you and Harry are laying in bed, and thats when you tell him.

“Harry..I’m late.”

“Late for what?” headass.

You: 😳😐

Him: 👁👁😲😲

He’s hesitant to say anything, because he knows its ultimitley up to you what happens with it until its out.

“I think I want to keep it...you know it wont remember much for the first year and a half so if things are stressful it will be okay and-“

“Love...Its going to be perfect”

Mf built the crib in like 45 minutes I swear.

And of course he forced you to keep up with your vitamins, pre natal care, and appointments.

Swear tho you’re about to kill him because cofFeE

But the way he holds your baby 🥺 its his most valued thing ever now.

Ron

Ron is iffy on the kid thing sometimes.

He does want them, but only later when you guys have lived and travled.

So no, you two haven’t planned nor is it even in the picture when your wedding roles around.

It’s in the early days of the marriage when you see his family at the burrow on the way back from the honeymoon.

And of course Molly knows

Because Weasleys are hyperfertile I swear.

She takes you into the kitchen and puts her hands on your arms, shes got that big Mrs.Weasley smile on too.

“I knew it!” She says and pulls you in for a hug, “How far dear??”

You’re just standing there like🧍🏻

“I can see it by the way you glow! Oh my you and my Ron must be so happy!” This woman doesn’t notice that you’re confused.

“Wait what? Mrs. Weasley what are you-?” Then you count the days, “Oh. Well I guess I just found out for myself”

Her face falls slightly, but then she tells you can make you a potion that will tell you if you are or not, stan.

The stupid potion turns green when you spit into it, so everything is confirmed.

That night, you and Ron are getting ready for bed in the guest room and you decide to tell him.

“Ron, sweetie. We need to talk.” He looks like he’s gonna start crying but sits next to you on the bed.

“Y/N...I know its scary but please, we just got married I don’t want to divorce quite just yet 🥺🥺”

“Ron I-“ you start smiling, “I’m pregnant you dufus.”

He just freezes, for a while. Not saying anything, he just looks at the wall with his mouth ajar.

So you get up and go to Ginny.

“Gin, I broke him.”

“Ew, I don’t want to know about how you and him”

“No, I told him that I’m pregnant.”

“Oh, yeah that would do it. Just I don’t know... Give him a minute?”

You give him several, getting a glass of water then heading back up to the room.

Ginny was right, he needed a minute.

“I don’t...I wasn’t...you were.?”

“You don’t have to stay, but I think we can do it. Plus, you would disapoint your mom if you left so...”

“Okay...we’ll do it. I’ll be the best damn Father you have ever seen.” He says, talking to your womb.

Well...he’s a father I’ll give him that.

Pro of having a Weasley baby: free crib thats already put together.

Even if it looks like a death trap.

“We’ll put some blankets over it don’t worry”

You know how some Dads hold their parters hand during the delivery? Yeah he got sick and was moral support from the outside.

To be fair, you weren’t screaming in pleasure by any means.

Scary. But beautiful.

He shows the kid to everyone, he might be more in love with the baby than he is with you.

Ron see’s the appeal of having kids now.

Neville

Moving in with your boyfriend is always fun, right up until you guys go at it so much you forget protection more than once.

You think about it, then move on with your day.

Until the doctor calls, then “oh fuck”

Romance Neville bf

“Why aren’t you having any wine? I thought it was your favorite?”

“I don’t think fetal alcohol syndrome is my favorite.” BRO HE SPAT

But he looks up with tears in his eyes, and runs over to you to grasp you in a hug.

“Oh my god! You’re pregnant! Oh my - We’re gonna be parents!! Oh my god we’re gonna be parents oh-“ Que you petting his hair till he’s calm again.

Lets be honest, this man probably swapped the herbology books for the parenting guides.

“Well I mean I’m just wondering if we should go with this color or this one”

“Nev, it doesn’t matter. Our baby will not care.”

“I read in my book that Infants actually can recognize mood in-“

He won’t let you do anything during your pregnancy.

Gotta love a man who cries because he loves you so much and you’re having his kid.

“I never had a father, what if I do it wrong? What if the baby hates me and runs away at seven?”

“We’ve got quite a lot of time before then.”

He was there during delivery, letting you crush his hand like a champ.

You can’t help but cry when you see him sleeping on the floor next to the crib, its so sweet.

Fred

You two most likely already had two kids, so you decided to wait a bit so your hands weren’t quite full.

Well...your body decided not to wait.

A test provides the two lines, another wild child.

The two toddlers already run around like thing one and thing two, only with red hair.

I think Fred would gladly make the family dinner, and wear an apron. He’d own it, as he should.

But mf gotta not drop the salad bowl when you tell him of the fetus inside you.

“Fred we are going to have a bee-ay-bee-why.”

Your five year old has just begun to spell 😐

He’s happy tho.

Like over the fuckin moon.

He buys the two kids big brother/sister shirts too 🥺🥺

He knows the drill pretty well, so he isn’t too worried about the future.

But its funny that he still freaks out about the crib and feeding chair since he gave it away, you know because you guys werent having another kid.

He packed a hospital bag and kept it in the trunk, counting down the days.

Hours of delivery (He just sat back and held your hand) only to end up with a room full of 7 Weasley family members.

Fred always said that 3 was his lucky number :)

George

You guys were taking it slow, no marriage until you both felt it was time. And certainly no children before that.

Well you know...things changed when the test was positive.

You slid it over on the table, tears pooling in your eyes. He was stunned and quiet, which made you burst out sobbing because you knew that neither of you planned on having a baby.

But to your surprise he starts to smile.

“I want whatever you want, I’m staying by your side no matter what.”

“I mean...would it really be so bad? A house, a kid, a dog?” He holds your hand as you think aloud.

You both give it a week to think it over and the virdict is to keep it.

Thats when he decides he has to marry you, asap because he loves you and will never let you go especially now.

He loves to gush about the carrier of his child, to him you are a godess.

He’s the Dad with a predestination complex.

“Y/N, I just see him being a star quiditch player”

“George, we don’t know if it’s a him.”

He rolls his eyes “Okay then I can see her being a star-“

He made Hermione take you out for a movie date so he could rearrange your bedroom, since you only had a single bedroom flat.

You come back to a new set up including a cot.

Damn pregnancy hormones make brain go 🥺😭😭

He freaks when your water breaks lol

ceo of driving like a maniac to the hospital.

He can’t hold your hand, he’s pacing back and forth, sweating and maybe crying though he’ll never admit to it.

You get the joy of watching him cuddle the baby while refusing to give your child to you.

“George I’d like to hold-“

“No, you need your sleep honey, don’t worry”

Hogging the child.

Cedric

Its no secret that Cedric wants a baby someday.

And he makes it clear your wedding will be spectacular too.

However, finding out you’re pregnant the week of your dream wedding was a shock.

A shock that made you bang your head into the wall because how could you be so stupid?? We had a plan??

So you decide to wait until after the wedding, that way it wont add onto the stress (happy stress) of the wedding.

Cedric keeps trying to fill your glass at the reception, to which you kindly refuse saying you want to remember the night entirely.

Yeah he’s like 🤨 mhm okay.

You can only pick at the dinner because ew salmon doesn’t sound like an option if you want to keep the contents of your stomach.

As everyone waves goodbye to the car, and you both set off into married life, he leans over.

“I may be out of my mind, but are you...?”

“Pregnant.” His face lights up, pulling you into a hug.

Finally, your car pulls up to a small cottage with lush garden scapes all around, putting a hand out, he walks you both from the car to the door.

“Ced, where are we?”

“Home.”

Somehow it was perfect with Cedric, even when it was rushed.

He loved talking to your womb, even if it was weird that he was talking about the babies future brothers and sisters.

“Cedric, slow down. We haven’t even had this one yet”

Basically he is father of the year before he’s a full father.

He’s there while you deliver, holding your hand and telling you how great you’re doing.

He doesn’t even complain when you insult him <3.

He updates you on everything.

If his eyes aren’t on that child, he’s either asleep or dead.

I think Cedric was meant to be a family man, because he loves everything about being one.

Taglist: @truly-insatiable @amourtentiaa @imdoingathingmom @annasdani @anchoeritic @mullthingsoverinthehotwater @cedricsyellowscarf @faeinorbit

[aerialflight]

Fic Rec (it's been too long and I read a whole lot of fics)

I've read so many fics these past couple of months and my need to share them to the world has seized me by the throat. Please enjoy and support these fanfic writers! They are the best. XD

-

[Naruto]

Nine-Tailed Foxes are Dead by RowlettLesbian

Ship: Shikamaru/Naruto

For Konoha, it's been one month since the preliminary Chunin exams. For Naruto, it's been six. And he wasn't in Konoha.

At the end of his ordeal, Naruto walks into the Chunin Exam finals without his left arm.

Shikamaru is very concerned. And, eventually, very precious to Naruto as they work together to solve the mysteries of Konoha and bring kindness to the Shinobi world, one adventure at a time.

(I would die for this fic. I know the summary sounds doom and gloom but IT'S NOT. This fic made me fucking cry, I don't think I've ever read a fic that characterized Naruto so right. He's so full of hope and love and develops into the best version of himself and I'm so HERE FOR IT. And it's not just Naruto, Shikamaru is absolutely amazing here along with Kakashi and surprise surprise Ino, I can't BELIEVE it took me this long to stumble across this fic. Also THE WORLDBUILDING IS TO DIE FOR!!! And the plot! Is! So! Interesting! Just, everything about this fic is just amazing so please PLEASE read this!!!)

The End of the Uchiha by RowlettLesbian

Ship: Naruto/Sasuke

“I promise, little electric spirit of this shrine,” he whispered into the soft dirt and fallen leaves, “I will never gain the eyes. I will never pass them on. And I will make sure the eyes end in my brother, so that they can’t hurt anybody anymore. I will be the last Uchiha, and see to the end of the Copy-Wheel Clan. Then all of the hatred here can stop, and my family can rest peacefully. I promise, little shrine.”

Sasuke is more than his brother thinks he is. He's more than any Uchiha has ever been. He will kill his brother, but it will not be vengeance.

It will be mercy.

(Same author as the one above, they are the gift that keeps on giving. Seriously, HOW did I NEVER FIND THESE FICS before now??? One of life's greatest mysteries. The author's sense of humor is so on point here along with the atmospheric writing that's so vivid in the mind. Their writing style is so recognizable to me now and makes me fall into the world they're creating, it's stunning. Sasuke here makes me want to hug him and the idea of him living like a feral ghibli character has me LIVING. Check the tags of the fic, all of it is true, hand to god. Please give all of the author's fics a shot, it's a rabbit hole I'm thankful I fell into!)

mil fantasmas (gritan en calma) by LegaciesandMemories

Post-Tsukuyomi, something in Uchiha Sasuke's mind shatters. The same night, Yamanaka Ino falls asleep and doesn't wake up for 15 days.

---

In which Ino and Sasuke both wake from the aftermath of the Uchiha Massacre with the ability to see ghosts, and no one is prepared for the fallout.

(This fic has arrested my curiosity and eagerness to know what will happen next. These poor kids need so many hugs and Ino is getting the spotlight she deserves. I am so excited for this fic and what it has in store! Please read! XD)

Lichtenberg Figures by Asteroid_Duck (JustThatOneGirl1815)

Name: Kakashi Hatake Rank: Jounin Status: Missing Nin Missing Since: June 15th, 271 AD Note: Flee on Sight . . . Haburashi looked his team in the eyes— three, fresh out of the Academy genin— and resolved to teach them as best as he could. And right now, his lesson was simple: “Stay. Away. From. Kakashi. Hatake.”

(Dimension travel fic with a slice of Kakashi being an absolute troll and dealing with the shitty hand he's been dealt with. Seriously, the man has the worst luck in all of Konoha. Also, the mystery of the other Kakashi's history has me leaning by the edge of my seat, I need to know.)

The Governess by Ysmirel

Ship: Kakashi/OFC

"“What,” he finally asked, “is so funny?”

Ibara bit her lower lip to keep the chuckles in, still smiling and making absolutely no effort to get more space between them, seemingly perfectly at ease within reach of a trained shinobi. Her self-control wasn't all that good, as she ended up snorting and was overcame once again by another fit of laughter. “I just- It's just-” She struggled to speak, trying to catch her breath and wiping away tears of mirth with the hand that wasn't still holding onto his vest. Finally, she looked him in the eye and said, with a smile that was all teeth and without a hint of her previous drunken stupor, “and who's going to believe you?”

As he stood there, stunned by her words and change in demeanor, he realized with dawning horror that she was right."

In which Kakashi finds himself at the other end of the troll shtick, and he doesn't appreciate it all that much.

(It's so hard to find self-insert fics with a fresh concept these days, especially in the naruto fandom. Not that I don't enjoy and devour a lot of self insert fics like it's going out of style, but it's just so nice to find something new and shiny and really damn good. I'm so pumped for this fic and how it's going to develop so please join me in rooting for this fic!)

half a league (until the valley of death) by SpectersShadow117

Kakashi can think of no reason for Sasuke's inexplicable and drastic change in behavior. He doesn't like the desperate, haunted gleam in his student's eyes, and he also doesn't like the nagging feeling that he's missing something very important. Aka: Future Sasuke goes to Past Sasuke and gives him a reality check with Specific Intentions, but as with most Uchiha, his methods leave much to be desired. (Featuring: Childhood trauma FTW, Konoha's shitty care of orphans, and absolutely no one having a fun time.)

(Sasuke wanting to change the future out of complete and utter spite has me LIVING. Sasuke is such a Mess here and the twist on the time travel premise is so good and the kid is so Traumatized and Desperate and Not Having A Good Time. Naruto and Sakura developing as better ninjas and Kakashi trying his best makes me want to scream. Also, how Sasuke thinks about Itachi makes me want to cackle. I am 100% down for this. I am rooting for this kid, go get them! XD)

-

[Harry Potter]

fruit loops in time (circle around me) by justprompts

Ships: Harry/Draco, Remus/Sirius

"This is Crabbe, and Goyle," the blonde boy says, pointing at the two boys next to him. "And I'm Malfoy, Draco Ma - "

Ron laughs, and Malfoy immediately bristles.

"Think my name's funny, do you?" Malfoy says, angrily. "No need to ask yours - "

"You're honestly so cute," Ron interrupts, yet again, shaking his head. "So tiny. And so angry, all the time. It's adorable."

Alternatively Ron Weasley, Time Traveller Extraordinaire, is stuck in the same seven year Hogwarts Loop, repeating the same thing over and over again. Naturally, he's so done with everything.

(This is the greatest hp fic I've ever read. I LOVE RON WEASLEY and by the time you read this fic SO WILL YOU!! This is the fic I WISH I have the ability to write. I read this entire fic aloud to my brother and we spent literal hours howling and talking about how utterly insane and incredible this fic is, it's amazing. This is hands down my favorite Ron Weasley. You Can Pry This Fic From My Cold Dead Fingers.)

-

[Boku no Hero Academia]

Kacchan's Cult by Ourliazo

Pro Hero Ground Zero is attacked, originally meant to be de-aged out of existence by a desperate villain but is instead launched into his 14-year-old self.

But Katsuki is a fucking pro so whatever, time to fuck up someone's day. And sure, maybe he's only one man, but that's why he conscripts the entirety of the UA student body into tearing down some criminal empires.

(It's time travel, crack, and Bakugou being his usual explody, competent self. What more in life do you want? Seriously though, please read. I'm obsessed with this fic and having a Good Time!)

Cleaning Crew; Teaching Kids to Value their Safety, for Fun and Profit by Reavv

Takenaka Hideo is a thirty-two year old, in mild desperation for money, who has just been hired as a new janitor for UA's support staff. He has a quirk that lets him find lost objects, a liaison with the police because of it, and desperate desire for competent co-workers.

Oh, and he's already lived a previous life, in a world where quirks and heroes didn't even exist.

Not a big deal, though. It's not like you ever see the janitor playing a big part in action movies. He's here to get paid, and that's it.

On the opposite side of the equation, class 1-A has to wonder at the new UA cryptid that always seems to show up when things are on fire, and who keeps trying to convince them to let the adults handle the fire extinguisher.

(A great deal of fun packed into one fic. That is how I title this fic and nothing will change my mind! Hideo just wants to quietly do his job and not get in the way. I Relate. Please read!)

Poltergeist by WriterGreenReads

Class 1-A is haunted.

Well, not really.

I AM dead, though.

World's friendliest poltergeist, at your service.

(I don't know how I got so sucked into OC fics, but I found some fantastic fics along the way so I have no regrets. The author really tries to push the premise and I just love all the interactions and dynamics that form as the fic gets further in. And the OC character and all the hijinks they get up to cracks me up! At the same time, it's pretty heartwarming and it's practically a friendships galore fic! Definitely recommend it!)

invincible by supercrunch for Engrin

Ship: Bakugou/Midoriya

This is the way the world works: the sun rises in the east. The strong come out on top. Bakugou Katsuki rockets through life like a comet and Midoriya Izuku stumbles after. If he believed in such things Katsuki would say it was written in the stars. That some god of war had looked at him and said this one. That he’d been passed along a line to get his blessings – genius, willpower, fearless ambition – and dropped off on earth.

Then, of course, there is the question of Deku. The spitfire runt. Deku, no matter what the world does to him, never stops hoping.

Until, of course, he eventually does.

(Katsuki broke him. Snapped him in half like a twig and now has to scramble to put Deku back together. “We can do this, Deku," he says slowly. "There are so many mysteries that never got put to bed. Criminals roaming around looking to hurt people and you and me, we can fix that.”

There’s a long pause. The comforter slips a little off Deku’s skinny shoulders and drowns him. “You mean like a team?”

In that split second, Katsuki makes a decision he’s never even considered. He swallows his pride. “Yeah, Deku. We’d be a team.”)

(If there was any other way canon could've gone, this is the story I would've wanted. It's perfect.)

Inadvertent Wilderness Therapy by Cacid

Following an unfortunate encounter with a teleporter on the last day of internships, Bakugou Katsuki and Hakamata Tsunagu spend some quality time in northern Canada.

In no particular order they will: build ugly survival shelters, stalk rabbits, run from polar bears, reflect on the chemical composition of trees, insult each other, and complain about krumholtz.

(THESE TWO. TOGETHER. IN THE WILDERNESS. IN FUCKING CANADA OF ALL PLACES. I still can't believe this fic actually exists and just how INVESTED I became in their relationship. Blue Jeanist instantly became my favorite ranked hero with this fic alone. HIS SENSE OF HUMOR IS TERRIBLE, I LOVE HIM SO MUCH FNIEWOPAF. BAKUGOU DOES TOO. IT'S FUCKING INCREDIBLE. *incoherent screeching into the wild*)

-

[Stranger Things]

Baci D'aria by RabbitDarling

“Love is worth the sum of itself, and nothing more.” ― Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic

Steve learned a lot at his Aunt's side before she passed but his favourite thing she taught him was baci d'aria; special little spells that you created from the heart and put into the food you shared.

In opening his heart and gifts to those around him Steve slowly finds himself a family in a way he never thought he'd get to experience. One by One he collects pre-teens to trail in his wake like ducklings and Steve can't even refute it by the time he realizes what has happened.

(This fic is so soft and Steve is just collecting people and winning them over with his magical food (literally). I am always a sucker for heartwarming, good for the soul fics so if you want to make yourself hungry and feel all warm and gooey inside, read this!)

(Don't Fear) The Reaper by TeaFourTwo

Ship: Steve/Billy

He looks down at the blood on his hands and on the floor and wonders why the memory hasn’t broken yet, why he isn’t back in Starcourt mall with control of his body again, wonders if he's even still alive at all. Is this hell then? Or perhaps purgatory? It certainly isn’t heaven, that’s for sure. None of this makes any sense…but then what's new—nothing in Billy’s life makes sense anymore.

Billy laughs then, loud and long and unhinged. It's the only sound in the whole house, and it bounces off the walls like a fucked up echo, like the world is laughing with him.

“Jesus christ you’re insane…” It’s Max’s voice and it’s shaking. It only makes Billy laugh harder, because Max has it all wrong. Billy isn’t crazy, it’s the rest of the world that’s insane.

--

Billy dies a hero of sorts. He wakes up back in his bed on Saturday morning, the third of November, 1984...nearly nine months earlier.

(Billy is stuck in a time loop and it's slowly driving him crazy. And the fic shows just how much influence Billy did have in the plot and how doomed the world is without him in it. Great character exploration with Billy's character and all the ways he's so messy and human. Definitely recommend it!)

-

[Knives Out]

The Road Less Traveled By by UisceOneLove

Ship: Marta/Ransom

If Harlan wants to leave Ransom to be on his own, fine. He'll show him just what Ransom Drysdale is capable of.

or, where Ransom chooses to prove his abilities through means of the non-homicidal variety and finds himself becoming exactly what Harlan was hoping he would.

(I found this fic out of sheer chance and god, Ransom is just, so fascinating to me as a character. Marta of course is the Best here and I will forever stan her. Seriously, this is such a good fic! Please read!)

-

[Haikyuu!!]

Sky Full of Stars by grilledsquids

The Hinatas are twins. They're practically identical.

But while Shouyou seeks out Karasuno's volleyball team to become the next Little Giant, Natsu is scouted to to play soccer for Shiratorizawa. While Shouyou sets his eyes on playing volleyball at the highest level possible, his sister wonders how much longer she can play soccer... and if it's worth it to keep going.

A Natsu-centric story featuring: Shiratorizawa VBC shenanigans, too many soccer OCs, mild teenage drama, a little bit of plot, and Semi Eita not knowing what a period is.

(It's just!! So cute and wholesome!!! The Shiratorizawa volleyball team is so fleshed out along with the OC characters for the girl's soccer team and I swear, it's been a long while since I've laughed this much at the sheer shenanigans that happen in a fic. It's surprisingly hard to find good gen fics in this fandom so finding this gem made me so happy! If you want a fic that brings a smile to your face, read this!!)

like water by speakingincode

Ship: Oikawa/Kageyama

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, and when Tooru looks at him, he can read My best friend’s an idiot off the crease of his eyebrows. “Are you telling me you spent the last three years weirdly obsessed with Kageyama – I still remember the time you made us play him on a dumb whim, you know – and now you’re at his beck and call? Are you okay? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m— I’m not at his beck and call! I said no last week. It’s… It’s like you said. I get bored easily. I saw him at the park a couple weeks after they played Nationals and called him a perfect little tyrant, and he pestered me into spending time with him after,” Tooru says. “I’m not a monster, Iwa-chan. If he wants the company of his cool, handsome ex-upperclassman that badly, who am I to begrudge him?”

Or: Oikawa doesn't know why Kageyama keeps asking to meet him on Saturdays. He also doesn't know why he keeps saying yes.

(The fact this fic is canon-compliant and covers post-canon too makes me want to shout to the heavens. Fucking incredible! One of the best Oikakage fics ever and it's a crime how it's not at the top of the ship tag. Please please read!!)

twist into your shape by kakkoweeb

Ship: Oikawa/Kageyama

The only thing better than sweets were sweets containing paper that told you whether your future would be good or bad--or in Kageyama and Oikawa's case, paper that somehow caused you to live inside each other's bodies.

(Everyone probably already read this fic but it needs to be said, you need to read this fic. How these two try and manage each other's lives and slowly start to care about one another is so beautiful and sincere and I am ready to wrestle anyone to the floor and comply them into reading this fic. Doesn't matter if you like the ship, you will become a fan if you read it, I promise. Please please read!!)

Take the Long Road Home by pepperfield

Ship: Kuroo/Sawamura

When Azumane Asahi goes missing before his engagement meeting with Kozume Kenma, what other option is there but for Daichi to impersonate his brother and fake his way through a first date with Asahi's fiance?

Okay, let's be realistic - there were probably at least four other options.

Unfortunately, Tetsurou couldn't come up with any of them either, so now he's here flirting with Kenma's future husband while trying to keep his web of deceit from collapsing.

It's going to be an eventful day.

(I got obsessed with this ship alongside Oikakage and SO WILL YOU. THE POTENTIAL. THE BANTER. THE FACT THEY'RE BOTH DORKS AND THE FIC HAS IDENTITY SHENANIGANS DANCING ALL OVER IT!! I had so much fun reading this and these two are MEANT TO BE FENIWPAF. If you don't see the potential of this ship, you will now.)

a misunderstanding a day keeps the boyfriend away by bartallen for betuls

Ship: Kuroo/Sawamura

Kuroo doesn’t fall in love hard and fast like many others do – he falls slowly, and very very softly. Most of the times he doesn’t even realise he’s in love with someone until it’s too late.

(Kuroo is the dumbest man alive and I've never related to someone so hard in my life. God help me.)

You like me. by roseknight

Ship: Daishou/Kuroo

Kuroo nearly lived a Daishou-free life, and sometimes he looked back and wondered how much better and how much worse that would've been.

(I didn't even know who Daishou was until I read this fic and now I can't unsee the potential this ship has. I'm a ruined woman and I regret NOTHING.)

Kings of the Road, Kings of the Universe by EzzyDean

Eight magical captains, one bus, an entire summer (and country) waiting for them.

What could possibly go wrong?

(The magic of friendship meets the magic of a summer road trip meets pure magic.)

(CAPTAIN SQUAD IS THE BEST SQUAD SOMEBODY PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SEND ME SOME CAPTAIN SQUAD FICS I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS SQUAD IT'S A PROBLEM AAAAHHHHHH!)

宿縁 : See You Soon by MissKiraBlue

Ship: Oikawa/Kageyama

Upon arriving at the train station of death, an impure soul is granted a second chance at life against his will. Reincarnating into the body of Kageyama Tobio, a 15-year-old boy who recently committed suicide. Tobio's soul will depart at death and the soul needs to slip in to replace it. If the soul's reformation succeeds, he’ll reenter the cycle of rebirth and regain the right to be reborn. He will have three months to accomplish this task.

“Even though you had enough of life,” the soul whispered into the void of the room, “you were still afraid to hurt your hands, Tobio.”

Afraid of giving himself a scar, if he survived.

He touched his pulse and grasped life and couldn’t help but pity Kageyama Tobio.

"You wanted to die and now I’m here making you live again," he whispered into the night.

(I'm not even exaggerating when I say out of all the fics in this entire goddamn, too long list, this is the fic I'm anticipating and heart eyeing the most. It's only starting, but I already cried on chapter fucking 2, the power of this fic, holy shit. The author also wrote the hq time loop Every Tomorrows series, which I have an undying love for and am full on praying for the day it updates, so you KNOW this fic will be just as good. (Anybody who hasn't read this series, where the hell have you been?? Read it!!) Just, everything about this fic hurts me and something in my chest just aches when I read this fic. Go into it blind with an open heart and I swear to you, it's going to change your life. I'm already calling it. Seriously though, please please read!)

-

[Crossover]

Learning to Fly by Asteroid_Duck (JustThatOneGirl1815)

Fandoms: Boku no Hero Academia, Naruto

The number three hero is a walking (well, flying) contradiction in every sense of the word. This includes his teaching skills. Why had Tokoyami agreed to this internship again? Oh right. He’d thought he was actually going to learn something. …….remind him to never be so optimistic again. . . . OR, Kakashi Hatake is reincarnated as the pro hero, Hawks. Tokoyami Fumikage suffers as a result.

(The reincarnation fic I never thought I needed and it's so good!! I've never really paid attention to Tokoyami and this fic sent me headfirst into loving him. Their dynamic is so interesting and I just love how their relationship develops. Also, Kakashi trolling the poor kid made me cackle, it's great! Definitely recommend it!)

Si Vis Pacem by athenoot

Fandoms: Boku no Hero Academia, John Wick

Everything has a price. That's what John has always known and will forever remember, even in death.

Which is pretty ironic considering his current circumstance.

Instead of a grown, scarred, weary body belonging to a man as cruel and broken as him, he's inhabiting a younger, smaller, unblemished one belonging to a child with strangely colored hair, and is living in what seems to be a superhuman society.

Well. May it never be said that John isn't a strategist. He can live with this. Maybe.

(Somewhere out there in the universe, he's certain he could hear the laughter of his enemies from beyond the grave.)

-

Or: John Wick is reincarnated as Midoriya Izuku. The world should probably watch its back.

(This should be one of the crackiest fics I've read in a while, but it's taken so seriously and I'm so HERE FOR THIS. John Wick being John Wick in a world of quirks and heroes is the GREATEST, honestly, he's so badass. Bakugou, I feel for you, you must be so fucking confused lol. Bakugou trying his best to be a good friend is one of the best things about this fic. Trust me, this fic will make your day, promise!)

A Girl's Mind is a Dangerous Place by clenastia

Fandoms: Naruto, Fairy Tail

Natsu wakes up in Sakura's body. It only gets worse from there. Also known as: In Which Natsu has No Idea what to do with Boobs.

(I binged this in two fucking days, I couldn't put it down. This fic reminded me why I liked fairy tail when I was younger and why Natsu is honestly such a great protagonist, god. And the fic does that thing, you know, the Thing where when two worlds collide, the characters struggle to acclimate and adapt to a completely another world with different rules and mindsets against their own. This fic is seriously one of the best when it comes to that aspect, it's incredible. I am going absolutely feral over here for this fic to update, I'm waiting in the wings, ready to pounce like a tiger, all the metaphors man. For the love of god, read this fic.)

Give me a landscape made of obstacles by Melise

Fandoms: Naruto, Natsume's Book of Friends

Kakashi Hatake isn’t who he says he is.

Because the truth is that he’s actually a youkai in disguise, a wolf spirit named Madara who stumbled across the Hatake clan during the Warring States Period. Intrigued by the shinobi he saw, he’d proposed a temporary alliance in which he would offer the clan protection in exchange for their teachings.

Decades later, Madara is surprised to find himself inadvertently summoned to Konoha by the last living member of the Hatake clan. Sakumo Hatake, who is mourning the recent deaths of his wife and stillborn child, doesn’t want to be alone anymore. So with his permission, Madara takes the place of Sakumo’s deceased son in order to watch over the last Hatake.

(Fusion in which the youkai of Natsume’s Book of Friends all exist in the Naruto world. No knowledge of Natsume’s Book of Friends required).

(Before this fic, I only had a very vague idea of what Natsume's Book of Friends was, and honestly, I still don't know much about it. But I didn't really need to know to get into this fic. I love the worldbuilding and the relationships Kakashi forms, both supernatural and mortal. I love how Kakashi's inhumane ways affect others around him, whether to stress them out or become used to the strange. You can go straight into this fic without knowing anything and absolutely still have a fantastic time. I definitely recommend this so please read!)

[cadaceus]

C2E140

Hello, everyone, and welcome to my liveblogs/emotional breakdown over Campaign 2, Episode 140 of Critical Role. This was genuinely an emotional rollercoaster, and I feel so much and yet so empty at the same time? These are genuinely my longest liveblogs ever (I had a lot of emotional reactions and things to say!) so feel free to grab some snacks or water before diving into this one. Spoilers ahead, of course, so pretty please proceed with caution!

- I’m emotional thinking about this very possibly being the Mighty Nein’s last Initiative ever...

- THAT NEW LUCIEN MINI DFVGDHJKLD WHAT THE 

- Essek tied for first in Initiative let’s go babeyyyyy I’m so proud

- THE VISION OF ZUALA  😭 😭 I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS I’M SAD

- The Eyes get their turn??? Oh my god

- Ashley’s aggressive “don’t you fcking dare” when the eyes point at Beau me too, me too

- Whoaaa Caleb’s Glaive method was so interesting, I can’t believe that worked!

- STOP ATTACKING ESSEK SDFGHSJK IF HE GETS NINE EYES AND TURNS AGAINST THEM OR SOMETHING I WILL THROW A FIT

- “Veth keep your clothes on... I will cast Marine Layer” FJORD LMAOOO

- I will turn into the “leave Brittany alone” person but make it “leave Essek alone” WHY ARE YOU BEING MEAN TO HIM

- six attacks versus Veth... ruh roh raggy

- Yasha attacking Zuala makes me so saddd 

- NOOO Cad... idk why that is the one that made me tear up, but just the image of his family beckoning for him in this city of terror is making me emotional 😭

- “That’s my child’s mother...” LMAO TRAVIS

- I genuinely just copied their “shaking weights” motion in real life adhjkdlf let’s goooo Essek!! 

- VETH IS DOWN.... GOD THIS IS MAKING ME SO SAD DO NOT KILL VETH PLEASE

- “He’s gone... let him go...” oof okay that one hurt me

- Jester was so close to getting that Divine Intervention... that was almost so clutch aahhh

- why is fjord’s method of persuasion to molly just flirting with them LMAO okay king...

- “’Remember the fruit salad?’” Fjord/Travis looks so embarrassed, WHAT IS FRUIT SALAD SIR PLEASE SHARE WITH THE CLASS

- Essek actually succeeding on a Strength check to get Caleb free despite being a weak ass wizard, and then Caleb pressing his forehead against Essek’s in thanks... yes I’m soft I can’t do this, my emotions are kaput

- TWO NATURAL 20S AGAINST JESTER.....

- Jester being insta dead. I am not doing okay. Like literally about to start crying, I was not expecting it to happen that quickly or at all, she’s just so full of life and if Cad doesn’t save her.... I’m just so upset by this 😭

- One of the “Happy Thoughts” on Sam’s flask being “Luc all grown up” is so precious to me personally

- CAD BELOW 20 HP --> CAD GOING DOWN ---> CAD UP AGAIN WAS SUHC A EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER OH MY GOD

- Did Molly just scratch Lucien’s face??? Oh my god...  😭

- MATT YOU NEARLY MADE ME PANIC WITH THAT SENTENCE SFGDJKLD THAT WAS CRUEL I WAS ON THE VERGE OF TEARS ALREADY AND THAT ALMOST DID ME OVER

- Both clerics at 1 hit point.... everything is fine :) (scared version)

- CALEB WENT DOWN I AM NOT DOING WELL EVERYONE..... THIS IS SO FREAKING ROUGH 

- Jester clutch healer, not even joking, I’m so grateful for her

- I can’t believe that it’s been three hours with no break, I need to make a mug brownie to calm myself down, free us Matt Mercer (mostly /j)

- BEAU ROLLING TWO NATURAL 20S ON HER ATTACK WITH MOLLY’S BELT AROUND HER FISTS OH MY GOD POETIC CINEMA.... THE DICE GODS ARE REAL!!!!

- Essek using his eighth level spell on Lucien after he sees Caleb go down...... MY LOVE (also I wonder what he had been saving his eighth level for, since Matt said he was saving it?)

- WAIT IS CALEB DOWN OR IS HE LIKE DEAD

- okay. just got my answer. i am not doing fine.

- HOW DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS DSBJKDASL;KDSJKFDK JESTER YES JESTER YES..... OH MY GOD SHE DID IT I LOVE HER SO MUCH I’M SO EMO I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS

- Break? What do you mean BREAK? time to make that emotional support mug brownie though.....

- Caleb’s alive! He’s safe! Thank all of the gods!

- Yasha kissing each spot on Beau’s body where the eyes were... I love them so much.

- Uh oh, Caleb is going to try to revivify Lucien/Molly isn’t he? I know it... I know he is... but sometimes you have to let people go :(

- “Once you’re a member of the Mighty Nein, you’re in” oh no I’m going to cry then.... aahh

- Jester rolling a Natural 20 because she has such a good imagination is so fitting! I love her so dearly

- Beau’s appeal is going to get to me... I know it already.

- THAT NATURAL ONE HURT ME... I didn’t want Molly to come back (because sometimes it is time and they died saving the people they loved) but it still hurts, you know? To not get Molly back.

- ASHLEY;S VOICE BROKE ME... damn I was holding in my tears, but her voice when she said “there’s nothing else to do?” really got to me

- Molly being laid to rest at the Blooming Grove is so poetic, I love that

- Essek’s voice is going to get to me.... also Fjord’s “use your anger and let it fuel you” makes me think that he is speaking to his own younger self... GOD Fjord is going to make me cry

- When he said “Caleb Widogast, have you ever accepted defeat?” I was unironically waiting for a love confession

- WAIT NO WAY..... HOLY SHIT???

- DID CADUCEUS JUST ROLL A 2 PERCENT.... WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING 

- Marisha talking about the “emotional whiplash” no LITERALLY Ms Ray I understand you

- MOLLY IS BACK?????

- Matt turning to Taliesin and saying “Your eyes open for the first time in a long time” oh my god.......

- Empty. Love.

- Molly turning to Yasha and saying “Love” is so precious, I love and missed their friendship so so much

- I know I wasn’t sold on Molly coming back, but honestly this is very fitting and I love it a lot. It makes me so emotional, dear god... all of the Mighty Nein together for the first time literally ever. 😭

- “Long May He Reign” is trending on Twitter right now. I think you all know why.

- Wow, I genuinely didn’t cry this entire episode but the second is ended something in me just broke. I feel a bit speechless right now and my emotions are all over the place, but if you read all of these liveblogs please know that you are loved and valued more than you could possibly know. I love you, I love you, I love you; and is it Thursday yet? 

<3

[too-attached-to-fiction]

How They’d React To You Having A Panic Attack | HP

Masterlist here

THIS ONLY INCLUDES THE GOLDEN TRIO ERA, NOT THE MARAUDERS. Let me know if you want me to do a marauders edition and I’ll do my best!

A/N: My symptoms for anxiety attacks include chest pains, having a hard time breathing, my throat closing up, and a lot of crying. Every person is different, but I based these headcanons off of those symptoms. Friendly reminder that SIGNIFICANT OTHERS DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY MAKE EVERYTHING OKAY AND THAT ONLY YOU CAN BE THE ONE TO HELP YOURSELF WITH MENTAL STUFF!!!

Harry

Would 100% be distracted and probably not pick up the signs immediately

You would literally have to sit in his lap and start crying for him to notice

But once he does this boi will literally drop anything and everything to help.

The two of you have developed a yes or no system of asking questions when you’re like this

“Common room? Or stay here?”

“Is it alright if I go get you some water?”

Would almost always distract you because he doesn’t know how to comfort properly

he knows what it’s like to bottle things up so he understands if you don’t want to tell him about what’s upsetting you

On the rare occasion you actually tell him he’d probably rock you back and forth

let’s be real he doesn’t understand all the time and he def won’t pretend to

but he knows what it’s like to not have people believe him so he keeps his mouth shut and just listens

if you’re in the classroom generally you’ll run out and go to Madame Pomfrey and he’ll come asap

Ron

Ok we all know how oblivious this boi is

and the book for understanding girls diD NOT have a section on this stuff

hermione generally has to spell it out for him when you do have a panic attack

is kind of frazzled

“what do you want mE to do about it?”

“They’re your partner you idiot!”

Ok this is a personal headcanon but ron isn’t very snuggly

but he is very kissy

Would definitely kiss you anywhere and everywhere

they’re all very light kisses and generally he avoids your face

He would think food is always the answer so he digs out his stash of Honeydukes sweets

and we all know this boi doesn’t share food often so this is a big deal

would maybe ramble about his day and wouldn’t stop until you kissed him

if this happened during class i guarantee he’d do the exact same thing as Harry

Hermione

As the smartest of the trio, she’d pick things up in a heartbeat

knows exactly what to do

Definitely has not memorized a list of your triggers and ways to get you to calm down

I think she’s one of those people who will try to show their support in the smallest ways

like squeezing your hand or giving you a glance

if you’re alone together then she’d probably pull out a book and start talking because she knows you like that

maybe even reciting random facts until she makes you grin

Or she’d find crookshanks and cuddle with you and the kitty

if you’re in class this one would definitely figure out how to get you out of the room and into a better atmosphere

Draco Malfoy

Like hermione, can catch on immediately

It is not his fault that he knows almost all of your triggers, he just HAPPENED to find out from your roommates

you’ve been there at his worst moments so he’s v determined to be there for you

So determined that at any HINT of a panic attack he’s nearly exploding with questions

Keeps a close eye at all times

Would probably bully people out of the common room/dorm so you can have a quiet space

even tho sometimes that makes you feel worse bc other people are suffering at your expense

grabs tissues and your favorite things without question

Would 100% try to ditch class if you were having one or just a bad day in general

“Draco, you’re not injured”

(Have I mentioned this dumbass would try to injure himself in potions if it meant going to the hospital wing to see you)

(Snape totally knows what he’s doing so he pretends to turn a blind eye)

Sometimes he knows you’re about to have one even BEFORE you have one

or if you’re in a different place in the castle

Fred Weasley

wowee this boy would drop any prank he’s working on to help

he’s literally dropped a fucking dung bomb at his feet and stayed there because he sees you down the hall coming his way and you don’t look that great

Considering he knows all of the hiding spots around the castle he would bring you to one of them

Relies on breathing exercises the most

“Can you breathe for me? Here, let me count. 1, 2, 3″

“That’s it, take a deep breath”

Always talks you through it

Always wants to know what caused it

unfortunately sometimes he pushes it too far

but he has good intentions

Will cling to you for a day after you’ve had it just to make sure you’re really okay

If you’re in class and you show the signs he immediately coordinates a prank with George so you two can slip out without being caught

George Weasley

there are some times where you just collapse in his arms and he kNOWs

Cuddles for days with this guy

Won’t move unless you say it’s okay

weaves his fingers through your hair

Sometimes even braids it

When you’re calming down he usually asks you to do grounding exercises with him

“Tell me 5 things you can see.”

“George-”

“Five things, (Y/N). They can be real or imaginary if you don’t want to open your eyes.”

makes the corniest jokes

constant reminders that he loves you every five minutes

like it’s a five minute timer every time five minutes goes by he’s like “you know I love you right”

“Georgie, you told me that five minutes ago”

“Well five minutes are up so i need to tell you again”

Would ask fred to pull a prank to get you out of class when you show the warning signs

Luna Lovegood

You never need to say anything with luna

You walk into the room and she goes “Hard day, was it?”

Will talk aimlessly for hours because she knows you love her voice

if you’re in the common room she’ll start making random observations about people

that usually gets a small laugh out of you

If she’s up to it sometimes this girl will even sing lullabies

all you need to do is close your eyes and be around her and things are better

Is always trying to get you to smile, even if it’s just a little

She does know a thing or two about anxiety but she prefers the information you give her to the information she’s found in books

Will talk about creatures for DAYS.

if you’re in class she’ll just start talking about anything

most of the class ignores her because she does talk a lot about nothing a lot of the time

but it’s very helpful

Neville Longbottom

this cutie

completely forgetful but will always be there

I think out of everyone he really understands what its like to feel the way you feel during panic attacks

almost always offers chocolate and a random factoid about herbology

Sometimes takes you to the greenhouse (Sprout gave him special access) and points at all of the plants

Or sometimes just takes you outside because “the sun will make you feel better”

even tho the sun is behind clouds like 95% of the time

Always gives you his sweaters and holds your hands even if they’re clammy

gives THE BEST HUGS OH MY GOD

he just,,, engulfs you? in warmth?

like his hugs are so sAFE

if you’re in class he’ll write you little notes or glance at you worriedly but he won’t check in until after so you don’t get in trouble

[asideofourown]

Happy anniversary to the Good Omens TV show! I didn’t get the chance to write a fic specifically to celebrate (where did May go?  Perhaps I’ll do something in June for my own go-versary), so instead here I am with 25 recs :D  Thanks so much to @forineffablereasons​ for the bingo board (here is her original post)!  And thanks so much to the Good Omens fandom for countless hours of incredible fic to read and enjoy <3  Obviously, this list barely scratches the surface of what’s out there, but here are some of my favorites!  

A fic you’ve read several times: South Downs University series by @nieded​

I’ve read this series probably... ten times, and I still love it.  It fits (one of my absolute favorite) very niche categories with Crowley and Aziraphale being cryptid professors and utterly confusing their students, and i am HERE for it

A fic not abt Aziraphale and Crowley: Bridge over troubled water by @moondawntreader​

LISTEN this fic is so good, I’ve read it probably four times and it’s incredible.  Short, but so powerful in so few words.  Leslie/Maud is the true otp ;D

A fic published before the show aired: Slytherin Vaguely Downwards by @saviobriion​

This fic is really, really well-written, and does a fantastic job transporting many Good Omens characters into the HP universe in a way that works really well!

A fic you followed as a wip: on the same page by @thechekhov​

Still a WIP, and still incredible!  Az and Crowley as authors with their own Arrangement is already fantastic, but add in the fake-dating-while-pining-desperately?  Incredible!

a human AU: secondhand smoke by @paintedvanilla​

This is probably my favorite fic in the entire good omens fandom tbh... human au set in the 1990s, and so so so well done-- this is another fic I’ve read several times, and every time i notice something new.  The characterization and prose is fantastic, the development of Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship is really sweet and realistic, and this was also the fic that definitively got me on board for Newt/Anathema as well!

A fic shorter than 2k: For Holding by theycallmeDernhelm

Ahh this one is really soft!  Post-apocalypse hand holding is my jam, and the author does a lovely job of saying so much in so few words <3

A fic you stayed up way too late reading: Not So Different by effing_gravity

I stayed up until maybe... three in the morning reading this fic?  After every chapter I would tell myself to only read one more, but it was so gripping I read it all in one sitting!  Reverse omens meets the canon husbands in a super interesting and thrilling fic!

A south downs fic: The consciousness of loving and being loved by yolkinthejump

This is like... the platonic ideal of a South Downs fic imo.  The author does an absolutely incredible job of conveying the depth of their relationship, and it’s so sweet and soft and <3

A fic with a favorite trope: There goes the neighbourhood by @jasmine-cottage-uk​

so technically I’m cheating because the ‘favorite trope’ in this one is ALSO south downs (like above), but.  This fic is so funny, and the author does a great job of capturing Aziraphale and Crowley’s voices and the way the care for each other, it’s very sweet <3

A dowling years fic: Floriography by Frenchmeister

This fic is very cute!  Excellent Dowling-era pining, complete with misunderstandings and veiled communications :D  And the author does such a lovely job weaving the narrative to show Aziraphale and Crowley’s growing relationship

A historical fic: Phersu by JCutter

This fic.  THIS FIC.  Is so fucking incredibly detailed and immersive, oh my god.  I’m still (admittedly) in the process of reading it, but it’s a GEM.  The characterization is on point and the whole thing is beautifully written and wonderfully interesting!  It’s super clear the author knew what they were writing about, and that knowledge and passion really shines through

A favorite canonverse fic: England's pleasant pastures seen by @heavens-bookshop​

this fic is my JAM-- overhearing a conversation, implicit marriage proposals, post-canon sweetness... this one’s got it all!  And, as with all of their fics, squiddz does an incredible job of writing Aziraphale and Crowley in character and so wonderfully in love <3

MY FIC: A Guide to Fame for the Enterprising Demon by me!

This is my favorite fic I’ve written for Good Omens, and quite possibly my favorite fic ever.  Listen, Crowley getting accidentally famous is SO funny to me, as is outsider pov, so if I write about it a lot... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A fic that made you cry: reasons wretched and divine by @stammiviktor​

Allison has been one of my favorite writers for a good long while, and this fic is just one of her amazing works.  It’s touching and meaningful and so moving even in only a few thousand words, and between her characterization and writing style... this one packs a punch in the best of ways

A fic that inspires you: The Name of the Star is Wormwood by LusBeatha

So technically this could have gone up above, in the ‘stayed up too late reading’ category, because here’s another that was just too exciting to put down  From beginning to end, the author does and incredible job connecting the past and present, and introducing characters in such an engaging way that, even though the fic is quite long, it goes by super fast.  Probably my fave take on Raphael!Crowley :D

A fic you’d recommend to someone new to the fandom: Shotgun Wedding: sometimes a first date requires paperwork by @charlottemadison42​

Still a wip, and absolutely amazing!  Charlotte is an absolutely incredible author, and from the very beginning this fic does an amazing job of integrating canon characters (and even little nods and references to canon!) into an entirely different human au setting in a super engaging and clever way.  12/10 would recommend to someone new, and the slow burn is incredibly satisfying right up to the (current) resolution!

A comfort fic: it's a new craze by @areyougonnabe​, [podfic] it's a new craze by @niceandaccuratetheatre​

I’ve read this fic a few times, and it never gets old. attheborder’s humor is on point, and the conception itself- aziraphale and crowley on an advice podcast- is incredible!  I would highly, highly recommend listening to the podfic if you can; it’s excellently performed, and in all honesty the podfic that got me onto podfics ;D

A fic that found you at the right time: two dad shaped beings by @jarchivism​

i....... cannot express how much I love ineffable parents.  And this fic seriously, seriously hits the spot.  It’s super cute, super funny, and a really sweet and engaging read!  The author did a lovely job with keeping Az and Crowley in character even as they raise the antichrist together

A fic you’d love to see as a movie: All's Fair In Love And Serial Killing by @wyvernquill​

[Mind the tags] This fic does an incredible job of balancing darker content with humor.  The whole story is fast-paced and exciting, keeping the suspense right up until the last moment, and the author does a fantastic job of constructing a satisfying ‘mystery!’  Most of all, the more morbid moments are countered by Wyvern’s clever writing style and narrative voice, making this fic interesting and even surprisingly fun!

A fic by a favorite author: Four Cups of Wine by borealowl

I really, really love this fic.  The whole concept, of Aziraphale and Crowley getting to know a family of humans and learn about their cultural heritage through celebration is wonderful, and the author does a wonderful job of portraying the growth of their friendship! The entire series (both main fic and the one-shots that come after) is incredibly fun and interesting, and one of my faves in the fandom

A fic that made you laugh out loud: What's in a Name? by @rosen-ritter​

The first time I read this I was in public, waiting at a car rental place for my grandparents.  So the fact that I couldn’t stop laughing out loud was... honestly worth it.  This series is so fucking funny from beginning to end, especially on reread, and has such a fun take on who the archangel Raphael really is ;D

A fic longer than 20k: Dad Omens by @pookaseraph​

have I mentioned I love ineffable parents??? Because I really, really do.  This fic is hilarious, sweet, and adorable, and I absolutely love the progression of Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship as they raise Adam together-- and, despite not being human, raise him well :D  An absolutely wonderful take on what if the baby swap had been even more confused?

A fic with the them: and i don't care if you don't want me (i'm yours anyhow) by @quidfree​

The main focus of this fic is Warlock, but the Them are featured pretty heavily and in a really important way!  It’s a lovely exploration of kids growing up and going to college, and learning who they really are, and written so well and with such nuance that I really couldn’t put it down!

A fic with a line you still remember: A More Nourishing Love by @qorktrees​

This fic is just.  Really powerful.  It’s so, so clear how much Aziraphale and Crowley care for each other, how much they love and support each other, and their unconditional love for each other makes me tear up every time <3  

A GO: Lockdown fic: New slang by @carishouldbesleeping

This fic is super super cute!  A lovely take on Aziraphale and Crowley’s reunion post-lockdown, complete with fluff and love confessions <3  So well-written and absolutely adorable!

[msbarrows]

Never Again, Newegg

So today I splurged and bought a new gaming laptop, my first computer purchase since I got my old Dell Vostro 400 desktop back in 2007 (which amazingly still works as of the last time I booted it up, it’s just a complete dinosaur and I don’t even have it plugged in or connected to anything since I last rearranged my desk back in November). Shiny New Laptop (which was new in 2013) was a gift. So this was a very exciting day for me.

Purchased an HP Omen 17″ direct from HP Canada, and am very happy about the purchase (also got a new monitor on sale, with full HD resolution - current monitor tops out at 1600x900), and even popped for a 3 year extended warranty, because HP is having a thing where if you don’t actually use it, you have 90 days after it eventually expires to request a refund. First time I’ve actually said yes to an extended warranty; kudos on whomever decided that was a good policy to have, I entirely agree.

Anyway, with those on the way, there were also some odds and ends of additional items I wanted to purchase. Like they only had the 17″ available with a 256GB PCIe SSD boot drive paired with a 1TB secondary HDD - and I’d rather have that second drive also be an SSD. HP lets you do things like change/add drives or RAM without it invalidating your warranty (they even tout how easy the case is to open as a feature), yet another thing I’m really liking about this purchase, so I decided to pop for a 2TB SSD to replace that with. I plan to stick the HDD in an external 3.0 drive enclosure; removing it should increase the battery life of the laptop, and I have a nice powered 3.0 USB hub I can plug it into for use (yay past me for planning ahead and getting a 3.0 hub rather than 2.0). Figure it can hold things like big media files where playback speed is not a real issue, ie, movies and music and photos.

So anyway, I’d never used Newegg before, but I didn’t want to throw money at Amazon, and Best Buy didn’t have everything I wanted, so I decided to try them out. Website is fairly nicely designed, their filtering is awesome (best I’ve found yet) so it was very disappointing when I went to submit the order and things immediately started going seriously wrong.

First off, it apparently timed out partway through submitting the payment. It landed me on a screen saying that the order hadn’t been processed, I hadn’t been charged, and to please try again. I stupidly believed that, and didn’t double-check (my bad, but still their site’s fault). So I redid the submission. It went through. Checked my email - yup, there was the order emails. Yes, multiple, they process every item ordered as a separate order and order # rather than as one set of multiple items, so I had 5 emails in total - received your order, charged payment for items 1-4. Ugh, stupid design, but whatever.

Go to make supper. A bit later my brother (who was kindly letting me use his CC for all this) came to check with me, very concerned - he’s received 10 emails. The order had gone through twice. So I leave off making supper, go upstairs to cancel the duplicate order... only the Newegg site says the items are invalid to cancel. What. The. FUCK.

Double check my emails - I have the second set of emails too, arriving a good 20 minutes after the first. I immediately get on with their online customer support, explain the situation, list all 8 order numbers divided into their two sets.

Customer rep can only cancel 2 of the 4 on first order, because apparently once they start packaging an order, you can’t cancel it any more, and despite it having been only around a half hour since I placed the order, some of it’s already being packed. Okay, so can we cancel the duplicates on the second order? She goes to look that up, I tell her exactly which two order numbers that would be, as I have the order screen open in front of me. Nope, she can’t do that one, lists one of the numbers she’d already cancelled. We go back and forth doublechecking, I again tell her what two specific order numbers still need to be cancelled. Nope, still can’t do it. Another run of double checking, list the two specific numbers a third time - and ffs, it turns out the problem is she hasn’t noticed the difference between a duplicate order ending in 79703 and the one ending in 80703 that she’d previously cancelled, which is why her attempts to cancel it have repeatedly failed. GAH!

By now we’ve been in chat for almost 40 minutes, and I have progressed from being merely annoyed to flat out frustrated RAGE. She finally tries to cancel the right numbers, and NOPE, those are now also in packaging. Supposedly my only option is to wait until they arrive, and either refuse the delivery (assuming I can identify which package(s) are those two specific duplicate items) or process a return. And while she says that a return wouldn’t involve a restocking fee, I can’t help but notice she’s not saying anything about shipping costs. Just WTF kind of poorly designed ordering system is this!? And who the hell doesn’t have a built-in buying remorse period of at least an hour before they start on actually shipping stuff?

Argh. Ugh ugh UGH. End chat, go to finish making supper, talk it back and forth with brother about what we should do (while feeling horrible that I ended up putting doubled charges on his card). So distracted I ended up burning the rolls for what was going to be meatball subs, and had to do noodles instead. Supper was very late, good thing this is not a day where he’s working nights.

Thankfully, someone somewhere successfully fixes it; after supper I found three emails saying they were “out of stock” on the duplicate items, and when I checked their site again, I’m now showing as having 3 of the 4 items remaining (and all with the button for me to manually cancel them enabled), and everything else cancelled (thankfully the one item they cancelled both of is just a 16gb USB key I wanted for recovery media, and I can get one of those just about anywhere). So, at least they made it right in the end, but that doesn’t at all help with the earlier frustration, and being so full of rage I was both nauseous and on the verge of tears, which is not a feeling I at all enjoy. Crying because of a heartbreaking scene in a book = good, crying because of a crappy customer experience = bad.

Never buying from them again, no matter how nice their filtering is. Never recommending them to anyone. Just, never ever again.

[keelywolfe]

Drabble: Sleep Deficit (baon, Sleeping Patterns)

Summary: Some nights are talking nights, where you say the kinds of things you can only say in the dark.

Notes: One of the things I love most about BAON is how Stretch and Edge support each other. The world isn't perfect and they both have their issues, but they love each other and help any way they can.

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

When it came down to it, if you took out equations and formulas and went with estimates, Stretch and Edge were about the same size. He had Edge beat for a couple inches in height. Edge was broader than him, but not outrageously so. They could wear the same clothes without either one of them looking like a kid playing dress up, which was handy dandy whenever they went someplace with a dress code that was elevated slightly above ‘hoodie’.

Besides, most days Edge got a kick out of seeing Stretch in his clothes, and who was he to deny Edge the simple pleasures?

But yeah, about the same size with a seam allowance of an inch or two in any direction. So how it was that Edge seemed somehow bigger to Stretch was a mystery for the ages. It was like he carried this larger than life aura around with him and some days it made Stretch want to cuddle in close and let Edge keep the world away.

Not that Stretch couldn’t handle himself, thanks. He could, he’d done it for years before Edge turned up in his life in his fuck-me boots. Didn’t mean he had to all the time, and if Edge wanted to add Stretch into everything else he lugged around, welp, Stretch’d lost that fight a long time ago.

But it sure as fuck didn’t mean Edge had to carry the burden of it all the time.

It was the bed shifting that woke Stretch that night, and that alone was cause for alarm.

Edge usually stayed up later than him, on most nights. Oh, he’d go to bed with Stretch for some snuggles or mattress calisthenics, but if he wasn’t sleepy, he’d get back up after and go do other stuff.

That was fine; it wasn’t as if Edge had low HP dragging him down to nighty-nightville. But him jostling the bed this hard was weird, Edge was usually super careful about it. So, either he did it by accident or he wanted Stretch to wake up.

Stretch had a pretty good guess for the coin toss on that one

Could be that Edge was after a second helping of metaphorical honey tonight, and Stretch was in the mood to hop on the buffet. But there wasn’t any tugging on the blankets, no gloved hands creeping along any bones Stretch left exposed. No attempt to dig into dessert was what he was saying.

So, he opened his sockets, just a little, to take a peek at what he was dealing with here. Edge was sitting crosslegged on top of the blankets. Still dressed, in his at-home clothes, jeans and a plain t-shirt with his bony bare feet tucked under his knees. Even in the dark, Stretch could that face, the expression that allowed a tiny hint of misery to show…yeah.

Silently, Stretch opened his arms and Edge crawled into them immediately, settled his skull on Stretch’s rib cage and clinging tightly.

That was fine, Stretch could hang on just as tight. He settled his cheekbone against the top of Edge’s skull to wait. It might take a while. He wished he’d kicked the blankets off; the barrier of it between them was an annoyance, but not enough of one for Stretch to let go, not even fucking close.

Sometimes, Edge wanted to talk about it and did, haltingly, because Edge kinda sucked at talking about things that hurt him. Yeah, because Stretch had a gold medal in emotional communication? Sometimes he talked. Sometimes he only lay in Stretch’s arms and he didn’t cry, but his breath would hitch a little and the well of protectiveness that swelled in Stretch in those moments, eh, it was probably good that Edge couldn’t see his face. But whatever his baby wanted, needed, Stretch would wait for it, lying awake for hours, even if the delicate light of dawn started creeping in through the window.

Tonight seemed like it was a talking night.

“I was thinking about Underfell.”

Okay, that didn’t usually mean anything good. Stretch only held on, whispering encouragingly, “yeah?”

Edge shifted against him. Not trying to pull away even in the slightest, more like he was trying to figure out if there was a way to get closer, like somehow he’d calculate a way through the bedclothes and blankets to allow them to occupy the same space. “I was wondering if I ever really made a difference there. If I’m making a difference here.”

The urge to say ‘of fucking course you are’ was pretty damn overwhelming and the words were hovering agitatedly right behind Stretch’s teeth. But that was the easy way out, all junk food comfort and Edge didn’t really care for crap like that.

“i could tell you yes,” Stretch said slowly. He trailed his fingers down the back of Edge’s t-shirt, following the bumps of his spine through the thin cloth. Felt the faint sigh of Edge’s breath. “but i think maybe that’s not enough.”

He considered the question like a puzzle and Stretch’d never been as good at them as Edge and Papyrus, as his bro was. But he knew the techniques even if they didn’t interest him much, and he turned the question this way and that in his head, checking every angle, searching for the correct path.

“okay, ask yourself if debbie thinks you’ve made a difference,” Stretch told him, and he was gonna little red riding hood his way down this road, trying to ignore if any wolves poked their warning snouts out. “if andy does, your kids at the y, the minions. ask the monsters at the embassy, every person living in new new home that has a better life here on the surface because you always make sure we’re taken care of. making sure some humans don’t pass laws against us, that we have the funds to keep new new home up and running, keep everyone safe.”

He heard the way Edge’s breathing hitched, just once, felt the stuttered rhythm of his breathing. It made Stretch wish there really was a formula for holding Edge even closer and if he had the time, he might start working on it, the science of affection.

Instead, he pressed a kiss to the top of Edge’s skull, right where the thin crack that went through his eye socket ended. “look, you can’t measure everything you’ve done against what you haven’t. it’s never going to balance, even if you kill yourself working too hard. you can’t save the world, babe, but you’re doing a damn good job with your corner of it.”

Edge didn’t say anything; looked like that was all the talking he had stored up. And Stretch couldn’t be sure if anything he said made it through, made a difference.

So, Stretch let his soul manifest. Hidden beneath his shirt and a layer of blanket, but he knew Edge noticed by the way he inhaled. Edge didn’t try to touch, made no move to sneak a hand in, not that Stretch would’ve stopped him.

But he let out a little sigh, the press of his cheekbone firming against Stretch’s rib cage and he would be able to feel the pulse of it, the warmth. Hopefully, he’d be able to feel all the fierce love Stretch felt for him, his belief, because he fucking believed in Edge, he did, and maybe Edge thought he could do better, but as far as Stretch was concerned he was already doing the best he possibly could, gave as much as he could. It wasn’t everything Edge could offer, nope. But it was enough.

They lay together a long time in silence, only faintly broken by Edge’s fingertips rasping against the comforter, petting right above where Stretch’s soul pulsed. Eventually, he had to let go of the manifestation, tried not to hear the faint, disappointed sound Edge made when he did.

Softly, Stretch offered, “you can turn on some music if you want?”

Sometimes it helped Edge rest, even if it brought back memories of an old beat-up Walkman and scratchy, abused cassettes pouring out their own soul through a broken pair of headphones.

For a long moment, Edge didn’t move. Then he shifted and there were a couple soft taps on a glass touchscreen, music rising lightly into the air as Edge settled back against him.

Stretch pulled Edge in close, breathing in his warmth; he didn’t care much for Frank Sinatra, but he could survive one night.

-finis-

[queen-of-deans-booty]

Pay Attention To Me

Characters: Gamer!Jack Kline x Reader

Word Count: 829

Warnings: fluff

Summary: Jack is a famous YouTube gamer, and as much as you are proud, you do miss it when it was just the two of you.

Squared Filled: Accidental Confession // Gamer!Jack

Author’s Note: I know some of you have requested fics, and I promise I will get to them. I just need to finish these bingos before the deadline in June/July of this year. I am also trying to post daily again so bear with me. This is for @spngenrebingo and @spnaubingo and this is unbeta’d and any and all mistakes are all on me.

Feedback the glue that holds my writing together

Tags at the bottom

Being proud of Jack came easily to you. He was one of the most highest paying YouTube gamers on the channel to date. He has received over 25 million subscribers, was gifted multiple YouTube play buttons, and has even gotten the offer to appear on multiple podcasts, talk shows, and met a ton of awesome people.

He may have millions of supporters, but you were his one true lifeline, the one person who would back him up no matter what he did online or in real life. At first, you had no idea who he was since you were just another fan behind a computer screen, dead set on watching his videos. He made you laugh when you wanted to cry, made you feel things that no other person could do. It was a shame he didn’t know you existed, but then one day you were presented with the opportunity to go to one of his meet and greets.

From there on out, things had been falling into places like a puzzle. Ever since that meet and greet at Vidcon, you had never been the happiest that you are right now. Time seemed to fly when the two of you talked, and at the end of his panel, he asked for your number. You couldn’t believe he wanted your number, but 2 years later, you and he were stronger than ever.

After a while, you two thought it was a good idea to move in together, and you had not regretted that decision once. When he declared he was going on a break, he would take you out to see the world for a few weeks, to just be together in your own personal bubble. He made enough money to support both you and him, and as much as you felt bad for taking all of his money, he made sure to never make you feel like you were something less than. It was one of his many traits you loved.

“Son of a bitch! Fuck you!” Jack yelled at his screen as he played some video game live for his audience. He hadn’t done a live stream in a while and wanted to gift it to his audience. He had a small green screen behind him so that you were not visible in the background.

He had his own separate room for when he recorded, and there was a fluffy couch right behind him that you were laying on. Right now, you both agreed that he would play for an hour and a half before the two of you would go out to lunch at your favorite cafe.

That was 2 hours ago.

It’s not like you didn’t want him to have fun or to interact with his amazing subscribers, but you really wanted to have some alone time with him. With him doing his thing and you trying to help your sister move, you hadn’t been able to properly be with each other.

“Jack, you almost done?” you asked, but received no answer.

“Take that you ugly bitch!” he yelled once more, pressing furiously on his Xbox controller.

“Jack?” you asked once more. From your angle, you can see what his screen looked like along with the many millions of comments streaming in. You can tell that you would have to approach this situation more delicately.

“I’m leaving, Jack,” you tried, but nothing.

“You won’t ever see me again.”

“There is someone breaking in, Jack.”

“Help, I’m being attacked!”

Pulling out your phone, you tried something that you’ve seen other women do when they wanted their man to stop playing video games.

“Hello?” you pretended like someone had been calling you. Jack discreetly turned his head, making it clear he was listening to you. “Yeah, I’ll be over real soon.”

Nothing.

“I broke your Xbox,” you blurted out, accidentally revealing the secret you had been hiding this entire time.

“What?” he asked, pausing the game and taking off his headphones.

“What?” you asked, trying to avoid the subject.

“You were the one who broke my Xbox? I blamed my brother for that.”

“I didn’t mean to say that! I’m so sorry!”

“I mean, I got a better one so it doesn’t matter to be now, but damn, Y/N,” he laughed.

“How much longer will you be? You said you were almost done.”

“I did, didn’t I? Okay, let me log off,” his features softened before turning to the camera. He said his farewells to his audience before turning off the camera and saving his progress. “Did I really play for 2 hours?”

“Yes, and I tried to be patient, but I miss you.”

Jack smiled before joining you on the plush couch, putting most of his weight onto you. He nuzzled his head in the crook of your check, and you ran your fingers through his hair.

“I’m sorry,” his voice was muffled.

“It’s okay. You’re here now,” you muttered, pulling his face up for a kiss.

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[rreader]

can I request harryxreader au in 4th yr where she's a close friend to harry but he don't know she likes him. she gets hurt when harry asked cho to go to the yule ball and started avoiding him. harry had no clue so he got mad as well and they didn't talk to each other anymore but in the 2nd task she's the one taken hostage and when they got out of the lake they realized what and how it happened and were very awkward afterwards. um you decide the ending wether they'll confess or not thank you

Pairing: Harry Potter x Reader ; Hermione Granger x Ron WeasleyFandom: Harry PotterWarnings: angst, obviously

Summary: Harry broke your heart when he started seeing Cho, so you started ignoring him in return. It was only when he was about to lose you during the Triwizard Tournament that he realized his feelings for you were more than the feelings one had for a friend.

A/N: you know how long I’ve been waiting for a harry request? ages. and you know how happy I am with this request? INCREDIBLY. honestly, I LOVE this request. HP 4 is by far my fave plot. I’ve always loved the triwizard tournament stuff, so this was a freaking joy to write! I honestly hope you like it hun! (also, I changed the plot of task 2 a bit so it would fit with my story!) (added Harry Potter to my fandoms page!)

                                                           *****

Youwalked up to Ron and Hermione, both trying their hardest to stifletheir giggles.

“What’sso funny, you guys?”

Hermionenodded towards Harry and Cho. They were too far away for you to hearanything, but he was fumbling with his hands, his eyes not meetinghers, a small blush on his face.

“He’sasking her to go to the Yule Ball with him.”

“Tryingto ask her,” Ron corrected her.

Thesmall smile that was previously sitting on your face immediatelydisappeared. Your shoulders sank and your jaw dropped slightly,disappointment clear on your face. It only got worse when Cho threwher arms around Harry’s neck, an excited grin forming on her lips.

“Well,looks like he’s doing great so far,” Hermione nudged Ron in theribs and laughed a bit.

Choseemed to whisper something into Harry’s ear, then she turned aroundand walked away. The Gryffindor stared after her for a little whilelonger, then he turned towards his friends and approached them,scratching the back of his head.

“I..uhm.. I gotta go. See you around guys,” you stammered, then quicklyleft before Harry could reach you, even though he had already waved atyou.

Allthree of them now watched you leave.

“Isshe alright?” Harry asked.

“Noidea..”

                                                 threedays later

“(Y/N)!”

Youignored him.

“Holdup!”

Stillignoring him.

Finallyhe caught up with you and walked alongside you towards your nextclass.

“Are youalright?”

“Yeah,fine,” you said quickly.

“You’vebeen ignoring me for the past three days..”

Butagain, you didn’t answer.

Youwere upset with him. And angry with yourself. You’ve thought you andhim were getting closer these past weeks. Hours upon hours thatyou’ve spent together, the small touches that were exchanged that had letyour heart rate explode, the looks he had given you when he thought youwouldn’t realize.. did you make all of that up? Did he really seenothing but a friend in you?

Ifhe saw more in you, he wouldn’t have asked Cho to go to the Yule Ballwith him.

Youwere only a friend. Nothing more.

“It’sfine,” you said once more.

Hesuddenly stopped, clearly being frustrated with you.

“Youknow, I could really use my friend right now!”

Youstopped as well, thinking about your next words very carefully,especially because you didn’t know whether you wanted to scream or cry.

“Noneof those here,” you only turned your head to the side, not reallylooking at him, but also not completely looking away. You tried tocontrol your voice as best as possible, then you took a deep breathand continued to walk to your next class, leaving a disheartenedHarry behind.

Hestood there in that hallway, staring after you, until a studentaccidentally ran into him.

Onlythen did he close his eyes for a second, turn around and walk towardshis next class, his heart feeling like somebody had stabbed him.

                                           theday of the 2nd task

“Where’sHermione?!” Ron looked around, but couldn’t find his bestfriend/crush anywhere.

“Goodquestion,” Harry walked up to Neville. “Are you sure this isgoing to work?”

“Yes,well, it’s supposed to..-”

“Neville!”

Nevillegulped and nodded.

“Yes.I’m sure.”

SoHarry nodded as well, taking the gillyweed from his friend.

“(Y/N)’snot here either. They better have a good explanation for notsupporting you on a day like this,” Ron said, while they sat downin the boat, which would take them to the platform from which the 2ndtask would begin.

“Wedon’t talk anymore..”

“Wait..what do you mean?”

Harrysighed and turned around to look at Cho who was sitting in the boatbehind him, smiling encouragingly at him, then he faced his bestfriend again.

“It’sbeen weeks. I don’t know why.. it was like.. it was like she suddenlyhated me.”

Ron’seyebrows drew together in confusion, thinking very hard as to why youwould be angry with him.

Hedidn’t have much time though, since they docked at the platform a fewseconds later.

OnceHarry was on it, he took one good look around, confirming that you really weren’t here, then he shoved the gillyweed down his throatand within seconds, his body started to transform.

Andwhen all the others had already jumped into the cold of the lake, hewas still struggling with the effects of the gillyweed and would havefor a few more minutes if someone hadn’t thrown him into the water.

Andonce he was in, he started to relax.

Hecould feel the gills on his throat and his hands were now webbed,like he was a hybrid between a human and a fish. He then jumped outof the water once, showing everyone that he wasn’t dead, especiallyNeville, who was probably going crazy at this point, then he began toswim, the verse from the golden egg ringing in his head.

“We’vetaken what you’ll sorely miss”

Fora second, an image of Hedwig flashed before his mind.

Hopefullyit wasn’t his dear owl that was down here.

Harrydidn’t waste much time exploring.

Hewas the first out of the four to reach the village of the Merpeople.

Butwhat he saw in front of him made his blood run cold, even more thanit already had.

Infront of him weren’t items or their beloved pets.

Humans.Friends. Family.

Fleur’slittle sister, Cedric’s date from the Yule Ball..

Hermione!She had to be down here because of him!

SoHarry quickly swam towards her when he saw you right next toHermione.

Andhe thought the sight of his best friend had frightened him..

..butseeing you, your lifeless body, a rope tied to your ankle to keep youdown in the waters.

Hiswhole body was paralyzed. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe.. hejust stared at you. His hand reached out to touch your face, when Victor pushed him awayfrom Hermione to bring her back to the surface. It was only then that he knew. You were the one he had to rescue. Because if you died..

He quickly blinked a couple of seconds to get rid of that thought and used a spell to cut the rope. Then he wrapped his arm around your waist andswam towards the surface.

Andthe second the cold air hit your face, was the second you woke up fromyour ‘trance’.

Youcoughed intensely, couldn’t see a thing for the first few seconds.You only relaxed when you could hear Harry’s voice trying to calm youdown.

Hehelped you get to the platform and immediately wrapped both his andyour own towel around your body.

Andwhile Dumbledore announced who the winner was, Harry and you staredinto each other’s eyes, so many unspoken words lingering between you.

Itwas you who broke the eye contact first, the awkwardness suddenlysetting in, especially when Cho was crouching next to Harry andrubbing his back.

                                                          ***

Youand the other three who were down in the lake were still in thehospital wing.  

Itwas only a precaution.. or at least that’s what they had said.Suddenly they were concerned about your welfare.

Fleursat at her sister’s bed, softly combing her blonde hair, Hermione wasreading a book and Cedric’s girlfriend was about to be the first toget out of here.

Youwere staring at the ceiling, fidgeting with your fingers, whileeverything that had happened these past hours was keeping you up.

“Harry!Ron!” Hermione beamed when she saw her best friends enter thehospital wing, a bouquet of flowers in Ron’s hand. He immediatelywalked over to Hermione, while Harry lingered where he stood anddecided to walk over to you first.

Youwere now sitting upright in your bed, watching him.

“Hey..”

“Hey,”you replied.

“Uhm..can I..?” he pointed towards the end of your bed and waited tillyou nodded before he sat down.

Fora long time all he did was stare at his hands, his chest heavingheavily.

Youhated the silence. You wanted to say something.. anything. But allyou did was stare at him.. hope that he’d be the one who’d start.

“Ithought you hated me.”

“Itried,” you admitted, lowering your head in shame. “But Icouldn’t.”

Finally,he turned his head to face you.

He couldn’t forget the picture from earlier. Your face.. you looked.. dead.

And the more he thought about it, the clearer it got.. 

“Iguess it’s true. You don’t know how much someone means to you, unlessyou’re about to lose them.”

Youlooked up at him and even though you tried not to, tears started torun out of your eyes.

Harryquickly slid closer to you and held you in his arms. It was a bit awkward, but you appreciated it.

“It’sokay,” he kept whispering in your ear and just rocked you in hisarms until you stopped crying.

Therewas still a lot to be talked about.

Buthe had ended things with Cho and he was ready to finally explore thefeelings he had long had for you, but had always been to scared toshow.

[teejdunc]

The Quarter Life Crisis

Well I don't really know what I'm doing so bare with me. 

24 has been a HARD year. If you know me, you know that this year was by far the toughest year of my life. In fact, I actually think I cried more this year than I have all of the other years combined (go ahead and laugh). 

MARCH

CORONA VIRRRRRRUSSS...

I should actually start with the dreaded break up.. or let go, I should say. We had been broken up but had been on and off in private. I had been hanging on to something I knew was not only bad for me but was never going to work. I had poured my heart into someone who was never going to pour back into me. My heart had never experience so much pain. No matter what I did or where I went, there was a piece of us there. It was a passing pick up, a song on the radio or just the smell in the air. I was frozen in time and I wasn’t getting over it.. I couldn’t eat, I couldn't sleep, I had no interest in any of the things that used to bring me happiness. Most every night for close to 3 months I cried myself to sleep. I didn’t feel like Taylor anymore, I was a stranger living in my own body. 

We’ll call this part of 24,  “sad girl hours”.

Fast forward to summer...

JULY

In July, my dad was consistently having chest pain. We found out he had severe blockage and would need to have surgery. After hours at the doctor’s they sent him home with nitro incase he had a heart-attack before scheduled surgery. I had been out with my friends that night but I was in bed early and I just remember hearing my moms footsteps running down the hallway, I already knew. 

I remember frantically asking what I needed to do and just feeling my whole head rush, like everything around me was spinning and I was helpless. We got dad to the car and mom rushed him to the ER. I called two of my closest friends and they met me at the ER. When I pulled up they were already sitting there waiting. I got into the pick up and I lost all composure I was balling like a baby. It didn't take them long to wrap me up and tell me that they were here for me and that things were going to be okay.

Due to COVID, we were not allowed to enter the hospital so we went home. (the story might be altered a little here... if you know the whole night’s story please keep it to yourself).

I think it was around 4:30 when I finally made it back to my parents house and I was so exhausted but I couldn’t sleep. I sat in the living room wide awake, absolutely terrified for what tomorrow was going to bring.

Dad entered into surgery and had some complications and had to be in ICU for close to a month.  I remember getting a call from mom and I was in sheer panic. I just kept thinking “HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING TO ME? Why did it have to be MY dad?” I was so angry and hurt inside. I drove to the First Baptist parking lot and I sat there and I prayed and I told God that if he could heal my dad I wouldn’t ever ask for anything again. I remember just feeling so lost and helpless.

I was trying to do the best I could to stay strong for mom. I did what I could at the house and tried to convince myself it was enough.

In all of the chaos my mom stood strong and never waivered, just like an oak tree. They don’t tell you that seeing your parents hurt, hurts you more than physically being hurt. I wouldn’t wish this kind of hurt on my worst enemy.

After a LONG road and what has felt like a million days.. dad is doing so much better. PRAISE THE LORD!!

I realized in all of this that I was never alone. I didn't make it through this by myself. I had my friends surrounding me and supporting me in the ways they knew how. For some it was a text, a phone call, or showing up just to drive around so that I wasn’t alone.

If you were one of these people, you know who you are...  

From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU. 

AUGUST

My grandpa had a heart attack.

SEPTEMBER

I started a new job teaching kindergarten at a new school with a new team.

Kinder is CRaZY!!

God sure knew what he was doing when he placed me at HP. I needed the spark for teaching to be re-lit within me. My team is wonderful and I feel like I finally found “my place”.

OCTOBER

One of my friends took his own life.

In October, I had a conversation with my old ag teacher who had called to let me know he had cancer. He told me he was so proud of me and we laughed about the things some of my friends and I did in class. I sat there and talked on the phone with him and couldn't help but drown in the thoughts that this man who had made HUGE impacts in not only my life but THOUSANDS of others, was sick. 

I just kept asking myself “Why is everyone I love hurting? Why is God doing this to me?”

THE BIG “D” and the semi colon...

I got a tattoo on my wrist (sorry mom) as a daily reminder.

The tattoo reads “ ; hold on”

I would have never wanted something so “socially embarrassing” on my body a year ago.

It’s not embarrassing anymore... depression is a REAL thing and suicide is REAL.

I laid in the floor several nights during the summer and wondered if things were ever going to feel “normal” again.

Don’t worry... nothing last forever. Not even your sadness!

But I needed a visable reminder, on my body, where I could remind myself every. single. day.

The semi colon symbolizes the place where the author had the chance to stop, but merely paused. This is used as the symbol for suicide and depression awareness. The words hold on have many meanings for me.

Hold onto faith

Hold onto love

Hold onto the people who get you through

Hold onto self worth

Hold on... because better days are coming!

NOVEMBER

In November, my ag teacher passed away. I took off work to make the funeral but I got sick and I had to stay in Amarillo. I had taken two days off, but decided to go back since I was feeling better. I was on lunch break when I got on my phone to look at Facebook when I saw that one of my friends had been in a car accident and had passed away. 

WHY WERE BAD THINGS HAPPENING TO GOOD PEOPLE? 

I couldn’t make rash of anything in my life and I was, without a doubt angry at God.

I hit a LOW point in my life. 

No amount of “I’m fine” was going to cover this up.

I really was lost as to how to get back to myself...

I went home for Thanksgiving break and well that was a disaster, I’ll leave it at that. 

DECEMBER

I returned to work for the final weeks before Christmas break. I spent most of the days corralling Kindergarteners and wishing the days would pass faster.

Finally... CHRISTMAS BREAK.

I went home and found something I had been needing.

I got to hug my parents for the first time since JULY!  ( yeah yeah, I’m still a little kid at heart)

I was able to rekindle a friendship with someone who I had gone separate ways from. Little did I know this was going to be the BEST thing to happen to me. We spent several days hanging out, singing at the tops of our lungs, laughing and making up for lost time. It was like we never missed a beat, we picked right back up where we had left off.

I am not certain of a lot, but I do know that God doesn’t make mistakes. 

I needed this friendship and she did too.  

I also needed my “Picture to Burn” singing partner back in my life and that's just what I got!

PS, you know who you are. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! 

JANUARY

Still CORONA VIRUS...

January I saw the neurologist. The doctors thought I had narcolepsy and that it was what was causing my excessive sleepiness and seizures.

I had to go to the hospital and have an MRI and an EEG to see if they could figure out what was going on.

LET ME TELL YOU I AM TERRIFIED OF SMALL SPACES... that brain MRI was enough trauma for me for a lifetime! 

NOT MY CUP OF TEA, LOL.

FEBRUARY

I got my results back from the MRI and the EEG, everything was CLEAR. PRAISE JESUS!

I will still have to have a sleep study done but hey... a sleep disorder is way better than what we originally thought! 

THE END OF 24

I turn 25 in 12 days... not quite sure I’m ready to accept that my twenties are halfway over.

24 WAS A LEARNING YEAR, the good and the bad.

I have learned a lot about myself. I am strong. I am independent. I am capable. I am loved. I am important. I make a difference. EVEN on the days I don’t feel that way. 

I have friends and family who would move mountains for me. 

I have a GOD who is unstoppable and faithful to his promises.

I have weathered the storms I thought I couldn’t and came out stronger.

I have doubted God in many moments of my life but I am certain that his plan is FAR greater than I could ever imagine.

So while 24 may have bruised and battered me, it did not break me.

CHEERS TO 25 YEARS, my friends.

Isaiah 43:2

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

Psalm 34:17-20

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.

[literarygoon]

“Ten things that make me happy”

Fiction by Will Johnson

Got the kid this week. Couldn’t find a baby-sitter. Called Mom and she said it was my problem, not hers. Manager said I could keep the kid behind the counter while I work, but only this once. All the customers wanted to say hi. Wanted to touch the kid. They said he’s cute, what’s his name? Embarrassed when I tell them Kane—a mix of Kate and Shane.

Kate = gone.

Said she needed some time. Moved back to Ontario with her parents. Left the kid behind. Now I’ve got this crappy basement suite in downtown Nanaimo and a baby I can’t afford. Think about Nicaragua a lot. Lived there for six months after I graduated from university. Ate fruit, spoke Spanish, did a lot of surfing. Bagged a few Latina chicks. Now I’m working at Starbucks. Job’s okay, but I spend most of my shift daydreaming about being a musician. Think about girls lifting their dresses over their heads. Dank venues, cocaine head rushes, blind groping in the dark. A used condom floating in my toilet.

Called Neil last week. Former band mate of mine, a drummer. Lives in Vancouver and I haven’t heard from him in years. Hoping he can find us some gigs. Took the ferry across the water to meet him on a Tuesday morning. Kane puked on my jacket, so I wrestled him into the bathroom and cleaned us off with a fresh diaper. Fed him this baby food out of a jar. Afterwards I stood outside on the deck looking at the Gulf Islands. The bus ride to Vancouver was more than an hour long and Kane cried the entire way.

At the restaurant, Kane ripped apart a coloring sheet. Waitress wasn’t mad. Asked me how old? Told her 18 months, but it seems longer. Sat there thinking about my band. Thought about finding a record label, maybe playing festivals. Told myself I’m not too old to be a successful musician. (Unrealistic?) The newspaper was boring, so did the crossword and flirted pointlessly with the waitress. Neil was fifteen minutes late. He yanked at the door for a few moments before he realized it opened inward. Stumbled through and almost head butted a plant.

Shane, man, he said. Look at you. Look at this. This is crazy, right? Isn’t this like crazy? This is crazy, man.

Stood up to hug him. His whole body was vibrating. Slipped into the booth and didn’t take off his coat. Legs bounced and his eyes darted all around the restaurant like he couldn’t decide what to look at.

What’s the kid’s name?

This is Kane.

Kane like in the Bible? Like old school Kane and Abel Kane?

No, just a name we liked. You know.

What’s up Kane? How you doing buddy?

Clear Neil hasn’t seen a baby in years. Kane in his booster seat looked at Neil a little confused. Maybe scared? Blew air out in little bursts.

Hilarious. What’s he doing?

Kid’s still learning how to talk. Figure that’s his first word.

Burp?

Yeah, he likes doing that. Does it all the time.

Just like burp, burp, burp? Hey Kane. Burp? Can you say Burp?

Kane started to cry. Picked him up for a minute, gave him his soother, settled him down. Have to do this every twenty minutes, seems like. Neil couldn’t figure out what to do. Played with the sugar packets. Picked one up and held it to the light.

Do you ever wonder who makes these, Neil asked. Like is there a factory somewhere with little Asian ladies filling these up with sugar? And how do they get it inside the paper? You ever think about stuff like that?

Not really.

How about this. You ever think about how incredible it is that in our society we can walk into rooms like this and convince people to bring us food? We don’t cook it, we don’t serve it, all we do is sit here and eat it. Then we pull out a little plastic thingie and punch some buttons. Crazy, right?

Interesting way to look at it.

We’re top of the food chain, man. There’s no other way to look at it.

Waitress was attentive. Looked about twenty-five years old, maybe younger. Had eczema all down one arm, probably from doing too many dishes. Said what a beautiful baby, you are so lucky. Kane was gurgling and she played with his little hands. Leaned over so Neil and I both looked down her dress, her white bra quivering. (Sometimes I get so fucking horny it hurts.) She said he is precious and wiped drool off his face. I never know how to act when people play with the kid. Am I supposed to smile? Do they want me to participate somehow? This is what I’ve figured out: having a baby = more flirting. Having a baby = less sex. Having a baby = no sleep/exercise/solitude. The waitress took our order.

For me: Toast. Scrambled eggs. Sausages + HP sauce. Black coffee.

For Kane: Apple juice and yogurt.

For Neil: Nothing.

Asked the waitress if she could watch the kid while I went outside for a smoke with Neil. Dislodged a crayon from Kane’s mouth. When we got outside Neil told me he got kicked out of his house. Said he’s been having trouble holding things together. (Drugs?) Didn’t ask about Kate. Suspect they had a thing while I was in Nicaragua. Never confirmed it, but pretty sure it happened. Not jealous, really. Just curious.

Nothing was ever enough for Kate. Three months pregnant she shimmied past this barbed wire gate and climbed up an emergency ladder to the top of the Blue Bridge in Victoria. Must have been three hundred feet in the air. Followed her and sat on the steel girders with my feet hanging above the traffic. The lights of the city were reflected in the ocean blackness. Took turns taking sips of whiskey. She told me sometimes she fantasizes about taking a running jump, about plunging down to the concrete and splattering on impact.

I could get it over with, she said.

Her first pregnancy ended with a miscarriage. Found her curled up in the bathtub with purple clots of blood streaking the porcelain. Figured that was the end of it, but six months later she told me she was late again. (Shitty birth control?) She acted like her body was betraying her somehow. Wandered around our basement suite in her bare feet. Ate lots of peanut butter. Rude to my Mom, complained about everything and wouldn’t quit smoking. I never asked for this, she said.

Me neither.

Started therapy once a week. Nice woman. Lots of pillows and inspirational posters on the wall. Kate brought me to a session and we brainstormed positivity exercises. Ways to escape depressive thought patterns. Therapist gave us this assignment to keep journals. Every day we were supposed to make a list of ten things that made us happy. Nothing makes me happy, Kate said. Therapist said sometimes we overlook the small things in life. The taste of toothpaste in the morning. A hug from a friend. Maybe an upcoming vacation to look forward to. These things all add up eventually. Kate picked lint off her jeans and stared at the floor.

Therapy didn’t make any difference. Found Kate crying one afternoon in the backyard. Told me she was going to spend a few weeks with her parents in Hamilton. Supported her, said I wanted her to figure this stuff out. Wandered our house alone, taking care of Kane and waiting for her to call. Stood at the airport with flowers, but she never arrived. Pretty soon she stopped answering my phone calls. Parents said she left to road trip across the country with some dude who owns a Westfalia. Promised to send money, to come visit their grandkid, but that was six months ago.

Neil said I can’t believe you’re a father.

Still getting used to the idea.

Seems like a good kid.

Babies don’t really have personalities. They mostly just need things.

Asked Neil if he ever drums anymore. Told me he had to pawn his drum set. Said he had some outstanding loans he had to pay back, plus it was cumbersome moving the drums from one house to the next.

I don’t know about music, man.

What do you mean?

You hear the stuff coming over the radio inside? It plays all day, all night. Shopping malls, gas stations. There’s so much fucking music in the world and everybody wants to make it. There’s so much music everywhere you couldn’t even hope to hear a fraction of it. How the fuck can you expect to make a difference in a world like that?

That’s a depressing way to think about it.

It’s all money, man. You think these singers are famous because they can sing? No, they’re famous because some dudes with money paid some other dudes with money to make them famous. And who wants to be famous, right?

I don’t want to be famous.

Me neither.

But I want to play music.

Neil shrugged. You know what I’ve been thinking, he said. I gotta find a way to break into the television business.

What do you mean?

Think about it, man. Every show, every commercial, they all need music. Somebody’s got to write that shit. Can you imagine? If your job was to sit there and make beats all day long. It’s all computer programs now. The bosses go okay, we need some scary music for this scene. Some happy music for this scene. Maybe some violin shit for a sex scene. Right?

I don’t know. Don’t you think that’s a little artificial?

Money is money, man.

I guess.

Here’s the thing: I broke my back in a snowboarding accident when I was a teenager. Fell into an off-run crevice. Body draped on this cleft twenty feet down. Felt like a mystical cavern, surrounded by glistening ice and weird noises far below me. Could’ve fallen a lot further, but I didn’t. I remember the helicopter lifting me out of there. Strapped to a spinal board, wrapped in blankets with nothing but my face exposed. Felt the rushing wind from the rotors in my eyes and made a deal with the universe. Promised that if I made it through okay, I wouldn’t waste my life. I was going to make music. Sounds stupid, but it still means something to me. Took me nearly six months of intensive physical rehab before I could lift myself out of bed again. When I left the hospital the nurse told me Shane, you’ll probably never really understand how fortunate you are to walk out of here.

My first band was called The Sultwater Sultans. Got interviewed for the Victoria newspaper once. The photographer arranged us in front of an autumn backdrop. Put us on the front cover of the Arts section. It said SALTWATER SULTANS in this swirly orange font. Mom still has that photo taped to the side of the fridge. Reminds me of finger paintings little kids bring back from elementary school. Kate was dating our bass player Cliff when I met her. She was our Yoko Ono. Once we got together the band broke up. (Worth it?) Cliff came to Starbucks a few months ago. Talked on his cell phone and pretended not to recognize me. Maybe he wasn’t pretending.

Played solo gigs for a while after that. Kate sang back-up and we called ourselves The Islanders. Mostly restaurant venues where nobody listened. Opening act for bigger bands. She introduced me to Neil, and he became our drummer. Bit of a loner but he could keep a beat. Toured around Vancouver Island and played some festivals.  Remember a time we got drunk on the beach. Firelight cast shadows on the sand. Twisted beach logs slick with moisture. Neil hammered drums pinched between his legs while Kate danced in her bare feet. Fucked it up and left for Nicaragua a month later. Wonder what would’ve happened if I stayed.

You ever think about that time we toured up island, I asked Neil, standing outside the restaurant. Glanced in to check on the kid.

Good summer, man.

I was thinking we could pick up where we left off. Revive The Islanders.

Minus a member.

But we could pick up a few more guys. Take a run at this.

Sounds good to me.

Neil looked skinnier than I remembered. Like he was sucking on the inside of his cheeks. Bet I could fit my thumb and forefinger around his bicep. He touched himself while he talked. Pulled on his earlobe, scratched his neck and drummed fingers on his sternum.

You think the kid’s okay in there?

The waitress’ll keep an eye on him.

Couldn’t he fall out of his booster seat or something?

Babies are resilient.

You know what’s crazy to think about, is that I was a baby. And you.

Well, yeah.

I heard once that every seven years our bodies completely regenerate themselves. Like every cell in your body, all your skin and hair and toe nails, I mean your bones, it’s all been replaced. So when you think about it, you’re not even the same person you were seven years ago.

Huh.

You’re what? Like 30? We haven’t seen each other for nearly a decade, man. And think about that guy. The guy you knew, like I probably don’t have any of the same clothes. I look different, I act different. This is completely new skin here. I may as well be a different guy. Isn’t that trippy?

Guess so.

University feels like ancient history, I said.

I’d do it again.

Me too.

Once she was nearly due to give birth, Kate was impossible to live with. She punched her knuckles against her temples and tore out her hair in tangled hanks. Slept through the afternoons and into the middle of the night, then lay like a bloated carcass on the couch. Didn’t know what to do. Therapist said pregnancy can be tough. Recommended we check into the hospital early for observation. Kate spent the last two weeks in a private room. Screamed at nurses and threw food down the hallway. Wouldn’t talk to me when I visited. Once the kid was born, Kate barely touched him. Said he’s got your eyes and she glared. Doctors kept her for an additional week because she was refusing food.

Sometimes I have nightmares about Kate. See her fucking random dudes in highway restrooms. That girl. Used to flirt with guys right in front of me. Liked to have sex in busy parking lots or shopping mall restrooms. One time she gave me head in an elevator. For a while it seemed like she was going to calm down. (Be happy?) We moved in together after Neil moved away. Played sporadic gigs around Victoria. She danced in her cowboy boots, her dress swishing around her little legs. Adorable. Her voice was literally heart-breaking when she sang. Thought that was how my life was going to be. I was mistaken.

When I was younger, I assumed happiness was a mathematical equation, easily solvable. My headspace was like a question mark waiting for an answer. Thought maybe music + girlfriend + job = contentment. But even when I was in Nicaragua, or when things were going well with Kate, there was always this nagging suspicion that something was wrong. That somehow I was missing out on the life I was destined for. Makes me wonder why I’m still here. After my snowboarding accident, the doctors told me there was a chance I could have spent the rest of my life in a wheelchair. People kept emphasizing how incredible it was that I had survived. Said I couldn’t take it for granted. But life-changing revelations have an expiry date. Sooner or later you have to go back to living your life, whatever that means. While I’m fixing a broken coffee machine or standing outside in the rain, life doesn’t seem very worthwhile. Some days I wonder if I wasted a miracle.

This = not my plan.

A siren screamed in the distance. The air smelled like piss. Neil and I smoked our cigarettes and watched a police car swerve around the curb. The people on the sidewalk didn’t even turn their heads. Inside our food was waiting. Offered Neil a piece of toast, but he said he wasn’t hungry. Spooned yogurt into Kane’s mouth.

What kind of food’s he eat?

I dunno. Mushy stuff mostly.

Doesn’t he need breast milk?

Think he’s too old for that. Not like I can pick it up at the grocery store.

Ha.

It’s kind of like having a human dog.

Wild that one day he’s gonna be us, you know? And we’ll be hanging out in nursing homes.

Or dead.

Or dead, yeah.

Tried for a while to make lists of the things that make me happy, but never got to ten. The things I came up with—a good song on the radio, a drunken night while Kane is staying at my Mom’s house, an easy day at work—all seemed superficial. Like a Band-Aid for a missing limb. Wonder if maybe I’m beyond help. Lately I feel old. Like I don’t recognize this ugly version of myself. Cigarettes yellowed my teeth. Belly fat jiggles over my belt from too much shopping mall food and late night pizza. Look in the mirror and hate the patches of hair on my upper arms. Dark eyes. Flirt with patrons and they act embarrassed. (Am I creepy?) When I was younger girls lined up for their turn. Took a new one each weekend. A blur of sweaty bodies and frantic late night fucking. Now I would kill to get some action. Haven’t been laid since Kate left.

Kane kept pushing my spoon away. Yogurt dribbled down his jumper. Burbled and stuck his fingers in the goop. Neil said maybe he wants some real food, man. Give him some sausage.

He can’t chew that stuff.

Cut it up into little pieces. He can swallow.

I dunno.

Watch this, he said. He pulled the plate across the table and sawed at the blackened sausages pushed to the side of my plate. Speared one with his fork. It was one of those moments where I felt like I was watching myself. Like there was a more responsible version of myself somewhere, watching me fuck things up. Should’ve taken the fork away. Before I could say anything, Kane had swallowed two small chunks.

He loves it.

That’s probably enough.

My step-dad used to say that’ll put hair on your chest.

He fed you sausages when you were a kid?

No, man.

Seriously, that’s enough.

Look at him. Happy as a clam, this kid.

Kane was enjoying the food. Saliva streaked brown on his chin. He bounced in his booster seat and murmured like a little animal. Neil held another piece of sausage to his mouth and forced it through his lips. The kid’s tiny pink gums smacked. Then he started to cough.

Shit.

He’s choking.

Nah, man. He’ll get it.

He can’t breathe.

Shit.

He’s fucking choking on that fucking sausage. What the fuck, man?

Can’t remember the last time I felt this panicked. The kid was looking right at me. His eyes bulged. I could hear things happening around me. Waitress was running towards us. Neil knocked my plate to the ground as he clambered out of the booth. He said don’t worry, I used to be a lifeguard. I know what to do. Sat there looking at my son and realized how easily I could let him die. These things happen. Babies go to sleep and don’t wake up. People get hit by cars. All this breathing can end in a single moment. Wondered if I should be having some sort of deep realization, whether this moment was designed to test me. Maybe this would ruin my life, or maybe it would take me a few years before I got over it. Kane’s little face was turning red as Neil grabbed him under the armpits. One last glimpse of my son’s terror. Waitress had her fingers over her mouth as Neil held my son braced facedown against his forearm and lifted his other arm up in the air.

The Literary Goon

[ajokeformur-ray]

For the matchup thing

I want to request for Phantom of the Opera, Harry Potter, Hannibal and Sherlock, if it’s not too much of a trouble. I just started following your blog and I am absolutely smitten. I’ve already read all of your imagines, and I can’t wait for more to come.

Anyway, I identity as female, I’m pansexual and I’m a Gemini ENTP Slytherclaw.

Appearance: Well, my icon is actually me. I’m Asian, around 5’ (153 cm), I’m pretty thin(ish), but athletically built with some muscle. I have really dark brown eyes (near black), and black hair. I look very intimidating when I’m not smiling, I also smirk a lot.

Interests: Reading, mostly science or historical fiction, also a few classic literature and philosophy books. I love to draw too, I’m better at pattern stuff than realistic sketches. I also write, mostly fanfc for my friends, but I enjoy writing essays and poetry about topics that I’m interested in. Likes: Making people laugh, crying over videos of dogs, dogs, cats, animals in general. Intellectually stimulating conversation, late night talks about philosophy, physics, space, debates. Aesthetically pleasing stuff, making people happy, feminism, spreading love. Sassing people, punching Nazis, surprise people by my strength.

Dislikes: Nazis, racists, homophobes, sexist etc. Random people touching me (friends are totally fine), mean and rude people (especially those who shout at servers in restaurant). People who say things that are contradictory, people who bully others. Look for in a relationship: cuddles, people who feel strong, solid, and steadfast. Reliability and trustworthiness are pretty important to me. Preferably older than me, because I like feeling safe and having protection. Someone I could go on adventures with, or teach me new things. Also a bit of possessiveness and jealousy.

A little more about me: I speak Cantonese, Mandarin and English fluently. I have been learning French and self teaching Latin. I’m going to start German classes soon. I love singing, I’ve been in many choirs, for around 8 years. I’m a first soprano, and going to a choir festival/competition in Germany last month was the best time of my life. I have been fencing semi professionally for around 10 years. I fence epee and foil. When I get angry, I sometimes cry. Like that time in primary school I saw some guys bullying a lower grade boy, and I got into a fight with them, and I was so pissed I started tearing up.

Sorry if it’s too long, I tend to start babbling on and on. Thanks for doing this!!! 😻😻😻

Thank you for such kind words! :) I saw you in my notifications and I was a bit surprised by how much you read, but flattered. Also - ohmygoodness thank you so much for the tip! It was incredibly generous of you! <3

Edit: You asked me to make your matchups longer. Pieces I’ve added on are in italics, to make it easier to see where I’ve gone from. Hope you like this length! :)

Hannibal - Alana Bloom

- You’re a bibliophile who reads a lot of different genres of books. You’re artistic and your hobbies are relaxing but self-expressive. Alana would likely want to read some of the essays you write, though she wouldn’t go behind your back to read them if you said no, and she’d encourage any academic interests you have. If you ever got curious about the field that she works in, she’d probably pull a few strings with Jack to be able to take you to her workplace and show you around, though it would be on a day when it’s relatively quiet and they don’t have any immediate cases or paperwork to attend to. If there are any book/cafe fusion places near you, it’d be your most popular place for a lunch date, even if there’s a drive to get there.

- After a day working, I think Alana would enjoy coming home to you, a bottle of wine and any pets the two of you would have. You’d curl up on the couch together, knees touching, and talk about the subjects you’re both interested in or even anything and nothing all at once, and just bond over the deep conversations you have. She would want to hear your views on everything, even taboo subjects that some people don’t like to talk about, such as Death Row (this is also linked into her field so she can gauge how much you agree with or disagree with her profession). Anything you disagreed with would become a lightly-heated debate, both of you respecting the others’ point of view. If you couldn’t at least calm the debate then you’d agree to disagree and leave it as it is.

- She’s compassionate, strong, and sometimes stubborn in her opinion when she thinks she’s right. She’s perceptive so I think to begin with, she’d ask you if she can touch you but as you get closer, she’d stop asking and go off of body language. Alana is a fast learner and the two of you would quickly and easily fall into a pattern of touching each other casually - a hand on the shoulder when you walk past, a hand on the small of the back as you pass through a door to a shop or restaurant... It’d be very relaxed and low-key, especially in public.

- Alana is so strong and she’s more than capable of looking out for herself and others. She’s fiercely protective of those she loves, like you, and she goes kinda cold when she’s angry, a contrast to your tears. She’s incredibly trustworthy and would be willing to teach you things, if you asked her to, though it’d depend on the subject and how much you want to know. But either way, she would do her best to teach you or show you whatever it is that you wanted to learn. She would also be really good at encouraging you to stick to a goal or deadline, either for educational or personal matters.

- You can speak some of the hardest languages to learn and that’s pretty damn impressive and shows only a sliver of your intellect. During the competition in Germany last month, Alana would have been one of your biggest supporters. You probably bond over how the both of you will defend those who are vulnerable. There’s no way that Alana would ever allow anyone to hurt you. The two of you would be invited to every one of Hannibal’s dinner parties and he’d come to see you as a respected friend, like Alana. When things went down and the truth came out, she’d flee the country with you if she had to, going anywhere at all to guarantee your mutual safety. Either way, her home is with you.

Phantom - The Phantom/Erik

- Your vast intellect makes a refreshing change from “those fools who run my theatre” and he’s only too happy to supply you with books from his expansive library. You both draw so Erik ends up putting more string along the walls to accommodate your drawings as well as his. When you’re writing, he tends to go off composing so his home would be filled with the sounds of chords, mutterings, and two sets of quills scribbling furiously on expensive parchment. You’re both quite peaceful, quiet souls and this would show in your home, too. You would have your own room and Erik would have his, though they’re connected by a door that he has the key to.

- You definitely have intellectually stimulating conversations - when Erik is in the right mood. He doesn’t have a bedtime per se so tbh neither do you; you both just run off naps (Erik) or sleep when you’re tired (you). Rarely are you sleeping at the same time but wait for the right moment and you might be able to persuade a so-tired-he’s-swaying-on-his-feet Erik to come cuddle with you! Despite his own lack of bedtime, Erik does try to get you to go to bed at a set time, just because he doesn’t want you to become too much like him (this is an inside joke in your relationship but to him, it’s a real worry). You’re both very sassy and would probably let off steam in this way. Most of your conversations, serious or not, are filled with sarcastic comments, dry quips, sly smirks and chuckles. On the occasions when Nadir comes over, he leaves thoroughly entertained by how the two of you talk to each other, his heart lighter at the sight and realisaton that his dear Erik is - at last - truly happy.

- Erik would treat you with the highest of respect, as you’re his long-time friend and eventual s/o. His actions are never excusable but they’re explainable and going off on a chance here, but I think your love for him would make him want to be the kind of man you think he is so he would tone down the bullying he does towards others when he’s after something, though if they attack you or his loved ones then it’s no holds barred, I’m afraid. He would quite literally kill for you and this isn’t something you’d ever be able to stop him from doing - it’s too ingrained in him, too much a part of who he is. Everything he does used to be to protect hinself, but now he has you - even if you don’t live with him, he considers you in every decision he makes - and so he’s a little less reckless and a lot more careful, though he still takes calculated risks when he has to.

- Cuddles would take time to develop in the relationship but they’d definitely be there, usually after you practically plead for him to break away from his music for just five minutes. Once he’s lying down with you, no worries - he’s not moving, having decided he quite likes the way you hold him. He’s strong, independent and answers to no one (apart from Nadir from time to time). He’s a lot older than you (I think he’s meant to be in his forties, maybe fifties) and would be able to protect you, physically and otherwise. He’d be happy to teach you things you’re interested in and is definitely quite possessive - enough to kill, as in canon. When you sing, he calls you his “little songbird”. He doesn’t mean it to be derogatory or offensive, but you sing and you’re shorter than he is so in his head it makes sense. Sometimes he’s worried that you being with him means that you’re caged and he wonders if he should set you free. One day he brought this up and your reaction was enough to steel his resolve - you weren’t caged. In being with him, you were free. He became a little more confident in the relationship after that discussion.

- You know so many languages that it’s admirable tbh, and you sing. I daresay it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for him to want to become your teacher. If you agreed, at set times each day he wouldn’t be your partner, he’d be your teacher and he wouldn’t go easy on you. Then when the lesson is over, Erik takes the Phantom’s place and he becomes your partner again. An easy, smooth transition. He might even teach you how to properly swordfight or at the very least, use a proper dagger. He appreciates how angry you get over social injustices and how fiercely you defend those who cannot defend themselves. I think your protective fierceness would show him that the world, or, his world, can show compassion - you’re his world and you’re full of compassion, towards him and others who are vulnerable.

HP - Lily Potter

- Lily is an exceptionally-gifted witch with Muggle parents, so I think she’d know your favourite authors and would be able to discuss them with you. Overhearing your conversation would be Remus; he tried not to listen but you’re talking about books so really, what did you expect? Sometimes though, Lily wants to be alone with you so she’d ask the Marauders to buzz off. She likes to sit there and watch you draw patterns on the sides of your parchments when you’re in class and Lily would likely charm a few of them to move around and make you giggle in the middle of class. You’d be very close with the Marauders but Lily would always be sure to get time away from them so that she can spend quality time with you. It’d never feel like a juggling act, though. That’s the last thing ever of them would ever want to put you through.

- You spread happiness like it’s going out of fashion and it’s one of the many things that Lily loves about you. The two of you would almost pull people in with how much you’re laughing and joking together - put in the same room as the Marauders, and it’s practically a party! Late at night, if you’re in the same dorm room, you lay cuddled up on one of your beds, gazing up at the canopy where Lily has made it look like the night sky, talking about anything that comes to mind. If you’re in different dorm rooms - you gotta sneak around for a bit but with James’ invisibility cloak, anything’s possible! You’d steal away little moments during the day together, sneaking into corridor alcoves for quick kisses, notes pressed into palms as you pass each other in the corridor on the way to class, hand holding under the desk when you have a class together and have managed to snag a seat next to each other... It’d be safe, secure, with each other. The closer war looms over your heads, the closer the two of you get.

- You share a lot of the same dislikes so if anyone offends either of you or anyone in your vicinity, they better watch out because they’ll be sassed by two different people at the same time. You’d spend most of your time together in the library, surrounded by books. I think for a lot of the younger students, you’d become some kind of after-class tutor club where they’d come and ask questions or even study with you. You’d definitely become some kind of role model couple for the younger students, and even some of the students in your year have a betting pool going for what time the two of you will get engaged etc. Sirius started that betting pool but ssssh xD

- Lily would probably be a few months or even a year older than you and she’d definitely look after you and protect you. If you trimmed your hair by even a millimetre, she’d notice and comment on it, elbowing one of the Marauders so they’d chirp in with compliments, too. She’d be more than happy to teach you things and you could easily go off with the Marauders on nightly adventures, dragging Lily along with you. You’d be a more relaxed influence on Lily, getting her to loosen up a little and break out some of those mischievous thoughts she has, betrayed only by that glint in her eye, and she’d be a more disciplined influence on you as far as academics go, not that you need it.

- I headcanon that Lily angry-cries too so when you’re both angry, it’s dangerous to be near either of you. You would easily defend anyone who looks like they need it, even from themselves if that was the case. You’d be each other’s best friend, comfort place, and would be sources of laughter and happiness for those lucky enough to be around you. You’d become a source of strength for others, particularly those in your inner circles, as the War looms closer. Just by being yourselves, you’d remind others that love is right there if one only looks, just like Dumbledore said.

Sherlock - John Watson

- John blogs and you draw and write so the two of you could easily spend an entire day doing your own things in each other’s company, occasionally getting up to make tea or get takeaway if John is too lazy to cook. He would be the type of s/o to come home with a new book every time he leaves the flat, just to see you smile. He would ask to read the poems or essays you write but wouldn’t be mad if you said no - just curious. If he was kept up late with a case and couldn’t make it home to you, when he did come back he’d have flowers, chocolates, a book... He’d curl up on the couch beside you with an arm slung over your shoulder, holding you close as you snuggle in while watching a crapy TV re-run bothh of you have seen ten times or more but are too lazy to change it over, much to Sherlock’s chagrin.

- You’re also the couple to cuddle up in bed and watch cat videos for about six hours even though you boh have things to do. You talk about anything, from Sherlock to the latest case, to your childhoods and your futures. Anything and everything would be spoken about and one of you would fall asleep, the other to follow soon after. John always wakes up first and is usually pretty content to let you sleep in, but when you need to be awake early for whatever reason or if John just wants you to get up, he’d sit on the side of your be, with a hot cup of tea on your bedside table and lull you awake with forehead kisses and maybe wandering hands if you’re into that.

- You dislike the same type of people and as far as rudeness goes, Sherlock sometimes goes over or close to the mark but John just glares at him or says, “Bit not good” and Sherlock would apologise to you, even if you hadn’t been spoken to by him directly but were affronted by what he’d said to someone else. You’re both very protective so those who know you, yourselves and each other are always well looked after, even if there isn’t much time for love in your lives. You’d make time, for certain, because there’s no-one more important than you in John’s life, though Sherlock comes in close at second. 

- Cuddles are a must with John, especially when he’s having a nightmare. On those nights, he’ll curl into your back and sob quietly for all those he couldn’t save… Including himself. He would protect you with his life and each case provides several adventures so you’d get all the adrenaline rushes you need! John doesn’t really get jealous but if anyone tried to make a move towards you, he’d stalk across the room and kiss you soundly, telling the other person in no uncertain terms that you’re taken. He’s not really possessive, though, he’s more... Set in his relationship with you and he wouldn’t let anyone or anything get in the way of that. If you ever wanted to break up, he’d have a hard time letting you go, for sure.

- He’s impressed by the sheer number of languages that you speak and loves your singing voice, going to every performance if you do those. If you ever got angry at him, the sight of your tears would kill any anger he has and he’d have to come over and pull you into a hug. His resolve is strong but his love for you is even stronger and he’s never really mad at you. He’s just worried, I suppose. He’s very forgiving, after a time, but don’t push him. He’d treat you with so much respect and love and you’d have such a tight, strong relationship with him.

[k-kizkhalifa]

Cross My Heart: Lose You

Summary: Tristan is a year old now, and Harry and Draco are going through a few things most parents go through during parenthood and marriage. Rated: T  Pairing?: DM x HP Word Count: 2984  

Draco stared at the note Harry had sent home, it was just after lunch and he had gotten it a little late because he had been taking care of Tristan but now that he had it he was furious.

Baby, if you're planning on soup again I think I'll grab a beer with the guys after we're done.

Let me know! Harry xx

Draco was fucking furious. He grabbed a piece of parchment and scrawled his own answer, sending it back.

If you go out for a beer, don't bother coming home.

Harry had been helping some friends with a special project at the Ministry and as much as Draco wanted to say he wasn't struggling with Tristan he was. It had been two weeks now and he had grown to rely on Harry's help. Harry's support. He needed it, but instead Harry had been working. Not even really working. He wasn't getting paid for it, he was just doing it. He didn't need to be there, but he was. For two weeks.

Draco was doing his best but Tuesday, Tristan had started getting sick and Draco was getting overwhelmed just like now his son was screaming for him and he had just laid him down not even twenty minutes ago. Draco ran up to his room and had him in his arms immediately, cradling him close.

"Oh baby," he whispered sadly, his fever was back. Draco didn't know what else to do he couldn't give him any more medicine for a while so instead he just held him and rubbed his back, cradling him close and trying to calm him down.

Tristan had an upset stomach, it seemed, and was having a hard time keeping much down plus a cough that was getting worse every hour, going on four days now. Draco was looking forward to Harry being home for the weekend - or had been until his dumbass sent that note talking about if Draco planned on making soup again….

Yesterday Draco hadn't planned on making soup at all. He had other stuff out and ready to make but he ended up going with the left over soup from the night before because of Tristan's sickness. He didn't have the time to cook, he was taking care of their son. And Tuesday he had actually forgotten dinner because he had taken Tristan to the doctor and was just getting home when Harry was.

He knew Harry wasn't happy with the dinner choice last night, or any of the last three nights, he could tell by his silence and last night he made a face when Draco finally managed to get it to the table though he hadn't been able to sit there long before he was cleaning up more puke.

Why can't he damn well cook? Draco thought bitterly, it wasn't written in stone that just Draco had to though it often fell that way. It didn't have to be that way Harry was just as capable. Hell, he had done most of the cooking before Tristan anyway. The blonde nuzzled their son, and sat back in the rocking chair shutting his eyes. He was tired, he knew Tristan was tired as well, maybe he'll sleep if I hold him? He thought, while rubbing his back and rocking him.

When Harry got the note he knew he was in for it, he hadn't thought it was that big of a deal but then again Draco had been rather crazy lately, he told himself. He sighed and threw it away, frowning as he glanced over at Dean, Seamus, and the others he had been helping. The group about to head out and kick their weekend off.

"Alright Harry?"

"Yeah, gonna head on home. Maybe next time."

"The wife said no?" Seamus laughed, judging him with two hard eyes, Harry grinned and laughed it off, "well next time then. See ya later!"

Harry smiled and headed over to the floo network while they headed through the exits, and he floo'd home. The house was a mess, Tristan's toys were all over the living room, there was a basket of unfolded clothing on the couch and a pile of dirty onesies on the ground in front of the laundry room door.

"Dray?" He called peeking into the kitchen, finding it empty and the dishes from breakfast still on the counter. He frowned and headed upstairs, "Draco?"

"Here!" He heard and saw the bathroom door half opened.

Harry looked in and found Tristan sitting in the tub, silently sniffling while Draco washed his front. The blonde's hair was out of place, his shirt was untucked and covered in sick and he looked tired. "What's wrong with him?"

"He's sick Potter," Draco said without looking at him, "just like has been since Tuesday."

"Oh." Harry stepped back, "alright..."

Draco shook his head and grabbed the soap starting to rub his hand over Tristan's chest who slapped at him screaming, "NO!"

Draco looked worried, "what? Are you okay baby?" Tristan kept slapping his hand, screaming, no! Until Draco dropped his hand and sat back on his heels, "what Tristan?"

"Da-da!" He splashed the water right a Draco as he cried the word out and Draco gasped, "DA-DA! DA-DA!"

Harry was standing in the door watching, unsure what to say until finally Draco got to his feet and looked at him, "your son wants you Potter." He said calmly, "I'll go make anything other than soup for dinner." He pushed past him to the hallway and started down as Harry stepped towards their son.

"I made Daddy mad," he said dropping down to his knees next to the tub, grabbing Tristan out of the water and getting the towel from the floor to wrap it around him. "Are you mad at me too?" He asked cuddling him. Tristan stared blankly and rubbed his wet hair against Harry's shirt, "I love you baby." He said softly and gave his wet hair a kiss before grabbing his wand from his back pocket and drying him with a flourish of his wrist.

Tristan giggled from the feeling, squealed as the two stood up, "more! More!" He started smacking at Harry's chest.

"You gotta stop hitting baby," Harry whispered taking his hands and giving them a soft squeeze, "nice touches." Harry said as he rubbed his hands, "soft touching."

"No!"

"Yes," Harry got the two off the ground, holding him close, once they were in his room Harry grabbed his clothes getting him in his diaper and then pajamas. "Did you take a nap today?" He coo'd as he buttoned the pajama onesie.

"No nap!" Tristan shook his head rolling over to his knees and reaching for Harry, he was coughing as Harry picked him up.

"Yes nap," Harry answered with a chuckle and rubbed his back, he had given him his medicine and rubbed some Baby Vick's on his chest before he grabbed his blanket wrapping him up tightly and laying the two on the ground. Harry laid on his side and wrapped his arm around Tristan, cuddling his son close who was babbling quietly. Their eyes met and Harry smiled, "oh yeah?"

Tristan smiled widely letting his eyes flutter shut, "gonna sleep baby?" Harry was asking as he held him, watching Tristan flutter his eyes over and over until finally he was asleep. They laid for a few more minutes before Harry picked him up to lay him in his bed. He pulled the side railing up and grabbed the monitor, heading out of the room.

He knew there was going to be a fight and he didn't want one, but he knew it was coming.

Harry walked quietly into the kitchen where Draco was sitting on the floor with a wine glass in one hand and tears on his cheek.

"Baby?"

Draco looked up at him taking a long drink of the wine.

"Tristan is sleeping," Harry said and sat the monitor on the counter then he bent down in front of Draco, reaching for him, "baby?"

"What?" Draco shied away from his touch, shaking his head.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I didn't m-."

Draco cut him off, "oh, fuck you."

"I'm trying to apologize, Draco."

"I can hear that."

"Then let me apologize."

"No, because it doesn't mean anything."

Harry sighed and sat down in front of him, "it does mean something Draco, I'm sorry." Draco rolled his eyes and finished the wine glass before reaching up to grab the bottle and pouring himself another glass. "Draco..." Harry started softly, "probably shouldn't drink that much."

"And why not?" He sneered taking a big drink with a pointed look.

"Okay," Harry sighed, "let's go, what?"

"Don't you fucking patronize me Potter!" He all but yelled and slammed the wine glass down, some sloshing out, "you're not here! You're supposed to be here! We agreed to do this together, we agreed to parenthood together and you're not fucking here." Draco was crying again, "you're off doing fuckall for no reason and then you have the fucking audacity to tell me you were going to go out for a drink? Fuck you Potter!" Harry frowned, remaining quiet watching Draco wipe his tears away, "so fuck your stupid apology."

"I'm sorry," he said again and reached for Draco ignoring him as he jerked away, "come here Draco." He whispered, grabbing his arms and finally pulling him into his lap. "Stop." Draco pushed at his chest, but Harry was far stronger and held him in place, "stop."

"Let go of me!"

"Stop." Draco pushed him roughly, shaking his head and crying and then their eyes locked. Two dark green eyes matched two dark gray. "Say it," Harry said quietly, softly.

Draco opened his mouth, the words forming. He was thinking it, I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. Over and over, his mouth opening and closing around the words. He wanted to say it, but he couldn't. They fell away and instead he just closed his eyes and leaned forward hugging Harry tightly, crying against his shoulder. "I'm so tired..."

"I know," Harry rocked him, "how about you go take a shower?"

"Yeah..." Draco nodded.

"Or take a long, hot bubble bath? Hm?" Draco nodded again, though neither moved. "Has he been feeling any better?"

"Yes and no, when his fever spikes its really bad but I haven't given him anything other than Pedialyte since breakfast. He's been managing that better," Draco answered laying his cheek against Harry's shoulder.

"Want to talk now or...?"

"You can cook, Potter. Okay? I don't have to do all of this on my own. It's your house, it's your child just as much as it's all mine." The blonde answered immediately as if it had been all he wanted to say for the last three days.

"I know baby," Harry kissed his neck, "I'm sorry... I didn't pay enough attention and I was caught up in it all and I was shit."

"You told me this was what you wanted. I was what you wanted... me and Tristan. We are it."

"You are," Harry swallowed roughly and sighed, "every bit of that. I just wanted to feel... I don't know, needed? Y'know? I miss it all. I miss the work and the people and I miss the freedom..."

"We can do anything, Potter, anytime you want. It's you and me and Tristan and we have all this time. We have all these abilities and things and we don't have to be shut-ins, but you do have to be here. I need you, Harry." Draco whispered, holding his cheeks, "I need you and Tristan needs you. I couldn't get him to sleep today but for 20 minutes, Harry. And you're with him for less than an hour and he's upstairs in bed sleeping." He frowned, "he needs you, Harry. We asked for this together, and we have to do this together."

"Okay," Harry smiled, leaning forward to kiss him. "Now go relax and I'll take care of everything down here."

"Okay," Draco smiled and moved off of Harry's lap, standing up. "Want me to take the monitor?"

"Nope," Harry was picking up the wine glass from the floor and smiled over to Draco, "I just want you to relax. Gooo."

Harry waited until he heard the bathroom door shut and looked around. He hadn't really taken anytime during the last two weeks to check the house. He hadn't paid attention, he hadn't paid attention to the two most important people in his life either. Draco and Tristan. He had been a bad father and a bad husband.

Harry moved quickly cleaning the kitchen with a few spells, and then just the same in the living room; after ten minutes all of Tristan's toys were cleaned up and put away. He started the laundry ran up and checked on Tristan again before he started dinner.

He was making Draco's favorite. Chicken Alfredo, he didn't personally like it but that wasn't what this was about. It was about making his Draco feel better. It was about reminding his Draco he was perfect and loved and welcomed and...

I've lost him once, how could I risk losing him again? I've seen him stop breathing, how could I risk wanting to even come to anything in my life like that again?

He was pulled from his thoughts the moment Tristan let out a loud scream, Harry put a stasis on the food and ran up the stairs to find his soon waving his arms and screaming when Harry bent over the bed.

"Shh baby," he whispered, smiling down at him and stroking his face, "you're okay." He brushed his hair back soothing him as he quieted down, "you need to sleep baby."

Tristan grabbed at his finger holding it, giggling, "Da-da!"

"Hi baby, you need to sleep, hm?"

"No! Da-da!" He made grabby hands at Harry who scooped him off the bed with his blanket, and laid his cheek against his shoulder.

"You're a little spoiled Tristan Hyperion Potter." He whispered to his son, bouncing him, "let's go make Daddy dinner.." Harry said stopping to grab the medicine and headed the two down the stairs. Once downstairs and in the kitchen Harry took the stasis off for the food to continue cooking and found the Pedialyte Draco was talking about and made Tristan a sippy cup cut with water, shifting him to his hip.

Tristan fussed reaching for Harry's wand, "me?"

"I don't think so," Harry handed him a wooden spoon, instead. "Here?"

Tristan threw the spoon at Harry with a yell, "NO!"

Harry looked at him, with wide eyes, "Tristan," he chided and bent to put him on his feet, he had been walking since 10 months. "You have to be nicer, nice touches." Harry said taking his hands, "okay baby? Nice touches."

"It's his new thing, hitting and throwing..."

"No!" Tristan yelled again the moment Draco's voice greeted the two and ducked into Harry's arm, "Da-da!"

"I'm not here for you," Draco answered, shaking his head, "and hating me."

Harry frowned and pulled Tristan back, "we have to love your Daddy, baby." He said softly, kissing his cheek, "we have to love him very much because he is the only one you have."

Tristan nodded and looked at Draco, as if he understood and maybe in some part of his baby mind he did, waddling over to him and holding his hands out, "up Daaa!"

Harry smiled standing back up and Draco grabbed Tristan off the ground and gave him a kiss, "are you feeling better now that you got time with your father?"

"I gave him medicine," Harry explained, "and Vick's and Pedialyte. Dinner is ready, by the way." He added turning towards the table to show garlic bread, Chicken Alfredo and seasoned broccoli on the table with a glass of fresh wine.

"Mm, my favorite." Draco smiled leaning towards Harry and kissing his cheek, then his lips, "thank you Harry."

"You're welcome baby," he smiled nuzzling the two of them a moment before grabbing the high chair for Tristan. "I got him some applesauce, I know he's supposed to have light and plain food since he's getting sick. Right?"

Draco stared at Harry in shock, smiling, "exactly." He stepped forward and sat Tristan in the high chair, "you hungry baby boy?" Tristan giggled taking the sippy cup and a drink, "don't eat too much or too fast Tristan," Draco warned giving him the spoon, "you try."

Harry smiled at the both of them, "tomorrow we should go to the zoo if he keeps feeling better?"

"Okay," Draco nodded, "if not we can always go next week."

"Every day, if he wants."

"Anytime you want, Harry Potter, we'll be there."

Thanks Jamie, you’re the best beta (still). Found here, only there at this time. Still transferring. Click here for the rest of the CMH fics as well. ~kiz

[pantstomatch]

I think you should help me finish this HP romance novel...

so deep in the archives of my WIPs I found this unfinished Harry Potter AU gem from 2005 (yes, 2005!) that’s got all my favorite tropes: adventure, hurt/comfort, angst, childhood trauma (tw for mentions of abuse), found family, guns, threats of bodily harm, good guys masquerading as bad guys, an obvious plot set up to have Seamus Finnigan swoon into Theodore Nott’s manly arms, idek guys, but NEVILLE. The truly tragic thing, as I was bemoaning to @lissadiane , is that I have NO IDEA where I was going with this. Absolutely none, except for end-game Seamus/Theodore, and add that on top of the fact that it’s proven I am TERRIBLE at writing straight-up harlequin romance, you all should probably tell me EXACTLY, with bullet points and possibly an outline, how you think this should end. And then who knows maybe I can cross is off my WIP list (twelve years, guys. TWELVE.)

Seamus cursed under his breath. Even through the heavy sheets of rain he recognized the black barrels of the guns, and he was probably imagining the resonating clicks of them cocking, levelly trained, since the cascading water was a muted roar in his ears, but. He slowly lifted his hands out and away from his body. “Hands up, Nev,” he said to the man standing next to him, frozen in palpable nervous fear. “This is not a good day to die.” “Is there ever one?” Nev joked weakly. The guns seemed to be getting closer, and Seamus blinked rapidly to keep his gaze relatively clear, the rain drowning his skin, plastering his canvas clothing to his body. They’d only been out there for three days, and Seamus was so unprepared and so terminally wet that he felt like his pores would break open and he’d melt into the black, rich soil. Shit. If by some freakish chance they got out of there alive, Snape was going to kill them. The first thing he noticed was the man’s cold scowl. All right, honestly, the first thing he noticed was the man’s clinging black t-shirt, but the second thing he noticed was the man’s scowl, and the reflection of it in his eerie green eyes. “Dr. Neville Longbottom?” he growled. “Yes,” Seamus said hastily, ignoring the sharp look Nev sent him and resisting the urge to send a commiserating one right back at him. Way to be obvious. The man’s gaze narrowed, flicking between the two muddy, bedraggled men, and in that moment Seamus knew he didn’t believe him, wouldn’t have believed him even if he was the best liar in the world. “Dr. Longbottom,” the man said again, more firmly, turning towards Nev. “Come with me.” Another cold glance toward him told Seamus that they didn’t really care about him. No way was he about to leave Nev alone, though, even if he thought he could make it through the forest by himself. Which he held no illusions about. Nev was the one who knew all the flora and fauna. Seamus was just a useless mouth and steady support. “Seamus,” Nev whispered hoarsely, eyes wide and dark on the rigid… soldier? in front of them. He groped toward him with an open hand and Seamus caught his arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Not leaving you, Nev,” he said fiercely, because damn it. Nev was the closest thing to family he had.

***

Seamus had been a skinny preteen when he left Ireland and his father’s heavy fists, and a scruffy, lean-hungry teenager when Nev had found him curled up in his Gran’s shed. He snapped when Nev pet him, a wary, shivering mess of hurt and loneliness and bone-weary fear. But Nev was persistent, if fidgety with nerves, and Nev’s Gran was a force of pure stubborn energy, and Seamus didn’t stand a chance. He was clean, dry and well-fed within the space of mere hours. And within days he was tamed and in love with a seventy-year-old woman and a plump boy with a hiccupy stutter and a tendency to weather his peers’ taunts with all the bend and sway of a young sapling. So Seamus, more brain than brawn—and even that was debatable, according to Gran—fought back for Nev with his tongue, lashed out unashamedly and more often than not got beat to a bloody pulp for it, but Nev’s rueful smile was worth everything; every bruise, every cut lip, every pinch-mouthed tsk from Gran. They were brothers in every way except blood. ***

“Seamus?”

“It’s all right, Nev,” Seamus assured him, walking as close as he could to him as they stumbled after the men with the guns, conscious of even more men with guns stalking behind them. “Everything’ll be fine.” Of course, he didn’t know that. And Nev knew that he didn’t know that, that he was talking out of his arse—like usual—but it didn’t matter. Nev wasn’t asking for the truth. Seamus curled his fingers over Nev’s wrist and held on tightly. *** Gran’s death had been like a kick in the teeth, because neither of them had been expecting it. Seventy-nine and still flashing her ankles at all the bachelors in town, still mowing the lawn behind Seamus’ back, still cooking and driving and laughing and doing all the sorts of things that were supposed to stop first. Stop before her heart gave out, stop before she grew cold in her sleep, stop and give them some sort of warning, sign, anything. Seamus didn’t cry at the funeral, but Nev did. Hard, frame-wracking tears that were plentiful enough for both of them. Gran had left them the house jointly and they sold it along with her ancient rabbit auto, and then they got the hell out of town. Nev took a laboratory job in Brazil, head botanist for an experimental firm, and Seamus didn’t hesitate to go with him. He held his own degree in journalism, squeaked by at uni, and he was relatively good with languages, so Dr. Severus Snape—a hook-nosed, dark-eyed man that Seamus didn’t trust as far as he could spit—agreed to give him a chance in research. Seamus was willing to do almost anything to keep close to Nev. But they shouldn’t have been out in the rain forest. They shouldn’t have stepped out of the lab, even though Nev had been openly hurting and raw and shocked. Seamus hadn’t been. What else could they have been doing, secretive and covert in a lab no one knew existed? Biological warfare or something very nearly like it. It’d torn Nev up inside, and though Seamus didn’t particularly care one way or the other, he’d followed Nev blindly out into the lush tangle of lianas, out into the unforgiving, dense and deadly landscape. And now they were caught, well and good, and even if the men weren’t drug runners or guerillas, even if they weren’t mercenaries sent out by Snape, they had guns and knew who Nev was, and the outcome wasn’t likely to be pretty. *** Nev and Seamus had been wandering around for days, packs heavy and minds weighted with dread, so it didn’t surprise them that the men made them stop just before nightfall. They set up camp, efficiently, silently, and Seamus stood next to a shaking Nev until the first man, the man with the cold scowl, came up and forced them apart. It was a smart move, Seamus acknowledged. Neither of them would try to escape without the other. The man was looking at him speculatively now, probably because he knew it’d been worth it to let him tag along. Worth it to keep Nev in line. Briefly, Seamus wondered if it would’ve been better to have hung back, swooping in and snagging Nev from under their noses during the night. He doubted, though, that he could’ve gotten in and out of the camp alive. Seamus was loud, not stealthy. He was brash and lively and was possibly the worst person to have near in a crisis. He vibrated with the effort of holding his tongue. Nev needed him whole and thinking, and that was just about the only thing that could ever shut Seamus up. “You’re Seamus Finnigan,” he said, and his voice was smooth, cultured, English. A shiver spiked up Seamus’ spine, because that probably meant Snape, and Snape was not going to be happy with his little rogue scientist and comedic side-kick. “Yes,” he answered thickly, trying to swallow his heart back down his throat. The man lifted a long-fingered hand and skimmed it over Seamus’ left brow, over the curve of his cheek, the scar at the corner of his lower lip he’d had since he was eight, and the gentle exploration belied the impassive set of his mouth and the ever-present coldness in his eyes. “We’ve been looking for you.” Seamus blinked. “You. What?” Weird turn. Utterly odd turn. Hadn’t they wanted Neville? The man cleared his throat, dropped his hand abruptly and said, “Seamus Daniel Finnigan, son of Cara Elizabeth Bannon Finnigan and Daniel Joseph Finnigan of Kenmare, Ireland.” “I don’t.” Seamus paused, eyes darting around, instinctively trying to search out Nev. “Finnigan,” the man barked, and Seamus’ gaze flew back to his face, something jittery and panicked rabbiting about his stomach, “we’re taking you home.” If Seamus had eaten anything at all substantial in the past three days, he would’ve vomited all over his boots.

“You’re shitting me,” Seamus breathed, words spewing out instead of bile, stomach clenching with dry heaves. “I’m. You,” he stammered, unable to line up his thoughts properly with his words. “Did they—No.” There was no way, no fucking way Seamus was going back to Ireland. He was twenty-five for gods’ sake. A grown man. No one could make him do anything. The guns were really persuasive, of course, but short of killing him and dragging his dead carcass onto an overseas flight, Seamus wasn’t going anywhere near Ireland. The man had the gall to look almost apologetic. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.” “You’re afraid?” He was shaking, deep down inside if not outwardly, and Seamus knew about being afraid. Scared shitless and helpless, and the idea of the cold bastard in front of him ever feeling anything remotely like that was laughable. “I’m not going back,” he said, choking on his rising panic. The man’s mouth tightened, but he just grabbed Seamus’ arm and tugged him further into camp, past men setting down arms to take up tent pegs, a man unfolding a small cooking stove and a communal pot, and Seamus dug his heels in stubbornly, gaze skimming over everyone and everything, looking for Nev. He stumbled and caught himself, stumbled and caught, stumbled and caught until the man brought him up short with a wordless snarl, and for a moment Seamus thought he was going to toss him over his shoulder. “They didn’t say I couldn’t hurt you,” he warned in a low voice. Seamus tipped his chin up, because it didn’t matter. Nothing did, if the result was going ‘home.’ A dangerous gleam flickered over the man’s eyes and he leaned in, nose pushing close to Seamus’, and rasped with perverse satisfaction, “And they didn’t say anything at all about your little science friend.” Pure anger flashed through Seamus, tinting his gaze and pooling hotly around his heart. “You harm one hair on his head and I will kill you.” “I could give him back to Snape, couldn’t I?” the man went on, dismissing Seamus’ threat, batting it away like an inconsequential gnat. “You don’t believe me?” Seamus growled, hands clenched. “The point, Finnigan,” the man said tightly, “is not what I believe, but what you believe.” And the point, Seamus realized, was that they had Nev, and as long as they had Nev Seamus would do whatever he needed to do to keep him safe. *** Seamus figured they wouldn’t have caught them at all if they hadn’t left the relative safety of the laboratory and compound. There was no way they could’ve gotten inside and gotten Seamus out cleanly. No, that wasn’t right; they could’ve gotten inside easily. They had gotten inside easily, slipped in far enough to slide an unmarked manila envelope under Nev’s door, far enough to know what kind of man Nev was and what kind of man Seamus was. Because they only had to lure him out, and what better way to do that than to use the horrible truth? Nev couldn’t stay where his work was possibly being used to harm others, and they’d played right into these men’s hands, whoever the hell they were. Seamus still wasn’t sure. He picked at the small bowl of stew they gave him, barely eating, chest tight. It was raining again, a steady pour, when the man made him get on his knees and crawl into a small, sodden tent. Then he crawled in after him, and there was barely enough room for him to crisscross his legs, large, menacing-looking gun lying across his lap, eyes sharply focused on Seamus even in the darkness. “Sleep,” he growled, and Seamus curled up on his side, determined to keep awake just for spite. His body was exhausted, though, and he didn’t last five minutes once his head touched the ground. *** When he was six, Seamus’ father gave him his first pony and his first broken arm. He’d been mouthy from the womb, a trait his mother told him he’d gotten from his grandfather, a cheerfully mischievous man that Seamus only vaguely recollected. He remembered the sweet tobacco smell of his pipe and his booming laugh and his lilting, teasing tone when he weaved stories, but he’d died before Seamus reached five years and, in retrospect, he knew that’s when everything had gone to shit. Seamus always thought the comparison to his grandfather was a good thing, great even, until his father knocked him into the doorframe for sassing him and left four finger bruises on the backs of each of his stick-thin arms. He was small like his mum, fine boned at the wrists and quick as lightning on his feet, so he’d learned to hide until his father learned to starve him out, and nothing went right for Seamus from then on. He started hating his mother a little bit more every time she turned away. *** Seamus jerked awake, a hoarse yell caught in his throat, a warm hand holding him down, grip tightening on his shoulder as he tried to squirm away. He breathed out, “Stop, stop,” harshly, and tears pricked his eyes as he twisted onto his side and puked up what little he’d gotten down at supper. *** Seamus was fine by the time morning rolled around—absolutely fine—and he forced down breakfast and tried not to make his breath of relief too audible when they let him near Nev again. Seamus was sure there’d be plenty of opportunities to dodge the men with guns once they were out of the rainforest, once he could get his bearings on more familiar land. Seamus was downright cheery. “What’s going on?” Nev asked in a tense whisper as they were herded side-by-side over the lush growth on the rainforest floor. “Nothing,” he lied, and his forced grin felt more like a grimace. Nev looked at him askance, like he’d lost his mind. “Nothing? We’re not headed back toward the compound, so do you—do you think they’ll ransom us?” “No.” Seamus took a deep, bracing breath, then said in a rush, “They’re from my father, Nev.” “Your…?” Nev paused mid-step, staring at him incredulously, and then one of the men prodded him sharply in the back with the tip of his gun, spitting a terse, “Move it,” in German. Seamus automatically flipped him off, and the man, large and ham-fisted, down-turned mouth seemingly carved from granite, pushed Nev forward again and grabbed Seamus’ arm. “Have anything to say to that?” he demanded in heavily-accented English. Seamus squirmed and the man tightened his grasp, biting into his pale skin, and that was familiar. He knew how that worked. “Seamus,” Nev said nervously in his patented don’t-taunt-the-bear tone, worried brown eyes bouncing between them. Seamus ignored him, grinning up at the German. “You don’t touch him anymore, and we’ll be just fine.” Thick brows furrowed to a point over his nose. “Are you telling me what to do?” “I’m merely suggesting,” Seamus went on blithely, “that you not touch him.” His amiable tone seemed to confuse the man, but his menacing stance didn’t change. “Suggesting,” he echoed, like he couldn’t quite believe his captive’s sheer stupidity. Seamus gave him a purposefully lazy half-shrug. “Advising.” “And what would you be able to do about it?” the man sneered. “Oh, I can be creative,” he assured him, nodding, a small, cheeky grin gracing his face. The man growled, yanking Seamus up on his tiptoes, but then a voice cut through the thick, muffled jungle and he abruptly dropped him. Seamus barely caught his balance when the man with the cold scowl and moss-green eyes strode up, the tops of his cheeks red from anger that was strangely not directed at him. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Krum?” Ah, Krum. The German meathead had a name. Seamus waited patiently for Krum to fling out the other man’s alias, because he was honestly getting tired of calling him the man with the cold scowl in his head, although he supposed he could’ve just made up a name. Like Lou. Louis. He darted his eyes to Nev, who was gazing at him oddly and yeah. Seamus was well aware he was on his way to hysteria-land. He had a first class ticket. “What does it matter?” Krum snarled. “You damage the merchandise,” the man said simply and with deadly calm, “you don’t get paid.” He jerked his head toward the men in front. “Go on. I’ll stay back here with them.” “So now I can’t be damaged?” Seamus said recklessly, pushing because he always pushed. “What about before? You said they wouldn’t care if I was hurt.” The man studied him, scrutinized him with intense, hard eyes that gave nothing away, and he slipped off his army-green cap, running a hand roughly through his damp, straggly blond hair before firming the hat back on decisively. Finally, he said with almost whisper-soft threat, “If you measure it right, Finnigan, pain doesn’t have to leave any visible marks.”

***

A twitchy bloke with fine brown hair and pale eyes shook Neville awake, but the night was still dark and heavy when he crawled out of the tent and blinked up at the man who’d been guarding Seamus so closely. Nott, he thought his name was, just as he knew they called the twitchy bloke Mouse and that one of the smaller ‘men’ was actually a woman. Neville had always been more observant than Seamus under stress. Nott had his gun slung over one shoulder and his scowl was more pinched than cold in the low-lantern light. “Dr. Longbottom,” he said, and Neville was struck, not for the first time, by how polite they’d all been to him. Waving guns, yes. And okay, sure, pointed threats were tossed about more than once, but. Besides the large German, no one seemed very intent on harming them, mentally or physically. “What’s wrong?” Neville asked, and Nott nodded across the camp to where a tall, gangly man called Boot was shifting drowsily on his feet. He yawned wide. Neville could practically hear the pop and grind of his jaw, and he rubbed his eyes in commiserating sympathy, swiping away the last of his interrupted sleep. And then he heard a low keening sound and snapped his gaze back to Nott, who visibly flinched, chased by a fleeting grimace before his face went stone-quiet again. All right. Neville knew what was wrong. Unsteadily, he stood up, keeping a wary eye on Nott as he crossed the camp and dropped to his knees again at the opening of Seamus’ tent. The flap was open, golden lamplight dimly outlining his restless form. Seamus was curled up on his side, arms tucked between his drawn up legs and his chest, and in the semi-darkness he looked exactly as he had as a boy, shivering cold no matter how many blankets he had, whimpers slipping past his lips no matter how tight his teeth were clenched. It’d broken Neville then, when they were barely thirteen, and it broke him now, seeing the dark jacket—Nott’s?—tucked over him, and the uncontrollable shivers that always grew more pronounced when his mind crawled desperately back toward consciousness. He knew what to look for in the moments before Seamus was going to wake up, the rapid shift of his eyes under thin-skinned lids, the panting breaths, a yell readying in the back of his mouth, but he never knew how to help. Neville sat on his heels and watched, hands fisted on his thighs. Nott was behind him, hovering. Neville felt his warmth at his back, his agitated movements, and finally Nott pressed against his side in the cramped tent and hissed, “Well? Do something.”

At Neville’s continued silence, he went to move past him, one hand already reaching out toward Seamus, and Neville caught hold of his forearm, clamping down hard with thick fingers. He shook his head slowly, mouth and lips and throat dry, making his voice just above a rasp when he said, “Touching him only makes it worse.” *** Seamus had been all bones and snarl when Neville first found him, skin pale and jaundiced under layered filth. Strangely confident, Neville had approached him exactly how he would a starving dog, palm out and up, unintelligible soothing nonsense spilling softly out his mouth, and Seamus had sat stone-still, growls dried up in his throat, large eyes watery, shoulders slumped in defeat. Neville had figured the boy thought he was going to toss him out on his rear, and it was pouring, a damp chill permeating the clapboard box. Neville could see all the hurt and acceptance and fear wrapped up in his dark hazel eyes. Gran made everything better, of course, because Gran had been stubborn and kindly firm from the first. She had Seamus doing chores by the end of the week. His eyes were bright, color a high rose, and he didn’t talk about the nightmares that stalked his sleep, the ones that kept Neville awake and helpless in the twin across their room. No, as soon as the sun hit the horizon, Seamus was… Seamus. Loud and laughing, with a flash-pan temper that was never once, in all their years as family, directed at Neville or Gran. And Seamus never, ever learned to shut up. He never learned control, never learned moderation, and it frankly terrified Neville to think of what would’ve happened if Seamus hadn’t run away, hadn’t curled up in a tense ball in Gran’s shed. There were so many infinitesimal ways Seamus’ life could’ve gone horribly worse than it had, and Neville… Neville felt guilty sometimes, because deep down he was selfishly glad that Seamus’ father had been so big a bastard. He couldn’t imagine living without him. *** Neville wasn’t stupid. Obviously. Twelve years was a long time to waste searching for a recalcitrant son, and by the look of things… these guys were professionals—efficient, spare, smart. They worked well together, worked good together. He eyed up his choices and finally approached Boot, long-limbed and shaggy with an easy grin that looked practiced, dangerous, but was a least overtly friendly…

[alexdmorgan30]

11 Ways to Heal a Broken Heart in Recovery

Heartbreak. At 14 or 54, we’ve all been there, but today we push through the pain, one-day-at-a-time, cold brew sober. And here’s what’s helping me now, because, despite what still feels like an endless volley of water balloons hitting concrete beneath my breastbone, the fibrillation is in my mind, not my chest cavity, and that scrappy muscle thumps on, still propping me upright each morning to face my new reality.1. Find that God of Your Understanding and Glom OnWhen I reached Step 3 with my sponsor, I got an assignment: flesh out your concept of a higher power, in writing. Lisa M. wanted detail, a God I could see and talk to, and grab by the elbow. And because I’m neither original nor progressive, I came up with a male God in human form — a cross between Santa Claus and Mr. T. to be exact. With a twinkle in his eye and a glint off his gold tooth, my HP is jolly and generous, strong and sexy, and funny as hell.And at this moment, when I’m finding myself on the sucky side of one-sided love, it’s not bad to have a real hunk who loves me for an HP. After an especially vicious salvo, when the heartbreak balloons start to leak out the eye sockets, I can HALT, remember the in-breath, and picture HP (and yes, predictably, I’m looking heavenward). Funny, his response is always the same: with bronzed torso and silver beard, forearms flexed and crossed over a white undershirt, the big man in the sky stares down at me, then starts nodding reassuringly. Suddenly, he flashes that easy smile and I know I’m good.2. Slam the SlogansH.A.L.T., Easy Does It, Turn It Over, Just for Today, Live and Let Live, This Too Shall Pass, When One Door Shuts Another Opens, Fear Is the Absence of Faith, The Elevator Is Broken - You’ll Have to Use the Steps. I’ve become something of a short-order chef when it comes to using a few well-chosen words to support my sobriety. Day and night, I sling slogans, flip affirmations, and call out quotes from famous dead people. I’ve scotched them to the inside of my kitchen cabinets, along with the 3rd, 6th, 7th and 11th step prayers. They are the comfort food my soul craves now. “Success is moving from failure to failure with no lack of enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill. “If you want to be loved, love and do loving things.” - Ben Franklin. Words that nourish, as I’m waiting for the kettle to boil. Having well-chosen words highly visible in the kitchen (or as a screensaver) can be a real lifesaver!3. Phone TherapyAnd here’s a slogan I’m slamming hard today: “We drank alone, but we don’t stay sober alone.” The old timers carried quarters, and I make sure I leave home with my phone fully-charged. I listen to a morning meditation walking to the train, text three newcomers on the platform, compose a longer text to my sponsor in transit, then dial my best sober gal pal as I push through the turnstile on the final leg to work. I send silly GIFs to lift spirits, including mine, and add a trail of emoji butterflies, praying hands, and peace signs. By 8:00 a.m., the lonely in me already feels not so alone.4. Explore PodcastsRecovery Radio Network, Joe and Charlie, and the Alcoholics Anonymous Radio Show are three in my queue. On my lunch hour or driving upstate, I take 30-60 minutes to laugh, cry, and identify…5. Make a Gratitude ListMy first sober Christmas, going through a divorce with two kids still believing in Santa, the above-mentioned sober gal pal suggested I find ten things for which I was grateful, save them to my phone, and recite them like a mantra through the Twelve Days of Christmas. I did:1. My sobriety 2. My sons 3. AA program of recovery 4. AA fellowship 5. Food in my stomach 6. Roof over my head 7. Colombian coffee 8. My dog 9. My extended family 10. God (HP has since moved up to the #1 slot)It worked. I said no to nog that first Yuletide, and made merry for my sons instead. And counting off my blessings still works today, when I’m a shallow-breathing shell just going through the motions.6. Make an Extended Gratitude ListWhen the restless, irritable and discontent in me keeps spilling the glass half-full and this positive punch list isn’t getting me over the hump, I pour out ten more things to celebrate, like: my pre-war bathtub, which holds upwards of 60 gallons of bubble bath and the fact that I live within easy walking distance of two subway lines so I can always get into the city on weekends.7. Make Meetings“Meeting Makers Make It,” “Get Sober Feet,” “Carry the Body, the Mind Will Follow.” These three slogans in particular encouraged me as a newcomer, and I’m calling upon them now, in cardiac arrest, when my heart needs serious heartening. So I’m hitting my home group, and getting hugs from retirees with double-digit sobriety who pass fresh Kleenex and envelop in equanimous smiles. I’m also checking out other meetings across town, then going out for...8. Fellowship AfterwardsI’ve started tucking my Boggle into my handbag when I head out to my Friday night meeting. At the secretary’s report, I pull out the box, shake it, and invite anyone interested to a nearby diner for passable pie a la mode and a few rounds of a three-minute word game. Sometimes it’s Yahtzee. We roll the dice and down bottomless cups of bad coffee. Last week someone brought cards, and I lost badly at hearts (ha!). It’s good, wholesome fun, and by the time I hit my pillow, I’ve significantly pared down the number of waking hours I could have spent obsessing over-ahem-HIM.9. Self-CareSelf-care is somewhat self-defined. These days, after I’ve covered the basics—eat, sleep, bathe—I’m noodling what more I can do to support my mental, physical, and spiritual self. Prone to self-pity and self-indulgence just now, self-care is really urgent-care. So I ask: am I under-meditating and over-caffeinating? Am I speeding up at speed bumps? Am I four months behind in balancing my bank statement? Am I using money to buy what money can’t buy and damn the consequences? Am I treating every Monday like Cyber Monday and abusing the free delivery feature of Amazon Prime? Have I forgotten yoga and found red velvet cake in Costco’s freezer? Are my spot checks spotty lately because I just don’t want to cop to this alcoholic acting out, and instead keep blunting the full force of feeling??? Yes to all of the above. And this leads me back to Step 2: turn to top management for a takeover.Working Steps 2 and 3 is probably the most caring thing I’m doing for myself today: seeing the unmanageable, then seeing the way out. And also forgiving myself for these self-indulgent splurges. So what that I’ve added three pounds to my midline and three pairs of silver sandals to my shoe rack? The rent is paid, and my latchkey kids still let themselves in after school and seem content to eat my crockpot soup and call this home.10. Get on your Hobby HorseWhen was the last time you read “Chapter 6: Getting Active” in Living Sober, that handy paperback that’s not just for newcomers? This month I’ve been making good use of subsection 6B: “Activity not related to A.A.”The anonymous authors suggest “trying a new hobby” or “revisiting an old pastime, except you-know-what” (Yea, Amstel Light). Fat chance I’ll pick up cabinetmaking, leathercraft or macramé, but I am baking granola and simmering bone broths.I’m also revisiting my adolescence with amateur YouTube ballet routines by hammy-thighed figure skaters and dancing to Heavy D. music videos late into a Saturday night. I’m choosing happy music over sad, and tuning in to The Messiah, not Blue Christmas.I’m even considering “Starting on long neglected chores” like editing my nearly obsolete recipe binder, now that I’ve found Pinterest. And while I can’t claim to be going out of my way “Volunteering to do some useful service,” I am trying to be more useful on my job. And just as helping a newcomer find a meeting helps me, helping a kid graph algebraic equations makes me feel purposeful (when otherwise I feel like a mess).11. Become a card-carrying member of the “No Matter What Club”For God’s sake, whatever skillful or unskillful actions you end up taking during this time of triage, please don’t drink over him or her. They are not worth it. (And I’d put money down—money that I don’t have—on a bet that they’d agree with me.)Voila! My top eleven tips to help you over the hump of heartbreak! Take what you like and leave the rest.Have you had your heart broken in recovery? How did you heal? Let us know in the comments.

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