#i wish i had the brain function to turn this into a fic

[imnotcasper]

Royal expectations weigh heavily on dutiful Prince Casper. During an ill-advised night at the tavern, meant to let off some steam and ease the pressure, he gets into a brawl with Holger, a sharp-tongued lad from town wielding insults (and his sword) with the precision of a trained knight. Holger beats him fair and square, and the Prince, furious, has him thrown into the dungeons. Holger pesters the guards relentlessly, forcing them to release him out of sheer irritation. In a bid to teach him discipline – and secretly impressed by his wit and skill – Prince Casper pardons Holger and makes him a knight at his court. The two of them begin adventuring together, and chaos quickly follows.

for the @advantage-tennisblr promp fest

ruru, medieval au (knight & prince/princess) OR viking au

[mutalune]

really wish there was a tag that separated “I’m having Big Angry and/or Angsty Opinions about Star Wars” from “I’m goofing off with Star Wars I’m playing in the sandbox none of this is real so yes I will make my blorbo and this random glub shitto go on an adventure that makes no logical sense” posts because there’s too much of the former and not enough of the latter for my current mental state

[lupinqs]

MIGRAINE ━━ paige bueckers x teammate!reader

☆ ━ summary: on big east media day, you’re unfortunate enough to get a migraine

☆ ━ word count: 2.9K

☆ ━ warnings: descriptions of migraines, throwing up

☆ ━ links: my masterlist, based off of this req

☆ ━ author’s note: two fics in one night omg WHO AM I??? also i promise this is not rlly dramatized y’all this is quite literally how my migraines are …….… wish i had a paige during them 😞

BIG EAST media day—it’s today. Usually, you don’t mind media days at all. Actually, you tend to enjoy them. But, clearly, today you’re not meant to.

As soon as the sun broke through the windows of the New York hotel, Paige had woken to the sight of your scrunched-up face, a hand pressed to your temple. You both knew what it meant: you had a migraine, and today of all days, it had to hit with full force.

Paige had immediately rolled out of bed, grabbing your migraine medication from your bag that you’d luckily remembered to bring in a “just in case” situation. However, you’d been resistant to at first, knowing full well that the medicine would upset your stomach like it always does, but Paige had insisted, forcing you to take it. “You know we can’t skip today. Just take it, baby. It’ll help with the pain.” Reluctantly, you’d taken the pills, and with an an hour, just as you were sitting in hair and makeup, the side effects hit. You’d bolted from your chair, leaving the startled makeup artist behind as you rushed to the bathroom to puke your guts up.

Paige had followed immediately, kneeling beside you in the small, cramped bathroom stall, rubbing your back as you heaved into the toilet. The nausea subsided eventually, but Paige was worried you’d thrown up all the medicine in the process. You hadn’t had time to find out, though—there were interviews to do, and you, always the professional, was stubborn enough to push through.

Now, you and Paige sit side by side, a row of reporters in front of you, microphones held up like weapons ready to attack. The lights in the gym are blinding, and the low hum of chatter, camera clicks, and reporters scribbling notes fill the space. It’s the last place you want to be.

Paige, sensing your discomfort, takes the lead in most of the interviews. She fields question after question, her voice steady and charming as she answers everything from season goals to the team’s camaraderie. Next to her, you sit rigidly in your chair, staring at the ground, fingers pressing hard into your palms as if trying to will the pain away.

Every so often, a reporter directs a question at you, and Paige watches closely, knowing that forming coherent, professional sentences is probably the last thing you want to do. Still, you force a tight smile and give a short, clipped response, voice strained but composed. The pain etched across your face is subtle, but it’s there—just enough for Paige to notice, though you try your best to keep your expression neutral.

It’s damn near agonizing for Paige to watch you like this, especially when she knows how badly you’re hurting. She can tell that the migraine’s wrecking you, she’s been there for so many at this point that she knows all the little signs like the back of her hand. She wishes she could turn the lights down, quiet the reporters, and just take you somewhere dark and silent to rest. But there’s nothing she can do—you just have to endure it.

As the interview drags on, one reporter, a man who looks younger and more inexperienced than the others and who’s clearly growing impatient with your curt answers, rudely points at you, addressing you by name before saying, “You really don’t look like you want to be here today. I mean, is something wrong with you?”

The words come out sharp and are strictly unprofessional. Your eyes flicker toward the reporter, though you can’t see half of him due to the darkness shadowing parts of your vision. You open your mouth, then close it, unsure of what to say. Your brain is hardly functioning, the throbbing in your skull is unbearable, and you can’t even muster the strength to care about his tone. All you want is for this to be over.

But Paige cares.

Her gaze snaps to the reporter, her eyes narrowing dangerously. Her posture shifts, body leaning slightly forward, protective instincts kicking in immediately. Usually, she’d stay more poised, composed, let her media training do the work for her. But she isn’t about to let anyone talk to you like that, especially not today.

“Excuse me?” Paige’s voice is sharp, cutting through the room. She’s sure that there’s a camera recording this right now but she quite literally could not care less. “What did you just say?”

The reporter, startled by Paige’s reaction, fumbles for a moment before stammering, “Um, I just mean that she looks… unwell. She’s not really answering the questions.”

Paige’s jaw tightens. “Maybe you should think before you speak next time. She’s here, answering your questions to the best of her ability despite not feeling great, and you should respect that instead of makin’ snide comments.”

The side of the gym they’re on grows even quieter, the weight of Paige’s words settling in the air. You, who’s still staring at the floor, blinks, heart swelling with gratitude. You don’t really have the energy to defend yourself, let alone sit up with your eyes open against the bright lights, but knowing Paige has your back—it’s everything.

The reporter, realizing he’s on thin ice, mutters an apology, his face turning red under the harsh lights. Paige doesn’t bother to acknowledge it, her focus shifting back to you, her hand subtly reaching out to squeeze your knee under the table.

The rest of the interview continues, but Paige’s attention is divided now. She keeps on eye on the reporters, answering questions with ease, but her other eye is always on you, watching closely. Your face has gone even paler, and every few minutes, your eyes flutter shut as if you don’t even have the strength to keep them open against the blinding pain.

Finally, the session begins to wind down, and as soon as the last question is answered, Paige is out of her chair, gently taking your arm and leading you away from the microphones and cameras. The two of you step into a hallway, away from the noise and lights, and as soon as you’re alone, you lean heavily against the wall, closing your eyes with a shaky breath.

“Jesus,” you mutter, rubbing your temples. “Feel like my head’s about to explode.”

Paige wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you close. “I know, baby. You did so good, though. We’re almost done, okay? Just a little longer, and then I’m taking you back to the hotel. Dark room, no noise, just you and me.”

You nod, though even that small motion seems to cause you pain. And you pray that she does good on that promise, especially as the two of you go back into the gym. You end up sitting on a bench next to Azzi waiting, resting your head on her shoulder, eyes squeezed shut in a desperate attempt to block out the harsh gym lights and constant noise. Your head throbs with a relentless pulse, nausea rolling in waves, and your entire body feels like it’s on the verge of collapse. Azzi’s softly rubbing your arm in a comforting rhythm, whispering little encouragements.

But when Geno and CD approach, apologetically telling Paige that she and you have one more interview to do, Paige immediately starts protesting.

“No. No way. I can do it by myself,” she says firmly, already standing in front of the two coaches, shielding you from them like a protective wall. “She’s not in the right state for this. Just look at her.”

Geno and CD turn their heads to look over at you. You’re still slumped against Azzi, face pale and drawn. Your lips are pressed into a tight line, and your eyes are glossed over, clearly fighting back tears of pain. It’s not a pretty sight.

“I know, Paige,” CD says, eyes soft with sympathy. “We hate this as much as you do. But this interview is important. She’s got to do it, too.”

Paige’s jaw clenches, eyes flashing. “CD, come on,” she says in what can only be called a plea. “Please—she’s hurting. She’s in pain. You’re tellin’ me we can’t work somethin’ out?”

Geno sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I wish we could, kid,” he tells her. “But this is the last one, I promise. After this, you can take her back.”

Paige mutters a curse under her breath, her frustration boiling beneath the surface. She glances back at you, who’s face is so pale and worn-out that it makes Paige’s stomach twist.

“Fine,” she says finally, voice tight with defeat. “But this is the last time I’m putting her through this.”

Geno and CD both give a nods of understanding, and Paige turns, making her way back over to you. Kneeling in front of you, she places a gentle hand on your knee. “Hey,” she whispers, her voice soft with regret. “I’m so sorry, baby, but we gotta do one more interview. Just one more, and then you’re done, yeah?”

You open your eyes, and the utter pain in your expression makes Paige’s heart ache. You look like you’re damn near about to cry, eyes brimming with unshed tears, but you nod weakly anyways, ready to do what you need to even though you’ve clearly hit your limit.

Paige sighs, hating this situation more than anything. She leans in, pressing a light kiss to your forehead, hoping in vain that it might ease some of the pain within your cerebrum. “I promise, after this, I’m taking you away, okay? I ain’t letting anyone stop us.”

You nod again, swallowing hard as you fight to keep yourself in check. Paige stands, gently helping you to your feet, and together, the two of you make your way toward the interviewers, you subtly leaning on Paige as much as you can, because if you’re honest, you can’t see most of your surroundings.

The interview itself is a nightmare. The questions seem never-ending, and although Paige answers most of them, there’s still some directed only at you that you’re responsible for. Each time, you know you sound stupid, voice hoarse and response almost incoherent. The lights are too bright, the noise too overwhelming, and by the end of it, you visibly look like you’d rather die than be here.

As soon as the interview is done, you don’t even wait for Paige. You rush out of the gym, once again heading straight for a hallway where it’s at least a little bit darker. Paige hurries after you, catching up just as you half-collapse against the wall, fighting tears.

“It hurts so bad, P,” you cry raggedly. You clutch at your head, hands trembling as you press them to your temples before moving them over to your eyes, squeezing them shut and pressing your palms against them hard. “I—fuck—I can’t—”

Paige’s stomach constricts. She wraps her arms around you, pulling you close, pressing your face into her neck to shield your eyes from any and all light. “Shh, I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” Paige whispers, making sure to be as quiet as possible, voice filled with soothing warmth. She gently rubs your back, rocking you slightly as you’re near-sobbing against her.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Paige murmurs thickly. “I shoulda fought harder to get you outta that. But I’mma take you back to the hotel now, okay? I don’t care what the fuck else we’re supposed to do today.”

You don’t respond with words, just nod weakly against Paige’s neck, fingers clutching tightly at the blonde’s shirt as if trying to ground yourself.

Paige carefully guides you to sit on a bench in the hallway, leaning you back against the cool wall. “Wait here for just a sec, okay? I’mma be right back, just gotta tell Coach and CD we’re leaving.”

You nod again, your eyes fluttering closed as you rest your head against the wall. Paige brushes her thumb over your cheek, her heart splinting all over again at the sight of you in so much fucking pain. Then, with determination in her step, Paige turns and goes in search of Geno and CD.

When she finds them, they’re in the middle of talking to a few other staff members, but Paige doesn’t care. She marches up to them, her expression set in stone.

“I’m taking her back right now,” Paige says firmly, unwavering. “I’m sorry, but I don’t care what else we’re supposed to do here. She’s in too much pain, and I’m not putting her through any more of this. And I’m definitely not sending her back by herself.”

CD looks like she wants to argue, but one look at Paige’s determined face, and Paige can tell the older woman knows it’s pointless. Geno sighs, his shoulders sagging.

“Go,” he says quietly. “Take her. We’ll handle the rest.” He gestures to himself and CD, then over to where Azzi, Ash, and Sarah stand.

Paige nods once, her gratitude unspoken but clear. She doesn’t waste another second, turning on her heel and heading straight back to you. Once she gets to you, she helps you up, wrapping a firm arm around your waist. The two of you head toward the doors and then are out into the cool air of the New York streets. The noise of the city hits you like a wall—cars honking, sirens wailing faintly in the distance, the chatter of pedestrians—but Paige moves quickly, guiding you down the sidewalk.

The hotel is technically within walking distance, but Paige refuses to put you through that. Instead, she stops at the curb, pulls out her phone, and hails an Uber.

“It’s okay,” she whispers as you press yourself against her side, hiding your face in her shoulder as the nausea rolls through you again. “‘M not making you walk, don’t worry.”

The car pulls up almost immediately. Paige helps you inside first, sliding in next to you and carefully pulling you into her side again, buckling your seatbelt for you. It’s probably the shortest car ride of either of your lives, and you don’t say a word for any of it, just continuing to rest your head on her shoulder, eyes squeezed shut. Paige presses a soft kiss to your temple, reassuring you you’re almost there.

When the car pulls up to the hotel, Paige thanks the driver quickly, helping you out of the car with her hands steady on your hips. You cling to her without hesitation, your legs barely cooperating as, by this point, the majority of your body has gone numb. She doesn’t mind, though, guiding you through the lobby and toward the elevator. The ding of the doors makes you wince and Paige notices immediately. “I know, baby,” she murmurs softly, guiding you inside and pressing the button for your floor.

The ride up is quiet except for your unsteady breathing, and Paige’s grip never loosens. As soon as the doors open, she’s leading you to the room, swiping the keycard and pushing the door open in one smooth motion.

“Here we go,” Paige says gently, helping you inside. She lets you stumble toward the bed, watching closely as you basically collapse onto it with a shaky breath. Paige then moves to the windows, yanking the curtains shut until the room is bathed in near-total darkness. The relief is instant—you let out a soft sigh, your body relaxing just slightly as the pressure in your head dulls a little without the presence of light.

Paige isn’t done. She rummages through your bag until she finds your medication again, grabbing a bottle of water from the mini fridge before kneeling next to the bed. “Hey,” she says softly, brushing your hair back from your damp forehead. “You gotta take this, yeah? It’ll help.”

You groan faintly in protest, turning your face into the pillow, but Paige doesn’t back down. “Ma, c’mon,” she coaxes, voice firm but still tender. “I know it sucks, but you gotta take it. Just one more thing, and then you can rest.”

Reluctantly, you crack your eyes open, barely able to see her face in the dark, but you feel the pill pressed gently to your lips. You take it without complaint this time, swallowing it down with a sip of water Paige helps you hold.

“Good job, baby,” she praises, pressing another kiss to your forehead. She sets the bottle on the nightstand before kicking off her shoes and climbing into bed with you, immediately wrapping her arms around you. She pulls you close, her chest flush against your back, one arm sliding under your head to cushion it while the other wraps proactively around your waist.

“I’ve got you,” she whispers softly into your ear, her breath warm against your skin. “It’s okay, baby. Just breathe. ‘M right here.”

You whimper faintly in response, you body still shaking, but you relax the tiniest bit in her hold. Paige’s touch is gentle, her thumb tracing slow, soothing circles over your stomach as she tries to calm you down. She presses a soft kiss to the back of your head, murmuring sweet nothings that you can barely process through the pain.

A small sob escapes you as a particularly harsh stab to your skull hits. Paige only pulls you closer, holding you like she can absorb all of your pain into herself. “I know it hurts. I know,” she says softly, her voice cracking slightly as she wishes, more than anything, that she could take it all away for you. “But I’m not goin’ anywhere. I’m here. Always.”

And she means it—Paige Bueckers would hold you through every second of the pain if it meant you didn’t have to face it alone.

[asdfghjklmals]

Hii :)

I absolutely lovee your writings I've read each of them like 98688 times :)))

You asked for ideas so I thought maybe a fic that reader and satoru and the whole gang are still in school but they're not dating yet and reader and shoko are really close friends and satoru gets kinda jealous cause shoko hugs reader all the time and idk kiss her on chick or smth and satoru wishes he had the courage to do that????

Idk if you fell like it and were comfortable:))))

Thankss <3

THE COURAGE TO TRY✩༶‧˚

GENRE + T/W: sfw, fluff. WORD COUNT: 1.6k words. TAGS: satoru gojo x fem!oc. lovesick!gojo, a lil' jealous!gojo. bestie!suguru does what he does best and instigates for these two. one sided pining, but iykyk.

SYNOPSIS: satoru wishes he could be more than just friends with oc gojo girlfriend. AUTHOR'S NOTE: the first request to my milestone event (click here for more info). 💚 pre-dating oc gojo girlfriend and satoru, which i have a soft spot for hehehe. this is right after 'sleeping with the enemy', so click here to read it before you read this fic! REMINDER: if you want to imagine yourself in oc gojo girlfriend's character descriptions instead, please do!

“are you going to blink any time soon?” suguru asked his bestfriend, waving in front of his face, "—earth to satoru?"

“huh.” satoru grumbled in annoyance. “what are you talking about?”

in case you overheard, suguru whispered in satoru’s ear to save him from his own embarrassment, “i’m talking about how you haven’t taken your eyes off of (y/n) all day. you’re starting to look like a creep.”

satoru pushed him away as his face turned bright red, “oh, shut up, suguru!”

the two sorcerers watched from the other end of the classroom as you and shoko were practicing your reversed cursed techniques together. he saw shoko jumping up and down with joy, hugging you tightly, probably excited that you were starting to hone in on your skills. a twinge of jealously jabbed at the white haired sorcerer.

suguru started to pry, “are you and (y/n) going to have another sleepover tonight?”

“suguru, get to the point. what the hell do you want?” satoru snapped in annoyance.

“oh come on, you know for a fact that everyone including our muscle-brained sensei, knows that you have been sneaking into (y/n)’s dorm room at night—not to mention past curfew.” suguru sighed at how oblivious satoru thought he was. suguru was smarter than that. "everyone just wants to know if you two are dating yet!"

satoru’s flush of red in his cheeks did not fade away, instead he just got redder and redder the more his bestfriend talked about the two of you possibly becoming a couple.

suguru curiously asked, “how long as this been going on for?”

satoru gritted his teeth and sighed, “ever since we got back from our mission together.”

“are you guys—”

satoru quickly interrupted his bestfriend before he said anything else to embarrass him further, “i only go to her room to sleep—for some reason, i sleep better when i’m with her. i think it’s her custom futon.”

it wasn’t your custom futon at all. it was the comfort of your presence.

suguru knew that satoru had a difficult time sleeping ever since he started attending jujutsu high. satoru was the type of person to doze off for a couple hours here and there, but never got any actual decent rem cycle sleep. satoru was the total opposite of you. you needed well over 8 hours of sleep to function as a normal (and kind) human being. the first thing that sashisu learned about you was not to wake you up in the mornings. the two guys left shoko with that job when needed.

“sure, whatever you say, satoru.” suguru smiled, his eyes disappearing behind his sly grin, “so, you and (y/n) are…?”

satoru scoffed at his bestfriend’s bold assumption, “—we are just friends.”

there was no way in hell he was going to admit that he liked you without knowing if you liked him back.

suguru folded his arms, annoyed that he wasn’t going to get an answer out of his bestfriend, “uh huh, right—friends do not cuddle each other to sleep.”

satoru started to list actions that friends can totally do together, “well, shoko and (y/n) always have sleepovers, they hug and loop their arms together when they walk—and they’re just friends.”

suguru stated very clearly, “shoko doesn’t give (y/n) an arm pillow every night. and she doesn’t cuddle her just to be able to get some sleep either.”

“well, shoko hugs (y/n) and holds her hand. i don’t get to do that.” satoru barked back.

“you know, satoru… it’s starting to sound like you’re jealous of shoko.” suguru laughed, realizing that satoru definitely wanted to be more than just friends with you.

satoru shot a death glare at suguru, “—am not!”

later that night

“what did you and shoko do during class today?” satoru asked as he watched you brush your hair in your bathroom.

you hummed, “hmmm, shoko gave me some pointers on how to control my cursed energy so i could focus it into reversed cursed energy.”

“oh…” satoru mumbled, “i could’ve helped you with that.” he would never admit that he was jealous of his other bestfriend, shoko ieiri. he wondered what favors he'd have to do for yaga-sensei in order to get paired up with you for a mission again.

you giggled, “satoru, you can’t even heal yourself yet. how could you have helped me?”

“i would’ve found a way.” satoru said, dissatisfaction in his tone. he would have to get stronger and figure out this reversed cursed technique bullshit if he wanted you to stay by his side. he folded his arms across his chest as he sat in your bed, waiting for you to turn off the lights so he could sleep.

you took one last look in your bathroom mirror before turning off your bathroom light. you hopped onto your bed and crawled towards satoru. as you sat down next to him, you noticed that his face was turning pink, ears heating up to a crimson red—he was avoiding all eye contact with you.

“arm pillow, please.” you called out to him with a smile, ignoring his blushing face. you wondered what had gotten into him today.

he laid back and rested his head on your pillow, laying out his right arm for you. you nuzzled in between his chest and bicep. you turned to face him, his arm curling down your back.

“are you sure your arm doesn’t hurt at night?” you asked, patting his chest softly. he always teased you about waking up with a dead arm in the mornings.

“i’m sure.” satoru said softly, “i’m used to it.”

you lifted your head from his arm and glared at him, “used to it? do you give other girls arm pillows too or something?”

satoru rolled his eyes at you, removing his hand from your back to ruffle your neatly brushed hair.

“no, (y/n). you’re the only one.” he reluctantly admitted, “your big head is the only one to lay on my arm.”

you rolled your eyes before you gave him a self-satisfied smirk, attaching your head to his right arm again. that satoru gojo and his interesting way of flirting he always used to try to charm you. you wrapped your arm around his torso, holding him close to you.

the past week that satoru had spent sleeping next to you, he picked up on your interesting sleeping habits: you were usually the first to fall asleep between the two of you. you were a light sleeper. you preferred to sleep on your side (or on your stomach when you’re not curled up next to him). you grind your teeth in your sleep when you’re stressed (he found that out during your mission together). you snore when you’re exhausted (but you argue that you don’t). and lastly, whenever he would move away from you, you would always pull him back towards you.

within 5 minutes of shutting your eyes, you were out cold. satoru could tell by the way your breathing steadied and the way your cursed energy looked to his six eyes. a calm blue hue is what cursed energy looked like at a peaceful resting state.

tonight, satoru’s heart would not stop racing no matter how hard he tried to regulate his breathing. he thought he got used to sleeping next to you every night for the past week, but he was wrong. his thoughts about his feelings towards you was tormenting him inside.

satoru wished that he had the courage to try to be more upfront with you about his feelings. he wished that he could confidently hold your hand so that everyone knew you were his. he wished that he could hug you just because he wanted to. he wished that he could kiss you in hopes that you would kiss him back. this fear of not knowing how you felt about him crippled him.

how could the strongest sorcerer feel so weak in your presence?

he tilted his head towards yours. the scent of your orange hibiscus shampoo lingered in your hair, your head resting just below his chin. he slumped further down on your bed, trying his best not to move your ‘arm pillow’. like clockwork, he felt you unconsciously pull him back towards your body. satoru hoped that he wouldn't wake you up by all the moving around he was doing.

he sighed before he turned to face you. your lashes fluttering against the top of your cheek as he watched you inhale and exhale in your slumber.

how could one person look so beautiful while sleeping? this was so damn unfair.

satoru’s heart skipped a beat. was he really going to attempt to kiss you? hell, he was going to take a risk. he took a deep breath before leaning in to press a feather-light kiss on your forehead and then on the top of your head. the foreign feeling made you furrow your eyebrows in your sleep. he hoped that his pathetic attempt at a kiss wouldn’t wake you up. he wouldn’t know how to explain this to you if you woke up right this instance. he stroked your cheek with his palm before you immediately fell back into your sweet dream for the night.

and it was in that moment that satoru gojo hoped that one day, you could be his and all he dreamed of too.

EXTRA:

“was my hair all over the place or something last night?” you asked satoru as you watched him change out of his pajamas to throw on his school uniform.

satoru thought back to last night when he kissed your forehead and immediately blushed. he feigned ignorance, “not that i remember. why...?”

you connected your thumb and index finger to your chin. “hmmm, i swear i felt something tickling my forehead.”

satoru couldn’t hide his mischievous grin, “tickling your forehead, huh? i wonder what it could’ve been.”

© 2023 ASDFGHJKLMALS — ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PLEASE DO NOT COPY, TRANSLATE, OR REPOST MY WORK.

DIVIDERS PROVIDED BY @/ANLIAN-AISHANG

[unpredictable-probabilities]

The Pleasures of Dreaming and Waking

Summary:

Hob spends time with Dream after a long week at work. As they chat over their usual table, they grow more comfortable in expressing their fantasies and endeavour to explore them.

Notes:

Inspired by this fic written by @delta-pavonis <3

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 4,716

Square/Prompt: B3 - Somnophilia |  @dreamlingbingo

Ship(s): Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling

Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Kissing, Neck Kissing, Making Out, Nipple Play, Smut, Eldritch Sex, Light Bondage, Consensual Somnophilia, Blow Jobs, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Orgasm Edging, Multiple Orgasms, Sweet, Sweet/Hot, Cuddling & Snuggling, Naked Cuddling, Post-Coital Cuddling, Porn Without Plot, Porn With Feelings

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59931001

———

The sounds of conversations combined with the clinking of cutlery and soft footsteps is making Hob sleepy.

He had a long week at work and only managed to catch a break now that it's Friday; he stifles a yawn behind his hand and mumbles thanks to the waiter that just brought their order to their table.

“Are you well, my love? You seem exhausted.” A frown creases Dream’s forehead, and Hob still marvels at how Dream is more comfortable with expressing his emotions now, especially since they started dating three months ago; a fact that Hob still has trouble believing if he thinks about it too hard.

Hob nods and straightens up in his seat, trying to blink the fatigue out of his eyes. “I'm alright, love, don't worry. Just pretty knackered with finals week coming up. Been up late catching up on grading papers and all that.”

“You should have informed me sooner. We could always meet in my realm while your physical body rests.”

“Yeah, but I'm quite fond of this place,” Hob admits. “This table is where I was sitting when you first came back. I like talking with you here.”

“You are stubbornly sentimental,” Dream chides, though there's an unmistakable smile on his lips.

“You love it,” Hob says pointedly, taking some chips from the basket.

Dream makes a sound that might have been a chuckle. “Very well. What woes did you experience in the world of academia today? I have heard it is part of unwinding to talk about how one’s day has gone.”

“You learned that in one of those relationship books you read in your library?” He walked in on Dream reading that sort of book once in the Dreaming during their first month of dating. Dream vanished the book in an instant when he saw Hob, but Hob had been so endeared that he had pushed Dream against the shelf and kissed him senseless.

“Perhaps.” Dream drinks from his mug of hot chocolate to hide his face, but not before Hob sees the subtle pink on his cheeks.

Hob grins and reaches for Dream’s hand resting on the table, fiddling idly with the cuff of his sleeve. “Nothing remarkable happened, at this point even the students were just waiting for the weekend so classes were rather quiet. Then afterwards I went with some of my colleagues to that pub near the university, and we just traded mindless gossip to purge our brains of essays and staff meetings.”

Dream turns his hand so his palm is facing up, and he brushes his thumb back and forth on Hob's wrist as he speaks. “I am sure the other patrons enjoyed hearing gossip from academics.”

“I'm not so sure I did, honestly. My mate Nick runs his mouth after a few pints, and I didn't need to hear that he had a wet dream about our colleague from the Arts department. Does that fall under your jurisdiction, by the way? You just know whenever someone's fantasising in their dream?” Hob has already asked a lot of questions about Dream and his function, which Dream always answers with some degree of amusement, but Hob still feels like there's so much more to learn.

“I am able to see into someone's dreams should I wish, but unless a nightmare is crossing a line in troubling them or other similar concerns, I have no obligation nor desire to do so. And any fantasies they might have are created by their own minds.” Dream pauses and tilts his head slightly to the side. “Do you wish for us to do the same? To share such intimacies in my realm?”

Hob feels his face warm and he chuckles. He still gets caught off-guard by how direct Dream can be nowadays. “I thought you said you can't read minds?”

“I can sense daydreams. And yours are often loud.” The corner of his lips tilts up in a smirk.

“Well, can you blame me? People dream about that kind of stuff all the time, but for you and me, it would be real. It would actually be you.”

Dream’s smile disappears and he seems to hesitate, his face becoming guarded.

“Hey,” Hob says gently, stroking Dream’s arm with his fingers. “We don't have to, okay? All the sex we have here in the Waking is already perfectly amazing.”

“Crude.” Dream's eyes twinkle in amusement and he seems to relax. He pauses for a moment before continuing. “You have seen my form in my realm. How… different. I look.”

Hob raises an eyebrow. “You mean being paler and taller than an average human and having galaxies for eyes? And wearing that sinful robe that would be considered indecent in the streets of London?”

Dream lowers his gaze and is obviously trying to suppress a smile. “I am trying to be serious, Hob.”

“Oh I'm perfectly serious. I'm surprised you didn't sense my daydreams whenever we walked around your realm with you wearing that thing.”

“I… did. But.” Dream trails off, his fingers tapping restlessly on the inside of Hob’s arm.

“What's wrong?” Hob rarely sees Dream be so hesitant.

“I am… afraid. To hurt you, in my realm. If we engage in physical intimacy.”

Hob’s eyebrows lift in surprise. “Hurt me? You could never hurt me, love.”

“I might.” Dream’s voice sounds strained with worry. “In my realm I am… more. In the throes of passion I might lose control of my humanoid form.” He looks right at Hob. “You inspire such greed in me, Hob Gadling. I will have you for as long as it takes until I am sated.”

Hob swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. If Dream intends to discourage him by what he just said, he's spectacularly failing. “So exactly as we always do it, then?” he manages to say lightly.

Dream huffs out a chuckle. “You are not daunted at all.” He sounds almost impressed.

“‘Course not,” Hob says easily. “Is it something that you want, though?”

Dream nods slowly. “I have thought of it. More than once. I should like to have you in my bed, at the heart of my palace. So the very essence of our ardour seeps into each fibre of my realm, that none may doubt my affections for you.”

Hob takes a shaky breath, unable to look away from Dream. They should probably be talking about this somewhere more private, but right now the most prominent thought in Hob's mind is if Dream wants it just as much as he does then why haven't they done it yet.

“Okay, okay,” Hob says mainly to calm himself. “Since we both want the same thing, is there any way I can make you more comfortable with the idea? We can use safe words, and I bet you can sense anyway if I feel like something’s too much for me.”

“I am uncertain about that. I have never been able to sense your discomfort in any of our couplings.”

“That's because I've never felt any discomfort, love. Like I said, everything we've done has been amazing, and I think you know by now that you're not the only one who can get greedy,” Hob says cheekily.

A smile curves Dream’s lips. “That is a fair point.”

“I know. So then. Um…” Hob looks around at the pub. “D’you wanna go upstairs and talk about it?”

“You are not too tired?”

“Oh believe me, I'm more awake now than I've been all week.” Hob calls over one of the waiters and tells him that they're taking their food to go.

“Eager, beloved?” Dream raises an eyebrow playfully after the waiter leaves.

“No more than you, Your Majesty.”

Dream makes a low humming noise in his chest that might have been a purr or a growl. Either way, it's definitely a sound of approval and that's all Hob needs to practically drag Dream upstairs as soon as they get their takeout bag.

Hob takes a shower first because he's not sleeping with his boyfriend while carrying the grime of public transport, nevermind that it's the quickest shower he's ever taken in his life.

When he gets out of the bathroom wearing a fresh shirt and sweatpants, he sees Dream on his bed wearing black silk pyjamas, sitting up against a pillow and reading Lord of the Rings. The whole image is so soft that it makes Hob’s chest ache.

“I like seeing you like this,” Hob says as he sits next to Dream.

“On your bed?”

“Relaxed.” Hob kisses the tip of Dream's nose. “Do you still want to talk about it?”

Dream nods. “Do you?”

“Yeah. Thanks for waiting while I showered.”

“You were not gone long. I had not even finished the chapter I was reading.” Dream closes the book and puts it on the nightstand. “I still do not know what happens after Frodo and Sam meet Merry and Pippin.”

“Oh, should I shower for longer then so you can continue reading?”

“If you step in that shower again I should be inclined to join you.”

“Talk first,” Hob says firmly, rather proud of himself for declining such a tempting offer. Granted, he declined in favour of a much more tempting one. “How'd you feel about safe words?” he turns to his side to more comfortably face Dream, folding a knee under him.

“They could prove to be useful, yes. What words do you recommend?”

“We can use the traffic light system. Green means continue, yellow means slow down, red means stop immediately.”

Dream considers for a moment. “And you promise to use them with no hesitation?”

“Yeah,” Hob nods. “And you should too.”

Dream slowly blinks at him, looking surprised.

“You can use them too,” Hob clarifies. “You're allowed to say if you're uncomfortable, yeah?”

Dream is silent for a few moments, forehead creased in thought. Then he slowly nods. “Alright. And I should like to give you control to shape the Dreaming.”

“What?” Now it's Hob's turn to be surprised.

“My realm is tied to my temperament. I may cause a storm without meaning to. Or an earthquake. While you might not be powerful enough to stop these things entirely, you will have the ability to shape the environment to conjure whatever shelter best suits your comfort.”

The first thought in Hob's mind is how utterly sweet Dream is to even think of granting him that much power over his realm; Hob is aware that that much trust given to him is not to be taken lightly.

The second thought following closely after is that Hob wants to see just how much he can make Dream lose control while sharing his bed. He wonders if he can pleasure Dream enough for him to make actual fireworks appear.

Dream chuckles and rests his forehead against Hob’s. “Your priorities continue to fascinate me, Hob Gadling.”

“Shall I show you how fascinating I can be, then?” Hob reaches up to run his fingers along the collar of Dream's silk shirt.

Dream purrs low in his chest and holds the back of Hob’s neck to slot their lips together.

Hob groans softly and clenches his fist into the fabric of Dream's shirt, pulling him down to lie on top of him.

“I thought you wished to do this in my realm,” Dream says playfully against his lips, pupils already blown.

“Still do. Take me there then, my lord.”

There’s sand and the familiar feeling of drifting off to sleep, and then all at once Hob feels a different bed under him, smooth as satin and softer than goosefeathers.

Dream is looming over him, his black robe nearly slipping off a pale shoulder. His blue eyes flicker down to Hob’s clothes, running over them with a curious gaze.

Hob looks down and realises that he’s wearing a bottle-green robe, loosely tied at the waist and with nothing else underneath. “I owned something like this back then,” he recalls. “In the 1500s, I think. It was always comfortable.”

Dream nods in approval and noses along the line of Hob’s jaw. “Good. Here you shall have every comfort.” He sinks his teeth in the skin beneath Hob’s ear with just enough pressure to make him shiver.

“I wish I could carry your marks with me to the Waking,” Hob says breathlessly.

Dream pulls back to meet his eyes, and for a second Hob wonders if had said something wrong.

“If you truly wish it, I can extend my consciousness to my physical form currently sleeping beside yours. I will make love to you in the Waking as I do here. And you will have my marks until your body heals them away.”

Hob feels his eyes widen, his heart thumping in his chest. And once again he wonders why they’d never done this before. “Will I be able to feel what you do to my physical body? Even here?”

Dream considers it. “I can put your consciousness in the liminal space between sleeping and waking, just enough for you to feel my touch in your realm. Is this what you wish?”

“Yes,” Hob whispers, absently realising that he has his hands clenched into fists on Dream’s robe.

“Very well.”

Dream closes his eyes, and suddenly Hob feels smooth hands trail slowly up his thighs, even when Dream hasn’t moved at all. Cool fingers wrap around his cock and he gasps, hips jerking up against Dream’s thigh.

“Did you vanish my clothes?”

“I did not think you would need them.” There’s an edge to Dream’s smile, and when he opens his eyes the blue has vanished too, replaced by pools of black with brilliant stars at the center.

Hob pulls him down for a kiss, and Dream opens up immediately. Hob loses himself in the feeling of their tongues against each other and Dream’s body undulating above him. They both still have their robes on, but Hob can feel a hand slowly stroking his cock, a mouth around his nipple. He hears a whimper that might have been his but never felt it leave his throat.

“Dream,” Hob gasps, hips stuttering against Dream’s thigh. The sensations in the Waking haven’t stopped, but with most of his consciousness here in the Dreaming they all feel distant, like a vivid memory that can never live up to the real thing. “Touch me. Here.”

“As my love commands.” Dream unties Hob’s robe with one hand before pressing their lips together again.

Hob sighs against the kiss as he feels Dream’s hand caress his torso, gliding lower and kneading the flesh of his thigh. He wraps his arms around Dream’s neck, runs his fingers through soft midnight hair that seems constantly ruffled by wind despite the lack of any breeze.

The sensations in the Waking stop abruptly, and before Hob could begin to wonder why, he feels teeth sink into the inside of his thigh.

“Ah!” Hob arches his back, breaking the kiss and pulling Dream’s hair. His cock twitches and he feels the heat of Dream’s mouth wrap around him—in the Waking. Hob moans in frustration, his cock hanging heavy and neglected in the open air. “Do you even have plans to fuck me here?”

“I am marking you in the Waking. That is what you wish, is it not?” Dream rakes his nails lightly across Hob’s chest, scraping a nipple and making Hob twitch.

“Just in the Waking? What happened to being greedy?” Hob quickly bunches up Dream’s robes, thrilled to find that there’s not a stitch of clothing underneath. He grabs Dream’s bare arse and pulls him flush against his groin.

Dream throws his head back with a shaky gasp, his eyes fluttering close.

Hob pulls him down and mouths at pale clavicles, licks at Dream’s icy throat and nips at his jawline.

Dream surges down to kiss him, and at the same time Hob feels his thighs being spread open in the Waking.

Dream's tongue reaches into him from both ends, soft and slick and far longer than any human tongue should be.

Hob squirms as he feels Dream’s tongue move inside him in the Waking, feeling full and empty all at once. He grips the back of Dream's neck, ruts against his cock.

Dream makes a wounded noise and returns the enthusiasm, grinding down hard until Hob’s sure they're carving a dent into the plush cushions.

Hob feels precome on his belly, and he needs Dream inside him now but he also needs him to never stop moving.

And then Dream does stop, even his movements in the Waking.

Hob opens his eyes, mind clouded in a haze of confusion and lust. He sees Dream looking around their surroundings and blinking.

Hob begins to realise that even though they're still on the same cushions, they're no longer in Dream’s bedroom.

The ceiling made of a starry night sky is replaced with an elaborate mosaic of figures that might be deities, and the marble walls are now stained glass windows letting in colorful sunlight that dapples on the steps leading down from where he and Dream are.

Dream shifts to his side to give Hob room to sit up and look around. He realises that they're on a raised platform overlooking a great hall with long tables and tall double doors at the far end. They're the only ones here, and the vastness of the place has a solemn quiet to it.

“Where are we?” Hob’s voice echoes softly.

“You brought us here, beloved.”

“What?” Hob frowns and looks around again, paying more attention to the details.

The wall behind them is painted with doves and bells so intricately that Hob can almost hear them, and he suddenly recognises that the deities depicted on the ceiling are who the townspeople considered the gods of marriage from about six centuries ago.

“This is a wedding hall,” Hob breathes. I brought us here to shag on the altar.

Dream blinks at him slowly. “Why did you choose this place?”

“I didn't mean to,” Hob scratches the back of his head sheepishly. “I guess, um…” he feels his face warm up. He looks down and fidgets with the sheets. “I'm not proposing or anything, I don't even know what that would mean for you but… I s’pose I liked the symbolism of it. Us getting married…” He trails off and hesitantly meets Dream’s gaze again.

Dream is looking at him in bewilderment, and Hob feels panic rise in his throat, images of a rainy night and a black figure storming off flashing in his mind.

“Look, I can't control what my brain thinks,” he hurriedly says. “You can whisk us back to your room—”

Dream moves and pins him down on the cushions, claiming his lips with teeth and tongue and the intensity of the birth of a star.

Hob’s body quickly gets back with the program, whatever he was feeling before they got interrupted by the location change has come back in full force, and then some.

He grunts when he feels Dream slip a finger inside him, the sensation so vivid that it takes him a second to realise that it's happening in the Waking. Dream adds another finger, slick with the lube that Hob keeps in his nightstand drawer, or possibly dreamstuff, Hob doesn't really care. He grinds down on empty air here in the Dreaming, a moan of pleasure and need escaping him.

“You wish to be united with me in this manner?” Dream is actually breathless, and his form is starting to blur at the edges like a freshly made oil painting hanging on a lord’s wall.

He has a subtle glow about him, and Hob can believe that it's coming from the stars in his eyes that seem to burn brighter now. His dark hair ripples softly as if underwater. It's as if one of the gods from the mosaic came to life just to loom over Hob and look at him with utter adoration, as if Hob is the one worthy of worship.

“Of course I do.” Hob threads his fingers through Dream’s hair, caresses his face, his shoulders. Marvelling at how he's allowed to touch a being such as this. “I'll have you in all the ways you would allow,” he says quietly, reverently.

Dream presses their foreheads together. “Hob.” The syllable drops from his lips like a prayer and then he's kissing Hob again, their robes vanishing in an instant.

Hob cups Dream’s face in his hands, his eyes falling close as he inhales the scent of rain and ozone and fresh ink on paper.

He feels Dream's fingers pull out of him in the Waking, and his stomach clenches in anticipation.

The familiar shape of Dream's cock teases at his rim, and Hob realises with a gasp that it's here in the Dreaming. 

Dream tenderly takes his hands and pins them beside his head on the pillow, their fingers lacing together.

Hob is already slick and soft and open, and his eyes roll back in his head when Dream slips in, filling him up inch by delicious inch as Dream’s lips move down to his neck. Their fingers remain intertwined, but Hob feels soft touches up and down his body, becoming more insistent as Dream thrusts deeper into him.

Hob’s eyes flutter open to see that shadows seem to be bleeding from Dream’s form, shaping into tendrils that act as his limbs. Hob doesn't even bother to try counting them, especially not when one tendril touches his nipple, flicking and rolling the hard nub until Hob is squirming and jerking his hips up to meet Dream’s thrusts.

The teeth that scrape and nip at his neck are definitely sharper than usual, and a shiver runs down Hob’s spine, prickling his skin with goosebumps and making his toes curl.

Dream tightens his grip on Hob's hands and slowly pulls out before slamming into him in both realms.

“AH–!” Hob arches his back, or tries to, but finds that the shadow tendrils are pinning him to the bed; wrapped around his waist, his arms, holding his thighs open as Dream continues to thrust into him.

Dream's face is pressed in the crook of Hob’s neck, making growling noises that could never come from a human throat.

Hob’s weeping cock twitches from what little friction Dream’s body is giving, unable to get any more of it no matter how much he strains against the tendrils. Dream slams into his prostate and Hob cries out a sob, tears forming in his eyes.

Dream slows down and pulls back to look at him, the tendrils loosening their hold. “Colour, my love?” His voice sounds wrecked.

“Green,” Hob whines, taking advantage of his mobility to raise his hips and take Dream deeper into him. “Green— Fuck, Please…”

Dream captures his lips in a searing kiss. The tendrils wrap around Hob once more, but this time they help him move, raising his hips to meet Dream each time, faster than what Hob would have been capable of on his own.

He can feel Dream's teeth on him in the Waking while he's being fucked into his own mattress; on his chest, his jawline, his neck, oh his neck, Dream is making good on his promise to mark him, sucking bruises onto the skin and soothing them with his tongue. When that tongue moves down to his nipples, Hob feels so keyed up that he can almost feel it in the Dreaming as well.

A tendril wraps around Hob’s cock and strokes him quickly while another one teases at the slit, and it's all too much and not nearly enough. Hob doesn't quite remember how to breathe, and he tightens his grip on Dream's hands as the tendrils manhandle him to buck and rut against his lover.

The air feels charged, like the moment before a lightning strike, and Dream is panting in Hob's ear as a sudden wind whistles through the wedding hall, the light from the stained glass windows changing colours rapidly as if the sun is moving erratically outside.

Seeing Dream so affected is what hurls Hob over the edge, and he comes with a roar that might have broken the windows but he can't hear anything else above his own voice and the pleasure lighting up his spine.

Dream speaks against his ear, soft lips almost caressing. “This dream is over.”

Hob slams back into the Waking with a strangled cry, frustration crashing over him when he realises that Dream has a hand wrapped around the base of his cock, stopping his release even as Dream repeatedly fucks into him, his other hand bracing himself on the bed for leverage.

The whiplash of going from a mind-shattering orgasm to his cock heavy with wanting has Hob going half-mad.

“Dream–!” he digs his nails into Dream’s back, squirming as he tries to get free of Dream's iron grip, only succeeding in deepening the angle of Dream inside him.

“Shall I fuck you into unconsciousness, my lover?” Dream is in his human form again but his blue eyes are no less piercing. “I can take you here, and in my realm, going back and forth until you can no longer distinguish between Dreaming and Waking. Giving you endless pleasure in my realm where you will not tire, and holding back your release here until I decide that I am done with you.”

A full-body shiver runs through Hob; Dream's voice only stokes the fire already burning Hob from the inside, his words making Hob’s cock ache and twitch in desperation.

“You are mine, Hob Gadling,” Dream's hips stutter out of rhythm before speeding up. “Not to capture nor possess. But to adore and—ah—cherish. Mine to care for. Mine to love.” His eyelids flutter and his breaths are coming in pants. “Just as I am yours. To do with as you please.”

He thrusts deep and Hob cries out, his nails raking red lines across Dream's back.

A flash of concern appears on Dream's face as he looks down at him.

“Green, green!” Hob screams before Dream could even think to slow down. “Dream, my love, please…” he whimpers.

“Yes,” Dream says breathlessly, leaning down to kiss him. “Your love. Yours,” he says against Hob’s lips. He deepens the kiss as he strokes Hob’s cock in time with his thrusts.

Hob clenches his hands into Dream's hair, moaning wantonly in his mouth as his hips buck up and down of their own accord.

“With me, my love,” Dream gasps. He slams into Hob’s prostate and twists his hand.

Hob's vision goes white and he screams, his body thrashing under Dream as he spills and spills between them. He hears Dream’s guttural cry in his ear and it only flings him higher into his peak, where nothing else exists except the two of them and Dream’s spend filling him up more than he thought possible.

Their embrace tightens as they shake and tremble, listening to the sound of each other’s breaths as they begin to calm down, their chests heaving.

Dream gently slips out of him and they both groan at the sensation. “Have I fulfilled your expectations, my love?” he asks quietly, brushing away a lock of hair that had stuck to the sweat on Hob’s forehead.

Hob’s brain takes a few moments to understand the question. “Have… What…” he tries to form a coherent sentence while still catching his breath. “I only ever expect for both of us to feel good, and I think we'd been pretty vocal about that just now.”

Dream smiles, a soft thing that brightens up his face. “Indeed. And now, you must sleep,” he brushes a thumb across Hob's cheekbone. “You have been exhausted this week, and even immortal bodies need rest.”

Hob just hums. Given how his eyelids are already feeling heavy, he doesn't have much room to argue.

“Cuddle?” he manages, sleepily running his fingers through Dream's hair.

Dream leans into his touch. “Both here and in the Dreaming.”

Hob vaguely registers Dream waving his hand to clean them up, and then Dream is lying down beside him and snuggling close, tucking his head under Hob’s chin.

Hob wraps his arms around Dream, drifting off to sleep and smiling at what a lucky bastard he is.

———

(Dreamling Bingo Masterpost)

(Masterlist)

[unremarkablehouse]

Scully’s Hot Date

CH1 | Mature | S6 | WC 1639 | AO3

Summary: Mulder happens to run into Scully on her way to a blind date. Inspired by this photo of Gillian.

Tagging: @today-in-fic The FBI parking garage was desolate as Mulder slowly made his way to his car. Friday night before a public holiday, it seemed like everyone one had places they’d rather be. The squeak of tires and flash of light as a car pulled into a space was truly startling, more so the fact that he recognized that car within a fraction of a second from his periphery. It was her, Dana Scully, returning to work after 7pm on a Friday night. A large part of him hoped it was to see him, but as she parked her car near his, he knew logically it didn’t quite add up. Lounging on the trunk of his car, Mulder watched Scully get out of her car, her body stiffening momentarily before making her way towards his direction with a renewed confidence as she clocked the awe struck look on his face. Mulder didn’t mean to ogle but he had never seen her dressed quite like this before. Her hair pinned up displaying her neck, a dress that was soft and showed her curves, and her breasts. Good lord, her tits were out and Mulder’s brain had ceased to function. He wasn’t sure how long he had been staring at her, but Scully’s laugh and the click of her fingers brought him back to earth. She was now standing in front of him, an amused smirk on her face at his reaction. 

“Hi, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here tonight,” Scully said with an edge of awkwardness in her voice unconsciously licking her lips in that way that drove Mulder insane.

“You look very… non-FBI tonight,” Mulder replied, unsure of the exact right words to use to describe how incredible his Partner looked. 

“Thanks, I think. I have a date,” Scully bristled as she started to make her way to the parking lot stair case. 

Mulder caught up with her in a few easy strides. 

“Hold up, who is the guy? He doesn’t work here right?”

There was nothing remotely casual about the tone of Mulder’s voice, the jealous quality was begrudgingly sweet so Scully took pity on him and stopped to talk as they entered the stairwell. 

“It’s a blind date a friend set me up on, I haven’t met him before so I organized to meet in front of the Hoover building so we can get a drink nearby.”

“Do you need a chaperone,” Mulder asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, standing close to Scully, her back almost pressing against the concrete wall. 

“I think I’ll be ok,” Scully said with a laugh, placing her hand on his chest to push him back, but instead slowly rubbing large circles across his pecks. Her heart raced when her palm made contact with one of his erect nipples, but she didn’t remove her hand.

“You look really beautiful tonight Dana,” Mulder said his eyes staring so intensely into hers it was like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. 

With an anguished sigh, Mulder dropped his head down, awkwardly resting it on Scully’s shoulder like a child needing comfort. Instinctively, her hand found its way into his hair, rubbing over the nape of his neck and back again. 

“What times your date,” he whispered, doing nothing to hide the melancholy from his voice. 

“Not for another half hour, I’m early.”

“Hmm,” Mulder said with a sad acknowledgement, nuzzling his nose into her neck in a way that made Scully catch her breath. Instinctively, she found herself kissing his temple and inhaling his smell. The warmth of their bodies and their proximity to one another was intoxicating. Mulder pressed both hands onto her hips to anchor her in place as he gently kissed a spot under her ear and whispered “I wish it was me.”

Mulder pushed away from her, ready to go back to his empty apartment, while Scully went on a date with a man who wasn’t him. Feeling a tug on his arm, Mulder turned as Scully grabbed onto his hand. 

“If you want it to be you, then ask me out Mulder,” her voice was breathy but challenging as she stared him down. 

Mulder’s puppy dog eyes seemed to penetrate her soul, filled with angst and a vulnerability which Scully was helpless to resist. 

“Dana Katherine Scully, will you go on a date with me?”

Scully made a show at umming and ahhing, while Mulder dramatically contorted his face in agony. 

“Okay,” Scully finally replied with a large grin, eliciting a delighted laugh from them both as Mulder excitedly bent down to kiss her. 

It was meant to be a quick celebratory peck in the heat of the moment, but Scully’s arms wrapped around Mulder’s neck and before they knew it he had lifted her up and pressed their bodies against the wall. Scully hungrily kissed Mulder, pulling his head closer to hers, unable to get enough. Mulder’s hands wondered ever so slightly up her thigh and back down to her perfect ass, unable to explore more territory as he held her up to his hip height. 

Her legs wrapped around him, pulling Mulder closer and grinding her hips against him hard. And with that, the flood gates were open. All the years of restraint and denial crumbled as they finally admitted the physical need between them. Decency and self awareness had long left the building as Scully’s hand reached for Mulder’s rock hard cock. Stroking it over his pants she moaned and ached to feel him inside her. Mulder enthusiastically nuzzled and kissed at her breasts while Scully attempted to undo his fly. In a surreal out of body experience Scully realized she was about to fuck Mulder for the first time in an FBI stairwell, minutes before she was meant to be going on a date with another man. However, she could not bring herself to care about the impropriety of the situation, conversely it actually made her ridiculously aroused at how primal and insane the whole situation was. Any concern or hesitation she might have had on the subject vanished completely when Mulder found her left nipple and bit down on it in a way that lead to a gasp and a flood of arousal. Moving their heads back up to kiss once more, Mulder’s hand managed to free his cock and slide it against Scully’s wet cunt as he deftly moved her panties to the side.

Mulder stroked himself against Scully’s slit, bumping the head of his cock over her clit as she moaned in approval. Scully squeezed her thighs hard against Mulder’s waist, impatient for more of him. “Mulder, now,” she panted in desperation.

The relative size of his cock and the angle of their bodies, forced him to enter her at an excruciatingly slow rate. Scully felt the stretch as it struggled to accommodate his girth, and her mouth watered at the thought of riding him until she was spent and sore. With a grunt and a thrust Mulder was completely sheathed inside her and Scully felt her pussy flutter and tingle at just the feel of him inside her.

Without much leverage, Mulder rolled his hips in circles, adding a pulsating motion to fuck her without ever leaving Scully’s body. The movement felt delicious, and the feel of Mulder’s stubble against her neck as he moaned “Oh, God Scully” was enough to tip her over the edge. Scully’s back awkwardly arched against the wall, her moan and cries of ecstasy leaving no doubt as to what she was experiencing. 

Mulder was in awe as he felt her convulse around his cock, moisture gathering between them, and the unmistakable quivers driving him wild. 

Mulder wasn’t anywhere near ready to cum himself, but he felt a sense of satiation by proxy as he continued to rock into her body, gently bringing her back from the edge. 

The loud trill of a cell phone brought them both back to reality and Mulder quickly removed himself from Scully and straightened up, their hearts pounding at prospect of getting caught. The ring continued and Scully realized it was coming from her purse, the neurons once again firing in her brain, battling adrenaline and her post orgasmic haze. 

Answering the phone with a professional, “Dana Scully,” her voice did not betray any of the lewd activities that had just taken place, and Mulder marveled at her ability to compartmentalize so quickly.

“Hi Derek, I can’t really hear you I’m in the parking structure. I’ll see you outside in 10.” 

As Scully hung up the phone and was greeted by Mulder’s heart sick face. 

“You’re still going to go out with him?”

“Well I can’t cancel this late, it would be rude.”

Mulder gave a snort of derision as he straightened his pants and licking his lips to remove some of Scully’s lipstick that had made its way onto his lips. He was pouting, and while Scully would normally find it infuriating, he looked adorable all ruffled with feint traces of lipstick still on him. 

“Mulder, would you like to join with us? We’re just getting drinks around the corner.”

“Really?” Mulder asked, excited as a kid on Christmas. 

“Of course, let me just straighten up in the bathroom first and we can go.” 

They quickly walked down  the stairwell to the lobby exit, but Mulder pulled Scully back before she could open the door. 

Looking up at him with a questioning stare, Mulder bashfully smiled at her. 

“I need a hug before we face the outside world,” Mulder admitted with a vulnerability that melted Scully. 

Without hesitation Scully tightly wrapped her arms around Mulder, her body melding perfectly into his.

With a quick kiss to her head Mulder broke the hug, “come on, let’s make ourselves look presentable, we have a date.”

[aziraphales-library]

Hello!

I cannot thank you enough for everything you do for the fandom. It’s so incredibly kind and amazing and cool of you to do this :) I know that this might be a bit specific, but I’d still like to ask if you could recommend any fics where Aziraphale has either been hurt or has gone through something traumatizing but he hasn’t told Crowley about it, because he thinks that it doesn’t matter, but eventually Crowley finds out and comforts him. (Like in not alone by Lalaland666) it would be awesome if it could also not be a AU, but it can be.

Thank you so so so so much, I hope that you have a wonderful day :D

Hi! Here are some fics in which Aziraphale is struggling, Crowley finds out why and comforts him. Mind the tags and warnings on a few of these!...

A Shadow In The Light by VinnieTheDuck (T)

While having a nice walk in Saint James Park, then having quite the homophobic encounter, Crowley says something during it that accidentally triggers Aziraphale.

let your guard down, for me by ineffableserpent (T)

Aziraphale has never fully calmed down, per say. He’d been able to reign himself in back to a state of functioning, trying to busy himself with other tasks to avoid spiraling once more. Crowley, the angel had discovered, was an immense source of comfort. … He didn’t wish for the demon to find out about his anxiety, as much as Aziraphale oh so desperately wanted to confide in him. But that would lead to Crowley becoming upset, and inevitably, upset with Heaven — considering that Upstairs has almost always been the source of the angel’s anxious responses. Aziraphale has always been able to keep a brave face — to appear as the guardian he was made to be. No matter how many nights he spent alone and gasping for air, begging for his body to cooperate, he always made it out in the end. Until tonight, that is.

Father of War by AraniWrites (T)

There were three things Crowley could depend on every day with complete certainty. One, that Aziraphale loved him utterly and completely, just as much as he loved him in turn. Two, that he could consistently count on the angel to be present within their shared flat above the old bookshop, engrossed in his books for days and weeks at a time, only broken by Crowley’s presence. Three, that they had agreed not to lie to one another again, and both had upheld their agreement faithfully. He had never had reason to doubt these three truths. That is, until today.

The Penitent Man by charliebrown1234 (M)

"I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers; ... I am only the more convinced that there is a depth of terrible endurance in which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom... I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body; and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore the more I denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay." - Charles Dickens on Solitary Confinement at Eastern State Penitentiary, 1842 Aziraphale and Crowley become trapped in an elevator post-Apocalypse, which brings back bad memories for Aziraphale. The resulting flashback is debilitating, and Crowley helps to walk Aziraphale through it.

useless, helpless, hopeless (safe) by Anonymous (M)

Crowley picked a bad day to drop by the shop. Gabriel had already gone, thank goodness, but the bruises on Aziraphale’s face most certainly had not, and the truth came out. Gabriel was raping Aziraphale, and there was absolutely nothing that Crowley could do about it.

What I Am by Anonymous (E)

Aziraphale knows what he is, in Heaven. He’s dirty, and tainted, and easy. He’s good for working off stress. He’s a lower angel, a demoted Cherub banished to Earth and forbidden from saying no. He’s Gabriel’s favourite, though he doesn’t understand why. He knows all too well what he is. But it doesn’t matter. Because Heaven is good, and all that they do must be good in return. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how much he hates it. Heaven cannot possibly be wrong. Right?

And the one you mentioned...

(Not) Alone by lalaland666 (T)

Aziraphale had lost track of the days quite some time ago. He’d been counting the seconds in his head, before. Heaven was always bright, always lit by perpetual sunlight, and the Room was brighter than the rest of Heaven, too, so it made it quite difficult to keep track of… of… Aziraphale had lost track of the days quite some time ago. Aziraphale is punished by being put in solitary confinement. Eventually, Crowley finds out.

- Mod D

[kangseulgithegreat]

coffee shop (nishimura riki x reader)

enhypen niki x reader genre: fluff, strangers au warnings: so very extremely cringy a/n: omg this is my first fic here, and its just an intro/filler. so pls excuse my terrible writing skills. hope you like it anywayssss. I'm so excited for my tumblr journeyyyy wc: 822 words

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

I walk into the sad coffee shop, exhausted because of back-to-back classes. gosh, how I wish I could just return to my dorm after class. but no, I had to work at this shitty coffee shop with my shitty manager and shitty customers. I was a mere 20 years of age, in my third year at university, and after 2 years of relying on my parents' money, I decided it was time to lock in and make my own money. after a whole 2 months of searching for jobs, I found an opening for a barista at the neighbourhood coffee shop. so without thinking further, I took the job. that was probably the worst decision of my life. the only people who walked into this coffee shop were retired 60+ year-olds, who were grumpy and hated their life. my manager was the most uptight woman I had ever met, but honestly, I can't blame her. serving grumpy senior citizens every day really alters your brain functioning.

i continued taking orders and making coffees, when suddenly, a miracle walked through the door. he was not like the usual customers, no, he was a young man who looked my age and had the features of a Greek god. as he walked through the door, his hair flew back in slo-mo, and it felt like a scene from a nickelodeon romcom.

i must have been staring at him for too long because the snappy woman in front of me slammed the counter and cleared her throat obnoxiously. startled, I quickly turned my attention back to the woman in front of me. "sorry, ma'am. what was your order again?" I said, trying to regain my composure. "i said i wanted a decaf americano with a splash of almond milk," she repeated slowly, as if talking to a child. as I handed the woman her drink and change, I snuck another glance at the mystery man. he was walking towards me. i quickly adjusted my posture. the man's smile was warm and genuine, a stark contrast to the usual grumpy faces I dealt with every day.

"hello there! what would you like today?" I asked, sounding a bit too excited. gosh, I hope he didn't notice. "hi, I'm new here, so I don't really know what to order. could you please suggest something?" he asked, a voice as sweet as honey. "oh, I really like the caramel macchiato, and it's one of my favorite drinks to make. would you like to try that?" I asked. "I would love that" he smiled. that smile made me want to run into a wall at 100 mph. i nodded, trying to keep my hands steady as I punched in his order. "coming right up. your name, please?".

"riki", he said. his name was as pretty as his face. as I worked on his coffee, i stole glances at him. he seemed relaxed, leaning against the counter and looking around the coffee shop with mild curiosity. I couldn't help but wonder what had brought him here. "so, do you work here often?" he asked, breaking the silence. "uh, yeah," I replied, cursing myself for sounding so awkward. "pretty much every day after classes." "that sounds tough. nice to meet you, by the way."

"nice to meet you, riki. i'm [Y/N]." "hi, [Y/N]. do you go to the university nearby?" "yeah, I do. I'm in my third year." "same here! what are you studying?" "psychology. you?" "music," he said. "i haven't really explored this side of the neighbourhood before, so I thought I could do that today in my free time". i handed him his coffee, our fingers brushing for a brief moment. the contact sent a small jolt of electricity up my arm, and I quickly pulled my hand back, hoping he hadn’t noticed. "exploring the neighbourhood? well, you picked the right place to start," I said sarcastically, glancing around the almost empty coffee shop. riki laughed. "yeah, I guess I did. it's not every day you meet someone as pretty as you" he said with a cheeky grin.

if it wasn't for him standing in front of me, I would have passed out. "thanks. i hope the coffee is good". "it's perfect."

just then, my manager stormed out from the back, her eyes zeroing in on me. "[Y/N]! stop flirting with the customers and get back to work!". I flinched at her sharp tone, giving riki an apologetic smile. "sorry about that. duty calls." he nodded understandingly, but before he left, he pulled out his phone. he looked a little nervous, and that made him look so so so so cute. "maybe we could grab coffee somewhere else sometime? here’s my number." he handed me a small slip of paper with his number scribbled on it. I tucked it into my pocket, feeling a mix of excitement and nervousness. "i’d like that."

maybe this job wasn’t so bad after all.

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

[just-jordie-things]

spiderman fan anon here again who yapped abt how i think ur spideygumi fic is the literal greatest spidey au of all time.. sry i hope ur not tired of hearing abt it but i just reread the fic (again) and i cant stop thinking abt what mc and megumis development would be like from here… megumi is definitely not the typical peter-parker-type with his sense of justice (as one of his figures’ packaging hilariously summarizes “i save people unequally”) which has SOO much potential for a Good fucking hero story AND new relationship dynamic. like maybe megumi tries to become kind of a more “moral” hero on his own, but shit happens, maybe the govt or police are too corrupt and he realizes he can only trust himself to bring justice to the city, a more batman-like mentality. would mc have a problem with his morality and pull away? would she agree with it and help him as a journalist? would she disagree and give him the With great power Comes great responsibility spiel, leading to him growing into a more “true” spiderman-like hero? Idfk i do not write at all but i cant turn off my comics-loving brain with all this potential!!! i also dont mean to push u to write any of this but i had to talk abt it before i Exploded

the way i wanna make this fic a 5 movie franchise now becuz OMG THE AVENUES THIS OPENS UPPP

i am a marvel girl (sorry battinson baby even u aren't my fav) so i see spiderman!gumi having a deadpool mentality but without the mouth lolol

ok here's some very small thoughts i have about what a continuation in the story would've looked like:

he tries to find a mix between the public eyes' idea of the right thing and his version of the right thing but... dammit some people just gotta suffer a bit don't they?

he sees someone get a lil too harsh with a dog and he can't just give em a lil scare. next thing he knows they're beaten beyond recognition and webbed up to a wall for the police to deal with. fuck that guy, who hurts dogs??

when the news starts to call him things like menace and people start to wonder if he's not the altruistic hero they thought he was, megumi tries to balance between the different schools of thought of justice. he has you by his side, supporting him and wishing him all the best with being the best he can be...

so when some perp he's apprehending starts spouting off some real nasty shit, megumi tries to tell himself that prison will bring him to justice. over and over in his head he tells himself that he has to let some things go...

but damnit this bigoted asshole won't shut up and megumi just doesn't see how society could possibly function with pieces of shit like this roaming around. and no, when the guy's body goes limp after a swift ninety-degree head-spinning snap to the neck, megumi doesn't feel any regret. only relief that there's one less bastard in his city.

as for you, you've always trusted in spiderman. so you're learning to place your trust in megumi, too. you hate the rare occasion when he visits you bloodied and bruised, but you hate the idea of a city without spiderman's protection even more. you've been a fan of spiderman since the first day you'd heard of the sightings. a ride or die doesn't walk away just because things are getting a little nastier out there.

a career in journalism will prove to be difficult. the truth about megumi's double life is a secret that you both understand must stay contained no matter the price. you probably bounce around a few firms, trying to find just the right place to land where you can write the truth without revealing too much. however most outlets just want to report on the crimes spiderman himself has committed, and you struggle with badmouthing your hero (and your boyfriend)

i like to think megumi laughs at the papers trying to paint him as a villain. it doesn't stress him out, it's nothing to him really. just a source of entertainment for him to read to you over dinner. between the two of you, you handle the ugly headlines far worse. but megumi likes to rile you up by reading all the worst ones to you, just to make you fuss over it all. some nights it's like you're rivals again- megumi taunting you with the latest edition of the spider-menace storytelling, chuckling when you start to crinkle your brows and spout off about how some writers are uneducated phonies or how they're ungrateful for what he's done. you never fail to go on a long winded rant followed by some chugged down water. and as always, megumi will just smirk and shake his head as he throws away said latest edition.

___

i lost wind here but i would love to hear if anyone has other thoughts too!!

[itsclydebitches]

Title: Paved With Good Intentions

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Relationships: Very background Charlie/Vaggie. 99% Charlie and Alastor interactions (with added Razzle and Dazzle)

Word Count: 3,863

Summary:

“Why... hmm. Okay, real quick: what’s an old-timey way of saying someone is full of shit?”

Charlie blinked up at him innocently, probably overdoing it a tad, but after a week of hearing him disparage her dreams as “wacky nonsense” she couldn’t bring herself to care. Not too much, anyway.

“Why, I’d say the sod is full of hot air! A far classier image than the one you’ve just conjured.”

“Then you’re full of hot air, Alastor.” Charlie grinned.

Or: Charlie wants everyone to know that she didn't invite the Radio Demon into her home without precautions.

A/N: First Hazbin fic! Jfc Alastor may be one of the hardest characters I've ever written for. Nailing his voice is gonna take a while.

Fic also below the cut if you prefer to read here 👍

Many in Hell (okay, most in Hell) were under the impression that their Princess was a delusional simpleton, unable to understand something as straightforward as how her own domain worked. Her little interview hadn't helped matters, even if it did reassure them that she could at least throw a decent punch. Really, Charlie only cared about her reputation in as much as it might attract new patrons to the hotel. She didn't need her people to love her, she just needed them to be safe .

(She'd said that to Vaggie once who promptly broke into a choking laugh. “Charlie. You need everyone to love you. All the time . You're just lucky you're really fucking good at it.”)

If strangers cursed her out on the street, that was fine. If her first soon-to-be-redeemed soul thought this was a hilarious fuck-up with only free board making it palatable, that was also fine. If her own father laughed awkwardly at the mere idea of her success that was fine because Charlie could see the good underneath their caustic words; the fear and vulnerability buried beneath their dismissal. Criticism rolled off her back like magma on a fire-duck and if shouldering the disdain of her community was the price of seeing them saved, Charlie would gladly pay it.

...Although, she did wish her closest companions had a little more faith in her. Not about the hotel necessarily, but just that she had a functioning brain she put to use.

“Your... goats?” Alastor said, tipping his head to narrow eyes at them.

“Goat-dragons,” Charlie corrected, not sparing him a glance. “Mom made them when I was younger, to act as my bodyguards when she and Dad weren't around. You would not beeeliiieve how many assassination attempts there were when I was a kid. Dad even dyed my hair once to try and give me a low profile and that was—well! You don't need to see those pictures. The point is that I didn't just let you in all willy-nilly, heedless of my own safety, or whatever it is Vaggie's been saying. If you'd meant any real harm they would have torn you to shreds.”

Charlie was in the process of re-styling the seating area for a slumber party that night. Which throw pillow better conveyed emotional safety to share one's most intimate secrets past 3:00am? Blue or yellow? Pursing her lips, she bounced from foot-to-foot a couple times before chucking both against the growing mound. After a good fluffing she nodded. Both. Both was good.

When she turned, Alastor was staring.

He'd only been at the hotel about a week but Charlie had noticed that he did that a lot. It wasn't just the fixed smile that lent weight to his gaze; he didn't blink . Leaning against Husk's bar with that microphone tucked under one arm, Alastor looked so at ease that Charlie knew it was all an act—the real Alastor, tentacled and laughing maniacally, simmered just beneath the surface. She'd have felt threatened by it if not for the fact that, well, Razzle and Dazzle were here.

Charlie shot them a quick smile. They'd piled on the carpet together, a mess of limbs and horns. Snores and the occasional 'meep' emerged to fill the silence.

“Well now, stop the presses! Our little lady is just full of surprises.” Alastor's grin stretched even further, seeming to creak along its edge. His hands connected in a shattering clap. “We haven't known each other very long, my dear, so I'm sure this is just a misunderstanding—entirely forgivable, I assure you—but I thought you just implied that these lazy, miniature vermin are capable of besting me?”

“ Don't talk about them like that! ”

The words snapped out of Charlie before she could consider reigning them in. She even saw a little smoke wafting upwards, a sure sign that if she let those emotions stew any longer her true form would burst through. Fucking hell, Charlie, you're giving orders to the Radio Demon now? Oh Lord. It was never good when her thoughts starting sounding like Vaggie, but Charlie stifled a groan as she admitted that yeah, that probably wasn’t selling the whole 'Capable of handling tough situations without needlessly endangering herself' vibe she was going for.

Alastor just smiled though. It was hard to tell, but Charlie thought he might have been pleased with her temper. There was something in the way he leaned forward onto the tip of his staff; off balance to start a fight, but magnetically drawn into the fray. “Easy now, darling! I never took to baloney as a child—horrific excuse for a meat, truly—but I can recognize it when I hear it. So you care for these... creatures? Well off course you do! A sweet, silly thing like you is bound to get attached to all manner of beings. The delightful,” he dropped into a sweeping bow, “—and the drab.” Alastor's staff kicked outward at the end of the gesture, landing on Dazzle's back leg. The goat-dragon gave a sleepy grunt at the disturbance but otherwise didn't stir.

Really, Alastor had hardly touched him, but Charlie still felt the tip of one fang digging painfully into her bottom lip. She took a deep, fortifying breath to cleanse herself of negativity. She was just stressed about the new Extermination timeline. And the sleepover. And the fact that the Radio Demon was now living down the hall. Just the other day she’d chastised Angel for a barrage of angry texts he’d sent without thinking and now here Charlie was, nearly flying off the handle for similarly petty reasons. Razzle and Dazzle were fine. She was fine, and her people were going to be fine if she had anything to fucking say about it. Charlie summoned up a smile to match Alastor’s own.

“You’re right,” she said. “An Overlord like you didn’t exist back when Mom made them, so she couldn’t have foreseen how powerful you are. I mean yeah, you’d probably win... even if there are two of them. But!” Charlie hastened to add, waving her hands as Alastor’s head cracked sickeningly to the right, “The point is that these hypotheticals are silly. Why do you care so much about who’d win in a fight? You’re never going to fight them. You don’t want to hurt me.”

Alastor’s head, still staring at her from its unnatural angle, began to vibrate oddly while the chest beneath it hitched. It took Charlie a long moment to realize that he was laughing. Not his usual, staccato Ha, Ha, Ha , but something that felt more genuine, despite the fact that no body—not even a demon’s—should be moving like that.

“Ah, what an entertaining bunny you are,” he said, a slight wheeze mixing in with the radio static. “Charlie dearest, have you forgotten that I was a serial killer? Am currently a hunter of Overlords? A keeper of souls? Are you truly under the misguided belief that I wouldn’t hurt you?”

It was terrifying how fast he didn’t move. Charlie watched as Alastor took his time lengthening each limb—spine cracking, joints tearing until they were only held together by sickly, glowing threads—and the tentacles he summoned were lazy as a house cat, inching towards her like they knew it didn’t matter how fast she ran. They’d catch her. The static grew to a high-pitched whine that hurt her ears and the very reality around Alastor began to distort, glitching horribly. One elongated limb reached out with claws glinting in the newly darkened foyer, fingers twitching, itching to rip out her throat.

Charlie blinked. She pursed her lips, gesturing emphatically to Razzle and Dazzle who still lay snoring on the carpet. “Are you listening to me? They’d have ripped you to shreds if you meant any real harm .”

She could see the exact moment Alastor gave up the performance. He froze, the very air particles freezing with him, and a pin-print of light sprang back into his eyes.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s not—you can’t—” With a frustrated groan Charlie pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “It’d be easier to show you.”

She trotted through the bits of distorted reality (shivering because ugh ) and ducked under the long line of Alastor’s leg. His eyes tracked her as Charlie scooped a goat-dragon into each arm and nudged the hotel door open with her hip. Once outside, she slapped a drowsy Razzle onto her shoulder and cupped a hand over her mouth.

“Hello there!” she called to a passing demon.

“Who the fuck you yelling at? I’ll kill you, bitch!”

“Will you?” Charlie’s gaze slid to Alastor, now back in his everyday form, curiously peeking out from the doorway. “You know what? That sounds great! Really swell! Please come and kill me.”

The demon stopped in his tracks, staring incredulously up the hill at her fidgety form. “What? Fucking what ? You have a death wish?”

“Yes! Absolutely. Will you come kill me pretty, pretty please? Uh... you ugly, short-sighted asshole? Sorry, sorry sorry ,” Charlie muttered into Razzle’s fur.

“Oh, you’re a whole new level of crazy—”

The demon was adjusting his glasses with one claw and pulling out a clever with the other when Charlie felt Alastor’s energy at her back. She didn’t need to turn around again. The horror that descended on the demon’s face and his hasty exit said it all.

Razzle and Dazzle were now alert, tails thumbing, but neither made a move to go after the guy. Charlie released the breath she’d been holding and promised to write at least five Kindness Notes to leave around town tomorrow.

When she did finally look Alastor was twiddling his fingers at the demon’s retreating form. His eyes, however, were still latched onto Charlie.

“What an interesting way you have of entertaining yourself, my dear. I whole-heartedly approve! Let me take you out on the town—Cannibal Town, that is. You can offer your limbs to the first ravenous child we meet.”

Charlie cracked a smiled. “Uh... maybe later? I didn’t just do that for kicks, you know. The point is we’re living in Hell .” She ignored the way his eye twitched at the obvious statement. “Alastor, how many times a day do you think people threaten to kill me? Pull weapons? Or yes, try to eat me? If Razzle and Dazzle attacked everyone who simply appeared threatening I never would have opened the hotel because there wouldn't be anyone left to save. That guy? All bluster. I’m not sure how Mom did it, but they’re capable of sensing true intentions. They’ll only transform for someone with a real, sustained desire to kill me—or, I guess discorporate me—and the rest? The rest I can handle myself.”

“Hmm.”

Alastor bent forward, inspecting Dazzle closely. The goat-dragon panted happily in his face. “Fascinating! Powerful too, though I’d expect nothing less from the likes of Lilith. I must say, the confidence you hold in your own abilities is simply inspiring given what I’ve seen from you so far.”

Charlie blinked, trying to decide if she’d just been insulted or not.

“You remain delusional, darling,” he clarified, patting her head. Alastor’s grin widened at her scowl and he only pulled back when Razzle gave his fingers a quick lick, his static hissing like a cat. Charlie had the strong urge to chuck them both at the demon and let him suffer the fate of endless cuddles and sticky kisses.

She didn’t though. She was merciful.

“That’s why though,” Charlie said, shrugging so that Razzle had to dig his claws into her shoulder to stay balanced. Ow.

“Why what?”

Alastor had clearly lost the train of their conversation—or was pretending to—inspecting his own claws with the air of a bored Valley Girl.

“Why... hmm. Okay, real quick: what’s an old-timey way of saying someone is full of shit?”

Charlie blinked up at him innocently, probably overdoing it a tad, but after a week of hearing him disparage her dreams as “wacky nonsense” she couldn’t bring herself to care. Not too much, anyway.

Alastor’s eyes narrowed. Definitely suspicious, though not enough to deny her.

“Why, I’d say the sod is full of hot air! A far classier image than the one you’ve just conjured.”

“Then you’re full of hot air, Alastor.” Charlie grinned. “This whole shtick you’ve got going where you pretend like you’re just one insult away from killing us all; the super evil Overlord who could go on a rampage at the slightest whim? Yeah, I get why Vaggie is concerned, but that’s not gonna work on me.” She ran her hand gently through Dazzle’s hair, eliciting a purr. “You can toss out threats and transform all you want, but if you’d ever actually intended to hurt me, even just once... they’d have reacted. They’d have defended me, whether they could win against you or not. I didn’t let you stay because I was desperate for your help—although, ha, I kinda am. I let you stay because I trust you.”

The last was delivered softly and Charlie dared to lay a hand on his arm, oh so briefly. Alastor didn’t react. He appeared to be seeing something past her, the dials of his eyes ticking erratically.

The spell was broken when Razzle let out an explosive sneeze.

“Oh shit that reminds me! I need to pick up some almond butter for Sir Pentious. Apparently his human body was allergic to peanuts and he’s still pretty sensitive about it? And Angel made me swear I’d have peanut butter on hand for the s’mores if he was going to participate in the sleepover. I need to hit the shops before they close—can you get the other supplies ready while I’m gone? Thanks, Alastor, you’re a lifesaver!”

Charlie pelted down the hill with Razzle and Dazzle flying around her heels, both of them yipping at the prospect of a walk.

Alastor remained standing there for a long time after she’d gone. At a glance he looked the same as he always did, though if anyone had gotten close enough they would have caught the sound of a radio continually switching stations.

There appeared to be no connection between the clips. Except, perhaps, that each voice spoke in a tone of furious confusion.

***

The smell of popcorn and cheap booze was sickening.

Alastor’s grin never faltered—obviously—but there were small tears in the couch armrest that spoke of his disgust. In all his years alive and dead he’d never had the pleasure of attending a ‘slumber party’ before and the newfound honor was proving to be a dubious one. Sticky sweets, snacks, and spirits covered every available surface, thrown into truly unholy combinations as Husker passed his (admittedly substantial) limit. If they all hadn’t already been damned, Alastor suspected that making caramel popcorn whiskey floats would have done the trick. The other guests were decked out in their finest nightwear, resulting in them witnessing more of Angel than Alastor had ever wanted to see. Their sanguine Princess had led them through insipid card games, a pillow fight—which did not, apparently, allow for weapons or demonic beasts. Mores the pity—and worst of all: a production shown through that horrible picture box. If they craved entertainment he might have offered her the use of his radio, but...

Well.

In truth, nothing that had occurred here tonight had truly tested Alastor’s patience. If anything, this was merely a distilled version of their collective sins; hardly surprising. He had merely been...out of sorts since their little spat that afternoon. Though it was nothing Alastor couldn’t handle, of course.

(A block away six of Hell’s dictation speakers suddenly crackled to life, causing everyone in the vicinity to freeze, warily lifting their heads. Rather than the usual draconian drivel, however, a sustained, static-y growl began to sound.)

“They’re called Kindness Notes,” Charlie was saying, displaying her stack of colored paper like a trophy. “I got the idea from this awesome human website called Reddit that must just be filled with puppies and rainbows and—”

(”Think we should tell her?” whispered Cherri.

“Yeah, but only after she’s made a bunch,” Angel snickered.)

“—and so it’s the PERFECT activity for a redemption sleepover! Remember: there is no wrong way to go about a creative project, so have fun with it! I’ve got glitter gel pens and stickers—those are scratch and sniff!—and decorative hole punches and more stickers and ribbons and—”

“Stickers?” Husk asked, tipping his glass her way. Charlie nodded with the speed of a bobble-head doll.

“Exactly! Does anyone have any questions?”

“Yeah, I’ve got one.”

“Great!”

“How much sugar you had, kid?”

“Sooooo much!” and the stack would have gone flying if not for Vaggie’s quick reflexes.

“Alright, I’ll take it from here.” She dropped a quick kiss onto Charlie’s rosy cheek before distributing the paper. “You can write anything you want provided it’s nice . Like, actually nice and not your fucked up perception of nice. Don’t sign your name, but you can put a little HH at the bottom to help promote the hotel. Try not to get too many stains on these and yes, everyone has to participate.”

Vaggie stopped in front of the couch where Alastor sat, the only one still dressed and removed from the chaos of their snack-infested pillow nest. He hadn’t the slightest idea why she’d be glaring at him when she said that and he ensured the sentiment was conveyed through his grin.

“But of course!” he said, selecting red with a black pen.

“Humph. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Something nice? A truly daunting task, even for someone of his talents. After today Alastor was more convinced than ever that the Princess was the most insane of them all. Oh, it served his purposes deliciously that she should trust him, particularly with so little effort on his part, and yet it was insulting how naive she could be. Even if he’d had a conscious, Alastor was sure he’d have no qualms about upsetting the power dynamic of Hell and seizing it for himself. If this was their royalty... Hell deserved better. Someone with hunger. Someone with style. Their little bearcat was funneling her passion in all the wrong, most entertainingly stupid directions.

Alastor tilted his head as Charlie finished drawing a sunflower, Niffty flitting about as she swept up the glitter falling away. It looked... domestic .

Ah, but it would be so easy to slit her throat from this angle, spilling ‘paint’ all across the project. Or remove that pretty head from her shoulders, near instantaneously. Summon up his demon pet to crush her bones. Drop her into a void. Fill her mind with so many screams that her brain leaked out her ears in chunky rivers. Hollow her out and puppet her so convincingly that even their Dumb Dora wouldn’t recognize her. He could do it .

Beside Alastor, taking up their half of the couch, Razzle and Dazzle gazed upon the festivities with vacant expressions, tongues lolling.

One—he didn’t care to know which—turned its head and gave him a happy chirp.

(A block away the growl became an all-out screech, like a thousand souls blended together in agony.)

“I could do it,” Alastor whispered to them. He tilted his staff for good measure, ensuring the microphone pointed directly at Charlie. “I doubt your little ‘intentions’ magic is as powerful as she says. Even if it is, you beasts lack in imagination. Trust me, darlings: there are many ways to hurt someone that don’t threaten their physical safety.”

The second goat-dragon had joined in now, tilting its head curiously at Alastor. The first began thumping its tail against its companion’s face, pleased as punch, and suddenly Alastor felt a surge of genuine anger—the first in a long time.

“ She is only unharmed because I wish it ,” he hissed, “because she is more entertaining to me alive than dead!”

(The six speakers blew, showering citizens in shrapnel.)

“Alastor?”

He quickly blinked away the red light that had covered his eyes, turning his attention to Charlie.

“Apologies! Merely musing over what uplifting message I should grace the denizens of Hell with.” Alastor tapped a long claw against his chin, hamming it up. Only Vaggie was sober and de-caffeinated enough to catch on. The smile Charlie graced him with was... honest.

Violent images filled his head in response: of obliterating—or better yet—permanently stitching that smile into place. All the while those creatures sat beside him, both at perfect ease. One even edged closer.

He could do it. He would do it. The only reason Alastor hadn’t was because he didn’t want to do it yet .

But that day would come.

Dazzle sniffed the edge of Alastor’s sleeve. Razzle yawned.

Until then, their Princess was clearly in need of better protection. He’d assign a few shadows to her; sharp pieces of his silhouette who could tail the girl without notice. It would only require a bit of exertion on his part and the surveillance was worth it to ensure his favorite toy didn’t go dying before he had a chance to finish playing with her.

After all , Alastor thought, more at ease with that decision than he’d been all day, better the Devil you know.

“Do you know what you're writing?” Charlie asked, nearly having to shout over the commotion of an impromptu show-and-tell. Sugar and alcohol seemed to have loosened everyone’s dignity alongside their inhibition, because suddenly they all wanted praise for their absurd little notes. Generic messages of support were shoved under Charlie’s nose, led by Vaggie in a delightfully embarrassing display. Although, was it better or worse that Sir Pentious was equally desperate for Charlie’s approval? Angel slapped his note down on the table—complete with a diagram—and Alastor deliberately did not give it a closer look. (Husker’s spluttering was information enough, thank you.) Cherri was busy rolling hers into fuzes, muttering continuously about the message she’d send in the next turf war. Niffty had just written CLEAN in shaky letters across pages and pages and pages of notes.

All the while Charlie stared across the chaos at him. Imploring.

However could Alastor deny her?

“Oh, yes indeedy, my dear,” he said. “Patience—you’ll see it soon enough.” Alastor deliberately raised a hand, ensuring she saw, tracked, and understood when he laid in atop Razzle’s head. His hand was now large enough to crush the beast’s skull, claws poised to sink into vulnerable flesh, a dark ooze sizzling like acid that crept from a crack in his wrist, edging dangerously close.

Throughout it all, Razzle purred.

***

The next morning Charlie woke to find a red note taped to her bed, delivered by shadows. Dazzle was the first to find and drop it into his mistress’ lap, producing happy yips as he caught her expression.

“We’ll win him over,” Charlie said, grinning as she re-pinned the note to her mirror.

Alastor had given her just one word of encouragement, accompanied by a sketch of two dead goat-dragons:

SMILE

[huoyd]

Give it a Try - A Wakko's Wish Yax Fic

Summary: It had been a year since the Wishing Star incident and Yakko is about to be presented as the future king of Warnerstock to all the surrounding kingdoms. It's a little anxiety inducing to say the least. At least a kind stranger is around to give a bit of a pep talk, right? Ao3 Link: [ link ] Pairings: Max Goof / Yakko Warner Words: 3010 A/N: My gift for @fablivious1 for the 2024 @animaniacssecretsanta ! Hope you all enjoy this little Wakko's Wish yax piece with some mild angst uwu [ commissions ]

It had been a year since the Wishing Star incident. A year since King Salazar had been taken down. A year since Dot had begun her road to recovery. A year since the Warner's had found out that they were the lost princes and princess of Warnerstock.

A kindly servant had gotten them out of the castle by request of their parents just before Salazar had done away with them. The servant took them into a small town and left the three young royals on the doors of an orphanage.

But now they were home, returning both the castle and Warnerstock itself to its former glory. Or, at least, they want to. There were a few things standing in their way, but one of those would be done away with today. One of them would officially be presented as the crown Prince.

Much to Wakko and Dot's annoyance, it would be Yakko.

"Why do you get to have a fancy party and a big celebration? You're not even king yet!"

Yakko smiles and rolls his eyes playfully. "No, Dot, but I will be king, and this is a way to show the people that. Or at least that's what I've been told. Honestly, I don't think the author entirely knows how royal families function, but eh, this is a made up kingdom anyway so who cares, right? It's a party! And you and Wakko will get just as much attention as I will."

Hopefully, or else he'd probably have to hear about it.

It's not like they all hadn't been introduced to the kingdom when they were found; they had been shown off to all of the townspeople and more, but now they were getting other kingdoms involved. Lots of other kingdoms, apparently.

Salazar, in his reign, had cut off trading to all other kingdoms and they were eager to set up relations with Warnerstock like they had once had. Which means that Yakko actually has to put some effort into this. 

He looks to his siblings, his smile just the slightest bit strained now, though they couldn’t tell. “Now, why don’t you two go get ready, and I’ll come get you when I’m done, okay?” He tells them. “You don’t want to be late.” 

Wakko blows a raspberry, and Dot lets out a huff, crossing her arms. 

“Fine. I guess my fur could be a little shinier. But only a little! C’mon, Wakko.” She says, leading him from the room. 

Wakko only takes a moment to look back at his older brother, before the door is shutting behind them and Yakko’s smile is dropping. 

He turns to the mirror and lets out a long breath as he looks in the reflection. 

A crowning ceremony. That’s what the presentation is. A ceremony to introduce him to all the other kingdoms who cared to show up, to tell them that Yakko would be charged with fixing up the mess left to him by his predecessor. 

He won’t lie. The past year or so has been a bit of a dream. They were off the streets, in a warm, cozy castle that they have mostly to themselves and a few other people. They were well fed, even without taxing the shirt and shoes off of their subjects, and most importantly, they were together. 

But now, as Brain has told him, this is where it’ll start getting… harder. 

He won’t be fully in charge; no the council had ruled against it after finding out that he’d only been fourteen and untrained. 

Now at fifteen he will officially be ruled the crown prince of Warnerstock, and his formal training would begin. 

And this is what he has to give them. A scrawny, lanky, teenaged ruler. Not officially until he’s eighteen, but still. He’d be acting king under advisement. He’d essentially be in charge. Making decisions. Making people’s lives worse or better. Hopefully better, but who really knows. Maybe he’ll be a worse ruler than Salazar. 

He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he reopens them, it’s still the same face staring back at him. So close to his fathers, but not quite. 

“Not much of a king, are you?” He asks the reflection, his words quiet and just slightly dejected. 

There’s a knock at his door, and he watches as his reflection jumps in front of him. “We’re here to help you get ready, your highness.” He hears a voice call out.

After another breath, preparing himself for what comes next, he turns. A fake smile graces his face as he calls back, “Why, I thought you’d never come.” 

The faux bravado he had with his dressing maids is long gone by the time Yakko gets to the ceremony. 

So far gone, in fact, that he had left. He’d taken a look at all the people standing in the ballroom, all of them there to watch him, and had bolted out the side door. He’d heard Dot and Wakko shout after him, even heard Brain and his presenter call out, but he hadn’t stopped, and he has yet to go back. 

He’s not sure how long he’s been gone, but it’s at least 15 minutes of panicked breathing and attempts to calm himself before someone comes across him. 

“Hey, um, are you okay?” 

Yakko jumps as he hears the voice, his head shooting up, his eyes wide, only to come across a boy his age, maybe a few years older. 

He’s a handsome dog, dressed nicely, in reds and golds and with a pair of adorably dorky buck teeth. But that’s not the important part. He’s clearly one of the guests for the ceremony, and he’s caught Yakko in the middle of his panic attack. 

He takes in another breath, reaching up to brush the tears away from his face. 

“I um- Y-yeah, I’m fine-” He tells him. “What um- what are you doing back here?” His tone turns just the slightest bit accusatory. He hadn’t thought anyone else would come this way. 

The boy shrugs, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “Probably about the same thing you’re doing.” He tells him. “There’s a lot of people out there. It can get a bit overwhelming. I just needed a minute of silence, you know?” 

Yakko turns his face away, shrugging. Clearly the dog doesn't know who he is. Which makes sense. No one should really know what the Warner’s look like yet save for their own people. And who knows how far away this boy is from.

“Um, yeah, same, pretty much.” Yakko nods, and before he can stop it, his mouth keeps going. “Like, I get it, this is important, but did there have to be so many people?” All of them expect him to do something great, or fail miraculously, he’s sure. 

“Yeah, I feel you there. And they’re all so old and boring. I thought I’d never find another kid my age.” The boy walks over, sitting next to Yakko. “My dad made me go, said it would be good to get out there and meet people from other kingdoms, but I’d be a lot happier at home practicing sword fighting or something.” He shrugs, and then leans back a bit so he could look down at Yakko better. “I’m Max, by the way.” 

Yakko looks up at Max, pausing for a moment, then looking down at the hand Max had outstretched. It takes him another moment to reach out and shake it. 

“Yakko.” 

“Yakko, that’s a funny name. No offence. Mine is Maximillian, so clearly I have no room to judge.” There’s no recognition on Max’s face as Yakko gives his name, and Yakko supposes that’s a good thing. There’s no need for this relative stranger from god knows what kingdom to know that he’d just found the future king of this kingdom crying and snivelling in a back hallway like a baby. 

He shakes the thought from his head as Max starts speaking again. 

“But also, please forget that I told you my name is Maximillian so that I can pretend to be cool for like, 10 more minutes.” 

Despite the tension in Yakko’s body, and the continued anxiety that clings to his insides, he manages to laugh at that. A hand lifts up to his mouth to hide the sound behind it, almost surprised at it himself. 

It only seems to make Max smile more. 

“Alright, you’re laughing instead of calling me a loser, I’ll take that as a win.” He comments, which only has Yakko’s laughter continuing for another moment. 

“If that’s a win for you I’d hate to see a loss.” Yakko comments, his dry humour coming out just a bit as he speaks to the other teen.

Max laughs back, matching Yakko’s dry tone. “Hah, you don’t know who you’re talking to. If you thought the name Maximilian was bad, pair it with the last name Goof. I’m kind of known for goofing things up. Not as bad as my dad, but the point stands.”

Yakko laughs a little more at the name, a little more lively than the last time. 

“That’s pretty unfortunate. Are you sure your dad actually loves you?” He hopes that doesn’t come across as too low-bar for Max, but Yakko is pretty sure he gets his humor already, and he’s right when Max lets out a laugh. 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he loves me. More than pretty sure, actually. He just has some pretty weird naming conventions.” Max lets out another little laugh before leaning back, his eyes moving towards the hall leading back to the party. “Pretty sure he loves me more than anything in the world, actually. Which means it sucks all the more every time I mess up.” 

Yakko’s smile slips off his face as he raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?” He asks, and Max waves him off. 

“Nah, I don’t need to get into it, it’s kind of a bummer.” He tells him, and Yakko shrugs, offering a smaller smile. 

“Try me, I’m a good listener.” 

Max raises an eyebrow at him, offering his own lopsided grin. “Are you, Yak-ko?” He asks, and when Yakko only shrugs his shoulders the other boy lets out a sigh. “Alright, you asked for it. So, you see, despite being, well, a goof, my dad is this crazy respected knight, right? He went from being a castle cleaner, to a knight, and then to the King’s right hand man because he helped save the princess and also was the King’s best friend before he married the princess, so it’s like a big deal. And now I’m training to be a knight, and it’s like, this whole thing of being able to live up to my dad and everything he’s done. And it’s just… a lot of pressure some days.” Max is leaning heavily against the wall, staring ahead as he speaks. Clearly this weighs a lot on him, and Yakko can definitely relate. 

He’d run away from all of his pressure tonight. 

“That sounds like you have a lot weighing on your shoulders.” Yakko replies, looking back over to Max who lets out another sigh. 

“Yeah, it is, but what else can I do besides try? My dad wants me to do it, I want to do it, so I figure I’ll either do it, or I won’t, but I’ll never know if I can if I don’t at least try, you know?” 

Yakko looks towards the hall he’d come from, a small lump forming in his throat at Max’s words. 

“Yeah… You’ll never know if you don’t try…” 

“Exactly. And I have people to help me, people who won’t let me fail on my own, so what am I really worried about?” He tries to make it sound like a joke, but there’s still some underlying worry.

He stands after that, and turns back to offer a hand back to Yakko, the younger boy blushing just the slightest at the offer. “We should probably get back in there, right? I know my dad is gonna start wondering where I got off to.” 

Yakko looks at the hand, then slowly reaches up to grab it, letting Max pull him to his feet. 

“Yeah, I should probably get back too.” He nods, looking in the opposite direction of the party. “I have to go this way, but I’ll see you in there?” 

Max raises another eyebrow, looking down the hallway Yakko gestures to before looking back and nodding. “Yeah, okay, see you in there.” Max offers one more smile before he makes his way back to the ballroom. 

Yakko waits until he’s rounded a corner before turning and heading back to where his family are still waiting for him. 

As he enters the room both Wakko and Dot perk up, worried smiles on his faces. 

“Yakko!” Dot calls while Wakko nervously steps forward. 

“Are y’feelin’ any better?” He asks, and Yakko smiles at them. 

“Yeah, sibs. I’m feeling better.” Then his eyes turn towards Brain. “I’m ready now.” 

The presentation goes down without a hitch. Yakko is brought out to the front of the ballroom, all eyes on him, and he manages to not pass out, or throw up, or anything. In fact, he smiles. 

And that smile only grows a little sheepish as he sees the confused look on Max’s face as the crown is placed on Yakko’s head. 

“We present to you, oh people of this region, his highness, William Warner the Second, crowned prince and future king of Warnerstock.”

The people in the ballroom clap, and before long Yakko is whisked away to be personally introduced to everyone who had come. 

It’s well over a half hour later that Max is once again in front of him. 

“Your highness, this is Sir Maximillian of the Mouse kingdom.” His presenter introduces, not realizing that they’ve already met. 

Max plays his part despite the continued confusion on his face, bowing towards Yakko much to the other’s embarrassment. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, your highness.” He speaks the words formally, and once he’s standing upright again, Yakko waves off his presenter. 

As soon as they’re alone, Yakko smiles. 

“Sorry about that, probably a bit of a surprise, huh?” He asks, and Max thankfully drops the formalities and smiles. 

“Yeah, no kidding. I had no clue I was speaking to the future king. A little warning next time?” There’s humour in his words as he says them and Yakko can’t help but to laugh. 

“What was I supposed to say, Yeah, I’m the future king sitting all alone in a dark hallway, tell me about your dad.” 

That has Max’s smile dropping, his hand running down his head. “Oh my dad. God, I must have sounded like such an idiot going on about all that pressure back there. You’re probably like, the king of pressure. Literally.” 

Yakko laughs a bit more at that, drawing some attention from the other attendees, but he tries not to think about it. “No, it’s fine. Really. It actually helped a lot. I was feeling pretty nervous about the whole thing. Or a lot nervous, actually. So I wanted to thank you.” 

Max looks surprised at that, but nods his head after a moment. “Oh um, yeah, totally. Glad I could help with my teenage angst.” He jokes towards the end, and Yakko laughs again. 

Yakko is about to speak, when his presenter returns, his smile strained. “Your highness, I don’t mean to rush you, but we do have a good lot more people to get through tonight. We wouldn’t want to insult anyone by not getting to them, right?” 

Yakko’s ears drop a bit at the reminder, before he looks back at Max, a small smile on his face. 

“Well, that’s my cue. I’ll see you around though, right?” He asks and Max nods, if not a bit eagerly. 

“Yeah, absolutely, I’ll be here all night.” He tells him, and Yakko’s smile widens. 

“Alright, I’ll see you around then.” 

Yakko is brought away soon after, introduced to person after person throughout the entire night. It was more or less fine, some people more stuffy than others, but over all nothing egregious happened until Wakko knocked Dot into the chocolate fountain. Then all hell had broken loose, but Yakko, at the very least, had managed to catch sight of Max laughing at his sibling’s antics. 

Later that night, after the party got back on track and then slowly came to an end, Yakko finds himself laying with his two siblings in bed. Dot, now freshly clean and given up on her vow of revenge to Wakko, lays down on one side, Wakko on the other. 

“So, you’re officially one day goin’ to be king, huh Yakko? Feel any different?” He asks as he gets comfortable, and Yakko shrugs. 

“Nah, not really. Honestly, I was hoping I’d get taller, or maybe bulk up when the crown was placed on my head. Guess not, though.” 

“Definitely not.” Dot comments, poking Yakko in the arm and causing her older brothers both to laugh. 

“Alright, alright, I get it. Besides, I won’t be king for another two years, I have time to bulk up.” Yakko tells her, pushing her arm away before wrapping his own around her shoulders and pulling her in close. 

She settles quickly enough, Wakko snuggling in on his other side. 

Dot hums for a moment, before speaking again. “What’s the first thing you’re going to do? Once you’re king, I mean.” She asks, and Yakko thinks about it for a moment. 

What is he going to do? His first decree as king… 

“Well, besides, of course making it illegal for anyone to be taller than me...” Dot rolls her eyes while Wakko only snorts, and then Yakko’s smile becomes a bit more genuine as he looks up at the ceiling. 

“I think I might try to get closer to the Mouse kingdom.” 

“The Mouse kingdom?” Dot asks with surprise, and Yakko nods. 

“Yeah, I have… a good feeling about them.”

[bazzybelle]

Lend Me Your Wings - 1.7K - Teen - Lucienne/Gault

For Sandman FemSlash Weekend - Day 1: Bad Luck

Hello!

I am so excited to be participating in this FemSlash Weekend! It's been a lot of fun to put my brain into writing so many different characters!

Everyday will have a new pairing, beginning with Lucienne and Gault!

Thank you to the Mods of this wonderful event. You guys are awesome! I cannot wait to read the fics that come out of these weekend.

Did I copy this from my AO3 post? Yes... Yes I did because I am tired and I get up at 5:30. xD

You can read the story by clicking the link, or by clicking the Keep Reading bar below.

Click here for the Story on AO3

There are certain truths that are known amongst the inhabitants of the Dreaming. That one should do best to steer clear of the Houses of Mysteries and Secrets, especially if their masters are engaging in a friendly game of brotherly homicide; That the weather can suddenly shift from bright and sunny to thunderous and stormy. It is most wise to seek immediate shelter in that case, and wait out the storm as best you can. Perhaps the most important truth of them all, is that no one, absolutely no one does their job better than Lucienne, Librarian of the Dreaming, and right-hand to the Lord of Dreams. 

Lucienne, the first of the Dream Lord’s loyal Ravens, knows everything there is to know about the inner workings of the Realm of Dreams. She administers and organizes the daily tasks within the Palace, as well as keeping the Library in perfect shape. This has been her function, ever since she retired several millennia ago, and she loves it. She takes great care to ensure that everything runs perfectly and precisely; that not a single book is kept out of order, and that any and all major concerns are brought to the attention of the Dream Lord (emphasis on major ) (Mervyn’s many complaints about the quality of his broom bristles is of no concern to Lord Morpheus) (no matter how tetchy the pumpkinhead feels). 

Point is, she is good at what she does. It’s something she is very proud of. She is not one to get easily rattled by a small inconvenience. She had kept the Realm together as best as she could during Lord Morpheus’ absence. She was forced to watch, powerless, as her beloved Library disappeared, one book at a time. When those around her abandoned their posts, she stayed. She remained steadfast in her loyalty, certain that one day things would be set to rights. 

And she was right . 

She is confident and certain in her abilities. Which is why, when things don’t turn out the way she expects, she is normally able to take a deep breath, and work around said problems. She is able to make lists of tasks to be done, and fix whatever needs to be fixed. And while her Lord is tempestuous and mercurial at best , she has long earned his trust and respect. That fact makes her one of the very few who are able to question the Dream Lord on his decisions, and even advise him on matters. 

Still, there are days, and these are very few and far between, where everything seems to go wrong, and no matter  how hard she tries, there is nothing Lucienne can do to fix anything. Those are the days where her need for everything to be perfect affect her in a negative way. Those are the days where the weight of her position bears heavily on her shoulders. Whenever this happens, there is but one place where Lucienne wishes to go. 

The valleys and fields of Fiddler’s Green have always been remarkable. Lucienne can remember days where she would soar through the sky, the Green’s winds softly caressing her feathers. She can recall when the Green was created as a place for travelers to rest their weary heads. With the soft grass, and shady trees, the smell of fresh wildflowers blossoming all around, Lucienne often finds comfort here, allowing the soft breeze to embrace her. 

There is, however, another reason why Lucienne has recently enjoyed spending time amongst the rolling green glades. The reason is fluttering high above her, bright and lively, and beautiful as the first time she saw her. Her wings are different today, large and powerful, like the wings of a moth. They shift in between colors of black and indigo blue, with a white dotted pattern on them, as well as a stark white stripe. 

Lucienne smiles to herself. It seems Gault has chosen to imitate the apatura iris , or the purple emperor moth. Very curious that she’s chosen to present the wings of the male moth this time. If Gault comes down to say hello, maybe she’ll ask her. They’ve been becoming more comfortable with each other, ever since she was remade as a dream , often having discussions about her new role and the ways in which she’s been inspiring dreamers and spreading hope for a better change. 

For a moment, she allows herself to watch as Gault soars through the air, her beautiful wings catching the sunlight and reflecting different shades of bright purple and indigo blue. 

She is… remarkable. 

Not too long ago, if you were to ask Lucienne what she thought of Gault, she would state —in a rather determined way— that Gault was one of the Nightmares she trusted least. She would tell you that Gault’s very nature as a shapeshifter makes her dishonest and conniving. She would tell you to be on your toes around Gault, for you never know if what she says (or does) is coming from a place of good intentions. 

What she would not tell you, is that the basis of her distrust towards Gault comes from the uncertainty of her feelings towards the Nightmare. Lucienne, always so certain and sure of everything around her, would take one look at Gault, and be hit with a feeling she could not name. One smile on her galaxy-shifting lips would leave Lucienne without words. 

And she did not like that. 

When Lord Morpheus disappeared, prompting several denizens to leave, Lucienne didn’t stand in Gault’s way when she followed. It was in her nature after all as a Nightmare, a shapeshifter no less, to change loyalties whenever it suited her. 

Lucienne is glad to say she no longer feels that way. What she should have done was face her feelings long ago, and accepted that maybe they were trying to tell her something. She chuckles to herself, thinking that for how often she is able to give good advice to her Lord and her friends, she certainly has a difficult time following it herself. 

Gault spots her staring, and Lucienne is rewarded for her troubles with a wide smile. Gault’s galaxies are brighter now, flashes of pink swirling on her body, mixed with her deep purples and dark indigos. 

A flash of change, Lucienne thinks. A change for the better, perhaps. 

“Was hoping to see you today,” Gault calls out, as she lands gracefully beside Lucienne. She truly has taken to her new form like a fish to water. 

Maybe this was who she was meant to be from the moment of her creation. 

“Were you now?” 

One of Gault’s wings flutters a little before she spins, showing off the full extent of her radiance. Lucienne can feel her cheeks heating, and she turns her head a fraction away to hide the deepening flush on her face. 

“I wanted to know what you thought? I have a new charge whose dreams I shall be looking after, and I want to make sure they are appropriate.”

Lucienne stands up and slowly takes a step towards Gault. She holds out her hand, a silent permission to feel, to touch . Gault takes her hand and places it softly on her right wing. It is slightly cold to the touch, but also somewhat grainy. Tiny flecks of indigo glitter swirl around her fingers where they’ve made contact. The wing twitches beneath her fingertips, causing Lucienne to giggle in surprise. Gault beams, delighted in Lucienne’s reaction, and she finds herself taking a small step back, and clearing her throat. 

“You look beautiful, as always,” she says with a small smile on her face. 

Gault flutters her wings, causing more glitter to flow around them. “ Apatura iris. Typically the male moth displays the purple colours on his wings.” She wanders to the tree and touches the bark. “My charge is at a crossroads, as I once was. They are unhappy in how they look and present themselves.” She smiles to herself, brushing her hand up and down the tree’s bark. “They also build sanctuaries for moths, and have made it their life’s goal to conserve and educate the world about these wonderful little creatures.”

“So they would know your intention with your wings,” Lucienne whispers, daring to place her hand over Gault’s. She freezes, but it’s only for a split second, before turning her hand over and closing her fingers over Lucienne’s. 

“That’s the hope, I suppose. That one may present themselves in any way they choose. One may choose the path that makes them the happiest they can be.” 

“Like you did,” Lucienne says, running her thumb over Gault’s knuckles. She feels a little cool, yet with a slightly warm pulse flowing beneath her skin. Her hand is soft, yet also strong. Gault is powerful but also loves without the fear of being vulnerable. 

“Like I did,” Gault says, finally turning to look at Lucienne. Her dark eyes are almost sparkling. Lucienne could spend hours exploring the shades and lines of Gault’s eyes. Their hands remain interlocked. A bridge between the two. 

“And are you? The happiest you can be?” Lucienne whispers. 

Gault lifts her other hand, up to Lucienne’s face, and trails the backs of her fingers ever so gently over one of her cheeks. Lucienne’s eyes drift closed as she shifts her head closer to their point of contact. 

“Almost,” she says, turning Lucienne’s face once more towards her. Her breath catches in her throat as soft lips press against hers. She sighs, tilting her head slightly. A silent permission for Gault to continue. 

She does. Letting go of Lucienne’s hand in order to wrap around her waist and pull her flush against her body. 

Gault’s lips are so soft, and like the rest of her, slightly cool to the touch. She tastes like… Sky , her brain supplies. Like the crisp of meadow and autumn leaves. Like a distant memory of wind beneath her own wings. 

“Will you dare to fly with me, dearest Lady?”

“I am no Lady—”

“You are. To me.”

A soft touch of cool fingertips beneath her chin, and Lucienne is looking into Gault’s eyes once more. To such fondness and love that she does not recall ever seeing before. Not in anyone else’s eyes. 

And she was fine . She was . In her Library with her books, and her duties and everything, she was fine . 

But as she spent more time with Gault, knowing her, seeing her. Maybe it’s time that Lucienne tries a change for herself. 

She reaches up and places her hand over Gault’s, giving it a small squeeze. 

“Then let us fly away.”

[call-me-apple]

10, 22, 28 !!

10. What do you think c!Dream’s life was like pre-DSMP?

I wish the search function fucking worked on Tumblr because I literally had a post about this that I now can't find.

This is obviously headcanon territory, but I think he lived a life of constant danger and instability. It would explain why all his living spaces have been so frugal, and why he would walk around overprepared and consistently overestimate his opponents. He fights for peace as if he has barely known it and is desperate to regain the little slice of it that he had. So I imagine him as an orphan, vagrant or even child soldier who found a family in people with similarly disadvantaged lives and chose to build a home with them, only to have that home be taken away by war and conflict once again.

22. If you had all the time, resources, and skills to create your ideal piece of c!Dream fan content, what would it be?

Torn between two options here.

I had a vague outline for a Syndicate AU longfic but I never had the writing skill nor the commitment necessary to turn it into anything. It would have been a redemption story revolving around c!Dream adapting to post-torture disability and trying to find a new place for himself in the torn world as he realizes the path he has been so committed to is not one that will lead him anywhere. The ideal part of it would have been that I wanted c!Dream to be a bit more of a manipulative asshole w/ the Syndicate than how people usually write this kind of AU, but have it come from a place of fear rather than malice.

The second option is something that has even fewer concrete ideas, but if I was basically God capable of manifesting a perfect coherent plot of my desires, I'd write a No Nukes AU fic where c!Tommy and c!Dream go about trying to save the server while also suffering through cutting themselves on the shattered pieces of each other. I'd just really love to explore a dynamic where two characters have hurt each other terribly, with one being in a more obvious position of victim than the other, but try to work through it for the sake of something else no matter how messy and painful the process is.

28. What do you think is c!Dream’s greatest weakness?

This is something that has been said before, but the thing he suffers from the most is overestimating people's fairness (the most obvious example of this being c!Sam's betrayal). I think it's a really interesting flaw for such a character to have. Dude has a stick up his ass and is surprised everyone else doesn't. His brain works in funny ways in general but this is the first thing that comes to mind.

[walker-extended-universe]

Well-Earned Rewards

Relationship(s): Cassie Perez & Cordell Walker, Larry James & Cordell Walker

Tags/Warnings: Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Crochet, Crafts, Gift Giving, Surprises, Backstory, Teasing

Summary: After a tough case, Cordell gifts Cassie with a hand-made blanket and a not-so-kept secret

A/N: Just a cute little things I wrote in between working on heavier fics. I hope you like it!

Taglist (if you would like to be added, let me know!): @theladywyn, @ihavepointysticks, @klaatu51, @itsjessiegirl1, @neptunium134

-----

Cassie stared at the blinking cursor on her currently blank report form. After spending almost a month on this intense case, her brain felt both too full of information on in and completely devoid of any understanding of what had happened while she was working it. She’d almost called in sick that morning just to give herself time to decompress but she’d already done that yesterday and James wasn’t going to give her a break on the paperwork. At least he wasn’t going to put them on a case anytime soon.

“Morning, Cassie.” Walker plopped in his seat, setting a tote bag down next to him while he booted up his computer. “Missed you yesterday.”

“Yeah.” Cassie sighed. “Needed a little time to process that case. I mean, I knew cartels were crazy but….”

He nodded. “Yeah, it was pretty intense, especially for your first case like that. You definitely earned that day off. And speaking of earning-” He reached into his tote bag and presented her with a neatly folded blanket. “To celebrate your hard work on this case. We really couldn’t’ve done it without you.”

Cassie gasped and took the blanket. The soft yarn pillowed in her hands and she ran her hands lightly over the circular pattern. “Walker…. You really didn’t have to get me anything…”

He shrugged. “Like I said, you earned it.”

“Well, I know what I’m cuddling with tonight.” Cassie set the blanket near her bag. “Where’d you buy it?”

“I didn’t. I made it.”

Cassie’s pretty sure her brain managed to short circuit despite already being in a non-functioning state. “You…made it?”

Walker nodded. “Yeah. I worked on it during our off time during the case. Well, technically I started it a little beforehand but still.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’m just- You made that. You just… crocheted a blanket? During our off time?”

He chuckled. “What? You think because I’m a six-foot-four Texas Ranger with a cowboy for a dad that I can’t do yarn-based crafting? That’s awfully biased and stereotyping of you.”

“Well, no, that’s not- I’m just surprised is all. I figured if you ever made me something it’d be some woodworking or metal….”

His chuckle turned into an outright belly laugh. “Cassie, I can’t use a hammer to save my life. I barely built the rocking chairs on my porch with August’s help and I broke two of my fingers in the process. And I’m not gonna be messing around with an open flame with my luck so if you’re asking for a welding project, ask my dad.”

“Okay, that’s…fair. But still. I didn’t expect…crochet. There’s gotta be a story there. What, were you a Mama’s Boy growing up?”

“She wishes,” he muttered. He rubbed the back of his neck.  “No. Just- I had a bit of a wild child streak in my teen years. A lot was going on and…. I went a little off the rails. I actually almost got arrested once- which is a story I won’t tell unless I’m at least five beers and one whiskey deep so you’re buying- and after that Mom and Dad figured I could use something more…productive to focus my energy on. Dad put me to work more on the ranch. Mama introduced me to crochet. I had a knack for it and it was…relaxing. So I just kept at it and it kind of became my go-to destresser.”

Cassie nodded. “I get that. That’s what dance was for me and my brother when we were younger….” 

She sat up a little straighter and made her face as serious as possible. “Now, what was this about a delinquency on your record, Ranger Walker?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Nope. Five beers and a whiskey. That’s the cost.”

“You do know I could just as Geri-”

“No, you can’t! She won’t tell the story right!”

Cassie started to laugh but it petered off when she saw James enter the bullpen. “I see my two finest rangers are hard at work.”

“Oh, Cap!” Walke reached into his tote again, this time pulling out a sweater. “For you.”

James smiled and took the sweater. “You really are talented with a needle. Now, if you could apply the same dedication to your paperwork….”

Walker reached his hand up. “I can take the sweater back.”

James clutched it to his chest. “Just turn it in when you’re ready. Preferably sometime this week.”

“Sure thing, Cap.”

[sissytobitch10seconds]

The Second Most Influential Night of Kaz Brekker and Matthias Helvar’s Lives

Fandom: Grishaverse: Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone Summary: Many nights could be considered massively influential to the Brekker-Helvar household, the ones where they lost their family probably serving as the nights that changed them the most. This one serves to have the same kind of function to their family- but in reverse. Warnings: Mpreg, pregnancy, graphic birth, premature birth, and cryptic pregnancy Word Count: 14,129 Ship(s): Matthias Helvar/Kaz Brekker

Archive link!

A/N: I think those of you that knew me saw this coming from a mile away. For those of you that don't know me: I really loved the show I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant when I was younger, so now I've made it my business to write as many fics inspired off of it as I can. I do want to make sure that people head the tags before going into this, it's not going to be one of the super happy stories where everything turns out fine as soon as the baby is born. I wanted to highlight the more difficult struggles people can go through with cryptic pregnancies and surprise deliveries. I hope that you guys enjoy! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

Matthias always knew that he was in for something horrible when he woke up with his back aching. He tried to take care of himself and he succeeded more than any of the other people in their friend group, but it didn’t mean that he was successful every single time. He watched what he ate, he worked out more than he probably should have to build up his muscle mass, and he made sure that he drank plenty of water.

The problem was that it was hard to keep up that kind of lifestyle when one’s husband was on a business trip. Matthias usually worked at a local animal shelter while Kaz ran an empire with their close friend Wylan Van Eck. Every so often, a trip to a place that they both desperately wanted to travel to would come up and Matthias would go with his husband. While they were out of their home they would eat whatever they wanted and Matthias would let himself slip. 

He had known pretty much as soon as their plain landed back down in their native city that he was in for a rough ride for the next couple of days. He had always had a touchy system, but during the past couple of months it had been even worse. A change in diet and habit as well as him going off of a medication that he had been on for years was bound to mess with his system.

The blond tried in vain to ignore it for as long as he could. He curled forward in bed so that his forehead was resting on Kaz’s shoulder and then let out a little grunt if discontent when the pain remained just as steady as it had been for the last hour. He let out a sigh that was probably too loud based on the fact that it was very early in the morning and then scooted to the edge of the bed. 

The cold of the night air bit at his limbs and made him wish that he was back on the sandy beaches in Novyi Zem where they had been just a few nights earlier. He wondered if that was what Jesper felt like every time he had to put up with the constant, ankle-biting cold of the Kerch winters. It didn’t even snow and give Matthias something nice to look forward to like the winter months in Fjerda had.

He carefully stepped over Trassel so that the dog didn’t have to rouse as well and then shuffled to the bathroom. The nightlight they had as a security precaution, and a Jesper precaution, was attached to the wall and emitting a hard enough glow that he didn’t need to turn the light on. He knew that if he woke his brain up more than the pain had he would never get back to sleep, and after being severely jetlagged that sounded like the worst thing that could happen to him. He shut the door behind him with a soft click and then went about his business trying to relieve the discomfort in his intestines.

Nothing happened but he noticed a couple of dark patches in the front of his boxers that hadn’t been there when he had showered earlier that night. He leaned over the counter so that he could flick the light on and get a better look, the white from the wall plug-in no longer cutting it. He squinted when the harsh overhead from the mirror took over the room. Once he had adjusted, he swore under his breath in Fjerdan.

Dark blood had pooled in the crotch of his underthings and stained them more than even a wet dream would have. He shucked off the clothing item and then reached into the cabinet next to the toilet where they kept all the pads and tampons. He had to get around the sizes that they had stocked for Inej and Nina when the other two were visiting so that he could get the couple of old ones in the back meant for him. He found a clean pair of underpants even if they weren’t his preferred cut and then slipped them over his legs.

Once he was sure that he wasn’t going to get blood all over the rug, he grabbed his boxers from the ground and then flicked the sink’s plug on. He filled it up with cold water and left the garment to soak for a while, too tired to remember the exact steps and not caring that much about a single pair of black boxers. He turned the light off before he opened the door in the hopes that he hadn’t actually woken his husband up with all of his antics.

Matthias knew that he should have known better. Even though he had been on the straight and narrow for a very long time, there was no way that someone could take all the street out of the boy when that boy was Kaz Brekker.

The man in question was laying supine with his head tilted towards the ceiling. The only tell that he was awake at all was the twitching of his left hand and the gentle brush of his eyelashes against his bottom cheek. Matthias slowly lowered himself down onto the bed next to him in the hopes that they wouldn’t have to talk about it, but the left hand jerked over to his arm to get his attention. 

“Are you alright?” Kaz asked.

“My cycle started, that’s all,” Matthias sighed as he laid back down against his pillows. They still smelled of Kaz, which was enough to soothe some of the tension in his shoulders even if the cramps were persistently bothering his back.

“This is good,” Kaz informed him in a soft voice. When they had first met, Matthias had been convinced that there was no way for a man that sharp to be soft, but Kaz had systematically proven him wrong as many times as he could.

Matthias opened his mouth to speak again but was quickly silenced by a pair of lips on his. That made a rush of endorphins leak out through his body because he knew that meant that Kaz was dealing with his phobia better than he had been before and the day would be easier on them both. On the other hand, he was still frustrated with what his body was doing and very unhappy about it.

His mind was cloudy with thoughts about how wrong it was for him to be going through this again when he had worked so hard to make it stop. He remembered all the mornings and late nights that he had stolen away from his family and then his foster father so that he could bawl his eyes out over the fact that it felt like every fiber of his being was rebelling against him. He felt the uncomfortable tightness in his back, thighs, and around his front. The bulky feeling of the pad between his legs was another small reminder that he wasn’t shaped the way that he should have been. Everything felt wrong and off in a way that it hadn’t since before he had married his husband.

The husband in question tilted his head forward so that it was resting against Matthias’ forehead, which somehow worked to clear away the thoughts that he was fighting. “I know that this is painful, but this way we can actually start trying to have a baby,” Kaz breathed. Despite the usually stoic expression that haunted his near-gaunt features, a smile now stretched over his pouty lips.

“I know, I know. We’ve wanted this for so long and Djel is finally cooperating,” Matthias smiled back. It was hard to not be infected with the joy that his partner was exuding even if he was uncomfortable and unhappy about the fact that he was actively menstruating again.

A year after they were married they decided that they wanted to have children and the next three years after that had been spent in a mad scramble to try and find a way to do just that. Jesper and Wylan had adopted a little boy a couple of years before they had decided to have children and tried to guide the other couple down that path, but Kaz’s background check had never cleared. Nina and Inej had gone through a sperm donor so tried to work with the same fertility clinic to get Kaz and Matthias a surrogate, but the same black marks on Kaz’s ledger stopped them from getting anywhere that way. Neither of them wanted to have to use one of their friends as a surrogate, so they had decided that the best way for them to have a baby was naturally.

That, of course, meant that Matthias had to stop taking Testosterone. It was a hard decision and Kaz had been adamantly against it because he remembered meeting his husband at the crisp age of eighteen, four years before they had gotten married. Matthias had been an absolute wreck back then because he had only recently gotten away from his abusive foster father and discovered that he was a boy. The struggle that he had with his body was permanently etched into the front of his husband’s forehead, even though he knew how to deal with the feelings of unhappiness and dysphoria far better.

“Djel, or perhaps what you meant to say was science,” Kaz murmured as he stole another kiss. “If you’re not feeling too poorly then we should try to get some more sleep.”

Matthias only hummed as he fell back against the bed. He wiggled forward so that his head was tucked against Kaz’s shoulder and he was protectively against the body of his lover. Even back then they had been teenagers, Matthias was taller than Kaz. The hormones and his constant workouts meant that he was also broader and more muscular despite his husband being, for lack of a better word, ripped. It was nice to feel like he was the smaller one when he was feeling as vulnerable as he currently was.

---

He didn’t sleep for the rest of the morning. The pains in his lower back wrapped around his front like they were trying to put his entire abdomen in some kind of vice. He had forgotten how bad his period cramps were in the years that he hadn’t had them. He stayed in the bed despite his sleeplessness, if only to enjoy the feeling of his lover wrapped around him. 

When the first rays of the dawn began to peak through the blinds and pour down onto their bed like honey into warm tea, he knew that his efforts were futile and he might as well do something worthwhile. So he slowly slipped out of his husband’s arms and then woke Trassel so that the two of them could go on their morning run. 

He didn’t bother to go back into the bathroom to change out the water soaking his boxers or change his pad, he didn’t want to think about his period more than he had to. He instead went right to the kitchen so that he could eat one of his protein bars and find his dog’s collar. Trassel was a special type of dog that was very close to a wolf but with the domesticity that came with thousands of years of selective breeding. They were almost native to Fjerda and it was very rare for them to be found elsewhere, but Kaz was a magician and had secured a pet for his husband to the exact wishlist Matthias had made.

The pup eagerly danced around the front entryway while he watched his owner pick which leash he wanted to use. Usually, Matthias went for the one that attached to his waist so that they could run together. Today, though, his midriff hurt something fierce so he went for one that he could hold in his hand. He attached the leash to Trassel’s collar and then wound the lead for it around his hand so that he wouldn’t lose his dog.

They slipped out into the world after he shut the door securely behind him. He knew that Kaz would have his head and a half if he knew that Matthias was leaving it unlocked, let alone if he had left it open.

They lived in a nicer part of town, but not nearly as nice as where Matthias and Jesper lived. It was a gated community with an HOA, something that both he and his husband despised. Thankfully, they had lucked into one of the only gated communities that wasn’t full of bigots and houses that looked exactly the same. They had a smattering of Craftsmen and victorian homes alike, as well as some of the blockier new builds. Their own home was a cottage tucked back behind three very large old-growth trees. The way that they always told people to find them was by recommending that they follow the large pride flag that they had staked out next to their mailbox.

No one was awake at that time of morning, so Matthias was able to do his quick jog around the block and then back get back into the house without much fuss. He usually would have gone much faster and for far longer than he managed that morning, he really was feeling very poorly. 

Trassel immediately rushed through the house and then demanded to be let into the backyard so that he could do his business, which Matthias facilitated. While the dog was busying himself on the grass and the smells of the tree, he worked on getting himself something substantial to eat for breakfast. Usually when he got back from his runs he only spent a second or two squaring everything away before he was in the shower. He didn’t want to deal with what he would find in his underthings that day, though, so decided not to.

“Good morning,” Kaz rasped about ten minutes after he had returned from his run.

“Godmorgen,” he replied affectionately. He got a glare for his troubles, but he couldn’t bring himself to actually care about that. Kaz liked to pretend that he hated it when Matthias spoke in Fjerdan, but he knew better than that. Kaz had begun learning his native tongue almost as soon as they had met in the bottom of the Barrel. Nina had told him so not long after they had married.

Kaz walked up behind him and then wrapped his arms around his husband’s waist to bring them close together. “When should we start trying for a baby?” he asked.

He groaned and nearly slammed the spatula that he had been using to make eggs with down onto the counter. “Kaz, I do not even want to think about that right now, I feel awful.”

It had been an impulse to say that and he knew that it had been the wrong thing as soon as the words had left his mouth. He bit the insides of his cheeks as he felt the way that Kaz’s hands held tighter to his chest and how tense the muscles of the other man’s chest had gotten. He was able to reach out and turn the burner to the stove off just in time for him to be turned around. Kaz grasped his chin and then turned his head left and right so that he could get a full look at his husband. “Now that you mention it, you do look poorly,” he clicked his tongue.

“It’s just my cycle, I always used to feel like this,” Matthias shook his head. He wasn’t trying to be dismissive, but he knew how much medical stuff and sickness was a trigger for Kaz. He knew what the fear of something that had killed a loved one was like, on his worst nights he couldn’t even look at a candle or a match. Kaz had it so much worse with his sickness-related fear than Matthias did with fire. Kaz had to watch his brother suffer, alone without any family to help him through it, for days until Jodie had finally passed. That by itself would have been enough to make him anxious about people he loved falling ill, but then he had also gotten sick and no one had been gracious enough to take him to the hospital.

“I don’t remember your period affecting you this much when we were teenagers,” he clicked his tongue like he didn’t quite believe what Matthias was saying.

Matthias didn’t really blame him this time. He had been feeling poorly on and off in bouts since he had stopped taking his Testosterone. He had assumed that it was just his body adjusting to another dose of hormones like it had when he started or when he went through puberty, but he was getting more and more worried the longer that the morning went on. “I watched my cycle like a hawk when we were teenagers because we couldn’t afford birth control for the whole month. I made sure that I was taking painkillers before it began. Since my cycles hadn’t started again, I didn’t have anything to go by this time.”

The shorter man made a worried noise in the back of his throat, which made Matthias take a half step forward. He looped his long arms around Kaz’s waist to bring him into a protective, loving hug. “I promise that I’m alright. Would it make you feel better to have Nina come and check on me during her lunch break or when she goes home tonight?”

“Yes,” Kaz replied into his shirt. Kaz and Wylan would be working late with a business dinner in the evening since they had to cancel their last board meeting. That meant Matthias would be alone for a lot longer than he was used to.

“Then I will,” Matthias leaned down and connected their lips in a gentle kiss. It was all he felt up to doing when he was as poorly as he was. He knew that having at least one menstrual cycle was crucial to the conception of their future child, but that didn’t mean that he was enjoying the process.

---

He and Kaz finished their breakfast and then went their separate ways. Kaz had to get ready to go to work and Matthias was going to rest for a while longer since he didn’t have to work. It was hard when they had schedules that didn’t match, but neither of them would give up their careers for anything in the world.

The first thing that Matthias did once his husband was gone was shove himself into the shower. He didn’t really know why he had to wait until the other man was gone to do it since Kaz had seen him naked even before he had gotten top surgery, but it felt almost too intimate to do anything in front of him. He kept his eyes squeezed shut as he rolled up the pad that was barely spotted with anything and then got into the shower. The water was cold when he first stepped in, which was the shock that his muscles had been aching for the entire time he had been eating breakfast. It warmed up and then soothed the aching pains that he had in his back. 

He stepped out of the shower and then dressed in something that felt affirming. He usually didn’t wear his jeans when he was at home by himself with no plans to go anywhere, but the way that the belt clung to his hips always made him feel like a man through and through. He complimented it with a comfortable sweater that Jesper had ordered off the internet. It was meant to be for the Zemini but when it had come, it was the wrong size so had gone to Matthias instead.

He occupied himself with Trassel for the rest of the morning until he decided to take a nap. The aches and pains in his back were still making him uncomfortable, but it was nothing that a couple of painkillers and a heating pad couldn’t help. When he woke up around lunch, however, everything had gotten so much worse than it had been before.

He jerked awake from the rather pleasant dream that he had been having surrounding himself and his husband with a sharp pain rocketing through his back. He was powerless to do anything other than lay there with his eyes pointed up towards the ceiling. It crept like a thousand tiny knives digging into his vertebrae all the way up his spine before it spread out over his hips. He felt tense and wrong, like he needed to pop a joint but all the way across the bone instead of in one specific point. He thought that it was going to last forever before it wrapped around his abdomen like a vice and he felt a rush of the most intense pain that he had ever encountered in his entire life. His entire mind whited out and he felt his breath get stolen from his lungs, making it impossible for him to even cry out.

Something that his husband had brought up earlier in the day came back to him when the pain had finally released him. Kaz mentioned that he had never seemed like that when he was menstruating before, which made Matthias worry that there was something more going on.

He had already promised his lover that he would contact Nina. It was something that Matthias had already been planning on doing since she was his best friend. The two of them had even tried to date before he had started his transition. They had taken a break and then both fallen for other people, but their connection was still there and strong. They would be best friends past the end of time, he was sure of that. There was no one else that he would want to talk to about the horrible ordeal of having to remember that his body had been created wrong.

He grabbed his phone and sent a quick text to her.

Matthias to Nina: Are you awake/available?

She replied to him almost immediately, which was a rarity for her nowadays. He had been with her through every step of her life, including her lowest moments when she was battling her addiction. Now she was a proud doctor, mother, and wife, but that did mean that she had far less time for Matthias than she did when they were teenagers with no prospects.

Nina to Matthias: for u love? 

Nina to Matthias: always!

Nina to Matthias: whats wrong?

Matthias to Nina: Do you remember how Kaz and I were going to start trying for a baby as soon as I started my cycle again?

Nina to Matthias: course i do

Nina to Matthias: what do you take me for a bad friend?

Matthias to Nina: Well it happened. I’m uncomfortable and Kaz is very worried about me.

Nina to Matthias: course he is

Nina to Matthias: idk how ur expecting to be parents if he gets worried about cramps

Matthias to Nina: Therapy is how we’re going to deal with that. And he has gotten a lot better. You remember what he was like when Jesper and Wylan brought the flu back to the Slat and he was the only one not to catch it.

Nina to Matthias: omg

Nina to Matthias: i thought he was gonna DIE

Matthias to Nina: He wants you to come check on me when you have the time. Maybe you could bring Nilu? I miss her.

Nina to Matthias: she misses u toooo

Nina to Matthias: actually

Nina to Matthias: shes three

Nina to Matthias: so she mostly misses trassel

Matthias to Nina: Well he’s here too.

He startled and stared down at his phone like something was wrong with it when the screen flashed and came up with Nina’s caller ID. Matthias came back to himself a moment later and then flicked the answer button before he held the device to his ear. “Hello?”

“Sorry, I wanted to keep talking to you but it looks a lot more professional if I have my phone against my ear instead of in my hand,” Nina explained with that ringing laugh of hers. “I almost ran into a patient, which really isn’t a good look for a doctor.”

Matthias was suddenly so relieved that he had decided to talk to her and ask her to come and visit him. His best friend really was the only person other than his husband that could help him feel better no matter what was happening. “I guess that’s true,” he chuckled.

“So what’s going on that has Kaz so concerned?” she asked.

“Are you going to decide to be a doctor on me or are you asking me this as your best friend?” he asked, unsure what the answer was going to be. When Nina was no longer in her white coat and her scrubs it was easier to talk to her about what his body was doing without her coming at him with actual answers. That was what he wanted from her at the moment, not the diagnosis and treatment that would spring from her mind now that she was walking around her work.

He grunted as he felt another growing pain in his spine. He let out a low breath when he felt it wrap around his front just the same way that it had before. It felt like it was trying to rip him totally apart. 

He had apparently been too quiet for too long because his best friend asked, “Matthias?”

“Sorry, I’m having a lot of pain,” he grit out. He could tell that his accent had gotten a lot thicker with the pain, which meant that it was going to be harder to hide it from her. He was overwhelmed with a sense of relief that Kaz wasn’t home because he knew that his husband would have been nearly petrified with fear about it.

“What kind of pain?” she asked. He had gotten his answer through that sentence, she was going to diagnose him. He was just glad that Nina had practiced her bedside manner since they were teenagers and he had first started to get bad cramps.

“I think that they’re because of my period,” he sighed. “They start on my spine and then wrap around my belly.”

“That doesn’t sound like the kind of cramps that you used to have before you started hormones,” she commented. “Do you have any other symptoms?”

Matthias let out a low breath and tried to think about what his body was feeling. He had been ignoring it for most of the day because he hated the fact that he was on his cycle again. He knew that it meant he and his husband would finally, eventually have a baby, but he didn’t really want it to be happening. “I have a bit of a headache but I haven’t had a lot of water today.”

“How much bleeding have you had and what did it look like?” Nina asked. She sounded every bit the mother and doctor that she was, which made a swell of warmth rush through him. He had seen her come so far and he was so proud of his best friend.

“I didn’t check. I have my boxers in the sink in the bathroom, I could check that.”

“Are you soaking them?”

“Yes. Why else would they be in the sink?”

“You and Kaz are weird, why would I know that?” she scoffed. “I’m just asking you these questions because for you to suddenly have cramps that are far worse than what you used to have is worrying.”

“Maybe I gave myself PCOS,” he joked. His mother had the condition and had talked to him about it when he had gotten his first period, to warn him that he might have inherited it. It was why he and his sister had such a huge age gap, because it had been hard for her and his father to conceive another child. 

“You can’t give yourself a condition that you don’t have. Plus you’re closer to your thirties which means that if your body was moving all the way back to what your hormones used to be, you would technically have less testosterone than you did before you started HRT,” Nina explained haphazardly. He could hear more voices around her than he had moments before which meant that she was likely walking through the lobby of her building.

Matthias whimpered as another one of the pains began to creep up his back. He felt an overwhelming rush of warmth and then his stomach flipped like he was going to vomit so he darted for the sink, only to feel something wet drip down his legs. “Nina, you have to promise not to laugh,” he mumbled. He was so shocked and ashamed that he wasn’t even sure that he was speaking in Kerch any longer.

It didn’t matter with Nina, thankfully, because of her gift for languages. Her voice was soothing and near placating as it rang through the phone and into his panicked mind, “I won’t laugh at you, Matthias, I’m your best friend and a doctor. Nothing you tell me will be any weirder than what I heard the in ER yesterday. What’s going on?”

“I think that I just peed myself. I… there’s something all the way down my legs and all over the couch. It hurts,” he slowly lowered himself onto his knees so if the pain overwhelmed him he wouldn’t hit his head on the way down.

“I’m going to tell one of the ambulances to come and get you. You need to come to the hospital now,” she said. 

“What? Why?” Matthias asked. He had already been trying to push down a feeling of panic when he realized that his body was doing something very abnormal than what he was used to during his cycles. Hearing his best friend get that worried about what he had just told her only made it ten times worse. He felt his heart beating up in his ears and his lungs struggling to take in the air that they needed to keep up with the rush of his blood. He had seen Kaz go through more panic attacks than he could count and yet he had very rarely ever experienced them himself, but it was still a sensation that he was never going to forget

Nina’s voice cut through the panic in his mind as she said, “It’s going to be okay, Matthias. I want you to stay on the phone with me while we wait for the ambulance to get there. I’ll be by your side the entire time you’re at the hospital and we’ll even call Kaz.”

Despite the haze that was clouding his thoughts, he knew that was a bad idea. He already felt like his entire world was crashing down around him and he didn’t need his husband to be an absolute mess on top of that. Something was still leaking out of him and into the pad that he had trapped in between his legs, making the cotton soaking wet. 

He let out a small gasp as he collapsed down next to the couch, his knuckles white around the edges while he tried to push the pain out of his mind, “N-no, he will just get worried.”

“Matthias, if what I think is happening actually is happening then you’re going to want him by your side,” she said. “But that’s something that I can worry about when you get here. Have I ever led you astray?”

“Yes,” he let out a little laugh. Another pain had crept up his spine and wrapped around his belly while she was talking to him so he wasn’t able to give her any kind of example.

She laughed along with him. She asked him more questions about their time together and what he was experiencing while they waited. It only took about ten minutes before the ambulance arrived at his doors. He had to haul himself up to his feet so that he could get it for them, limping along so that he could unlock it. His fingers trembled as he grasped the deadbolt and then slid it over so that he could wrench the door open. 

He felt a breath of relief wash over him for the first time since he had felt that horrible pain after waking up from his nap. He couldn’t recall their names, but he knew that the EMTs that had been sent to him were close friends of Nina. He always worried when he had to go to the hospital that it was going to result in him being misgendered and absolutely miserable the entire time. With these two people, he knew that he didn’t have to worry about that at the very least.

“Let them have the phone so that I know you’re not lying to me,” Nina said. He knew that there had to be another reason that she was doing that but he wasn’t willing to fight with her. 

“Alright,” he mumbled as he handed the phone over to the one on the left. The one on the right reached for his hand and then carefully led him down the step so that they could close the door behind him. While her partner spoke to Nina, the EMT holding his hand got him laid down on the gurney and then began to roll it back to the ambulance.

Matthias tried hard not to think about the fact that their neighbors all knew that something had happened to them and were watching his shame. He hated the fact that they were all aware of something that he didn’t even know the full details about. His pain and condition, whatever it was, felt too personal for strangers to be prying on.

“What’s your name? Do you have something you’d prefer that we call you?” the EMT asked once they were safely locked away in the back of the ambulance.

“Matthias,” he gasped out as he got a pain.

“Time it,” the one on the right said. They had finished the call and then slipped his phone into a bag full of personal belongings that they would be able to get him once he was at the hospital.

“What’s wrong with me?” he grit out as he tried to overcome the massive wave of pain and the pressure that was echoing with it. The pains were only coming about seven minutes apart and it felt like they were over almost as soon as they had started, but it was still overwhelming.

“We don’t want to make a diagnosis until we have some more information,” the other EMT said. They checked his vitals and then wrote them down, holding his hand and guiding him through breathing while they sped to the hospital.

Matthias placed one of his arms over his eyes when the doors to the ambulance opened to reveal the ER loading dock. He had been there once before, when he had broken his leg at fourteen thanks to something that Brum had done to him. It brought back so many memories that he wasn’t entirely prepared to deal with given how much pain he was in.

He shifted his arm down to his side once they had finished lowering the gurney just in time to see Nina push her way through the crowd. “How are you doing? Were they good to you?” she asked, his native language rolling off her tongue like she had spoken it her entire life.

“I feel like shit. They won’t tell me what’s wrong with me,” he grit out. 

“That’s probably for the best if it turns out that what I think is wrong actually is,” Nina replied. She reached over the edge of the gurney and then took his hand while they quickly wheeled him through the ER. On any other day the entire place would have been packed with people, but it seemed like the gods were smiling on him for once in his miserable life. Instead of having to wait or being placed out in the hall, he was moved into a room made of more than a couple of curtains strung up from the ceiling.

Before he could clock anything else about what was happening to him, his mind whited out with pain again. He wrapped his arms around his belly and leaned forward just as he felt a hand slip against his palm, letting him grip as tightly as he needed.

“Woah there, you’re alright,” someone said through the haze of anguish that his brain was floating in. “We’re going to get you something to deal with the pain, but we need you to relax a bit first.”

“I cannot relax when I hurt that badly! I would like to see you try it,” Matthias growled. He felt immediately bad when he saw the kind nurse that was helping treat him shrink back into herself. He was sure that she had endured worse in the past, but he didn’t like being part of the verbal abuse that medical staff had to get as part of their jobs.

He collapsed back against the gurney for a moment and tried to blink away the tears that were already collecting on his lashes. Nina brushed them away with the thumb of the hand that wasn’t against his own. “Shh, shh, it’s alright,” she soothed.

“Don’t leave me, Nina, please don’t,” he whispered. He was more scared than he had been since he had sat as a witness at Brum’s trail all those years ago.

“I promise that I’m not going to. Come on, we need to get you into the bed and then changed,” she said. She jerked her head towards the door and the other nurse quickly left. Nina had changed out of her usual red scrubs into her day clothes, which today happened to be a pair of comfortable corduroy pants and a loose t-shirt. Matthias knew that she had likely been getting ready to go home to her wife and child when he had called her, but he couldn’t think of anyone else he would want by his side when he was going through something that terrifying.

Once the door clicked shut and they were finally left alone, Matthias slid to the edge of the bed and then stood with Nina’s help. He removed his shirt and his pants so that he could place the hospital gown over the top of them. As soon as he was no longer dressed, Nina helped him lay down on the bed and then brushed her hand over his head. “I promise that we’re going to figure out what’s going on with you, okay?”

“I trust you,” he whispered. He caught her hand and gave it a squeeze before he released her so that she could return to get the other nurse. He meant what he said. Even though they hadn’t ended up working out together romantically, he was sure that she was something of a soulmate to him. He couldn’t imagine his life without her and he knew that she would be there for him no matter what happened to either of them.

The gurney was removed from the room and then the nurse from earlier placed an IV into his arm. They began to administer a safe pain medication so that he could be eased into something akin to comfort without hurting anything until they figured out what was going on with him.

“We’re going to perform an ultrasound, alright? That will let us know if there’s anything wrong with your uterus like a cyst,” the nurse said. Nina had returned back to his side, though her green eyes were focused on her coworker instead of flitting down to Matthias to comfort him about the ordeal. That made him nervous.

They rolled up his hospital gown after placing a blanket over his legs so that he couldn’t catch a chill. They then lathered his stomach with the gel and placed more of it on the wand. He had been surprised to hear that it wasn’t going to have to be a transvaginal one like it had been when he had gotten his IUD placed and then later taken out. He supposed that they didn’t want to have to deal with him kicking them if he got another one of his pains.

It was as if thinking of the pain had summoned it to come back to him. Nina had already been holding his hand while the other nurse was doing the prep work, so when the creeping up the base of his spine started, he leaned into her. She pet his hair and murmured into his knuckles until it had subsided.

He was out of breath from the action and the pressure in his abdomen, so he closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He felt the wand touch his stomach and spread the gel around before the movements got slower. He knew that the nurse was looking for something but he couldn’t bring himself to stare at the screen and try to decipher the gray blobs of his organs on a monitor he could barely see.

“You were right, Dr. Zenik,” the nurse said. “I can see the head here, it’s already engaged with the cervix but the fetus only looks to be about thirty three weeks.”

“Early but not the end of the world. Get the OB on call and let the ER staff know that we have to move him up to labor and delivery,” Nina said. She was using her doctor voice.

Matthias felt like they were both speaking underwater, the sound waves traveling to him slower than they were moving and sounding murky. He knew that his mind was growing foggy with pain and confusion. What they were saying was something that he had half dreamed, the realization of a child that was half him and half his husband, but it didn’t make any sense. He had never begun to menstruate again and they weren’t even sure that Kaz would have been able to reproduce given the massively high fever he had caught when he was a child.

His breath caught in his throat as he began to cry.

If he were completely rational and part of himself he would be able to admit that he didn’t quite know why he was crying. He just knew that he was upset and he had to let it out. The entire world felt like it was crashing down around him and he had no idea how to stop it. It was worse than when he had the crushing realization that the new father figure in his life was hurting him, or why he had always felt so out of sorts in his body, or that he was never going to get to see his family again. Back when all of that was happening, he had been unstable so had been ready for more shaking to come bring things in his life down. Now, he had been stable and happy in his marriage for years and it made everything feel so much worse than it actually was.

The whirlwind of the hospital didn’t stop just because he was crying. They ushered him up to an actual room in a ward that he hadn’t caught the name of and then several people breezed in and out of the room. He was given a couple of sets of shots, both into his IV and into the muscles of his ass. By the time that they had all gone and things had returned back to a waiting game, he had two bands around his belly and his vitals were happily ticking away on the monitor next to him.

The tears had long since stopped and he had started to stare resolutely up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what had happened. He knew that no one was talking to him because he was so emotionally wound up but it was drowning him now. He had to find something that would help him float so that he could be the rock his husband would no doubt need now that he had been admitted. “Nina, I don’t understand what’s going on,” he said hoarsely.

She tilted the bed up and then sat down beside him. She looked tired and worn out, but the kindness that was ever-present in her eyes shone out on him just like he needed it to. “You stopped taking your hormones several months ago, right?”

“I did,” he nodded.

“Right,” she breathed. He could tell that she was collecting her thoughts before she admitted what was going on. He had seen the same look on her more times than he could count when they were young, stupid teenagers. “There’s something called a cryptic pregnancy, where the pregnancy can go undiagnosed until either right before or during labor. That’s what’s happening to you right now.”

“I-I’m pregnant?” he asked. It felt like the best news that he had ever received and the worst at the same time. He and his husband had been trying and failing to have a child for so long that they almost felt like it would never happen. Him stopping his transition so that they could do it naturally had not been a decision that either of them had made lightly, so to know that it had happened without him having to suffer through a visible pregnancy was a kind of blessing. On the other hand, he was terrified that he had done something to hurt their unborn child without realizing it.

Nina brushed her hand over the long blond hair struggling to stay back in the braid she had done while people were giving Matthias his shots. “At some point, likely around thirty three weeks ago, you got pregnant. Your body was still trying to sort out hormones and you work out a lot. Some people just don’t have any symptoms and can only tell because they stop having periods. Since you didn’t have any, I’m guessing you had a symptomless pregnancy and that your uterus is sitting pretty far back. We already know that the baby is around thirty three weeks and the placenta is on the front, right about here,” she traced her finger over his belly close to his pelvis.

“What does that mean?” he asked. He remembered seeing some of the flickery black and white images on the screen when he was down in the ER but he had been too out of his mind with pain and fear to really clock what that meant. He sucked in a hard breath as his body began to shake through a massive contraction, but it was almost easier now that he knew what they were.

“It means that you didn’t feel the baby move because there was too much in the way,” she explained. “We saw them moving on the monitor and were able to get a good heartbeat, see?” she pointed to a line on the screen next to him, which he stared at the entire time he was dealing with his contraction.

They were quiet for a while longer before she let out a low breath and then said, “I think that you should call Kaz. You’re going to want him here when the baby is born.”

“I don’t want him to worry,” he shook his head. He knew that she was right but he was scared and confused, which left him irrational.

“You’re going into labor, not even,” she sighed. Her green eyes flickered shut as she processed what she wanted to say and got all of her words in order. “Matthias, I want you to listen to me. We’re not going to be able to stop your labor since your water has already broken. We gave the baby steroids to help develope their lungs so that when they’re born they can have a better chance at survival, but with chance there’s always the flip side. Not only is birth very traumatic for even a parent that has a full time baby and a standard pregnancy, but your little one is going to be kept in the NICU for weeks or maybe even months. You’re going to want your husband to hold your hand throughout all of that.”

He knew that she was right and that she had needed to say it that way so that it would actually permeate his thoughts, but it still made his heart shatter. He had only just wrapped his brain around the fact that he was going to be a parent soon, so the idea that his newborn baby was going to be whisked away from him as soon as they were born shattered him again.

“Alright, can you please get my phone for me?” he asked. He was rapidly blinking so that he could keep the tears at bay and he had to swallow down a sob every time he took a breath.

She brushed back his hair and then kissed his forehead as she said, “Of course I can. All you had to do was ask.”

She disappeared from his room as she went in search of the items that they had to remove from his person when he was in the ambulance. That left Matthias alone and he was suddenly drowning in the horrific reality of the situation that he was in. He was pregnant but he hadn’t known it, which meant that he could have done something that would warp the wonderful blessing that he and his husband had been given. He was also in labor far earlier than he should have been and was preparing to deliver a preemie. So many things could go wrong when a baby was born early, even three weeks.

Before he had the time to really spiral, he was overwhelmed with pain. He rolled onto his side despite the fact that the bed was elevated so that he had already been sitting up. It was more comfortable to have his legs bent and towards his chest than straight out, and it alleviated a strange pressure on his hips when he was tilted towards the wall. He was also able to reach out and grasp the plastic handle of the bed, his knuckles white with the force that he was exerting.

Nina returned with his phone. She waited long enough for him to work through his contraction before she handed it over. Matthias didn’t even debate about whether or not he wanted to tell Kaz what was going on before or after he arrived at the hospital. There were no words on his mind, only the I need you that repeated over and over again on the tip of his tongue. 

He flicked through his contacts until he found his husband and then dialed it while placing the phone against his cheek. He breathed in through his nose and then out through his mouth in even measures at Nina’s careful instruction. She had moved onto the edge of the bed and was running her carefully clipped nails up and down over his back. She had done that once when he had gotten the flu back when they were eighteen and living in the shittiest apartment they were able to find for their highest budget.

A sob broke through his lips when he heard the man that he loved ask, “Matthias? What’s going on?”

“You’re not going to lecture me for calling you while you’re at work?” he asked. He knew that he would have to get down to the real issue eventually, but he wanted to drag it out while he worked through all of the mess in his mind.

“You were sick when I left this morning and then you never told me that Nina cleared you. What’s going on?” Kaz asked again. His voice had the bitter sharpness to it that it always did when he was stressed or worried about something. In any other situation it would have been something that Matthias melted over, he loved being adored in the way that Kaz cared for people.

It wasn’t any other situation and he still felt like the riptides were pulling at his legs. He could feel the cool tears leaking down his heated cheeks as he said, “Is Jesper there with you? Or Wylan?” 

“Bear, you’re scaring me,” Kaz said. “Yes, Jesper is here with me. What’s going on?”

“I’m in the hospital,” he breathed out. “I’m not dying, I promise you that I’m not dying.”

He heard the heavy sound of Kaz collapsing down into a chair and then clattering as his cane fell to the floor and then rolled away from him. “Thank fuck. I can’t lose you. What’s going on, then, if you’re not dying?”

“I want you to leave your keys with Jesper and then have him drive you to the hospital. Wylan can get them from him and then drive your car home. We’re going to be here for a while yet,” Matthias said instead of answering him for the second time. It was suddenly too hard to think about the baby inside of him and the labor wracking his body.

He let out a low breath and then scrunched forward again as he got another contraction. Nina cooed lovingly at him like she did to her child and continued to rub the tenseness out of the muscles in his hips. “Love, what’s wrong?” Kaz asked, the worry unable to stop from bleeding into his words.

“I can’t tell you over the phone, it’s too much,” Matthias managed to bite out around another massive wave of pain. He wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to have to do this for, or how much longer he was going to be able to tolerate the aggressively high amounts of pressure wracking his body every three minutes.

He felt bad for not being able to tell his husband what was wrong with him over the phone, he knew that it would have assuaged at least some of Kaz’s fears. He was half worried that the other man was going to faint when he found out what was going on and half worried that he would demand to take his own car to get their quicker despite his mind not working. So Matthias left his explanation as what it was despite the flicker of upset that he could hear through the phoneline. “I’m going to get there as soon as I can,” Kaz informed him.

The line went dead and Matthias passed his phone back over to Nina. Not a second later, the door opened and another person walked in. She had a kind smile and her hair was plaited back against her head, which contrasted with the ruffled look of her red scrubs. She was obviously another one of Nina’s coworkers instead of the nurses and residents that had helped Matthias get settled. “You must be Matthias Brekker-Helvar. I’m Dr. Koh, the OB on call. I’ve heard that you had quite the scare when you came in today. Is now a good time to talk or would you prefer I come back in ten or fifteen minutes?”

“Now,” he grumbled as the pressure of his most recent contraction finally dissipated. Nina threaded their fingers together even tighter than they had been before so that her thumb could trail over his knuckles. Her hands were nice but they didn’t have the callouses on the tip and down the forefinger like Kaz’s, which made Matthias miss his husband even more.

The OB sat down on the stool in the corner of the room and then wheeled over to the side of the bed. “I want you to know that at any point if you start to get overwhelmed or want to hold part of the conversation for later, you can just let me know and we’ll do it another time,” she said. Her smile was kind and it relaxed Matthias at least a bit. If she was acting like this when Kaz got here then there was a chance that he could avoid his husband losing his mind with overprotectiveness. 

“The first thing that we should talk about is what you, and our team, should expect from this delivery. You’re already in labor and your waters have broken, which means that this is happening now and we can stop it until we have more information. From the look of the ultrasound that we got while you were down in the ER, we think that the baby is around thirty three weeks. I noticed on your chart that you don’t know the date of your last menstrual cycle, so unfortunately the only thing that we can use to get the date is the thigh measurement, which isn’t always reliable. The baby could just be small or closer to date, but we’re going off the information that we have right now. Thirty three weeks is premature by about three weeks if we’re doing last menstrual period instead of conception date. That means that the baby will be small because they’re not finished baking, but they’ll also have trouble regulating body temperature, breathing on their own, digesting, jaundice, and may have some vessel problems as well.”

Matthias felt like his entire world was crashing down again. He may have only known about his unborn baby for a couple of hours, but he didn’t want to lose them. It felt almost more cruel to know that he could have his baby die before he ever really knew them than to get attached to a child and then to lose them. Nina leaned down and kissed his had when she saw that tears were already beginning to well in his eyes, “Matthias, keep listening to her. This is just the risks, it’s not definitive.”

He flicked his eyes open in time to see Dr. Koh flash Nina a smile of appreciation. She then turned back to Matthias and continued explaining to him in the blunt way that he needed if he was going to digest the information properly, “If this baby was born even twenty years ago the moderate preterm would have been a very, very high risk. Fortunately now, we have jaundice beds and incubators. We’ll be able to do everything in our power to help the baby grow up nice and strong so that they can be discharged from the hospital in a few weeks. Which brings me to my next concern, who will be assuming custody of the little one when they are released?”

The idea of giving away the child that he already loved so much combined with another contraction made Matthias let out a wet sob. He leaned forward and held tightly to his best friend and the side of the hospital bed as Nina gave him a couple of encouraging words. “They’re our baby,” Matthias said immediately after the pain had let up enough that he could speak. “My husband and I wanted a baby, we were trying for one. It-it was an accident that we didn’t realize that I was pregnant.”

“I just wanted to make sure. You’re not my first cryptic pregnancy,” she chuckled warmly. “Now, I would like to do a cervical check so that I can see how dilated and effaced you are, but I understand if that makes you uncomfortable.”

“I don’t care about me, I want you to do whatever is going to keep the baby at their best,” he replied.

Dr. Koh shared a quick look with Nina and the latter of the two women took over the conversation. She leaned over the rail of the bed and pet his forehead, “We want to make sure that you’re comfortable and mentally prepared for when the baby gets here, so make sure that you’re actually taking these questions seriously.”

“I want to make sure that my baby is okay over my own comfortableness with my body, it will only distress me more if I tell her no,” he explained in his own language.

Nina nodded reassuringly and then let the other doctor know that she was okay to continued. Dr. Koh washed her hands in the sink and then put on a pair of rubber gloves as she sat back down on the stool beside his bed. “I want you to put your feet together and then press them as close to your bottom as you can, that will give me plenty of room to check how you’re doing.”

He nodded and then did as he was told. He had to flip over so that he was on his back again, but he adjusted so that he was holding the other rail to the hand that wasn’t clinging to Nina. He wanted Jesper to be safe as he drove Kaz to the hospital but he also very much needed his husband to be by his side while this was happening.

Dr. Koh carefully inserted her fingers and then felt his cervix, which felt invasive and wrong. When she withdrew her hand, she gave him a pleasant smile. “I trust that Dr. Zenik has already asked that you call the baby’s other father?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. He squinted his eyes shut and whimpered. Something about the contraction after she had checked him felt different than the one before had, but he wouldn’t have been able to describe just what about it that it was. “What’s going on?” he breathed.

“You’re very close to full dilated and I can already feel the baby beginning to engage. You’re going to be a parent very soon.”

“Gods above,” Matthias whispered, squeezing his eyes shut so that he could wake up from the nightmare around him. He knew that this was reality, that there was no escaping the life that he was in, but he wished that he could. He wished that he could enjoy all the wonderful things about a pregnancy that Nina had gotten to when she had her daughter, or the excitement of knowing that it was going to happen like Jesper and Wylan had. Instead, the arrival of his child was met with panic, confusion, and outright fear.

Eventually, the OB finished telling Nina the information that Matthias wouldn’t be able to process and then left the two of them alone. She had just passed through the door when Kaz came barreling in, walking so quickly that the stick of his cane was grasped in his hand instead of the head. “What’s going on? What happened, Zenik?” he demanded as he stepped inside of the hospital room.

Jesper appeared in the doorway, looking frazzled and out of breath. “I got him here as quickly as I could and without him falling to pieces for you, Matthias!” he gave a thumbs up and then disappeared from the doorway, leaving the three of them alone.

Matthias slowly hiked himself into a sitting position despite the near constant pressure in the base of his belly. He reached out and took Kaz’s hand in his own so that he could focus on the slowly growing warmth of the leather against his callouses. “I want you to promise me that you won’t freak out.”

“It’s a bit late for that, treasure,” Kaz replied. His voice had the bitter snipe that it had when they had first met, which let Matthias know that he was struggling to get over his flashbacks and anxiety. He knew that would have happened regardless of how they were able to make a baby, but it was likely worse because of the surprise nature of it.

“I’m pregnant,” he breathed.

“What?”

“I’m pregnant,” he repeated. He kept his voice as level and calm as he could so that he didn’t spook Kaz, but he was unable to stop another wave of tears rushing from his eyes.

The other man had turned into a statue, his coffee black eyes wide with shock as he leaned forward. He wrapped his arms around Matthias and then held him there as he looked to Nina for help. “Are we losing the baby? He said that he thought his cycle had started this morning.”

He had never been more grateful for his best friend than when she took over and began to explain the situation to give him a much needed break. “Matthias never had a full cycle. You got him pregnant the first time he ovulated after he stopped taking the T. It’s called a cryptic pregnancy and it actually happens more often than you think, so he’s pregnant right now and has been for months. He’s in labor and we think that the baby is going to be born premature. There’s nothing that we can do to stop it and the baby will have the best possible medical care and a very high chance of survival for preemies,” Nina explained. “If you’re going to throw up please don’t do it on him.”

That got a small laugh out of the taller man. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t tell you over the phone, I’m very scared,” he whispered. 

“This shit is so fucking scary,” Kaz muttered. He pulled his husband back and then cupped Matthias face with both of his hands. He really had to be struggling since he hadn’t removed his gloves when that was something he usually did before touching Matthias post their marriage. “I’m going to be with you the entire time. If we lose them we’ll do it together. I promised that I would be with you for the rest of your life and that counts now.”

He nodded, desperately trying to keep the rest of his tears at bay. He bit his lip to prevent a whimper from escaping as he bowed forward to try and help deal with his contraction. Nina pushed her body against the rail of the bed and then began the same soothing motions that she had been making the entire time that they had been together. “What’s going on?” Kaz panicked. 

That was what Matthias had been worried about, but thankfully his best friend appeared to have it under control. “He’s having a contraction. It’s his body getting ready to deliver the baby. It’s a bit painful but it’s more uncomfortable than anything. Matthias and I have already found a couple of ways that help him work through it.”

“Well, what are they?” Kaz demanded like she had just stolen away his favorite toy.

He and Nina had been friends for less time than Matthias and Nina had, but they still knew each other very well. She wasn’t offended by his tone or the fact that he was already beginning to bat her hand away with his gloved one. She knew that he wanted to be able to help Matthias because he felt helpless to fix the situation and wanted his partner to be as comfortable as he could be. So, she showed him what to do instead of arguing with him, “Rub his back, right along here.”

Kaz shuffled around so that he was sitting in a chair beside the hospital bed. Nina had put down the railing so that he could reach his husband better without having to stand. Kaz ran his hand, now bare form the glove, along his lover’s back to try and soothe some of the tensed muscles there. “You’re doing wonderfully, this is going to be fine. We’re going to make it through this,” he murmured. The words were as much for his mind as they were for Matthias’.

It only took about another ten minutes for the OB to return. She had Matthias get in the same position that he had been in before and then let him know that it was time for him to start pushing. He didn’t have as many options as he would have had it been a normal labor and delivery process. There was also a whole team from the pediatric wing of the hospital prepared to take the baby as soon as they were born.

He had just gotten his legs into the stirrups so that he could push when he had the sudden realization about what was going to happen. He had already been working through the idea of giving birth while they were trying to get pregnant and there was one part he knew he couldn’t go without. He could deal with the room full of strangers, the house completely unprepared for his babe, and the dog that didn’t know he was about to get a brother. He could deal with not having a name and the hours of time that were soon to be spent in the hospital NICU, but he had to have the one thing that he had always dreamed of. “I want to touch them, please, when they’re born. I don’t know if we can do skin-to-skin like a normal delivery, but I have to touch them when they’re born before they’re taken,” he said quickly.

“We can do that. Does your partner want to cut the cord?” Dr. Koh asked as her eyes flickered over to where Kaz was standing.

Kaz looked down at Matthias, who was only able to give him a brief nod before he had to focus on pushing. Nina was on the other side of the bed and whispering encouragements to him as she held his hand, giving him the strength that Kaz was too scared to lend easily. “I do,” the other man finally got out. “Yes.”

“Alright, we’ll make sure that we can do that. Right team?” the OB asked the room. There was a chorus of confirmation back which sent a shock of warmth through the couple, reassuring them that they were in good hands.

The entire world went gray as Matthias focused on the pain and pressure. The pressure would finally be relieved when he pushed, but it was still painful and the sensation of the baby descending inside of him was one of the weirdest that he had ever experienced. He could hear Kaz and Nina speaking to him, the instructions from the medical team, but everything else had fallen away. The only thing that he could focus on was getting through this horrible process so that they could start their new journey as parents.

He felt like he was being split open as the head began to crown. Another thing had passed that should have been in his birth plan if he had only known that he was going to have a baby. He wanted to feel their hair, their head as it was born into the world, but there was no time for that. He pushed again and felt himself open as wide as he had ever been, his nerves going red with it.

Dr. Koh gave a triumphant noise as she said, “I’ve got the head, I want you to stop pushing. Just pant and look at your husband, focus on him and not what I’m doing.”

He did as he was told, leaning his head back against the pillows. His chest was heaving for air and his neck was dripping with sweat, all from the exertion of giving birth. He turned towards his husband and saw that Kaz was tilted down towards the baby instead of looking back at him. His near-black eyes were wide with shock and held a reverence that Matthias had never thought he would get to see. This was something that he had wanted and thankfully had gotten despite the extreme circumstances.

He panted and tried to keep his body from pushing despite the near-irresistible urge that was fluttering through his system. “You’re so close, Matthias, so close,” Nina whispered as she pressed his knuckles to her chapstick-covered lips.

He didn’t want to hear that he was close, because that meant that his baby would be a step closer to being in the world. If his baby was close to being born then he couldn’t keep them safe where they belonged inside of him. His baby would be out in the world, where they would be hurt if something happened to him or Kaz, where they could get sick or hurt themself. If the baby stayed inside of him then they could continue to grow instead of coming out too small and sickly. When they were born, he wouldn’t be there to share his body with them and help them grow.

He let out a whimper as Dr. Koh said, “Alright, Matthias. No cord around the neck and the shoulders have turned now. I want you to push with the next pain, alright?”

“Okay, okay,” he breathed. There had been no stopping his labor and the delivery of their little one when he was admitted to the hospital, there was no way that it was going to happen now. The head of his baby had already been born so he might as well continue through the process so that he could see the beauty that they would bring with them.

He grasped hold of Kaz’s hand tighter than before so that he could give himself a bit of extra strength and then pushed with all his might. The nerves in his vaginal canal and legs had gone a bit numb from the constant pain and pressure that the birth was causing, but he was still able to feel the rest of the baby slip out of him and into the waiting hands of the doctor. As soon as it was all over, his body was flooded with endorphins and he collapsed back onto the bed. 

Matthias tilted his head upwards despite not being able to life the rest of himself so that he could see his baby. The doctor had caught them with one of the blue towel-blankets and was rubbing their back as she held them up so that he could see better. As she continued the motions, she stood from the stool and took a step forward. With a single fluid movement, she had placed the tiny baby down on his chest

She had been working with the baby while another member of the medical team leaned over and began to tie off the cord in two places. Matthias could barely pay attention to the or his husband as he focused on the tiny face of his baby. He could see that they could have gone with a couple extra weeks of growing and developing, but they were still the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen in his entire life.

Their brow was basically pulled from Kaz’s forehead and then shrunken down so that it lay underneath grimy red skin. Their nose and mouth held a shape that was reminiscent of Matthias’ mother, but he wasn’t sure if that would last. He remembered that his sister was basically identical to his father when she was born but then had grown to look like a combo of both their parents.

None of the time that he had gotten felt like enough and he was sure that it never would. Even if he had gotten days to stare down at the life that his body had made and birthed in secret, it would have been over too soon. The babe was lifted from his chest and whisked away to the warming station and NICU team in the corner as soon as Kaz had finished cutting the cord.

“What did we have?” Matthias asked, exhaustion raging in his body now that the contractions had dampened down and the adrenaline was beginning to flood from him.

“A little girl,” Kaz said. The way that he was speaking reminded the other two of when they were teenagers had he had faced his abusive foster father for the first time since he was nine. He was quiet and lost in his thoughts, plotting something that neither of them would be privy to for some time. 

“Go with her,” Matthias urged. “I’ll be fine here with Nina, don’t argue with me. I want you to go with her so that she doesn’t feel alone. If she doesn’t make it then she has to know how much her fathers loved her.”

The tears choked his throat before they all came pouring out of his eyes and down his face. He was shaking slightly in his bed as he stared at the warming station being rushed down towards the NICU so they could help the baby, who had only just begun to cry. “Are you sure?” Kaz asked. He only left his husband’s side when he was met with a quivering nod and Nina’s chiding.

---

Matthias would have gladly welcomed a much longer labor compared to the wait that he had to do afterwards. He had delivered the afterbirth and then gotten stitched up from where he had torn. Then he was moved into a recovery room where he would be watched to make sure he didn’t hemorrhage or develop any post-birth conditions. Nina had come with him, and Wylan was able to bring them some of the things that she had asked of him after an hour. It was nice to enjoy their company, especially when it was in addition to the food that his friend had brought with him. The only person that Matthias really wanted, however, was Kaz and his daughter. 

Guilt was swirling low in his stomach every time that he thought of what was really happening. She didn’t have a name and he didn’t even know her status. He wanted to be the one that had been allowed to go with their daughter so that he could see how she was doing. He wanted to be the one to see her first moments, to hear the doctor give her a prognosis no matter what it turned out to be. He was glad that he had sent Kaz so that she wasn’t alone, but his parents had always both been there for him and he couldn’t help but feel them judging him for not being able to do the same for his own baby.

Luckily, Nina was by his side the entire time. She held his hand and pressed her lips to his forehead to try and soothe the anxiety that had made itself at home in his heart. He was so grateful that she had chosen to be his friend when she easily could have had anyone. He leaned on her like she was a crutch, his head against her shoulder and their fingers together. It reminded him a little bit of when he had found her after her first OD, though he was the one in the hospital now.

“It’s going to be alright, Matthias,” Nina repeated every time she noticed the spike in his heart monitor. The only thing that he could do was nod in agreement with her. The idea that things could be bad, that he could be on the way to losing the daughter he had barely known that he was going to have, was simply too much for him.

Kaz was able to find him after about three hours. He looked frazzled, his hair a mess over his forehead and his eyes wild with stress. He slumped down into a chair on the other side of the bed from Nina, taking a deep breath before he leaned forward in search of his husband’s other hand. Matthias eagerly reached out for him while trying to keep his millions of questions behind his teeth. 

“She’s alright,” he started. “They had to get her on a feeding tube and they’re going to start bottle feeding her as soon as they can. Her lungs are developed thanks to the steroids that they gave you when you came in. She has some jaundice but apparently that’s more common in babies than we first thought it was. She’s going to have some time on the sun beds or whatever they call them.”

Kaz’s voice broke and he tilted his head down. Nina slipped off of the bed and then out of the room so that the duo could have some privacy, which Matthias was eternally grateful for. He scooted to the edge of the bed as easily as he could with how damaged he was from the birth. He took both of his husband’s hands and then kissed Kaz’s knuckles to try and accentuate his affection. Kaz leaned up and caught his lips in a wonderful, deliberate kiss. 

It was a shock but certainly not unwelcome. Matthias had expected Kaz to be in the throws of a panic attack the entire time that he was hospitalized. That was why they were looking into therapists before they actually became parents and thinking of healthy ways to do exposure therapy, after all. Usually when Kaz was anxious or stressed about something, it was a lot harder for him to touch people. Matthias understood that and loved him no matter how well they could physically show it to each other. He was pleasantly surprised, though, that he could get that touch-related affection from his spouse when he was aching for it.

Kaz broke the kiss and then pressed their foreheads together, his entire body quivering because his bad knee had too much weight on it. Matthias had just opened his mouth to tell him to sit when the other man began to speak, “Bear, she’s absolutely wonderful.”

“I wish that I could have gone with you to see her,” Matthias whispered. His heart was mourning that, he had always had some kind of idea that a parent would hold their baby and coddle them after they were born. He had seen those beautiful moments when both of his friends had their children, but he knew as soon as the reality of his situation had sunk in that it wouldn’t be happening for him. He had tried to make peace with it, but he wasn’t sure that it was really working all that well.

“You’ll go soon enough. She-she needs a name,” Kaz cleared his throat. “You made her, you need to give her a name. I can’t think of anything.”

“Kaz,” Matthias laughed. He knew that his husband was going to be awkward and nervous about becoming a parent, but this was more adorable than he could handle at the moment. “I don’t have any names right now.”

“We’ll figure something out eventually,” Kaz said. He grabbed his cane and began to pace around the hospital room with the face that he had used for scheming when they were dumb teenagers. “She’s small, so we’ll have to get some preemie baby clothes on top of taking the remnants of Machiel’s newborn clothes that Jes and Wy offered us. We’ll also have to get a carseat just for her, I know that Nina and Inej still have the one from Nilu but it’s kind of trashed and my girl needs to have something better than that. What color nursery do you want?”

“Kaz,” Matthias sighed as he relaxed back into the bed. He was sore and tired, he had just been through something incredibly traumatic for someone that knew they were pregnant, let alone what he had just done. “Whatever you pick will be good. When you’re finished ordering and panicking will you come lay down next to me so that I can sleep with my head on your shoulder?”

“Of course,” he replied like it wasn’t even a question. Matthias was glad to see that even though she was a surprise, Kaz was already fiercely bonded with their daughter. He could only hope the same would be true for himself.

---

Their entire worlds had changed many times before. They had both become entirely different people when they had lost their families. That was what had made them what they were now, what they would always be. It was something different to have the slow progression of love and healing that had led to their marriage. While only Kaz had lost the last tie to his humanity in the walls of a hospital, they were both handed a new life and a different way of being that day. Ida Delilah Helvar-Brekker would be the most cherished child in the entire group, even if they had to wait another three months to get to bring her home from the hospital.

[nekosd43]

Tagged by @epersonae!

Rules: Go to your published works on AO3 and list the first fic you ever published there, the last fic you published, any fic that you wrote for a fandom/ship only once, your favorite fic you wrote in the fandom/ship that has the most works, the fic you wish more people read, the fic you agonized over the most, the fic that sprang fully formed from your mind without any effort, and a work you are proud of—for whatever reason. <3

First fic - Who Can Say? it's funny to me that my first fic so badly was like "no i don't ship taako and magnus these two are COMPLETELY PLATONIC... or IS IT?" I had bad brain poison at the time that shipping fics were "lesser" art and didn't want to fall in that category... that turned out really good, good job me lol.

Last fic - Someday. the fact that i am one of (checks tag) THREE PEOPLE who have written Fjorester baby-making-sex is literally a crime to me. I literally do not understand. Why is there not more fic of them. If travis and laura say that fjord and jester had a kid in the liveshow next month I am going to be INSUFFERABLE TO EVERYONE AROUND ME LET THEM BE THE DILF/MILF POWER COUPLE I DESERVE.

Only fic for a fandom/ship -Since I have only posted fic for two fandoms and I've been pretty consistent about my shipping habits in those fandoms I don't have any real one-off ships, but You're all I want for candlenights is the ONLY taz fic that is not taako/magnus focused, instead focusing on Barry/Lup. I REALLY liked it and worked really hard on it, but didn't get a lot of love for it so I never really came back to the pairing except as background elements.

Favorite fic in the fandom with the most works - I legit go back and reread I had forgotten I would always love you at least once a month. Legit the perfect fic to me, has basically replaced canon in my brain to the point that I forget TAZ didn't end this way. When people say you should write the fic you want to read, this was it for me, this was THE taagnus fic for me and I've never written anything better.

Fic I wish more people read - Right now it's Come to bed with us good captain because I so BADLY want more people to ship postcanon Kingsley/Fjord/Jester and NOBODY MAKES CONTENT OF THEM. I wrote it hoping to get other people into the ship but it didn't work :,)

Fic I agonized over the most - Agonized is a strong word but in terms of "fics that were difficult to write and yet i wanted to keep writing them even when it was really hard," Wizards and Woodsmen, Beauties and Beasts is easily that. Spent literal years on it, with months between chapters because it was so hard to get my brain functioning enough to write it (most of it was written during periods where i had been let go from work and needed to do Something or I was going to die). I genuinely love this fic regardless, I'm glad I saw it through to the end, but it was a BATTLE every step of the way.

Fic that sprang fully formed - Your scars are a roadmap of your life literally came to me in one sitting after looking at some artwork that a artist who has sadly left tumblr did or i would link it. I had so many ideas for this fic it ended up inspiring me to write a whole magnus-centric scar series, and start a taako one that never got finished.

A work I'm proud of - It's not done yet and I'm still working my way through it but In Bloom with You is a fic that I have spent a LOT of time on and done a lot of work with, especially going back and editing early chapters to change it from a romantic fic into... something else? when Talesin revealed that Caduceus was aroace. Since then there has been a VERY KIND and very vocal corner of aroace fans of Cad (and fjord!) who have adored this fic and have said such wonderfully kind things to me about it and how it has helped them with their own body issues / sexual or romantic identities / relationships with their libido, and it's honestly really humbling and really nice because I also just REALLY like this fic! It started as a ho ho hee hee sexytime thing but the shift over time into this character study that uses sex as a lens to look at otherwise non sexual characters.... idk i honestly think it's one of my best works, even though it apparently also gets me Cancelled in certain corners of the fandom (it's a whole thing)

Tagging - anyone who wants to, but especially @ungarmax !