#it progresses different. there are milestones they met even before they started dating.

[monstrsball]

iwaizumi and oikawa are so nervous to meet suga's family. incredibly nervous.

they've never had to do a 'meet the family' thing when they started dating. their families already know each other. they considered each other's families their own long before they even started dating. the only nervewracking aspect was revealing that they were dating but it's not like anyone was surprised by that. (not even oikawa's parents) so things were okay, mostly.

in theory, oikawa should be fine. he did date one girl long enough to meet her parents (and they loved him) but this is different. it's a serious relationship. and there's the polyamorous aspect to consider too. what if they don't get it? what if they think iwaizumi and oikawa aren't taking this seriously and are just fooling around? what if koushi mom decides she hates them and forbids koushi from dating them? (iwaizumi says this is ridiculous because koushi is a twenty four year old adult man - he doesn't comment on the rest of it)

iwaizumi plays it cool for the most part but he won't lie that some of the anxieties oikawa expresses to him make him go "fuck i didn't even think that was a possibility..." he would never say that to oikawa though. he just rolls his eyes and tells him he's being ridiculous. (oikawa knows iwaizumi is nervous too though. of course he does. he knows him better than himself sometimes.)

in the end, they really had nothing to worry about. moms always love oikawa, he's a charmer. it doesn't hurt that he brought flowers. iwaizumi wins her over when he offers to do the dishes after dinner. suga's brother is a little quiet and standoffish at first but warms up to both of them when he sees that they both clearly care a lot about his brother. (sorry oikawa, little suga did in fact think what you feared he would)

they leave with their phone numbers and an invite to the next big family gathering with suga's extended family.

[richmondsims]

Andrew had never really seen the point of making a bigger deal of 'milestone' birthdays. I mean, sure, you can contemplate your life at 20 or 30 or 40, but you could equally contemplate the past decade at 24 or 36 or 41. Now however, at age 30, he found himself drawn into reflecting back even so.

To be fair, his life was hugely different to the way it had been ten years ago. At 20, only a couple of years out of a childhood spent in children's homes and foster care, Andrew was completely without ties.

He travelled around, taking any job he could, and only staying until he had enough money to move on to the next town. Then, at 25, he'd come to Richmond.

He'd got a job as usual, but in a matter of months, he also had a girlfriend, a dog and an apartment. True, the only one of those things he still had now was the the dog, but he hadn't exactly shaken off the bonds of adult responsibility either.

He'd lost the job because of his somewhat chaotic relationship with the girlfriend. Then in quick succession he broke up with the girlfriend, got the apartment and got the dog. Then he got another job working for the brother of the woman who had just fired him. The ex-girlfriend left town, came back, and then started working for the same guy as Andrew. Not that it mattered because, by then, he had another girlfriend.

He'd met Tracy through an online dating site. She was living in a cottage in Bluewater Village that had belonged to her late grandparents, with her daughter Tania. 

She was also studying for a Communications degree at SSU. Their relationship had developed quickly, and Andrew (and his dog) left the apartment to move out to Bluewater village with her. 

Tracy's parents now owned the cottage, and they'd let her stay there rent free while she was in college. It was only fair that they start to pay after Andrew moved in with her. Money was tight but Tracy grew vegetables for them and Andrew did extra shifts, and they were a happy little family.

As for Andrew's other extended family, as he'd told Tracy they weren't really people you'd want to get to know. He'd kept in loose contact with a couple of relatives, though, and through them he learned about a distant cousin, a five year old boy who needed a home following the dissolution of his own family. 

Andrew's experiences in state care hadn't been too bad, but he'd heard the horror stories from others. And in any case, a home and family of your own were going to be better no matter what. They were far from rich but they were sure they could afford another child, and there was some government support for foster parents. Following a hectic series of appointments, lessons in kinship fostering, home reviews and legal advice, Neal joined their family.

Tania was used to being an only child, and it took her a while to accept Neal. After a couple of years, they now got on well. 

There was still the occasional argument, but no more than any other kids growing up in the same family. And they really were all family now, after Andrew and Tracy were married a couple of summers ago.

It was a quiet ceremony in their backyard, with only their children and Tracy's parents and a couple of close friends as guests.

They'd kept it small partly because of the cost, and partly because Tracey's friend Juliana was finally planning her own wedding for that autumn, and they didn't want to steal the attention from her when she'd had so many problems and delays.

---

From Andrew

These guys have never had an update since I recreated my neighborhood in TS3, so there's a lot to get through.

Neal joined the family almost immediately after I recreated them in TS3. I had set up Story Progression for the household and turned off pregnancy - but I forgot to turn off adoption. Family-orientated sims that they are, the next time I went to play the household it had a new addition. I had played other households for some time and I didn't have a save before it happened, so he got to stay. I made him a family member of Andrew because that made more sense than a couple in their position intentionally seeking to adopt an unrelated child.

Everything Andrew describes in the first part of the story happened back in TS2 and on the blog - you can find the updates by following his tag. It was a slightly crazy period in the story, but it all seems to have worked out well in the end. 

[dontwarnthetadpoles]

But what the writers didn't do was flesh out what happened on those dates in a way that would have proven their compatibility, to make us understand why it's Riley that Buffy wants, and not his best friend Graham (who is equally handsome and strong and brave) or Forrest (esentially because he's black but that's something the show couldn't admit at that time and we have had to wait for season 7 to see her flirting with a black guy). And no, the fact that Riley took the first step towards her doesn't matter, she wasn't that desperate to meet someone after Parker.

This romance was treated like an assignment - it's like the writers were filling out a list of things they need to do to establish Buffy and Riley as a couple, but at an accelerated pace. They literally fast-forwarded their relationship - preventing the emotional progress that came with it and that Buffy and Riley should have experienced as a couple, from being as impactful, from being as captivating as it should have been. In short, their romantic scenes largely lacked the wow effect that should have made us swoon.

I don't understand why, because it's not like Whedon hasn't written a perfect, blissful romance on the show before. He built all the major milestones of Oz and Willow's love story.

In one of his interviews or maybe in the DVD commentary (I'm not sure), he talked about how difficult it was for him to convince viewers to accept Oz as Willow's new boyfriend, after they spent more than a season watching her have an unrequited crush on Xander, for which their shippers still hoped for a happy ending, and yet Whedon did it: he wrote the van scene for them in Innocence.

I can say with certainty that it worked thanks to the effect it had on me: I ship intensely Oz and Willow and i can list even without rewatching the episodes, more than a dozen moments that involved them. Their scenes, little or big, are a dream come true. They embody everything a romantic relationship should be: cute, funny, tender, sweet and passionate, honest, authentic, full of wisdom, with some real mistakes along the way but always engaging and compelling.

While there are many examples I could cite, one of my favorites is how they met and started dating. From the decision to make Oz fall for her at first sight, to let him be in awe of Willow, to the fact he got to see the different sides of her personality before ven talking to her: the invisible girl (when they bumped into each other while she wore her ghost costume in Halloween), the quirky and original schoolgirl in her Inuit costume, the sexy and mysterious stranger in the outfit that Buffy picked for her (in Halloween again). He was impressed by all that she was or could be and was always trying to figure out who was the real her. Every moment of those first steps in their romance has become iconic, in a somewhat nostalgic way.

This path should have been Buffy and Riley's path too. Instead there was a lot of mixed signals coming from Riley.Like the fact that he kept repeating how much special and mysterious Buffy was - Forrest in Hush tried to make him notice that the constant excitement about her specialness was turning into an obsession - but Riley ignored him. In his case, it seemed something that he learnt to repeat ad nauseam to please the girl he wants, or to impress his friends, or even sometimes to convince himself that she was how he wanted her her to be. He never defined what makes her special for him, and yet he seemed fixated on the idea that she was different from all the other women.

When i say their dates weren't fleshed out, i mean:

Their first official date during Something Blue was a picnic which was quickly crashed by a depressed Willow still haunted by Oz's abrupt departure. Buffy spent the rest of the episode holding Spike's hand, sitting comfortably on his lap and kissing him passionately. Indeed, she needed to overcome her attraction to bad boys, but it could have been done during I Remember You on Ats with Angel. Instead of making the crossover the 100th performance of their "impossible tragic love," it could have been a big fight between the ex-lovers that opened her eyes to his bad side. The writers preferred to entrust this subplot to Spike and played it as a joke at the expense of Riley, making him look like a man easily duped (by Buffy who lied to him without shame)

Between Hush and Doomed, there was no date but a bag of mixed impressions. They shared two kisses and a hug during these episodes, but they were more symbolically separated by the tension and conflict between them than they have ever been before. It started at the most basic level with Buffy and Riley struggling to come up with something to say during the conversation they had after she dreamed about the Gentlemen. At this point, their usual civilian selves have clearly reached a limit in terms of the compatibility of their personality and their common interests, and this is the reason why they both wanted to tell the truth as they respectively admitted to Willow and Forrest.

The reveal of their secret identity didn't happen because the plot demanded it (it happened in Hush because it was the episode written by Whedon but Doomed or A New Man offered too many opportunities for this twist) or by the pace of their relationship. If the dialogues in Hush during their walk on the campus established that Buffy was doing a poor job of trying to hide what she did after school, it could hardly be described as the couple reaching the point where it got too hard to lie to each other.

As proved by their dialogues:

RILEY So what have you got going on tonight? BUFFY Patrolling. RILEY Patrolling? BUFFY (quick cover) Uh, petroleum. RILEY Petroleum. BUFFY Uh huh. RILEY Tonight you have crude oil. BUFFY And homework. What about you? RILEY Oh, you know, grading papers... BUFFY Well, that'll be fun. RILEY Not "petroleum" fun, but it passes the time...

Does this seem like the culmination of an unbearable tension that would force them to tell the truth?

Their scenes lacked passion not because of the acting but because of the writing: if they couldn't talk about their respective secret lives, they had nothing else to say, was the message of the screenwriters. And indeed, sharing the slaying became their almost exclusive activity (with sex) after the truth was revealed, and it remained that way for most of season 4.

A New Man established a power imbalance between them and created Riley's insecurities: he realized that not only would Buffy always be physically stronger than him, but she would also lead because that's who she is, and all he could do was follow. The writers offer no solution at this point - he said he liked that she was independent and a leader but he also said he still had hopes of beating her with more practice - until this problem is remembered in season 5 as his main reason for refusing the operation which could save his life because he was convinced that Buffy would not date a normal man, but also because he did not want to be a normal man (which was an attitude more consistent with his military training and competitive spirit).

They finally shared their first sexual connection in The I in team, but this scene is the most uncomfortable to watch: they were supposed to make love, instead it was cut and interspersed between different stages of a group fight scene where they were slaying a demon with other Initiative soldiers. It looked like a performance, like a mise-en-scène written to respond to an aesthetic scripted in advance. A mix of sex appeal and violence that was the opposite of the magic, intimacy, tenderness, sweetness I expected since they were supposed to be the true soul mates that Buffy and Angel don't. couldn't be. And I won't even go into the fact that this special moment was heavily tainted with disgust due to the violation of their privacy by Maggie Walsh, who filmed them...

There's more to say about what happened to them when Maggie died and Faith and Angel showed up, but this post is really already too long.

Bad boys are dangerous: that's the whole point of this trope. It sends a message to society as a whole. This is the wrong choice that many young girls make every day due to their inexperience, lack of emotional maturity and lack of a functioning family to protect them. It seems clear to me that was the message the show wanted to send with Angel and Spike, but for some reason Whedon found it difficult to fully impose that point of view on his own shows, and we were left with the wrong impression about Angel, that he was one of the good guys while Riley was considered a weak version of a hero.

Buffy Rewatch: season 4

I'm not doing this rewatch in order, so i have a lot of thoughts who pop up and often contradict themselves. But i know that i'm not going to write real, full reviews, so it's better than nothing to share them under the form of "shorts" (as much short as i can do, which is not really short) comments.

I really wonder what made Whedon believe that the best way for Buffy to get over Angel, was to create a character (Riley) who was the opposite of Angel in every way, an anti Angel.

Whedon said indeed:

"The important thing for us was to find a character that was the anti-Angel and to have Buffy go through something very different, part of which was the question, 'How do I get over Angel?' That was the same thing the audience was going through. We knew it wasn't going to be easy and it was very hard trying to find somebody. But Marc [Blucas] has a quality that I love very much: he has sort of an un-David-like, firm, strong, trustworthy quality. I always think of him as Gary Cooper."

Source

I mean it seems obvious that to define someone as anti someone else means the influence and hold of the character that is seen negatively is more powerful than ever. An anti Angel means that Angel's shadow never left the show, that he is still haunting Buffy in every way, except she keeps the obsession that he represents at distance with a more positive boyfriend, who she uses like a talisman to keep her thoughts about him from becoming too intrusive.

Why couldn't Riley be himself, a regular and normal guy in appearance but with a double life of demon hunter that matches Buffy's mission, someone that Buffy would have realized she wanted in her life just by living, fighting at his side and learning to love him daily instead of being a reversed image of her ex?

In the anti Angel scenario, even if her relationship with Riley had worked, she still would have been trapped with an improved version of Angel, different but still too close. On the show, the writers didn't make as opposite as Whedon claimed to want them. Actually both men shared many common opinions and personality traits:

a sexist worldview,

the need of being needed as Angel's savior complex proved it on Ats especially with damsels in distress,

insecurities about virility developed during the crossover episode in Ats "I will remember you" where Angel gave up a possible human life at Buffy's side because he couldn't handle to be less strong than her to not be in capacity to protect her).

I don't see how creating with Riley an idealized version of Angel (one who can take her on a picnic, see her in the daylight, who would accept his strength inferiority because he can't do anything about it, one who can have as much sex as Buffy wants, who can marry and have children), someone that Angel could never be because of his personality souled or souless, would fix Buffy's problem of dependency and later of emotional distance/self centeredness?

It feels like the writers were rather presenting us of what Buffy would think to be her ideal man based on her unique romantic relationship with Angel. A Frankenstein version of the Prince Charming not in the sense that Riley is a monster, he's a good man, a brillant man and a hot man, but because he's also in some way closer to what would look like a puppet stitched based on Buffy's preferences and to who life would be given.

The problem is not only Riley's personality, but also the execution of their romance mostly the timing of it.

I think that the writers got it right when they made Buffy hook up, before making Riley her official boyfriend, with guys who are all about sex (Parker) or are bad boys at heart (Spike). In real life, any young/teen girl would have repeated the same mistake few times with other boys similar in looks or darkness/personality to the one she loved deeply and who hurt her, before growing enough to learn from the past. The solution to make her involved with Spike was more credible than to push her in Riley's arms immediately, especially when they had nothing in common in term of interests.

But the timing is all wrong: there is less than 7 episodes between her one night stand with Parker in The Harsh light of Day (4.03) and her picnic and first official date with Riley in Something Blue (4.09). The picnic happened in the same episode as 'the thing" with Spike (i don't know how to call it), and just after an entire episode on Ats where she spent a lot of time in bed with Angel. She almost ruined her relationship with Riley because of Spike (Something Blue), so by the time they had their first kiss, i didn't scream "finally the good guy she deserves" but rather " it's too much romance and disappointment in one season, and he will never make up for it because the show is already creating conflict over his identity."

Conflicts kept piling up indeed during the second half of the season: from the revelation of their secret identities to Buffy's refusal to give a chance to Riley, from her change of mind and full involvement in his life to the point she joined The Initiative for him to the shock of Maggie Walsh's attempt to kill her and Walsh's murder by Adam, from Riley's change in personality due to the effects of The Initiative's medicine on him to Faith's intrusion in their lives etc...

That's a lot to deal with in such a short period, especially when we consider too the fact that despite all those ordeals that they faced together as a couple, Riley never got passed this image that he was less than her ex vampire boyfriends. Diminished by his lesser fighting skills, the lesser danger he represented, his less cool attitude: Buffy called him a doof, Forrest said he's a mama's boy, Willow for his defense argued that "he didn't seem like he could tell a little white lie, let alone a whole bunch of big dirty ones"; though his cool potential changed depending on what the script needed him to be, and based too on his double identity.

Coming after such radical personalities (Angel and Spike) with extreme views and violent actions explain why so many fans see him as bland and boring (which he is not): they can't shake the feeling of being overwhelmed by Angel and Spike, not matter how wrong their values, their feelings, their actions were.

I read a lot that Riley was supposed to be her endgame but i don't see how it would have worked if it was planned to introduce Dawn and kill Joyce since season 2, as the rumor says. That meant Whedon knew very early that Buffy was going to die during season 5. After all that she went through to find the right guy, was Whedon going to pretend that she was leaving behind the love of her life in a grand gesture of sacrifice to save the world? Even though it looked and felt liker rather a suicide, in a season where the accumulation of misery was leading to her death anyway? What would have been the point of getting over Angel if she was not going to survive?

For me who perceives the show mostly from the angle of trauma, to get her past her relationship with Angel was in all cases a necessity because he literally stole her life: he made a mess of it, of her vision of love and she needed to heal.

But it would have required to not treat Riley as someone who was always going to suffer from the comparison, and also to make clear at one point that she chose him over Angel (during one of the crossovers with Ats preferably), and that her decision was definitive in her mind.

Riley really didn't need to be the anti Angel, and the writers shouldn't have taken the risk to fail at delivering this tale of happiness for Buffy (if they really wanted her to be happy) by trying to force on him this fake personality.

No more than they should have let Buffy trapped in the mindset "that real love and passion have to go hand in hand with lots of pain and fighting". that it's "where the fire comes from", questioning the possibility that "a nice safe relationship can be that intense".

Buffy and Riley didn't have nice and safe lives so their relationship couldn't be nice and safe and yet she still had doubts even after she started to date him.

A vision of love on which she was still clinging so strongly that she even blamed Angel for calling her his ex (during the crossover with Ats when Angel came back to Sunnydale after helping Faith, allegedly to apologize), which sent her back right to the regret that she couldn't be with him and which confirmed indirectly that Riley was a default choice.

Which begs the question: what kind of reactions did the writers expect from the fans when they didn't seem to even bother to establish Buffy and Riley's romance as a more desirable relationship for Buffy?

[harrywritingsbyme]

Just The Way You Are

Based Off Of This Ask

And This One

A/N: Anon…tysm for helping me out of my brain fart and suggesting/requesting this concept. I may or may not have cried (more like bawled) while writing this one. I love it sm and I feel like it’s perfect bc it’s so  relatable for so many, so I hope you like it bby🥺!! and I just realized that this is my last full post of 2020 which is absolutely insane…enjoy🙃

What you saw in the mirror was always a struggle for you. You were heavy in the chest, your hips were wide, you had chub in places where you didn’t want chub, and you had an endless supply of thighs. For the longest time you’d been in the never ending battle with your weight and with your figure. For years, you struggled to lose weight and slim down, trying your hardest to fit into the mold and standard of beauty that was placed before you. You tried so many of the fad diets you’d found on the internet and countless workout routines that were supposedly going to give you that instant gratification and the appearance you were chasing after.

 But at the end of it all, you got nothing. In fact, you came out with less than what you came in with. The only thing that came out of those efforts was even more disappointment in yourself. And the disappointment and dissatisfaction that came from those efforts was just a portion of the mountain of disdain and sadness that was already growing inside of you towards yourself. There were so many times where you just wanted to give up on it all. You felt like you’d never be seen as beautiful by yourself or by anyone else. You felt like there was absolutely no hope and that you weren’t going to be able to be loved by anyone because of your outward appearance. You felt stuck. 

And you felt stuck for a while. You went back and forth between fighting to get out of this state and just letting it be that way for who knows how long. You went on and on in this cycle until you became tired of being that way. It became exhausting. You’d reached your lowest point, you were drained. You realized that you couldn’t stay like this forever, nor were you going to allow yourself to stay like this anymore. So you pulled yourself up and you came up with a way to get yourself up. Even though it probably wasn’t the best mindset to have, you came to the resolve that if you couldn’t change it and if you weren’t going to be accepted and loved by anyone on the basis of your looks, you might as well accept and love yourself the way you were. And believe it or not, that pessimistic yet strangely optimistic mindset actually got you to a much better place. Sure you still had your insecurities about the way you looked and sure your heart sunk a little bit when you looked in the mirror, but you were feeling better than before and that’s all you cared about. You weren’t completely over the hill in regards to the negative feelings towards yourself but you definitely made progress and that’s all that mattered to you. You were finally feeling better. 

And you only got better. After making it to the point of feeling a bit better about yourself, you met Harry. He managed to shower you with all the love and affection you never thought you’d ever receive from someone. Even though you were strong in your convictions when it came to finding any type of approval in a man, you couldn’t resist Harry. He was an absolute dream. Along with loving you and your body, he was everything you could’ve wanted in a partner. There was no other way to describe it, he was just amazing and you didn’t want to let him go, nor were you planning to. You didn’t even entertain the thought. You held onto him and you enjoyed the pure bliss that came from being together. The both of you were completely head over heels for each other. And as you and Harry’s relationship grew, you blossomed. You became confident in yourself and you were able to stop putting yourself down. You’d reached the better place you were desperately searching for all this time. You were happy. This time, it wasn’t a facade that you were putting up to disguise your true and beyond negative feelings. You were truly happy. 

But with all good things of course, they either come to an end or come at a price. And being with Harry came at a price. You and Harry tried your best to keep your relationship away from the prying eyes that were constantly surrounding him. But you could only do but so much with that. It wasn’t that long before everyone found out who you were and made things a bit harder for you. After a little over nine months into your relationship with Harry, you began noticing an all around influx in your social media’s along with the press in general. Your picture was everywhere and there were so many people who were taking and interest in you and talking about you. You knew it came with the territory of dating someone who had an enormous amount of fame the way Harry did, but it was still very foreign and it was something that you weren’t prepared for. There were so many comments that made you happy and feel better about the situation. They were so happy to see you dating Harry, especially since you were very different from the women he’s dated and has been associated with in the past. Seeing those things always melted your heart and made you feel so good inside. 

But for some reason, the bad always crept in and overshadowed the good that was being brought your way. Along with an influx in positives, there was an influx in the negatives with the main target being your appearance. You tried to block it out and not focus on the negative, but those feelings that Harry was able to break through in the beginning came creeping back. Harry tried to console you in any way possible given the fact that you had talked to him a little bit about your past struggles. He took the time to remind you that you were desirable and that you were beautiful and that he loved you. Now while you were still down about what was being said about you, Harry’s words definitely provided comfort to you and made the situation tolerable. They didn’t miraculously change your thinking on the matter, but Harry’s words were able to stop you from going into the dark place you were in before which was what you needed at the time. Since everything was coming down onto you all at once, that was exactly what you needed. And eventually, with Harry’s help, you were able to make it through that incredibly intense time. 

Not too long after the news broke about your relationship, you and Harry celebrated your one year anniversary together, the both of you were beyond ecstatic about the milestone and your lives together going forward. The both of you were so happy to be together and so happy to have made it through the hell that was the past three months following the revealing of guys’ relationship. As you two continued on together, the negativity still came your way though. You tried your best to block it all out and keep moving forward to the best of your abilities but you weren’t able to let it all roll off you back. Some of it stayed with you, prompting you to just spring into action. Because you had so many people talking about you and your appearance, picking you apart at every turn, you were became determined to make them shut up. And the only way you knew how to do that was by going to work out with Harry. You figured that if you were able to do what he was doing, you’d be able to transform and as a result get them all to shut up and leave you alone. 

So you gave Harry the lame excuse of wanting to accomplish the health goal you had set for yourself which marked the beginning of your anxiety and stress filled workout journey. Harry bought right into that positive notion too, completely ready and willing to help you accomplish your goal and completely oblivious to your true motives towards wanting to start working out with him. From that point on, the two of you got up early at the same time five days a week to work out. It was incredibly hard for you to do but you were beyond motivated to shut everyone up and go back to having that peace you once had within yourself. 

You just wanted it all to stop. 

Now while you were extremely determined to workout, Harry began noticing some things that prompted red flags to go up in his head. The main and number one thing that got his attention was your excessiveness in regards to working out. After helping you get accustomed to working out the way he did and on the schedule he did it, you ran with it and never stopped. You began working out all the time, making your schedule seven days a week and sometimes twice a day. You were pushing yourself so hard and he was worried about you. He knew that you struggled with your confidence and body image so he didn’t want to discourage you. But he didn’t want you to hurt yourself either, nor did he want you to feel like you had to work out and change yourself for him or anyone for that matter. He knew that something had to be done and he was determined to get to the bottom of it. 

He decided to step in and do it all this morning. Normally it’d be an off day but since you were on seven days a week, you were getting up early to head downstairs to the gym. As you were moving to sit up, Harry tightened his grip around you, keeping your body down on the bed and against him. 

“Harry, you have to let me go.” You whisper back to him, trying to wiggle your way out of his grip. 

“No I don’t, you deserve a rest day anyways.” He mumbles back to you through a yawn, beginning to fully wake up as well. 

“I need to do this babe, I don’t be long.” You try and reason with him, still trying to release his grip from around you. 

“Okay fine, but can we please talk before you go down?” He bargains, even though he had no intention of letting you go down there. 

“Sure.” You agree, stopping your attempts to free yourself from his grip.

“Thanks baby.” He hums before unwrapping his arm from around you and sitting up in the bed to almost hover over your body. “So what’s going on?” He asks calmly yet  bluntly. 

“What do you mean?” You reply back to him with a puzzled look spread across your face to match your response. 

“You’ve been working out so much recently and it’s becoming a bit concerning sweets. I want you to reach your goal, I really do! I just want you to be healthy about it.” He softly points out to you, bringing his hand down to your cheek. 

“I’m fine Harry. I really want to reach this goal so I’m doing everything I possibly can.” You attempt to justify your actions over the past weeks, trying to steady your breathing a bit as well as you adjust to the touchy subject at hand. 

“Well I understand that and I’m so proud of you for going at this with that determination, I really am. It’s just that I don’t want you to be doing this because of all the things going around online.” He explains, his voice filled with  worry and concern. “I know it’s hard, but if you’re doing this, you should be doing this for you baby. That’s it.” He adds. 

When he says this, your heart sinks. You weren’t doing this for you. And you didn’t want him to find out your actual reasons for working out seven days a week and practically killing yourself because if he did, which he ultimately was, it was going to crush him. And the last thing you wanted was for him to worry about you. You could see all the worry and concern painted all over his face and you hated it. You hated it so much that you began to cry, not being able to hold back the tears that were already bubbling up in your eyes. 

“Oh my-baby please talk to me!” He begs, wiping the tears that were falling from your eyes. 

“It’s just so hard Harry. I’ve never had this many people coming at me about the way I looked. The only people I had to worry about before with this were myself and anyone I came in contact with. But now it’s everyone and it’s too much. I just want them all to shut up and leave me alone.” You rush out through your tears, completely breaking down below him. 

“I’m so sorry baby.”

“The only reason why I’m working out so much and trying so hard to get through it all is because I love you so so much. I can’t go back to that dark place anymore, I just wanna stay out here in the light and happiness with you. It’s just so hard when you have so many people coming at you all at once and it makes you want to just give in so that you can have peace.” You sob. When Harry hears this, his heart breaks into a million pieces. He was assuming full responsibility for this. He felt like if it wasn’t for him entering your life, you wouldn’t be completely broken before him right now.

“I’m so sorry that you’re going through all of this baby. It’s all my fault and I feel horrible for even putting you in this position.” Harry sighs, feeling tears beginning to form in his eyes as well. 

“But it’s not-“ 

“It is my fault.” He quickly interjects. “You’re going through this torture because of me and I’m so so sorry. I love you so much baby and I wish that I could just end all of this for you.” He whimpers, feeling the hot tears streaming down his face. 

“I love you too Harry. And it’s not your fault.” You reiterate, making it clear that you didn’t blame him for any of this. 

“I just need you to remember that I love you so much. I love all of you so much.” He says firmly to you, locking his eyes with yours to really reach you. He couldn’t stress how beautiful you were in his eyes enough. You were absolutely amazing to him and he just wanted to touch and admire you all the time if he could. He wanted to constantly shower you with all the love and affection you deserved. He wanted the girl he loved to know that she was absolutely stunning and that he couldn’t get enough of her. He needed you to know that. It was so important to him that you know how beautiful you were.

And he planned on making sure you knew just how beautiful you were. He quickly wipes his face before pulling your legs apart and moving in between them.

“Harry what are you doing?” You ask at his sudden movements. 

“Shh, just let me love on you baby.” He coos down to you before bringing his lips to yours. The kiss is soft but filled with passion. You could feel it radiating off of Harry and down onto you. As he continues to kiss your lips, you feel his hands glide down your body, tugging up at hem of the shirt you slept in. Keeping his lips on yours, he pulls it up your body detaching his mouth when he pulls the shirt off of your body, leaving you in just your panties below him. “You are so beautiful.” He admires, taking in your pretty much naked body. Everywhere he looked he found something that he loved. There was no part of you that he hated. In fact, anything you hated, he loved.

Without wasting anymore time, Harry jumps right into his praising session so to speak. He starts at your lips, leaving you one final kiss before leaving a trail of kisses down the lower portion of your face and neck, going all the way down and stopping at your chest. He brings his hands up to your ample breasts and he cups both of them in his hands. He then lifts his head up a bit to lock eyes with you.

“I love these so much. They’re so pretty and they fit perfectly in my hands.” He whispers, bringing his mouth to one of your breasts and capturing one of your nipples in his mouth. He then begins to suck on you, using his hands to squeeze wherever he couldn’t have his mouth. As he did this, your eyes fluttered shut and your mouth hung open, allowing little moans to escape as you enjoyed the physical and emotional pleasure you were receiving from Harry. Even though it was just the beginning, you knew what he was doing because he’d done it many times before. And every time he did it, you had the same reaction. You were in a completely blissful state and you felt loved every single time. Those feelings were only intensified since you and Harry talked and you really expressed what you were going through. And now that you let all of that out, you felt lighter and you were so ready to feel good again. Harry then removes his mouth from your breast and latches onto the other, doing the exact same thing as before. Squeezing your flesh and rolling your nipple between his fingers as he sucked on the other. He continues on like this a little longer before moving down your body.

“I love this tummy of yours.” He hums delightedly, leaving kisses all over the area, making sure to leave kisses along your sides as well, nipping at your chub every once in a while too. “Can’t wait to put out baby in here.” Harry hums, enjoying the idea of having a baby with you. 

“Oh my goodness Harry!” You chuckle through your labored breaths. 

“You’d look so pretty, maybe even prettier than you already are if that’s even possible.” He praises, smoothing his hand across your empty stomach. Harry then moves on to the next part of your body. 

“I love these hips.” He groans biting into and kissing the flesh of your hips. “Love grabbin’ them when I fuck you. So good.” He sighs, thinking back on the times he’s pushed into you. He then moves even lower. He begins to leave kisses along the side bands of your panties, bringing his mouth closer and closer to where your need was mounting. But instead of going there, he keeps going down and stops at your thighs. 

“I don’t know if I told you this, but I’m in love with your thighs. Like they’re absolutely delicious and amazing.” He rambles up to your before biting into one of them, squeezing the other as he did this. Harry loved how fleshy your thighs were. He couldn’t get enough of how they quaked and jiggled when he fucked into you. They were so soft and plushy, how could Harry possibly resist them?! Once he’s done loving on your thighs, Harry lifts himself up so that he’s kneeling between your legs before quickly pulling you onto your side to give your ass a couple swats, causing you to yelp out to him from how it stung. “I didn’t forget about your ass either baby, I love pulling it apart and having my face buried in it.” He says before pushing you back into your original position below him. 

“And now to the last stop.” He announces, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your panties before tugging them down, lifting your legs up to fully pull them off. He tosses them to the side and spreads your legs for him, revealing your soft and puffy center. “I love your pussy. It’s magical if m’being completely honest. It’s all puffy and  warm and sticky. It’s just the best. Feels amazing around my cock and it tastes amazing on my tongue.” He heavily praises before going in. He could see that you were already dripping so he knew that it wouldn’t take long at all to make you let go in his mouth.

With his mouth on you, Harry licks a wide stripe up your folds, pushing his tongue into you. When he does this, your hands go straight to his hair and your thighs begin to close a little around his head, prompting Harry to moan a little and rut his now hard cock against the bed. Even though this was all about you, Harry couldn’t stop himself from getting hard. In fact, he got hard because it was about you. Anything you did had the power to turn him on. He was constantly getting hard because of you. In fact, as he licked into you, Harry was rutting his hips down into the bed to relieve some of the pressure in his cock. All Harry wanted was to be wrapped up in you all the time. Just like now, Harry was eating you like his life depended on it as your thighs were wrapped around his head. While you were in heaven, Harry was in heaven as well. As he continued on, your were absolutely losing it too. His mouth felt absolutely amazing on you. You were already buzzing from the way he practically worshiped your body so now that he was full on eating you, you were incredibly close to letting go. 

“Feels so good!” You moan out to him, feeling a warmth spreading throughout your body. “Think m’gonna cum.” You pant, tightening your grip on him. To push you right over the edge, Harry moves his tongue up from your entrance and just sucks on your buzzing clit. This does the trick perfectly. As you let go, Harry could feel himself getting closer to his own release so he continues to push himself back and forth against the bed. 

Once you’re all done and your body goes limp, Harry leaves a kiss to your clit along with a kiss to each of your thighs, both of your hips, your stomach, and both of your breasts before stopping at your face.

“I love you.” You hum lazily, still recovering from your release. 

“I love you too baby.” Harry hums with a little chuckle, enjoying how tired out you are. “I love you just the way you are. I know it’s hard for you and I’m incredibly sorry for that. But we’ll get through it, right lovie?” 

“Mhm!” You mumble happily. 

“That’s right, and no more excessive workouts. If you wanna do some extra workouts, let me know so that we can have sex instead.” He proposes happily. 

“Can we “work out” some more then?” You breathe out.

“I’d love that. 

Masterlist

[yuta-nakamots]

santa tell me - l.yy

Pairing - Yangyang x Reader

Genre - Fluff, Angst

Warnings - None

Summary - Growing up, your wishes to Santa were always things like a doll set, a pretty outfit, or a Nintendo gaming system. You didn’t know if he would answer to a wish that was not tangible, like wishing for a person, but it didn’t hurt to try.

Word Count - 4.2k

Taglist - @danishmiilk @dearyongs​

A/N - bolded phrases are song lyrics taken from the songs listed in the prompts. special appearance by @orange-nimon-cross​. 

Written for the Walking In A Winter Wonderland Collab hosted by @suh-insane​ and @neocitybynight​. 

Prompts:

“Come and kiss me baby, we don’t need no mistletoe” - Ariana Grande (Wit it This Christmas)

“Santa tell me if you’re really there. Don’t make me fall in love again if he won’t be here next year.” - Ariana Grande (Santa Tell Me)

When you had first started off in university, one of your biggest worries was not being able to make new friends and fit in with them. Granted, you chose to stay home and go to one of your local schools meaning that some of your high school friends would still be with you but you also wanted to meet new people so you’re not stuck with the same idiots for the rest of your life.

Such idiots being Na Jaemin and Lee Jeno who had stuck with you all through high school. Both of them had told you that they too would be staying at home and would be going to school with you, which you were secretly extremely thankful for, though you knew they too were probably itching to make new friends.

Luckily, you three were all majoring in the STEM field so many of your classes coincided with each other. You stuck with Jaemin as biology majors on the pre-med track while Jeno majored in engineering. Somehow, Jeno, one of the most quiet and intimidating people at first glance, had managed to connect with the other freshmen, introducing you to Yangyang and Renjun, both of whom he met in his calculus class.

Yangyang was majoring in bioengineering, a quite daunting major to say the least, while Renjun was going into computer science. Much to your surprise, Yangyang was actually local. It's just that he had gone to one of your rival high schools which was why you hadn’t yet met him unlike Renjun who actually flew in from a different city.

Like this, your little friend group was complete for your first year of college. With all of you being in the STEM fields, group study sessions were a must, especially for Renjun who felt the need to be over prepared for every quiz or exam though he claimed that the rest of you were just ‘underprepared’.

“So who can tell me what the values of N(0) and N(9) are?” Renjun asked, standing in front of the whiteboard in the study room you all booked to prepare for your calculus exam the next day.

Everyone was silent as they analyzed the problem. “Oh, N(0) is 41 and N(9) is 325, right?” Yangyang answered.

“Correct, they’re simply the values given to us in the problem,” Renjun explained as he wrote the numbers on the board, “and so from here, what do we do if we want to find the unknown relative growth rate?”

“Is that the equation with all the letters and stuff?” Jaemin chimed in. “You know, the one with all the P and the t and the-”

“The exponential growth equation.” Jeno interrupted, playfully rolling his eyes at Jaemin who proceeded to throw his eraser at the former.

“Hey, we’re here to study, not for us to babysit you two,” Renjun scolded, “anyway, which values will we be plugging in?”

“9 for the t, 325 for the P(9), and 41 for P(0),” you stated, pretty much unphased by the antics of your friends, “then you divide the 325 by 41 and multiply both sides by the natural log to get rid of the e.”

“Very good-”

“Wait slow down-”

“I don’t get it-”

Renjun, Jeno, and Jaemin all spoke at the same time, shooting each other looks as they fought to decide who should speak though Yangyang beat them all to it. “We’re trying to find the growth rate which is why we divide the final value by the starting value, it’s like finding the rate of change, you know?”

“God, at least I know three of us won’t fail the test,” Renjun muttered.

“Hey,” Jeno complained, “I understand it, I just need more time to write it all down, don’t be so mean.”

“Yeah okay, whatever, let’s just finish up this problem already because I’m hungry and I swear, if we don’t end before the cafeteria closes-”

“Multiply both sides by 1 over 9 to isolate the k constant and from there plug it into a calculator and solve to get the unknown relative growth rate,” you commented, your own stomach growling the tiniest bit at the mention of food.

“Oh my baby is so smart! I’m so proud of you,” Jaemin exclaimed as he reached over to try to squish your cheeks though you were quickly pulled out of his reach as someone moved your chair, “hey! Don’t take my baby away from me.”

“She’s not a baby, she’s already 18,” Yangyang reasoned.

A loud sigh came from the front of the room, effectively interrupting all conversation. “Jaemin, can you at least try to put in some effort?” Renjun whined.

“I did! Look, the k constant is equal to 0.23003 and I have everything written down here,” Jaemin defended, sliding his paper closer to Renjun who was struggling to see it from a distance.

Renjun made a noise of both content and confusion, “then why did you say that you didn’t get it?”

Jaemin shook his head, “oh no no no, I didn’t say that I didn’t get it, I was going to say that I don’t get how our y/n is so smart already. She’s going to be such a good doctor!”

“That’s your goal bro, not her’s.” Yangyang interjected.

There was a loud sound of a book shutting and everyone looked over at Jeno who was packing up his stuff. “What?” He questioned, when he noticed everyone's eyes on him. “Aren’t we going to get dinner?”

The rest of you started following suit after doing one last check that everyone was good on all of the material for the test tomorrow. “What score do you think you’ll get on the exam?” Yangyang asked as the group of you headed over to the cafeteria.

You let out a hum as you thought to yourself. “Maybe like an 85 or something around there.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure you’ll hit at least a 90, or even a 90 exactly,” he responded with a cheeky giggle.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Because I’m the 10 that you need.”

Sure enough, you scored 90 points on the exam, prompting Yangyang to excitedly treat you for lunch that following weekend. One small date became two and eventually three which was when he asked you to be his girlfriend.

When you told the rest of the guys that the two of you were together, Jaemin let out a whoop before turning to the others, “you both owe me twenty.”

You raised an eyebrow at them, asking for an explanation. “We made a bet on when Yangyang would finally get the guts to ask you out. Turns out it was a lot faster than we thought,” Renjun explained dryly as he opened his wallet to hand Jaemin the bill.

The rest of your first year in college went by in the blink of an eye jumping from spending Christmas with Yangyang, Jeno, and Jaemin, to submitting your registrations for the next school year, then to finals to wrap up the term.

If there was one thing about freshman year that you’d keep dear to your heart, it would be the little Christmas party the four of you had at Jeno’s house. You had each brought a gift as each other’s Secret Santa, yours was a cute pair of pink socks with strawberries on them for Jaemin who you knew hated strawberries though he’d wear them anyways because they’re from you.

Supporting your predictions, Jaemin changed his socks right then and there with a smile on his face because “they’re so cute, just like my baby” causing your boyfriend, who was in fact your Secret Santa, to jokingly make a gagging sound at Jaemin’s affection towards you.

The gift Yangyang gave you was a thin bracelet with a single little sheep charm dangling off of it. “In Korean, yang means sheep so I thought it would be cute to give you something that could be a reminder of me when I’m not with you.” Now it was Jaemin and Jeno’s turns to make the sounds of disgust as you kissed Yangyang’s cheek to thank him.

So I think you should give your love to me. Baby, let me know

Sophomore year was when things started to change starting with Yangyang leaving to continue his studies in China where he was accepted into one of his dream universities. He had told you about his plans beforehand and you celebrated every milestone with him like when he first submitted his application, when he got his acceptance letter, and then a scholarship. Here you were finally, sending your boyfriend off at the airport before the beginning of fall semester.

“I love you so much, stay safe and don’t get sick,” you told him as you held him in a tight hug, not wanting to say goodbye just yet.

Yangyang laughed as he felt you trying to nuzzle into his chest. “I’ll be back sooner than you know it. Just four months and I’ll be back for the holidays.”

Even as your tears began to fall, you still smiled, not wanting his last moments with you to be sad ones. “Promise?”

“I promise.” He locked pinkies with you, sealing the deal.

It was difficult to be in a long distance relationship, especially when it seems like the time zones are working against you. When you’re awake and going about your day, Yangyang is winding down and finishing up his work, about the head to sleep. There was never a good time for you to call each other, especially as the semester progressed and your workloads only increased.

“I really miss you, you know. I miss getting to hold you in my arms and mess up your hair only to have you hit me all the time.” You paused the voice recording he had sent you a few days ago, wanting so badly for time to go by faster and for Yangyang to return home sooner.

You sent him a voice recording back. “I passed that test I was talking about last week! I didn’t really do too well but it’s okay because apparently Jeno and Jaemin didn’t do all that great either. I miss having you here to help me study and tell me that I’m doing well. How did your ochem lab go? I’m sure you aced it.”

Sending each other voice recordings was the next best thing after calling because you could still hear each other’s voice while also still doing it at a time that was comfortable for you. It was like texting but with your voice instead of typing out words. Though sometimes it left you anxious because it wasn’t like a call where the other person is responding in real time. Yangyang would often leave you on read and would take a few days to respond so you inadvertently began doing the same thing.

It wasn’t until one weekend when both of you had free time that Yangyang finally snapped during a call. “It’s like you don’t want me anymore.”

“What? No, what do you mean?” You questioned.

“You don’t respond all the time and it’s like I’m not a top priority anymore,” he rambled.

“To be fair,” you began, “you don’t respond to me all the time either-”

“Yeah because I’m busy.” Yangyang interrupted.

You let out a sigh. “I’m busy too. We’re both college students majoring in some of the hardest fields, we know how hard we have to work for our education.”

“I know but like, you can still text me back. You don’t have to send voice recordings so often if you’re really that busy-”

“No, don’t make it sound like I’m exaggerating how busy I am. You are a top priority, but you’re not my number one and that should be common sense.” You tell him, feeling your own temper starting to go.

You could practically see Yangyang rolling his eyes at you. “I’m not trying to downplay your work at all. I’m just saying that it’s not that hard to put effort into our relationship.”

“Then how about you give me something to go off of first instead of making me change for you. You barely respond to me either so I can say just the same thing for you,” you argued.

“Look, I think we need some time away from each other to clear our heads and figure this out when we aren’t being weighed down by all our other problems,” he reasoned.

You let out a laugh. “You say that as if we haven’t already been separated from each other for two months already but okay.”

“Goodnight, y/n.” You heard the line go dead. He didn’t even end with an ‘I love you’ or anything like that though you chose not to think too hard about it because he was probably just as tense as you.

When Yangyang came home in December it felt like everything was right once again. He got to be reunited with the original group along with meeting the two newest additions, Haechan and Shotaro who were both business majors and were roped in by Jeno who had a shared class with both of them.  

Yangyang had gotten you a second charm, the number 10 to go on the bracelet he had bought you the year before which you still wore almost constantly. “Ten because I’m the ten you need, remember?” You nodded as you smiled up at him, glad to finally have him back in your arms.

He had to go back to school sooner than the rest of you so your time with him was short-lived and things went back to the way they used to be, except even more distant this time around. Normally Yangyang would be sure to call you back if he ever missed a call from you, but he didn’t. He’d go days without responding to you, opening your messages but never sending anything back.

But it’s hard to tell if this is just a fling or if it’s true love that he thinks of

That semester, the two of you decided to break things off after yet another fight in hopes to preserve the friendship that you had before things got any worse. It was like a breath of fresh air for a moment, getting to finally focus your energy on your work and not worry about having to respond to messages from a boyfriend who didn’t really seem like one. Only when you slowed down did things really start to hit you.

When Yangyang came back during summer, your group was torn on how to handle the situation, wanting to hang out with both of you but not wanting to make things uncomfortable knowing how rocky things were between the two of you. You ended up pulling yourself back and encouraging them to go out with Yangyang since they could see you during the school year whereas he was in a different country and it only seemed fair.

That was really the last you saw or heard of him as you chose to bury yourself in work for the next year, not wanting to let yourself fall behind in school because of your emotions. It was, by far, one of your most productive years. Not only did you take some of your grad school tests and applied for many scholarships, you also earned yourself a spot on the Dean’s list and took part in a notable marine biology study done on the effects of pollution on the local animals.

Between balancing all of your current works and goals along with things to prepare you for your potential future careers, the mere existence of Liu Yangyang slipped your mind for just that short time. It was only a year later, during the summer before your senior year, did you hear from Jaemin that Yangyang was planning to come back.

“Yeah he was asking Jeno what we’re planning on doing for housing next year and if he could join us.” Jaemin informed you as the two of you were running an experiment and working on tracking the carbon output of the little plants in front of you.

“So what did you say to him?” You asked as you placed the oxygen gauge inside the chamber of the first plant.

Jaemin paused to see if the gauge was sending data to the computer. “I told him that the six of us were looking into getting one of the campus apartments in the fall so we might not be able to accommodate him.”

“Wait, six? Aren’t there five of us?” You started listing the names of your friends in your head.

“Haechan is going off-campus and Jeno’s girlfriend is joining us,” Jaemin corrects, “so next semester it’s us, Jeno and Yunha, Renjun, and Shotaro. Six. We probably won’t have space for him unless someone backs out.” You stared at the rising and falling of the line on the computer graph, not really sure if you were happy or sad at this. “Would you have liked it if he were to join us?” He questioned after seeing your silence.

“I don’t know, it’s not that I’m ‘uncomfortable’ around him…” your voice trailed off as the computer finished collecting data and indicated for you to reset and move on to the next plant, “it’s just that we didn’t really have a clean end to our relationship, if you know what I mean.”

Jaemin nodded in understanding as you moved the gauge to the second plant. “Would you like to get back together with him if given the opportunity?”

“Well, yeah but not if we’re both as busy as we are right now.” You explained, looking over at the screen to see if the oxygen was tracking.

“Try inserting it a little further,” Jaemin instructed when you both saw that the line was running a bit low, “but anyway, you guys are both going into the medical field, there’s no escaping being busy.”

“Yeah that’s exactly wh-”

“No, listen. What I’m saying is that you don’t have to both see each other all the time. Think about it. There’s tons of people out there who don’t even understand their partner’s job but they still make it work-” He rambled

“And who’s to say you can group me in with a majority?” You interject.

Jaemin looks away from the screen to roll his eyes at you. “That’s not the point. I’m just saying that maybe you should think about giving him another chance whether he lives with us or not.”

“I mean, I’ll think about it. That doesn’t mean I will.” You decide, wanting to get back to the experiment.

Santa tell me if you’re really there. Don’t make me fall in love again if he won’t be here next year

Truthfully, you hadn’t really gotten over Yangyang, you had merely forgotten about him for a while with all the stuff you were doing, which was what you had planned to do. A part of you wanted to see if things could still work out again but the other part of you didn’t want to put yourself in that same situation again, especially now that both you and him would probably be even more busy than before.

You didn’t know if he’d be coming back for good or if he’d be leaving again to go somewhere else and you didn’t want to take the chance of falling for him only to lose him shortly after. Thankfully the other guys didn’t ask too much about it seeing as how the housing situation was already settled.

It was just your luck and misfortune that you went in to work on a research assignment on the day you did. As you walked down the hallways of the lab building, you heard that one familiar voice ringing throughout the halls from an open door. You paused in your tracks, diverting from your course through the building to see if your suspicions were true as you peeked into one of the labs.

As you looked in, you saw his back towards you while he talked animatedly with one of your colleagues about how different it was to go to a university in China. You quickly ducked away when your colleague waved in your direction, not wanting to be seen by Yangyang.

“Who was that?” He asked, his voice getting fainter as you sped away from the room. You heard your name mentioned followed by an “oh” but that was about it as you got into the elevator to head to the archives.

And I’m trying to play it cool but it’s hard to focus when I see him walking around the room

Senior year progressed just like any other year, though you were glad that you got to live with your closest friends and at least see them for meals when you were all too busy to actually hang out. If anything, it was just the slightest bit more calm since there was no longer stress about passing general classes now that you were in more specialized biology courses that were actually enjoyable.

The annual Christmas party came up much faster than you expected but now that the six of you shared an apartment, it was only that much more convenient and because it would be your last year all together, Jaemin insisted that it be an actual get-together for your friends.

He invited Haechan and some of the guys he was now living with, though they were all older too. Renjun brought over some of the other computer science grad students that he had gotten close to recently, similar to Jeno in the engineering field.

As more people showed up and you worked on keeping all of your guests entertained, you hadn’t managed to keep track of everyone who set foot into the door, trusting Renjun to not let anyone in who had no business with you guys. It wasn’t until dinner started that you saw a face you hadn’t seen in a while.

“Hey,” Yangyang began as he almost ran into you exiting the kitchen with a plate full of food in his hands.

“Hey,” you said back, startled and unsure of how to actually react.

After you had gotten your food and returned to the living room, you say that he had taken up a seat next to Jeno and Jaemin as some Christmas movie started playing and you opted to sit on the sofa next to Jeno’s girlfriend Yunha, who gladly scooted over to make room for you. “Who’s that?” She asked, nodding over to where her boyfriend was.

“That’s, uh, Yangyang. He was one of our close friends during our freshmen year but he left to study at a school in China,” you inform her, glad that she accepted the simple explanation.

You successfully avoided him for almost the rest of the night, not because you didn’t like him but because you were scared of talking to him after so long. It was nearing the end of the night when Renjun had yelled for everyone to “sit your asses down in a circle” with the present they brought for the white elephant game gift exchange game.

The apartment was filled with laughter and cheers as the game progressed and people opened the gifts they chose, finding things outrageous as a whisk or backscratcher or even a bag of clothespins. The best one was the gift Jeno, a cat lover opened, pulling out a box of dog treats.

“Aw, our big samoyed!” Jaemin cooed. “Do some tricks for us!” Jeno shot him a glare before allowing the game to continue on.

The gift you decided on keeping was a small red envelope sealed with a shiny golden sticker. When you opened it, you pulled out a postcard from Shanghai and you felt a wave of emotion hit you. You held it up to show the people around you what it was before quickly slipping it back into the envelope and placing it on the ground beneath your crossed legs.

Once everyone had opened their gifts and a few people were starting to leave, you decided to get a head start on cleaning up in the kitchen as your roommates bid everyone farewell and wished them a safe drive home.

“I think it’s kind of funny how you got my gift,” a voice said from behind as you transferred the leftover dumplings from the plate they were on into a tupperware container.

You shrugged your shoulders. “The minimum price requirement was $5 and I’m sure you couldn’t have spent more than $2 on that.”

“The envelope and the sticker made up for the other $3,” he stated, his playful attitude ever so present, “so how have you been lately?”

“Pretty good, I guess. Got accepted into grad school, finishing up my remaining courses, just normal college stuff, how about you?” You finally make eye contact with him as you have to nudge him out of the way for you to open the refrigerator. He looks nearly exactly the same as when he first left but somehow more handsome and less boyish.

“Oh, I’ve been doing just about the same I could say. I decided to stay home for this school year, though I suppose you already knew that seeing as how you were spying on me at the beginning of the semester.” He shot you a wink as you returned back to the counter to start working on another dish.

You let out a gasp, “I was not spying on you.”

“Then why did you just peek into the lab and leave before I got to see you?” He inquired.

“Because I had other things to do,” you respond quickly.

“Well what if I told you that I actually wanted to see you and was disappointed that you ran away?” He took a step closer to you.

You secured the lid on a container of fried rice. “Then I guess you’re not the only one.”

“Hm, so you really did miss me then,” Yangyang chuckles.

“Will the two of you stop talking and just kiss already?” Jaemin shouts from the hallway.

Yangyang lets out a laugh. “You heard the guy. Come here.”

You gave in to your heart as you closed the refrigerator again, turning to face him and taking only two steps until you were in his arms once again as his lips met yours.

Come and kiss me baby, we don’t need no mistletoe

[ikingsley]

Ina x MC: You’re It

Ina x MC: You’re It

Summary: Ina and Luna celebrate their dating anniversary.

Warnings: Fluff! Sorta?

Tag: @samanthadalton @domakir @kulaykape @hellyeah90sbaby @dopeyouth @kwaj05 @thedaft1​ @swimmingshoebakerydreamer @kaitlynliaofanxx @barnibumblr

Author’s Notes: Another installment of Ina and Luna’s future series.

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

“Inaaaaaa,” Luna whined.

“Yes?” Ina replied to Luna after quietly whispering into the taxi driver’s ear.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see. I promise you’ll like it.”

“So for our dating anniversary, you get to decide on the place without even consulting me? Talk about a power imbalance,” Luna said playfully.

This goddamn woman. Sometimes Ina thought Luna liked teasing her more than she loved her.

“Fine,” Ina huffed. “Do you want to know where we’re going?”

“No! I like the surprise.”

Maddening. Infuriating. Yet after everything, she was still wrapped around her finger.

“You’re something else, aren’t you Lu?”

“I pride myself in being ‘something else.’ You still love me.”

“That, I do.”

A semblance of silence took over the taxi, a first after a whole car ride of playful banter between the women. Instead, the busy outside cacophony took over...a truck horn here, a driver cursing out a pedestrian there...

“We’re here,” the taxi driver announced. 

Ina quickly thanked him and left a generous tip on the app. No one deliberately signed up for meddling in the business of a couple in love. Luna reached for the cab door, but was promptly stopped by Ina.

“Nuh-uh. Wait a second.”

Ina hopped out of the car and rushed to the other side of the cab to open Luna’s door. Despite being cursed at by drivers behind her as she held up traffic, she maintained her calm. There were bigger, more important things than a little traffic holdup, especially today.

“You know, you don’t need to be all formal and chivalrous and whatnot,” Luna said as she took Ina’s hand to get out of the car.

“Believe it or not, that was not my intention. I actually am here to cover your eyes before you see your destination.”

Ina felt Luna roll her eyes. 

“Always with the ulterior motives, huh?” Luna jested.

This time, it was Ina’s turn to play coy. “Maybe, but you love me regardless.”

“I do.”

The two walked a few hundred feet, Ina behind Luna to shield the world from her. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for that woman. Ina vowed to protect her at all costs, cherish her, appreciate her, love her endlessly...It’d only been a year since Ina finally had asked her officially to be with her, but somehow, Ina knew. Ina knew that this was the woman of her dreams, someone she would happily spend the rest of her life with. However, they hadn’t had the marriage conversation yet. Hell, they hadn’t even moved in together yet. She knew Luna wanted to get married, but that would be one day. Sometime in the distant future. Luna was considerably younger than Ina, and Ina accepted the fact that she may have to wait several years to pop the question. She’d figured that she’d wait decades to tie the knot if it had come to that. 

“Okay. We’re here,” Ina said, uncovering Luna’s eyes. 

“Ina, you did not.”

“I did.”

“I’ve been wanting to do laser tag forever!”

“Well, I had run out of excuses. I figured it was time for me to try it by now.”

Ina took Luna’s hand and led her into the laser tag arena. God, this was so childish, she thought.

“What exactly is that face?” Luna said slyly, smirking up at Ina.

“What? This gorgeous face you fell in love with?” Ina countered.

“It’s a ‘wow Luna, I can’t believe I’m doing this’ face.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say I would’ve come here on my own will.”

“Just keep an open mind. Maybe you’ll like it, who knows?”

“I will. I promise.”

Soon, the two were placed into a larger group. They decided to be on opposite teams just so one could have bragging rights. After a few minutes of Luna’s trash-talking, they were separated into their respective teams. Luna smirked over at Ina as the doors opened to the terrain. Game on.

~

The siren blared over the speakers system, indicating the start of the battle. Ina was situated near the back of the arena, her back crouched against the wall. She knew Luna - she would definitely come looking for her. Luna was too competitive for her own good and she’d be lured to find Ina quickly. 

Sure enough, two minutes into the round, Luna lurked near the back where Ina was hiding. She thought she was being discrete, silently searching for partner. Just as she reached the back wall, her vest lit up and an alarm went off.

Crap!

She slowly turned around, only to find Ina smirking at her.  

“Gotcha. See you later,” Ina winked at Luna as she slipped back into the darkness.

I’m gonna get her, Luna vowed.

The game progressed with both teams neck and neck in score. A minute flashed on the countdown. Ina then spotted Luna. Just as she was raising her laser gun, Luna put her finger on the trigger.

“Wait!”

And somehow, despite the room full of people, Luna and Ina felt like the only people in the world.

“Truce?” Luna called out.

“Truce.” The countdown slowly approached the thirty second mark and Luna made her way to Ina. She wrapped an arm around Luna, gently kissing her temple.

“Good game,” Ina began to whisper softly into her ear. “I totally got you at the beginning though.”

5...4...3...

Luna wrapped Ina in her arms placing a small kiss in her forehead.

2...1....

Suddenly, she pulled away. At once, Ina’s vest lit up. She looked around, expecting some stranger to have hit her, but was met by Luna’s gaze. 

“You...” she grumbled.

“And I totally got you at the end. Oh look who won!” Luna smirked and pointed at the scoreboard. Luna’s sly shot had boosted her own team 100 points higher than Ina’s.

Ina grumbled again in response. “I suppose, but I think it’s rather symbolic.”

And symbolic it was. They were situated in a room full of obstacles, yet somehow fate, destiny, the universe or some higher, inexplicable being had brought them together. It represented that they’d always find each other somehow, and in the end, it would always be them against the world.

Luna quietly reflected on Ina’s words, understanding how their relationship had come to fruition. They slipped out of the laser tag arena and Luna looped her slender arm around Ina’s.

“It’s my turn to give you your anniversary present,” Luna said.

She dragged Ina across New York City, walking past their favorite places...Times Square, the Natural History Museum, Central Park...Ina lingered at each site, remembering dates they had gone on. All of those small, but wonderful moments had led up to this.

“Okay so we’ve only talked about this a little bit but I think we’re ready for it,” Luna turned back to Ina as she walked backwards. She promptly stopped in front of a small building and held her hands out in presentation.

“Here we are!”

“Your apartment?”

“Yeah! Hold out your hands.”

Ina put her hands out as if she were accepting something when she saw Luna go frozen.

Physically Luna was frozen, but her thoughts moved a mile a minute. Yes, she loved Ina. Yes, she had been the one that took her back to her apartment. Yes, she’d stop at nothing until she was happy. But oh god. Commitment was staring her point blank in the face. Moving in together was a huge milestone.

Their relationship was good - the best Luna had ever been in. But her past relationships kept coming to mind. All the fights, all the deceptions, all the mistrust. Luna was unafraid of most things, but she did fear commitment.

“I-” she began.

Ina’s intuition kicked in and redirected her away from the entrance, leaning against the building.

“Hey. We don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m ready for the next step in this relationship, but it’s our relationship and we need to both agree on its pace. I’m okay with waiting.”

“Thank you. It’s just all this stuff is new to me. I’ve never been in a relationship this serious and I’ve never gotten this far. I was just a hormonal kid in my past relationships - all I cared about was having fun,” she admitted. “And Ina...I’m scared. I trust and love you with all of my heart, but I’m still scared. I’m scared you’ll find a part of me you don’t like and you’ll want out. I’m scared you fell in love with someone who you think is me, but isn’t truly me.”

Luna looked up with tears in her eyes. These were the kind of conversations the two held curled up together in bed, admitting things they’d never even attempted to say aloud before. They built their relationship on love, but also on trust. They’d taken everything with caution. It was these intimate moments that carved their relationship into the one it was today.

“Do you understand what-”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Ina said as she wiped tears away from Luna’s eyes. “For a long time I only focused on my career. My love life always came second. I always wanted to be that youngster at a convention full of well-seasoned anthropologists. At least, that’s what I told myself. I blocked out the very possibility that the true reason I didn’t want a love life may be because of my parents. People who are supposed to love you unconditionally didn’t love Lilian and I like they should’ve. I was so afraid of yet another betrayal. But then I found you. And everything’s just clicked. I don’t have to pretend to be anyone I’m not with you. And I love you for many reasons, but that may be the most prominent.”

And after hearing a sweet and soft declaration of love from Luna, Ina met her girlfriend’s lips. It was then and there that Luna truly understood how much Ina cared for her. That Ina was different from the young, immature men and women from her past. That she’d finally found someone good. Someone who appreciated her. Someone who comforted her. Someone who protected her at all costs.

“I’m ready.”

“Are you sure? Seriously Luna, this is a big deal. I understand if you want to wait more.”

“I’m sure. For a while now, I’ve dreaded having to come back to my own apartment alone after spending the day at yours. I want this with you. I admit I’m a bit afraid, but that feeling is no where near the feeling that I want to live with you.”

Luna dropped a pair of keys in Ina’s hands as the two rode the elevator up to Luna’s apartment.

“I’m worried, Luna.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“You don’t expect me to live in this shack, right?”

“It is NOT a shack. It is my lovely one-bedroom apartment which is what I could afford in this ungodly costly city after my Belvoire graduation.” Luna giggled as she perched her chin on Ina’s shoulder. “No, silly. It was symbolic. We’re definitely moving into your place.”

“Good. Let’s start packing this place up.”

[oxiosa]

You’ve asked me this before but because of that post I will now uno reverse card and ask for more of YOUR hcs about trouble kid Martin and stepmom Chiara, pretty please 🙏

Your wish is my command~

I imagine the first time they met was completely accidental and very awkward on Chiara’s side. She had been dating Antonio for a few weeks when he invited her over to his place, and maybe they were getting a little too cosy on the couch when the front door opened and a fucking kid came in. Chiara was shocked, to put in mildly, but the kid barely spared them a look and an unimpressed “what’s up” before walking past them. Chiara turned to Antonio silently asking for an explanation. Oh yeah, Antonio had forgotten to mention! He has a son :D

As months went by and things with Antonio got serious, I think Chiara was the one to insist on properly meeting Martín. She had meet him by passing in a rather awkward situation but Antonio had never introduced them. So they decide to organise dinner at Antonio’s place.

Tincho was neither impressed or interested on meeting Chiara. She seem a little better than the young women his father usually went for, but he knew she wouldn’t last – none of the others had. So he pretty much didn’t bother. I imagine Chiara prepared a very nice dinner so they could start all over with the right foot, and Martín pretty much went “Nah, pass. I already have plans, I’m going to Sebas’ place” and ditched them. Which of course didn’t leave the best of impressions.

I think Chiara was surprised to learn how young Martín was. Tincho always was a tall kid which made him look a little older than he already was. Also, with the way Antonio had spoken of him and the freedom and independence he gave the kid she was expecting a teen.

When Antonio and Chiara got married, she moved in and the nightmare begun :)

She was the one to put order in the house. Antonio kinda had the life of a young bachelor; he spent most of his time at work, came home late, didn’t have much work for house work. Martincito, being a kid, wasn’t very helpful either (quite the opposite), so it was pretty messy. Not just in dirty, but also as in “there’s barely food in the fridge, no one is taking out the trash, no one did the dishes, there are piles and piles of dirty clothes by the washing machine, the junk mail keeps piling up, etc etc”. She was not living in a dump, so upon her arrival things had to change.

One of the many things that had to change was Martín’s lack of respect. She had a very harsh approach at first that didn’t work out at all. She was very aggressive and abrasive at first, which only pushed Martín further away; the more she pressed on him, the more he rebelled against her. She made it her mission to put some order and respect in this house, set a bunch of rules Martín didn’t follow nor appreciate. It kinda turned into a cold war in which Chiara set rules, Tincho broke them, and she took away his privileges. She went through his things, confiscated shit, locked the front door and windows. I even imagine she went as far as taking Tincho’s bedroom door’s key and handle so he couldn’t shut himself in. All sort of shit that only aggravated wild Martín. To him, she was the Evil Stepmother.

I think Chiara didn’t have the whole picture when she moved in and started handling Martín. She had Antonio’s side of the story in which there was no issue, so Martín seemed like a nightmare of a stepson for no reason whatsoever. Antonio was a nice sweet guy, she couldn’t imagine why his son was terrible except that maybe he was a spawn of the devil. But as time progressed, she got to see first-hand how Tincho was pretty much raising himself and she begun to understand the source of his anger. I think the realisation hit close to her heart; Chiara had lived something similar, she had been a lonely neglected child angry at the world as well. She knew how Martín felt, saw herself mirrored in him, so it became personal. At first it had been about teaching this brat about respect and authority, but now it was about making it right by this kid. She felt a need to show him love and care and to give him the attention he needed, to teach him in return there were rules and an authority he needed respect so he could grow to be a better person.

She became very invested on getting closer to Tincho. She tried a different approach, tried to be smarter about it. She was still stern and harsh, but instead of butting heads with Martín she decided to remain a wall; she didn’t actively push against him, but she didn’t bulge either. She didn’t force Martín back into his place like she had tried before, instead she let him figure out on his own that there was no way past her and her rules - even if that took him slamming his head into her wall a thousand times. It was about waiting until Tinchito tired himself out and learnt to listen. It was not easy, but it had better results. Whenever Martín did as was expected of him, she rewarded him returning the privileges she had taken one by one. The peak of the rewards was her trust: she basically challenged Tinchito not to let her down, to show her he could be a good boy and play by the rules.

Martín was far more receptive to this approach, if a little distrustful at first, as if he thought she was luring him into a trap. He was not used to an adult keeping tabs on him, least of an adult asking about his day, interest, etc. He was a little hard to win, but at the end of the day he craved the attention Chiara was offering.

As I said on the post that started all these, Chiara signed him into rugby. Tincho was very reluctant at first, and the only way to get him to go was by bribing him. Chiara watches the whole thing: she sat by the bleachers with the posture of a lady and calmly observed as her stepson got turned into mush. Once it was over and Tinchito returned to her, exhausted and in pain and covered in mud, she invited him some well-earned ice cream (it kinda became their thing). I think this was one of the main milestones for Tinchito’s taming. It gave him an outlet to his energy, it gave him a team and sense of belonging, and it also taught him values, as it happens with sports. This made him a lot easier to handle, which resulted in a smoother reception to the boundaries Chiara set.

I really like the hc that she taught him how to cook. I imagine one day she caught Tincho cooking some lunch and was very much unimpressed. She asked what he normally cooked when his dad wasn’t home (aka most of the time), and she basically had to sit down upon learning this kid has been living of frozen food re-heated in the oven and pasta and junk food and the sort of thing a kid would pick for dinner if left to their devices. She threw whatever shitty frozen thing Martín was making and cooked for him, demanding he paid careful attention.

Chiara is the only one who has ever seen Martín show his true feeling about Antonio, the only one who has seen him cry about it. Maybe it was during some event Antonio missed; Chiara was there, saw the way Martín’s eyes searched for his dad and how his face fell when she told him he couldn’t make it in time. Martín tried to shrug it off, told her it was ok, he was used to it and anyways Tincho liked Chiara better, the two of them had more fun together without Antonio, all of this while his eyes filled up with tears and his smile trembled. She hugged him, let him sob like a baby on her chest while she petted his hair and kissed his crown.

She was also the one who forced Antonio to be around for his son. When she married him, she wanted to make a home and that included having Antonio in the picture. She didn’t always succeeded, but she tried.

And well then there's the one we already said: she spotted right away Tinchito's eye trailed after other boys rather than girls, also was the one who installed some sense of fashion once he was over his awkward teenage phase.

And those are kinda the ones I have, I wouldn’t mind if anyone wanted to add some more :D

[sextonsharpwinhalstead]

The promo for the next episode though???? Looks like everything is going to go left for everyone and honestly I can’t wait. Can’t lie, when Max held up the engagement ring he got me for a second but after that I was like nah man cool it. Because they’ve been together for what, six months? And they haven’t had some important conversations and right now they’re not even living in the same country. I know they’ve been in love for years(Helen caught feelings early and Max was into Helen while married, it wasn’t right, but it’s the truth)but they still need to actually be a couple and date and learn each other that way, before taking vows for life. I even expected an unplanned pregnancy over this tbh. What do you think, are you into them getting married?

Oh, yes it really does. Casey does NOT deserve the nonsense I see coming his way or even last episode. Max has some balls asking those people he FIRED to help him out!

But yes ish looks messy and I agree that Helen and Max have so much to talk about before taking another big step. We often discuss Max's unseen spots in life but we don't talk about Helen's. We use words like bottled up or reserved in her expression of emotion but it's also in a way stunted by anger and disappointment. She has work to do. But their intimacy as "platonic" friends which...they never were, not really actually, jumped head first into a lot of hurdles and milestones most undergo in their realtionships AFTER they've begun the romantic end. Like the phone call at the end was probably more intimate and erotic than them actually kissing and I think that says something about them. As in there is a good foundation there for marriage. However, if she says yes it needs to be a little bit of a longer engagement, remember we still haven't met Max's parents...

As for Iggy it's so complicated and sad and stupid. EYE know more than most that insecurities like Iggy's can destroy a marriage and the kind he has runs deeeeep. You have to have a phase of outside validation and then when that well dries up, you hopefully progress to the place where your ideas of yourself mean more than those around you. It's a practice. And right now Iggy isn't in practice. He had a solid floor built underneath him that we've seen slowly being chipped away at. For the past few seasons Iggy is seen as rockstar psychiatrist who sadly was accused of being too involved and even when he tried to fix that it blew up in his face with a stalker. He was not ready to start treating patients but was forced to by Veronica. This floor that isn't reinforced by his physical appearance is now shaky and the foundation is cracked. And then out of nowhere the the very thing he's been basically denied his whole life is heaped upon him by an attractive man who could have anyone he wants but is giving Iggy attention. Which means he is vulnerable to an affair.

Lauren too, but in a different way. Sobriety is a practice, having the support around you, your community is actually a phase in a way. Because at some point you might be alone and when that happens you are vulnerable, in her case of relapse.

And I dont even care about Floyd and Lyn at this point. They can fly away on a broomstick and we can keep Baptiste.

I don't want any of this to go down the way it will but...something is.

[psychedellic-phase]

Fifteen (part 6)

A/N: this part contains season 7 spoilers!!

tw: cursing, regular criminal minds stuff

wordcount: 3.3k

masterlist: 

He squatted down to look inside of the box, deciding not to worry about the surprise being ruined. He knows the ending, it’s already spoiled, so why not see what he has in store?

He took a mental note of each item, cataloging them in the extensive library that is his brain. For some of the items he immediately knew what they meant, for others he would have to read. He realized the bottom of the box was dirty, dusty even. When he picked up the debris, he realized they were pieces of dried flower petals that had been crushed to smithereens when he knocked the box over. He held the delicate pieces in his hands, barely even breathing, so he wouldn’t destroy them more than he already had. He sighed and tried to put the petals back together like a puzzle, but it was missing far too many pieces. Pieces that he was responsible for losing. Tears welled up in his eyes and he put the pieces on his bedside table. 

He was angry now. In all his grieving since the breakup, he hadn’t been angry yet. He did the rest of the five stages, just in the wrong order. He started out with denial, telling himself it was all a dream. If he could just wake up then you would be right there, arms open, ready to accept him, comfort him, love him. Then came the bargaining, countless nights on your doorstep banging on the door begging you to let him in and just talk. You never answered. Then the depression, which lasted longer than he expected. He was still a shell of a person on most days, just moving through the motions, not feeling much of anything at all. In the few weeks prior he had grown to accept defeat, accept that this was over and done. Acceptance is always the hardest bit, especially for him. Spencer Reid doesn’t lose. But he always seemed to forget that love isn’t a game to be played; you were not a prize to be won. Love is hard work and sweat and tears and yelling and kissing and laughing and comfort. Love isn’t a game. 

But then your stupid box came, causing him lose all the progress he had made. 

Now, he was finally angry. He was angry at himself more than you, but he was still so angry with you. He knew he had mentally checked out of your relationship before the end, but that was because he just needed a break. Everything had changed so much so fast that he just needed to go sort himself out before jumping back into you. But you wouldn’t give him the time. You didn’t need space, you needed him; and he wouldn’t give himself to you. Neither of you would give the other what they desperately needed, so you ended it. He may have blamed himself for your relationship’s demise but he blamed you for leaving. He hated that you could just walk away from him, just like everyone else did. He hated that you could walk away from your family like that. How could you leave Derek behind? Rossi? Hotch? JJ? Garcia? How could you be so selfish?

“How could you!?” He wailed, as if you were there to hear him. Hot, angry tears ran down his face. 

Spencer was seething, pacing wildly up and down in his room, pulling at his hair in a desperate attempt to feel any release. Eventually he talked himself down, but immediately following anger is depression. That damn Kubler-Ross Change curve. That familiar hollow feeling filled up his chest. He was numb again, and immediately regretted all the thoughts he had about you. 

He was just hurt, in so many different ways at once and he had no idea what to do with it. Handling his emotions isn’t exactly his strong suit. 

More than anything he missed you. The letters only brought back up all the feelings he had worked so hard to repress. He needed you, more than he ever did, so he turned to the one place he could find you. 

“Congratulations Spence! You have made it ⅓ of the way through the letters. ⅓ of the way through our relationship. So it only makes sense that this is about our one year anniversary. 

We take a time jump on this one. So direct your attention to the green velvet jewelry box and the dried flower. I kept a few flowers from every bouquet you ever got me and dried them, so I could have them forever. Remember how I had so many flowers tied up with string hanging in our bedroom? They were all from you. Throwing flowers away always made me sad, especially when you bought them because you always took such care in choosing them. Every bouquet had a meaning. I never knew about flower symbolism until I met you. This magnolia is from my favorite bouquet you ever got me, the ones for our first anniversary,”

His heart sank. The flower was your favorite, and there it was in shreds on his nightstand. He destroyed it, not on purpose, but he still destroyed it. He ran his hands through his brown hair, cursing himself for ruining yet another thing. Lately, he always seemed to be doing that. 

“So let’s start with some context. Everything was going perfectly. The universe was finally on our side. Emily came back from the dead, which was a shocking but very welcome surprise. I needed her, needed my best friend. And she came at just the right time. She was different, but still our Em. JJ was back as a profiler now, which made us all very happy, you in particular. The gang was finally back together and we felt unstoppable, invincible. Hell, we even got questioned by a Senate Committee and still kept our jobs. Things got back to normal, or whatever can be considered ‘normal’ for us. It’s a very loose definition of the word. We had officially been together a year and it was without a doubt the happiest year of my life. We never fought, all our days were filled with work and loving each other. We spent all our time together, which in hindsight probably wasn’t the best thing. We got a little codependent. But it worked. We worked. 

I’m still sorry for how that day went. You planned it to be perfect, and I messed it up. 

The flowers and necklace were the gifts that you planned to give me at your place after we got dinner at that fancy Italian restaurant downtown that I had been dying to eat at. You told me it took a lot to get the reservations, but you managed to snag a table for us, because you called three months in advance. It was the sweetest gesture. I mean that. No guy ever put that much effort into something for me. I was so excited; I went out and bought a dress for the occasion and everything. It was going to be the best night. We were going to hit the first milestone of many. There were only 3. I thought there would be infinite anniversaries for us, Spence, but we only had 3. And I’m sorry I ruined the first one. 

Work happened. More specifically, Hotch sent me and Rossi to interview a prisoner at North Branch in Maryland. I originally refused, telling them all about our date. Hotch and Rossi both assured me we would be back in time for the reservations. 

“Why me? Why can’t you bring Emily? Or Derek? This is the ONE night I need!” I had complained. 

“Your skills are what we need for this one. It’ll be quick Y/N, I promise,” Hotch said. I rolled my eyes, not to be disrespectful but so he knew I wasn’t happy. 

“Fine, but if you make me stand up Spencer Reid on our anniversary you’ll be a very sorry man.”

They both just laughed and I was whisked away on the jet to Maryland. The whole way there I was nervous and fidgeting. I barely spoke to Rossi on the flight, and I’m have the biggest mouth of anyone! I just didn’t want to ruin that night. You were so excited. I hate disappointing you. You were so nice about my having to work though. When I told you I had to go, you texted me and told me it was okay, a flight from DC to Baltimore is 34 minutes. We’d barely hit altitude before we had to come down, and that you were so excited to see me. I promised you that I’d make it, I’d even be early. 

I think that’s the only promise to you I ever broke. 

The guy we interviewed was a real weirdo, like a little weirder than the usual unsubs. He was on Death Row, scheduled to be executed in a week. His thing was killing women and then scalping them to make wigs. 

Real nasty. 

We got there earlier than expected, around noon. We interviewed him for a while, taking a lot of breaks to breathe. He even gave Rossi the heebie-jeebies and Rossi invented interviewing serial killers. Just as we were about done, around four, something happened. A riot in the courtyard. Of course. They locked down the prison. Thankfully we were not stuck in the room with the psycho, like you were with Hotch that time. They still wouldn’t let us leave. It’s not like we didn’t ask. We did. We did the whole “we’re FBI agents. Don’t make me call the director” thing. The warden just said sorry, no can do, tough shit. So Rossi and I were trapped in a hyper-max that was rioting, and the clock was ticking and ticking and my chances of making this date were fading away. 

To say I was pissed was an understatement. Rossi knew I was furious. He was there when Hotch said ‘It’ll be quick Y/N, promise,” and he knows how I bite heads off when I’m mad. He’s a smart man, so he did the smart thing and didn’t talk. I tried to call you, text you, everything, but my stupid phone had no reception in that stupid concrete box. 

They let us out at 5, combine the 34 minute flight with commuting to and from the air strips and taking into account 5 pm rush hour traffic? I know you can tell me exactly how long it would’ve taken me to get to the restaurant. But even I knew it was too damn long. 

And the traffic really outdid itself that day! I didn’t think a ten minute drive could ever be a half hour long, but it was. As we sat I got more and more antsy and tried calling you. Straight to voicemail. I did that probably 15 times, but nothing. Your phone died. Most people would assume that you charge your phone all the time, but it’s the opposite. The thing rarely is above 30% and I used to remind you to charge it all the time. It was always sort of endearing, just another thing to love about your quirky self. That night it was just infuriating. 

When we landed it was already past 6:30. I changed in the bathroom at Quantico and drove as fast as I could to the restaurant. I definitely broke some laws that day. 

When I got there I didn’t see you, so I asked the hostess about the reservation. She gave me a sad look and told me you waited forty-five minutes for me. You even ordered my favorite wine for the table. And I missed it.”

Spencer recalled sitting there at the table, fidgeting with his thumbs and barely sitting still. Every time the door swung open and it wasn’t you he lost more and more hope. His phone had died because he was bad at charging it. You were the one to always remind him to plug it in before bed. He couldn’t even call you to see if you were okay, or call Rossi, or Hotch. He couldn’t do anything except sit there and eat the free bread and oil that were on the table. He knew there would be a good reason why you missed the date, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. At 6:45 he gave up and paid for the wine he barely even drank and left, everyone sending him sympathetic looks as he walked out. It was no longer perfect, and that’s all he wanted. One perfect night with you, and you couldn’t even give him that.

“So I drove to your place and knocked on the door. I was so nervous, feeling equal amounts of excitement and dread. I knocked on the door and you opened it. I smiled and went in for the hug and you blocked it. Cue our first fight. 

“I’m so sorry love, at the prison they locked us in and we couldn’t leave and then there was traffic and I’m so so sorry,” I said. You just wouldn’t look at me. You just stared at the gift bag on your couch. 

“Spencer? Hello? I’m so sorry. I know how much effort you put into today and I–“

“Do you know how embarrassing that is?” You said. You looked upset, brows furrowed and hands waving wildly. 

“I sat there for almost an hour alone, the waitress even offered me dessert on the house because I got stood up. I kept telling them you’d be there, but I had to give up. You stood me up on our anniversary Y/N.”

I felt like a kid getting scolded by their favorite teacher. 

“I tried to call you,” I mumbled, “There was no service in the prison so when we were on our way back to the jet I tried, but it went straight to voicemail.”

You just groaned and ran your hands through your hair. You had taken off your suit jacket and tie and they were thrown on the couch.

“You shouldn’t have gone! You knew what today meant to me and still went!”

“I tried! I asked Hotch if someone else could do it and he said no! And YOU said it was okay!”

Our voices were loud now, I half expected your neighbor to bang on the door and tell us off. 

“Of course I did! I couldn’t tell you not to do your job. The job always comes first! I just wish you told me so I didn’t look like an idiot!”

“‘Job always comes first’” I mocked, you looked at me in a way you never looked at me. It was the look you only used on unsubs. Jaw clenched, eyes fiery, more pissed than I had ever seen you. “I TRIED to tell you! Maybe if you ever charged your damn phone you would’ve gotten my texts! My fourteen phone calls! Maybe you would’ve gotten the texts and calls I had Rossi send because I thought it was my phone that was broken!”

You moved to sit on the couch, me standing in front of you. Tears were stinging my eyes, I’ve always been an angry crier. I softened before talking next. 

“Spence, Love, look at me.”

And you did. Your brown eyes looked sad, all the rage and fire behind them was gone. 

“I’m sorry, what can I do?”

I sat next to you and put my head on your shoulder. You leaned your head on top of mine. Such a small gesture, but so romantic at the same time. 

“I just wanted today to be special,” you croaked. 

“I know. I’m sorry. I should’ve called the restaurant or something. I could’ve found a better plan.”

“No, it’s not your fault. I’m sorry too, Y/N.”

You wrapped me up in a much needed hug and kissed my cheek. We sat like that for a while. 

“Well this isn’t how I wanted tonight to go but,” You said and reached behind you. 

I sighed, “I didn’t get you anything, we said no gifts.”

You smirked and handed me a bouquet of flowers and a bag, “They’re magnolias.”

“They’re beautiful,” I said, and I shoved my face in them to smell. 

“Magnolias are considered one of the first flowering plants. Fossil remains show they have been around for 100 million years. They symbolize longevity and perseverance. Men historically gifted women magnolias as an appreciation of their beauty, essentially saying ‘you are worthy of a beautiful magnolia.’ But more recently the idea of a steel magnolia, a strong southern wom—“

I cut you off with a kiss, “I love them. Stop rambling.”

You blushed and motioned for me to open the bag. It held a small, green velvet jewelry box. Inside was a vintage locket, gold with little blue stones and beautiful etching. I gasped when I saw it. I opened it up and it was empty. 

“I wanted you to pick what goes in it, Y/N.”

I held it delicately in my hands; the chain was so thin, “It’s perfect.”

You grinned practically ear to ear, those dimples coming out full force. I asked you to clasp it for me and it hung just below the base of my neck. 

I wore the locket daily. The gold started to tarnish and chip, but I still wore it. I only took it off to shower and sleep. On one side of the oval I put a picture of you, the one from the fourth of July when I painted the kids’ faces at Rossi’s party. I painted a flag on your cheek. You laughed as the brush tickled your skin. You smiled wide in that picture. I love that picture. It’s still in there. It hurts to look at. 

I can’t wear it anymore. I thought long and hard about keeping it. It was a part of me for two years. It kept you close to my heart always, no matter where we were. I thought maybe I could change the picture out, or just leave it in a box to collect dust. Both options feel wrong, so instead I’m giving it back to you, along with the magnolia that has long since dried up. Much like our feelings for each other. 

I don’t care what you do with any of these things. I don’t even know what to do with them, with any of this. I don’t know what to do with all these feelings, Spence. I don’t know what comes next. I don’t know how to do this without you. You always know. So do with these what you see fit. I trust you.”

Spencer put the paper down and held the box in his hands and opened it. He remembered picking it out and thinking how wonderfully the blue and gold would contrast your skin tone. He remembered clasping it around your neck a thousand times because your fingers just couldn’t seem to do it. He remembered how you used to play with it when you got nervous. He remembered the rows of flowers you would hang on the wall. It just inspired him to keep buying you more and more. He loved those little things about you.

As you promised the picture of him was still inside. He stared at himself with a huge grin and a red, white, and blue cheek. He was so happy. He looked nothing like the man in that picture anymore. His hair was longer and shaggier now and he couldn’t remember the last time he smiled like that. Smiles like that were reserved for you. 

He held the locket in his hands and stared out the window, admiring how the snow blanketed the street. 

Then he heard something, a knock at his door. 

He jumped up, part of him thought it would be you. Could it be? Has rainy Seattle already been too much for you?

A familiar voice from behind the door spoke, “Hey, it’s me.”

Part 7!

taglist: @l0ve-0f-my-life​ @aperrywilliams​ @helloniallslovelies​ @random-ravings

@ajwantsapancake​ @andiebeaword​ @boiled-onionrings​ @frnks-stuff​ @icantevenanymore1​

[rigelmejo]

yo ok so, if anyone cares lol

i do think reading in chinese is still quite frustrating for me. i just think like, because of my past experience studying japanese, the perspective that gave me just makes chinese ‘feel’ so much less daunting? in japanese i struggled so much for two YEARS just to be able to follow the bare main idea of like a simple slice of life chapter in a manga. To just follow the bare minimum. To just look at a youtube title in japanese and be able to roughly even guess what it’s about.

So like, by the time i made those small goals in japanese, i had been trying to read for 2 years. So just that small amount of comprehension was absolutely amazing to me and such a huge milestone.

So when i went into learning chinese, i already had the perspective of like ‘if i can even read some simple very common word sentences in 2 years and understand the basic main idea in them, i will be doing absolutely Fantastic!’ 

Needless to say, with chinese i had learned from past mistakes and made a much better study plan and had a better grasp of what tasks give me improvement versus lead me to procrastinating and restudying material i should progress past instead. 

So in chinese i actually have progressed much better in my reading progress than i dared to dream i possibly would! it is still far far away from of course my eventual goal - to be able to read the stories i want somewhat comfortably. But i am already far past the goal i planned to reach in 2 years, and i am already at the point i can at least slog though chinese novels with a dictionary at a slow pace (which is more than i ever managed in japanese in over twice the time spent studying). and i’m already at the point where i can pick up a manhua and follow the main idea of the chapters without a dictionary (which took like 10 months in chinese, compared to 2.5 in japanese study ;-; ). so i at least know i’m on the right track, and clearly making progress. while reading is still an intense challenge every time, it drains my brain just a little less the more and more i do it, and i see more steady progress than i had ever hoped - which definitely encourages me to keep working at it and trying it more.

at the end of the day like, studying japanese before gave me this idea that i will be completely okay if i can’t read the most basic things until 2 years in, and if i can’t read anything but a few simple stories with a dictionary slog until 4 years in, and without a dictionary on simple stuff might well take 6 or 8+ years. so i don’t put stress on myself so much because i know like... realistically for my general progress in languages, it might well take that long easily.

and in contrast, chinese has really shown me how MUCH i held myself back in japanese by NOT throwing myself immediately into the deep end often. In japanese, I did not even TRY to read things outside a textbook until after year 1, and i always limited myself to manga and tweets and youtube videos, because i assumed if they felt hard anything else would be absolutely insurmountable. I suspect me picking materials that did not challenge me as much, and being afraid to challenge myself more, held back the speed of my progress a lot. It really wasn’t until 2 years into japanese - when i said screw it and started trying to brute force manga, and brute force play kingdom hearts in japanese, that i started making any significant gains in comprehension. With chinese, I tried to apply that lesson, and i remember trying to brute force the first chapter of Guardian as early as months 2-5. And trying to brute force mzds prologue in like month 3. And i remember seeing advice about immersion, and deciding ‘screw it’ and trying to just get myself to watch chinese shows without english subs around month 5 onward. And trying to get myself to read actual novels (easier ones, and graded readers lol) around month 6-7. At first yeah i was completely unprepared - but damn if it did not motivate me to RUSH through learning 2000 common words so i would be drowning less! Damn if it did not motivate me to learn 800 hanzi in my first 5 months, then 1000 more by month 10. I realized i learn faster when i just push myself - or at least, i get much more motivated and get a much clearer idea of what i may need to study more in order to be better at the thing i want to do. I didn’t make any progress in speaking/writing until i joined a language exchange app in month 5+ - and had huge motivation to learn common conversational words so i could respond to people quicker, and use translators less frequently when people talked to me etc. Like... yeah i know i threw myself into the deep end constantly. but also, i don’t think i would’ve covered so much ground, because of my personal learning style, if i hadn’t. I 100% think i’ve met my japanese progress and surpassed it in half the time of chinese study, because i did what ‘worked’ in japanese immediately with chinese and just. Tried to do more of it when i could...

But anyway. My point is like - i went into chinese reading expecting that any sliver of comprehension improvement over the span of years, would be exceptionally good progress for me. So anything even surpassing that a little, motivates me a ton. I’m never expecting perfection, because i’ve struggled with trying to improve reading before in another language where it took a lot of effort for me to even reach a bare minimum. So at least i know i can look at what i’ve done in the past, and know there’s a timeline i can likely follow to predict the minimum of how i’ll make progress. And then also, i’ve tried to take what i did notice helped me in studying, and apply it a lot more to chinese. So it has been very motivating to see the parts of study i felt worked - actually working lol. Since when i studied japanese (and french a bit before that), it was a lot of me stumbling in the dark and doing random stuff, progressing like ??? and trying to figure out what even helped me improve. 

i think the point i am trying to make is to not be hard on yourself. absolutely any progress, no matter how slow, is great! is admirable! is a show of your hard work, and also of you doing all the exploration to discover what even works for you versus does not work for your personal study! you don’t have to be hard on yourself for not reaching ‘perfection’ by a set date, improvement is a process, and so much of it is simply learning How you progress, what helps you progress versus stalls you, and what is normal progress for yourself (rather than for others, because we all improve at different speeds and by doing different things).

[misssunflowersandsangria]

Work in Progress Wednesday

Creators: work on or post something from your WIP. This is your weekly reminder to get something down on paper (real or virtual). It’s also a chance to share your progress with your followers and give them a sneak peek of what’s to come!

Fans: leave a comment on an unfinished fic and let the writer know how much you love it. Reblog an artist’s sketch and let them know you can’t wait to see the final product. Send someone an ask cheering them on!

Feel free to repost this image!

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Hello all!  I’ve been feeling...well I’m not too sure honestly.  Writing has been a little weird these last few months weeks so I wanted to use this just as a way to motivate myself a little with what I’ve already come up with and hopefully, it will push me to write/finish some of those WIPs.  Be gentle these are still really rough ... and if I do get around to writing them I might change some stuff around...

There are so many different stories that I’ve started that I might never finish so I wanted them to live somewhere.  

There’s a few ShikaTema, SaiIno and one ChoKarui (also some starts to my Lemonade Series so be aware of titles/notes)

**I’ll update this as new ideas come about.  They will appear first in the post. 

Previews after the cut. 

Knots (Part 3 of “Ties that Bind Series”- ShikaTema, Suna Sibs)

“I’m worried, she’s really sick.”

“Maybe it's like ya know.  That time of the month.”  Kankuro’s voice dropped to a whisper. 

“You idiot.  You absolute moron.”  Temari's voice shot back through the layers of blankets. 

“I think she's okay.”

“Temari, are you okay?”  Gaara asked carefully.  

She nodded her head.  “I’m fine.  Everything is just fine.  Why do you ask?”

“Well you’ve been locked in your room for days now.  You haven’t snapped at anyone or called me stupid.  We’re getting concerned.”

She sighed, taking a deep breath seeing the worry clear in their eyes.

“Shikamaru proposed.”

Their expressions brightened.   “Temari! That’s great, congratulations!”

“We should be celebrating.”  Kankurou stared at his sister curiously.  Gaara was right.  Something was wrong.  “Why isn’t Nara here?”

“I couldn’t say yes.”

Their eyes shot wide open. “Temari?”

“Shikamaru needs to be in Konoha and I couldn’t leave you two and Suna.  Who am I if i’m not Temari of the Desert?”  She knew that she made the right decision.  She couldn’t just leave her brothers and Suna because of something as trivial as love right?  This was the right thing to do.  She assured herself but then why did her heart feel like it was tied up in knots?

*

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Candles (SaiIno-One Shot)

The concept of birthdays had always been foreign to Sai.  He’d never learned the actual date of his birth and never realized that such days were cause for celebration.  So much of his past and the circumstances by which he’d become part of the Root were shrouded in darkness.  The one person that could tell him when his actual birthday was, was dead.

 There were little events that were celebrated in the Foundation.  Completion of missions, not dying on said missions were the two events in which he could remember “celebrating.”  Other than that there was little else that would be cause for celebration.

Once he started becoming more a part of the village he learned early on that birthdays were actually important milestones.  Whether they were small, intimate gatherings of close family and friends or large, elaborate events, birthdays were something to celebrate.  They were time markers and allowed the celebrant to reflect on all their past experiences and look forward to all the wonderful experiences that lie ahead.  Perhaps that was why birthdays were never celebrated.  No one in the Root had a clear memory of their past.  Each mission could be life or death so it was foolish to believe that there was a future to look forward to.  

Still, as he began to settle actual roots, and the path in which he wanted to walk a birthday seemed like an important element to have.  Everyone had a birthday, he deserved one too.  The actual date though was to be determined.  There were few actual dates that held any value so selecting a random one out of the year was difficult.  It also seemed strange to arbitrarily pick a date as well. 

“Ino?  I have a request.”

“Of course Sai, anything.”

“Would you mind sharing your birthday with me?”

“What?”

“I don’t know when my actual birthday is.  Such things weren’t considered important.  One day I’d like to find out but for now if you don’t mind I’d like to share my birthday with you.  It’s not something that we need to announce or even really recognize but I’d like to have a date, a number that I can put down.  I feel like the day I met you I was reborn in a sense.  That my real life started.  I can  understand if you don’t-”

*

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Stolen (Multi Chap AU ShikaTema ):

Shikamaru watched her closely and saw the shift in her eyes.  Where she’d been terrified initially he noticed a kind of calm and peace.  He released the shadow binds around her wrists but sent more to surround her creating a maze of shadows and lines. 

“Don’t fear the shadows Temari.  Learn to dance amongst them.”

Temari with focused eyes and a determined spirit moved gracefully between the lines.  She landed in pockets of light and moved swiftly before she could become trapped.  He watched on enchanted as she leaped and moved effortlessly avoiding what he threw at her.  It was as though she was floating, gliding in the wind above the darkness.

*

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Runways (Model AU ShikaTema):

Unrestrained raged swirled in Shikamaru’s normally soft brown eyes as he held Temari’s shaking body.  His glare was heavy on the cowering figure trembling on the floor. 

“My family will bury you.  I will make sure that you never work in this industry again.”

Temari was taken aback by the ice in his voice and all she wanted was for this night to be over and for life to return to normal. “Shikamaru...”  Temari’s voice quivered in a frighteningly unfamiliar way and his protective hold tightened.

“I’m sorry-” 

In spite of himself, Shikamaru laughed off the worthless attempt to quell his anger.  “It’s far too late for apologies.  I suggest that you leave now. That you make it so that no one remembers your name or face because by the time that I’m done you will wish that you never crossed a Nara.”

*

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Stalemate (Mafia AU, ShikaTema)

Shikamaru’s midnight eyes surveyed the crash of sweaty bodies moving and pulsating to a heavy beat. He took a long drag of his cigarette overwhelmed by the sheer number of people and heavy bass. It wasn’t often that he made the trek out here often depending on his associates to check on their businesses.  His father told him though that it was important for the king to be seen by his people.  

For a while, his family had to operate in the shadows.  That was no longer the case.  The Naras, Akimichis, and Yamanaka’s ruled this area.  Government officials, police officers anyone who had “power” were all on their payroll.  Very few things happened in this city without them knowing.  Everyone knew who they were and they no longer tried to hide it.  

When he was younger he’d complained constantly that this was a drag. He never wanted to become the head of the Nara crime family.  It wasn’t his choice, it was his destiny.  Still, he grew into the role and had accomplished more than they’d ever dreamed. 

He didn’t delight in the benefits of being an infamous crime boss. The club was far too loud. The women who threw themselves at him were too troublesome. 

His eyes continued to scan the room before they fell upon one person his heart began to beat wildly. From where he stood he could tell she was a striking blonde but there was something different.  Something was drawing him towards her.  He studied her for a while.  Becoming increasingly frustrated as she flirted and smiled at the club patrons.  His hands clutched painfully around the balcony railing as he tried to keep his anger in check. 

He called his security detail over.

“The blonde bartender, bring her to my office.”

“Yes sir.” 

*

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Protective Instincts (Mafia AU, SaiIno, Mafia Princess Ino, Bodyguard Sai *same universe as “Stalemate” ^)

The tension in the back of the SUV was suffocating.  The air heavy, anger rolling off of the man sitting next to her. 

“Sai...I-”  Ino began before being cut off.  

“Don’t, I’m barely holding it together right now.  I just need a minute.”

A beat of silence passed. “Are you mad at me?”  She pouted and despite how angry and upset he was Sai shook his head.  

“No, I could never be mad at you.  I’m mad at your actions and the stupid risks you take but no, never at you.”  

Satisfied with his response and sensing that he was calmer Ino crawled into his lap settling her head against his chest.

He knew that he should push her away.  It wasn’t necessarily appropriate for her to be this familiar with him but she melted so perfectly against him. He felt whole when she was in his arms. 

“I’m sorry Sai, I should have told you.  I just wanted a regular fun, night out.”

“But you’re not a regular person.  You put yourself at risk.”

“Sai, it’s one of our clubs, nothing was going to happen.”

“I can’t take that chance, Princess.  I knew that I shouldn't have taken the night off.  The person on your guard tonight is fucking dead.”

Her eyes widened feeling guilt crash over her.  She still had to learn that her decisions had very real consequences.  “Sai, no.  Please, it’s not his fault.  I snuck out.  I manipulated and orchestrated the whole thing.  Please don’t take it out on him.”

“Ino.”

She forced his gaze to meet hers.  “I’ll deal with my dad if it gets to him. Please.”

“Fuck, fine.  He and I are going to have a talk for sure but that will be all.  I promise.”

Ino sighed in relief knowing that he’d keep his promise.  “Thank you.”

“Why did you take tonight off?  It’s not like you.”

He took a deep breath his fingers pushing back stray hairs away from her eyes.  “I just needed a break, Beautiful.  Clearly, it didn’t last long.  I can’t take my eyes off of you for a second.”

She relaxed into his chest.  “I like your eyes on me.”

*

**

Obscura (NSFW SaiIno- Lemonade Series) -Idea courtesy of @ promptmaker 

Sai grinned as Ino moved into the next pose. She was a natural in front of the camera and seeing that smile always made him happy. 

He’d purchased the camera recently as an attempt to explore a new artistic medium. Especially now that he had memories worth capturing. Ino happily volunteered to be his subject. He was thankful that after this he’d have a whole set of photos of his Light. 

“Great job Beautiful these look incredible.” He complimented her drawing her into a kiss. 

“Thank you, Sai.”  She paused for a minute before her eyes lifted back to his a playful look in those baby blues. 

“I have an idea for a for pictures if you don’t mind.” 

He nodded excitedly about the prospect. He enjoyed any time that they shared together.  “Of course not Beautiful, whatever you’d like.  Let me just adjust these lights.” 

When he turned back around he was surprised to see that she’d removed her top and was now leaning forward her breasts heavy and exposed.  A mischievous smile across her lips.  

“Fuck.”  He breathed.  So she wanted those kinds of pictures.

*

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Main Course (NSFW ChoKarui- Lemonade Series -Idea courtesy of @ promptmaker

“I made you all your favorite food and this is what you want to do instead.”  Karui teased Chouji her honey eyes glowing with anticipation.  

Chouji grinned as his mouth descended over her delicate neck.  “I think that you’re mistaken Sweetheart.  You are by far my favorite thing to eat.”  She could feel his grin against her skin.  

“Besides, if you didn’t want this to happen you would know better than to make yourself look so appetizing.”  He countered his hands grazing over the skin that the apron left exposed.

Goosebumps erupted over her skin her breathing coming out in short pants.  “Well, perhaps we should have dessert first.”

*

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So that’s what we’ve got folks.  Actually even just making this post is inspiring me to finish/write!  Are there any that you’re interested in reading?  thank you for getting this far and for supporting me. 

[faejilly]

I was tagged by @la-muerta​ & @facialteeth​ & @thedivinemissema​ for the WIP/Title Game

rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and interests you and i’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

AND THEN  by @shadoedseptmbr​ @msviolacea​ & @ravenclawnerd​ for the “stories you want to write... but for some reason haven’t yet”

so this will be a mish-mash of both? The WIPs will mostly have blurbs in this case (to fit the second meme) but you are still welcome to ask follow-up questions, if you’d like ;) Assuming you make it through the list, it is uh. Not Short.

Anyone who would like to play with their WIPs, please consider yourself tagged in either or both of these. :D

Misc Fic Folder:

“untitled document” - where I’m working on fictober fills so I have word-counts for my GYWO tracker. I am not working on these because Brains Are Dumb and also Going Back To Work Is Exhausting

I made a file called “YULETIDE!” which has nothing in it but I’m determined to finish this year so that is definitely technically a thing in the Unending WIP List of Doom worth mentioning. (Tho obviously that’s all I could say even if I had started, because anonymous.)

“coda-fics, rewatch!” -yes, that exclamation mark is important! it’s to keep me motivated! (it didn’t work). Much like untitled, this is for putting stuff so I can do word count tracking even if I don’t know what I’m doing. Currently I think it just says “MARYSE” because I was working on my SH 1x6 coda-fic and then got distracted and haven’t typed anything up yet. (Yay notebooks? Boo notebooks? Not even sure at this point.)

WNIP (works not in progress) Folder:

“TOG” - I had one vivid mental image of how Nicky & Joe met (blood-stained evil smiles?) but then no idea for a follow-up story and also the fandom is insane and I’m not sure I want to deal with all of *gestures vaguely* all that

“Shan Xia Notes” -for a TTRPG that never quite got off the ground; she was a semi-tragic selkie who was still in love with the evil queen/lady who stole her skin and I got to play her for like one session and she was surprisingly chaotic neutral, which wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting. But the game never really got off the ground, so I never had enough info to really delve into writing backstory fic

“post-Kruschev” -Kruschev’s List was the last episode of Scarecrow & Mrs King, and I was debating writing an epilogue in place of the s5 we never got, to try and tie up some loose ends, but the fandom’s three old-ladies in trench coats and I never quite worked up the gumption to get it anywhere

“Code Realize warm as silk sequel” -there is literally nothing in this file except “SEX! Only a little angst” because I wanted to write some “we can’t actually touch each other” smut but never actually did. 🤷‍♀️

BioWare (also all Not-In-Progress Anymore)

“seb/adelaide”, “Theia” & “DAI Erana” -these WIP folders were cannibalized for ficlets for the last few times I did fictober, and while originally I had ideas for longer epilogues for all three of them, at this point I don’t think any of the remaining bits could support a story any longer.

”whispers in the dark” -Maia Ryder never really got much fic at all; the cancellation of any further Andromeda stuff was really disheartening, and at this point I’d have to play the game again, and I don’t think I’m gonna manage that any time soon

”TSP” -a Mass Effect 3 Shepard AU collab project that kind of went off the rails, and our mutual brains/lives never quite seem to line up so we can try and rebuild it ”Ngaio & Tane” -my one truly ruthless Shepard (Alliance background, who romanced Traynor) whose father Tane Shepard was, I think, in PsyOps, and I wanted to figure out their complicated relationship but never really did know where I was going with it

”JE Zu & Yaling” -so I’ve rambled about my Tragic Sagacious Zu Romance Thoughts regarding Jade Empire more than once (#Icy Yaling should have most of it) but apparently I want to yell about it more than I want to actually write it? Whoops.

”CI sequel: 5 times fic?” -Cruel Intentions is a kinkmeme fill that I started and then it sat for like five years before I actually finished it, and I liked the ending, but it does leave a giant fucking question mark in terms of how those people got from there to where they are after the game, and I kind of wanted to write a proper h/c fic rather than just... leaving them wallowing in all that trauma?

But I didn’t. I don’t even remember for sure how I wanted to frame the 5/1 of it all, besides it being something sad about allowing people to see you or touch you in some way. (Prayers maybe, since I think there was definitely some Sebastian & Fenris & faith stuff going on in there.)

“candles” -Merribela prompt fill that I never was happy with? Not sure what I might do with it at this point, so it’s just sitting there all sad and lonely and neglected-like.

Shadowhunters

pt1: WIP LIST ONLY

“Persuasion” -so I keep trying to write Persuasion AUs in many fandoms because it’s my favorite Austen, but I think I like it too much, I have no real solid concept of how I’d transform it, and if I don’t have anything else to say about different characters within that framework, I have no push to actually write anything? Also this SH version of it suffered from MASSIVE scope creep when I started outlining and it got too big for me to handle so I like, killed it twice? Whoops. This one is really probably never gonna happen.

“oosdt sequel” -I wanted to write more about the Forest That Eats People and Magnus & Alec as Guardians Between Worlds, and also some background Magnus’ Found Family & Lightwood Family Feels (maybe some clizzy?) and I left a Madzie plot-thread dangling from the first one on purpose even but I think this one had too many ideas and not enough focus so it’s sort of sprawling all over a doc with a lot of “???” in it

“procedural-ish” -this was originally going to be a sex-farce. and then it turned more serious. and then maybe kind of copaganda which was uncomfortable in terms of the Everything That Is The News in 2020, and then maybe it was more a Mafia AU and at that point I had self-inflicted tone whiplash and I wished the voices in my head were a little more forthcoming about their plans so I stopped before I brained myself on my computer monitor in frustration.

“I had rather a rose than live forever” -I started a reverse!verse Malec (Shadowhunter!Magnus, High Warlock!Alec) for bingo last year, and I couldn’t quite get it together in time, so I made a moodboard inspired by the bits I’d started instead. I may see if one of my prompts from Bingo this year help me finish it?

“fall fright fest (practical magic  au)” -exactly what it says on the tin! almost exactly a year old & neglected! IDEK ANYMORE (I talked about this one with the WIP meme last time tho: here)

“priest!kink theology?” -I thought it was gonna be smut? I like priest!kink. I have made other people like it and yell at me even! But then I kept diverging into demon!Magnus thinking about Priest!Alec’s faith and as usual, IDEK ANYMORE *laughs*

(If they’re remotely canon-adjacent or divergent, a bunch of these are in here because I need to rewatch the show to get the pacing/timing/tone right and I haven’t, and I don’t know why, because I enjoy the show, but BRAINS! Are Dumb! So I guess that’s it?)

“I do” -I have tried to write this damnable Malec arranged marriage fic like six different times. I have signed up for fic exchanges and bangs with it, I have rewritten massive sections, trying to change tone or structure or POV or whatever, and it basically comes down to they like each other too fast and I keep not gutting it enough to get back to a useful pace, but by the time I realized that I was on take six and kind of sick of it. I may get back to it eventually

“wing!fic” -canon divergent in early s1, trying to deal with the consequences of Simon’s kidnapping as the Truly Serious Event that it should have been. It uh. Got heavier than I expected with those consequences (considering it was originally just supposed to be Alec’s wings flirting with Magnus) and also see above re: rewatching for pacing.

“2x20 aftermath/date night/pandemonium porn“ -yes that is the actual wip title. It used to be “spite fic” because I was originally inspired by fighting against a lot of fic!Alec characterization that was clearly based more on the books and ATG syndrome than the Alec in the show, which is the Alec I know and like and want to read about. BUT, pacing and etc. again, I think. Also I have somehow entirely lost my knack for writing porn, which makes it difficult to finish something originally intended to be smut!fic. Or even teasing almost!smut.

“rubbish heap” -so this is about three different fics that I realized complemented each other really well so they’re now all in the same file as I try to turn them into the sequel of “with an if in its soul”. It includes amnesia, parabatai lore shenanigans, a s3 rewrite, and some truly awful Owl adjustments that make me wince in horrified authorly delight and pain. BUT, as with the other ones in this file, the scope is large and I normally write short-fic and I kind of just threw up my hands in exasperation. I may have to break it back up into the three different fics instead, if I ever actually want to write it. Them? But also I need to take better notes on s3 to make sure I have what I need in here.

SH Pt 2: Started posting or not yet in hiatus because it’s actually almost ready to be a thing in the real world! maybe!?

“kisses (firsts)” -I actually started publishing this one, a “series of firsts” that was supposed to be kind of relationship milestones and kind of an excuse for smut, and then there wasn’t that much smut and I lost momentum and also dear lords & ladies the timeline is stupid, wtf. I may not ever add to this one, tbqh. It doesn’t stop in a terrible place, and they’re all ficlets so they stand alone all right.

“clizzy epilogue” -this is blank atm, it’s more a reminder for me to keep poking away at my “girls who can’t breathe air, only fire” collection BECAUSE I WOULD LIKE TO ACTUALLY GET TO THE CLIZZY AT SOME POINT

"mer!alec" -pts 2-4 of a series, but apparently having an actual plan gets in the way of me *writing* the thing, and I haven't managed to throw the half an outline far enough away from my brain to be able to write again. Or something like that.

"ibhww" -if broken hearts were whole is a soulmate fic I started a million years ago, and purposefully set aside to finish some other WIPs because I thought they'd be quick, and now it's just buried under two and a half years of regret and shame so it's hard to get back to it

"iafy" -i am for you is a delightful & frothy semi-epistolary fluff piece that also just lost momentum because Life & 2020 & etc. It's far and away the most popular thing I've ever posted on AO3, which also makes me feel weird sometimes, and I feel like the fact that there's no grand conclusion planned, just a bit more fluff and settling in, might end up being disappointing? Basically, it's the first time I think I've psyched myself out about reader expectations, and until I get over that I'm going to have trouble finishing the last couple chapters. (There really are probably only two more chapters though. IT’S SO CLOSE, I wish I could just... write it. And yet?)

“fake-hating” -I do not like fake dating as a trope that much, I just do not get it, but I love outside POVs and arranged marriages and there’s this delighful tumblr post about how they wished there was more fic about people who were together but had to pretend they werent’, and uh. This may be that? Eventually? I’m not exhausted by my failure to finish it yet, so it’s still in the regular folder rather than the hiatus folder, even though nothing’s been posted for it.

AND I THINK THAT’S IT?

Not as terrible as it could be, but still. MANY WORDS THAT MAY NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY. Posting the equivalent of one’s old ratty sketchbook is always a weird feeling. :D

[hockeytrashgoblin]

Ice Cold ~Part 12

A/N: A much shorter one. Well not much shorter, only about 500 words shorter than average but it feels shorter? I don’t know I hope you enjoy!

"Are we there yet?" I groggily asked.

"Baby you can't keep asking that every time you wake up. It's only been 10 minutes since I told you we were an hour away." He laughed fondly at me.

"M'sorry thought I was sleeping longer than that."

"Are you gonna stay awake and talk to me now?"

"Probably no." I curled up further under my coat.

"You'd be warmer if you put your coat on and your boots."

"But then I wouldn't be comfy. Besides I'm fine, just want to be cozy."

"Baby you're cold." I said taking my hand in his.

"How do you even know? I'm still warmer than you are."

"But not as warm as usual. I can still feel different temperatures you silly girl."

"It's not that silly! I still don't know everything yet." I pouted, making him laugh and squeeze my hand.

"You'll know everything soon enough I'm sure. Mitch can't keep his fucking mouth shut no matter what you say and I will answer anything you ask. It shouldn't be long until everything is known."

"Hey when did you feed?"

"What?"

"Yesterday your eyes were pretty red and today they're bright blue but I was with you all day yesterday except the game."

"I went to Mo's last night after you fell asleep."

"You just left me there while I slept?"

"Well I didn't think you'd appreciate me waking you up just to tell you I was going to hunt. I wanted this weekend to be as human as possible without having to worry about all the shit that comes with me being thirsty."

"Well that's sweet but also rude. You could've just said you were going out beforehand, you didn't have to sneak out."

"I didn't think of it beforehand. I'm sorry, are you upset with me?"

"No I'm not upset. I just don't understand why you guys are so uncomfortable about it. I wish you weren't."

"I'm afraid that if I talk about it a lot it's going to become more real to you and you're not going to like it. Or you will get scared."

"William I won't. I've taken time to process. It is what it is. You are what you are and what I will eventually be. I'm not scared and I'm not going to be."

"I love how brave and courageous you are." He said kissing my hand.

"I love everything about you Will. I mean that." 

We were quiet and I ended up falling asleep again. I was exhausted. That's what William got for starting a 5 hour drive at 10:30pm. There was a big bump in the road and I jostled awake with a whine.

"You're fine baby. We just turned onto the road the cabin is on."

"Really?"

"Yes darling. You can go back to sleep and I'll bring you in if you want?"

"No! No I'm awake, I want to see it." I rubbed my eyes with my fists making him giggle. "Your giggles are so cute Willy."

"Woooah there, I do not giggle."

"You absolutely do. All the time. There's no other way to describe it. I love it."

"Are you trying to bother me?"

"What? No! Baby of course not! Your laugh is my absolute favourite sound, I don't want to bother you at all. I'm sorry."

"The only person who's ever described it like that is Kap and that was to bother me."

"If I wanted to bother you I'd do it better than that."

"Oh I know you would." He said rolling his eyes with a smile on his face. "We're here."

"William! This is beautiful, what the fuck dude! I'm in awe. Look at iiiit!" 

I jumped out of the car and stood in front of the most beautiful little log cabin. The lights were on inside so the windows let out a warm glow all over freshly fallen snow. It was truly incredible. William was suddenly beside me.

"I just rented a small one because I thought you'd like that bett-mm." I interrupted him by kissing him.

"William. I love it. It's perfect."

"You're perfect." He grinned and kissed me again, harder. "Do you want to go in and go back to sleep?"

"Are you tired?"

"I actually don't have to sleep, I just choose to. I could never sleep again if I wanted."

"Soo..?" I didn't know how to bring up what I wanted.

William had spent the whole week leading up to this creating the most unbearable sexual tension I had ever felt. It was mostly small things that no one would even pick up on. Lingering touches, intense looks, stuff like that. Other times it was really blatant. Like pushing me against a wall or aggressively making out or buying lingerie as a gift and leaving it for me to find when he was out. I had some revenge on him but I really don't think I had a fraction of the effect on him as he did on me.

"Come here." He pulled me in by my hips and kissed me, forcing his tongue into my mouth. I moaned and fought for control of the kiss. It didn't work but I tried. 

Before I knew it I was being dropped on the bed. He took his shirt off and climbed on top of me. His lips met mine in a deep kiss I felt through my whole body. I pulled desperately at his shoulders and waist. He pulled back and started pushing my shirt up. I sat up and whipped it over my head. He took his pants off so I followed his lead and took mine off too.

"Babe you're fucking gorgeous." He said between kisses.

"You're so hot. Look so good for me." I said as he kissed my neck.

"Are you ready?" He mumbled on my neck.

"Yes. I love you."

"I love you." He gave me a fiery kiss and started touching my body. We spent the rest of the night tangled up together until I was too tired to keep going and we went to sleep.

I woke up to a bright room and the smell of breakfast. I was alone in the room so I took a second to myself. I felt so wonderful and happy. I had had sex before many times with different partners but I'd never felt like this. This feeling was a whole new experience, it felt how everyone made losing your virginity sound. Magical, incredible, a real connection. I found his sweater on the floor and slipped it on. I smiled at the fact that the sleeves went so far past my arms. I left the room and looked around for the first time. 

I loved the wooden walls. It was so beautiful. I had always really loved all wood houses and cabins. They were just gorgeous. I made it to the kitchen and stopped in the doorway to take in the fight in front of me. William standing in his sweatpants with finished and half finished food around him. I was surprised at how human it felt. He turned around and smiled at me. I smiled big and covered it with the sleeve.

"Good morning my love, how did you sleep?"

"Gooood." I went over to him and hugged him. He reached over my head and flipped a pancake.

"I'm glad. You were pretty tuckered out."

"Don't look so proud of yourself." I teased flicking his nose.

"I love you."

"I love you too even though you're using the voice on me again."

"I'm not sorry." He smiled his sunshine smile and kissed me again making me laugh.

"Anyone ever told you smiling and kissing don't mix, Nylander?"

"You're in such a teasing mood this morning." He shook his head and put the last pancake on the plate. "I made all your favourites."

"God you're incredible. Thank you so much!"

"Go sit down in the breakfast nook and I'll bring the food over."

"Breakfast noooook!" I got really excited as I rounded the corner and saw a cute little nook with floor to ceiling windows beside it. "William this is so perfect! I can't believe you found literally the perfect place."

"It took a lot of looking but I wanted it to be exactly something you'd like." He put the food down and sat across from me.

"You're my favourite person."

"You're mine. How do you feel about going for a little skate on the lake after breakfast?"

"Will, you know I can't skate."

"I'm going to teach you. It'll be fun I promise."

"Fine let's do it." 

After breakfast was done I bundled up and we went outside. It was a mess. I wasn't good at it at all but the absolute joy that was present on William's face was completely worth falling on my ass a bunch. He left me on the ice to take pictures to prove he got me out there and I fell during them so there was a progression from me standing, to falling, to sitting on my butt, to laying flat on my back. William fell over laughing so hard. After he recovered and could help me up, I was freezing. We went back inside and sat curled up under a blanket by the fire.

"Do you care much for relationship milestones?" William asked out of the blue.

"It depends. Why?"

"Today is 5 months since we started dating."

"Awww that's so wonderful! 5 months has flown past."

"It really has."

"5 months really goes by quick when you're so happy."

"That's definitely true." He gave me a sweet kiss.

"Hey! Will I be better at skating when I'm a vampire?"

"You will. Your balance will be completely perfect once you change."

"Oh good. My balance is not good right now." I said, making him snort.

"Trust me babe I know. Today was proof enough of that."

"Hey!" I hit his shoulder. "I wasn't that bad! I was even skating without holding onto anything at the end! I got better."

"Still was not very good."

"Sorry we aren't all vampires good with knife shoes." I grumbled making him burst into giggles. "You're not nice."

"Babe, I'm plenty nice, you're just funny."

"Um yeah I know."

"Then stop complaining." He teased squeezing my leg before lunging at me and pulling me into a kiss.

[fragilevixenfic]

A House is Not a Home

Summary:

The mere thought of raising a newborn in a world full of horrors has every part of Scully’s emotional irrationality over firing on a chilly, winter evening. Mulder wants nothing more than to show her that not everything is gray and grim.

“Hope transforms pessimism into optimism. Hope is invincible.” – Daisaku Ikeda

For Teresa, I hope that this is everything that you were imagining.

The situations mentioned in this fic (ripped from the headlines) are real ones and altered ones to assist in the story. No mention of the real-life situation was meant to injure, harm, or otherwise trigger the reader. The shooting was real; the others were either from prior events (altered to fit the story) or didn’t happen during this date range. Also, took a few personal liberties with Jackson. He is unexplored and underdeveloped, at best.

You can’t go back and change the beginning,

But you can start where you are and change the ending.

-C.S. Lewis

Saturday, January 5th 2019

6:00 PM

The Unremarkable House

227700 Wallace Rd, Farrs Corner, VA

               The haze of pea soup fog preceded the battle between rain and snow as the small, muted sage house became swallowed by the thicket until visibility reduced to mere feet beyond the reaches of the steps. A glow of twinkling strung and wound up lights along the edge of the outside band and the header marked the well-concealed home like a lighthouse along a quiet shore. It was quiet aside from the tinkering of raindrops in mud puddles, down the gutters, and along the siding of the house, along with the whistling of faint wind through the trees with every gust. The front window, fogged-up with an outer layer of condensation, concealed the remnants of Christmas from a reluctant set of parents, who had been clinging to that moment of reminiscence from matching lights in the tree just feet from a fireplace. There was homey, inviting warmth even with the occasional battle cry from the infant that now lay nestled within the bassinet, her little tuft of gingery curls visible beneath the lilac cap, suckling at the air even in sleep.

               Scully’s fingers still twitched along the edge of the rail, gently rocking the cradle as she leaned against the armrest to watch her, the lack of sleep evident under her eyes. “How long are you going to let me relax this time, little one?”

               “Think I have enough time to start making us some dinner?” Mulder’s voice was a welcomed distraction, as were his lips to her temple as the back of her head found the soft material of a pillow. “No one wrote this in the parenting manual.”

               “Mmmm…please tell me we’re having those stuffed shells covered with cheese tonight because I’m already drooling just thinking about them.” Scully smirked, nodding as she felt the pop of her vertebrae moving back into place, aligning carefully as she looked up at him. “Ran ragged, send a nanny. I don’t remember it being this exhausting with her brother and I don’t remember him unpredictably crying at random moments of the day.”

               “So, what you’re saying is the diet isn’t coming back for a while?” Mulder massaged the back of her neck, admiring the beautiful baby in the bassinet as she stretched her little hands and feet as far as they would go before settling back down. “Well, I’d say that most people don’t pause eighteen years to have number two, either, Scully…and she’s been a unique little peach since she was big enough to do somersaults in the womb.”

               “I’m enjoying the carbs and I’m getting plenty of vitamins from the side salads that go along with straying from the diet I had been observing,” Scully bit down on her lip and gazed at the sweet, cherubic cheeked babe in the rapt of slumber. “As long as it doesn’t inhibit Lily’s growth and progress, then we’re doing something right.”

               Lily. The miracle that made so many others along the way seem so small. The second chance at something right. Scully glanced at the sleeping babe and felt the pang of longing to have spent more time with her firstborn to watch the intricacies of his infancy. So many milestones had been missed in such a short period of time and they only set off the catastrophe that followed—years of wondering if he was loved as much as she had hoped he was. Lily wasn’t simply another baby or a replacement for Jackson; she was the missing puzzle piece in a graying world full of darkened corners and dead ends. Scully knew that their sweet, little Lily had brought so much more than light into this world as her eyes diverted to the side-by-side pair of bronzed baby booties. Mulder saw her wipe an errant tear and leaned in to steal a kiss, tasting that salt that had been left behind before she could clear away memory.

               “I’ll make some garlic bread and put on some water for that decaf tea that you’ve become a little obsessed with—the kind with the mint in it,” Mulder wasn’t used to this much emotional turbulence but he was handling it like a champ as he placed a sweet kiss on the apple of her cheek before straightening his spine. “Maybe we should watch a movie tonight?”

               “Yeah, that might be nice if she manages to sleep through even thirty minutes of it,” Scully waited until he was halfway into the kitchen before reaching for the remote, flipping channels until a newscast caught her attention.

               “…We brought you breaking news overnight of a multiple fatality shooting in Pittsylvania County, Virginia and have obtained more details about the shooter and his victims. We have learned that the identity of the shooter was Jason Owen Davis and it has been confirmed that he fired multiple shots within the home that he shared with his wife and twelve-year-old son. Authorities have informed us that Davis shot his wife and twelve-year-old son before killing himself. Two women were also hospitalized after sustaining injuries from gunshots they had received while driving past the home of Davis…The investigation is ongoing…”

               The red, blue, and white flashing lights in the dead of night from the footage in front of a small home atop its foundation with a short drive tugged at Scully’s heartstrings. The sleepy, little town was only a few hours south but a shooting involving murder and suicide wasn't something that happened often. At least, it didn’t use to happen often. Scully swallowed hard as she listened to the newscaster recall the previous night’s events, a lump forming as she thought of a child’s life being extinguished before they could even blow the candles out on their thirteenth birthday cake. Her eyes darted to Lily as the tears nipped at her waterline, biting at every open nerve as the unthinkable played out in a single breath; losing another baby before they even had a chance to take their first steps.

              The circumstances were different but the inflicted pain felt so real as she changed the channel and palmed her mouth to cover the sob, hoping to quell an onslaught as the flickering screen wracked at her subconscious.

               What do I do if everything I am isn’t enough to keep you safe in this world?

               Scully knew that she was playing with fire as she pulled the bassinet closer, just enough to caress the rounded, little cheeks that belonged to their miracle. Lily stirred and let out a brief whimper as she traced the line of her chin and coaxed the waiting tears from her unusually sensitive Mother’s eyes. Scully pulled her hand back and watched the delicate traces of baby feet underneath of loose swaddling as they kicked up and down before settling back against the linen coverlet, the sigh audible as she drifted deeper into sleep. Scully feverishly wiped her tears and leaned back, resting her back against the couch cushions as the ticker at the bottom of the screen on CNN announced another terrorist attack in the city of Paris followed by a rising death toll from a bombing in Pakistan from the week earlier. It was enough to make her stomach churn and the bile rise. The world had become an unfolding nightmare full of waiting, blooming shadows ready to enfold the light.

               “Should I make the tea now while the oven does most of the work?” Mulder’s voice, like her beacon through a haze, struck a chord as he came around the corner and found her with shimmering streaks still fresh along first blush. “Scully, what happened?”

               “What world are we raising Lily in, Mulder?” Scully muted the television, imploring him as the floodgates opened and the upheaval worked its way to the surface, her voice just barely above normalcy. “Death and destruction around every corner, chaos in countless countries including our own, and the constant threat of some whack job rigging themselves up all in the name of religion to take the lives of those who don’t fit their normative of acceptable. I don't remember looking at life for our son with this much sadness in it."

               “I don’t know that the world has necessarily changed, Scully,” Mulder was keenly aware of the fluidity of her hormones and sentimentality as he took the remote from her and set it aside, knowing that she’d only begun to tap the surface of a vortex of upheaval. “We’re not out there like we used to be—with our guns readied to take aim and go running after monsters without a second thought for health or regard of our health.”

               Scully's head tilted; the notion of his comment filled with questionable truths as she felt her own aches and pains giving her a not-so-gentle reminder of their existence without even doing a tally of his. Some of the injuries weren't exactly old, either, she knew, but the passing of time had lessened the frequency of a new mark or blemish. Admitting that Mulder was right held a little bit of astonishment and disinclination for Scully as she felt that eyebrow lift upon her like a parental judgment. He was a little pleased with himself as he heard the gentle sigh leave her lips despite the undeniable urge to fix her pain.

               Yin and yang; their relationship personified as opposition met harmony, molding together in such a way that one was incomplete without the other.

               “Why does it feel like decay, misery, and melancholy are waiting around every corner?” Scully was visibly uncomfortable as she pointed toward the television, nearly going hoarse as she felt her blood pressure spike, aiming her energy toward chaos as Mulder’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t turn on the TV without seeing something awful happening as close as two or three hours away. If it isn’t a stabbing, it’s a shooting…if it isn’t a shooting…it’s a bombing. Lily will never see anything but the constant chipping away of humanity and crumbling of sanity.”

               “Lily will be surrounded by two parents that love her and a brother that, with some time, will protect her from anything and everything,” Mulder was studying the expanse of freckles on her face as she met his gaze, coaxing a soft, needed smile that slowly faded as he continued. “I know it seems like the word of the decade is grim but there's a lot more to the world that is worth exploring—from the smallest blade of grass to the tallest trees. Nature, the lifting up of communities in the wake of a disaster, and the little gestures in between like carrying a rainbow flag down a crowded street. I don't think I had a chance to take a look at what was underneath the surface until I felt like there wasn't any hope left."

               “You make it sound so easy and idyllic, Mulder,” Scully stared at the floor, at the fibers of the area rug until they were blurring together in a sea of worn, little waves of blues and grays while the strings of her heart played a note she hadn’t felt since writing a letter addressed to her son. “What happens to Lily if we’re no longer here to raise her—to protect her? Who will be here to make sure she is safe?”

               “Jesus, Scully,” Mulder swallowed hard at the mere implication of a piece of them being swathed in their love as she leaped through each milestone had him choking back the tears. “I know we’re getting up there in age but I really didn’t want to jump straight to the morbid talk before she even turns one.”

               "I don't want to imagine a world where I don't get to see those little fingers and toes become more grown-up or those insanely hazel eyes develop depth when she's angry," Scully didn't want to wake Lily but the trepidation was quickly morphing into something more frenzied as she covered her mouth, muffling the sob. "I don't remember being this reactionary with Jackson and all I want to do is call my mom…but I can’t.”

               Mulder wanted to be angry but the sadness he felt for Scully was undeniable as his knees went weak and his eyes fell on the shimmering tears from the corners of her eyes. Lashing out wouldn’t have done much good because the truth of it was that he missed his Mother-in-law nearly as much as Scully did. The hole that Maggie Scully had left in their lives was a shock to the system that neither of them were entirely prepared for and Mulder had spent so much time trying to repair the damage done over losing her. She was a source of great strength and levity for both of them during a time of unbearable darkness to a point that he wondered if she was the only one that knew, deep down, that they weren’t beyond repair. She always held out hope and proved to be that steadfast link that brought them back together as her spark slowly went dark. Sometimes, he wondered if that same glimmer of warmth hovered around Lily’s angelic face to admire what she always knew could come to pass.

               He had hoped that she looked down on their girl and saw their love, personified, down to the tendrils of red curls that came from her mother and the flecks of green and chestnut that came from her father.

               “I wouldn’t say that our support system has gotten smaller, Scully,” Mulder scooted alongside her, squeezing her fingers as her eyes stayed locked on the circular pattern on the floor. “It has simply changed over the years—and adjusted to the people we’ve become along the way. Your brother may not like me but he’s in our lives more now than he was years ago and because of that galvanized bond, we have your sister-in-law and your nephew. We still have a lot of people in our lives that were always there for us that are now here for her. I have to think it means something that we have that for Lily.”

               Scully wanted to feel the words sink in and mean something but there was a struggle buried underneath as she rested her head against the back of the couch, exhaling slowly as she stared at the beam across the ceiling. Her heart thudded against her chest wall as that groundless dread bloomed into a waking nightmare that stayed trapped within her psyche. Scully’s eyes met Mulder’s and her fingers coiled around his as she let the tears fall, searing a trail down her cheeks as she let his warmth melt with hers, palm to palm. Having Mulder in her life all over again meant more than a second chance at love and a life with him…he had become the steadied ground beneath her feet while everything else seemed so shaky.

               “I know, deep in my gut, that you’re right but my heart is just swimming with so many uncertain factors that could pop out to surprise us from the wings. I don’t know what I would do if I had to do this alone,” Scully sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and held it between her teeth as she grappled with the upheaval of affectation, wiping her tears with her free hand. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about what would happen to you if I weren’t here and you had to raise Lily alone.”

               “Scully, there will always be a worry that one of us or both of us could be taken away from Lily before she’s old enough to be on her own,” Mulder pulled her fingers from her face and held both hands between his own, caressing the space below her wrists as he flashed a soft, caring smile. “However, let me be the one that postulates about death for a while. I’m good at it and my hormonal fluctuations aren’t going to be the ones to affect the overall quality of breast milk.”

               “I know you’re thinking it, Mulder, because I’m thinking it,” Scully felt the tears drying on her skin, leaving behind a residue of salt that made her face feel tight and uncomfortable as she sighed. “I passed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale with flying colors and made Doctor Jacobi and Doctor Layton laugh when I asked if they’d read the results correctly. I was never this relentlessly emotional with Jackson and I don’t remember waking up in the middle of the night to cry when he wasn’t right there in my arms.”

               "Scully, you didn't do that with him because you were focused on the mess that was the father of your child," Mulder leaned in and kissed the trails of tears, pressing his forehead to hers as he knelt against her shins, palms caressing her forearms. "You didn't have a chance, back then, to stop long enough to see the spiritual toll that Jackson might’ve taken on you because you were so focused on the safety of me and him. This time around I’m not letting you do it alone.”

               “I am not good at feeling untenably over-sensitive at any moment of the day,” Scully exhaled slowly and covered his hand with her own, the look of her fingers small on top of his. “I guess it’s all worth it when I see the tiny toes and fingers that belong to the second little miracle that we get to call ours.”

               “You just had a baby,” Mulder wanted to scoop her up and take her upstairs but the sleeping child would’ve done her best to shut it down before they could even pull an arm out of a sleeve. “To expect any mother to be perfect at every moment of the day is unreasonable. I can’t even tell you the number of times that I got told to watch Samantha when mine just needed a moment to go lock herself in the bathroom.”

               “I just hope that I’m not going to be like this for the entirety of breastfeeding,” Scully made a face and furrowed her brows, exhaling slowly. “It would tempt me to switch to the bottle and I really don’t want to do that. The time I have with her like this is so precious.”

               “You know what I see when I look at you, Scully?" Mulder slid backward and stood, stretching his arms toward the ceiling until his back popped that was followed up with a satisfied groan.

               “Don’t…you…dare…wake her up,” Scully snapped her fingers at him, signaling to Lily as their typically loud infant stirred in her peripheral while she scooted forward to put another throw pillow behind the small of her back. “What do you see, Mulder?”

               “I see the same woman that came into a basement level office so many years ago and managed to spin an already upside-down life even further on its heels," Mulder could smell dinner wafting through the air and it hanging at the cusp of burning as he went to check on everything. "You may have gotten older, have a different shade and length of hair, and think you’re getting haggard when you’re not…but all I see is that same person and I always will.”

               “I’m suddenly remembering exactly how you managed to make a seemingly barren woman pregnant…twice,” Scully coaxed a laugh from him as he fiddled around in the kitchen as she went toward the tree, letting her fingers run along an ornament with glitter-covered doves on it. "How's it looking in there, Gordon Ramsay?"

               “I think you were really just underestimating the power of the can you spare a prophylactic back in the day,” Mulder peeked his head out from behind the stove and wiggled his eyebrows at her as she turned to smile at him. “Estimating another ten minutes before this can be consumed.”

               “You are absolutely ridiculous,” Scully rolled her eyes while adjusting a string of lights, the synthetic material of the tree grazing her palm as the sound of drops of rain against the side window tapped with changing of the wind. “We should dip into the brownies I made the other night after dinner and find a zombie movie to distract ourselves from thinking about the real-life horror outside.”

               “Don’t act like you don’t love it,” Mulder was putting the kettle before reaching for the tin of tea, a pause in the air as he peeked his head back out from behind the stove, a look of confusion on his face. “Maybe not a zombie movie but something on the Hitchcock spectrum sounds good. Out of curiosity, though, Scully, do you have something you’d like to tell me or think you’d like to tell me?”

               “Mulder, that's…not funny," Scully's jaw dropped as she checked on Lily, tugging the little blanket back around her to keep her cozy and warm before resuming the shocked expression in Mulder's direction. "We do not need a third and we don't need two of them under one. That would put me in my grave prematurely."

               “Well, how am I supposed to know? You’re the one that suddenly wants chocolate and pasta loaded with cheese,” Mulder shrugged his shoulders and met her in the archway between the kitchen and the living room to pull her into an embrace. “You ate that through your entire second and third trimester.”

               “I love you but you’re crazy,” Scully wrapped her arms around him, caressing his back as she looked up at him, grinning. “Lily and you are more than enough infant for me.”

               “I love you, too, but you’ll appreciate the childlike persona when it comes to teaching Lily all about the important things in life,” Mulder kissed the space above her nose, between her brows, and squeezed her tightly while he listened to the bubbling of water inside of the kettle. “I’ll always keep you guessing.”

               “I don’t know if fart jokes and distance spitting sunflower hulls across the yard are considered the important things, Mulder,” Scully scrunched her nose and jabbed him in the ribs as he started to back away to check the oven again.

               The knock at the door put a stop to the discussion and nearly caused an emergency as Mulder narrowly missed pressing a hand to a hot surface. He had forgotten the oven mitts as his attention swayed in the direction of the front door, toward the soft tapping, but thankfully, Scully’s snapping fingers pulled him right back to reality. She was good at keeping him from taking a clumsy tumble into another potential disaster even if admitting it was not his forte. He had mentioned it, long ago, that she kept him honest and it part of that veracity resided in an ability to pull him from the edge of catastrophe. Neither of them had been expecting to stop by today but the brewing tension was familiar as Scully let her eyes focus on the frosted glass in the door and the tall, broad-shouldered shadow that stood on the other side.

               Scully had a longing in her eyes and Mulder had anticipation deep in his soul as he nodded, willing her to unlock the door.

               Scully pulled the door open, holding the edge against her cheek as she found him standing on the other side of the screen, hood pulled up, drenched to the skin with a couple of bags in hand. "I know…I should've called to let you know I was nearby.”

               Scully shook her head and felt the surge of tears breaking through as she saw the wisp of a smile on his lips for the first time since Lily was four days old, the undeniable yearning to express her love bleeding through. “No, you never have to give us warning…”

               “I could hear you, uh, arguing, from down the road so I waited to walk up,” Jackson pulled the screen back and crossed the threshold, the drips hitting the floor like little pieces of his soul as he felt the weight of the world drop off his shoulders. “It sounded important.”

               “We weren’t arguing,” Scully took the bags from him and set them aside, the joy colliding with an onslaught of tears as she wiped her cheeks. “It was just a discussion fueled by hormones and everything is fine.”

               “Okay, maybe I should’ve said that it felt important," Jackson pushed his hood off and pulled the zipper-free, pressing his lips together and elevating his brows in such a way that he was a spitting image of his father, leaving no question about the actuality of his genetics. “I don’t know if an apology is what I should be doing but I know that communication hasn't really been a thing for me lately. I was returning your texts for a while and just had to get out of my head for a while. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching and had this feeling that including you will be too overwhelming with Lily.”

               Jackson’s wheels were turning; the signals weighing as he was moving his eyes between them, seeking the justification. He was seeking out answers and didn’t stop long enough to fathom that he’d been running from them for far too long. It weighed on him in an inevitable way as the radiating heat of the fire found him and restored a semblance of warmth in weary, well-traveled feet. It felt like home and there hadn’t been a place that inched close to that inclination for a long time. It was a complicated perception, though, as the calm, inviting blanket wasn’t the walls that kept out the elements but their faces, their hands, their voices…pieces of them that had been so far away for far too long.

               They weren’t the Van De Kamp’s but they meant something else—something different that he knew, in the severed part of his soul, that he needed.

               “You always know how to reach us when you’re ready,” Mulder had pulled their leftovers from the oven and set them out on the counter before coming out of the kitchen to greet him. “Relying on either of us won’t be putting any extra strain on life, either. We’ve been through a lot…you’ve been through a lot. We’ve lost a lot of time, Jackson.”

               “The last thing either of us want from you is an apology or to feel as though you need to hand one down to us,” Scully was hanging by a thread, her tears glimmering along the curves of her cheeks as she quietly wiped them, her voice small, distant. “You’ve been through so much and there was no need to hold expectations beyond being able to reach out to you, which we valued, more than you can ever know.”

               “I kind of liked the jingling in my pocket, reminding me every day that someone cared about where I was and what I was doing. Hadn’t anyone do that in a long time," Jackson had matured in a year despite that inherent, deeply rooted consternation that was still hovering over forging a relationship with his biological parents as he let Mulder take his wet, zippered hoodie to hang up. “Putting all of my woes on both of you felt really selfish at the time and it wasn’t until I was drinking disgusting coffee in a diner on Florida Avenue yesterday morning that I realized that I was being dumb. I knew I should just come here.”

               “Ah, lured into The Florida Avenue Grill, huh?” Mulder didn’t want to push the boundaries but he squeezed his son’s shoulder anyway and pushed the door shut as the draft moved through the room. “The heartburn that place inflicted on me was legendary.”

               “Yeah, well, the pancakes were, at least, pretty decent and smothered in peanut butter,” Jackson’s wit was much like Mulder’s but the softer aspect of his nature was more than a little evident as he glanced at Scully as she chewed the inside of her cheek. “Mom, you know you can just hug me instead of looking at me longingly like I’m only a figment of your imagination, right?”

               Hearing him call her mom had only happened twice since he’d come back into their lives and it was still sinking into her consciousness, leaving an irreversible mark on her heart. The sensation was almost as intense as the agony she felt the day she placed that final kiss on his temple and sent him to be with a family that could protect him better than she could. His name wasn’t the issue, anymore, but reconciling whether or not he would become the yo-yo in their life was as she felt the sting of tears along the corners of her mouth. They’d lost so much time and never gotten to see him become the man standing before them; looking every bit the collective of their genetics as the pale tones stood out against his long lashes and dark hair. He really was theirs. Overjoyed and yet, doubt was still residing in the darkest parts of her mind as she embraced her grown-up son and tipped over the remainder of her bottled sensitivities.

               “I never imagined that there’d be a day when I’d be able to put my arms around you but there was finally a day I thought there could be a chance…” Scully’s last efforts to be composed fell by the wayside as she sniffled and wept while she kept her arms around Jackson, the enormity of him being there coursing through her like an administered drug in her veins. "And I couldn’t let you go through life not knowing that the people you came from loved you…that we didn’t just throw you away.”

               “You’re going to make me cry and I’ve done a lot of that when no one was looking,” Jackson had his chin on the top of her head while Mulder was doing his best to keep composed as his eyes glassed over. “I wouldn’t be here if I believed that either of you threw me away.”

               Scully was reluctant to pull away but the whistle of the kettle had her moving to check on Lily after giving Jackson the lightest grip to his hand. “Sure, when her brother shows up, she’ll sleep through anything but when the floorboards upstairs creak in the wrong way…it’s the end of the world.”

               Mulder took the kettle off of the flame, a smile on his lips as he gathered teacups from the cupboard, his peripheral catching Jackson as he walked beyond the couch to peek at a sleeping Lily. "Speaking of Lily…we should eat before she senses that you're attempting to put food into your mouth and decides that she wants to nurse, Scully. It's been about two hours since she was fed, right?"

               “Give or take by five minutes,” Scully watched Jackson standing next to the softly lined cradle, the gentle swing of it in motion as his eyes moved back and forth, willing it to move. “Jackson, there’s more than enough for you and I’ve already been teased that it’s craving food so you know it’s going to be really good.”

               “Yeah, I’d like that,” Jackson nodded as Scully put another log on the fire, stoking the flames in the background as he ran a couple of fingers through damp hair. “Might help finally get rid of that epic heartburn?”

               “Wait, you still have the heartburn, kid?” Mulder met him in the doorway and put an arm around him, directing him toward the kitchen table where he had already put an extra plate out, ready to serve. "What you need is my special hot cocoa…that’ll get rid of the heartburn and any other aches you might have.”

               “Mulder, you are not giving our not over-twenty-one-year-old son the modified Frohike special," Scully gave him a dirty look and aimed the business end of a spoon at him as she retrieved another teacup from the shelves. “Just one of those is more than enough to render him incapable of navigating the house before the sun has set.”

               “You are a party pooper, Scully,” Mulder already had the bottle of bourbon in his hand and a grin plastered on his face as he turned toward Scully. “I would never make it the way Frohike made them—that’s a rookie mistake that you only give to an enemy.”

               "I know I shouldn't say this and you can't be mad mom, but I'm intrigued," Jackson finally perked up and chuckled, making Scully roll her eyes as she made eye contact with her son. "I mean, I've had drinks before—when I wasn't supposed to.”

               Scully met the waiting gaze of Mulder as she shook her head, scoffing at the situation as the white flag waved. “He certainly is your son.”

               “The secret to the hot cocoa is just enough bourbon to smell it but not enough to taste it,” Mulder went on the drinking lesson while Scully was in the background getting plates filled with portions of their dinner. “If it’s too strong then there’s no point to the drink at all…you might as well be drinking bourbon on the rocks.”

               “Was there ever a point to begin with, though?” Scully had that witty, Cheshire cat expression as she moved the last of the hot plates to the table and sank into her seat with a hot cup of tea steeping in front of her.

"Jackson, ignore the naysaying," Mulder stirred the steaming milk at the stovetop, his back to her as Jackson joined her at the table. "This is going to be so good and she's just going to miss out because…breast milk."

               “I don’t think this is what I envisioned when I pictured spending time with my biological parents,” Jackson stifled a chuckle as he watched Mulder pour the milk into a mug, stirring the contents vigorously until it was to his liking. “Not that I’m complaining or anything.”

               “Did they encourage you to be curious and fun-loving, Jackson?” Scully didn’t want to bring the energy back down but she couldn’t help but reference his adoptive parents as she filled his water glass, the butterflies creeping into her throat.

               Jackson nodded as he put his napkin across his lap, not a trace of sadness on his face as he glanced at the reflection on the bend in the fork, contemplating every word. “They did their best with consideration to the pain in the ass that they called son. I wasn’t the easiest and it only got worse as I got older—they weren’t exactly equipped for a kid like me. I don’t think many people could have handled someone like me.”

               “Something tells me that they never looked at you as anything less than what you are,” Mulder carried the mug of cocoa to the table, setting it next to Jackson’s plate while he made a declarative in front of the mother of his children and his son. “And that would be a miracle that they couldn’t have gotten any other way. That’s how I see things.”

               Scully mouthed I love you from across their little, evening setup, the steam rising from hot pans and plates as Mulder settled into the third chair and returned an un-uttered I know much to her chagrin. Mulder had been watching too much Star Wars but the meaning was received and struck her heart in just the right way as she took a sip of her tea, hiding her smile behind the cup. It shouldn’t have made her feel like a million dollars but it did as the blush peeked out along her cheeks all while Jackson pretended not to notice his parental units and their flirting. Something was endearing about all of it; even if it made the already quiet dinner that much more awkward as Jackson speared the first bite of pasta, savoring the flavor.

               Just as quickly as the first bites began to be consumed, the hush in the unremarkable house was ended with the unpleasant wailing by his infant sister.

               “She let me get two bites in,” Scully was a little frustrated but the glimmer in her eyes told an entirely different story as she started to rise from the table. “Better see if I can get her to nurse for a bit.”

               “Mom, you just sit there and eat a little,” Jackson was on his feet in only moments, the look on his face determined as he put his napkin next to his plate while giving her a gentle nudge of the shoulder. “Let me see if it’s just gas?”

               “Jackson, I can feed her so you can eat while it’s hot,” Scully’s eyes widened as moved toward the living room, a little hint of a knowing smile on his face as he turned around.

               “Let me try?” Jackson shrugged while Lily’s cries changed pitch in the background, growing in volume to the point that he winced at the shrill sound she made. “I have a feeling…It’s just gas. If it’s not, you’ll know pretty fast.”

               “It couldn’t hurt and it isn’t like they’re far away,” Mulder knew the first thought from Scully was about Jackson being unfamiliar with his sister but he wanted them to bond as he put a hand over hers. “If she keeps at the screaming, she’s hungry.”

               “Okay,” Scully’s stomach growled as she gave a nod toward Jackson, watching him move toward the other side of the couch where the bassinet was situated. “…Don’t forget to support her head while you’re holding her, Jackson.”

               "I know, I've held babies before," Jackson spoke up over the top of Lily's stuttered cries as he handled her with care, gathering her into his arms as her tear-filled eyes looked up at him while her little pout trembled and her hands swung. “Oh, my God, Lilybean, you stink. Mom, where're the diapers?"

               “There’s a diaper bag next to the couch on the floor,” Scully was chuckling at Jackson already giving Lily a nickname as she looked at him holding her against his chest in the doorway. “There should be an opened container of wipes in there as well…and powder, if she needs it.”

               Jackson was undeniably unskilled but attentive as he addressed the soiled diaper after getting her out of the coordinating bottoms and unhooked the onesie while his sister continued her series of cries. "Let's address the biohazard going on in here…All you eat is breast milk, Lilybean...guh."

              Jackson was mainly exaggerating the reaction to the odor wafting around Lily as he swapped out the dirty diaper for a clean one after making sure she had been properly wiped. Lily hadn’t quite developed the motor functions for true laughter but she was fully captivated by his facial features as he scrunched his nose and puffed out his cheeks while discarding the concealed, poop-filled diaper into a plastic bag. It was then that his tongue extended and the sound of cartoon-like horror popped free from his throat, coaxing the cutest, sweet grin from that beautiful face as she kicked her little feet on the couch cushions. If Jackson hadn’t known what love looked like before, he certainly knew what it looked like as he fastened her clothes and tickled her feet before pulling her back into a cradled grasp.

               It swelled their parents’ hearts as they stole a peek from the kitchen.

               “Fresh diaper and a sneaky toot after you got powder on your butt, you’re right as rain,” Jackson swayed as he paced the floor with Lily in his arms, taking her past the tree while her eyes studied his face. “Big brother has to be right about a little bit of stuff…and we know a stinker when we see one.”

               Scully was nibbling at her slice of garlic bread but her focus was on watching a sight she had imagined a thousand times as Jackson began a one-sided conversation with his two-month-old sister. Scully's anxiety-fueled rant from earlier started to seem moot as Lily's tiny fingers coiled around Jackson’s while he enthralled her with a rambling story about teaching her how to ride a bike one day. Her soft cooing was just enough sound to carry through the room, the tone and inflection intimating a babble, mouth mimicking the same movements that it would if she were speaking. Jackson nodded and let out a laugh, the intent of understanding the baby sounds more than apparent as he kept all of his attention on her.

               “Is that so?” Jackson adjusted his grip on her and held her a little closer, resting his palm across her belly to latch on to as she played with his fingers. “I’ll tell you a secret, though, because you’re my baby sister and I know you won’t tell anyone. We’re not just special because of how we came into this world. We are special because we’re always going to have each other, through thick and thin, bad and good times.”

               “How did we get so lucky?” Mulder could see Scully crying again as he chewed a bite of his pasta, the tenderness of the moment finally setting in as he squeezed her knee.

               “Deep down I always knew he’d be good with her and love every little part of her but this was unexpected, in the best of ways,” Scully wiped the tears and folded her fingers around Mulder’s hand, gripping the curve between his index and his thumb as he smiled in her direction. “It wasn’t luck. It was destined.”

               Jackson sank into the easy chair and rested Lily against his shoulder to rub her back as she gripped the edge of his shirt. “Even if I’m far away, I’ll always be able to get here whenever you need me. No matter how big or small the crisis may be…no distance will be too far if you ask your brother to just come home.”

               Home.

               It rolled off of Jackson’s tongue and struck a chord for Mulder and Scully as the subject of their discussion before his arrival seemed to be on his mind as much as it had been on theirs. Jackson placed a light kiss on his sister's forehead while he hummed an indistinct tune and rocked her while the tips of his fingers caressed the expanse of her back until the cooing turned into a long, continuous murmur. Scully recalled doing that very same thing with Jackson when he was the same size and it had the same effect on him on several occasions. It usually put him to sleep and it was doing the same thing for Lily as her eyelids did battle with gravity while a puddle of drool formed on his shirt where her chin lay.

               “One thing I want you to remember as you drift back to sleep is that a house is not a home, Lilybean,” Jackson sounded like his Grandmother as his index drifted over a pink, soft cheek until it trailed into the stream of drool. “Home is where you laugh, cry, talk, and argue with the people that you love and love you back. This is home.”

@monikafilefan @xfilesfanficexchange​ @frangipanidownunder​ @peacenik0​ @piecesofscully​ @starbuck1013​ @suitablyaggrieved​ @danceswithcybermen​ (for you Teresa!!)

[diamondsnpolaroids]

I know I havent posted in awhile, and I will catch you all up on my weekly polaroid progression shots but I've really been struggling this week and I need to get it out somewhere.

Yes. I am still pregnant. In 3 days I'll finally be 40 weeks. A milestone I never thought I'd get to because this entire pregnancy has been a rollercoaster of emotions, pain and endless struggles. I didnt want to be pregnant this long. At all. This is going to be long and there will be a lot of personal details, but I need to get it out. I'm tired of having all these thoughts with no outlet.

Since I was 16 years old I was convinced I would never be able to have a child. It was always a devastating thought until I got to the age of 22 when i finally kind of accepted the fact and was okay not becoming a mother. The one thing i wanted between those years, the one thing that broke my heart was I'd never be able to experience the feeling of being pregnant. That may seem silly because that's such a short period of time when it comes to being a mother. 9 months of growing a human compared to the years and years of seeing that person grow is so minuscule. But for some reason that was always what broke me most.

I was dating the same man that entire time. I was 16 when we first starting dating, and I'll be convinced till the day I die that he was my soulmate. He was my best friend over absolutely anything. I could be my totally authentic self with him. He knew how weird I was and stayed. He watched me drown myself in my depression and stayed. He saw me act like a child, like an adult, my worst and best moments. Experienced my grief and my biggest accomplishments and was always right there for me. Growing up with an alcoholic drug addict father I knew I needed a man that would never abandon his family for those things. He was the man I knew I never needed to worry about.

I never really noticed the abusive behavior. The mental torture, isolation, the control he held over me, how hard his harsh words would hit.. it never really crossed my mind because when the good times were good, they were great. When they were bad, I was convinced it was all on me. My depression was the controlling one. My insane mind was the problem. Never him. Then the alcohol started to take over. He consumed himself in it whenever he had the chance. His childhood was ruined by this substance just like mine was and he was slowly turning to it instead of working out his trauma that it caused. Hed increase the intake slowly but surely and when it got too much for me to handle I'd cry and beg that he stopped. Seeing how upset it made me the first few times hed stop or slow down. But it was never for long. Hed go a week and then once again it would slowly increase and the cycle would continue. After awhile, I was "crazy" and he was "just doing what everyone our age was doing". No one our age was drinking 6+ a night on week days and spending $200 at least per night on the weekends. By the time we hit 7 years it got to an all time low. April of 2019 I realized all of this wasnt okay any more. An old friend had walked into my life and for the first time in years I was treated like a human being with feelings. Real feelings that were valid. I was told and shown that I was no where near the same happy girl I once was. It was all over my face and in my body language that I was a totally different person and not in a good way. It was clear just by looking in my eyes that I was severely depressed. I was reassured that my decision to split to work on ourselves was indeed the best step forward I could have ever taken.

My boyfriend reluctantly agreed to end the relationship for the sake of bettering ourselves or else we'd never last as a long term couple. He stopped drinking. Wed still hangout but was met with an extreme depression on his end, begging for me to stay and help him through it as if I hadn't tried for years and years. I knew nothing I could do would make him change, it needed to be a decision he made for himself. He had ruined every part of my being and I needed to explore who I was as an individual. My old friend made me feel ways I hadn't in years and eventually I caved to my emotions and desperate need to feel wanted without the attachment and abusive behavior always on my shoulders. I wasnt with my ex, and I kept it from him. After a month I started to notice his changes but it wasnt enough. He still tried to keep me wrapped around his finger while questioning my every move. He was working on it though, and I was noticing the change, but I couldnt stop what I was doing.

After another month he found out. He was upset, naturally, but was still around. He still wanted to work on it. Then 3 days later I took my first pregnancy test. It was positive. I kept it to myself praying it was a fluke. I took 2 more the next day. It wasnt. I took one last one, called my doctor, then called him over. I told him, and it wasnt an ideal reaction. He was forcing an abortion on me. For someone who never thought they could get pregnant, to find out after years that it was indeed possible, I just couldnt. This was a miracle in my eyes. Once I told him I couldnt, giving him the option to sign off all his rights and to stay away if that's what he wanted, he accepted he was going to be a father. But he also disappeared. Just up and left, and I was met with the worst mental abuse he could ever dish out for weeks. I had never felt so low in my entire life. Being told our child is a mistake, how terrible of a person I was and how him not being around is totally and completely my fault. What i failed to mention is for the last 3 years of our relationship he would use snapchat to talk to girls behind my back. I'd check his phone after every fight and hed go out drinking, just to see up to 7 different girls names with a "sent" notification beside them. I'd delete them off his contacts, confront him, ect ect, but he never stopped. I was always ashamed I stayed with someone who could do this but my love for him was so blind and so strong.. I couldnt let go.

Whenever I would mention all the hurt he caused me, it never compared to me sleeping with someone else while we weren't even together. It was ALL. MY. FAULT. And he couldnt take even an ounce of responsibility for how he treated me and pushed me out of his arms. After 2 weeks of us knowing I'm pregnant, he started seeing someone else. He was drinking beyond what he ever was with me, and now he was with someone else. Some girl who was also fresh out of a long term relationship, totally okay with the fact he was to but also expecting a baby with. I shouldnt have been mad or upset, we weren't together, but it hurt. I wanted the man I thought I'd never have to worry about being a good dad to actually be here with me on this journey. But he wasnt. For the months to come he gave me promises that their relationship wasnt an offical thing and reassured me he doesnt think she'll be around long. I shouldnt give up hope on us. My hormonal, emotional self prayed that was true.. until they became official in September.

Once that happened, it was like a ghost town. I only saw him for the 3 ultrasounds we had to pay for. He never came to any doctors appointments, he didnt feel the baby move, nothing. The entire time blaming me for him not being around. I sat at home every day after long shifts at work knowing I'm all alone in this world, growing a baby, doing everything by myself while he lived his life with no responsibility, laying next to her every night. Every day my heart broke. Some days were better than others, but not a single day I didnt wish and pray that hed atleast be there for his child. I knew my feelings weren't relevant anymore, I just wanted my son to have a father. He needed to have a father. I wasnt going to let my kid go through life always wondering why he wasnt enough for him like I did. I still hurt for myself, but no where near as much as I hurt for my son. I was given empty promises from my ex, he said hed call every day so atleast if he didnt watch our baby grow inside of me, hed atleast know his voice when he finally arrives. But hed go days without calling, and it would somehow turn into my fault because I hurt him too much to call his son.

I've spent this entire pregnancy working on myself, on my mental health, researching how to be a mother, what I need to do and stay away from, how to cope with every type of situation that may arise. I've done nothing but work on growing myself to be the best person I could be for my son. He just stayed drinking away his problems, distracting himself in every type of way he could. Avoiding all responsibilities of becoming a father soon.

Fast forward to about a week ago, when a phone call got a little spicy heated between us and ended in me sending him some snapchats of myself by his request. I know I shouldnt have, he was with someone else, but I missed him and wanted one last feeling of being wanted by the man I always thought I'd marry. I did exactly what broke me the last 3 years of our relationship and I really didnt feel bad about it. For 2 days this continued until it just stopped and he got cold with me. Once again, I'm left broken hearted but this time, I know it's my own fault.

During the time before this, for months I highly considered giving my son my last name. It made sense. He wasnt reliable enough to even spend 30 seconds every day to call his son, how could I ever believe hed be there every day for him once he was born? It was logical. Everyone who knew our situation told me I should even before I brought up that being an option I was weighing in my mind.

A few days after our snapchatting stopped, I had to finally tell him. I couldnt bring myself to blindside him with something so serious. I should have, really, but I still hold his feelings deep in my heart, and I couldnt hurt the man I spent over 7 years with like this. So I told him. He broke. But not in any way I ever thought he would. He confessed how he still loved me, how everyone around him knows he still loves me, ending with how much this would break his heart, giving us no chance of ever being together again. We'd never be able to do things as a family, hed never look at me or our son again. It was, to say the least, extremely intense. But it also left me wondering if this was one of the many manipulative ways he knows to get what he wants. He always brought "us" up to get his way on things. It felt genuine, but I'm also extremely hormonal and yes I still love and miss him like crazy.

It's been a few days since then and theres been no word of any feelings since. Hes been cold and more distant and my heart is once again broken into a million pieces. Hes called a couple times but he still misses days. I was given the go ahead to try and self induce labour by my midwives so I have been. When he calls and asks what I did with my day, I'd tell him. Last night apparently I shouldnt have. I was met with anger because I should "leave him be, he'll come when hes ready" as if he knows any kind of physical pain I've been through these last few months.

These past 2 weeks alone I have felt nothing but pain. Between feeling my hips separating, my pelvic bones shifting and my son's head descending lower, constant back pain, not being able to walk properly, my kid sitting on nerves leaving my legs feeling paralyzed or sending shocks into my vagina. Not being able to sleep more than 2 hours at a time max, peeing every hour on the hour, his feet kicking my ribs so hard I curl over, getting his feet stuck under them as well. The pains are unimaginable as you can see, now mixed with all the emotional distress I've been under... you could imagine how I'm ready for this child to enter the world. But no.. I'm being selfish. He isnt ready. I'm fine to keep going. Because apparently my ex knows everything my body is enduring just to bring our child into this world. It broke my fucking heart last night when he yelled at me for it. Absolutely shattered it.

Which brings us to this picture. I couldnt sleep once again, and every time I woke up I was met with mind numbing depression and long crying spells. I feel more alone than ever. My 16-22 years of age is crying for me knowing this was all I ever wanted out of life and it has been constantly ruined and brought down by a man I never knew would act the way he has been. This pregnancy was so easy in almost every aspect compared to most women, I've been so so blessed to have such an easy time physically and yet I constantly feel as if he has ruined this experience for me. Sometimes the mental abuse from a man is worse than the physical. And he knew exactly how to ruin this all for his own selfish needs. I've spent all day today feeling ruined, beaten down, and just straight up depressed. I'm not ready to be a mother, infact I am absolutely scared shitless to be one. But I'm willing to go through being scared over all this physical pain I've been through that seems never ending. I'm ready to meet and love my little man. But once again I feel like I cant even be happy about it because of my ex.

I'm tired. I'm so so so tired of being so inlove with a man who has shown me time and time again he wont be the father I always knew he could be. My heart hurts so bad for my son every single day. And I'm just.... tired. Which is why I'm posting this picture along with my story. I know some women have it worse with their pregnancies and the fathers leaving. I know some men can be all of this plus physically abusive towards women. I know I dont have it the worst, but I'm trying. I need to for my son. I doubt this post will get very far, and I know a lot of judgment will come my way for it, but if my pregnancy journey can help even one woman not feel so alone, then I'm happy with sharing it.

[spideyspoods]

minor inconvenience

Pairing: Peter Parker X F!Reader

Request: Combined @astrospideys & @spideypeach ‘s milestone celebration prompt (”a kiss. for good luck.”) with an anon request! “Hello dear! If you don’t mind can you write about peter and his childhood bestfriend being more than friend, but Peter is in dilema because he realized he wanted more but he doesn’t want to put the reader in danger because he’s spiderman. You can decide whether the reader knows Peter is spiderman or not. Thanks a lot!” 

A/N: I’m truly sorry to everyone that this is so late, school’s been kicking my ass. However, I’m kind of proud of this one so I hope you enjoy! :)

Warnings: Fluff.

Word Count: 2k

---

Peter Parker wasn’t one to get distracted during school. In fact, he prides himself on being a great student; one who rarely failed tests. However, he’s noticed that his mind starts to wander whenever he’s around Y/N L/N. They’ve known each other since they were in the first grade and have practically been attached at the hip. Their friendship grew stronger as the years progressed, but Peter couldn’t help but yearn for more.

He remembers May teasing him about how close they were ever since they started to hang out. He’d constantly deny her claims by calling her ‘just a friend,’ but do friends feel their heart leap at the mere sight of the other? Peter’s been stuck in his own thoughts, thoughts of her, for the past few months trying to convince himself that it wasn’t a crush. However, his heart said otherwise.

He wanted to confess his feelings for her so badly, but there was a minor inconvenience to his idea. Y/N had no idea that he was Spider-Man. Despite telling each other everything, he failed to mention his alter ego. It’s not like he wanted to hide it, he just didn’t want to endanger her.

So with that, the bell rang as Peter headed out the door and to his locker. “Parker!” a voice called out. He turned his head and found the girl of his dreams stepping towards him. Her eyes seemed to sparkle, vibrance and sunshine practically radiating off of her. “We’re still on for tonight? Your place?”

“I don’t know, I was thinking of going to Delmar’s,” he trailed off, jokingly. She feigned a pout, crossing her arms. “Rude. To think I was going to bring you some gummy worms-”

“Hm, I guess that sweetens the deal.” Y/N rolled her eyes at the pun, “What? Is my own presence not enough for you?” It is. Peter’s mind went foggy, trying to recover from his thoughts. “I’m joking! Now get to class, I’ll see you later.” She nodded, “I’ll let Ned know. Later, nerd.” Y/N turned before disappearing into the midst of students and left Peter with a lovestruck look. He had completely forgotten Ned would be joining them.

---

“Hey, you know how we’re studying tonight with Y/N?” Peter asked, poking at the tray of food in front of him. Ned nodded, taking a sip of water. “You mean like we always do every Thursday?”

“Well yeah, but this time it’s different. Would it be able to be just me and her tonight?”

Ned quirked a brow, “Why? Wait a minute,” he gasped “are you finally dating? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Peter’s eyes bulged out his head, frantically shaking his head before hushing his friend who may have been a bit too loud. “Because it hasn’t happened yet! I was kind of trying to make that happen tonight.”

“No worries, I got you. I’ll let her know that something came up. But you owe me.”

“Anything!”

“Help me rebuild the death star.” Peter shrugged, that wasn’t too bad.

“Wait rebuild?!”

---

The minute Peter got home, he ran to his room. He took in the sight of opened drawers and papers strewn across his desk. He glanced at his watch. 5 PM. She’d be here by 7. He huffed, knowing that he had a lot of work to do.

---

May set her purse down by the couch and slipped off her shoes. “Peter, I’m home!” Silence. At first she didn’t think anything of it, before seeing that the living room was in pristine condition as if it was a hotel. “Peter?” She opened the door to his room that was now organized; every single item had its place. “I’m not complaining, but is there something going on?” Peter turned from the mirror and to his confused Aunt, “Y/N is coming over.”

“She always does, but this cleaning thing is pretty foreign for you.” Then it all clicked in her head. “Are you finally going to ask her out?” Peter’s eyes wandered to the wall, still extremely focused on adding the right amount of gel to his dark locks. “What no it’s not like that,” he turned to his Aunt “but if I was going to ask her out...does my hair look okay?”

---

His phone buzzed, and he saw a notification from Y/N.

On my way! :) Attached was a photo of her holding the large bag of gummy worms to her head. He smiled to himself, that was definitely her new contact photo. Right as he locked his phone, he got a call. “Requiring back up! Robbery three blocks away-” Damn it. He let out a sigh, but slipped his suit on. “May tell Y/N that I’m going to be a little late!”

“You haven’t told her that you’re Spider-Man yet?”

“No! I just- it’s complicated. I gotta go!”

---

Y/N knocked on the apartment door to reveal Peter’s Aunt. She smiled, welcoming her in. “Hey, Y/N! Peter said that he’d be running late but feel free to make yourself at home. I have a few errands to run, so you’re in charge!” Y/N shot her a thumbs up. “Don’t worry, Peter running late isn’t anything new anymore.Thank you, May!” She breezed out the door and Y/N set her things down in Peter’s room. “Wait a minute.” Peter’s room was actually neat? 

In all ten years of knowing him, he had never been one to tidy up. Not that he was a slob, he just lived in organized chaos. Without the clutter on his shelves, she could finally see the photos in the picture frames. There were a few of him and Tony, courtesy of the Stark Internship, one with Ned, an older photo with May, but one stood out the most.

A photo of her with Peter during their freshman homecoming. Neither of them had a date, and May thought it would be cute for the two of them to go together. Little did he know, that was the day Y/N started to fall for Peter Parker. Sure she had always loved him platonically, but something changed in high school. His chocolate eyes were always gentle and the way his brows furrowed whenever he concentrated was enough to make her swoon. The only thing stopping her from admitting her feelings was the reason that she was sure he didn’t feel the same. Not only that, but what if it made things awkward? So she compromised, keeping her feelings to herself.

Minutes turned into hours and Peter still wasn’t back yet. It was already 10, and Y/N decided to make herself comfortable. Surely he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed one of his sweatshirts?

---

Peter slowly opened his window, before jumping into his room. For some reason, everyone decided to commit crimes at the same time. He froze, seeing Y/N lying in his bed sleeping. He frowned, feeling guilty that he left her all alone. Peter scrambled for his clothes and looked around. Now where was the sweatshirt he left out?

“What the hell?” he heard a groggy voice call out. Y/N was now wide awake, staring back at him. A spandex suit clung to his legs and his face paled. 

“Okay-”

“I knew it! So you are Spider-Man!” she exclaimed in glee.

“No- wait you knew?”

“Well I thought you were and I asked Ned, but he said no very unconvincingly. So there’s that.” Of course she knew.

“I’m sorry for ditching you, wait is that my sweater?” He smiled to himself, and winced before clutching his side. Y/N choked, but noticed that he was in pain. “Yes, but I don’t think that matters right now. You’re literally bleeding and oh-” Past what just happened, she noticed that he was shirtless. Her eyes lingered longer than they should have, before dragging him to the bathroom to find rubbing alcohol.

The wound burned, but the mere sight of her seemed to dull the pain. “You know this reminds me an awful lot about the first time we met.”

Peter sat down on the hardtop at school, with a small lego set in front of him. He had just watched his first Star Wars movie with his Uncle Ben last week, and ever since then he had been enamored by each of the characters and spaceships. For his birthday, he got a small tie fighter lego set and he brought it to school so he could assemble it during recess. He didn’t have many friends, but he was okay with that. A fellow group of first graders approached him and snickered, “Where are the rest of your friends? Oh wait, you don’t have any!” followed by giggles. He ignored them, it wasn’t anything new after all. 

“I’m talking to you, dork!” The kid in front of him let out a yell before letting his small foot crush the legos underneath. “No!” Peter whimpered. The pack of bullies started to laugh even harder before they heard a high pitched voice yell. “Stop it!” A little girl with pigtails stomped towards them, “You’re not being nice! Leave him alone!” The blonde kid scoffed, “What? Are you friends with this dork?” She stood in front of a frowning Peter and crossed her little arms, “He’s not a dork! He’s my friend! Go or I’m telling the teacher!” At that, they all scrambled. The little girl turned back to Peter who sniffled. “Hey, I’m Y/N! Can I help you build your spaceship?” Y/N smiled wide, showing off her missing front teeth. Peter wiped away his tears with his sleeve, “Okay, do you watch Star Wars?”

“Yes! It’s my favorite! Do you want to be friends?”

“Yeah.”

Both of them were brought back to reality, a smile dancing upon their faces as they remembered what had happened years ago. “You were cute back then.” Y/N smirked, “Are you saying that I’m not cute anymore?” Peter tensed up. Uh oh. “No, not at all! You’re not cute,” her face fell “That’s not what I- You’re very pretty.” He dug himself in a deep hole. “Well thank you, Parker-”

“You’re also really nice, and funny, and smart. You’re a great person, Y/N.” He huffed out. Now or never, right? On the other hand, Y/N looked down, trying to hide the child-like grin on her face. “I wasn’t aware that it was compliment time-”

“I think I like you. Well not think, I know I like you. I have for a while.” He felt her touch slowly slip away. Great, he thought, you screwed it up. “Did I make you uncomfortable? I’m sorry-” Y/N got up to quickly press her lips to his. It was short, but he could feel the passion and intensity.

“You talk too much.” Their heartbeats echoed in their ears. 

“Wait so you like me?” She nodded, a blissful smile on her face. “For the longest time, I just thought you didn’t feel the same way.”

“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want you to get hurt because of my job.” He stated, looking into her eyes. “That’s a risk I’m okay with taking.” He tentatively kissed her again, resting his hand on top of hers. “I really like you, Y/N.”

“I like you too, Peter Parker. Now, just because you’re cute doesn’t make up for the fact that you haven’t helped me study for the physics quiz tomorrow.”

---

Y/N and Peter strolled through the halls hand in hand. They approached Y/N’s next class; physics. Both of them stopped by the door with a smile. “Relax, you’ll ace this.” Peter spoke. She bit her lip, “You’re just saying that.” He grazed her hand with his thumb before planting a kiss on her cheek. “Not that I’m complaining, but what was that for?” she smiled. 

“It was a kiss. For good luck.”

“That’s cute, I’ll catch you later.” Y/N entered her class, while Peter stood in the hallway. “When did that happen?” Ned called out, but Peter was too enthralled in his own bliss to answer back.

He fell for her hard, and he was okay with that.

---

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