#it was a hip replacement WHICH I KNOW IS NORMAL but my mom died from a needle biopsy so any type of surgery i overreact

[sensenotsense]

my dad's surgery went well!!! even the nurses were impressed with how fast he recovered and is back home now :]

[novelconcepts]

for the prompt, please do dani and jamie with 22 thank you :)

prompt: kissing someone’s cuts/bruises/scratches

Jamie can’t remember the last time she needed someone to tend her cuts and scrapes. Can’t remember, even, the last time she wanted as much from another person. There’s something too vulnerable about holding out an open wound and saying, Here. Please. I can’t do it alone. 

Jamie can do it alone, is the thing. Has done for so long, she’s forgotten what it was to want another person’s skin brushing her own, another person’s eyes concerned for her well-being. It’s become second-nature, pushing all of that aside. How many times has she wandered into the kitchen, a cloth pressed firmly to a torn-open patch of wrist or palm, and scoffed at Owen’s worry? How many times has Hannah strolled into the room to find her bracing an ice pack against a freshly-bruised knee, rolling her eyes heavenward at her own clumsy misfortune? It’s natural, courting injury as she maneuvers the grounds. Almost easier than it should be. 

She’s never wanted anyone to fix it for her. Never trusted, if she’s honest, anyone to have the touch. People are too soft. Too twitchy about doing damage. As if there’s any helping a thing like that.

She’s never wanted it--

But Dani, meeting her in the doorway of the greenhouse, has an expression she’s never seen before. Not open worry, not nauseous distaste--an almost perfect, steady calm. 

“Let me.”

No question mark at the end of the sentence. No hopeful sway to Dani’s hips, no itchy pull of Dani’s fingers along the elbows of her own jumper. Dani’s face is set, determined, almost as though she’s been waiting for this day since the first time their eyes met. 

“No need,” Jamie says, though her head is pounding. Dani is plainly unimpressed. 

“C’mere. Sit down.”

She can’t explain why she obeys; her body seems primed to follow instruction, perhaps as evidence of a concussion. There is a split above her brow where a tumbling branch caught her just right, and privately, she’s relieved--that it was her standing beneath the tree as the wind jerked it out of place, and not one of the kids. Jamie had been quick enough to dodge aside. If it had been Flora, if it had been Miles...

Better me. I can take it.

Dani has a kit in hand, she realizes, lifted from the manor bathroom. Sitting beside Jamie on the sofa, she tears open a single-use alcohol wipe. She hesitates only once, one hand hovering beside Jamie’s jaw; when Jamie nods, that hand takes her chin, fingers splayed gently to tip her head back. 

“Deep breath.”

“I’m fine,” Jamie starts to say, the words hissing out of her when Dani angles the wipe against the edge of the wound. It’s small, thankfully--the branch had been, too, though Jamie knows better than anyone that size is no measure of danger--but the sting clenches her teeth together. She closes her eyes, trying her best to disassemble the pain and piece it back together into a more enjoyable sensation.

Not the burn, but the soft pressure of Dani’s hand on her skin.

Not the throb running a path along her skull, but the warmth of Dani’s breath mingling with her own.

Maybe this isn’t better, she realizes. Maybe it is infinitely worse, fixing on Dani’s knee pressed to her thigh, Dani’s hand cradling her cheek as though she doesn’t even know she’s doing it. Her eyes flick open to find Dani leaning close, inspecting the wound with an unflappable composure.  

“It isn’t deep,” she says. “Might scar a little, though.”

“Not my first,” Jamie quips before she can stop herself. Dani’s eyebrows raise, her lips curving in a small smile. 

“You’ve got stories.”

Not a question--and not a pressure, either. Just an easy statement. Sometimes, this is just Dani’s way: neat, straightforward, to the point. Jamie wonders what kind of life shapes a woman this way, to navigate the grip of anxiety one moment and turn utterly steadfast the next. She’d like to know. She’ll never push. Dani is a co-worker, nothing more; the last thing Jamie needs is to go crossing bounds again.

“Thank you,” she says, as Dani fishes out a bandage and some tape. “Didn’t, uh. Didn’t need--”

Dani silences her with another smile, tinged with something so like sadness, it puts any knock on the head to shame. “When I was little,” she says, “I was always getting hurt. I was a clumsy kid, I guess. Fell down a lot--out of trees, off my bike. My dad was always the one to take care of it.”

Jamie says nothing. This is the most Dani’s ever spoken directly to her, and she finds the bounce and curve of her Midwestern accent strangely comforting. 

“He wasn’t really a typical dad that way, I guess,” Dani goes on, gently holding the cotton bandage up to the wound. She reaches down, clasps Jamie’s wrist, eases her up to hold the square in place. “Hang onto that a sec. My dad, he was...softer than other kids’. He always knew how to clean my scrapes without making me cry. Never quite got the hang of that, after--he died when I was eight, I dunno if you knew that--”

Jamie shakes her head. Dani, patiently cutting a strip of tape, shrugs.

“Got sick. Was gone almost before I knew it. And my mom was never...much good at any of that, so I had to learn how to patch myself up. The alcohol was always the worst part. Almost.”

“Almost?” Jamie repeats. Dani is replacing her hand with deft fingers, adhering the bandage with simple efficiency. When she checks a mirror later, she suspects the whole affair will be neat, orderly, perfectly applied. 

“Yeah,” Dani says, leaning back to observe her handiwork. She seems satisfied, piling everything back into the first aid kit, closing it with a click. “Worst part was after. He would always find the best bandaid--something brightly-colored, or with cartoon characters--and then he’d lean over whatever I’d busted open that day, and he’d kiss the spot twice. Once for forgiveness, he always said, to let the skin know he didn’t blame it for bleeding. And once for healing. Two kisses, every time. It felt like magic. I could never...”

She quiets, her smile fading. It’s too easy for Jamie to imagine a small girl with a blonde braid, kissing her own scraped knee after a fall, knowing full-well it wouldn’t be the same. Too easy to imagine Dani at eight--eleven--thirteen, patching herself back together on her own. 

“Well,” Jamie says, clearing her throat. “You left a bit out, then.”

Dani raises her eyes, frowning. “Sorry?”

“Did the patching,” Jamie points out. Her mouth is weirdly dry, her head thundering away. This is, she senses, navigating too close to the brink of something. Friendship, maybe. Or just Dani thinking she’s making fun. And still, she can’t stop herself. “Seems like you forgot the magic.”

Dani hesitates, her hands folded in her lap. She’s picking, Jamie realizes, at one cuticle, nearly enough to tear the skin. 

“Go on, then,” she adds, heartened to see Dani’s grave expression tilting toward the sun. “Forgiveness and healing. Could use a little of both, maybe.”

She doesn’t know what she expects, exactly--even saying this feels like the product of insanity, a crack on the head urging her toward things she’d never normally try--but Dani draws a breath. Folds a hand around the back of her head, fingers sifting into curls. Leans forward.

It hurts, a little, Dani pressing her lips to the bandage, though she knows Dani is being gentle. Hurts a little, and sparks something Jamie hadn’t meant to let in, too. She closes her eyes, Dani’s kiss seeming to scorch. 

“Once for forgiveness,” Dani murmurs, lips brushing the skin of her forehead. Another kiss, sweet and soft and sending an electric charge down her spine. “Once for healing.”

She doesn’t lean back, not right away--her hand is warm, her eyes searching Jamie’s, and for a single beat, Jamie wants to tilt her chin. Coax that gentle kiss to find her lips. Change it all. 

The concussion, she assures herself, responsible for the reckless impulse. Responsible, too, for the thread of disappointment coiling in her stomach when Dani removes her hand, places it back in her lap, shakes her head almost ruefully.

“He was better at it.”

“Maybe,” Jamie says. “But I can be clumsy, too. Stay long enough, you might get enough practice to measure up.”

Dani meets her eyes, looking embarrassed, looking delighted. Jamie rubs the back of her neck, casting around for a way out of this hole she’s dug. 

“Listen to me. Take enough thumps to the head, I’m gonna starting spewing puns like Owen.”

“Oh no,” Dani laughs. “Anything but that.”

She has to go, she explains, back to the kids. Jamie’s welcome to join them--she’s got a game of cards planned, and they could use a fourth. Jamie almost agrees. Almost lets herself follow Dani into the house, her fingers straying mindlessly to brush the fresh bandage sealed with a kiss. 

“Shouldn’t,” she says--to Dani, to herself, to the burgeoning heat in her cheeks as she recalls how gently Dani had pressed her lips to the wound. “Work to be done, y’know.”

Dani nods. “See you at dinner?”

She should say no to that, too. Should go home to her little flat, to the quiet which always makes perfect sense, which never turns up with a first aid kit and assertive hands. 

“Yeah. Dinner.” She’s smiling. Dani, leaning against the doorframe, is, too. 

“No more knocks on the noggin,” she adds with mock-gravity. Jamie snorts, gives a careless little salute. 

“No fuckin’ promises.”

It’s difficult to say what’s harder to ignore, when Dani’s gone and the work rises up to meet her once more. Hard to say which part--the thumping of the headache, or the memory of Dani Clayton’s lips pressed to her forehead--has a greater hold on the rest of her day. No one asks, and she’s honestly relieved. 

If asked, Jamie would insist the headache has won out. If asked, she’d have no other choice.

If asked, Jamie would absolutely lie. 

[starksvixen]

Don’t Belong Here (kenobidaughter!reader)

Masterlist

Summary: After being saved by a group of Mandalorians similar to Din, you begin to realize that your a puzzle piece that doesn’t seem to fit...

Warnings: Incredible amount of angst, lil’ bit of fluff, tension left unresolved

The soft babbling from the floating bassinet that follows you is like water against the fire that burns at your nerves. Looking down at the Child, you send a soft smile towards his wide eyes. How much does he understand of what is happening around him, you wonder. If he is fifty years old, he must realize the tension between you and his adoptive father. Of the situation at hand. 

You told Din that this whole deal didn’t seem right. Meeting a seedy character at the docks felt like a trap. But in typical Mandalorian fashion, he bulls ahead, not caring for your opinion.

“You’re a Jedi, you’re always suspicious,” he had said. 

Those words had unexpectedly wounded you deep, forcing you into silence. Instead of the pain, you focus on the subtle tug of your saber trying to break it’s bonds to your leg. The forceful tug of the holster digging into skin as you jump onto the ship, keeping your cloak close to your body. 

The seamen kept eyeing you, one even trying to pull your cloak away from your body which earned them a harsh glare. Apparently that was their breaking point. 

In a matter of seconds, you had been shoved into the pool of water you were standing beside. A glint of beskar is the last thing you see before water swallows you whole. 

Your lungs expand to their maximum as you hold what air you have left deep within them. Pulling out your lightsaber, you quickly ignited it, coming face to face to a beast with no face. With what strength you had left over, you swing, slashing it’s face almost in two. But the force you used in the swing caused what little breath you had left to escape into the depths. On instinct, you breathe in, water crashing into your lungs.

Suddenly two hands grab onto your shoulders and lift you out of the water. As you are tossed to the ground, your lightsaber flies from your hand. But the hit of landing on the ground helps you to cough out the burning liquid, your entire body vibrating from adrenaline. 

All you can focus on is the heaving of your chest, the fresh release of oxygen replacing water, and a rough hand on your back trying to bring you back to reality. 

Swiftly, you are pulled into the arms of the Mandalorian as he slowly rubs your back in secret to calm your heaves. Looking up, you see three other Mandalorians stand before you, one helmet standing out from all of them. You remembered it in photos your father had showed you during his time in the Clone Wars.

With the smooth caress of the Force flowing through your fingertips, you call the saber into your hands, extinguishing it.

“Interesting, your lightsaber didn’t short out,” the familiar helmet speaks. 

“My father showed me how to make it so, Bo - Katan,” you say sharply.

The armored warrior stiffens before pulling off her helmet, revealing the person who used to be the main character to your bedtime stories. Shakily you stand, putting the saber in it’s rightful place. 

“You must be a Obi - Wan’s daughter. Makes sense you would be raised as a Jedi.” 

“I’m no Jedi...” 

“Then why do you wield their saber?”  

“How about you keep your nose out of business that isn’t yours?” 

“Enough,” Din steps in between both of you. “Whatever family quarr-”

“We aren’t family,” you both say in unison. 

“Her father killed my sister,” Bo - Katan reminds. 

“And you’re the reason why Mom left her Mandalorian claim behind,” you growl. 

Din silently looks between the two of you, unsure of what to say at this point. He eventually turns to Bo - Katan, questioning why she had willingly taken her helmet off and the Creed. 

You force yourself to take a few steps away, picking up the Child and smirking down at him.

“Had enough excitement for one day?”

He yawns and nods softly. It forces a chuckle out of your chest as you wrap him up in what was left of your cloak that lay on the ground below you. Suddenly, you feel an arm wrap around your waist and blast off the boat, leaving what had happened behind. 

“What did they say to you back there, Din?” you whisper softly, still holding the Child close. 

You follow close to him as you walk through the docks at a late hour. His shoulders tense even more then usual, the soft cracking of leather bending to his tightened fists. 

“They said I’m a part of a cult, a Child of the Watch.”

You nod softly. 

“So what? What if you have different thoughts then them? You are a Mandalorian, you will obey your Creed. Just like I’m a Gray Jedi and I listen to my own code that is different then that of the Jedi Council.”

“It’s not like that...” he sighs. “You couldn’t understand.” 

Another deep wound etches its way into your heart, following the same pattern as the one before. With a sharp glare at the tin head, you hand him the Child. 

“What are you-”

“I’m leaving, that’s what I’m doing, Din.” 

“Not so fast...” another voice enters. 

“Dank farrik...” you mumble, slowly reaching down to grab your lightsaber. 

Someone steps up right beside you, red tentacles decorating his chin as he glares at you and Mando. 

“You killed me brother,”

“Let us pass,” Din warns. 

Your fingers wrap around your lightsaber tightly, your thumb inching it’s way towards the activation button. Deep down, you knew this would end up with some dead bodies. And you didn’t seem to care. 

“I don’t think you understand...you killed my brother. Now, I’ll kill your pet.”

When the Kid whimpers from behind you, you snap. Activating your lightsaber, you slice the tentacled freak in front of you in half without hesitation. With each incoming shot from his lackies, you block them with the twirl of your saber. 

The sound of thrusters ends from behind you and a rain of gunfire soon follows. Once it all dies down, the only tentacled freak left standing is the ringleader. 

“He didn’t kill your brother, I did,” Bo - Katan says from behind you before shooting him down. 

With a sharp sigh, you return your saber to it’s holster, turning to look at the gaggle of Mandalorians before you. 

“You fight like he did,” Bo - Katan says, the first nice thing she has said to you yet. 

You nod in response, gently taking the Child Din had extended towards you. 

“At least let us buy you a drink?” 

You let them lead you towards a bar, Child in hand, as they talk about God knows what. All you can focus on is how stuck out you seem. The group of warriors ahead of you seemed, for all intents and purposes, normal. You were the person with a lightsaber strapped to their thigh. The one with only clothes guarding their body, not armor. Once you had entered the crowded building, it all became so simple. 

You don’t belong here.

From your seat beside Din, you handed the Kid off to him and collected empty glasses. Walking to the bar, you get them refilled and send them back towards the group after tipping one of the waitresses. After that, you walk towards the front doors, not forgetting to look back at your Beskar clad lover before leaving completely. 

You wander around the streets alone, making sure to keep quiet so nobody targets you. The docks were easy to find after your last adventure, and paying for transport even easier. Many of them were looking for anything to spare for their families. 

As you count out what little credits you had on hand, the soft clank of armor echoes behind you. With a sigh, you hand over the credits to the transport captain, saying a soft thank you in his dialect, before turning around. And there he was, Din without his Kid, his hand on one hip as he stood perfectly still. 

“Don’t make this harder then it needs to be, Mando,” you say.

“You know that’s not my name,” 

“And if I say it, I won’t be able to go,”

“Then don’t,” 

“What was it that you said back there? Oh, that’s right, that I don’t understand. Well here you go Mando, now you don’t understand,” 

“Then make me,” 

“This is not a one way street! You don’t get to do that...”

A horn atop the ship you are taking blows, alerting its passengers to it’s five minute take off warning. With a harsh sigh, you turn around to grab your small bag that you had strapped across you.

The strap proves as a disadvantage, making it easier for Mando to grab onto you and pull you closer to him. Your walls come tumbling down and you know if you don’t pull away now you won’t be able too at all. 

“I don’t belong here...” you mumble, trying to pull away from his grasp. “You have your clan here, I don’t belong.”

“You’re wrong,” Mando says so quiet his transcoder couldn’t translate. Instead you’re met with the muffled version. 

“Din...” you say softly. 

“You belong with me,” 

His words force your gaze upwards, surprise fully etched on your face. Before you can respond, he does:

“Go protect the Kid, I have to complete this mission and then we’re getting out of here,” 

His hands leave your biceps as he tells you the Kid’s location. Then he disappears into crowd, leaving you confused but hopeful. 

Tag ListL (leave a comment on the Masterlist to be added) 

toribentleyva  mikariell95 edgy-wedgy-poo  tillytheslytherin  irishfaulk97 supergingerlocks  aeryn--sun  nedxwynert  forbidden-darkness

[txtniipped]

red rover, red rover

genshin impact -- childe/zhongli, zhongli & qiqi, childe & qiqi

modern au / female zhongli / implied thoughts of infidelity (1856 words)

ao3 version

Zhongli hasn’t caught sight of their new neighbor yet. However, she can only imagine them as one of two people: a young lady with a busy schedule, who knows how to be brutally efficient in the mornings before Zhongli is even up, tending to her rose bushes’ every need and then disappearing to go to her day job, or an older gentleman with ample time on his hands, shelves lined with every horticulture book known to man, who just so happens to be excellent at avoiding Zhongli’s watchful eye.

Or

Zhongli is a housewife lacking the love she deserves. Though, between her darling daughter Qiqi and their new neighbor, she's appreciated for everything under the sun.

The apartment across the yard has been empty for a few months now. 

For Zhongli, the patio and soft grass between the buildings outweigh the stomping of neighbors upstairs. She’s seen the lackluster balcony gardens some of the other tenants maintain. It’s not due to a lack of trying, oh no--even the most dedicated of gardeners can only do so much with so little room. Her little Qiqi’s garden, however, flourishes under both the space and care they can offer it. Several of the other ground floor tenants, Zhongli knows, strive to have plants as well loved as theirs. 

When beautiful new rose bushes seem to appear across the yard, planted carefully around the little patio connected to the usually-empty apartment, Zhongli is surprised, to say the least.

She hasn’t caught sight of their new neighbor yet. However, she can only imagine them as one of two people: a young lady with a busy schedule, who knows how to be brutally efficient in the mornings before Zhongli is even up, tending to her rose bushes’ every need and then disappearing to go to her day job, or an older gentleman with ample time on his hands, shelves lined with every horticulture book known to man, who just so happens to be excellent at avoiding Zhongli’s watchful eye.

Her first guess seems to be the correct one, when several days later, the previously empty apartment’s slider opens, and out steps a young lady--a touch younger than Zhongli imagined--with a head of fiery, messy curls. To her surprise though, a young man follows her out, a handful of years older than the girl most likely, sporting similar hair and a proud smile as the young lady seemingly inspects the bushes.

Zhongli watches from her living room as the young lady stands and smooshes her (presumably) brother’s face, who laughs as he grabs her wrists and tugs them away. They chat there for a moment, and then the young man pulls a cutesy watering can out from just inside the slider door, steps around his sister, and begins watering the roses.

It’s late in the evening, and normally around this time, Zhongli is helping Qiqi bathe and get ready for bed. Tonight, however, Qiqi is staying the night with the other family with a child in this section of the complex--her first ever sleepover. Zhongli’s husband doesn’t return until nearly midnight on the weekends, so she’s left alone for the first time in their little apartment in many moons with just her teacup and her books.

With her reading light on next to her, Zhongli realizes she must have been obviously staring at them, if the brother turning and looking directly at her is any indication. The young man pulls on a smile though and offers Zhongli a wave. She waves back mildly, somewhat caught off guard, widening the young man’s smile. He turns back towards his sister then, who’s also looking in Zhongli’s direction, and escorts her inside, that cutesy watering can still gripped in his hand.

Zhongli hopes she’ll see him around more often now.

As it just so happens, she does.

The young man seems to work on the weekdays, while on the weekends he usually appears midday on his patio, athletic wear on as he leaves through his slider with nothing but his phone and a pair of earbuds. She’s purposefully looking out for him now, and when he returns home sweaty and panting, Zhongli turns her gaze elsewhere.

It’s early Thursday evening when she finally talks to him, only after nearly bolting out into the yard in panic after hearing Qiqi’s soft voice choke up and dissolve into sobs. Zhongli nearly rips the screen door off to get to her child when she sees the young man knelt in the grass in front of Qiqi, a first aid kit lying open next to them.

The young man’s voice is soft as he asks Qiqi about her day, doing what he can to distract her as he pulls thorns from her little hand. Qiqi, normally not one for conversation with anyone she doesn’t know, answers through her blubbering, doing her best to tell the young man the plot of a children's book her teacher read to them today.

Qiqi’s no longer crying by the time the young man is wrapping the last bandage around her finger. Zhongli can’t help but notice the colorful characters printed on them, some she vaguely recognizes from when Qiqi’s cartoons switch over to the older kid’s programming in the afternoon. Zhongli only has a moment to wonder if maybe this new neighbor has a kid of his own before the two have gotten up from the grass and walked their way over to her, still in the doorway of her apartment.

“Hi, Mama,” Qiqi greets quietly as she gently pulls her hand from their neighbor’s, stepping forward to instead get picked up by Zhongli.

“Hello, darling.” As soon as Qiqi is settled on her hip, Zhongli lifts a hand to brush some of Qiqi’s hair out of her face, speaking once more. “Are you alright?” A nod. Zhongli turns her attention to their neighbor from there. “What happened?” The smile the young man gives her is a bit on the guilty side, like he had personal responsibility for a child that isn’t even his. “She tried to pick one of my roses with her bare hands, ma’am,” he answers, voice boyish and, frankly, lovely. “I was just coming outside as she tried--I didn’t react in time. But, uh,” he pauses, one of his hands lifting to rub the back of his neck. “I keep a first aid kit right by the door, so she didn’t suffer for long.”

“Oh,” Zhongli replies, blinking at the man. “Thank you.”

“Of course!” He says with a bit of a laugh, though Zhongli can hear the slight nerve in his voice anyway. Surely she’s not intimidating in her cooking apron of all things.

“Well,” Zhongli starts, returning her gaze to her daughter. “What do we say, Qiqi?” Qiqi squirms under the gaze of her mother, her face flushing as she tucks herself up against Zhongli, mumbling her thanks to the air behind Zhongli instead of towards their neighbor. The young man laughs good-naturedly regardless, his stiff shoulders relaxing with Qiqi’s shyness.

“You’re welcome, Qiqi. Oh!” He perks up, quickly turning towards his own apartment. “One second!” The young man half-jogs over to his patio, stepping just into the threshold of his apartment and reaching towards the same spot Zhongli sees him grab his watering can from. Instead he pulls out a pair of pruning shears and a single glove, steps back out, and beelines to one of the rose bushes. Zhongli hears the snip of the shears after a second despite the young man putting himself between her and whatever he’s cutting, and when he turns around, he’s holding a beautiful rose by its long stem, his gloved hand pulling off the leaves towards the bottom.

“If you cut about an inch off the bottom of this every time you change the water, it should last a while.” He holds the rose out to Zhongli as he steps up to them, a small smile on his face. Zhongli can admire his features more readily like this, and takes delight in noticing the stroke of freckles across his nose and cheeks.

“Thank you.” She returns his smile as she takes it, which only serves to widen his own, a set of dimples revealing themselves to her. How darling.

The young man shrugs. “Consider it a gift for being understanding. I know my mom wouldn’t have been as calm as you if one of my siblings was under the care of someone she doesn’t know, no matter how brief.”

Zhongli laughs, much to the obvious delight of their neighbor. “Why don’t you tell me your name then? So you’re no longer a stranger.”

He laughs again, then smiles at them both, though his eyes return to Zhongli barely after a second of looking at Qiqi. “Ajax, but my friends call me Childe.”

“Childe, then.” Zhongli nods, then jostles Qiqi a little on her hip, pulling a little disgruntled noise from her daughter as she’s dislodged from her hiding place. “This is Qiqi, as you heard earlier. You may call me Zhongli.”

“Zhongli,” Childe tests, his deep blue eyes wandering over her face. Zhongli feels her cheeks flush ever so slightly. She sincerely hopes Childe doesn’t notice.

To help distract, Zhongli speaks. “Well, I suppose I should put this rose in some water...”

“Oh!” Childe blinks, then laughs, light and happy. She can guess the young man is laughing at himself. “Yeah, that would be good.” He steps back from their patio with a smile, passing his pruning shears from his ungloved hand to the gloved one, then waves to both Zhongli and Qiqi, a pleasant smile on his face. “When that one dies, I don’t mind replacing it. Just let me know.”

“I will,” Zhongli nearly whispers, watching as Childe drops the leaves he plucked into the dirt his roses rest in. He pulls that single glove off as he looks over his shoulder back towards Zhongli and Qiqi once more, giving them both another smile and a wave. Zhongli lifts some of her fingers from her rose to wave in return, watching as the young man smiles just a touch more, then steps into his apartment, returning his tools to their spots.

Zhongli hums as Childe comes back out once more to collect the first aid kit still in the grass, then she finally turns away, stepping back into her own apartment. She bends over to place Qiqi down, then stands back up and turns herself to close the slider. She spots Childe standing on his patio then, eyes clearly glued to her, and she pauses, her hand resting on the handle of the door. The young man seems to snap out of whatever trance he was in around then and hurriedly stumbles inside his own apartment, his slider nearly getting slammed in his rush.

Zhongli blinks at the commotion, then shuts her own slider in a much calmer fashion. “I suppose…” she starts as she watches Childe’s silhouette disappear from the little amount of the interior of his apartment she can see, then huffs in amusement. What a peculiar young man. She closes the blinds over the door, then makes her way through the living room, gently patting her daughter’s head. “I suppose we should start on dinner, lest we risk your father’s grumpiness by waiting any longer, hm?”

“Yes.” Qiqi points to the rose, then to herself. “Qiqi will get water.” The little girl hurries herself into the kitchen after saying so, much cleaner than Childe did into his apartment. Zhongli hums in amusement with her daughter, then directs her gaze to the rose still in her hand. Carefully, she lifts it to her nose, inhales, and sighs pleasantly as she pulls it away. She’s looking forward to the smell of flowers in their home from now on.

[ldyinblckmsk]

Always the extra, never the lead (part 2)

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki X F! Reader

Genre: Fluff(?)

Words: 2.6k

A/N: Hey! Sorry for the wait, forgive me for being so lazy omgg. I'm really having a hard time how to end this, so I'm sorry if I just end it like that and feels like rushed. I feel like it's up to your imagination on how you'll pereceive it lololol (i'mjustsolazytocontinue). Thank you for reading! And I'm writing another angst so if you want to get your heart broken again, stay tuned ig.

Shocked. Confused. He didn't actually know what he's feeling that time as he watched you bidding your goodbye with that forced smile. He didn't dare move as if the the gravity was pulling him too hard from his seat.

All he can do is watch your retreating form with a conflicted expression as he try to sort his mind.

He already made a decision. And that is to put a distance between the two of you. So, why? Why did that the fucking organ inside in his chest feels so heavy when you called his nickname with a dejected voice as if that will be the last time you'll him that?

That is a mystery that he didn't want to find out. Yet.

He left the restaurant as soon as you went home, pissed with the nosy extras that's giving him a cruel look for making a girl cry.

Everything went fine after the incident but it doesn't mean that his life will go back to normal. He pushed you away, even though you said that you'll still be his friend, the bridge connecting the two of you is already replaced with a big crater. As much as he wants to act normal, something inside him screams that he's doing thubgs wrong and that irritates him to hell.

"Hello, earth to Bakugou!" A sweet voice makes him go back to reality. His eyes widen for a bit when he saw your face but it immediately disappeared when his crimson eyes fell to the girl he's currently dating. "Geez, Bakugou. If you feel sick, I think you shouldn't pushed yourself coming here."

"Huh? What yer' talking about, shitty woman?!" His tone rises than he intended as he take a bite on his now cold food. It's been a week since they really started going out for real. Taking a walk here and there, eating outside, and such. It's nothing really special. Just like how it used to be when they were young.

Akiya came home from New York last year after her parents died in a villain attack there. Mitsuki's the one who offered her to stay ath their home for a while. She's his childhood quirkless friend, well, technically his mother forced him to befriend her since her mom's a close friend. She was devastated at that time and Bakugou's there to comfort her, having a great sense of urge to protect her.

"Oh? So, you're fine after all." She laughed, teasing him for his outburst which just made him sigh. "You know...," she said trailing her words. "Someone told me that if you don't want to feel regret at the end, you don't have to overthink something and just let your heart decides."

Her philosophical words makes him furrows his brows, not really knocking any sense to him. "Quit the Confucius wannabe act, shitty woman. What the hell are you on?"

She chuckles. "What I'm saying is...before it's too late, you should chase the girl you really love. Y/n, that's her name, right?"

"What the fuck are you trying to say?"

"C'mon, Bakugou! Quit being a dick  and go get your girl. I know you since childhood and, gosh, you're so obvious."

He didn't talk back, not that he doesn't have any snarky remark but he just want to listen and get enlightened. "You didn't really love me." She said that as if it weighs nothing. "We both know it. What we have between us is just platonic. Your urge of protecting me is nothing but a hero instinct really. Like a responsiblity, that's all. You just thought that I'm the one you wanted to protect the most because I'm weak and you already thought that that's love."

He watched her crossing her arms, brow raising up as she tries to lecture him about love and his crooked . "It's clear that you love her. That's why I was so confused when you asked me out. I mean, what the fuck's wrong with your judgement? You're so smart and yet really stupid."

"Then, why did you still accept me?!" His voice raising up, feeling the pent up frustrations as he function his brain. The hazy, cloudy water he's looking at slowly  getting clearer as the girl, who was supposedly dating him is, helping him unravel his feelings. "I'd like to see how long you'd last but I'm getting frustrated at our set up considering how tangled your feelings."

•••

With the energetic sun outside, class 3-A students decided to spend their Sunday inside their dorm. Gathering at the common area as they ramble about how dreading and tedious the day is. As for you, it was just another day for sulking, not really feeling to socialize. A week of holing yourself in your room, avoiding to cross path with a certain someone as you try to heal yourself. It just feels so good lazying around in your room with soft blanket wrapping you up like burrito.

But, of course, someone will come barging in your room and destroy the peace you once had. Hands on her hip, the pink haired looked at you like a mother going to reprimand her child. "I swear, y/n, I'll trash you're room if you didn't stand up right now and have fun with us."

"C'mon y/n-chan! Don't let Bakugou spoil your day." You winced when the bubbly, round face uttered his name. That's one of the reason why you chose to trapped yourself in you room. Hearing any signs related to him just brings back the humiliation and despair you felt that night. "Girl, I'll tell you get over it. You're too good for him. It's his loss for letting you go away."

"Uh, that's absolutely right! And don't get me started with that girl he chose over you. It's clear that you're much better and yet..." Mina intejected empasing the word to prove her point, shaking her head as she clicked her tongue. This just lead Momo to stop the the acid user from dissing the girl. "Mina, don't pick on Akiya. She's a sweet girl."

Tsuyu nodded, agreeing with Momo. "You know they said that the key of moving on is to fill yourself with happiness. So, push those bitterness away from your soul and come downstairs to have fun."

A small smile forming on your lips, grateful for having a best group of friends. Their comforting words and the way they cheer you up makes your heart swell, tears welling up your eyes. 

Fits of laughter welcomes you as your eyes met the chaotic state of your classmates. It's true that they're really having fun. Kaminari, Mineta, and Sero are in the middle, standing as they act something ridiculous while Kirishima, Tenya, Jirou are sitting on the large couch, trying not to laugh so hard as they guessed. They really took charades in the next level. Your other classmates are just on the other side of the couch watching the game, shouting if they figured it out. 

Mina pushed you towards them as the both of you squeezed yourselves at the large couch, sitting beside the crimson locks. You smiled at him when he noticed your presence, feeling awkward, you focused your gaze on the goofy duo.

You're barely containing your laughter when they turn their backs on you, for sure it will be something that will make Ms. Joke insecure with her banters. "Hey, why are you taking so–"

Jirou can't finish her sentence when the sparky blond abruptly faces you. You were losing it, hands on your aching stomach as unsophistacated laughs escape your mouth. Lo and behold, Kaminari with his newly styled hair, split in half as Sero's tape keep it standing. Chest puffing up and flexing his biceps while copying the familiar pro-hero's famous smile.

"That's an awful version of All Might, sparky." You said, cheeks burning up after you calmed down yourself. "Hey, you hurt my feelings, y/n." You cackled at his response, eyes rolling at his childishness.

"But I'm giving you an A plus for making us laugh though."

"Well, it's my pleasure to put a smile on your face." Eyes winking as he shoot his famous thumb gun to you. Oh god, he's really flirting at you in front of your classmates. You snort when you saw Mina playfuly raising her brows, giving you a knowing look.

Another round was immediately ended with Mina shouting the answer on top of her lungs. It was really obvious when Denki held the pervert grape boy and raised him up in the air, immediately giving away the answer for the popular pose in the Lion King.

You saw Denki walking towards you with a playful smile painted on his face. You yelp when he suddenly pulls your hand, making you stand up, guiding you to the middle. You didn't want to spoil the fun, so you just let him do what he's planning about.

"Okay, okay, this time let's change our players! Mineta, please move aside." He said shoving the tiny creature, not letting him protest. "Let the princess here shine with me."

You heard your classmates shout, the girls cheering you while giving you a thumbs up. You both looked at the whiteboard held by Momo, reading the next word to guess, you sighed.

"Oh! T-that's..." Your partner stuttered, scratching the back of his neck as he looked at you flustered. "What? That's really not hard."

It's true though. The word was simple. All they gotta do is imitate the the 'titanic pose'. "I-I..uh..okay."

He snuggled behind you, slowly wrapping his arms around your waist. Most of the girls are squeling, too excited at the scene. You raised your arms, spreading just like what Rose did, making your shirt rise a bit. You felt the sparky blond's slender fingers making contact at the little exposed skin, unknowingly sending a tiny jolts. You flinch at the ticklish feeling, leaving a gasp from your mouth. It seems that Denki's purposely tickling you through his electricity.

"Oh my god! S-stop it, Denki." You try to slap his hand away as you let another cackle. "Make me."

The game is now long forgetten when Mina decided to team up with the blind and hold both of your wrists. You're helplessly laying on the floor as he continue to tickle you. Unladylike snort escaping your lips while wagging your head, kicking your foot as you try to pry his hands away.

The class president's scolding Kaminari, hands moving robotically, but it just falls on deaf ears. Your other classmates are having a pillow fight that you didn't  who started it. The common room is now a mess.

Snarky as ever he is, the sight before him adds fuel to the raging fire inside him. The girl beside him is all smiles upon entering the famous UA. Deciding that it's better for her to tag along with him to help him chose the right path and not make mistakes again. Playing cupid and matchmaking really excites her.

"Are they having a party here?" The sweet girl whispered as he scans the now messy common room, pillows being thrown while some are tackling each other. The first thing his eyes land on is the sight of you tackled by the electric user as you laugh your lungs out.

You are really having fun.

"Oh god, are we too late?" Is he? The thought scared the fuck out of him. Your eyes widen when you spot him by the door...with the girl he's dating beside him.

"What the fuck's going on here?!" He yelled, making his classmate's head snapped towards his direction, eyeing the the two of them. Akiya waved her hand, shyly greeting them with a small 'hello'.

His jaw clench, darting eyes on his idiot blond friend. "Bakubro, you're home.." He said, acknowledging his presence as his eyes moved to the girl beside him. "...and you brought your girlfriend."

You were just fine a while ago. Laughing so hard til tomorrow. For the first time after you got rejected, you got a taste of happiness and yet the universe doesn't really want you to make the most out of it. There he was, scowl on his face as he introduce his girlfriend to the Bakusquad.

You classmates began dispersing as they went back to their own rooms, realizing that the fun has ended.

Something's really tugging your heart too hard for your own liking as if it wants to torture you with a heart ache. You didn't know that you're frozen in place like a fucking statue.

Mina crept beside you, nudging your shoulder snapping out of your trance. Denki already let you go upon seeing the fuming new arrival, throwing a glare at him. As you get a hold of yourself, you decided to go back to your room.

But the gods are not done with you, telling that you're still have an important role to fulfill. Someone screams your name, your mission of going back to the room peacefully were interrupted.

"Hey, y/n!" You muttered a curse before facing them. You wanted to raise your eyebrow, be bitchy, and act like you just didn't get your ass dumped by the man she's clinging to. Honey and flowers hit your nose when she engulfs you in a hug. You were surprised by the sudden close of proximity.

"Oh! Hey, uh, You know me?"

You internally slapped yourself at the awkwardness. Still, you're surprised that you're not a stuttering mess. Your heart leapt when your eyes met his vermillion eyes. He's fucking staring straight at you brazenly.

"Of course! Bakugou told me a lot about you." You noticed how the grumpy man opens his mouth to protest but he was shushed by his girlfriend.

"I just hope he's not dissing me." You chuckle, proud of yourself that you're still not crumbling. "No, don't worry it's the opposite actually."

"Well, that's assuring, I guess." Oh, you really want to save by someone from this awkward situation. "And I have something really, really important to say before I went home."

Soon, you found yourself trapped with the couple in your room. Bakugou is just standing by the door, arms crossed on his chest as he sigh while her girlfriend sat at the edge of your bed, moving her head as a signal for the blond to get moving. You just watched them, dumbfounded and clueless on what's going on. "We already broke up."

Your head snapped to her direction, confused. "Huh?"

You're lying if you swore that you didn't almost jump in glee upon hearing that. A bit of hope swelling inside you as you wished that it isn't some kind of prank. But you're confused, why the hell did she informed you that.

"Y/n, I just want to tell you that that man there is so dumb when it comes to feelings and emotions. I want you to listen to him. Okay, I've done my part. Now, Bakugou, it's your turn."

She said getting up, ready to leave the two of you. A smile etched on her face as she watch your confused face. "Good luck!" She whispered to his hear, giving him a playful salute before turning the knob. Now, leaving the two characters who met again in a new act.

Well, people met a lot of characters who play a different role in their lives. Most of them even minor roles will give a new meaning and lessons that will help them nurture themselves. To say the least Akiya is a character who plays an inportant role in the story. She's just there to build the climax of the tale who help the two conflicted protagonists achieved their 'happy ending'.

Taglist: @tspice283 @anime-weeb-bnha @bakugou-is-my-daddy @deneuves @shystudentcollector @nightlockowl @strangerbhnathings @toobsessedsstuff

[portals-to-a-new-world]

Come Hell or High Water Chapter 6: One More Goodbye

Who?: Leonard McCoy x Reader

What?: Our last day in Georgia for now. Leonard is emotional, Jim is a child, and Eleanora is a mom to everyone.

Word Count: 3.9k

Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Mild Smut (I know it’s about time)

A/N: Okay first and foremost. Blame @bakerstreethound​ for the smut. That being said, if it weren’t for her this whole series would have died a long time ago, so I have to remind everyone how freaking amazing she is. I love her. Anywhoo for those who missed it, I just posted an update as to why I haven’t posted anything in ages, so go check it out if you’re wondering wtf’s wrong with me lol.

Series Masterlist

Packing up the next day proved to be as emotional as one would expect. Leonard and Joanna spent nearly every moment together, stubbornly pretending to be okay for the other’s sake. Both also came to you at different points with tears in their eyes, admitting how not okay they really were. You had expected it from Leonard, but you could hardly believe it when Joanna asked you to help her with something in her room, only to quietly break down the moment the door closed. You rushed forward to wrap her in a hug. 

“Hey, hey, easy now.” You said, stroking her hair, giving her time to gather before she stepped back, still sniffling.

“I know, I know, you guys will still call all the time, and everything will be just like normal-” She crossed her arms across her chest as she spoke. 

“Jo, there’s nothing wrong with missing your dad when he’s not here.” You said, offering an empathetic smile. “I know I still miss my family when I’m out in space. But you can always call him whenever you need him, even if it’s just to talk.” She was silent for a moment as she thought. 

“Do you still call your dad a lot?” She asked, and you hesitated before responding. 

“My dad and I have a complicated relationship. But I do talk to my grandfather nearly every day. My family likes to tease me about being a ‘papaw’s girl,’ but I firmly believe that a father-daughter bond, or in my case grandfather and granddaughter, is one of the most precious and beautiful things in the whole universe.” You once again wrapped her in a hug, hiding the way your eyes had begun to water. “Cherish yours.” She took a shaky breath before pulling out of your embrace. 

“Thank you, (Y/n).” She said, and you smiled warmly. 

“Anytime, peach.” You replied, and she grinned at your nickname for her. A knock at the door and the sound of a gruff voice had you both scrambling to hide the evidence of the tears shed. 

“Shug, is everything okay?” Ever the quick thinker, Joanna had an excuse ready to go before you could even open your mouth. 

“Yeah, Dad, I was just trying to show (Y/n) the braid you taught me,” She said, turning to give you a look which you acknowledged with a nod before she walked over and opened the door. You struggled to keep a straight face and hide the surprise at the fact Leonard knew how to braid hair and how Joanna had seemingly prepared an excuse. “I’m glad you’re here actually, you’re a lot better at it than me, and I could use your help.” Leonard didn’t hesitate before nodding, a smile gracing his handsome features. “Awesome!” Joanna said, matching her father’s grin. “Let’s go down to the sitting room, the light’s better.” She said as she walked past him, and you followed behind him. 

“Lord knows an old man needs-” You started, but Leonard spun and cut you off. 

“If you’re about to make a joke about my age-” To both his and your surprise, Joanna was the one to speak up and cut him off. 

“Is it a joke if it’s true?” You nearly bent double laughing at the betrayed and offended expression on his face as he turned to look at his daughter, who burst out laughing and offered an apologetic smile. Leonard scoffed and pointed at her accusingly. “Oh, I see how it is.” He feigned indignation as he strode towards the stairs. Jo, still laughing, cried out “Noooo” as he walked by and latched her arms around him in a hug. Leonard tried to keep up the act, but his smile betrayed him as he spoke. “No, no, I see whose side you’re on. Should’ve known y’all were gonna gang up on me.” You rolled your eyes in amusement and walked over to pat him on the shoulder.

“Aww, poor McCoy, the women are so cruel to you.” You said. He scrunched his face in mocking as he waved you off. 

“I don’t think you’re old, Bones.” Jim’s voice drifted up the stairs. Leonard shuffled to the edge as best he could with Joanna still wrapped around him. 

“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better.” He said with a scowl. You leaned over the railing to see Jim grinning as he shrugged.

“Probably because you know me too well,” Len just rolled his eyes in response. You chuckled, and Jim turned his attention to you. “Lieutenant Commander (Y/n), you are hereby ordered to report to the kitchen for cobbler duty.” Both Leonard and Jo perked up at the mention of their favorite dessert. “Munchkin, it’s your job to keep Gramps out of the kitchen, we’d like for there to actually be some left for the rest of us.” He said, sending a wink in her direction. Much to your surprise, Len didn’t comment on the jab; in fact, the words that left his lips were so far from anything you expected it took a beat for you to process them.

“Actually, I was going to ask little Miss here if she’d be interested in going down to the lake with me real quick,” Joanna looked up at him in confusion.

“Can I ask why?” She asked as she let go of him.

“Well, I’d been thinkin about the other day, and since you’re starting high school, I figured it’s high time we came up with a new tradition. Just the two of us.” He said, and though he was smiling, you could tell he was nervous. He needn’t have worried though, as Joanna immediately lit up and was nodding in excitement.

“That’d be awesome!” She said, and she once again wrapped her arms around him in a hug. He released a breath as he returned the embrace. You smiled and shot him a thumbs up once they broke apart.

“Go grab your shoes and some water from the kitchen, since I’m not allowed in there.” Leonard stood aside as he spoke, allowing her to step past him. She quickly darted down the stairs and towards the kitchen.

“Well done, McCoy,” You said, stepping forward to wrap your arms around his neck. He turned the faintest shade of red as his hands naturally fell to your waist. “Be safe, okay? I don’t want to have to come pull you out of a hole again.” He scoffed and pulled you flush against him.

“As I recall, it was after that particular madness that you told me you loved me for the first time. So,” Leonard tilted his head and smirked before continuing. “Well worth it, in my book.” You rolled your eyes and leaned up to kiss him softly.

“You don’t have to be missing for two days in the forest to hear me say that,” He raised an eyebrow to prompt you to continue. Giving a dramatic sigh, you moved to cup his face in your hands. “I love you, Leonard McCoy.” You said, with as much conviction as you had the first time you’d said that to him. His gorgeous hazel eyes were locked on to yours as he leaned in. You fought to suppress a grin as you dropped your hands from his cheeks, giving your partner in crime space to move in.

“I love you, too, Bones.” Jim said, causing your lover to yell as he planted a sloppy wet kiss on Leonard’s cheek. Leonard’s hand flew behind him in reflex, smacking Jim right in his chest as he tried to dodge away. He gave a howl and stumbled backward. Leonard spun in shock and darted towards Jim.

“Damn it, man!” Len shouted as he placed a gentle hand on Jim’s back. Jim, who was bent over wheezing, attempted to wave him off.

“No, I deserved that,” He spoke between a gasp and a laugh. “Just give me a minute,” Jim’s face contorted as the pain no doubt throbbed through his chest. “Hell of a swing,” Footsteps downstairs had you again leaning over the railing, and this time it was Eleanora’s face looking back up at you. 

“What the devil’s goin on up here?” She said, climbing the stairs quickly. You blushed slightly at her tone, reminding you all too much of your grandmother.

“Sorry, ma’am. Little bit of a prank gone wrong.” You said as she reached the top. Jim tried to stand up straight but only managed enough to look at Mrs. McCoy.

“My fault, El.” He groaned. She shook her head and pointed a stern finger at him.

“James Tiberius, you’re almost more trouble than you’re worth,” She said. Jim offered a mix between a grimace and a smile.

“I know.” He said. Instantly her face softened, and she turned her attention to the man now heading towards her.

“Leonard, get the-“She started, but Len was already nodding as he spoke.

“The aloe, I know.” He headed down the stairs to retrieve the soothing ointment, and El turned her gaze back to Jim.

“You sure you’re alright, son?” She spoke gentler now, but her voice still held the same stern exasperation you often heard from Leonard. Jim gave her a weak thumbs-up, though his usual charming smile was replaced with a wince.

“Yeah, just really stings. Nothing a nap, some aloe, and a hypo won’t fix.” He said. You turned and followed Leonard downstairs, a laugh escaping you as you found him scowling outside the kitchen door. He turned and rolled his eyes at you right before Joanna emerged with two bottles of water and the aloe.

“I’ll meet you outside.” He said as she handed the aloe over. She sent you a huge grin as she skipped past you and out the front door. You started to lean up for a kiss as Leonard approached, but he just shook his head. “Oh no, troublemaker.” You pouted, but he just chuckled darkly and grabbed your hip to pull you against him. “You’re lucky we’re here and not at home.” He whispered into your ear. You suppressed a shiver at the feeling of his breath against the sensitive skin. He released you and walked away, smirking before you could reply, and you let out a frustrated huff. Damn. The sound of footsteps on the stairs signaled El was heading down, and you took a moment to shake your head and clear your thoughts. You smiled as she approached and followed behind her into the kitchen. Donna looked up from the stacks of recipe cards laid out on the table as you walked in. 

“Trouble?” She asked with a small smile. You tilted your head in confirmation as you responded.

“With those two? It’s always something.” 

“I don’t know that you have much room to talk.” She laughed and gestured to her cheek. You reached up to feel the stitches and gave a nervous laugh. 

“Heh, okay yeah, we’re all three getting into trouble constantly,” You said, pulling up a stool and smiling softly. “But we’ve got each other’s backs. Len patches Jim and I up, mind you he’s gonna fuss the whole time, and we keep him safe when he’s playing doctor on a remote planet to some less than friendly locals or whatever the case may be. None of us would be here without the others.” Donna shared a look with her mother as you finished, far too quick to decipher its meaning before the older woman grabbed a basket full of peaches and set them on the table. 

“Mama I think we may have lost the recipe-” Donna began, but Eleanora just held up her finger and sent you a wink. 

“Do you think I’d leave my award-winning recipe just laying around where anyone can find it?” She said, chuckling and reaching into the pocket of her apron. “(Y/n) why don’t you get started on peeling and slicing these here,” She patted the basket of peaches. “The peeler’s in that drawer there behind you, so’s the knives.” Once you helped clear the stacks of cards off the table, you washed your hands and grabbed a peach. Unable to resist the urge, you lifted it close to your face and inhaled it’s sweet scent deeply.

“Mmm. Are these local?” You asked, sparking conversation about how you get fresh fruit while lightyears away in space. One conversation led to the next, and before you knew it, two hours had flown by. You had come to learn that Eleanora was an absolute powerhouse in the kitchen, although you could have figured that from the astounding food you’d had over the last week. Her peach cobbler really had won awards all over the county, and the recipe for it had been handed down from mother to daughter for generations. On the other hand, Donna didn’t quite have her mother’s finesse when it came to baking.

“Listen, I can cook just as well as anyone, but when it comes to baking?” She laughed, shaking her head. “I don’t know why, but something always goes wrong.” Eleanora started to reply, but the sound of the front door opening signaled Len and Jo’s return. El shook her head and looked at the clock on the wall.

“Leave it to my son to come back right as the food’s coming out of the oven.” You giggled as she spoke and moved to pull the mouth-watering dessert from the oven. The man himself walked through the door only a moment later, with Joanna trailing behind him chanting ‘Food! Food! Food!’.

“My god that smells amazing,” Leonard said with a massive grin on his face. He walked to El and waited for her to set the cobbler down. “As always, of course.” He said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and placing a kiss on her temple. She smiled knowingly and patted him on the cheek before nodding over her shoulder.

“Go on, you can wait till dinner like the rest of us.” Len scowled but quickly wiped the look from his face when his mother glared back. He cleared his throat and moved to open one of the cabinets.

“I’ll go ‘head and set the table.” He grumbled. His attention jumped to you as you giggled again, offering an apologetic smile, which he ignored. “Don’t suppose you’d like to help, would you?” You hopped off of the stool and walked over to pat his shoulder. 

“Absolutely.” 

=============================================================

It took a little while after you’d finished setting the table before everyone was seated together eating once again. Leonard and Jim were arguing about the plan to drive in the old truck, with Leonard insisting that Jim was too old and too sunburned to ride in the bed for nearly 5 hours. Of course, Jim was adamant that he could do it, and it took the arrival of the cobbler for them to finally stop bickering. One bite, and you instantly understood why. It was all you could do not to moan aloud as the warmth and flavor blessed your tastebuds, and for a moment, you could have sworn you entered a different plane. The sound of a throat clearing made you realize you’d closed your eyes, and your cheeks flushed red as you opened them to see Eleanora standing beside your chair. Confusion passed over your face as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a handwritten index card.

“What’s this?” You asked politely, reaching up to grab the card. As you read, your eyes went wide, and you started to protest. “El, I couldn’t possibly-”

“Yes, you can.” Her voice was stern, but her eyes held a warmth, not unlike that of the dessert itself. “I insist.” You were dumbfounded as you carefully set the card on the table. Your eyes found Leonard, who was frozen mid-bite, staring at you in stunned awe. 

“I don’t even know what to say, ma’am. I’m honored.” You finally stammered out. Eleanora’s smile matched the warmth in her eyes as she patted you on the shoulder before returning to her seat. 

“Close your mouth, son. You’re drooling on my tablecloth.” She said as she sat down. You looked back over to Leonard and giggled softly as he swallowed and wiped his chin.

“Sorry, Momma.” He said, still staring at the card. All was silent for a few moments until Joanna finally spoke up and broke the tension.

“Daddy?” She asked, and Leonard instantly turned all his attention to her.

“Yeah, Shug?” He replied. She hesitated for a moment, causing one of his eyebrows to rise slowly in concern. 

“I was wondering if you could drop me off at school tomorrow. I meant to ask earlier, but I forgot.” She looked at him with pleading eyes as she finished. Leonard chuckled before answering.

“Well, of course. You didn’t think I’d miss out on embarrassing you on your first day, did you?” Everyone but the man himself rolled their eyes. “Is it alright if (Y/n) and Jim join us? That way, we could head straight out from there.” He asked, and Joanna nodded quickly. 

“I was hoping they’d come too.” She said brightly. Len smiled and tilted his head in affirmation.

“Then it’s settled.” Everyone resumed eating, and before you knew it, you found yourself once again in bed with Leonard’s arms holding you against him. You were squirming as he pressed kisses into your neck, trying to ignore the large hint to his intentions pressing against your backside.

“Leonard.” You whispered in warning. He ignored you, his hand sliding beneath your waistband. “L-Leo-” Your voice came out as more of a choked gasp as his fingers slipped inside you for a moment before moving to stroke your clit. 

“Do you know how much I love you?” He spoke lowly, nipping at the skin on your neck. You fought to control yourself as a moan threatened to escape.

“I think I have a pr-pretty good idea,” You bit your lip and whimpered as he slid one long finger deep inside you, before quickly adding a second. You surrendered into him as he curled them in the perfect ‘come hither’ motion. Your hand flew up to cover your mouth as a loud gasp escaped you.  

“How about I show you how much anyway, just to be sure?” You couldn’t reply as he began a relentless assault, all of your focus needed to remain silent. CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP A whimper once again escaped as Leonard quickly withdrew his fingers, using his other hand to grab his PADD. “Who the hell is sending me a message this late?” He grumbled, and you looked over his shoulder in curiosity.

             Pls don’t. -J

You blushed crimson as you realized what he meant, and gave Leonard a smack with the pillow. 

“SEE!” You whisper shouted. “Be glad it was Jim and not your mothe- mmph!” Leonard silenced you with a demanding kiss that left you breathless. 

“Just gonna have to be quieter, Sugar.” He moved to pin you beneath him as he whispered into your ear. “Think you can do that for me?” He pulled back to look at you, eyes searching for any sign you really wanted him to stop. You huffed and reach up to pull him into a kiss.

“Damn you.” As his hand slid back down your body, you willed the bed to remain silent, hoping that Jim wouldn’t be too harsh in the morning.

=============================================================

As it turned out, you were all too busy trying to sort out the luggage situation to worry about what might have been heard the night before. Jim had most of it in the truck bed with him, but there were only so many bags he could keep watch on, so three ended up in the cabin with Leonard, Joanna, and you. Your goodbyes ended up rushed as the time came closer for Jo to be at school, and when you got on the road, you had barely 45 mins to get her there on time. The whole drive there, Leonard had a death grip on the wheel, and the tension in the truck only skyrocketed as you pulled up to the school. One of the many downsides of such a small town was that everyone knew everyone else’s business. One look at the group of parents standing nearby, and you instantly knew what they were saying. Deciding to avoid any more attention than you’d already drawn, you quickly helped Jo climb out of the truck. You’d started to hop back in when you heard Joanna say your name. Before you could finish turning back, she’d wrapped around you in a hug. You couldn’t keep the smile off your face as you returned the hug.

“Thanks for letting me stick around, Peach.” You said as you broke apart. She laughed and reached up to swipe at her eyes.

“Thanks for being here, (y/n)” You nodded and glanced over her shoulder at Leonard, who was doing his best to keep it together.

“Anytime,” Jim hopped out of the truck bed as you spoke, and threw his arms out dramatically. Jo giggled and threw her arms around him, too, allowing you to subtly grab Leonard’s attention. Even from a few feet away, he looked shaky. You smiled softly at him and gestured slightly. “Breathe.” You mouthed, and he nodded, taking a deep breath. 

“JO-JO!!” You looked around in confusion as a voice yelled across the front lawn. Joanna broke out in a smile and spun in excitement, and you spotted the owner of the voice right as she started to wave. “C’MON, IT’S ALMOST TIME FOR THE BELL,” The kid, presumably Jo’s friend, called out. Joanna looked at her watch, and her face fell. She turned to Leonard, her mouth open to speak, but he just waved her on.

“It’s alright, Shug. I’ll be back in a couple weeks when we leave. Don’t be late.” He said, and she frowned apologetically before turning to head towards the building. She made it two steps before Leonard spoke again. “Jo!” She stopped on the spot and turned back. Your heart broke as Len swallowed hard before calling out. “I love you.” His voice broke, and Joanna was running back in an instant, slamming into him in a hug. 

“A bushel and a peck,” You heard her say softly, and Leonard held her tighter before they spoke together. 

“And a hug around the neck” 

“Go on,” Leonard said, finally breaking the embrace. “Your grandmother’ll kill me if I make you late on your first day.” Joanna nodded and took off sprinting. Len said nothing as he made his way back into the truck.

“Take your time, Bones. We’ve got all day.” Jim said gently. Leonard waved him off and slid into the driver seat.

“I’m good. Let’s get going.” He mumbled. You looked at Jim and gave him a nod.

“I’ve got him, don’t worry.” You whispered, and Jim hesitated for a moment before sighing and climbing back into the truck bed. Leonard cranked the engine as you hopped inside, offering a small smile when you slid over to take his hand and press a kiss to his palm. “You did great, Leo.” He leaned over and place a kiss on your temple before grabbing ahold the gear shift. Nothing else was said as he shifted into gear and pulled out onto the road. You knew he needed time, and he knew you’d be there when he was ready. He just hoped you both were ready for what lay ahead.

Tags: @bakerstreethound​ @bookscoffeeandracoons​ @lt-trick​ @ladyideal​ @billybutchersbabe​ @emily-strange​ (If I forgot you, feel free to yell at me. If you’d like to be added, click here)

[pitiless-achilles-wept]

Better Living Through Surgery: Life with Less Cancer!

[Originally posted August 13, 2020]

Hello from Penn Hospital!

Not to worry - I haven't been here the entire time since my last post, although I did end up spending an entire week in the hospital. Right now I'm sitting in the outdoor section of the cafeteria, which might be a mistake given that I'm not allowed to eat anything until after my CT scans at 1pm. The CT scans are part of my preparing to resume treatment for the rest of the cancer that's still in my body. The last time I had chemo was June 23rd and I've now hit the sweet spot of being a month past my mastectomy (so, mostly recovered) and out of other treatment long enough that I'm not suffering side effects any longer. It feels...almost like I don't have cancer at all.

Two Surgeries for the Price of...Two!

Let me back up a bit to the surgery though. I'd like to report that everything went totally smoothly...and it sort of did! Except that I had to have two surgeries because it also sort of didn't. As usual, what happened to me was super rare (less than 1% of cases!) and I would like to submit a formal retraction of any wishes I had to be exceptional. I've read "The Monkey's Paw." I know to be careful what I wish for. (Although, actually, I'm lying because I still plan to be the exception to the median life expectancy of those with my particular type and stage of cancer. If I have to be in the 1% of cancer cases it ought to be a good thing at least once.)

I had two surgeons for the two parts of my first surgery: one for the mastectomy (removing that incredibly stubborn initial tumor) and one for a "flap reconstruction," which used my own tissue (from my stomach - free tummy tuck!) to build a replacement. When they do that second part, they also take a blood supply so that a substantial part of it is vascular surgery. The reason that the reconstruction ever fails is if something goes wrong with the blood supply. If that happens, it's nearly always (99% of the time!) within 24 hours. What happened in my case was that everything went well with the surgery, even though it took about 7 hours, and I was recovering well and quickly. I was set to go home after my third night in the hospital (so, on Thursday).

Overnight on Wednesday, however, something went wrong with the blood supply. The new tissue was filling but not draining. What they later learned, once they rushed me back into the OR, was that the vein in it had a blood clot. They were able to fix it by taking a vein from my ankle to replace it. So basically that reset the clock on my recovery so that I ended up having to stay an additional three nights, going home on Sunday. (My initial surgery had been on a Monday.) It's actually extremely lucky that I was still in the hospital, despite how sad I was at having to stay. If I had been at home, far away from experts and surgeons, the tissue probably would have died and the reconstruction would have failed. It was a close thing since I was set to go home.

Anyone who has ever been in a hospital doesn't need a reminder of how, despite everyone's best intentions it is pretty terrible. I hadn't spent a night in the hospital since I was a newborn, despite all my various treatments, so I didn't know. Now I do and I never want to go back. The hardest part is that they have to wake you up almost constantly for vitals and to assess how the blood supply is doing (listening for arterial and venus sounds). For the first day after each surgery this was every 30 MINUTES, then every HOUR, then finally (on my final night) every 2 hours. And I'm the kind of person who's AWAKE as soon as I wake up. So I essentially didn't sleep more than an hour at a time until the bitter end when a nice nurse got a nice doctor to give me some kind of sedative so that I was able to sleep through the checks. I don't have a kid, so let me just say that this level of sleep deprivation was like nothing I had ever experienced. I see why the CIA used it as a form of torture. I'm a veteran of being tired and of many different kinds of fatigue but never have I been unable to get into REM sleep for so long. I am eager to avoid it at all costs again.

I had been more worried about the boredom than the lack of rest (because, at least on paper, the hospital seems like a place where you would mostly be resting/recovering) and it was indeed very boring. I was SO tired that I wasn't able to really do anything like read a novel, knit, or even really watch TV. I did binge a few podcasts, return to some more "Buffy," and attempt to chat to my parents when they could be there. The COVID visitor policy made it even more isolating and lonely than it would usually be. I was only allowed one "designated visitor" per day so my mom and dad switched off on who that was. Visitors could only be in the room and, once you left, you were gone for the day. So, for example, it's not like my mom could say hi in the morning, pop out and get us lunch, and then come back. All visiting was consolidated for the day. That meant that I tried valiantly to be good company for a few hours, but I imagine mostly I was too exhausted to accomplish that.

I took laps around the hallway (in my mask), which was actually a big achievement especially given the four surgical drains that I had (and left the hospital with). It's amazing how quickly you can lose conditioning in your muscles...and also how exhausting it is for your body to have been, essentially, assaulted and be dealing with wounds. That said, I've been super impressed by my body's healing capacity. I got the drains out within a week for one set and 10 days for another. After that, it was much easier to feel like I was healing and returning to normal. I'll have to rebuild my abdominal muscles, since that part of the surgery involved cutting them (and a new hip-to-hip "smile" scar), and for now I still can't bend all the way over, stand up totally straight (did I ever?), or lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk (because of the reconstruction). I'll probably need some physical therapy, but the ability my body has shown to heal is incredible.

Also incredible is the difference it has made to my mood and anxiety. In the hospital, they kept asking me for my pain number (which is kind of a useless exercise anyway, in my opinion) and I kept sort of shrugging and saying "2? 3?" to their disbelief. After all, I had open wounds! I had two major surgeries! But the pain of the tumor itself (and especially of the fluid-filled cyst on top of it) had been constant, increasing, and worrying. The pain of the tumor had meant my treatment was failing me and that my cancer was getting worse. The pain of the surgery meant I was healing so I embraced it. I still get tired more easily than I expect and am sure that the recovery period for this is going to turn out to be longer than I anticipate. But it is a huge relief.

That Bastard Tumor

Now, sadly, they don't actually save your cancerous tumor for you to look at after the surgery. (Honestly sad about this. I wanted to look it in the eye!) But they did send it off to a pathologist. The results made me feel very vindicated in my persistent sense that something about this bastard of a tumor was just DIFFERENT (and worse). They found that it had areas in it that were metaplastic, meaning (essentially) that the cells are hybrid, aggressive, and chemo-resistant. Here's what Johns Hopkins has to say about it:

"Metaplastic breast cancer is a rare form of breast cancer, accounting for fewer than 1% of all breast cancers.  It differs from the more common kinds of breast cancer in both its makeup and in the way it behaves.

Like invasive ductal cancer, metaplastic breast cancer begins in the milk duct of the breast before spreading to the tissue around the duct.  What makes a metaplastic tumor different is the kinds of cells that make up the tumor.

When the cells of an invasive ductal tumor are examined under a microscope, they appear abnormal, but still look like ductal cells.  Metaplastic tumors may contain some of these breast cells, too, but they also contain cells that look like the soft tissue and connective tissue in the breast.  It is thought that the ductal cells have undergone a change in form (metaplasia) to become completely different cells, though it is not known exactly how or why this occurs.

Metaplastic breast cancers can also behave more aggressively than other kinds of breast cancers.

Metaplastic tumors are often, though not always, “triple-negative”, which means that they test negative for estrogen and progesterone receptors, as well as for the HER2/neu protein.

Metaplastic tumor cells are often found to be high grade, which means that they look very different from normal cells and are dividing rapidly.  

Metaplastic tumors are, on average, larger at diagnosis.

More often than in other kinds of breast cancer, women with metaplastic breast cancer can have metastasis (when the cancer has spread beyond the breast) and may be more likely to recur (come back later in another part of the body)."

Sounds familiar, right? I can tell you, it feels good to get that out of my body! I want to be clear, though, that it was only **some** of the tumor that was this nasty metaplastic cancer. It was, as I described it to the amusement of my surgeon, "like chocolate chips in ice cream." (Way less fun than chocolate chips, obviously.)

That is actually good news too, because it means that there's a pretty high chance that the metastatic sites are NOT this nasty form of cancer. It wasn't noted in the original biopsy back in January 2019, nor in the spinal tumor biopsy in Feburary 2019, nor in my biopsy from July 2019. Metaplastic cells are fairly distinctive so they would have been noted if they were there. At some point, metaplastic regions appeared in the bastard tumor, probably a reason that it stopped responding to treatments that worked elsewhere (including PARP inhibitors and the chemo/immuno combo that I'm currently on). If those treatments, or others, can work on the remaining sites that are NOT metaplastic it becomes much more possible to imagine living with this as a chronic disease. We won't be able to tell until I get today's scans and we see how the next 8ish weeks of treatment go. But still, I think cautious optimism is warranted.

Resting and Recovering

My parents were able to stay with me for another 10 days after I went home and it was so wonderful to have them taking care of me. It made me realize that, actually, I have done the bulk of this cancer treatment without that particular kind of support. I mean, I knew that intellectually, but the difference between having someone looking after me and not was something I almost couldn't fathom on an emotional level. They lived with me for the first 3 months after my diagnosis in 2019 but--thanks to how long was spent getting various tests and seeing doctors--that only included a few weeks of chemo. They would obviously have stayed longer--would be glad to drop everything and rush out whenever I want!--but it's been my choice to continue as much as I can with my "regular" adult life. Being forced not to try was actually quite a favor to me. I'm left with a lot of thoughts about how I ask for help, offer it, accept it (or don't), and how I feel about it. I'll save those for another time, though, and just thank both my parents and my wonderful and tireless group of friends for giving me their support in whatever ways they can.

It's almost time for me to go drink some delicious barium and get a CT (bringing me a couple steps closer to lunch), so I'll just conclude by saying that I felt so good post-surgery that I forgot, for a while, that I still had cancer at all. After all, it was that tumor that I could actually see and feel and that was causing me daily pain and anxiety. Taking it away felt like taking away all the cancer. But, of course, it's still there: in my lungs, my lymph nodes, my bones, and my liver. It's a systemic and chronic disease, but I do at least feel more like I've been given a fighting chance again.

Hope you're all doing as well as can be right now. Be well and be kind.

Love, Bex

[jumnthepurestbean]

Aahdfl your posts are super cute!!! Can I request the RFA+Saeran/V/Vanderwood (if you can) meeting MC's very big and equally overwhelmingly loving family because I need family fluff in my life and some of these people need in-laws to adopt them

asdfksdjflsd when I saw this ask I literally had to get out of bed and go get my lap top to answer it. I’ve been coming back to this ask all day, so it’s really long but I love it. Thank you so, so much for this idea!

RFA+Saeran+V+Vanderwood x MC with Large Loving Family

Jumin

Okay so Jumin Han is already such a family man

He’s the dad of the RFA

So when he discovers that MC has such a large family is pleasantly surprised.

Now that MC is in is life, he considers MC’s family his family.

He’s excited at the prospect of having so many people that matter to MC

He first meets MC’s parents and is expects them to like him (who wouldn’t want their child to marry someone like Jumin Han?) but he didn’t expect them to love him so much.

Immediately they’re so loving. “Jumin we’ve heard so much about you! We’re so excited to finally meet you!” and they’re inviting him to family outings.

Which he wants nothing more. Even if it’s MC’s second cousin’s soccer game DANG IT HE WILL TAKE OFF WORK TO GO SEE THAT!

The first time he meets everyone is probably at one of MC’s family reunions

He’s never felt like he comes into a place and is immediately accepted.

People are genuinely interested on what he has to say

Let me just say that Jumin loves his father and no one could ever replace Chairman Han

They understand each other on a different level and Chairman Han has provided him nothing but unconditional love

But damn it’s nice to have some normal family love.He will get to know every person in MC’s family.

He has a calendar for their birthdays, special events and anything else he plans to attend

Yoosung

Okay so at first Yoosung is nervous

Meeting his girlfriend’s parents is another thing but she has a lot of siblings???

Deep concern

MC’s father invites Yoosung to dinner so they can meet.

NERVOUSNESS INTENSIFIES

But when he walks in the door he hears “IT’S YOOSUNG!”

A bunch of little kids of various ages come running in and look at him.He blinks as he’s getting all the attention and is pulled into the house by them.

MC is the oldest sibling so her bringing over a boyfriend who wants to be a vet and likes playing video games is so cool

This really boosts up his confidence

Plus he’s not the shortest person! Yay!

He meets MC’s father who has a toddler on his hip but smiles kindly to Yoosung

It becomes very obvious that a mother is not in the picture.While MC and Yoosung are alone doing the dishes (Yoosung insisted! Despite the fact that he rarely does his own dishes but shhhhh)

He wants to ask and MC can tell

“My mom passed away a few years ago.”

Yoosung nearly dropped his plate he was cleaning “MC I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Yoosung. It hurts but I still have everyone. And you.”Yoosung keeps it together and kisses MC’s forehead

But when he gets back to his apartment HE CALLS HIS MOM AND TELLS HER HOW MUCH HE LOVES HER DANG IT

Zen

“Zenny, how many tickets could you get me for your next show?”

Zen lazily puts his arm around MC “Probably 3 or 4. Why?”

“My parents really want to come to your next show and I think it would be a good way to meet you.”

Zen raises an eyebrow, “Oh really? I’ll see what I can do.”

Zen is pretending to be super calm and chill but oh god this makes him nervous as all hell.

He’s going to have to perform knowing that MC’s parents are in the audience.

No pressure...

The night comes out and he tries to peek around the curtain to see if he can see MC or her parents but with no luck.

He calms himself down but looking at picture of MC on his phone. He is going to be as amazing as he always is.

He of course performs wonderfully

When he goes for the curtain call he hears a lot more applause. Which isn’t too strange because he has many fans that love his performances but this seems more eager.

When he finishes and goes to the lobby to find MC he find her parents with flowers.

They then go on about how amazing he was in the performance. They’re so excited he can barely get a word in. There’s so much praise he starts blushing.What on earth was nervous about???

They go out to dinner and after MC’s parents calmed down (”Mom, dad! Please let Zen say something”) he realizes how great they are.

Also MC has a bunch of siblings? He’s going to have invite them all to his next performance.

After the night dies down and MC and Zen are cuddled up in the bed he thinks about the events of the night.

“Hyun, why are you crying?”

Zen blinks and wipes at his face. He gives a shrug and smiles. “I’m just happy.”

Jaehee

K so I actually have an OC that I’ve been wanting to match with Jaehee specifically because she has a giant family and let’s be real that’s what Jaehee needs.

So this response is based a bit off what I imagine Jaehee and my OC’s relationship.

The first time she is introduced to MC’s family she is pretty stiff and very formal

MC’s parents try to get her out of her shell and be the woman that MC has told them so much about but Jaehee just isn’t having any of it.MC knows what happened to Jaehee’s family and all the hurt she’s suffered.

“How about I invite my parents to the cafe?”

“The cafe??”

“Yeah, it’ll be fun. Especially if my brothers and sisters come. They’re kids, they love sweets.”

It takes some convincing but Jaehee finally decides that it would be a good idea.

They pick a day that’s slow so Jaehee and MC can have time socialize without ignoring any regular costumers.

Jaehee is still working on the sweets when MC’s family comes in. She knew that MC had a lot of siblings but it was starting to get a little overwhelming.

MC gently puts a hand on Jaehee’s shoulder and introduces her to her siblings.

They all excitedly watch her finish up the sweets which puts pressure on her.But once she gets into the groove of making her sweets, she starts to relax a little.

Her anxiety spikes when she actually has to give them

But once she sees that they love them, it makes her relax so much more.

She may tear up a little when MC’s parents say how proud they are of her for following her dreams and creating such a successful business

But the true turning point where Jaehee finally lets herself be herself with MC’s family is around Christmas time.

Each year MC’s family get dressed in horrible Christmas sweaters and take a family photo. Jaehee goes over to Christmas but is fully prepare to watch on the sidelines until she receives an ugly sweater and is in the picture.

Ahhh my heart

Seven

Tries to avoid meeting MC’s family

He knew because of his research that she had a large family

And he already didn’t want to bring MC into this life of danger

So now bringing so many people into his life was really hard for him

MC finally explains to him the part he didn’t know about her life.Her parents are actually her foster parents

She talks about how she bounced around from foster home to foster home. Always getting in trouble and being so angry at the world for the cards she was delt

But then she landed with her foster family. They worked with her and gave her the love that she needed

That gets him to agree to at least meet her parents.

Once meeting them he can understand how they could have done what they did for MC

They’re so kind and patient.

At first Seven is trying to be his old jokey self as a defense mechanism

They’re not annoyed or anything they’re just patient with him

In the end he’s so happy that MC had this life

And maybe he could have that life too

Saeran

Nervous wreck

Does everything he can to avoid meeting MC’s family.

He really worries that he’s not good enough for MC

So MC starts out with baby steps...or in the case toddler steps!

She first introduces Saeran to one of her younger siblings

At first he’s still nervous but he handles being around children a little bit easier

They walk around Saeran’s garden to make him even more comfortable.

At some point MC’s sibling toddles up to him and offers him a flower they plucked out of the earth.

It still has roots and is dirty but it’s one of the best gifts he’s ever received.

Bends down and thanks them and then explains to the toddler what the flower means.

The toddler doesn’t understand but that’s okay.

Slowly Saeran works up the courage to finally meet MC’s parents.

MC asks if he wants to them in the garden but he says no he’s going to meet them for dinner.He works very hard to prepare dinner with MC (she helped him learned some cooking skills and he’s gotten pretty good!)

He’s still a nervous wreck and nearly has panic attacks on multiple occasions but knows that this will make MC happy so he’s going to do it.

MC had told her parents a little bit about Saeran and they know to be very patient with him

Not they aren’t already but they just know a little bit as to what to expect.

He’s quiet at first but eventually he starts to open them up.After a really long time of healing Saeran is so grateful to have MC’s parents and siblings in general.

V

V agrees to meet MC’s parents but like Jaehee he is very formal and almost stiff

He’s not rude or anything but it’s clear he’s keeping his distance

This is due to a variety of reasons

First, MC’s parents’s opinion of him is very important. He does not want to mess that up and he honestly wouldn’t know what to do if they had a negative opinion of him. So there’s that.

Plus, he still struggles with opening up to people.He is getting better at that and not keeping all his secrets to himself but MC’s family is not someone he wants to make a bad impression on.This goes on for a while of V being pleasant but keeping a distance

That is until the idea of MC’s parents going to one of his photo galleries

He agrees but is unsure internally

When MC’s parents see his photos they are absolutely blown away. Their positive reaction makes V open up just a bit more.It is clear to MC’s family that V has a lot of his own baggage.

At one point, when MC’s mother is able to have a moment alone with her she asks. “Do you worry about hurting people?”

V is taken aback by the question. He thinks about it for a moment and then nods. “Yes.”

“Jihyun, do you know what I think hurts people more than sharing burdens?”

V shook his head.

“Knowing that someone you love has a burden but they feel like they can’t share it with you.”

K.O.

He may not ever tell his secrets to MC’s family (and that’s okay with them) but he does let his own personality shine through and eventually creates a great relationship with MC and her family.

Vanderwood

At first is completely against meeting MC’s parents.

He is still use to the agency rules of not having a family

He barely wanted to bring MC into all of it, let alone her family

Too many risks

“Vanderwood, you aren’t in the agency anymore. You can have a new life.”

But after a long time he finally decides to go to their house for dinnerIs shook when he sees how many siblings MC has

How does MC keep track of them all???

But amazingly the house is so clean.

How the heck is Seven so dirty but there’s a dozen people in this house and it’s spotless???

Immediately the kiddos want to play with Vanderwood’s cape/jacket/thing

“Whoa that’s such a cool pattern!” “I want one!” “Can I try it on???”

“Um...okay?” He puts it on one and it’s so big.

When MC’s parents come out they burst out laughing see the young child wander around in the oversize article of clothing

After an evening at MC’s place he realizes how much he missed these types of connections.

He really enjoys himself.

On the way back, Vanderwood quietly takes MC’s hand. “Maybe...maybe I could get Seven to find my family.”

MC squeezes his hand back. “I think that’s a great idea.

If you’re feeling generous then go over to my ko-fi!

[scribblestatic]

After the initial visit, Izuku decides to visit the hospital as many times as he can.

Every time he enters, he’s greeted by the baby’s cries, and then by the baby’s silent gasps and squirms as he tries so hard to wiggle his little body towards his hand. So, knowing he has someone waiting for him, Izuku does his best to never miss a single day. He even goes on a day he leaves school with a black eye. The hospital police side-eye him that day, but it doesn’t matter so much. It’s just the usual.

No, what matters is that he can comfort the baby, if just for a little while.

...Speaking of which, he’s grown a little tired of constantly calling the baby ‘the baby’. How old is he? Shouldn’t he have a name by now?

Izuku asks something close to that after the day’s session, the baby having been lulled to sleep by his hand. He’s stuffing the protective clothing they gave him into the trash as he asks, eyes not quite able to meet the stern ones of the nurse staring at him.

“I...I was just thinking...I mean...a-all babies need names, right? So...uhm...I was just...thinking...wondering about that.”

The woman watches him with narrowed eyes. Then she huffs, hands on her hips.

“That baby has a mom, you know.”

Izuku startles. “O-Oh, well...I mean, yeah. Of course. Cause he’s a baby and all.”

“Right. He has a mum. Somewhere. And don’t you think it’d be best if the mum named her baby?”

The boy feels his stomach dip lower in his body, a cool shame starting to replace his internal organs. “Of...course. Yeah.”

“Then there’s no point in naming the thing—” Izuku’s fists clench at his sides. “—when its mother will do that once we find her. I get that you care for...I get you care, but don’t go adopting the kid before you’re even out of middle school, alright? Just leave this to us. And we’ll let you keep coming so a certain little one doesn’t keep crying, alright?”

Izuku bows his head and nods. “Yes ma’am. Thank you.”

He hears the woman sigh, then listens as her footsteps tap away in the long hall until he’s left in relative silence.

— —

“Sweetie, this weekend, we’re going to Kyoto. You’ll want to get your clothes packed, okay?,” Inko says at the dinner table.

Izuku’s chopsticks hesitate above his bowl of rice. “...Huh?”

Inko pauses. “...Kyoto, honey...you don’t remember?”

He blinks at his mom and tries to understand what she’s talking about, but not a single thing comes to mind. His face slowly scrunches with confusion as he flits through his memories like the pages of one of his quirk studies blooks.

His mother sighs, and he stops trying.

“Your grandfather’s funeral anniversary.”

Grandfather...ah.

“...Can I skip this year, Mom?”

His mother’s eyes widen with surprise, a rare frown forming on her face. “Izuku...you can’t be serious. He’s your grandfather, you know? We’ve gone every year since he passed and—”

“I...I mean...I-I understand that, Mom, but…” He starts twirling his chopsticks in his rice, stirring them in the grains. “I never met him, so...I mean...besides. I have some important things to do here, Mum. I can just go next time, can’t I?”

When his mom doesn’t respond, he carefully picks up a little ball of rice he’s collected at the end of his chopsticks and sticks the steaming grains into his mouth. It’s delicious as always.

“This is about the baby in the hospital, isn’t it?”

He doesn’t bother to hide this. He’s been perfectly open with his mother about the baby ever since the situation started. Even if he never tells his mom about how much Kacchan and his cronies and his classmates and his teachers bully him, he’ll tell her everything about the baby. She used to be a nurse once, after all. She knew much more about babies than he ever would. So he tells her the truth and nods as he gets another helping of rice from his bowl.

She sighs again, this time sounding more tired. “Honey...I know you’re worried about that baby, but… Well, he’s in a hospital, okay? The nurses there are taking care of him all day. He’ll be alright if you don’t see him for three days.”

Izuku swallows his rice down thickly. “Three?”

“Yes, we’re leaving once you’re home from school on Friday, so you won’t really have time to stop by the hospital—”

“But Mum, I...I really should see him. I need to see him, okay? He doesn’t stop crying unless I’m there.”

Izuku gazes into his mother’s eyes, then drops them to the grilled fish on the plate in front of him.

“The nurses are always talking about...complaining about how much he cries. He just keeps going on and on without stopping even once. Unless...unless I’m there. And all I have to do is touch him. Touch him and tell him everything is okay. That way he can fall asleep. He can stop crying then.” Izuku’s eyes narrow at the dead-eyed fish. “And every day I walk back in, he’s crying again. He’s just...always crying. But when I’m there, he’s okay. I can’t leave him to cry like that. The nurses don’t...they can’t do anything about it. They tried. Isn’t that why I was called in?”

Inko’s eyebrows raise and crinkle inwards, her lips pressed closed. “...Izuku…”

“They called me in to help and I just...I just don’t want to abandon him.”

The two go silent for a good moment, Izuku playing with his rice and Inko evaluating her son. Once his chopsticks slightly scrape the bottom of the rice bowl, he hears his mother sigh. His eyes leave the fish and watch as she picks up a piece of hers and eats it.

“...The train leaves at 5pm.”

Izuku’s lips tighten as a low distress begins to taint his blood.

“So, if you leave right after school, you should have...hm. An hour.”

His gaze shoots up, his back straightening, mouth opening a little. Across from him, Inko shrugs, a helpless smile on her face before she sterns up a bit. Though, honestly, sternness has never been her strong suit.

“I want you home by 4 o’ clock, okay? 4:15 at the latest. In that time, you can do whatever you want. Including visit the baby.”

Izuku smiles, the expression wobbly and bittersweet. “Thank you, Mum.”

Well...he’ll still be missing two days, but at least he can see the baby on Friday. It’s better than nothing, he figures.

He has two days until then...so...he should think of something good.

— —

“Hey there…”

Izuku’s gotten used to the bright lights above and the sterile scent in the hospital. It doesn’t particularly feel inviting, even if the towels keeping the baby straight in the incubator have little elephants and duckies on them. The child gasps around the tube in his mouth, taking a deep breath, like a yawn, before his breathing returns to normal. His little chest thumps with his misplaced heart, and his little head is pressed against Izuku’s hand in his sleep.

“Hey...uhm…” Izuku can feel a heat rising up behind his eyes. “I, uhm...I can’t come see you tomorrow. Or Sunday. Uhm...you see. My granddad died when I was little, and my mom wants to go see his grave. It’s to...respect our elders and our past. Because without them, we wouldn’t be here. So we go see his grave every year and put up incense...and give him some flowers...and talk about what we’re doing with our lives. Some of the rest of my mum’s family goes to see him, too. We take turns talking to him, so...yeah…” Izuku rubs his thumb against the little boy’s elongated head. “I...I never met my granddad. I mean, not really. He saw me when I was a very little baby, but I don’t remember him at this point. I was...I was just born at the time.”

He puts his arm on the incubator and slightly leans on it, not enough to support his weight, but for him to just gaze at the sleeping baby, his hand supporting his head.

“That was the first and last time we met. He didn’t like my dad, so he hadn’t wanted Mom to marry him. And then Mom had me. And I came out quirkless.”

Izuku goes silent for a moment...then shakes his head.

“But...well...I shouldn’t be telling you all of that. You don’t need to hear those depressing things...uhm...how about this? I saw these really pretty flowers today. I took a different route to get here, and I passed by a flower shop. It smelled like perfume, but it was actually all the flowers they had. There was this one really pretty kind...like, it was white, and it had these pretty yellow star-like shapes inside of them. If I remember what the sign said...I think they were...plum blossoms? Yeah...I’m pretty sure they were. They grow on these branches, right? And they smell very subtle...but it’s really pretty. I think you’d love them.”

The baby twitches and squirms a little before settling, almost as if in agreement. Izuku laughs a little and rubs his thumb against the baby boy’s head again.

“Yeah, you’d love plum blossoms…” His smile turns sad. “But...uhm...as I was saying, I won’t be able to be here tomorrow or Sunday. I can’t stay long today either… But...well, I guess… I guess I just want you to know that I’ll come back. I’ll do what I can to come back as soon as I can. Maybe...maybe if I don’t come home too late on Sunday, I can come see you then, too. It won’t matter if I’m tired… It really won’t, so...you’ll have to be a bit patient, okay? You always do your best to stay alive, and uhm...I’m going to feel a bit lonely so I can only imagine how lonely you’ll feel, but I’ll come back and tell you all about Kyoto, okay? I’ll even take some pictures so I can show you...ah, and your mom...wherever she is. But I’ll just show them to you, too. When you can see. Until then, you’ll just have to listen to me blabber on, won’t you?”

He laughs a little, mirthless, and breaths a deep sigh. 

A low rumble starts in his pants pocket, his phone beginning to vibrate with an alarm he preset. His phone is on silent, so all it does is vibrate a slow pattern in his pocket.

“Oh...ah, I’ve got to go now. It...it really feels so much shorter than I usually stay. But when Monday comes, I’ll spend as much time with you as I can, alright? I’ll stay till visiting hours are over. You just have to be patient and wait for me. I’ll be back.

...He shouldn’t.

He really shouldn’t.

The nurse talked to him before about this, and he still kind of thinks she’s right.

But also.

A part of him tells him that the little boy’s mother is never coming back.

That she’s gone to a place of no return.

Besides, any person who truly wanted their baby would never leave them where the boy was left.

No, the child had been...abandoned. Or at least hidden away.

Either way, he could feel in his heart she wouldn’t be back. No one would for the child.

So while he really, really shouldn’t, Izuku’s not necessarily known for following all the rules.

He smiles lightly and rubs his thumb against the boy’s head one more time, his voice lowering to a whisper.

“...I’ll see you when I’m back, Tadao.”

The phone vibrates faster now, the second alarm going off, and Izuku slowly pulls his hand from the incubator, leaving Tadao’s head supported on the towel beside his little body. Then, quietly, Izuku steps backwards and begins creeping out of the room. He barely makes a sound, tip toeing until he’s at the NICU doors. 

He stops.

Looks back at the sleeping baby.

Then silently opens the door and sneaks out the room.

[erintoknow]

Delicate, Petite & Other Things I’ll Never Be

fallen hero: rebirth fan fiction, chargestep no retribution spoilers

this is a two parter! you can read them in any order, but it’s meant to be read together.

[Felt Like I Had Died]

--------

[Delicate, Petite & Other Things I’ll Never Be][Music]

1

The first time you saw her face was nothing special.

You were hiding in a restaurant, milkshake in hand. You hadn’t technically paid for it, but no one needed to know that. Charge was standing triumphant, talking to the press while the LDPD loaded an unconscious boost into the back of an armored vehicle. You could feel the thrum of the crowd pressed against the window, the people filtering onto the street that it was safe again. No matter how hard you tried to sort through the crowd, you couldn’t pin down which thoughts were hers. Weird. Kind of scary. Too many people around, you decided as way of explanation.

Still… the way she stood, hands on hips. That easy smile as she winked at the reporter, the way her braid falls over her shoulder. What would it be like? To be like that? To be seen with respect, affection even? To have someone look at you like that?

2

The first time you saw her without the Ranger uniform, she was still in a uniform.

“You sure you don’t want to come?” She asks, shooting you an easy smile, as if the answer is an obvious ‘yes.’ She inspects herself in the mirror, making sure the black dress PR has forced her into sits correctly.

“Absolutely not.” You lie. You can’t go. Without your suit protecting you, you know don’t pass as a woman. It’s painfully obvious every morning. Nevermind the risk of your face getting back to the Directive. It’s been three years now and you’re still expecting them to appear at any moment and drag you back to hell. Especially after how badly things ended between you and Chelsea. 

“This whole banquet is as much for your benefit as it is the Rangers you know,” Ortega says, doubling down.

You snort, “None of those people even know I exist.”

“But they should,” Ortega says, stubborn woman. “You really ought to consider joining. At least let us pay you. What are you even doing to support yourself right now?”

“I don’t need money or fame to do the right thing,” You say, deflecting, because you know you deserve neither. You get the feeling Ortega isn’t going to let the issue drop. Charge is gonna be Charge, you guess.

3

The first time you realized there might be something more, it was too late.

After the close call fighting Psychopathor things had been… awkward between the two of you. Something had changed, but even months on you still couldn’t understand what. You’ve been going out of your way to avoid her.

“You should just ask her out.” Anathema looks at you, dead serious as the two of you wait for the LDPD to come collect the modded gang you’ve finished tying up.

The idea makes your heart jump in your throat. “I– I’ve told you Themmy, it’s not like you think.”

“Charge is good people, I don’t think she’s going to care about…” Anathema waggles her hand, “you know. And frankly, it’s getting painful for the rest of us to watch.”

You glare at her. “There is nothing going on between me and Orte–” You cough. “–Charge!” Shift your gaze down to your lap, trace patterns in your leg. “We’re just… friends.” It’s taken you long enough to even accept the idea that you can have friends.

Anathema purses her lips, unimpressed. “Uh-huh. Friends who braid each other’s hair, have midnight pizza parties, buy each other presents ‘just because,’ her mom considers you part of the family already, your faces light up the instant the other is in the room…” She says, counting things off her hand. “I’m doing the math Sidestep, and this equation is coming up Gay.”

You cover your face in your hands, feeling the heat in your ears. “Shut up! I– I’m not gay! I don’t even think about– about that kind of stuff at all.”

Anathema smirks. “Uh-huh. Sure you don’t.”

You want to say something else, when Ortega touches down. From the sky. From the arms of a young looking guy in sunglasses and a corporate skinsuit. “Sorry I missed the action guys!”

You and Anathema exchange looks. “Who’s your new friend?” Anathema asks.

“Oh? Hisashi? Uh–“ Ortega makes a show of looking at her watchless wrist. “–as of five minutes ago, my new boyfriend?”

You feel something in your chest sink. What did you expect? Ortega is Ortega.

4

The first time you see her again, it’s been after years of stewing on your biggest mistake.

You could never be part of their world, not really. Your skin will always betray you, there will always be people looking to drag you back and open you up again. The idea that you could ever have a normal life, that people would ever care about you, it was an absurd fantasy. A dream you had finally woken up from.

The only reason left to live was to make sure that they regretted it. Every last one of them. Make them wish they had just left you alone or killed you instead of being trapped in this half-dead state. You’ll make them pay, and then maybe you can finally let yourself die.

“Ariadne?” You whip your head up with a start. That’s not a name you’ve heard in ages. “Ariadne, is that you?” That voice… find the source, a woman in a crisp white suit looking completely out of place in this dingy chain restaurant, an unreadable expression on her face and a mind full of static.

“Or-ortega?” You whisper, eyes wide. Suddenly aware of how you’ve flipped the plate with your cake into your lap. You knew it was only a matter of time before you had to face her again. Your once friend. The woman that haunted your dreams, who abandoned you when you needed her most. Who moved on to the next friend, the next flame. Replaced you.

Now she’s looking at you as if you aren’t real. Or are more real then anything else in this cheap diner. Or both or neither or you’re making it all up in your head and you want to punch her or hug her or kiss her you don’t know what. You take a breath, keep control, sound casual, not like the floor has fallen out from under you. “Wow.” You say, “how– how long has it been, a– a decade?”

You see a flash of different emotions run across Ortega’s face, visible only in the eyes which still look exactly as you remember. Time may have aged her, but this is still Ortega, no doubt. She approaches your booth and sits across from you. “It’s been seven years,” she says.

5

The first time she kissed you, you’re wearing someone else’s body.

Even if she’s never made the move on you, you’ve been present often enough to know the signs, the way she shifts focus, leans in. You hold your ground, holding back against what you-as-Jane want, or what you-as-you want? You can’t tell. Sometimes you feel like a different person as Jane, and not in the sense of merely acting. Why the jealousy act over Ortega spending time with you-you, after all?

You stand rooted to the spot, waiting for the inevitable. You knew now that Ortega was also into women, as well as men. That had come up when researching what happened during your lost time. Like a knife in your heart. But still, you never in a million years believed that the woman that Ortega could be interested in would be you. Alright, not you, just someone that looks like you, only younger, prettier, more confident, less afraid, born a woman.

When Ortega closes the distance, hands on your back, pulling you. The first thing you think is that it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that when you finally, finally get the chance to kiss her it’s not even you that does it.

When, in a haze of regret, guilt, and adrenaline you kiss her again, as yourself, the second thing you think is that, your body feels the same. Reacts the same. That maybe there is no secret ‘one weird trick to being a Woman’ to divide you and Jane.

You’re just you. For better or worse. 

It’s a terrifying thought.

You think you might love her. Still? Again? You can’t tell.

That one’s even worse.

[Felt Like I Had Died]

[symphonic--chaos]

Empires of Brick and Blood Chapter 3 - Currere Rating: PG-13 This chapter is set to the song: Rev 22:20 - Puscifer

Also posted on AO3

Being hidden away was something that Bane had been used to his entire life. Since he was born, since the plague hit, the day his adoptive parents died to it, while he dealt drugs in the alley, and even when his real parents died. Always out of sight, always out of mind. He was taught it was always smart this way, it was the best way to keep attention off of yourself, to become part of the shadows where you were safe. Though, once he’d lost everyone, he decided there was no reason to hide anymore. Who was he going to live for anyway? “Who’s she?” He asked quietly, pointing a finger at the woman in the old photograph with his free hand. Bodies lay all over his bed, most asleep, but some were idly enjoying their high and staring at walls and the ceiling, or listening to the two at the head of the bed. “My great grandmother, Cat. She was a lot like me according to my mom, she said I look just like her.” “You do, sweetpea. You could both be twins,” Bane’s hand lifted from its spot on her shoulder to ruffle her bright blue hair, his lips meeting her forehead in a loving kiss. “That why you dyed your hair blue? To match her?” Her smile told him he was correct and he gave her a wink before looking down at the…one, two, three, four, five- five bodies on his bed. “Have we found homes, yet?”

“Mm, yeah, but they’re all worried Alec is gonna find them, looking for you.” Bane’s brows furrowed at that, his teeth catching his bottom lip and nibbling there in thought. It had been seven months of avoiding the eldest Lightwood sibling, he was tired of running, he was tired of having to plan his every move and hiding space. Alec certainly had become a pain in the ass, literally and… The hand around his throat held him up against the wall, their panting and moans echoing against the empty alley walls. The lack of blood flow was sending his mind into the sweetest natural high and his smile had gone from teasing amusement to sheer pleasure, only added to by the way Alec had angled his hips. Teeth were biting into his shoulder and he could feel every single wave of anger emanating off the taller man, the frustration and irritation with what they’d somehow come to doing when no one was watching. His teasing and flirting, his daring steps to even touch Alec in a way that someone trying to pet a potentially vicious dog and ready to move away had been accepted on a day that was just right. Alec had been in a mood, and it wasn’t the normal mood that would have ended in Bane’s death. As the hand moved down to join the other in gripping his hips, he could feel the bruises already forming and Alec was telling him how much he hated him, how he– “Bane?” He snapped out of his thoughts and cleared his throat, looking over to Alissa with an apologetic smile. Lost in his thoughts again, though he knew that she was aware he did it often. “Yeah, I’m here. Let’s wake them up and get some food into them, okay? Jacob dropped off some bags with clothes, have them take showers and get changed, we’ll wash their clothes up.” “You’re too good for us all, you know that?” Alissa said after looking up at him for a beat, her lips forming a soft smile. “Most people wouldn’t take in us ‘strays’ and get us back on our feet, but you took that risk.” “Sometimes we all need to take risks if it means making this shithole a better place. There’s just different approaches from everyone, and one single end-goal.” Another kiss was pressed to her forehead before Bane slid off the bed, his own words resonating in his mind. Even if it meant sacrifices and risks, there were people all over this city that wanted nothing but the best to see it all turn around, to bring a true change for good. Alissa was working hard on helping him round up the addicts that needed help the most, letting them crash in his place or finding them somewhere else to sleep, all while they worked on finding them jobs and homes. Jacob was taking in his own strays, all dogs though, and training them to be companion animals to those that needed it, mostly those mentally affected but not consumed by the plague. Izzy was stealing Zydrate from her own family’s labs to help Magnus, keeping him company and, most importantly, keeping him sane; showing him the meaning of a best friend while he worked his ‘magic’ on the drug to make it so it wasn’t addictive and not only gave the high, but healed people inside and out, as well. ~10 years ago~ “Bane? Why Bane?” “Why not Bane? You came up with a fake name of your own, I can go by whatever I want to.” The boys mother looked at him skeptically, his returned gaze challenging her to really pick something wrong with it when the name she went by was false as well. “It’s just so… negative…” “It’s mine now, so let’s go with it, Niida.” A sigh of defeat paired with a triumphant smile, which only faltered when her long arms wrapped around him and pulled him into a tight embrace. Bane knew she was just being motherly, wanting the best for her only child while they played keep away from the Largo’s and the Repo men that hunted the city for anyone on their ‘unpaid’ list. This was the case when it came to several members of their family- his mothers lungs, his fathers kidney, and, much to the corporations dismay, the device that kept his own heart beating. A replacement heart wasn’t something he’d wanted, it was fake to him, something that would take away who he was. If he had someone else’s heart, the one he had, which his mother told him was so big and full of love, would be obsolete. Bane would cease to be himself and he feared being someone cold and vicious like the men in masks that haunted their streets. “Your boobs are smothering me,” came the muffled complaint after succumbing to the hug to have her moment, his hands flailing behind her in slight panic. “Shhhh, just accept it, go to sleep.” Both laughed as he managed to yank himself away with a muttered 'You crazy bitch!’, her eyes glinting with the same playfulness that was always in his own. Her hands shot out to grab him again and, with a quick duck, Bane was skirting away and making a quick exit out of their home with a wave behind him`. “Go find your father for your training! He’ll be pissed if you don’t, and you remember the last time you pissed him off!” The call came from the window right as the jingle of her comm announced she was getting a call, no doubt from whoever her employer was. They were always bothering her day and night, something she passed off by saying 'The life of a nurse will always be busy.’ “Yeah, yeah, go find him so he can kick my ass again…” Bane muttered as he tugged his long dark brown hair up and into a low, messy ponytail, his hood soon pulled over his head as well. His father meant well in training him how to fight, but sometimes he just didn’t know when to stop pushing so hard and it wound up in both being frustrated at each other. It was never something that lasted longer than a day, Bane’s mother made sure of that, usually scolding one or both of them in the end. “Sometimes the toughest people just need to be reminded that not everyone is bad. Bad at doing something, being a certain way, or just a bad person in general. Trust is a really, really tough thing to come across lately. All you can do is ask that your father gives you a chance to prove that you’re trying.” ~2 months ago~ “Listen, before you kill me, hear me out, okay? I need to give you something.” The grunt was full of desperation, Alec’s hand tightening around Bane’s throat as he was pinned against the crumbling brick wall of an abandoned building. Through the triumph laced anger in Alec’s eyes, Bane could see a curiosity there, since he wasn’t flirting with him like normal. Bane’s hand tightened around the wrist holding his neck as he tried tugging it off, taking in a deep breath as it finally gave way and Alec released him. It stayed close, Bane noticed, though he couldn’t blame him considering all the times he’d run and the months spent chasing him. Bane’s hand went into his pocket, producing a small, dark blue vial of the Zydrate he’d been working on and he handed it to Alec with some hesitance. Alec’s face said it all when he saw the vial, the irritation and impatience over Bane probably trying to distract him with the drugs he peddled on the streets. When the eldest Lightwood’s lips parted to deny the vial, his hand coming up to push it away, Bane lifted his free hand and sighed. “It’s not me trying to give you drugs. You have one of my people in your prisons. He’s hurt and he’s an addict. This is … Zydrate that’s been modified by me. I’ve been working on changing its composition to heal. Injuries, addiction, all while they get their high and don’t know any better.” Alec’s face had gone from irritation to disbelief, but not the one Bane would have hoped for. “Bullshit. You want me to believe you of all people can change something like that? You’re a dealer, not a scientist.” “I’m serious,” Bane near growled as his eyes narrowed, “I’m not a scientist, I just… I can do things. I’m uh…” He felt nervous suddenly, but still he lifted his hand to brush his bangs aside, revealing the cat-like pupil beneath. Alec stepped back quickly, his hand going to the prod at his side, ready to defend himself even if realistically he knew that if Bane were rabid, he would have attacked months ago. How could he have not noticed it before? His mind raced as he thought of all the times he’d caught Bane, of any times his hair had shifted. There’d been an eyepatch quite a few times, and other times the eye had been closed when exposed or solely covered by his hair. The threat was still there to him, he knew that those with the plague had something wrong with him, and Alec was in no position or will to believe it was solely Bane’s eye. “I don’t know how I can do it, but I’m able to adjust and gather energy to change the air around me, change the compositions of different things and… I don’t know what it is. I didn’t ask for it, I almost lost my life unwillingly receiving it. I didn’t want it until I realized I could do this, and that I could help people. I made the best out of the worst.” Bane took a deep breath and stepped forward, offering up the vial again as he kept his other hand up in a sign of defeat. This time, Alec didn’t step back, though his hand stayed on the prod. “Give this to him. He had agreed to let me test it on him before you caught him. He’ll need more and I have more to give. Three vials, one week. That’s all I’m asking. If he shows no signs of changing, I will turn myself in and you can do whatever you want. I don’t go back on my promises, I always keep my word.” The simplest thing to do would have been to say 'No.’ Alec had every chance to take him, cuff him, throw him into a cell and dust his hands of Bane, but in the back of his mind, the words 'he is the key’ resonated. No matter how much he tried to shake the thought off, it repeated over and over, until it was all he could focus on, like someone was there in his mind with a megaphone, shouting it. “Fine! Fine.” Alec nearly shouted, startling Bane, who took a small step back with a raised brow. “Give me that.” The vial was taken and inspected as an irritated sigh, the taller man’s gaze rising to stare Bane down. Bane was standing straight, staring him in the eyes with confidence and Alec resolved to taking his word for it… for now. “One week, unless he dies. Then I will send every last person I have after you.” ~ A week passed and for once, Bane hadn’t run. He had seen Alec walking the street with his crew of 'cleaners’, and for the first time in those 5 months, he approached Alec. The two times before had been hesitant drop off’s in a rather rough pass by, one that left his shoulder aching even now. Alec caught sight of Bane and seemed surprised that he would approach like this, but once he’d sent the guards down different directions, he headed towards the alley Bane usually frequented. “Did it work?” Bane asked eagerly as he approached Alec, his arms crossed over his chest as if it would stop his heart from hammering inside of it. 'Please, please work.’ he thought to himself. Alec was silent for longer than Bane would have liked as he weighed out the options of continuing to get this altered drug on the downlow, behind his parents back, or to just arrest Bane and have them force the fix out of him. Did he take the route that he would have chosen, put aside a grudge that was forced into him by his father and risk everything to work with someone who actually gave as much of a shit about the city as he did, or would he be his father? “It worked. If you want to stay out of the cell, you’re going to need to either tell us what you did to it, or give us more.” Bane could have danced, yelled, celebrated in every way possible, but he contained it all sans the bright smile that crossed his face. Alec was caught off guard by it, his pacing paused as he stared at Bane, a strange feeling stirring in him. Maybe he was getting sick. “I can get you more. Izzy–” Bane stopped suddenly as he grimaced. Alec knew that Bane was who his sister was always spending time with, going to clubs and joyrides in the middle of the night, but Bane still felt bad ratting her out, even if accidentally. “Bella has been stealing you Zydrate. I know.” Alec took a deep breath and tilted his head, first this way then that, a solid crack coming with each one. “I’ll get you some as well. You tell no one what we’re doing, do you understand? If my father catches wind, he’ll kill both of us. He doesn’t give a shit about this city, he cares about the power and the money that comes with the job.” “Bella?” Bane asked, his face screwing up in confusion. “You call her Bella?” “I-” Alec looked frustrated then before shaking his head, “Not for her name, for the literal term. It’s been a thing since we were younger.” “Bella?” Bane asked again, laughing when Alec shoved him. “It’s kind of cute. Thanks for letting me in on your little secret. If you get me more, I can make more, and I know people that really, really need it. If you can help me help them, I can get them off the drugs, off the streets. That’s less for you to worry about, and more responsible people to pay you back. Deal?” “…Deal.” ~Now~ Bane could feel the heat moving through his body and to his hand, a faint glow of blue beginning to spread like a fire beginning to take hold of kindling, growing until it reached the light blue vial and turned it a darker blue. Smoke rose from the lid of the container as he placed it down in the small box it came from. The next vial was removed and his magic worked on it, then the next, and the next sixteen after that. By the time he’d finished he was damn near drained and he closed the lid of the box, flopping back onto the couch behind him with a lack of his normal grace. He, Izzy and Alec had been secretly working together on getting as many vials put together as they could without being caught, though there had been a few close calls. From this, they had learned that Bane’s idea of sneaking into the Lightwood residence was not a fantastic idea, that all interactions would have to be held in the alley’s or, only with Izzy, at his own home. Letting Alec know where he nested was the very last on the list of good ideas, as that meant he could take advantage of it if anything went south.  It would stay this way for as long as he could keep it like that, the apartment blissfully silent other than the sound of the fan rotating in front of him and the sound of the crickets outside. Bane’s mind wandered as he leaned back on the couch, his head resting against the back, his eyes falling shut. He was grateful for Izzy and Jacob, all the help and companionship they’d provided, also thinking then how he would have to introduce them and Alissa to complete their small friend circle. It went to his little alley 'children’, all the people there that looked up to him for their high. It went to Alec and the way his mothers words, his courage to act on them, had brought the man originally attempting to catch and imprison him to instead become an ally. It had forced the two of them, enemies, to work together for a good greater than their own rivalry. His courage, again, paired with his flirtatious nature had brought them to… The sound of his zipper lowering was brief in the silence, but the sound of his breath catching seemed louder than everything.

[yugyology]

A Crown of Fool’s Gold -1- | kim yugyeom (m)

Summary: You’re a commoner, he’s a prince. Two things that are never supposed to mingle. Modern Royalty/Soulmate AU

Pairing: Yugyeom x Reader

Genre: angst, smut, fluff(if you squint)

Length: 3.2k words

Special thanks to @kim-taetongue for beta-reading! <3

From a young age, you knew your way around a needle and thread. Whether it be embroidery or seaming and creating clothing, whether by hand or by machine, you knew how to do it. So much that, when your parents had died, you were kept in the Kim family’s household as a seamstress. It was a privilege that they trusted your hand over the multitude of mechanical replacements that were available currently. It was an ok deal, you got free food, housing, and a moderate pay in exchange for your talents.

The intercom on the other side of your room jingles, turning you away from your embroidery project. Picking up your phone, which was right next to you, you answer.

“Hello?”

“The Queen is requesting your presence.” Another maid says through the phone.

“Where?”

“The prince’s room.” Your heart drops through your chest at her words.

The Prince.

Yugyeom.

A voice in the back of your head tells to just ignore the orders and turn back to your project, but you would be out of your mind to disobey the Queen.

Your chair screeches as you push it back, arising from your desk. You can’t help but wring your hands nervously as you think about seeing Yugyeom again. His birthday had been a few weeks ago, and since then you were doing your best to avoid direct contact, ducking into closets and hallways when you saw him strolling around the mansion, sending other maids to help him with his tasks citing business with other affairs.

The sound of your shoes tapping against the floor echo the hallways as you make your way across the mansion to Yugyeom’s room. Your maids’ quarters are so far away from the royal rooms, but you’re thankful as the trek gives you time in your own head.

You had been friends with Yugyeom since childhood, back when he was just a boy who would rather play with his action figures than learn princely duties. When you had lost both your parents to a freak accident, you two had come even closer, practically attached at the hip. Even the awkwardness that was puberty could not push you two apart. It was around that time that you realized that what you felt for him was more than familial.

You’re the only girl he’s close to, you two were each other’s blank slates. You had first kissed each other at 12, lost your virginities at 16. How no one could see what was built and what was still building between you two was beyond you.

You care for him, deeply -hell, you love him- but you knew you two could never be together. He was the prince, and you were nothing but a lowly seamstress.

You’re standing in front of the entrance to his room before you know it. Taking a deep breath, you try to calm your galloping heart, before raising your hand and knocking thrice firmly on the door, the sound echoing the halls.

“You have to look handsome, the Park family is coming all the way from the east with their daughters to try and see if one is fit to be your wife!” You hear the Queen exclaim as the door is opened by a servant.

Your galloping heart seems to come to a stop.

Wife??

Yugyeom’s getting married?

You tell yourself that you should have seen it coming, but the news of his impending marriage still rattles you to your core. Had he seen other princesses in these past weeks when you had been keeping away from him? The thought of him giving his affection to anyone else, especially all these years, is enough to send your head spinning.

“You know Jinyoung doesn’t even like me, mom, the last thing he wants is to become my brother in law,” Yugyeom replies, glancing at you when he sees you walk to the room and bow politely.

“You requested me, your honor?” You ask, trying your best to keep your voice from trembling.

“Yes!” The Queen says. “Please, dear, take Yugyeom’s measurements for me. You know the poor boy just keeps on growing!” She giggles, and you smile back, doing your best to be polite even though you could feel Yugyeom’s gaze burning into your skull. “Now if you will excuse me, I must make sure everything is impeccable for the Park’s arrival soon, so I must leave. Come, DoHun_”

She struts out with the servant, leaving only you and Yugyeom in his room.

You do your best to remain professional, turning around and setting your clipboard and tape measure on his dresser. Turning back, you nearly leap out of your skin. Yugyeom had moved from his seat on his four-poster bed, now looming over you with his chest nearly pressed to yours.

“Y-Your highness!...” At the mention of his royal title, he scowls, turning around to sit back on his bed.

“Didn’t you promise to not call me that?” He scolds. The discontent on his face quickly fades when he sees the sorry look at your face.

“I…I’m sorry…” Is all you say, shutting down any other chance of conversation. “Shall we get started the measuring?”

A silence that walks the line between comfortable and awkward encompasses the both of you. You try your best to focus solely on your work, trying not to pay attention to the beauty marks on his face that are visible due to your proximity, or how beautiful is, or how oh no he smells so good­_

“You’ve been ignoring me.”

“So, you’re getting married?” You both speak at the same time, and you shut your mouth, waiting for him to speak.

“You’ve been ignoring me,” He repeats. “…Is it because of my mark?”

You freeze, thinking back to a few weeks ago.

           You’re jolted out of your peaceful sleep when Yugyeom clambers out his bed, falling to his knees to the floor, cringing in pain as he presses his hand to his waist.

           “My skin….it feels like it’s burning…” He grits out. You sink down onto the floor, forgoing your nudeness as well as his own to peel his hand from his skin. You’re not surprised as you see lines beginning to run across his skin, it was the early morning of his 21st birthday after all.

           His soulmate mark. You don’t know if you should be glad or disappointed. You do your best to feel indifferent, but you can’t help the flicks of anxiety and sadness that begin to stir in your soul.

Not everyone in the world had a soulmate, the population of those with soulmate marks and those without approximately equal. In all honesty, you didn’t know if you wanted to be his soulmate or not. If you are his soulmate, you ran the risk of being killed; the royal families were notorious for killing commoners that bore soulmate marks to heirs, as not to mess with political alliances. If you aren’t his soulmate, your life is spared, but at what cost? Perhaps at the cost of another life and the cost of whatever this was between you and Yugyeom being dismantled. Or maybe he would just never find his soulmate (which is sometimes the case) and would marry a princess like he’s supposed to.

 Either way, you lose the only person who matters to you and who cares about you. This is a lose-lose situation.

Of course, it’s because of your mark.

Yugyeom sighs, dropping the conversation as he shakes his head.

“I am preparing to marry, to answer your question. I’m getting to that age.” He doesn’t say anything else. A silence fills the room again, this time filled with nothing but awkwardness and unresolved tension.

You finish your work quickly, measuring and recording as fast as you can. Your hands tremble and your heart thrums in your chest as you do your best to collect your materials, ready to be out the door and away from the situation. Yugyeom does nothing but silently watch you measure, his gaze hard as stone.

“Well, that’s about it! I’ll go to the Queen with some ideas, and then I’ll have garments to you! Congratulations on your marriage!” You do your best to speak enthusiastically, but the happiness in your voice is stale and fake.

Turning on your heel, you head for the door quickly. Your hand brushes against the doorknob when Yugyeom calls out your name, and it hurts even more to hear the pleading in his voice.

But you can’t stay. Not like this.

Shutting his voice out, you fling the door open, not looking back as you let it close behind you.  As soon as the door clicks shut you book it, distancing yourself from him lest you act rashly.

The bright of your phone screen is the only light in your room, the text messages that had woken you up at 3 AM staring back at you.

[Yuggie] 3:04 AM

Please come to my room, we need to talk.

[Yuggie] 3:10 AM

Please…

You’re staring at Yugyeom’s door for the second time in 12 hours, your heart pumping like it was trying to escape from your chest. Flicking your head to either side, you confirm once again that the halls are empty, pulling out your phone to let him know you were here. You try to will your thumbs to move over the keyboard, but you’re frozen like marble, staring at screen typing nothing.

It was normal to anxious whenever you two had a late-night escapade, but your anxiousness never felt like this. Your heart was racing all the same, but instead of feeling light on your feet and sugar in your veins, all you could feel was your wax wings beginning to melt and being prepared to plummet.

The door creaks open, and all you can see on the other side is darkness before a hand latches onto your arm, pulling you in and shutting the door.

Before you can open your mouth to speak, lips are pressed to yours, and it doesn’t take even a second to decipher them as Yugyeom’s. He shifts, hands moving to cup your jaw as he kisses you harder. You reach up to grasp his wrists, getting drunk on his scent and letting the feel of him overwhelm you completely.

A whimper leaves your mouth when he pulls away, gazing at you, saying nothing as he catches his breath. Your mind is hazy, any attempts to sort your thoughts thrown out the window as he presses kisses down your jawline, suckling softly when he reaches your neck.

“I thought you wouldn’t come,” Yugyeom pants against your skin. “Was just about ready to come get you myself…come on,” Yugyeom says as he takes your hands in his, guiding you to his bed. The silk of the sheets is cold against the skin of your exposed thighs as you sit, letting him kiss you again.

He settles on top of you, his hands pressing into the pillows under your head as he presses his lips to yours. His teeth sink softly into your bottom lip, and when you gasp he takes the opportunity to lick into your mouth, massaging his tongue with yours.

You’re lightheaded by the time he pulls away, kissing your neck again. A gasp slips past your lips, his hands cupping your breasts over your tank top. Yugyeom moans himself when he feels your nipples perk through the fabric, and he pinches them softly, his eyes drinking in the sight of you writhing under him.

“So sensitive,” Yugyeom mutters more to himself, but you hear him through your shortness of breath. He sits up so he’s kneeling over you, crossing his arms over his abdomen before peeling his shirt off. You feel your heart beat a little faster at the sight of his bare torso, his pajama pants slung low on his hips. His dandelion mark almost stares at you sneeringly, reminding you of everything you want but can’t have.

You pinch your eyes shut, not only to keep from looking at his mark but also because his hands are grasping your waist, pushing your undershirt up your body. Lifting your arms, he peels it off you, throwing it behind him without a care for where it will land.

“Oh!” Yugyeom presses his fingers into your core through the material of our shorts, rubbing softly. You spread your legs wider, digging your head into his neck as you feel your wetness soak through your underwear.

“God, you’re so…” He grits out, dipping his hand under your waistband, your wetness immediately coating his fingers. You feel your face heat up –hotter than it currently was-, he hadn’t even done much and yet he had this effect on you.

You swore there was no one else who could make you feel this way.

Only him.

The two of you stay like that for a while, Yugyeom running his fingers through your folds, occasionally rubbing soft circles into your clit or tracing your entrance; you breathing in his scent wholly, tonguing at his neck.

“Yugyeom, please…” you whimper, feeling like you were about to burst from all his teasing. How was he still so composed? “You’re killing me here.” He bites his lips at your words, pushing your shorts down your legs. You almost whine when he moves away, his heat no longer radiating from his body to yours, but you do nothing but watch as he also strips himself of his pants, positioning himself over you once again.

You feel him rub himself against you, and you bite your lips at the tendrils of flame that begin to flick in your abdomen.

“Don’t worry,” He whispers, kissing you softly. “I won’t keep you waiting any longer.”

“Y’know,” Yugyeom breathes, slowing down his thrusts into a slow grind, hitching your leg over his waist to be closer to you. You force your eyes open a fraction, taking in the sight of him over you. His hair, messy, whether from sleep or from sex, you didn’t know. His lips are bitten red and his eyes are on you again, this time his gaze soft and full of emotion. You hum, letting him know you’re listening. “Sometimes I think you’re the only person who cares about me like actually cares about me.” He groans when you clench around him at his words. “What, does that turn you on? Naughty girl.” He teases, smirking as he watches you cover your face with your hands in embarrassment. Licking his lips, he takes a few deep breathes, trying to compose himself.  “My father, I barely even know him, and my mother, well, all she cares about is me getting married. Even with my mark…I almost think_” He stops himself short, pressing his lips together, almost as if the words would come whether or not he actually wanted to say them.

  “Almost think what?” You ask, breath hitching when Yugyeom’s hand that was behind your knee now cups your breast instead, and you find yourself lost in pleasure once again as he thumbs your nipple, sending bolts of electricity flickering throughout your body. He was obviously doing this to avoid finishing his sentence, but you can’t seem to care too much, especially when picks up the pace of his hips again. One of your hands reaches out for something, anything, to keep you grounded to Earth even as Yugyeom sends you up into the atmosphere. The skin of his waist is steaming hot against your hand, and you glance up to see that under your hand is pressing against the dandelion mark that is etched into his skin.

  The mark of his soulmate.

  You clench your eyes shut, not only because you don’t want to think about Yugyeom’s soulmate - whoever they are, the likelihood that it’s not you - but also because Yugyeom’s hand had left your chest, trailed down your abdomen, and begun to rub hard circles into your clit.

  “Mmph_ oh god!” Before you have the chance to open your mouth and moan again, he kisses you, silencing you effectively.

  “Shhh…” He whispers in your ear. “We don’t want to wake up everyone in the house, do we?” He presses his lips to the sensitive spot behind your ear. “The last thing we need is to be caught.” He laughs breathlessly “We’ve almost have been a few times, remember?” Even with the jumbled state of your mind, you don’t need to think hard to remember the late nights pressed together in passion against the walls of the less trodden passageways of the mansion.

  The combination of his fingers on your clit and the memories brought on by his words are enough to throw you over the edge, feeling lightning start from your core and traverse your body. You bite your lip, not letting go even when you taste blood, doing your best to be quiet.

  “Yes! Oh fuck, I…I_” Yugyeom hisses out, tensing up as he feels you come around him. You do nothing but watch through half-lidded eyes as he pulls out, not even a second to spare as he loses himself, his cum hot against your inner thigh.

  The silk of his shirt is smooth and cold against your skin as he wipes you off. You do your best not to look at him because you knew if you looked at him you would say something rash and both of your futures would be at stake.

  Yugyeom flops down onto his bed, obviously exhausted. Wrapping his arms around your waist, he doesn’t hesitate to cuddle, pressing his firm chest to your back and nuzzling his face into your neck.

  “Mmm…thank you.” He whispers, sounding fully depleted of energy. “Thank you for making me feel better. I love you.”

  Your eyes that were beginning to close snap open, unease beginning to flood through your vines. Had he really just said that? Judging by his stillness and his breathing, he had fallen asleep directly after saying that, leaving you alone with your thoughts.

  The burning sensation on your chest is painful enough to make jolt out of your rough sleep. It’s like there are hot pokers being pressed into your skin, and it only gets worse when you fully awake. What was happening to you? Glancing over at Yugyeom, you see that he had luckily rolled over in his sleep, his back now facing you, not perturbed by your sudden movements. You get out of his bed as quietly as you can, scrambling for your clothes and for your phone. Turning it on, you wince as the brightness of the screen burns your eyes. It was 4:45 AM, not long after your rendezvous with Yugyeom. Although the skin of your chest is still burning, you feel a chill run down your spine as you notice the date.

  Your 21st birthday has come. How had it crept up on you with you noticing?

  The burning sensation is your soulmate mark forming.

  Turning on the lights in Yugyeom’s bathroom and shutting the door, all you do is watch as the stark lines crawl along your skin, just under your breasts in the center in your chest.

  A five-point star is formed first, then a pentagon as the points of the star connect with each other more lines connecting the points of the star with each other. Then, another star, a mandala pattern forming slowly but surely. All you can do is watch on in horror.

  The mark is the same as Yugyeom’s.

  You are Yugyeom’s soulmate.

[picturetoburnnn]

New Momma? | Michael Clifford x Reader

Pairing - m.c. x reader

Word Count: 2.3k

Warning - mentions of death

A/N - Tbh I love this so much, itts probably my favorite so far that ive written and i just love dadsos so much okay

“Daddy, daddy! I want this one!” The five year old jumped up and down, pointing to the sparkliest doll on the shelf.

“Really, princess? Don’t you have one just like it?” He held the box in his hands, deciding yes, she has one nearly identical to this at home, I just know it.

“She wants a twin,” the little girl squealed, raising her hands in an exaggerated shrug.

“Bells, if this is the one you get, I’m not going to come back and return it when you don’t wanna play with it anymore,” he warned, knowing full well he’d give in to her wishes, if that's what she really wanted.

“Yes, yes, yes, this is the one I want! Thank you daddy!” She hugged Michael’s legs, squishing her cheek against the denim before jumping up and down again.

“You’re welcome baby,” he set the box in the cart, making sure he had everything on his list before heading to the iconic red Target checkout lane. As he placed his items on the conveyor, he heard his daughter speak up.

“Do you think Miss Y/N will play with me when we get home?”

He quirked a smile at her, mussing her hair playfully. “Silly Bella, of course she will. She loves playing with you.”

The girl beamed up at her father, her grin a mirror image of his.

In the parking lot, Bella strayed a few steps away from the cart, causing a small panic to rise in Michael. “Bells, what’s the rule?” He reminded as gently as he could.

“Hand on the cart,” she said almost dejectedly, reaching her hand over to grasp the buggy.

“Thank you, honey. Wanna pop the trunk?”

She perked up immediately. “Yes, please!” Making grabby hands at the key fob in Michael’s she squeaked in delight when it was handed to her. She pressed the button as they got closer, and smiled at the satisfying “thump” of the latch releasing.

After quickly storing the bags in the trunk, replacing the cart, and safely bucking his daughter in the backseat, they finally started back home. The music playing through the car radio was the only sound, which was very unusual. Normally, Bella would be recounting every fairytale and daydream she’s had throughout the day when she’s in the car.

Picking up on the change, Michael asked “What’s on your mind, sweetheart?”

“Daddy, why don't I have a mommy?”

The question stunned him into silence. What could he say? How was he supposed to tell his baby girl, the light of his life, that her mother was gone? That she couldn't come back?

“Your momma got sick baby. The kind of sick that medicine can’t help. But she loved you baby, she loved you so much.”

God, there were tears filling his eyes now. “She… your mother was the sweetest woman I ever knew. She was so loving, and kind.”

“Is she in heaven? I heard Lily down the street saying her nana went to heaven.”

“If there’s a heaven baby, there is not a doubt in my mind, she is there.”

He saw her nod in the rear view mirror.

“Hey,” he called softly. “Don’t let this ruin your mood for the whole day, okay? We can still have a good time, right?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed.

The ride was silent, but a comfortable silence, all the way to the driveway.

“Wanna help daddy carry bags in?”

“Yes,” she nodded, smiling.

From lifting bags from the trunk to setting them down on the kitchen counter, Bella had a slight cloud above her head. Michael nudged her arm slightly.

“Y/N's not here yet,” Bella noted with a frown.

“She will be this evening, though,” Michael told her. Her demeanor shifted immediately.

“Really?” Her eyes lit up. He nodded.

“Is she gonna be my new momma?”

Michael flat out dropped the box of crackers he was holding. “I'm sorry?”

“I wouldn't mind her being my mom. She's nice. Brings me candy.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Michael couldn't help the smile growing on his face. “I wouldn't mind it either, Bells. I kinda want that too.”

Bella faked a gasp. “Daddy has a crush?”

Michael rolled his eyes, playfully nudging the five year old. “Alright there missy, first of all, it's more than a crush, and you know it. If you're a child of mine, you just use proper insults. Secondly, don't pretend for a second that you don't love her too.”

“Well, duh. I never said that.”

The father rolled his eyes, quirking a brow. “You're sassy tonight, what's up with that? I might have to do something to fix that,” he chuckled, holding his fingers out towards her. She knew what this meant.

“No! No tickles!” She giggled as she ran away from her dad on her tiny legs, not near fast enough to outrun him. He swung her up in his arms, running his fingers up and down her sides, reveling in the squeaks and laughter emitting from his daughter.

“What,” came a new voice, “is going on here?”

“Daddy's the tickle monster,” screamed Bella in between bursts of laughter.

“Is that so?” Y/N's hands rested on her hips, lips pursed. “What have I said about tickle fights?”

Michael stopped immediately, feigning innocence.

“Never without me!” The woman shrieked out before starting to tickle the girl as well. Poor Bella now had both the adults in her life tickling her, pinning her down on the couch.

“Stop it, stop it!” she managed out, and slowly the pair withdrew, and turned to look at each other.

“Hello, love, how was your day?” Y/N smiled sweetly, caressing his cheek as she asked.

“Alright. Ran to the store after picking Bella up from Uncle Ash and Aunt Britt's. They said she was good, but might not eat dinner, he fed her so much.”

“No dinner?” Y/N asked, turning her head to the kid on the couch, who had finally caught her breath. “But I was gonna make your favorite!”

Bella gasped, eyes sparking. “Spaghetti and meatballs?”

Y/N nodded. “But if you're too full from Uncle Ash, I guess just Dad and I will eat it.” She shrugged.

“No, no, no, no! I'm so hungry right now, I could eat a whole bowl all by myself!”

Y/N laughed, meeting Michael's eyes once more. “Let me go get change out of my work clothes and I'll start on dinner, ‘kay?”

He nodded. “One condition, though. I didn't get a kiss when you walked in. I feel cheated so I ask for two now.”

She snickered but conceded, pressing her lips to his in a quick kiss. “I gotta change,” she claimed when he tried to steal a third. He fake pouted as she climbed the steps.

Bella gave him a knowing look, but he just told her “Go change into something you don't mind getting pasta sauce on.” She scurried upstairs as well, and he wasn't far behind.

Knocking lightly on their shared bedroom door, Michael entered slowly. His eyes were immediately drawn to Y/N, who was changing in the process of deciding which of Michael's shirts to steal for the evening.

“You didn't let me ask how your day was.”

“Sorry, babe. Go ahead.” She pulled a shirt over her head.

“How was your day?”

“Wasn't great. Eric apparently decided not to tell me the presentation wasn't ready for tomorrow, so I had to add that to my list for today. Garrett called in sick, so my banter buddy was gone. Britt texted me pictures of Bella and Ash together though, so that was sweet.”

Michael smirked. “She asked me the strangest thing today,” he began. “She-”

He was cut off by a yell from down the hall. “Ready for red sauce!”

Y/N giggled. “Tell me after we put her to bed.” He nodded in response.

One delicious dinner, shower, pajama change, and teeth brushing later, it was 7:30, also known as bedtime for a certain little girl in your household.

“Alright sweetie, I'll come tuck you in, just give me one second to finish this up.” A wave of inspiration had struck him, and he wanted to get just a couple lines out as best he could.

“No, it's okay. Can Y/N do it?”

“Sure pumpkin,” she responded before Michael could. “C'mon lets get you to bed.” Ushering the child up the stairs, you winked at Michael over your shoulder, to which he responded with a smirk before turning back to his notebook.

Y/N faced the small shelf of books in the girl's bedroom. “What story tonight, Bells?”

“No story,” she says, quite decisively.

“No?” The woman raised an eyebrow. “You always have a story though.”

“Yeah, but that's daddy's thing. I don't wanna do it without him. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, baby, anything,” she assured.

“Are you gonna be my mommy?”

Y/N's face turned red. “Uhm, that's something your dad and I haven't talked about.”

“I did! He says he wants it a lot,” she told her, beaming.

“He and I will talk about it, Bell-Boo. You just gotta worry about getting some good sleep in you, okay?” She booped her nose, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Goodnight, Lovey. Sweet dreams,” whispered Y/N as she flipped the overhead switch, leaving only the nightlight on.

“Goodnight Y/N,” came the girl’s call back.

Y/N stood at the foot of the stairs, leaning against the wall. Bella's question rang out in her mind like a cry in the darkness.

Michael noticed the shift in her mood “What's wrong, love?”

Y/N hesitated. “You can tell me anything, baby, you know that,” he assured her.

“Bella asked if I would be her mom.”

Silence fell over the couple.

“What did you say?” Michael's voice was so quiet and cracked in the quiet of the evening.

“I told her we'd talk about it. What was I supposed to say? We've never really discussed that and, I don't know, she told me you wanted it too and--”

“She said that?” A smile snuck its way on Michael's face.

A red tint covered Y/N's features. “Yeah, she might've mentioned it.”

A deep, steadying breath, then, “Y/N, you know I love you. I know you love me too. Would it… would it be such an outrageous thought?”

“Michael--”

“I’d just need to get a ring, but ever since I met you, I’ve been happy. I wasn’t happy after… she died but you brought it back, and I knew when I saw you that she wanted me to move on and I did and fell in love again, with you, and you fell too, and you’ve basically helped me raise Bella for the past three years--”

“Michael.”

“--and she loves you too, and you love her like she’s your baby too, I can see it when you look at her, She could call you mom and I’d love it, and nothing would make me happier than if you let me call you mine for the rest of our lives. I love you like I only loved once before, and I want to marry you just as much. Please, honey, tell me I’m not crazy, tell me we can.”

“Michael, okay.”

“Of course you don-- wait what?”

“You want to get married?” He nodded. “Let’s do it. I love it, I love you, I love Bells, and I wouldn’t mind one but to be yours and for you to be mine for the rest of our lives. I know I can’t replace Crystal, I’m not trying to, I’d never dream of it, but I would love to have a chance to make half as much of an impact as she did. I’ll care for and love you both to the best of my ability. Baby, if you’re crazy for wanting to get married, then I must be positively insane because I want it too.”

“I love you, I love you so much.” He wrapped her in his embrace, right there at the foot of the steps.

“I love you too, baby. I love you,” she whispered in his ear.

“I promise I’ll get a ring,” he told her.

“I don’t need a ring.” He pulled away, opening his mouth in opposition. “I don’t. I just need you. You and Bells in my life. No fancy ring and official papers, just the two of you.”

He leaned his forehead against hers, the two of them breathing the same air, touching in such an innocent yet intimate way. “I’m still gonna get a ring for you,” he informed stubbornly.

She giggled, and the sound was like music to his ears. “If you insist,” she conceded. “Just promise me that you’ll let me love you and Bella for as long as possible, and I’ll let you get me a ring.”

“I promise baby, and I swear we’ll love you too.”

The couple sat in silence for a bit, bodies scrunched up to sit on the steps, hearts swollen in love and gratitude. Until Michael said, “So which of us is gonna go tell Bell she was right?”

The young woman groaned playfully. “She’s gonna hold this for years. ‘I knew you’d be my mom, I called it!’ I can hear her voice in my head, right now.”

“The joys of raising a child, I’m afraid.”

“I wouldn’t change a thing,” she mumbled.

“No? Then you can tell her in the morning, and I’ll deal with the relentless ‘I told you so’s.”

“Deal,” Y/N whispered, a soft smile gracing her features as she turned her face to Michael.

Michael’s expression mirrored her own as he sealed it with a quick press of his lips to hers.

“I love my little family,” he mumbled against her. And it was true. He would fight tooth and nail, to protect his girls, and he wouldn’t change it for anything.

[theoddcatlady]

Blood Donation

Three months ago I was in a car accident.

It wasn’t great, I’ll tell you that. Legs got crushed, cracked some ribs, and it was touch and go for a while. But thanks to the advantages of modern medicine and several blood transfusions, I got wheeled out with the promise that if I got lucky I’d be able to get around with a cane.

It was a miracle when I started walking.

But miracles apparently don’t come for free.

I just wanted to continue living my life, if I’m honest. I’m an office worker, single, live in an apartment with a cat… which is far better than living with my mom, but it gets a bit drafty in the winter.

I started having dreams first.

I was alone in the hospital I was treated at. No nurses. No doctors. Just me in the impersonal white hallways. The pictures were replaced by black spaces. The lights would occasionally flicker but they didn’t go out. It was eerie. I preferred being alone though before he showed up.

When he first showed up, he was a bit like the paintings. His eyes and mouth were replaced with black empty holes, even though I could feel him staring at me. I felt like I knew him, or that he knew me. I’d run away, of course, I mean there’s a monster nearby in a dream, you run. He’d follow behind. I could hear him attempt to say something but it came out as a hollow rasp.

I woke up feeling like I’d run a million miles and I still hadn’t gotten away from him.

It wasn’t just dreaming I was running though. I started sleepwalking.

I had a problem with it as a kid, so many times mom would wake up to find me in the kitchen or standing at the foot of my bed, not really awake with my eyes staring blankly in front of me. This was a little more extreme though. I started waking up in seedy motels across the city. In the backroom of bars I’d never been to before. A couple times I even woke up in back alleys with a pounding headache.

The weird part is I clearly didn’t act like I was asleep.

I’d talk to the people around, the women that were on the other side of the bed, the bartenders, hell, I even made bros with the hobo that was in the alley near by. I’d play off I’d drunk a little too much and needed my memory refreshed. I was apparently quite a charmer, I’d gotten drinks for free, slept with women that were way out of my league (to put it mildly), all the stunts I’d never have the balls to pull sober… or awake.

I went to the doctor of course. This was a little concerning, to say the least. It was a headscratcher but not unheard of, especially if I had a sleepwalking problem as a kid. Stress, they told me. Stress about the accident, about the fact I nearly died. I got on some medication and told that in a few months I should be back to normal.

I feel like the sleeping meds made it worse. I would wake up back in my own bed, thank god. But I’d wake up fully dressed, and I’d have pictures in my phone that were taken the night previous.

I was a whole new man at night. Party crasher. Womanizer.

But in my mind I was trapped in the hospital with… him. Always running. I’d hide under cots and pray he couldn’t see me, but like a hound tracking my scent he’d always walk into the room I was in and I’d have to scramble away to keep his bony hands from reaching out and grabbing me.

About a month in I began to change.

I thought I had a fever when I woke up burning hot at around midnight. I stumbled to the bathroom and grabbed the thermometer out of the cabinet. When I closed it, I saw the man from my nightmares in the mirror, right behind me.

I screamed and spun around, nearly whacking my hip on the sink. Of course there was no one there. But when I turned back to the mirror, there he was.

He wasn’t reaching for me. He was just standing there, like a twisted guardian angel.

The thermometer beeped and I took it from my mouth.

My body temperature was 90 degrees. I was cold.

I didn’t go the doctor, god knows why, maybe I didn’t want to get checked into a psych ward when I brought up I was hallucinating an eyeless man watching my every move. I just crawled back into bed and prayed that this was going to end soon.

I woke up feeling like I had gone three weeks without food.

I cleaned out my kitchen, peanut butter sandwiches, several servings of pasta. It wasn’t enough. It was just as useful as throwing it out the window, it didn’t make a difference. Well, it did, kinda. I ended up violently throwing it all back up at work in my cubicle later. Talk about embarrassing. I was sent home and told that next time I was sick to call in.

Nothing was satisfying. I was hungry, I was burning hot, and above all, I was starting to believe I really was going crazy.

That’s probably why I confronted the eyeless man in my dream a few nights ago.

I stopped running. I turned around. And I screamed at him to leave me the hell alone. Stop showing up in my reflections. Stop following me in my dreams. Just leave me alone.

He stepped forward. I screamed at him again. He took another step, and another, until he was centimeters from my face. He leaned in next to my ear and he whispered a sentence into my ear.

“You’re finally ready, my boy.”

I woke up the next morning soaked in blood.

My entire apartment was fucked up. TV was knocked over. A glass was smashed in my kitchen. Furniture was lying on its side. Also there was a dead girl in my closet.

I didn’t know who she was. I probably had met her last night sleepwalking. The name Aurora sounded right. Her throat was entirely shredded, like a dog had attacked her.

But I was finally full.

Tonight I’m at the bar. The house has been cleaned the best it can, but now I’m looking for him.

He’s a lot different looking from my dreams. For one, he has eyes and a mouth. He looks a bit younger than me, has a great smile. Very charming. Women are all over him.

But he looks at me and I know he’ll be over to talk to me soon.

And I want to finally meet the man who made me.

[lavenderprose]

Here’s a bit of an untitled short story that might end up being a titled long story, who knows. It’s based on my need to make things as Gay and as Sad as Michigan as possible.

--

From Detroit, it’s a three-hundred mile drive the tip of the mitten. It’s a straight shot up I-75 and it could theoretically take less than five hours, but with stops and traffic it’s closer to six. Almost exactly halfway up, give or take ten miles, there is a tiny town next to Lake Huron that seems to be made up of an abandoned gas station, a McDonald’s, and a cheese and charcuterie shop all surrounded by an endless expanse of tall and yellow grass. The shop sells a type of cheese that is named after the town, and venison sausages, and T-shirts that say LOVE where the O has been replaced with the lower peninsula.

Topher buys a small clamshell package of cheese cubes and venison sticks and sits outside at a stone picnic table. In the summer—and Topher has been here in summer—the beating sun makes the heat off the pavement almost unbearable, and sitting at the tables an impossibility. But it’s April. A lonely tree that started breaking through the pavement of the parking lot when Topher was a teenager is now more than ten feet tall, and the buds are emerging after a long and harsh winter.

“It’s been a long time since I was this far up,” says Caleb. He has his glasses on the tip of his nose and his arms folded on the table, cool as you please. Next to him, Parker is tapping a McDonald’s cup with the last of a chocolate milkshake rhythmically on the table. Caleb, who’s prone to car sickness, has forgone food.

“I always forget how it smells,” says Parker. Topher’s eyes, caught somewhere in the middle distance, don’t catch where he’s looking—but he thinks it must be towards the lake. From this distance, it’s only really visible as a line of shimmer on the horizon, but Parker is a water baby. Sometimes, when Topher thinks of Parker as he was when they first met, he can only picture him as a pair of shoulders and a head floating above some given body of water. “Cleaner somehow. I guess.”

“You guys grew up here, huh?” says Caleb.

Parker gestures expansively with the hand that isn’t holding the milkshake. “Yes. Right here in this parking lot.”

Caleb recrosses his arms on the table and mutters something under his breath, maybe something like why do I put up with you. Topher takes a chilled and over-salted fry from the almost empty box next to Parker’s elbow and says, “Not here. About fifty miles west, like here.” He raises his right hand, flat and facing Caleb, then points to a spot below the join of his middle and index fingers.

“Middle of damn nowhere,” says Parker.

“Then, after my mom died,” says Topher, tracing his finger up along his middle finger to the very tip, “I moved here.”

“When your uncle took you in,” Caleb ventures, after a moment in which he’s obviously carefully choosing his words.

Topher feels his throat try to close and pushes back against it, but the pain stays there. He flattens his hand against the table and breathes until he has enough air to respond, but even then it’s only to say, “Yeah,” in a low, breaking voice that he can barley recognize himself in. The instant regret shows on Caleb’s face in a wobbling of lips and a shimmering of eyes, like he himself might start to cry.

“Topher,” Caleb says, in one of those low and gentle tones that Topher can hardly stand under normal circumstances, let alone right now. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” Topher whispers. “Please.” He rises and pulls the keys out of his pocket, steps into the glare of the sun over the crest of the roof. The car has been sitting in a patch of sunlight that has made the upholstery hot and the air stuffy. Topher turns the ignition and opens the sunroof, and watches Caleb and Parker make their way slowly towards Caleb’s truck.

The rest of the way up, Topher pushes the Malibu to 85 and arrives twenty minutes before Caleb and Parker. The house is set back about an acre back from the road, up a long gravel drive lined by trees and trespassing signs. The old Corvette sits in the driveway, and Topher pulls up behind it. The front of the house looks exactly as he remembered it from five or twenty years ago—mint green paint, low porch, rusty windchime. There is an old and fading wooden sign nailed next to the door with the address number and Williams in an attractive font. It’s been there for longer than Topher can remember, and he thinks it must have been painted by Peter’s mother or grandmother.

The screen door, which has always had a problem with latching, is swinging in the wind. Topher watches it sway for a moment as he gathers the willpower to rise from the deep seat of the Malibu. When he does, he approaches the house slowly, and stoops to retrieve the spare key after staring at the front door for several long moments.

The kitchen still smells the same. It’s there, underneath the odor of something in a pan on the stove going bad, and the fruity smell of a bottle of orange juice open on the counter. Topher turns his eyes away and the lump rises again, and he stumbles back to the dining room to lower himself onto a chair.

He puts his head in his hands, and the tears fall hot. The waves wash up from the lake and crash against the rocky beach, and it almost covers the sound of Topher’s sobs. The doors to the living room from the screened in back porch are swaying in the breeze, the plants are dying. Peter Williams was sixty-two years old when he died three days ago, and Topher had not seen him in five years.

Behind him, the screen door swings open. Topher startles violently and sends the cloth placemat on the table spinning to the floor. Through the kitchen, someone calls, “Hello?” and Topher furiously wipes the tears from his cheeks.

“Hi!” he calls back, and leans back around the kitchen archway. “Hi, yeah, hello.”

The man standing in the kitchen is taller than Topher by several inches, blonde and stocky. He’s got a thick trunk and limbs, muscle with a softening layer of fat. Attractive. His hat and shirt both say Lawson Orchards.

“Hi, I’m sorry,” he says, and takes off the hat in a small-town sensibility that Topher had almost forgotten existed. “I’m—I live down the road, and I’ve been watching the place for the last couple of days because I heard, y’know, that—well, I was—I know that, uh, Mister Williams had…has passed.”

Topher clears his throat and nods. “Yeah. Thanks. Um…thanks. I’m Christopher. I’m his—”

“His kid,” says the blond. “I—yeah, I know. I recognize you. I’m Sam. Sam Lawson. Do you remember me?”

It takes a moment, but the plump and red face of a boy several years younger than himself floats back into Topher’s memory. Sammy Lawson was a pitiful creature at age fourteen, the last time Topher thinks he laid eyes on the kid. The summer before Topher went off to State, Sammy was short for his age, overweight with pimples on every sunburned inch of his body and all of that thick straw-yellow hair cut into an uneven mop. Fourteen years later, he’s still got the generous belly of someone whose mother still makes a cherry pie every Saturday afternoon, but it suits him now.

Topher licks away the salt of a tear clinging to the curve of his top lip. “Yeah,” he mumbles, throat still thick. “I recognize you. I remember you.”

“I was a couple of years younger than you. When you moved here, I was ten—”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I think you babysat me, maybe once or twice.” Sam clears his throat and then, seemingly out of some compulsive need to end his thought, finishes with, “Our dads knew each other.”

“I never knew my dad,” says Topher, fully aware of how strange it is to say in the moment. His brows furrow even as it’s coming out of his mouth.

“Right. Sorry. Your uncle. Peter. Old Pete and my dad. My dad’s Leigh. You know.”

“I know.”

“Right.”

Sam Lawson swipes his misty forehead with his wrist and then sets his red baseball cap back on his sweat-damp hair. Obviously feeling the melancholically awkward weight of the air, he sets his broad hands on his hips and glances around the kitchen, at the spoiled pot on the stove and the open bottle of orange juice—anywhere that is not directly at Topher.

“I was the one,” says Sam, after a moment.

“Excuse me?”

Sam wiggles his hand oddly toward the open door. “I was doing some work for him out in the garden. Just moving some stuff around, getting it all neat for spring. He couldn’t do so much anymore, y’know, ‘cause of his knees and stuff.”

“Right,” Topher says.

“Anyway, I get here about six in the morning, since I gotta go work in the orchard at nine, and Pete knew I was coming and everything, so I start to work. And around seven-thirty, I hear him get up, and then around eight, I hear—well, I hear him yell, and then a big bang. And I come in and he’s on the floor. And—” Sam stops, either because of Topher’s face or the small and pitiful noise that airs through the room from the depths of Topher’s throat. Sam’s jaw visibly tightens. “Sorry. Me and my big mouth.”

One of Topher’s hands grips onto the edge of the wooden counter, and the other curls into a tight fist next to his hip. In twenty minutes, he’ll realize that his own nails have dug deep enough into his palm to create four bleeding half-moon marks. For a very long and thick moment, there is almost complete silence.

“Do you think it was painful?” Topher asks after this, and even he doesn’t know why.

Sam Lawson blinks at him like a deer in headlights.

“I think heart attacks usually are,” he says then, and the lump returns to Topher’s throat. Then, as a second and much more gentle thought, Sam adds, “But I also think that where he went—I think you don’t remember things like that, after.”

Topher snorts.

“I’m sorry,” he says, warbly and accidentally shrill, “But I just don’t—"

Caleb’s truck grinds gravel in the parking lot and saves Topher from himself. He parks behind Topher’s car at a distance that Topher will probably yell at him about later, but in the moment, he just crowds to the door with Sam and watches Caleb and Parker dismount from the F-150.

“You sure hauled ass to get here,” says Caleb, everything about him a little shadowy standing as he is on the other side of the screen door. “You must’ve been going something like twenty miles over the speed limit.” He says it with a kind of Here-There-Be-Dragons tone that says he hasn’t forgotten the exchange at the rest stop, over two hours ago now. Topher had, in fact, forgotten, but he doesn’t feel in a charitable mood, so he lets Caleb stew.

“Only ten,” says Topher, opening the screen door because it seems that neither Parker or Caleb is going to take the initiative, and it’s getting kind of strange to be pressed elbow-to-elbow with Sam Lawson. The kitchen wasn’t made to contain four grown men, considering that it’s really only a row of counters and the fridge set about eight feet opposite from the sink and the stove, but they manage with Topher and Sam standing on opposite corners and Caleb and Parker both leaning against the counters, unconcerned with sharing space for obvious reasons. “The speed limit goes up to 75 somewhere past Bay City. That new law.”

“Hmm,” noises Caleb. “Forgot about that.” His eyes settle on Sam, with obvious inquiry. “Hi.”

“Oop, hi,” says Sam, holding out his hand. There are calluses in all the places you’d expect, or so Topher supposes. “I’m Sam Lawson. Live down the street. Chris and I…” Sam obviously looks for a way to describe their non-relationship, and fails. “We knew each other. When he lived here.”

“Caleb Shaw-McGuire,” Caleb says, smirking because he knows how much Topher dislikes being called Chris. “Topher and I work together down in Detroit. This is Parker, my partner.”

Sam swiftly moves his hand from Caleb’s to Parker’s to shake. “Partners as in…?”

“The married kind,” says Parker, and Sam nods easily.

“Right, yeah. That’s what I—yeah.” Sam takes steps towards the door, looking like he isn’t quite sure how to arrange his face. “Well, I’m…I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am, Chris, and if you need anything, me and my family would be more than happy to help out. I’ll, uh—I’ll see you around. Nice to meet you two.” He nods to Caleb and Parker, and exits to the tune of screen door banging once-twice-thrice against the doorjamb before finally latching on the fourth try.

Caleb’s hands go to his pockets and his lips purse. They while away a moment, because it’s one of those moments where nothing you could say feels right. Parker is still pressed together with Caleb with no real need now, but it’s more about comfort than anything else, at this point. The smell of the pot on the stove is making Topher’s stomach churn.

“What now?” asks Caleb finally.

“It’s a lot of hurry up and wait,” says Topher. “I’m still waiting for his sister to call me back and tell me which goddamn funeral home he’s at. I told her to make the decisions until I could get up here and now she’s being withholding as all hell. She’s always been like this.” His teeth grind.

“Do you want to go lay down?” asks Parker, meaning well.

“No, Parker, I fucking don’t.”

“Alright,” says Caleb, before the situation can escalate. “Let’s clean up then. The fewer people who see the house like this, the better.” Without waiting for a response, he picks up the pan from the stove and crosses to the sink with it. Parker sniffs the orange juice. Topher exits to the dining room to close the porch doors and return the fallen placemat to its tabletop home.

[acommonrose]

inemmasmoonlight replied to your post “Deep down, I know buying random sort of overpriced things online from...”

How did you like the random podcast things?

Thank you, person related to me, for indulging me. Anyways, I’ve actually had a pretty good experience with all of them. The only one that wound up being underwhelming was HelloFresh, and that one wasn’t bad, just not quite what I was looking for.

I’ll put detailed thoughts about each of the things I tried under a cut, but the general impression I got of all of these things is that most of the things podcasts advertise (or at least all the ones I’ve tried) are things that are generally things people need to buy at a higher price point but with the advantage of some combination of quality and convenience. That means that if I had given up on this whole grad school thing and gone into industry, I would have been the target demographic of young, hip people with money and no time. As is, I’m slightly outside of that demographic and in the category of young, only slightly hip people with no money and no time but a little bit of disposable income because my stipend’s pretty generous, I live in a somewhat subsidized student apartment, and I don’t spend that much money on going out to eat/drinks/etc because my friends also tend to be people who don’t make much money and live in this hellishly expensive city. That also probably explains why things like Sitch Fix’s default being a monthly subscription or meal kits defaulting to sending you food every week seem like too much to me, since I see them as luxuries, and their target audience apparently doesn’t.

All that said, I’d definitely be interested in trying out more of these, since it’s an interesting phenomenon and kind of a fun way to treat myself. As I mentioned, I do kind of want to try out Stitch Fix (though, um, maybe after I get my fall stipend), since I’m fascinated to see if they can accommodate my requests of “please find a single pair of jeans that fit my very short legs because I sure haven’t any time recently” and “hi, I’m very gay but completely the wrong body type to wear anything that even remotely resembles menswear”. I’d also be willing to try more of these random things that podcasts advertise, so if there’s one that you’re terribly curious about, I might be willing to give it a try.

Anyways, that was already long so look under the cut for exciting discussions of bra sizing and my mediocre cooking skills.

So the first one of these I did was ThirdLove, and the fact that I used a podcast promo for it was almost incidental, since I had been looking through online bra sellers before I ever heard a podcast ad. Some time between the time my mom bought me a bunch of bras in high school and now when I’m a financially independent adult, I went up a cup size, making it even harder to find bras in my size in person outside of expensive department stores, so I wound up asking my mom for online recommendations. I actually started with a different website, which was a bit disappointing, since they were out of stock on things, and a lot of their recommendations given my bra sizing info used small/medium/large sizing instead of actual sizing, which seems bad for the large bust/average band size combo. I wound up getting a bra from that website, which I still have an wear, but it doesn’t fit amazingly. (I’m kind of awkwardly between band sizes, and what I really needed was one band size down and cup size up, but they didn’t really have any options for that.) I was pointed to ThirdLove shortly afterwards, and it was right around the winter holidays, so they actually had a sale on a few of their things (it seemed to be a strange combination holiday/clearance sale), and while I actually liked the bra I got (and it was available in both of my potential sizes, as were most of their bras), it turned out I needed the larger band size for their bra, and because I bought it on sale, they’d only let me return it, not exchange it.

Fast forward to spring, and Wonderful is sponsored by ThirdLove, so I try them again. I will admit I technically cheated the system a little by making a new account with a new email (though the same info otherwise), because apparently I wouldn’t get the “first purchase” podcast discount otherwise despite the fact that I hadn’t actually purchased anything from them before. This time, I got the larger band size, and it’s now probably the bra I like the most? It’s nowhere close to the perfect bra (as I have yet to find such a thing), and it slips a little, but it mostly fits and makes my boobs look good, so I call it a win. I’d probably get a second bra from them if they ever had a sale, but despite the fact that they emailed me all the time about new products or things they were promoting until I unsubscribed, I don’t think I got a single one about a sale. (I’ve noticed that a lot of these advertised services give discounts to first time users but don’t really do other sales/promos, which sort of makes sense for subscription models but seems weird for a site like this.) Bras are stupidly expensive, so given that, the price was mostly reasonable (and only maybe $10-15 more than the other site I tried), but it’s still a lot of money, you know?

Anyways, the next one was quip, which was also a thing I tried because my old electric toothbrush had died. I’d temporarily replaced it with a $5 battery-powered electric toothbrush from my local drugstore, but it’s nice to have something you don’t have to completely replace frequently, so I was looking for something with replaceable heads. One of my friends had recently mentioned using quip, and I’d also just listened to a string of Night Vale episodes that were advertising it, so I figured it was worth a shot, since the plastic brush is actually a bit cheaper than most of the standard models (and significantly cheaper than the higher end ones). That said, the brush heads are $5 each, which is more expensive than the dirt cheap ones for other models. (I just checked, and I can get an 8-pack of the ones for my old toothbrush for $12 on Amazon.) I’m not overly concerned about paying $5 every 3 months (especially since that also includes a replacement battery), but it is something to keep in mind. There’s two notable differences between it and my old model. First, it’s battery powered instead of having a charger (and the battery replacement is included with the new head). That’s probably a plus in that it’s more portable, so I can take it with me when I’m going out of town, but I may revisit that once I’ve actually had to replace the battery, depending on how annoying it is to replace. Second, it’s just a normal toothbrush head (albeit a vibrating one) instead of the normal rotating ones you get with electric toothbrushes. They claim it’s better for your teeth. I don’t buy it, but ultimately, it’s an electric toothbrush that works, so it’s good. It’s hard to have strong feelings about a toothbrush as long as it’s functional.

The other two I’ve tried are Blue Apron and HelloFresh, which I intentionally did as a head to head comparison, since they’re providing roughly the same service. Interestingly, the word roughly is important here, since I found that while the basic concept is the same, they’re slightly different products. Basically, the short version is that Blue Apron has more complex recipes and tries to include small amounts of unusual ingredients in many of their recipes, whereas HelloFresh is aiming for simpler, more widely appealing recipes. Neither of these things are bad on their own, and I could see how either service could be appealing depending on your tastes. I actually really liked most of the meals I got from both services, and I can imagine using HelloFresh’s recipes (including the pasta I got in the one box I did) and just getting the ingredients from the recipes (since both services make their recipes freely available), but what struck me was that I think I knew exactly where and how to find every single ingredient in my HelloFresh box in either my pantry or my local grocery store, whereas the same really wasn’t true of my Blue Apron box.

If anyone is still reading this (which I somehow doubt), I could discuss specific recipes and experiences in more detail. (I will say that in the two deliveries I’ve gotten, Blue Apron has sent me one flop but a few of the best dishes I’ve ever made in my life.) Ultimately, what I will say is that even though it’s definitely overpriced (even compared to NYC grocery store prices), I feel like it’s worth it to keep doing Blue Apron every few weeks. Oddly, I get a lot of the same utility from it that I get from owning a children’s cookbook in that they break down a lot of steps in terms of breaking down the little steps (chopping vegetables, setting water to boil ahead of time, etc.) that recipes aimed at more competent cooks sort of take for granted. (They also both assume incorrectly that I have a competent adult around to chop vegetables for me.) I don’t think it’s worth it if you don’t like cooking to begin with or are a picky eater (at least in the traditional sense of not liking certain flavor profiles or proteins -- I’m picky about which vegetables I eat and hate salads, because apparently I’m either a 10-year-old or Ron Swanson). Even I can’t imagine doing it every week, both because of price and the time it takes to cook the meals, especially since you still have to grocery shop for your lunches (unless you work one of those weird Silicon Valley jobs where they feed you most of your meals, I guess). But if you want to try cooking more of a variety of things and don’t know where to start (or, like me, can’t justify the stupidly expensive prices on seafood at the grocery store but can somehow justify the cost of a Blue Apron box), it’s worth a shot.