#like I don't even know who comes up with these ideas

[cherryyluvs]

Third Wheel Trouble

Mark was supposed to have a romantic skating date with you. But thanks to Debbie, he now has an unexpected plus one, his very nosy little brother (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)

Mark had been looking forward to this date for days, just him and you finally. A nice, normal perfect night out where he can give you all his attention instead of you know, saving the world.

Just the two of you, holding hands, maybe even sneaking a few kisses in if he was lucky.

So when he walked into the living room all freshly showered, decently dressed for once and ready to head out.

Of course, Debbie had other plans.

“You're taking Oliver,” Debbie said, completely ignoring the way Mark choked on his own spit. “What!?” Nearly dropping his skates. “Mom, no. No way it's a date!”

“And Oliver's a child who wants to get out the house” She said while ruffling Oliver’s hair. “You'll be responsible. Right Mark?”

Mark’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. Turning around expecting Oliver to protest but nope! The kid was already smiling, shoes on and ready to go.

“But–”

Before another word, Debbie gave him that Mom look.

Mark groaned, pressing his fingers into his eyes before throwing his hands in defeat. “Fine”

It only got worse from there.

When Mark pulled up, you were expecting a cute night out with him. Instead, the first thing you noticed when you slid into the passenger seat was.. “Oliver?”

You looked between the two of them, the way Oliver was happily kicking his feet in the backseat while Mark looked like he wanted to crash into oncoming traffic.

“Oh my god” You beamed. “Your mom made you bring him. Didn't she?”

Mark scowled. “Don't ask.”

But it was too late, you were already giggling.

This was going to be fun.

At first it was just a few minor interruptions, every time Mark tried to subtly hold your hand. Oliver skated right between you two. Mark tries to whisper something cute? Oliver slurps his milkshake obnoxiously loud.

Mark dares to make flirty eye contact? “Why are you staring at her like that?

Mark was losing it, and you? You were loving it. Barely holding it together, biting your lips to keep yourself from laughing as Mark sat there, completely dead inside.

And then?

“Oh!” Oliver's eyes widened. “You're the girl Mark won't shut up about?” Mark choked.

“Oliver!”

“What?” Oliver blinked innocently. “You talk about her all the time”

Your smirk grew, turning to face Mark, resting your chin on your palm. “All the time?”

Mark, red faced and flustered, grabbed a fry and shoved it into Oliver’s mouth.

“Eat.”

“He's adorable” You giggled watching him munch on the fries.

After an hour of skating, Oliver finally gets distracted by the snake bar. Seizing the opportunity, Mark grabbed your hand and pulled you to the edge of the rink, away from the chaos.

“Finally” He muttered, pressing quick kisses to your knuckles.

You smiled. “Desperate, are we?”

Mark exhaled, leaning his forehead against yours. “You have no idea” Your breath hitched , caught up in the warmth of his body and the cool air of the rink. The distant hum of music surrounded you, the twinkling lights above casting a soft shadow over Mark’s face.

He looked at you, like you were the only person in the world. He was just about to lean when–

Thud.

A tray of nachos and cheese hit the ground.

“Aw, come on!” You and Mark turned your heads at the same time. Oliver stood there, arms crossed, and a big frown on his face.

Pointing an accusatory finger at mark.

“I leave for 2 minutes and you guys are already being gross?”

Mark groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “Oliver”

“What?” he huffed, walking up and standing between you two. “Mom said to make sure you weren't doing anything weird”

You blushed, laughter bubbling up before you could stop it. Mark, however, looked like he wanted to pass out from the secondhand embarrassment. “Dude, you're, like, the worst chaperone ever.”

Mark looked at you helplessly, but you smiled. Grabbing his hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze,

“Guess you'll have to be sneakier next time” you teased, bumping his shoulder playfully.

Mark lets out a long, dramatic sigh. “Next time, I'm leaving him at home."

[awordsmith]

tongue-tied 𝜗𝜚 s.r

Spencer breaks up with you because he’s been arrested for murder. He refuses to see or talk about you and you–dumbfounded–force your way back into his life by becoming his lawyer.

who? spencer reid x known!reader when? s12 genre: novella content warning: a bit angsty in the beginning, open ending?, little mention of work stress/not feeling like enough/feeling too much... ..reid with warm care !! word count: 3.5k a/n: i had a really vivd dream about this scenario; i don't know if any of you know what tiktok shifting is, but it felt like that–where it was first person pov and i didn't know i was dreaming until i woke up...enjoy!!

The ceiling fan buzzed; you wiped your eyes and stood, heading for the switch when your phone rang on the table. Your heart leaped and you rushed back to the table, forgetting the annoyance that moments ago haunted you.

It was him–you grinned and clicked answer, “Spencer, hey are you b–

“—...”

“Hey,” frowning, you took a seat at your desk, pulling a leg up on the chair to lean on, “what’s going on? Are you alright?”

You heard his breath on the other side of the line. Shaky–it passe over you like a cloud. You felt tears spring into your own eyes. You were never equipped to handle things like this–Spencer knew that–he was the yapper and you were the listener–but he wasn’t yapping right now.

“Spencer, say something…” you bit your thumb, “where are you?” You stood, moving your hands around in search of your keys, “I’m coming to get you–

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to see each other anymore…”

Your keys fell from your hand and you dumbly slid back into your chair, glancing at the documents spread out in front of you–you had just finished a case that day–you were writing out your report and sorting the files in order. “What did you say?...”

There was no response, only heavy breathing. A tear broke free and you were quick to swipe it away.

“Where is this coming from?” Your voice, though quivering, full–you knew he could hear it–he could hear how pathetic you sounded, “did something happen in Mexico?”

You closed your eyes for a minute, before setting the phone down and putting him on speaker. This wasn’t happening–this was–what even happened?

“Spencer,” your voice grew louder, “dammit–Spencer answer me! I deserve a damn explanation!” You slammed your hands on your desk near your phone, knocking a few papers to the floor.

“...I know,” he dared to whisper–and then like that, the line went dead.

You slid to the floor, wailing.

No calls, no messages–you’d sent around 20 throughout the night as you fell in and out of sleep. You’d left 5 voicemails and still–nothing. You tried him again this morning when you woke up, once when you got out of the shower, once before you left the house, and once before you headed into the office.

At this point, you were starting to accept the fact that maybe it really was over–but that didn’t make any sense. He hadn’t blocked you–that was something? Maybe? Or maybe you were being delusional.

There had to be something bigger behind this–something you were missing–there was no way–not the Spencer that you knew–would do something like this–

“I love you, you know that?” He kissed your exposed shoulder, it was cold and you wondered if he had accidentally left a window open.

A giggle escaped you and pushed him off your back, “Spence–I need to–” Another laugh cut off your sentence as he kissed your neck, “Come on seriously,” you gave him a once over, “I need to work.”

He had an old, tall lamp that stood in the corner of his den–you remember helping him pick it out from the thrift store–Spencer was a thrifting-obsessed maniac. But you loved that about him. “Work can wait for tomorrow,” he whined.

You raised an incredulous brow, “Do I ever say that when Penelope calls?” His apartment had that same fresh parchment smell it always seemed to have.

“Fine,” Spencer sighed, “do you want takeout?”

You gripped the back of his desk chair, grinning, “I thought you’d never ask.”

There had to be some sort of misunderstanding–Spencer wouldn’t just up and do something like this to you, not after the year you’d been together. You were expecting to take the next step with him–not a breakup–

“This is great, I’ll email you some of the newer cases and you can take your pick.”

“Actually,” you grimaced, “I was wondering if I could take a few days off, one or two would be great.”

Your boss assessed you, his eyes roamed over your tired eyes and a messy ponytail. “Everything alright?”

Your lips pressed together and you forced the corners to turn upward, “yep, just…tired…”

He sighed and leaned backward, crossing his hands on his belly, “I see, well yes, of course–take as many days as you need.”

Your smile brightened slightly, “thank you, Sir, really.” 

He called your name when you were at the door, and you turned back, waiting, “just something to keep in mind…he’s not worth it. Don’t let it stress you out too much, you’re a great lawyer. Okay?”

You took a breath and closed your eyes. When they reopened, you fixed them on your boss, “Thank you, I know you’re just being kind. But with all due respect, Sir, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The Beauru wasn’t too far away from your office, perhaps a few blocks. You made it there in 15 minutes with traffic and were stepping through the doors in 20.

You tried Emily’s cell, but she didn’t pick up, and none of the other team members were responding either–you called Luke, but he didn’t pick up. You thanked the receptionist for your visitor pass, she’d grown accustomed to your presence.

You typically had lunch with Spencer when his team didn’t have a case, sometimes he’d surprise you at the office super early or incredibly late when he wasn’t supposed to get back until the next day. 

Which is why none of this made any freaking sense.

“Penelope Garcia,” you pushed open her door, but she wasn’t there. Recognition crossed your face when you saw her little fidgets and gadgets spread across her desk. Her computer was open, but locked. You frowned and stepped away from it. Should you just wait here?

Spencer normally accompanied you whenever you were at the Beaureu, you felt out of place without him. You huffed a sigh and sat in her chair, Spencer wouldn’t be able to resist spinning himself, the thought made you chuckle, but just as quickly, the memory of him dumping you via phone call crossed your mind.

Over a fucking phone call? You set your purse off to the side and swiped up on your phone again. There was something seriously wrong. You would get to the bottom of this if it meant forcing it out of everyone here.

“Ah, perfect timing,” you spun around, meeting Penelope face to…well waist.

“Uh…hi,” she said.

“You hesitated–” you jabbed a finger at her and stood.

“I–” she looked behind her as if you were on a reality TV show and cameras were hiding in plain sight, “huh?–wha–no, no no no.” She stepped forward, “whywhatar–e you doing here?”

You averted your eyes to the floor, “It's Spencer…”

“Oh,” she nodded, “he’s…not here at the moment…but I will–I can call you or text! You…if that’s what you…want.”

“Garcia,” you didn’t want to be mean. You didn’t want to be rude–but being around profilers all the time, she should’ve known how to hide her lies better.

“Okay–fine,” she waved her hands in her face, chest deflating, “but you can’t tell anyone I told you–least of all Reid–he’d…” she grimaced, “...hate me for life.”

“Garcia–”

“–Okay, right, yeah, you wanna–” she motioned with her hands and walked forward.

You followed her with your gaze, widening your eyes expectantly, “…well?”

“Oh boy– you’re gonna wanna sit down for this.”

“If there’s another woman Garcia, just tell me, I can take it–

Her eyes narrowed, “Oh no–God no–Ried would never–he’s crah–zy about you…trust me he never shuts up–anyway,” she shook her head and flailed her arms, “What I’m trying to say is that Reid would never cheat–he isn’t that kind of person. He–

“So then why!?”

“Reids in prison!” Her hands covered her mouth and her eyes grew, “oh my gosh I just said that–he’s gonna–he’ll never forgive me–

Your heart plummeted, “Spencer��s in…prison…?”

Penelope coughed up his file pretty easily. After getting her to spill the big beans on what happened in Mexico–or at least what Spencer had been able to remember, it wasn’t too hard to convince her that if Spencer hated her already, what would it matter that she do anything else?

You sped home, pulled into your complex, and ran toward your apartment. Upon locking the door, you set your things on your couch and took his files to your room. At a time like like this you really wished you had a pet, someone to comfort you–were it not for the surrounding circumstances, you could rely on Spencer. He was always there.

Which is why–despite his shitty breakup call–you had to be here for him, when he was at his lowest.

But first, you needed to cry.

A load of salty fries and two water bottles later, you were tying your hair back into a bun and grabbing a red marker. The copies Penelope had made for you proved to have nothing other than a few written statements from first responders–most of which did not favor Spencer–the crime scene photos, that were hard to look at, though nothing of which you hadn’t seen before.

And finally, his statement–his recollection pulled together in a jumble of phrases and half-sentences. Your heart lapsed again. You pushed everything in front of you and rubbed your face. It was getting late. Almost eight, you most likely weren’t on his visitation list–and if he’d kept all of this from you–he most definitely wouldn’t be expecting you.

Which is exactly why you had just one last favor to ask of Penelope.

You defended minor criminals whom you believed innocent on most, if not all accounts–the majority of the cases you took on favored your clients. You had slowly been working your way up to higher crimes–your last case had been a series of robberies, resulting in a shootout, though no one had died, the second it crossed your screen, you knew you had to take it.

This was your first murder case–though it wasn’t officially yours…yet. You needed more information, but first and foremost, you needed Spencer to agree.

Millburn Correctional Facility wasn’t the place you dreamt about when you wanted to escape reality–but Spencer was here, and he didn’t look happy to see you. The buzzer sounded and the doors were opened, the prisoners failed into the room in a straight line.

When he turned to face you, his expression became unreadable, you knew something was off then, because Spencer was always readable to you. His skin looked ghostly pale and his eyes looked a bit sunken–but that was still your Spencer behind the glass. 

“What are you doing here?”  Was the first thing he asked upon picking up the phone.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”

A breath passed between his lips where words should have been. 

“Spencer, why didn’t you want me to know? Why did you–this is why you broke up with me, right?” He remained silent, eyes scanning something on your shirt, “am I right?”

He shook his head, “you shouldn’t be here.”

“How could I not come?” Exasperated, you slammed a hand onto the table in front of you, lowering your voice when you met the gazes of the other visitors.

“Who told you, Garcia?” He scoffed, “Did she also get you on my visitation list–is that–is that how you’re here?–”

“–The better question is why you didn’t tell me yourself.”

Spencer shook his head, “I can’t believe she would do that–

“You asked them?” You grit your teeth and take a calming breath, “you asked them to not tell me? That’s why no one’s been picking up my calls or messages?”

“That’s–

“–It’s what, Spencer?”

He went silent again.

You leaned forward, pressing the phone to your ear, “What happened in Mexico?”

“I can’t–I’m not allowed to discuss that with you–

“No,” you sat back and crossed your leg, the pencil skirt you wore riding up your thigh, “but you can with your lawyer.”

“What? No.” He shook his head, “No. I’m telling you right now, I will never agree to that.” He looked so set in his decision. Your bottom lip quivered a bit, you clamped down to keep it from giving you away.

“I’m not taking no for an answer.”

The buzzer sounded again, “I already have a lawyer.” He shoved the phone back on its hinges and stood, you followed.

“I don’t care,” you shouted through the glass. Spencer’s eyes looked glazed over, you wanted to hug him–you wanted to breathe him in and tell him everything would be alright. But somewhere in you felt him drifting away, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t reach him.

“Don’t come back.” These were his final words before he was taken away.

The chair provided you with some stability–though tears pricked the corner of your eyes as you watched the back of him disappear. “Ma’am, it’s time.” An officer led you and the other visitors back through the doors, toward the front.

You wouldn’t give up. This was your case. You would make it yours.

“We can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s…nothing personal–” 

“–Except it,” Emily sighed, “I’m sorry,” she murmured your name, looking at the picture of sorrow, “I really am, but…” she pursed her lips and glanced away, “you’re not gonna let this go?”

“How could I?” You scoffed and stood, “This case is mine, Emily–whether you decide to help me is up to you.” You headed for the door, but Fiona, Spencer’s current lawyer called you back.

You glanced at her over your shoulder, waiting. She glanced away and blew out air, “I appreciate you thinking about me, and I’m glad to know you have this much confidence in me…”

“But…?” Emily slumped her shoulders and nodded, “All alright,” you spun around to face her, meeting her resolve with a heavy heart.

“If you can get Reid to agree, the case is yours.”

You let out a breath and dropped your firm stance, tears springing into the corners of your eyes. You looked up and blinked them away, “thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“I think I have a rather good idea.” Emily’s smile was faint but evident.

“And thank you, Fiona,” you tried for a smile, surprised to find it somewhat genuine.

“Don’t be. This case is going to be rough–”

“Oh, and paired with the fact that Reid will never agree to it.”

“Wow, thanks for the confidence, Emily.” You snorted out.

She held up her hands, “I’m sorry, good luck.”

Emily watched you slip behind her office door and down the steps of the Beaureu. “Do you think he really won’t accept?” Fiona mumbled.

Emily turned toward her old friend and pressed a thing to smile to her lips, shrugging, “I have no idea.”

Fiona sat back down and ran her hands through her hair, “Yeah, but, I can tell why she’s so persistent.”

“Okay, why?” Though Emily had an inkling of suspicion herself, she never wanted to assume anything.

“Because she loves him–with her whole heart.”

“People in love do stupid things,” Emily clicked her tongue.

“Sometimes I wish someone would love me enough to do stupid things for me.”

“It’s a both blessing and a curse.”

“I’ll raise to that.”

The two friends laughed as their morning coffee cups met.

The prison was icky–perhaps you should have worn sweats this time. You crossed our legs, trying to ignore the stares.

“I told you not to come back here.” Spencer hissed.

“You don’t own me, Spencer. You cannot tell me what to do–

“–No, but I can take you off my visitor list.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me–”

“–Spencer!” Gosh, what was wrong with him!?

Fragments of his voice seeped through the speaker on the old landline. A hairsbreadth of a word, a name–your name.

You watched the phone in horror. Why–Why? Wasn’t he letting you help him? Did he not think you were capable? “Spencer.” You said in response. “Spencer. Spencer. Spencer.”

“Dammit.” He cursed and a guard asked if you were alright, of course, you were alright. He would never hurt you. That wasn’t him. Prison wouldn’t change Spencer–there was no way–

“Tell me something.” You urged, “Tell me something outlandish–something no one would know about unless they were…you.”

He flinched. His pupils dilated and you could tell he was thinking of what to say next. “Why are you doing this?”

The tone in his voice unnerved you. It reached the cracks in your body that led to your soul. He sounded tired–so tired from the last you’d been to see him. You would not be pushed down. You wouldn’t give in–this wasn’t scrabble or chess–this was his life. How could he not see that?

“You know why.” You watched him–every tick, every muscle; every movement, you analyzed, and perhaps overanalyzed, but you didn’t know another person who wouldn’t in your situation.

“Yeah,” he whispered, “I know.”

Two weeks later you were taken off Spencer’s visitor list, which was madness because you had thought you’d had this conversation already.

“Penelope Garcia,” you spun around in her chair.

“AH–Gya, you’ve got to stop doing that. I half-expect you to be petting an evil cat in your lap.”

“Why did he take me off, what’s going on? Has there been a break in the case? Nothing had come across my desk since Tara’s cognitive with him.”

Penelope averted her eyes and fidgeted with the chunky rings on her fingers.

“Penelope I’m serious. Why does he keep doing this? What is going on? Something happened? Right? That’s why he doesn’t want me to see him? I drove down there yesterday and waited two hours just to be told I couldn’t see him.” You weren’t seething, but you were close to it.

“I–I don’t know, honestly.”

“But you know someone who does,” you stepped forward, “Penelope come on,” you fell against the wall, holding in all your emotional turmoil that has caused you to have freak accidents. “I’m losing him, Penelope.” You swallowed and slid to the floor of her office, “I’m losing myself.”

“Oh, oh sweetie,” she crouched down, pushing hair out of your eyes. Her fingers slid across your tear-stricken face, “...Emily. Emily knows.”

You took a moment and sat up, gulping down your breakdown, then breathing out, “Thank you.”

Up until the new documents crossed your desk, you neglected to see Spencer. You couldn’t–you didn’t want to. Not after you knew the reason behind why he’d taken you off the list.

It was too much–this entire situation was too much. Sometimes you had felt like you were bearing everything on your shoulders alone and no one was asking you to–no one cared because no one had wanted you on this case in the damned first place.

“Cat Adams, that name ring a bell?”

“The psycho hitwoman you guys captured months ago?”

Rossi and Emily exchanged glances, “yeah…” she motioned for you to sit down, “you’re going to want to sit for this.”

The lights in her office seemed to grow brighter with each sentence that flew from her mouth. Your soul stitching itself back together, that was how you felt when you left her office. You were on your way to Spencer once more, he was free. He didn’t do it.

Hi false testimony wasn’t Scratch playing games–he really was just too deluded. He wanted to remember so badly, his mind gave him false memories.

It disturbed you more than you would have liked to admit. Spencer was a prodigy–a genius in simple terms–and if even he couldn’t trust his own brain in times like these, could you ever trust yours?

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” Spencer paced back and forth in front of you; JJ stood in the corner watching.

“She’s right, Spence, we can find another way–”

“–No. No, I can do this.” He ran a hand over his face.

“Hey–hey–” you grabbed his shirt and cupped his jaw in one of your hands, “it’s okay. I’ll be right outside.”

Spencer breathed you in, were it not for the stress he would have melted in your hands. He dind’t know how to express to you how deeply he had come to love you. You were the sun on his rainy days, you were leaves when Fall took them from the trees. The ocean when he was stranded on a desert island. 

He wanted to walk into his house and find you curled up with a book in your hands, using his favorite blanket to keep the cold from reaching your warmth. He wanted to see you wearing the only t-shirt he owned, the one he’d been given when he had graduated from MIT; he wanted to curl up beside you on his couch like a cat and nuzzle his head in your lap.

There were so many things he wanted, but he wasn’t sure if he deserved any of them. “I–” he wanted to say I love you, but it didn’t seem like enough.

“I know,” you whispered. “I know.”

a/n: a little quick write, i hope you enjoyed cari!!

@darkmatilda @theylovemelody @kennedy-brooke

[himbosandhardwear]

Steve is rifling through Eddie's collection of magazines, while he's waiting on Eddie and Wayne to get done fixing the dryer(Wayne's fixing, Eddie's getting in the way it sounds like), when he realizes how insane the assortment is; Heavy Metal, Car and Driver, Rolling Stone, National Geographic, OMNI, MAD, even a copy of Good Housekeeping. It's all so Eddie though, to have so many varying interests. He's a little jealous, if he's being honest with himself.

"You have a lot of stuff," he comments when Eddie comes back, closing the copy of Rolling Stone.

"Oh, yeah, sorry, let me just..." He starts kicking a pile of clothes under the bed.

Steve huffs a laugh. "No, I meant you have a lot of interests." He waves the magazine. "Hobbies and stuff."

Eddie nods, continues to shove piles of stuff under the bed anyway. "I guess, yeah. I tend to jump from thing to thing though. Last night it was painting miniatures, tonight it could be writing a song. I don't really get a say in which one. Oh, nice, I've been looking for this," he says, holding up a random T-shirt.

He watches Eddie get distracted by the new discovery and leave the rest of the pile where it's at, smiling to himself as Eddie goes on a tangent about merch vendors at concerts being the real enemy of the people.

"How do you know what you like?" Steve inadvertently blurts out during a gap in Eddie's tale.

He turns toward Steve. "What do you mean?"

What does he mean? "I guess... It's just, I like cars and sports and girls. That's, like, kind of it. And since I started being friends with Henderson and Robin and you I've figured out that's, like, the most basic shit a guy could be into. Level One Dude Interests. So, I guess I just want to know how you find other things? And how will I know if I'm interested?"

"Hmm." He frowns softly. "I've never had to think about it before. I kinda just...fall into things. I like it or I don't."

"Okay, but what's it feel like?"

Eddie puts the shirt down, forgotten again in a moment, and sits. "What does it feel like when you think about cars and sports and girls?"

Steve really thinks about it. Nothing is as consuming as when he was younger, but he does remember a vague sense of excitement, a feeling of connection with the people he surrounded himself with, who shared his interests. But he hasn't felt that in a while. Maybe he wasn't as into those things as he thought, was only into the connection.

"You're having very deep thoughts over there," Eddie points out with a grin.

"Shut up." He grins back. "I think maybe I don't actually know what it feels like to like something because I like it, not just because everyone else likes it. You know what I mean?"

"Well, yes but no." He waves both hands to indicate his person and also the chaos of the room around them.

"See? This is why I'm asking you. If anyone can help me figure out what I like it's you."

Eddie slaps both hands together and rubs. "A project! Excellent idea!"

Wasn't his idea but sure.

"First we have to get you exposure to new things. Movies, TV, music, culture. Then we'll rate how you feel about each demographic. Your music taste is already improving so that's good. Movies, I'm thinking 12 Angry Men to start. Food? Authentic Mexican. We're gonna get you excited about shit!" He seems excited enough for the both of them, which is great. "Excitement is key! You want enthusiasm, yearning even. Your interests should consume your every waking thought. When I'm consuming a new hobby, I'm focused like a shark, I'm obsessed. I go to bed thinking about it and wake up thinking about it. Excited to get back to whatever it is. I wanna talk about it, share it with other people. Complete and total immersion. You wanna marry that interest. You know what I mean?"

Steve blinks at him, stunned into silence. Eddie's just described how Steve feels about him...

Oh.

Oh.

[amateurenjoyer]

I know the infertility stuff with Gemma has rubbed some folks the wrong way, and that's fair. These types of stories are not always handled with care and can feel as hollow as using a dead wife in order to give a man depth as a character. That said, I fear that criticism of the infertility story in Severance, or indeed criticism of the breadth of themes of fertility and parenthood in the series, has suffered as a result of gendering these ideas as being primarily explored through the women in the show. There was plenty of eye rolling when we met Gemma for real and her great trauma turned out to be the loss of her unborn child—"oh great, another woman defined by her inability to produce children!"—but this didn't come out of left field in a show that has put expectant parents, midwives, fraudulent lactation specialists, couples struggling to make ends meet for their kids, dads garage jamming with their daughters, and child laborers all on screen, not to mention the cult of Kier the Grandfather/Founder that props up the central mysteries of the show.

Parenthood, birth, and the power dynamics of progenitors and progeny all exist at the heart of Severance (right alongside love, agency, personhood, and capitalist critique), but I don't know that enough people look through this lens when thinking about the men in this show. Even when their stories explicitly touch on these themes, severed men like Petey and Irving and Mark—who, by the way, has every right to claim the same grief over the loss of their child as Gemma, though his experience is radically different as the parent who didn't carry the child—get kind of left out of the conversation.

They should not get left out of the conversation and the mpreg Kier statue in the birthing cabin was there to remind you of that.

Check under the cut for Mark Scout world's worst dad thoughts with lots more spoilers for the finale.

I don't know how many folks on Tumblr have Boomer parents, and I don't know how many of these ideas have filtered through to each generation of parents following, but I know that my Boomer mother and many (many) of my friend's parents had a whole litany of witticisms that they'd use to disempower and belittle the personhood of their kids, and they used these phrases with extreme regularity. "Because I said so," "My house, my rules," "If I were you (and thank God I'm not)," "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it," etc. Depending on tone and context, these could vary from pretty benign to legitimately threatening, but they all betrayed the same basic attitude: right now, you are not a person, and I make your decisions for you, until I say otherwise.

Boomers may have excelled at expressing this sentiment through phrasing that is worthy of shitty gas station hats and little else, but it feels as though it has been a dominant mode of parenting thought for a long time. The idea that it is the position of being a parent that confers power to someone, no matter how unearned that power truly is, is also extremely present in the outie-innie dynamic.

Mark S was straight up born from his outie's inability to actually grieve the death of his wife, his unwillingness to move forward through despair, and his complacency with his self-destructive coping mechanisms. Having lost his ability to work due to his alcoholism, Mark Scout created a whole new person who could do the work for him. He "hoped that [Mark S] would be spared the pain," but for much of the show thus far, he hasn't taken a single step to move away from that pain, be it in an effort to spare himself or his innie. This a couple in a dysfunctional marriage having a child to try and save it, only to absolutely fuck that kid up by refusing to acknowledge the reality of the situation or do anything to change it for the better. Only in this scenario the marriage is between Mark and the ghost of his wife.

Like the kid brought into such a marriage, Mark S doesn't need to know the details of his outie's life to carry his burdens. Their shared body is the exposure that ensures every hangover, every sleepless night, every pre-work weeping session, every fight with a rebound (sorry Alexa you deserve more than this title) or a family member worms its way into the innie's life. A life that is already deeply infantilized by Lumon's workplace culture more broadly, and doubly so because MDR is being babysat by step-dad Milchick while the literal Mother of the Severance Procedure goes rogue.

When he does learn the reason for his outie's severance, Mark S is compassionate, curious, and instantly willing to search for Miss Casey—not out of some deeply rooted love of Gemma that has somehow transcended the severance barrier, but out of recognition of his progenitor's personhood and pain and his desire to help a fellow innie with an unexpected connection to his own outie. How often do children make an effort to help and humanize their parents, even when they've been given very little reason to? Be it out of a sense of obligation or a misunderstanding that a parent naturally looks out for their child's best interests and so a child should do the same, many of us will go out of our way to try and understand our parents as people, at least once. Mark S does that readily, even when Helena-as-Helly pushes against the idea.

When we finally get a conversation between Mark Scout and Mark S, it begins on a disarmingly hopeful note. Mark Scout apologizes, willing to admit the world he brought Mark S into is not a sane or safe one. Things go off the rails quick when Mark Scout fails to recognize his innie has a separate person with his own motivations, and from there the conversation is steeped in patriarchal condescension and a fundamental sense of ownership. Mark Scout dismisses his innie's relationship with Helly R as an inferior, juvenile "experience," that naturally pales in comparison to the more.real, more adult life he had with Gemma, simply because the outies came first. He cannot fathom any resistance to the idea of saving Gemma, because he does not think Mark S is deserving of his own identity, desires, or agency. What claim can an innie have to such things when he doesn't even have his own body? "My house, my rules."

Mark Scout then drops the bomb that he's already started the process of reintegrating. Though he himself is not fully aware of how reintegration will actually impact their separate consciousnesses (or has seemingly forgotten what little he learned about it from Petey), Mark Scout positions it as a solution that benefits them both. Mark S challenges that assumption, and the outie is aghast that the innie fails to extend any trust his way. The trust was assumed to be there, because Mark Scout assumes authority over Mark S. "Because I said so." In the absence of more information about what reintegration really means, it sounds like Mark S will sit as a passenger in Mark Scout's life. Reintegration for the innie is not a solution, but a threat. "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it."

This whole conversation happens inside a cabin at a birthing retreat, where a statue of a pregnant man (presumably an Eagan and presumably Kier himself) watches with it's mate, wearing a sort of cartoon grimace. The camera lingers on this icon as a moment of scene setting, signalling that the audience should be seeing this as a conversation between parent and child, the elder lording their power over the younger, and the progeny rebelling against the progenitor by asserting their own humanity.

[liminalmemories21]

911 - Ficlet

"You know what I'm really tired of," he says when Tommy answers the door, pushing past him into the house he's only ever been to a handful of times, but whose address he still has saved in his GPS as Tommy (home).

"Please, come in.  Make yourself at home," Tommy says sourly.  "Evan, what are you doing here?"

He makes a beeline for Tommy's fridge, and god he always has such pretentious fucking taste in beer.  Good, but pretentious.  And he's such a prissy bitch when you call him out on it.  He'd loved that about him.  Loves that.

He grabs one at random, hunting for the bottle opener in the drawer next to the sink.  "Maddie thinks I need to learn how to be alone again."  Takes a swallow.  Tommy just stands there in the doorway, staring at him, not moving.  "She's wrong.  Couldn't manage to graduate from college, but I've got a fucking PhD in how to be alone."  Takes another swig, and then pauses to look at the label, but this is actually really good.  "What I need to learn is how to get someone to want to stay.

He looks at Tommy, who's still frozen in the doorway.

"She agrees with you, by the way.  Also thinks I'm in love with Eddie."  Takes another drink and then goes to root through Tommy's pantry for the doritos he knows are there somewhere, because Tommy won't admit it, but he loves them.

Makes a low triumphant noise when he finds them.  Takes a handful and holds the bag out ot Tommy, "You want some?"  Tommy shakes his head mutely.

He shrugs, "Your loss."  Crunches his way though a few.  "You're both wrong, you know.  Even if it would be really fucking convenient for the narrative."  Tommy starts to say something, and he cuts him off.  "Am I sad that my best friend is gone?  Yes.  Am I not dealing well living in his house?  Also yes.  Fucking sue me."  Crunches a few more chips and chases it with a swallow of beer.  "Eddie's house was one of the first places I found where I was always welcome.  He trusted me to take care of the most important thing in the world to him.  I think I get to be upset that he moved back to Texas.  I get why he went.  I don't even disagree with it.  I wish my parents had loved me half that much.  I still get to be upset about it."  Points the beer bottle at Tommy.  "Okay?"

Tommy holds up his hands.  "Okay."

He nods.  Takes the last swallow of beer in the bottle.  "What was I saying?"

Tommy shakes his head.  "I have no idea.  Evan, why are you here?"

He frowns.  "Oh, I came to apologize."

Tommy's eyebrows go up.  "This was an apology?"

He waves a hand.  Contemplates whether he wants another beer.  "No.  I wanted to apologize for what I said, about not having feelings for everyone I slept with.  That wasn't about you, but I realized that probably wasn't obvious."

"No," Tommy says, and finally crosses the kitchen to get a beer of his own.  "It wasn't."

He takes the second beer when Tommy holds it out to him.  He can uber home if he has to.  "I was mad," he offers.

"Got that, thanks."

He snorts without really meaning too.  "I missed this."  Tommy's eyebrows go up.  "The way you're bitchy and mean."  Sits down at the table opposite Tommy.  "I missed you.  I don't know if I'm still in love with you, but I know I'm not over you, no matter how many things I bake."

"Bake?"  Tommy echoes.

"I baked every time I wanted to call you, or thought about you.  I could have opened a bakery with what I made."  Rubs his hand down his jeans.  "With what I'm still making."  Risks a look at Tommy from under his lashes.

"Okay," Tommy says slowly.  "So, if the comment about not having feelings for everyone you sleep with wasn't aimed at me, who was it aimed at?"

He grimaces.  "Everyone?  No, really.  Everyone keeps telling me to get back on the horse, or there are other fish in the sea - and seriously, what's with all the animal metaphors.  It's creepy."  Takes a breath.  "So I did.  I tried that.  Downloaded grindr and hinge, went to a bar.  Hooked up with a girl.  Hooked up with a guy.  Didn't like it."  Rubs his hand on his pants again.  Takes a nervous swallow of beer.  "The thing is, I want it to be true.  I want to have feelings for the people - person - I'm sleeping with.  But the only person I want that with is you.  And you keep leaving."

"Evan."

He closes his eyes at the sound of Tommy saying his name.  "That's not fair?"

"No," Tommy admits.  "It's fair.  I run before I can get my heart broken.  That's my MO.  Doesn't," he lets out a shaky laugh.  "Doesn't seem to be working well when it comes to you."

He puts his hand on the table, palm up.  "Were you serious about Saturday?"

Tommy stares at his hand.  "Yes?"

"Pick me up at 7?  Not," he adds hastily, "Micelli's.  That place has bad karma."

Tommy lets out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.  He can relate.  "Not Micelli's," he promises.  Then, "I'm not over you either."

He nods.  "Good.  Maybe we can both learn how to not be alone."

"I was always good at math," Tommy says, and finally finally takes his hand.

[utopianparadoxist]

June Egbert, The Tao of Pranksterism, and Maid Roleplay

So we've got our first glimpse of June Egbert, shining like a star on the horizon, as of the latest upd8!

With the Warhammer of Zillyhoo at her side and the general harlequin energy of her silhouette, many are drawing comparisons to Trickster Mode, or to Nannasprite. Both of these, notably, are heavily linked to Jane.

And I'm interested in June's relationship to Jane's legacy as her ancestor, because this feels similar to ideas of classpect roleplay I've described for years. so I want to talk about it here and speculate a bit about what kind of worldview change a roleplay reading suggests might accompany June's gender transformation.

A quick bit of background for those who don't know what Class roleplay is-- It's basically the idea that a player of any class might end up roleplaying as a different class, to various degrees of success or failure, and that in Homestuck characters do so in particular when they are actively striving to live up to the legacy left by their Ancestors.

Vriska is the clearest example to argue. Early in her arc with Tavros she is actively trying to fit both him and herself into narrative roles left behind in Mindfang's journal, and in the process strives to make Tavros stronger much as Kanaya does for Eridan by giving him the wand, or Aranea herself later does to Jake.

The way she conceptualizes the endeavor emphasizes the verb "MAKE", a close synonym to the most commonly accepted Maid/Sylph verb, "Create". She kisses Tavros while wearing a fairy dress-the word Sylph originally referring to a kind of fairy. And of course she gets the dress from Kanaya, a Sylph herself.

And of course, her attempt to woo Tavros in this way is a disastrous failure. Later, when she tries to make Tavros kill her instead of kiss her--again evoking Mindfang and the Summoner's relationships--she again fails soundly, Tavros rejecting her mind suggestions and leaving her to bleed slowly to death by herself.

The reason Vriska is failing in these situations is at least partly that she is obsessively trying to be Mindfang instead of honestly coming to grip with who she really is as her own person. The way the narratives you build up in your head about who you WANT to be like distort your own self of self and lead to self-sabotage and toxic relationships is a running theme in Homestuck, and Roleplay mechanics helpfully signpost this on a mechanical Sburb Class level.

Later Aranea makes the exact same mistake as Vriska in emulating Mindfang, but fails at least partly because, as Vriska lays out, she just doesn't have enough experience doing "ruthless pirate shit"--in other words, behaving like a Thief.

But the Marquise herself poses an interesting possibility, because she seems to succeed at performing both the roles of the Thief and the Sylph. And Vriska attributes this to the fact that the Marquise is an adult, who learned to perform a role that didn't initially come naturally to her through a slow accumulation of experience.

In this way, Vriska suggests a way out of hard Classpect determinism. It *is* possible to act outside of your native Class, even to successfully incorporate the strengths and abilities of a different class entirely, but this is part of a nuanced and complicated process of personal growth and a gaining of increased complexity of perspective, experience and ability as you grow through life.

Now lets bring this focus to John. John and Jane's mutual ancestorism is explicitly tied to their shared interest in jokes and pranks. Dirk likens this to Zen, or the Tao, meaning it reflects something about their fundamental relationship to the world and approach to dealing with it and its challenges.

John invokes this connection again as he carries out the retcon, the absolute height of his impact on the plot and narrative in og Homestuck, with the retcon being literally just being a series of pranks. They're also a series of pranks he has a lot of fun with!

Even while everyone is dead and everything is completely cosmically screwed, John is able to enjoy himself as he carries on and keeps striving to Make a better future. He indulges the Zen of pranksterism in this moment, using it as a way to cope with and transcend the horrors of Paradox Space.

He's also, on a mechanical level, roleplaying a Maid.

The Maid class, like the Sylph, is associated with healing and improbable ressurection. Aradia is able to transcend her own death and act in the world as a ghost even before she God Tiers through the use of her Time-coded ghost powers. Kanaya is lethally shot and revives inexplicably as an immortal Rainbow Drinker, the only character to be immortal without even being God Tier.

This is more true of Jane than anyone, who's Maid of Life powers allow her to Make Life for herself in such a way that even after being beheaded in what should inarguably be a Just death, Jane can overpower the conditional immortality of God Tiers completely and just walk and talk around as a decapitated body and her severed head. She is Making Life for her own benefit, and quite definitely no one elses.

Jane's other major power is to offer people free resurrections, like she does in Collide. And what does John's retcon accomplish? Give Vriska a free resurrection, effectively taking a more circuitous path to achieving the same end result that comes to a Maid naturally. It's for Vriska's benefit for sure though. John is still natively a passive Heir class, and this moment represents a blurring of the lines between the roles of Heir and Maid, a moment where John's impact is not narrowly defined by just one Sburb assigned Class but is shaped complexly by his unique context and nature as John Egbert.

That said, after the Retcon, something really interesting happens.

John stops pranking.

For the rest of Homestuck and through the Epilogues, we basically never see John indulging pranksterism again. At the same time, he eschews using his Retcon powers almost entirely, seeming almost scared of the responsibility and level of power they represent unless he's directly told to use them, like Rose does in Meat. This coincides with his prolonged period of aimless, directionless depression.

Who does this parallel?

Jane, who has similarly given up "frivolous" or "childish" concerns like pranksterism and jokes in favor of deeply serious matters like Pursuing The Presidency and Representing The Gods As Respectable People To Earth C. And like John, Jane is all the more miserable for it. What that might mean for either of her iteration's arcs is a topic for another day though, this ain't about her.

While his desire to kill Dirk is honestly misguided and ridiculous, this update's shift in John's psychology does point to a kind of positive progress in his psychology that takes him closer to the ideal of June he's glimpsed in his own future. He's Making Breath--direction, purpose, momentum-- for his own benefit, nobody else's.

Which is important to do, because right now all the work John needs to do is internal. The thing about John sometimes evoking his Maid heritage is that so far he hasn't been doing it consciously or consistently. He barely knows anything about who he is or what he wants, and so he's not in a position to be good to or try to help anybody.

It's a step closer to embracing Maid as an alternate/complementary identity, along with the gendered implications that the female-specific (so far) class implies.

A fully formed June Egbert will likely take this even further, realizing the potential of and fully embracing the possibility of Making Breath herself, for her own benefit, Breath in this case being simple fun. Frivolity. Jokes. Pranks! Detachment from the pain and suffering from the world by enjoying the fun that comes with existing, even in the midst of the chaos.

She will likely be a June who fully recognizes the reality that Life is a Game to be played and enjoyed--which is why the Game of Life board from Problem Sleuth shows up in the vision of June that John experiences while witnessing the Light of Vriska's ascension.

Hence the association with Nannasprite and the design's evocation of Harlequins. Harlequins and clowns are performers on the stage, and a June who recognizes that all of life is a stage would be in a position to be a playful and self-aware performer herself--even moreso if she becomes June by going through Helltier or ascending to Ultimate herself, thereby gaining the same metatextual knowledge Dirk, Al and Vriska possess.

And if such an ascension brings her back in touch with the power of Retcon, an Ultimate/Helltier June Egbert unafraid to use her power for whatever she wants would be the ultimate wildcard. She could issue free revives to all the dead trolls. She could bring back her Dad and Rose's Mom and Dirk's Alpha Bro.

Those are just random Maidy examples tied to resurrection I'm coming up with off the top of my head that could make her happy and/or severely emotionally fuck with Rosebot and Dirk, but really, she could and likely will do way more imaginative and interesting shit than that. She'd certainly prove a lethal danger to Dirk, which could likely put her in conflict with Rosebot, Vriska, Davebot, Jake and Roxy, none of whom seem likely to want to see Dirk dead.

She's a complete chaos element! And she's already here.

I can't wait to see what pranks she's gonna play.

[le-monchou]

Hey, it's me. I was wondering if you do comfort requests, I had an idea (or at least half an idea lol and I also saw requests were open.)

Any of the LADS (Love & Deepspace) men coming home to see that MC hurt themselves during a wanderer mission and how they react to it or something along those lines.

Apologies as this is my first request ever and I'm more of an artist than writer lol so please change it to fit as much you need.

Hope you have a good day. (Hoping I'm doing this right)

.... help me this was sylus's text to me when i logged in today what is this 😭 are you another prophet like my mutual nettles || xavier, zayne, and rafayel's headers are from @editshan || written way before caleb's release and never posted.

"why didn't you tell me? why wouldn't you tell me?!" is xavier's first questions, and the outburst makes even you pause in the safety of your home, clutching your arm like an injured animal, and he takes several steps back to breathe before approaching you again. "i was... very worried," he starts, and you have a feeling he was severely downplaying how he felt. eyebrows furrowed, you knew you were in for the scolding and pampering of your life.

"your vitals are good. you'll recover in a few days. i strongly recommend you take time off, however." zayne's tone is clipped, and he sighs as you reach out to cup his cheek. "you scared me. i hope you don't have to go through something like that again, but i know you will." zayne sighs again as you drop your hand by your side. "would you... let me take care of you the next few days, just like you take care of me all the time?"

"why are you a hunter, again?!" rafayel all but screeches as he rushes to your side, your leg wrapped nice and tight and you wince, sweat breading your brows as you try to stand. "this one's particularly bad, huh? you're staying at my place, no arguing with me." you sigh, and try to mention how you've gotten enough time to heal, unlike the last few times, and he scowls. "my bodyguard is injured! who's going to care for her if i don't, hmm?"

"well, aren't you a nasty kitten." sylus's tone is light, perhaps far too light for the size of the injury being wrapped up by kieran. "tell me why i had to find this out from mephisto." you roll your eyes and mutter that you're fine as kieran shakes his head and leaves the room (likely to snoop). "you're staying over until it heals. i can postpone my meetings for the next week or so, they're not important." he leans down to kiss you on the cheek. "unless, and only if, you need me to get you something."

[rubyvhs]

bittersuite | d. winchester

synopsis. you & dean are having an argument, you use your powers to do something he doesn’t approve of tags. 1k words, slightly religious talk, angst, angry dean, talking about wanting a family series masterlist

"I don't know why it's wrong, Dean!" You're not shouting, you haven't ever actually raised your voice so it's not surprising, but Dean's is sure getting loud.

"Because the leviathans are on our ass every fuckin' day! If they sense angel activity and we're found out it'll be your fucking fault." He points at you, aggressively and you have a feeling in your chest you just don't understand. Well, you understand it but it feel horrible. How could anyone ever want to be human? Even interacting with them is detrimental to your intellect. Especially the way he’s swearing so much.

You should apologize, and you're about to, but he's even angrier now. "Every time I tell you to do something, you never goddamn listen—" You shut your eyes and you immediately think of heaven's gates. When you open your eyes, you're in… Kansas? Lawrence, Kansas to be specific. And infront of the Winchester's house, no less. 

There's a woman inside, she's running after a child and you can't help but smile. You're not sure what's so amusing about it but it's almost like you can imagine that being Dean and his mother. Her running after him, this house being their own, him growing up not hunting. 

You know that's not possible, you know he was chosen before he was even born, you know vessels are made before they're even human, but it's comforting you in some way. It comforting to think that there could be another universe where the Winchesters were just themselves.

You don't notice it but you're somehow in front of the door, knocking. A man opens the door, "Hi. I'm…" an Angel, is what you've learned to say when you, Sam, and Dean meet monsters. An FBI agent when you meet any type of authority. Just a Guardian Angel when you meet other Angels.

"I'm Cherry." You make up. "And I… I am a friend of the Winchesters. They used to live here." When you were assigned to come down to earth to kill Cass for disobeying Heaven, you had to study Dean fully. You watched his entire life, every single second he's been alive until you met is engrained into your memory. 

It feels horrible, you know if he ever found out he'd be angry at you but you didn't know you'd grow to like the Winchesters as much as you did. 

"Honey," he yells for his wife, you presume. The woman who dean and Sam helped when they came here years ago shows up with a smile. "Friend of the Winchesters."

Her eyes widen. "Of— why? Is something wrong? We haven't felt anything." You shake your head, looking down at the seven year old. 

"Hey, little boy." He smiles at you and then hides behind his mother's leg. "I'm sorry, your son is just adorable. There's nothing wrong with the house,I only…" but you have nothing to say. You have no idea what you're doing or why you're ruining this couple's evening or why you're like this. You miss Dean. 

It clicks that's you had left mid-argument just now, on their porch. And that if you close your eyes, your bound to get back to dean. So you don't blink, just look up at them and see them moving to make room for you. You smile and enter the house.

"We were just about to have dinner, wanna join us?" You nod eagerly, looking around. You remember all four years of Dean's life in this house so vividly, way more than even he does, and it's exhausting. Because in taking his memories, you absorbed his emotions too and they are painful. They're too strong for a man to bare.

You sit down on the table as they plate everything and when they sit down, they offer you their hands. The woman, Jenny, smiles. "We pray." You take her hand immediately, connecting your other one with her older Son Sari, and he does the same with his seven year old sister, Richie. 

"Lord, thank you for the food we are about to eat." And then it ends. And then they eat and your hands are mostly still outstretched waiting for more. It takes a minute for Jenny to snap you out of your trance. "Cherry, you okay?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm sorry, I— Dean needs me. I need to go see him." She doesn't say anything, just takes your hand before you run out of the room, closing your eyes once you reach the door. 

"Did you find her? Well do it faster, Cass—" it's familiar. It's everything you've been craving ever since you left. It's only been a few hours but it's dark now, which is probably why they were having dinner. Right. They. Because you had dinner with a family.

A family that prays. Or pretends to, it’s only being gratefulness for being given something. But have they prayed as they make the food? Do they ask god to give them strength? Do they study the books? Why did you pray with them? Who would you pray to?

They’re the people you turned your life around for. You’ve been alive forever and these humans, who are only sometimes grateful, are who you’ve rejected order for. Especially this human.

"Dean?" He turns around, his gun automatically pointed at you and you can't help the smile on your face. He released a breath before talking two long steps to you and pulling you into his chest. 

"God, Angel, where were you? Are you okay?" He lets go, taking a quick look. When he realizes your fine, his eyes become furious. "What were you fucking thinking? Don't you ever do that again," you're about to stand up to him, the same way Cass sometimes does, but then he says, "don't run away when you know I can't chase after you."

"You were shouting."

"We had a disagreement, it's normal." Is it? Are the loud voices and anger normal? "Please just talk to me before ever doing that again." 

"Okay."

"Where did you go?" He asks, his voice still slightly tense. Maybe he doesn't trust you after all this time, thinking you're just waiting for the angels to rise after Cass's disappointment as their leader. 

"Lawerence." He doesn't ask anything after that. But when he hugs you again, he hears your soft mumble. "They had a family." Yeah, they did. You never will, though. 

&. notes !! guys I promise he’ll be nice next time (maybe)

join the taglist. @loverslantern @justwhisperingfantasies @saltcxrcle @blossomingorchids @darling-eos

@ltotheucyy @daylighted @clean-and-claire @1967barracuda

[pazziescapism]

Break Our Ice - Chapter 4

pairing: paige x azzi

wc: 12.1k

au fic what??, figureskater!Azzi x icehockeyplayer!Paige

fake dating, just like playful banter teasing relationship to lovers, basically paige and azzi dancing around each other

a/n: HI GUYS!! i am truly sorry for the wait i have no idea why this chapter took me so long, honestly this is definitely my least favourite chapter and sorry if it seems choppy i took out and rearranged heaps of scenes i don't watch ice skating or ice hockey so i didn't really think about how i would write about it... AHAH anyway i guess this is kinda the last chapter?? i think id be down to do some bonus ones but i am working on something new so we will see, again thank you for reading! ps, did u see that wc?? 12k, yes im very proud

Someone is pulling Azzi to the side, a hand digging into the meat of her upper arm, hard enough to bruise. She’s having a hard time registering anything over the noise and lights. It feels like there’s a hundred people surrounding her, pushing her off to the side, crushing her by the borders.

Then the crowd falls away, and Paige’s in front of her looking harried. The press continues to shout from the side, the noise a little quieter now that they’ve moved, a crowd of people in front of them like a barricade.

“Ah, man,” Ice says, next to the two of them. “Bad luck.”

“I’ve got to go back out and do press,” Paige says, and she looks upset, running a hand jerkily through her hair. “Can you get someone to take Azzi out the back way?”

“It’s only the tabloids,” Azzi says and stays where she is. The situation is mixing badly with the insecurity in her chest, her head. Something selfish and angry has taken up residency in her, curling and twisting unpleasantly. 

“That’s the problem,” Paige says, not even looking at her, her face scanning the crowd, like she’s already searching for a way to get Azzi away. 

Like a picture of them together would be something so dreadful. 

“They’re already here,” Azzi points out, not moving. “Who cares if they get a picture or two?”

Paige frowns. She’s gotten fully ready to act within seconds, Azzi’s coat clutched in her hands. “They’ll come to the wrong conclusions,” she says, and Azzi’s heart sinks. 

The unpleasant feelings in her stomach give a sharp twist, and Azzi feels herself smile and knows it must look off.

“As long as they’re here,” she whispers, leaning in closer to Paige. “Let’s give them a show.” 

Paige’s eyes drop to her lips, like Azzi knew they would; for an instant, their faces are inches apart. She hears someone yell, and the camera’s go off again, too many bright lights to see, photographers moving around the crowd in front of them to get a picture. Paige steps fully away from her, panicked expression twisting into something sharper.

“For fuck’s sake, Azzi,” Paige says, viciously angry, and Azzi steps back too, taken aback by the reaction.

“I didn’t mean to,” she starts, and she isn’t sure what she didn’t mean to do so she lets that sentence trail off and starts again. “I didn’t mean it.” 

This doesn’t seem to make Paige feel much better, judging by the volume of her retort, her eyes angrier than Azzi’s ever seen them, as she shoves Azzi’s jacket into her arms. “You can’t just fuck around with my life when you get bored. Those pictures are going to be everywhere by tomorrow.”

“Don’t yell at me,” Azzi says back, her face burning hot with what might be anger, or might be shame. She’s off-balance, tilting too far one way and then the next. I don’t understand, she wants to yell. She wants, selfish as it seems, for Paige to understand her, without Azzi having to explain. 

Is it that awful to be seen with me? Azzi thinks, her head buzzing miserably.

Ice’s got her by the arm, then and they’re both heading down a dark little hallway, leading out to the parking lot. 

“I practice here too,” Azzi snaps, and yanks her arm away. Her jacket is gripped in her arms, and the jersey suddenly feels tight and humiliating on her skin. “I know the way.”

Ice doesn’t seem to take offense, which makes Azzi feel worse, just nods good-naturedly, her head ducked to avoid stray cameras. “That makes sense.”

Azzi swallows, hard. “I’m sorry,” she says, and that at least, is sincere. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Ice tells her, and then hesitates as they exit out into the employee’s only section of the parking lot. Someone must have told Caroline, because Azzi can see her car heading towards them. “Hey, and- um, Paige just kind of hates cameras more than the rest of us, so, I mean, try not to-”

“Whatever,” Azzi says, cutting her off. She doesn’t really need the reminder. 

It’s freezing outside, thick dark clouds rolling over the sky, threatening snow at any minute. Azzi shivers, and then steps away from Ice as Caroline pulls up, nodding goodbye stiffly. 

To Caroline’s credit, she doesn’t ask any questions as Azzi angrily peels the jersey off the second they get onto the road, leaving her in only the thin sweater she had been wearing underneath. For good measure, she throws it on the floor and stomps on it, her dirty sneakers creating a bizarre black mark over the fabric, before throwing it to the back of the car. 

She considers slipping on the jacket, which at least doesn’t have Paige’s name written on it, but the image of Paige’s white knuckles around it as she tried to usher Azzi out as quickly as possible rises to mind and she chucks it to the back too. 

“So,” Caroline says casually, reaching over to turn the heating up in the car. “After game jitters?”

“Fuck you,” Azzi says bitterly. “Actually, fuck her. Let’s turn around so I can go slash her tires.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Caroline says, like a hint. 

“No,” Azzi says. “I already told you what I wanted to do, but you missed the turn.”

White flurries are starting to drift down outside the window, the wind picking up speed. Some of the flakes drift against the glass, individual specks so that Azzi can get a brief glimpse of the small symmetrical patterns making up each snowflake before they melt away against the window. 

“I’ve been trying so hard to make her like me,” Azzi says suddenly, into the quiet of the car, “and she doesn’t.”

“I’m sure she does,” Caroline says, accepting this too, without question. 

“She was such an asshole, just now,” Azzi seethes. “It’s one picture, will the world end? Will the sky fall?”

“I’m sure you already know this,” Caroline says, “but it was probably a bigger deal to her than it was to you.”

“I piss her off all the time,” Azzi points out. The anger is separating into hurt, a needle digging under the skin of her ribs. “She’s never reacted like that.”

Caroline doesn’t respond to this, as they pull into their neighbourhood. “You want to come over?” She offers. “Kaitlyn’s away for the day.”

Azzi is still considering this when her phone rings in her pocket, making her jump. She keeps meaning to set it to vibrate. She looks at the caller ID and considers hanging up. It would make her feel good, she reasons, give her a little vindictive pleasure. She’s aware of Caroline’s eyes still on her.

“Yes?” She says tersely, answering the phone. 

“Hey,” Paige’s voice sounds a little hoarse on the other end. “I ditched the press conference. I’m on my way home. I thought, maybe we could talk?”

Azzi stares out the window. The temperature’s dropped fast, and the wind has picked up, white snow starting to cover the sidewalks, clinging to the window and the windshield. 

 “Talk about what?” She asks, forcing herself to lean back against the seat. 

“Um,” Paige says. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like- I wanted to apologize.”

“I don’t want an apology, Paige,” Azzi says coldly. “I want to finally lay this humiliating chapter of my life to rest.”

“Azzi,” Paige says. “We won’t get anywhere if you refuse to talk about it.”

“There’s nowhere to go,” Azzi snaps. Her split lip stings as she speaks, newly scabbed over skin starting to split again. “We were never going anywhere to begin with.”

There’s a silence over the phone, only Paige’s breath filling the space, still so fucking steady. “You don’t mean that,” she says finally, voice charged with a bone-deep tiredness.

“This was always temporary,” Azzi says, always clawing her nails into wounds that are already bleeding, both her own and other people’s. “Sorry that you thought otherwise.”

“Fine,” Paige says into the phone, frustration jagged in her voice. “The dating part is fake, yeah, but- Christ, Azzi- I thought we were at least friends.”

Azzi is breathing too fast, too heavy. She wants to cry. She wants to scream some more. She wants to put her head on Paige’s shoulder and just breathe in the familiar smell of her, until they’re in sync again, inhaling and exhaling in the same rhythm. She doesn’t want to be friends.

“Go home, Paige,” she says, and feels the cavity in her chest split open a little further. There’s a sharp intake of breath on the other end, so vulnerable it nearly rips her determination into shreds. The next thing she hears is the dial tone. 

The car is horribly silent. Azzi doesn’t look, but the sound of Caroline’s disapproval is nearly audible.

“Don’t start,” Azzi moans. “I just- fuck, do you think I fucked up?”

Caroline is quiet for a moment, long enough for Azzi to turn and see hesitation lining her face. 

“I think you would feel better if you were honest about your feelings,” she says finally. “Even if it doesn’t end up getting you what you want.”

Azzi lets her fingers fall, tracing over the material of her sweatpants. “It was going so well too,” she says, trying not to sound like she’s whining, and not quite succeeding.

“It’s not a real relationship, though,” Caroline says, and Azzi’s head snaps up in irritation.

“Thank you for that,” she says, curt. “Exactly what I needed to hear.”

“What I mean is,” Caroline sighs and then starts over. “It’s not real. It’s easy to have a great relationship if you don’t have as much to lose. You’ve been living in fantasyland.” 

“This is like, the most unhelpful you have ever been,” Azzi tells her. “And that is saying something.”

“All I’m saying is, if you want to have a relationship with her after this whole thing is over-”

“I don’t,” Azzi interrupts, and Caroline closes her eyes like this whole thing is horrible for her, personally.

“Sure. But if you do, you need to figure out whether this is all it’s going to take before you give up.

“Ugh,” Azzi says. She glares out the window again. The snow is starting to blow in heavy gusts outside, and when Caroline parks, she can see that it’s piling up on the staircase leading up to their building. The snowfall is starting to pick up speed, thick, soft heaps of white beginning to form, deep enough to get in your shoes, sink into your socks. 

The cab driver stops before turning into the long, narrow street leading to Paige’s building, and tells Azzi that with the current road conditions, she’ll either have to pay extra or walk the rest of the way. Azzi looks at the storm starting to rage outside, the snow swirling on strong winds, until she can barely see anything other than white through the window. She looks at the still-running meter. She decides to walk. 

About thirty seconds in, she’s regretting it. She didn’t bring a jacket with her, so the snow is flying everywhere, landing in any available gaps in her clothes and melting into ice cold water on contact with skin. Her feet are suffering the worst, the snow piling up inside her shoes, melting and then piling up again until she can’t feel her toes anymore. 

“Paige,” she says when she reaches the building, hitting the buzzer for Paige’s apartment. “Paige, if you don’t let me in, I’ll die. I’ll die, seriously.”

“Azzi?” Paige says over the intercom, static blurring her voice, and she says something that sounds like a question, but the locked door clicks and unlocks, and Azzi misses the words as she shuffles eagerly into the heated building. 

It’s only once she’s in the elevator, a minute away from Paige’s door that she realizes that she has no plan, she’s forgotten her speech, and the snow collected in her hair and clothing has melted, leaving her sopping wet and creating a puddle of dirty water where she’s standing. 

It’s all she can do to keep herself standing when Paige opens the door, her eyes widening as she takes in Azzi, sniffling only a little pathetically in her doorway, soaked to the bone in a thin sweater and sweatpants. 

“I’m sorry,” Azzi says, before Paige has the chance to say anything. “I didn’t mean to say- I just- we are friends and I want to keep being friends and I don’t want to fake break-up, and I’m a really terrible fake-girlfriend, but I want to keep being your terrible fake-girlfriend.”

Paige’s mouth opens. Closes again. She seems, for the first time since Azzi’s met her, to be at a total and complete loss for words. 

“And I’m sorry for pushing it about the picture thing,” Azzi continues nervously. A patch of melting snow is sliding down her back. “I didn’t want to- You hurt my feelings, a little, so I wanted to hurt your feelings and now I feel bad about that-”

“You are the dumbest person alive,” Paige says, and she grabs Azzi’s wrist and yanks her inside. 

She closes the door behind them, almost as an afterthought, her hands fluttering over Azzi’s body, her fingers, her neck, her cheek, bringing a moment of blissful warmth wherever they land. “You’re shaking, Jesus Christ. How far did you walk like this? There’s a blizzard warning out, are you stupid?”

Azzi peels her shoes off and then stands in the entranceway, unsure of where to go or what to say, her hair dripping water onto her already wet socks. 

“Unbelievable,” Paige is saying, already halfway across the living room before she realizes Azzi isn’t following. “Go, sit,” she says, and gestures at the stools across the kitchen counter. 

Azzi obediently takes a seat. 

It isn’t long before Paige returns to stand in front of her with a towel in her hands, and chucks it over Azzi’s wet hair, her hands scrubbing at it like she’s planning on taking Azzi’s whole head off. 

“What is wrong with you?” Paige is asking her, though it seems to be rhetorical, her hands still busy drying Azzi’s hair, none too gently. “No jacket, no scarf, not even any decent shoes. Did you look outside before you decided to come running to apologize? You know how long it takes to get frostbite?-”

“Paige,” Azzi interrupts and Paige stops, both the lecture and the scrubbing, tilting Azzi’s face up so their eyes meet. Azzi’s tongue flattens at the expectant look in her eyes, and it’s with considerable effort that she manages to start again. “Paige, you forgive me, right?”

For the second time in as many minutes, Paige looks absolutely floored by the words out of Azzi’s mouth. Azzi can’t explain it to herself, any more than she can explain it to Paige, but she needs to hear the words, needs to see the shape of them in Paige’s mouth. 

“Yes,” Paige says finally. “I forgive you. And I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“I know,” Azzi says, a shaky smile lifting the edges of her mouth. 

Paige doesn’t move for a second, just watches Azzi, her green eyes contemplative. Then she starts drying Azzi’s hair again, a gentler set to her mouth, if not to her technique. 

“You have qualifiers in a couple days,” she continues, as if nothing had happened, Azzi’s neck aching from the directions it’s being pushed and pulled in. “What would you have done if you’d gotten sick? Would you have sat out? Idiot.”

  “I would have won anyway,” Azzi mumbles, a little guiltily, and then screeches at a particularly rough yank on her head. “But I won’t if I go bald! Paige!” 

“Oops,” Paige says, not sounding very regretful. “Was that one too much?”

“Obviously, you fucking-” Azzi wails as Paige does it again. “Paige, my hair!” 

Paige snickers, and pulls the towel away completely, tossing it into Azzi’s lap. “Drop this off in the laundry. And find some clean clothes and take a warm shower. I’ll get you some hot water with lemon and honey, so you don’t catch a cold. Silly girl.”

Azzi doesn’t answer, busy trying to feel her aching scalp for possible bald patches. 

“Don’t worry,” Paige tells her, pushing her off the stool. “I promise you’re still pretty.”

Azzi whips around, beaming, ignoring Paige’s increasingly forceful attempts to shove her in the direction of the laundry room. “You think I’m pretty, Paige?” 

She says it as half a joke, mostly expecting Paige to roll her eyes and push her away. It catches her by surprise when Paige’s expression softens instead, as she reaches up to push a strand of damp hair behind Azzi’s ear, the pad of her fingertip brushing softly over the shell of Azzi’s ear. 

“You’re very pretty,” she says indulgently, her hand falling back to her side, Azzi staring at her wide-eyed. “Even when you’re at my door looking like a drowned puppy.”

Azzi goes to take a shower without further comment. 

When she pads out, significantly calmer, in barefeet and a soft bathrobe, Paige is squeezing some lemon into a glass, the hot water creating condensation along the sides of the glass, fogging it up. It tastes honey-sweet going down Azzi’s throat, warming her up where the heat of the shower didn’t reach. 

She feels warmer still when Paige presses her up against the kitchen counter, rough hands slipping inside the bathrobe, spreading across her back, as she licks into Azzi’s mouth like she can taste the remnants of honey and lemon lingering on Azzi’s tongue.

“Your lip is bleeding,” she murmurs, pulling away from Azzi, kissing the corner of her mouth in apology. “Sorry.”

Azzi licks over her lower lip, tastes metal in her mouth and grimaces. “Oops.”

Paige is already grabbing a tissue, and running it under the tap. She squeezes water out into the drain and presses the damp tissue to Azzi’s mouth, wiping away where the blood has smeared. Azzi winces at the contact, and Paige holds her chin between a finger and a thumb, keeping her in place. “Stay still, baby.”

Baby, Azzi thinks delightedly, lets the sound echo inside her brain. She’s still thinking about the word choice when she realizes Paige’s stepped away. 

“Does it hurt?”

Azzi blinks. “Huh?” 

Paige stares at her. Azzi stares back.

“Your lip?” Paige prompts, after it becomes clear that Azzi won’t be answering, a small smile playing at her own mouth. “It’s bleeding.”

“Oh,” Azzi says. She’s lost it. “Yes. The lip. It was bleeding. Still bleeding?”

Paige just looks at her, her eyes blinking slowly, like Azzi is the most fascinating person in the world. If this was anyone else, Azzi thinks, she would probably be embarrassed. But Paige just smiles at her, and Azzi can only muster up the smallest hint of sheepishness at being caught out so directly.

“Yes,” she amends, and wraps her arms around Paige’s neck. “It hurts lots. Kiss it better.”

Paige groans, her hands landing on Azzi’s shoulders, resisting her attempts to pull them back together. “You are insufferable. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” Azzi says again, honestly, and she nudges her cold nose into the space between Paige’s shoulder and collarbone, drinks in the smell of Paige’s perfume (which she thinks is actually a cologne) “But here you are. Suffering.”

Paige’s eyes meet Azzi’s and hold eye contact, her face unreadable. Then she sighs. “You have no idea.”

Azzi doesn’t know what to make of this insult that doesn’t sound like an insult. She doesn’t respond, she presses cold feet against Paige’s shin in retaliation, grinning at her put-out expression.

“I can’t believe your toes didn’t fall off,” she says, and tugs Azzi over to her fireplace using the belt on her borrowed robe.

Azzi settles cross-legged in front of the blazing heat, lets it sweep over her back, feeling thrillingly, deliriously happy, sparks running up her still damp skin, making her heart beat faster in her chest. 

“What do you look so happy about?” Paige asks, when Azzi grabs her and tugs her closer. She goes willingly, her head settling in Azzi’s lap, wincing as Azzi’s cold hands come around to pull at her cheeks. 

“I’ve accepted my fate,” Azzi tells her.

“Your fate as what, exactly?” Paige says, the words mumbled as Azzi tugs on her face.

Azzi doesn’t answer, just leans forward and plants a kiss on her forehead, right above the bridge of her nose. 

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“Kaitlyn,” Azzi says, interrupting Kaitlyn’s dramatic reading. “You could read these in your head.”

“Good literature deserves to be shared,” Kaitlyn tells her, and holds up a new one. “A source close to the couple reveals the relationship has been on the rocks for months. Did you know that?”

“Where are they getting all these sources from?” Azzi wonders out loud. 

“Beats me,” Kaitlyn says mournfully. “I’ve been calling offices all day to tell them you’ve got mad cow disease. Nobody even cares.”

Azzi pauses, looking up from the suitcase she’s packing at Kaitlyn, who’s draped over her bed. “You know humans can’t get mad cow disease, right?”

Kaitlyn, who is ostensibly meant to be helping Azzi pack, stops flipping through tabloids to look at Azzi, horrified. “Are you serious? I’ve wasted so many phone calls, man.”

“It’s literally called cow disease,” Azzi says, and Kaitlyn is still complaining when the door swings open, creaky hinges announcing Caroline’s arrival. 

“There was a whole section about you guys on my way home. Like a whole section of a newsstand with just your faces on it,” she calls, already halfway into Azzi’s apartment. Azzi does not remember giving her a key.

“Did you bring any back?” Kaitlyn asks, already bounding up in excitement.

“Breaking!” Caroline reads, walking into the bedroom. She hasn’t changed out of the branded shirt she wears to work, a cartoonish smiling skull peering down at Azzi from under her own face, pressed against Paige’s on a magazine cover, bold lettering over their bodies.  “Azzi, Withholding Her ‘Icicle’ From New Girlfriend?! ‘Not Until Marriage’ New Sources Report.”

“Who is writing these?” Azzi asks in amazement. 

“And who is doing their fact-checking?” Kaitlyn says, peering down at the page over Caroline’s shoulder. “They should be fired.”

“Are you guys breaking up?” Caroline asks, and both her and Kaitlyn are staring at Azzi, expressions nauseatingly similar. “I need to know where to place my bets.”

“How’s the casual sex going for you?” Kaitlyn adds, looking irritatingly knowing. “Still no feelings?”

Azzi looks back down at her suitcase. It’s too full. If she adds anything else to it, she won’t be able to get it closed, but she hasn’t even packed any clothes yet. “No,” she says to the peanut gallery, an answer to both questions. She adds her folded clothes and takes the performance makeup out. She can probably put that in the carry-on.

 “I’m starting a six-year plan to make her fall in love with me,” she says casually. “Can one of you come help me close this?”

“I love being friends with you,” Kaitlyn says, neither of them moving. “Every decision you make is worse than the last. Like a slow-motion car crash. Thrilling.”

“Why is it taking her six years to fall in love with you?” Caroline asks.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Azzi says. “At the end of the six years we get married. The suitcase?”

“Thrilling,” Kaitlyn repeats, and comes over to plant her full body weight on top of the suitcase so that Azzi can zip it closed. 

Azzi is staggeringly drunk. Mind-bendingly drunk. Everything is swirling into pieces around her and then swirling back together, the noise pounding in her eardrums reverberating through her entire body. It’s loud, sweaty, hot, crowded. The smell of alcohol is stinging her nose, a too-expensive bottle of champagne still staining her clothes, sticky where it touches her skin. 

Every now and then, the realization comes back to her and then she’s smiling again, her cheeks aching with the force of it, her throat raw from screaming. 

“I made it!” She yells to Caroline. The two of them are so close together but her voice is carried off in the noise regardless, and she can see Caroline blink as she tries to process. 

Then Caroline is grinning back at her, just as wide. “We made it!” She yells back, and Azzi throws her head back to laugh, giddy. 

Someone pulls her away and Azzi goes willingly, out of her mind with joy and nearly deaf from the music.

The quiet of the evening, when she stumbles outside, is an ice-cold shock. The sudden stillness surrounding her, the indiscernible noise of screaming teenagers in the background. It had been a struggle to extricate herself, a tugging push and pull until she made it out into the night air. She’s pressing the call button before she can talk herself out of it. 

“Azzi?” She hears Paige say, only a dark blurry shape on the small screen of her phone. There’s rustling movement, the click of a lamp, and then Paige’s face is peering blearily at her, illuminated by soft yellow light. “Are you wearing bunny ears?”

“I think I got them from a fetish store!” Azzi tells her, and it’s only when Paige flinches away from the phone screen that she realizes she had been yelling. She lowers her voice abashedly. “They wouldn’t let you in without a costume,” she whispers, like she’s letting Paige in on a secret. “But I didn’t have one.”

Paige falls back and Azzi can hear her laugh tiredly, voice still gravelly with sleep. She must have set the phone down, because all Azzi can see now is the ceiling of the hotel Paige must be staying at. Her team had left for a series of away games, both of them now far from home. 

“Paige,” she says to the ceiling. “I can’t see your face anymore.” Her words are starting to blur together, but she can’t concentrate enough to pull them back apart.

“Sorry, sorry,” Paige mutters, and there’s another rustle before her face returns, now with headphones. “Are you out celebrating?”

The word celebrating reminds Azzi why she called to begin with and she beams back at the camera, exhilarated once again. “I made it! I’m going to the Olympics!”

Paige is laughing again, though Azzi isn’t sure why. “I know,” she says. “You texted me.”

“Oh,” Azzi says. Then, “What did I say?”

“Um,” Paige says, and then her video is paused. “Hang on. You said ‘i made it’ and then ‘Olympics baby’ and then ‘can alcohol absorb through your skin?’ and then there were a bunch of letters.”

“Oh,” Azzi says again. “What did you say?”

Paige’s face returns to the camera once more, her smile fonder than usual, the planes of her face carved out soft in the mellow light. “I knew you’d make it.”

Azzi thinks that if it’s possible to be crushed by sheer affection, she’s feeling it now, a building pressure in her chest that pulls her accelerating heartbeat back to ground level.

“Thank you.” Now that she’s calmer, she notices for the first time how Paige’s eyes are fluttering closed, how her voice is sleep-rough, and she feels a pang of guilt. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

“Nah,” Paige says, clearly lying. “I couldn't sleep anyway.”

“Liar.” There’s that soft, tired laugh again, and the phone shifts to a view of the ceiling again, like Paige has set it down beside her. Azzi can hear the sound of her breathing, each breath slipping slowly into a steady rhythm.

“S’Okay,” Paige mumbles. “I like the sound of your voice.” 

This is enough to stun Azzi back into silence. Her brain feels slippery from how much she’s had to drink, the hot pink lighting of the club she had been in still dancing across her feet, a glimmering haze over her field of vision. She’s so aware, all of a sudden, of how cold the night air is, biting into exposed skin, how tightly the headband of the bunny ears is pressing into her scalp, of the hair falling over her forehead-  of how much love is piling up inside her, scrubbing her raw and threatening to drown her under its weight. 

If Paige liked the sound of her voice, Azzi would read her a novel, would read her a dictionary, would write her a new love letter every morning and recite it to her every night. 

As it is, she whispers into the phone, “Goodnight, Paige,” and lets herself wait five full seconds before hanging it back up.  

That night Azzi crashes on the sofa of a hotel suite she could have never afforded by herself, legs too wobbly to make it to a bed. She doesn’t sleep, she just lies there, the bright glow of her phone across her face the only light in the dark room, and she drafts drunken texts and deletes them, writing out confessions she’ll never send. 

Are you still awake? She writes to Paige, and deletes it.

Good luck tomorrow.

Recently, you’ve been in all of my dreams. Do you think that means something? 

I wish you had been here today. 

In a hazy space of her brain, it starts to register to Azzi that this is possibly a little bit embarrassing. She doesn’t feel embarrassed- she feels giddy in a way she hasn’t for years, caught up in the middle-school thrill of having a crush, something that reminds her of drafts of love letters on pink stationary, of leaving gifts in lockers and roses on desks. It’s the indulgent happiness of allowing herself to get caught up in the push and pull before a relationship, both of them on edge, neither willing to slip first. 

It’s enough, she tells herself. For now, it’s enough. They’ll have time. 

The sun is just beginning to set when Azzi walks back to her apartment days later, a plastic bag of groceries crinkling in one hand, the other holding Paige’s hand. The heat is starting to return after a long winter, and there’s sweat collecting between their hands, but neither one moves to disentangle their fingers. 

“You don’t have a fucking clue,” Paige is saying heatedly, and Azzi scoffs but doesn’t interrupt. “You have no idea how much I’ve suffered because of this. It’s the worst possible-”

“Not the worst,” Azzi interjects. “I’ll take a lot but I won’t let you lie to me right now-” 

“It is the worst, it’s the laziest way out, it never makes sense, it creates so many plot holes-”

“I think it’s fun and creative,” Azzi says, and passes the bag of groceries to Paige, who takes them unquestioningly, as Azzi fumbles one-handed with the lock. “And the plot holes wouldn’t exist if you didn’t think about them.”

“That’s the target audience,” Paige says grimly, as Azzi pulls her into her apartment via their connected hands. “People who don’t think. Like you.”

“Time travel is an old, respected, trope,” Azzi says. “Just because you don’t understand it-”

“Boo!” Paige says, setting the bag of groceries onto the counter. She starts unloading them without Azzi asking her to, taking out the eggs to place them into the fridge, not even pausing in the flow of conversation. “There’s nothing to understand, because it sucks.”

“Not enough things getting blown up for you?” Azzi asks snidely, and pulls out a cardboard pink box, wrapped with matching pink ribbon before Paige can respond. “Are you ready for your present?”

Paige comes to stand beside her, reaching out a hand to pull at the strings of ribbon and pouting when Azzi slaps it away. “I don’t know why you had to make me stand outside the bakery. It’s not like I can’t guess it’s a cake.”

“Hush,” Azzi says. “As long as it’s not open, it could be anything.”

They had only had Valentine’s Day cakes available at the bakery, so when Paige opens the box, it’s to a mess of pink and red frosting over a small heart-shaped cake. In cursive script over the top, white lettering reads ‘C U @ O.V.’

“They were charging per letter,” Azzi says. “O.V.  stands for-”

“Olympic Village,” Paige says, grinning. “I get it. I love it.” 

Azzi beams at her. Paige had cleared the team selections for the national team yesterday, when she had still been away for a game. She had made it back last night, the pair of them reuniting for a private celebration that left bruises that ached pleasantly along Azzi’s hips, her chest, her thighs. 

“Here,” Paige says, in a suspiciously innocuous tone. “Taste.”

Azzi narrows her eyes. “What-”

Paige runs her finger through the icing as Azzi starts talking and then sticks her finger into Azzi’s open mouth. 

Azzi clamps her teeth down around the finger immediately, glaring at Paige. She’s hoping the look in her eyes communicates something like a threat, like I could bite through your finger like a carrot right now and not holy shit, I want to eat you out. It’s always so hard to figure out the line between the two with Paige.

Paige tries to pull her finger away, teasingly, and her eyes widen as Azzi bites down a little harder. 

“Hang on,” she says, her wrist falling a little limp. “I’m trying to figure out if this is turning me on or not.”

Giving in is against Azzi’s principles but this is beginning to seem torturous, so she lets her mouth close, keeping her teeth back to let her lips close gently over the first knuckle. Paige makes a strangled noise and it feels like victory. 

“Yeah. Definitely turned on,” she says decisively. 

Azzi can’t speak, just swirls her tongue around the pad of her finger, tastes sugar and strawberries, lets it dissolve in her mouth, relishes in the way Paige’s lips tug up in exasperated acceptance.

She’s thinking of abandoning the cake entirely and starting up those celebrations over again, or maybe just dropping to her knees in the kitchen, when the doorbell rings. 

“Ugh,” Azzi says, pulling away reluctantly, turning toward the door. 

She’s stopped by the firm grasp of Paige’s hand around her jaw, bringing Azzi’s face back to her own. Azzi thinks about complaining about the hand Paige’s using to do it, feeling her own spit touching her cheek, sticky and off-putting and gripping hard enough to bruise.

But Paige’s lips are already on her, tongue slipping into Azzi’s mouth with a proprietary confidence that makes Azzi’s hands clench tight around the edge of the countertop, keeping her on her feet. 

The doorbell rings again, and Paige pulls away with a sigh and a wet parting of mouths, Azzi’s eyes fluttering back open in slight shock. 

Paige is watching her lips, looking all too pleased with herself. “Yum,” she says, letting go of Azzi’s jaw with a pat on the cheek and a wink. “Strawberry.”

The doorbell rings for a third time, aggressive in how long it lasts, like the person outside is leaning on it, impatient.

Paige’s eyebrow twitches slightly at the noise but she steps fully away from Azzi, looking entirely regretful at her own actions. “Tell them to go away” her eyes flicking down to Azzi’s lips meaningfully. 

“Stop saying words,” Azzi says, flustered beyond measure, and tries not to rush to the door in order to do exactly as told.

She opens the door, flushed and still half-laughing, the remnants of a smile on her face fading away as she sees Jayden outside her apartment, still in that ugly fucking coat, the human personification of a cockblock.

“Yes?” Azzi asks, leaning against the door. She doesn’t want Jayden taking a step inside. She doesn’t want Jayden here at all, encroaching on a moment Azzi was enjoying, his presence a reminder of a truth Azzi would rather forget. She very selfishly hopes Paige doesn’t see him. She wants Paige to forget about Jayden all together, forget that two of them had ever been together for a reason that wasn’t so they could watch old science fiction and argue about director’s cuts. 

“Just thought I’d drop by,” Jayden says. “You’re not going to let me in?”

“I’m a little busy,” Azzi says coolly. “You should really text first.” 

“Busy?” He’s smiling a condescending little smile that makes Azzi’s eyebrow twitch. “You aren’t at practice?”

“I’m hanging out with my girlfriend.” If she places more emphasis than is strictly necessary on the last word- well. 

If Jayden is surprised to hear this, he covers for it well, only a slight blotchy red flush to his cheeks giving away a reaction. “I thought- I heard that you’d broken up?”

“Been reading a lot of tabloids recently?” Azzi drawls, letting her head fall to rest on her door frame. 

“You haven’t brought her around for dinner,” Jayden counters, still mostly placid. “I didn’t think it was that serious.”

“We’ve both been busy,” Azzi says, eyes narrowed. “It’s the season for it.”

Jayden smiles a little wider and it feels like an accusation. “I’m sure my dad would love to meet her.”

They will never find your body, Azzi says with her eyes. 

With her mouth she says, “We’ll see you guys Wednesday.”

Once the articles had come out, it had become impossible to ignore Geno’s hints about meeting her new girlfriend. Azzi hadn’t expected to be able to avoid it for long but she had gotten away with it for longer than she expected.

She didn’t know how she felt about the dinner now that it had arrived. Somewhere inside her, something was screaming that this was too serious, too much, too fast. That the unsteady foundation of their little show couldn’t hold up under any more serious inspection. Another part was screaming that Azzi hadn’t been acting for a long time. 

A month and a half had passed easily under the guise of their fake relationship. A month and a half, so much time and almost none at all. 

At no point during those forty-five days had she prepared herself for seeing Paige waiting in her apartment for her to finish getting ready, complaining on Azzi’s terrible couch, wearing a white sweater, the thick knitted pattern against the pale of her skin. 

She’s used to seeing Paige in sharp angles and hard muscles. Like this she looks almost soft. Huggable.

“I bet you’re just a natural-born parent pleaser, aren’t you?” Azzi says, eyeing the gentle cling of the fabric to her shoulders. 

“What are you ever talking about?” Paige responds. “Come on, I brought some flowers and they’re going to wilt if we don’t hurry.”

“Flowers,” Azzi says, to herself, as Paige takes her hand and drags her along. “Of course she brought flowers.” 

“Listen,” Azzi says, once the two of them are in the elevator heading down to the main floor. “We need to bring our best game tonight.”

Paige does not seem to be listening, her eyebrows a little furrowed as she responds to a text on her phone. Azzi can feel her blood pressure spike. 

“Paige,” she says, and Paige’s head lifts immediately, the look she sends Azzi endearingly nervous. “As far as I’m concerned, this is a competition,” Azzi continues, very seriously. “And if I lose to Jayden of all people, I’m killing you and then myself.”

Paige slides her phone into her back pocket as the elevator doors open, and takes Azzi’s hand again instead, pulling them both towards where her car is parked. Her thumb is tracing small circles over the back of Azzi’s palm, a motion that she assumes is meant to be calming. Insultingly, it works, the tense slope of Azzi’s shoulders relaxing into a less rigid line. 

“It’s fine,” Paige says. “I’m sure we’ll nail it.”

“That’s a lot of baseless confidence,” Azzi says. “Especially for someone who can’t lie.”

Paige only sends her that familiar exasperated look as she starts the car, like she can see right through Azzi’s bullshit but likes her anyway. Azzi smiles back, a little helpless in the face of that familiar affection.

By the time they arrive at Geno's house, the effect has worn off, and Azzi is a stretched out ball of nerves all over again, her leg bouncing against the floor of the car so fast it’s nearly vibrating. 

“Seriously,” Azzi says again, grabbing onto Paige’s sleeve as she moves to open the car door, the two of them still parked in Geno’s driveway. “If they ask any serious questions, I’ll take it. You just- tell the truth unless absolutely necessary.”

“I’m not that bad at lying,” Paige complains, but Azzi isn’t amused, her hand still tightly gripping Paige’s sleeve.

“Hey,” Paige says, a little softer, and extricates her sleeve from Azzi’s grip, just to replace it with her own hand. She lifts Azzi’s hand up, and presses her lips to the knobby bone at Azzi’s wrist, looking back up at Azzi with a smile. “Relax. It’ll be fine.”

Azzi tries to maintain a scowl, but her hand untenses in Paige’s grip, against her will and she gives in.

“Fine,” she says, ungracious but accepting. “But if this all goes wrong, the murder-suicide is still in the plans.”

“Like you could kill me,” Paige snorts, and Azzi makes a sharp dissatisfied noise as they both finally exit the car, a large wrapped bouquet of orchids in Paige’s arms.

“I so could.”

“Maybe if I let you,” Paige says.

“Paige, please you would let me do anything to you.”

“Oh my god Azzi! We are just about to go inside, and you insist I’m the vulgar one” Paige complains as she rests her head on the wheel before they get interrupted.

“I thought I heard yelling,” the old man says, the sharp clean lines of her white haircut unforgiving against the bright light shining from behind her, the doorway lit up against the darkness of the night sky. “Azzi, is the impression you want to make on your guest?”

“Sorry,” Paige says instantly as Azzi scowls, her head bowed.

Geno’s expression changes so fast it’s almost comical, a beaming smile overtaking the thin, wrinkled face as she turns to Paige.

“No, no,” she says dismissively. “Don’t apologize. I know an Azzi antic when I see one. It’s good to meet you. Please, come inside.”

“She started it,” Azzi mutters, only a little sullen as the two of them enter the large house, the foyer illuminated in white by bright lights set into the high ceiling. Her breath leaves her with an ‘oof’ as Paige elbows her gut in silent response, smirking at the betrayed look Azzi sends her.

“Nonsense,” says Geno, who has apparently decided to miss that entire interaction. “Here, let me take your jackets.”

“It’s alright,” Paige says quickly, and smiles that white smile again and Azzi is suddenly struck by the image of a newspaper ad, ‘Perfect Girlfriend’ scrawled in large expansive lettering over the top. $9.99 a month. 

“I brought flowers,” Paige says, doing nothing to dispel the image, and holds out the bouquet. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“Oh,” Geno says, and takes the offered flowers. “These are lovely, thank you.”

Azzi is expecting Geno to return to the kitchen to put away the flowers, leaving her some time with Paige in the hall before the trial begins, but the man just lingers, watching Paige hang up first her jacket, and then turn to Azzi for her. 

“You’re so polite,” Geno croons in a voice that Azzi considers unseemly for a man of his age. “Not at all like the last girl Azzi brought home.”

Both Azzi and Paige freeze, Azzi in the middle of handing her jacket off to Paige. 

“I was fifteen,” Azzi splutters, blood rushing to her face. She feels hotter now than she ever did with the jacket on.

Paige places the hanger with Azzi’s jacket into the closet, her voice seemingly casual, but Azzi can hear the glimmer of laughter underneath her words. “Oh, really? What happened?”

“What didn’t?” Geno sighs dramatically, leading them into the kitchen where Jayden is seated at the stools lining the kitchen island, slicing up cucumbers for the salad. “Never said thank you or please, stared at the wall the entire night. She wouldn’t have brought flowers. Actually, I think she stole my vase.”

“She did not,” Azzi says, and then pauses. “She probably didn't.” She amends.

“Do you see?” Geno says, and Paige nods. Azzi takes the opportunity the instant the older man turns her back to elbow Paige, returning the favour from earlier with a bright smile on her face as she drives her elbow into Paige’s stomach. 

Paige wheezes and manages to disguise it as a cough when Geno turns back around. The wide table is already set, and the four of them start to settle around it, Jayden bringing over the salad, surprisingly quiet. 

They manage to make it to the end of dessert without incident.

“It’s alright,” Geno is saying graciously, now empty bowls sitting in front of them. “Now is the time to make mistakes. Around your age, I got engaged to this lovely young woman. Turned out, she was already married.”

  Paige gasps and Azzi thinks about banging her head on the table. 

“Not this story again,” Jayden says glumly. “Please.”

“She was married,” Geno says, and pauses for dramatic effect. “To an Earl. In England.”

Jayden and Azzi groan in unison. Paige, damn her, seems genuinely interested, her mouth dropping.

“No,” she says, hushed. “And you had no idea?”

“None,” Geno says, puffed up with the pleasure of a willing listener. Both Jayden and Azzi exchange long-suffering looks over the dinner table, and for a moment it feels normal, for the two of them to be complaining light-heartedly as the old man relays a story both have already heard too many times. Then Jayden’s eyes cut to the side, where Azzi’s hand is resting next to Paige’s on the dinner table, their pinkies interlocked. His expression hardens, leaving Azzi blinking. 

“So, how did you two meet?” He asks loudly, cutting off a question Paige had been asking. Geno frowns at the interruption, but also turns to the two of them, looking between expectantly. 

“We skate at the same rink,” Azzi says, taking a careful sip of water. “We ran into each other all the time. Practice times overlapped sometimes.”

“Ah, go on,” Geno says, looking unfortunately engrossed. “Tell us the details.”

Azzi forces a little laugh, her hand on the glass tightening. She’s talking to Geno but she can feel Jayden’s eyes on her, stinging wherever they reach.

“It’s nothing interesting,” she says. “We got along, I asked her out, we went to dinner.” 

“Ah,” Geno says, lying back in his chair a little. “How unromantic.”

“It’s still pretty new,” Azzi says. She thinks she might be starting to sweat.

As if on cue, Paige’s hand wraps around her fully, squeezing a little before letting go. 

“Azzi is answering all the questions,” Jayden says, a sharp smile directed at the two of them. “We could at least let the paige talk a little.”

Azzi thinks about propelling herself over the table, and slamming her fist into that smug little face. It’s a comforting image, if nothing else.

“Hm?” Geno says, looking between them. “How did you meet Azzi, Paige? What did you think?”

“I don’t-” Azzi starts, her voice a little high with nerves, but Paige just squeezes her wrist again, gently. 

“I thought she was beautiful,” Paige says, before Azzi can start to panic. She smiles at Azzi and adds, “And very talented, of course. Maybe a little sharp around the edges, but it was part of the appeal. And I knew I had to talk to her that day, or I’d regret it forever.”

Azzi’s face feels burning hot. She thinks it’s probably a good thing Paige isn’t holding her hand anymore, because her palms feel clammy.

“What?” She asks and her voice sounds shaky in her ears. 

“That’s romantic,” Geno says, nodding. She says something else and Azzi can hear Jayden’s voice, but it’s all faded a little to background noise, as she stares full-on at Paige’s profile, turned away from to address a comment Geno made, and Azzi feels like her heart is going burst entirely out of her chest.

“I’m going to go take a breath,” she says abruptly, standing up. “Outside. Be right back.”

She can feel everyone staring at her, but at this point, she’s pretty sure her face can’t get any more red than it already is. 

She steps out into the night, the glow of the porch light dancing across the wooden slats at her feet. It’s happening again, she thinks, where just as soon as she’s starting to feel like she’s got everything under control, scheduled neatly into her calendar, Paige comes along with that honest little smile and her dimples flashing and Azzi starts to feel like she’s swirling apart again. 

Footsteps sound behind her, and Azzi turns, mostly expecting to see Paige or maybe Geno, come out to fetch her again.

“Hey,” Jayden says, shifting his weight from one foot to another. He looks uncomfortable, standing just outside the door, shorter than Azzi remembers him being. 

He doesn’t say anything at all, just raises an eyebrow, leaning back to brace his elbows on the porch fence behind him. 

“You guys make a good couple,” Jayden says finally. 

Something flutters in Azzi’s chest. “What?”

“You look right together,” she says, and motions with hi hands. “You fit.”

Azzi can’t think of anything to say. Oh God, it’s over, she thinks, with a burst of relief. And then again, with an overwhelming panic. It’s over. 

“I-” Jayden rubs at the back of his neck, and Azzi just stares. “I’ve been a little overbearing, I guess.”

“Overbearing?” Azzi repeats scathingly. “You mean the blackmailing me into hanging out with you?”

Jayden seems like he’s trying to put on a good show of repentance. “I just, I didn’t want to lose, so I kept pushing.” 

Azzi tilts her head back and stares at the sky. A month and a half of effort, gone in two minutes. What, her mind whispers to her, do we do now? A bright star twinkles down at her unhelpfully.

“Whatever,” she mumbles out loud and pushes her way past Jayden back into the house. 

Azzi returns to the dining room and starts clearing the table without being asked. She stands in the kitchen and doesn’t wash a single plate, just stares at the delicate china Geno had brought out specially for meeting Azzi’s girlfriend and thinks about how unfair and awful life is. Bitterness is creeping up her throat, long tendrils threatening to choke her out entirely.

Paige comes to meet her in the kitchen after a few minutes, her arms wrapping around Azzi, enfolding her entirely as her chin comes to rest over Azzi’s shoulder. 

“Hi,” she says.

It’s always been in Azzi’s nature to poke at barely formed scabs, ripping her cuts open before they’ve had a chance to heal. She doesn’t pull away from Paige’s arms. 

“Hi,” Azzi whispers, turning her head to plant a small, clumsy kiss to her forehead. 

Paige pulls away, and stands beside Azzi instead, her back leaning against the edge of the counter. “You good?”

Azzi grins, and swallows down the acrid taste at the back of her tongue. “Are you? I thought you were a bad liar, what was all of that back there?”

Paige flushes slightly, red creeping up her neck. Her eyes leave Azzi’s to look at the plate in her hands instead. “All that hanging out with you has made me a worse person, probably.”

Azzi sets the plate down and pretends to swoon dramatically into Paige’s chest, who rolls her eyes, but grabs her arms anyway, steadying her.

“Oh no,” she warbles piteously, fluttering her eyelashes. “What will your teammates think of me, now that I’ve tarnished their precious golden girl?”

Paige reaches up and pinches Azzi’s nose. “Gold doesn’t tarnish,” she says, ignoring Azzi’s nasally protests.

Azzi pulls away and pouts, rubbing at her nose. “I’m just a special influence, Paige.”

“You’re a special something, for sure,” Paige says dryly.

Azzi makes a face at her, and turns back to the dirty dishes, still waiting for her.

“Are you alright?” Paige’s voice asks again from behind her. “I saw Jayden follow you out. I didn’t want to step in. What did he say?”

“Oh, you know,” Azzi says feebly. She gives up, and turns on the warm water, starts scrubbing the dishes. “I’ll tell you later,” she says to Paige. 

She wonders, not for the first time, if Paige’s got a superpower that lets her know how far Azzi can be pushed at any particular moment, because she doesn’t say anything else. She just nudges Azzi a little to the side with one heavy hip, until both of them are standing side by side, washing dishes in the silent kitchen. 

A clock in Azzi’s head is keeping time in the car ride home, tick-tick-ticking away the moments before they’re back and Azzi has to confess. It’s over, she thinks again. It was always going to be over, she reminds herself, but it doesn’t help. Even if she keeps this quiet, the two months will pass.

Azzi’s dreams have always been so huge but recently they’ve started to seem so small. Not the far away pressure of a medal around her neck, only the image of a kitchen in the early afternoon, warm hands around her waist, gentle lips on her. A breakfast set out for two. She isn’t sure what she’ll do if that slips away again.

“Paige,” she says when the car finally stops in front of her apartment. “Guess what?”

There’s a terrible sort of lingering stillness in the car, like Paige can sense that something is wrong.

“Jayden said we were a cute couple,” Azzi says, as casually as she can manage. She’s watching Paige’s face carefully, searching for a reaction, but she can’t tell if her expression really changes or if Azzi’s just seeing what she wants to see. “I think she’s going to back off. So we’re good now.” 

“Oh.” Paige says. And that’s that. 

She expects, despite herself, for Paige to follow her out of the car, maybe just to talk, maybe to say a goodbye. 

She hasn’t even made it into the building before she hears the car start to move, driving off. 

Sure enough, when she turns around, the street is empty.

Because the world is conspiring against her, the elevator is out of service.

 Azzi climbs up five flights of stairs slowly, thinking about what she’s going to do now. The stairwell is abandoned this late at night, everybody else in the building already asleep. 

She had known this was going to happen. She had planned for this happening. Their relationship had come with a deadline and she had known it was eventually going to run out. She had made a plan, and the plan was fucked now because Paige had said not a single thing when Azzi had told her they could end their fake relationship, hadn’t even stuck around to watch her leave.

“If she doesn’t even want to be friends,” she says to a bleary-eyed Kaitlyn, standing on her doormat. “What am I supposed to do then?” 

Kaitlyn isn’t wearing any pants, and her eyes are halfway to closing before Azzi’s even finished her sentence.

“Hang on,” she says, and turns her head to the side to yawn wide, jaw cracking. “Okay, come on.” Ushering Azzi back into her own apartment.

Inside her apartment, Kaitlyn hears her out, splayed out on Azzi’s floor, nodding sleepily as Azzi explains.

“This problem is stupid,” Kaitlyn says, like she always does. Azzi is lying on her couch, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling again. It really is such an ugly ceiling. 

“Tomorrow,” Kaitlyn is saying. “Just talk to her.”

“But-” Azzi starts and Kaitlyn cuts her off. 

“If she really doesn’t want to be friends at all, I’ll call all the magazines I can think of and tell them she’s really bad in bed or something.”

Azzi pauses and contemplates this. “Promise?” She asks eventually, and Kaitlyn groans where her face is half-mashed into the floor. 

“We can do it together,” she promises. 

“Ugh,” Azzi says, and rolls over on her couch and gives in to sleep. If she’s going to cry, she tells herself, might as well do it tomorrow.

When she wakes up, it’s not to the shrill piercing noise of her alarm, but to the equally shrill and piercing sound of her phone ringing. She’s still on her couch, and the apartment is still dark, the sun not yet risen. It could only have been a few hours since she got home. The ringing cuts off, and then starts up again.

“Azzi,” Kaitlyn says warningly, her eyes still closed, her face still buried in Azzi’s carpet. “Either you pick up that fucking phone, or I’m going to shove it so far up your ass, you’ll feel it ringing in your throat.”

Azzi leans off the couch to pick up the phone, rubbing the sleep crust out of her eyes.

“Hello?” she says into the phone, not bothering to check the caller ID, more irritable than normal.

“Azzi?” Paige’s voice says over the phone, and it’s so unexpected that Azzi almost misses that she’d said her first name.

“Paige?” She asks, wide-awake now.

“Can you let me in?” Paige asks. “To the apartment building, I need to-”

“Yeah,” Azzi says, stumbling over to where the buzzer sits. She presses. “What are you- Paige?” The line’s gone dead. 

“Oh my God,” Azzi says, staring at the phone in her hands. Her phone log is open in front of her, confirming that it hadn’t been some kind of longing-induced dream. “Oh my God,” she repeats.

“What’s happening?” Kaitlyn asks from behind her. She hasn’t moved at all, as far as Azzi can tell. If she wasn’t speaking, Azzi would worry that she was dead.

“You need to get out,” Azzi says, still staring at her phone in disbelief. She looks over and Kaitlyn is still unmoving. “You have to get out,” she says again, running over to pull Kaitlyn up and out of her carpet.

“You are-” Kaitlyn scowls as Azzi tries to push her out the door with both hands at her back. “You are ungrateful, that’s what.”

“I’ll buy you dinner,” Azzi says desperately. “Anything, seriously, but you have to get out.”

“Hm,” Kaitlyn says, ignoring Azzi’s attempts to throw her bodily at the door. “Alright. If you insist.”

Just before the door closes behind Kaitlyn, Azzi hears her whistle. “Hey Paige,” she hears Kaitlyn call cheerfully, just outside her door and before Azzi’s had the time to process what that means, someone is knocking at her door. 

When she opens it to see Paige, she starts to wish that she had spent her time brushing her hair instead of kicking Kaitlyn out. Or maybe her teeth. 

Her only consolation is that Paige looks equally haggard, hair even messier than usual, her eyes looking wild as she takes Azzi in, her chest heaving with exertion.

“One more date,” Paige says. She’s breathing hard. “Rule number four. You still- We still have one more.”

Azzi’s eyes couldn’t open any wider if they tried. A painful hope is springing up in her chest, pushing against her ribcage until it aches. “Did you run all the way up here?” She manages to ask, her head still in a daze.

“Your- fuck-” Paige is still panting, bracing her hand against the doorframe, but she laughs, breathless and a little nervous. “Your elevator was broken.”

Azzi can’t tell if she wants to laugh with her or cry. “I live on the fifth floor,” she says, instead of doing either.

“I just needed to tell you,” Paige says, straightening up fully and Azzi thinks that she looks dazed too. “I had to tell you-”

It’s all Azzi can take, all she needs to hear, her heart hammering in her chest. “Wait, stop!”

Paige is staring at her, and it’s an awful expression on her face, one that Azzi’s never wanted to see, like something is falling apart in front of her. 

Azzi doesn’t bother trying to explain any further. Azzi grabs Paige’s face and brings their lips together, so hard it hurts. 

Paige makes a sound against Azzi’s lips as their teeth knock together, her pointy canines digging into Azzi’s lower lip.

“Okay,” she says, pulling back. She’s laughing again, the soft puff of air hitting Azzi’s skin. “Okay.”

She cups Azzi’s face in one hand, hardened calluses meeting soft skin and gently, so gently, tugs her back in, smiling against Azzi’s mouth. 

This kiss is easier, in that it tastes less like blood. Paige’s lips are sweet, soft and plump and red, and she’s hesitant in a way Azzi’s never known her to be before, as she licks over her bottom lip, pulls Azzi even closer with a hand on her waist. Until they’re pressed up tight together, one of Azzi’s hands bruising her shoulder, the other tight on the back of her neck. Until Azzi’s tongue is in her mouth, tasting coffee and mint, feeling Paige’s body shudder against her, her hand opening and then closing tight around Azzi’s waist.

When they pull away, Azzi keeps one hand on her sleeve.

“I like you,” she says defensively, and Paige looks like the breath in her lungs has left her all at once. “I like your face. I like your arms. I like it when you wake up before me and you get ready without turning the lights on so you don’t wake me up. I like it when you carry my bags without me asking even though I’m a professional athlete and carrying heavy things is like, 45% of my life. I like the way you put your hand on my thigh when you’re driving. I like that you have piles of tickets in your car and I like that you call your mom every Sunday-”

“I get it.” Paige says, looking mortified. 

“Do you?” Azzi says. “Because, just so you know, you are completely ruining my six year plan.” 

“Okay,” Paige says, her voice muffled from where she’s covered her face with her hands. “Maybe I don’t get it.” 

“My six year plan,” Azzi wails. “You aren’t supposed to confess until the second year.”

Paige’s hands lower as she considers this. It’s a testament to how well Paige knows her, maybe, that she manages to piece together what’s happening, regardless of how objectively batshit it is.

“Do you want me to wait a year?” She asks, grinning again. Her ears are bright red.

“Don’t make fun of me,” Azzi says, “You are ruining my life. Just- hang on. I need to show you something.”

Azzi’s got one hand on Paige’s wrist, leading her into her apartment, and Paige comes easily, like she has nowhere else to be. Azzi swallows down the lump in her throat, and takes them both to her bedroom, opening up drawers until she finds the notebook she’s looking for, passing it over to Paige who takes it, confused.

Those furrowed lines between her eyebrows only deepen as she opens the book, scanning down a long page covered in Azzi’s handwriting.

“Every time you did something that made me think I loved you, I wrote it down,” Azzi says, her eyes burning holes in her stupid worn out carpet. “So I wouldn’t say it out loud.”

Silence settles over the two of them like a heavy blanket, stifling and hot. Azzi lets it sit, doesn’t dare to move, holds her breath, until she can’t take it anymore and looks up. 

“Are you crying? ” She asks, her eyes widening. 

“I’m going to kill you,” Paige snaps, not even bothering to wipe away the tears resting in the corners of her eyes, poised to fall. She’s still looking through the second page. “Why would you- why wouldn’t you say any of this before?”

“I don’t know!” Azzi says, slightly alarmed by the tears that are now fully rolling down Paige’s cheekbones. “Please don’t cry. It makes me feel icky.”

“You stupid- God, I don’t even have a word for you right now,” Paige tells her. “There are- you’ve written pages in here.”

“I only started writing in it about a few weeks ago,” Azzi says helpfully. “Otherwise I would have more.”

“At no point,” Paige asks incredulously, “did it occur to you that maybe it would be easier if you just said these things to me?”

Azzi frowns. “I didn’t know if you- you know. Are you?”

“Obviously I’m in love with you,” Paige says, and Azzi feels like all the strings holding her up have been cut at once. “Who would agree to this whole fake-dating thing if they weren’t?”

Azzi thinks that that is almost insulting, but she doesn’t have it in her to feel offended, just feels a bone-melting relief, sagging against her bedroom wall. “You said you couldn’t think of a better solution.”

“There is always a better solution,” Paige tells her, and she’s laughing as she says it, finally wiping her wet eyes, which makes Azzi laugh with her. 

“Sorry,” Azzi says, and because she’s pretty sure she’s allowed to, she presses her hands to Paige’s cheeks, and kisses the divot right between her eyebrows. “Sorry,” she repeats. 

Paige puts her hands up to Azzi’s face, and they must look ridiculous, both of them holding the other’s face between their palms, grinning like children.

“Azzi,” Paige says, very seriously. “Do you want to be my-”

“Agh!” Azzi cries, and tackles Paige onto her bed. Paige groans as she falls heavily onto Azzi’s covers, her hands flying up to Azzi’s wrists, Azzi’s hands on her chest, Azzi’s knees digging into the mattress on either side of her thighs. 

“You already ruined my six-year plan,” Azzi says, pressing down on Paige’s chest. She pretends that she is not effectively groping Paige’s tits right now, but she’s not sure if she’s fooling anyone. “Just let me do the asking.”

 Paige’s hands move from Azzi’s wrists to her shoulders, and she pulls Azzi down towards her, rolling them both over, a hand cradling the back of Azzi’s head. She looks down at Azzi from where she’s straddling her thighs and grins at the flustered expression on Azzi’s face.

“You asked for the fake relationship,” she reminds Azzi. “It’s my turn.”

“It’s not a competition,” Azzi lies. “And fake isn’t equal to real. That was more like a business pitch.” 

Paige only smiles at her, sharp and knowing, and that wasn’t what Azzi had wanted at all because she can feel her slick stir at the sight. 

“It was all business to you?” Paige asks, bending over Azzi, a mocking tilt to her lips, to the arch of her eyebrow. “Really?”

Azzi opens her mouth to respond, but Paige’s already got her mouth on Azzi’s skin, her tongue darting out at the sensitive spot under Azzi’s ear until she’s got Azzi arching up underneath her with a strangled cry, grinding against Paige’s thigh to try to get some friction. Paige’s hands are pushing her shirt up, fingers rough against her abdomen, a sharp contrast to the soft kisses she’s leaving down Azzi’s neck.

Azzi has the sudden, vivid thought that if she comes just from this, she’ll never forgive herself. 

Then Paige’s mouth is at the creases of her thighs, teeth digging in just a little into where the flesh is softest, and Azzi stops thinking all together. 

Once the sweat and cum are drying on their stomachs, Paige looks up at her, and Azzi thinks that she’s lost the battle and the war. 

She moves in for a kiss, but Azzi pushes her face away with one hand, the other draped over her eyes, too jittery for her own good. 

“I’m not going to lick my own cum out of your mouth.”

She can feel Paige twitch against Azzi’s thigh at that and Azzi lifts her arm to squint at her, levels her with the best unimpressed glare that she can manage with her body still feeling so jelly-like and her heart still beating so fast. “Really?”

Paige just laughs, and pulls Azzi’s hands away and to the side, so she can look her straight in the face, can see her own expression reflected back in Azzi’s eyes- a little nervous, but grinning so wide her cheeks hurt. She places a gentle kiss on the soft skin of Azzi’s cheek.

“Go on, then,” Azzi says, the glumness in her voice offset by the brightness of her eyes as she looks up at Paige. “I know when I’m beaten.”

“Azzi,” Paige starts. She stops, and tries again. “Azzi.”

The Azzi in question groans at the sound of her name, and Paige keeps her hands around her wrists.

“Azzi, I love you,” she says, and Azzi huffs, the warm air hitting Paige’s chin. “I’ve loved you for a while now, I think.”

She lets go of Azzi’s wrists, moves her hands to cradle Azzi’s face instead. Azzi knows how she must be feeling, because she’s feeling it too. Her throat feels scratchy, the culmination of so much longing suddenly real and staring her dead in the eyes, her eyelashes casting a shadow over her cheeks. It’s almost overwhelming. 

“Be my real girlfriend, okay?” Paige finishes lamely, sweeping Azzi’s hair out of her face, the tips of her ears burning hot.

“That was terrible,” Azzi says, but her voice sounds suspiciously wet. “Go brush your teeth so we can kiss properly.”

Azzi makes them both breakfast, and burns the toast when Paige distracts her halfway through. She doesn’t mind, the blackened bits can be scraped off, and the eggs still taste good. 

She’s expecting the doorbell, when it comes. Honestly, she’s impressed they managed to hold off so long. 

“How’s it going?” Kaitlyn says in Azzi’s doorway, attempting to sound casual, while leaning around Azzi’s body to get a glimpse inside. 

“Kind of early for a visit,” Azzi says, but Caroline is already pressing her way inside, curiosity blatantly etched on her features. 

“It’s fine,” Kaitlyn says, also stepping inside. Azzi sighs and moves to the side. 

“So, why don’t you want to real-date Azzi, huh?” Caroline is asking, clearly trying to loom intimidatingly over Paige. The effect is damaged by the flowery embroidered shirt she’s wearing, short at the ruffled cuffs, cropped to her midriff.

“Stop-” Azzi starts to say, trying to pull Paige away from the two of them. 

“She has good bone structure,” Kaitlyn interrupts, her hands reaching up from behind Azzi to grab her face, smushing it between her palms. “Have you seen her bone structure?”

“You guysh are th’ worsht,” Azzi says, her face still clutched in Kaitlyn’s iron grip. She pulls, until Kaitlyn releases her, and rubs her now sore cheeks, scowling. “We already- we fixed it. Jesus.”

“We could try a shovel talk,” Kaitlyn mutters to Caroline, both of them looking slightly disappointed, and Azzi scowls harder. 

“Get out already!”

“I have actual shovels,” Caroline tells Paige as a parting statement.

“Okay?” Paige says, bewildered. She turns to Azzi once the two of them have left. “Why was she telling me about her shovels?” 

“It was probably meant to be ominous,” Azzi sighs. “Caroline is terrible at ominous.” 

“It came across a little more like she was bragging about her shovels,” Paige says.

Azzi watches Paige- her girlfriend, her mind supplies, thrilled- get her stuff together, searching for keys in the pockets of pants that had been discarded. They’ve still got practice, Azzi thinks, a little loopy. After all that, and they’ve still got practice. Azzi will show up to the rink in the evening, and see a crowd of hockey players taking up space on the rink- always too slow to clean up- and one of them will be Paige. It seems too much to process. The sun has risen outside, painting Azzi’s apartment in golden light, her ugly ceiling and her cheap carpet, and the girl in the center of it. Azzi wonders if she should tell her her shirt is inside out. 

Paige looks up to see her staring, her eyes even more blue under this lighting, and that animated flash when she smiles- bright and bold, like she's just seen something good.  

[megapteraurelia]

neighbour!kuroo, who ever since that day, throws sour looks at your boyfriend's door whenever he walks to and from work, hoping that his hard stare would melt through the wood and give the idiot guy hemorrhoids. or, well. any unpleasant experience, really.

who thought about taping his mailbox shut just to be an inconvenience, but kuroo's not a child anymore. ('maintaining his youthfulness' probably isn't an excuse anymore that he can let fly.)

neighbour!kuroo who looks down at the tupperware in your hands once he opens the door when you knock a couple days later, the sheepish and tired look on your face speaking volumes for how thankful you are.

he rubs his neck, partly in embarrassment, partly in confusion, but also to keep his boyish excitement in check. it's also been a long time since he's had a woman gift him food — since he's had anyone gift him food.

"thank you," you say, clarifying, "for taking care of me when i was sick."

"ah, actually there was no need..." he trails off, because even though there isn't any need, he sure likes the idea of enjoying food that he didn't have to put effort in. he's not a stickler for free alms in the form of nutrients, especially if it comes with such a sweet face. he thinks it's stupid to notice the way you look so soft and pretty when—

he absentmindedly looks over your shoulder to your boyfriend's half-opened door, which you had just come out of, tip-toeing over the hallway's cold floor towards his apartment.

kuroo wonders whether you're going to forgive your idiot of a boyfriend and with a twist of his lips finds himself hoping that you don't.

with another weird, dry bobbing of his throat, he also realises that he'll be pretty pissed at you if you do end up forgiving him.

but when you turn around to go back inside, his eyes trail after your form, and he shrugs to himself, the lunch box heavy in his hands.

after all, he is no one to you and you aren't anyone to him, so if you want to stay with somebody like that, he'll just have to get over it.

neighbour!kuroo who, despite that, still eats the warm food out of the tupperware on his kitchen island, the chopsticks digging into his chin, lost in thought, until faint yelling through thin walls comes to his attention.

for a second, his heart is still and his body, too, but once it jumpstarts back into action, his limbs follow suit. chopstick clattering onto the wood, he ignores the mess behind him and his long fingers wrap around the handle of his entrance door.

neighbour!kuroo who chews his lip in thought and slight worry, wondering if he should intervene. is he overstepping any boundaries? are those the duties of a neighbour? is he being overbearing?

but as soon as a crash sounds out, he is already steps deep into the hallway, knuckles rapping against the door harshly, waiting, jaw hard, ears fuming.

"everything good?" he presses out, more a threat than a question and your boyfriend's face grows weird, ugly in the sudden influx of heavy dislike.

"what's it to you? you here to pinch my girl again? you best back off, this ain't none of your business."

neighbour!kuroo who whishes for the day when he didn't remember your boyfriend's face and didn't have a reason to get involved into lovers' spats — except now, he can't not help once he knew, so he levels a pissed stare at the guy, "you better hope she's unharmed—"

who, once you fight your boyfriend's hold of the door and come out to the hallways with heavy breaths and a tears-streaked face, feels like maybe taping his neighbour's mailbox shut isn't that childish.

who fixes your (ex-)boyfriend with a hard look and a harder touch to allow you time and space to gather your things, because you looked at him with your pink nose, that flushed mouth and the tears clinging to your lashes and told him you didn't feel safe.

neighbour!kuroo who opens the door to his apartment for you a second time, who ignores the aggression from your ex behind him with a smile he knows is aggravating and finger wave that serves as a reminder that while he may be a door away, his own fists (and the cops) aren't that far behind.

neighbour!kuroo who makes tea for you and awkwardly stands still in his own kitchen, wondering if it's weird to serve you the food you brought over for him. who shrugs and ends up doing so anyway, because he still feels hungry.

putting down the plates at the coffee table, the sounds make you snap out of the dissociated daze, and you look up to find your ex-boyfriend's neighbour with his dark cow-licked hair and the observant eyes.

his hand comes up to rub his neck, and he lets himself fall on the other end of the couch with a big sigh, "not to address the elephant in the room, but you still have your shoes on."

taglist | @takes1

[mmmilkweed]

Can we have some westerner pureshadow or shadowvanillla headcannons ? (You don't have to of course but just curious)

Hmm

I usually don't like writing because my English sucks, but I can't resist my westerners

I keep making PV smitten with Smilk in every au I make, and this one is no different. He's absolutely down horrendous for him - well. More of the idea of him. An actual outlaw. In his care? Woaw.

Since he's visually impaired, he's pretty much been confined to an uneasy and unpredictable life - so in order to survive, he's got to be smart about it. Easy about it. Living on his current ranch is that normalcy. He's got everything he'd need - a job, a roof over his head, hell, he's even got more freetime than the average Joe. But this isn't what he really wants. He idolized the freedom outlaws have, how they go wherever they please, take what they want, live in tendon with unpredictable currents of life. He wants nothing more than that.

he finds Smilk, half dead in a ditch. Having read and kept up with anything outlaw related, he knew immediately that this was a Grimfang gang member. Judging from the guns strapped to him, one of the lead beasts. He couldn't help himself but to drag the beast back to the farm stead, tuck him up in the attic of the barn and patch him up. He had the foresight to hide Smilks guns

So for the next three days he silently nurses Smilk back to health. And the first thing smilk does when cracking his eyes open... Is spit in PVS face. Great start everyone

From there it's just PV coming up the attic to spend time with smilk. He wants to know all the stories - and with each one he slowly becomes more disillusioned with the idea of an outlaw. Has to learn what to think about the fact that smilk is, indeed, a merciless killer who will likely kill again. Him. If given the chance.

I could say more but this is already long bleh bleh

[softestqueeen]

39 + hotchner🫶🏻

prompt: "You're sure it's gonna fit?" "I'll make it fit." a/n: so, uhm guys.... i know i've been kinda gone but i am so back baby! i'll finfish the last requests for this special and then i've got some ideas for the future... so excited to be back at writing! so enjoy <3 warnings: 18+ MDNI!! unportexted p in v (guys, don't do that), finegring, hand job, pet names, slight dom/sub, breeding kink, size kink I 1205 words parining: soft dom!aaron hotchner x afab!reader special prompts I special masterlist

After you boyfriend of almost two months took you out for dinner at a local italian restaurant, he invited you back to his place and who were you to deny him?

So, thats how you ended up here, in his bedroom, underessed while he still wore his suit pants. Both of you were slightly out of breath from all of the kissing that had happened thus far.

You reached out, unlatching his belt and pulling down the zipper. He took over, pushing his pants and boxers down before stepping out of them.

When you see his length for the first time you almost moan at the sight. He was hung.

His heavy cock was not just long - definetely above average - but also thick. A prominent vein was running along his shaft and if you were to touch it you would probably find it throbbing with need.

You ddin't get much time to stare, Aaron already going in for another kiss. One hand on your face, the other on you waist, pulling you closer to him. His full lemgth was now throbbing against you bare stomach, smearing a drop of pre-cum over your hot skin.

Not being able to wait any longer, you reach down towards his length and wrap your hand around it. You start off by letting your hand go over his silky skin, slightly applying pressure while moving your lips against his, seeking entrance into his mouth.

You were starting to get a bit nervous. Will it fit? You didn't even know cocks like that existed outside of the porn industry.

But for now you concentrated on the way his weight felt in your hand and how you could slowly feel Aarons composed mask cracking. The groans he let out against you lips and the slight twitching in your hand telling you all you needed to know - he was just as aroused by this as you.

Before things could get too far, Aaron pulled away and wrapped his hand around your wrist, prying your had off him.

"If you keep that up, this will be over way sooner than any of us would like," he let out a small chuckle. You had to smile yourself as you pressed you lips to his for a quick peck.

His hands now wandered to your waist, slowly guiding you backwards, until the back of your kenes hit the mattress. After gently pushing you onto the bed, his tall frame immediately followed you and his lips connect with yours again.

His fingers finally connected with your heat, sliding along your folds, feeling your wettness. He didn't waste any time, slipping one finger inside of you. He built a steady rythmy, your moans music to his ears. Adding another finger, your back arched off the bed, pressing the fornt of your body against Aarons.

Peppering kisses along your neck and the side of your face, he started to go a bit faster, preparing you for whats to come. At this point he could hear your wettness, the squelching sound getting louder with every thrust of his thick fingers. Adding one last finger, he felt he had prepared you enough.

Aaron pulled his hand out of you, soothing your whine with a kiss. He uses his wet hand to give himself a few thrusts, your eyes glued to his length.

"Are you ready?" he asked before guiding his length towards your cunt. He could see the hesitancy in your eyes and was worried he might have gone too fast or misread the situation.

"Yes, it's just," a slight blush crept up your cheeks at your next words, "you're just so big. You're sure it's gonna fit?" Your wide eyes and slightly parted lips made his length stiffen up even more, if that was even possible.

Aaron Hotchner would have never thought that there was even a possibilty that he could have a size kink, but here he is now, turned on by just that.

A smug smile appeared on his lips. "Oh sweetheart, don't worry. I'll make it fit."

Cutting off your whine, Aaron connected your lips, before slowly pushing inside of you. He was well aware that this could hurt for you, so he took his free hand and started drawing comforting circles on your hipbone, hoping to soothe you.

A frown appeared on your pretty face at the intrusion, one of your hands gripping his shoulder while the other one's fisting the bedsheet. He was big big and you practically felt him everywhere, though he wasn't even fully inside of you.

He steadily pressed inside of you, worrying that stopping his movement could possibly hurt you even more. Whispering sweet nothings into your ear, he could finally bottom out, now fully inside of you.

A sigh of relief left your lips, while a groan fell from his. "You did so good for me, always so good for me," he was rambling into your shoulder.

You had to take some time adjusting to him, bothy óf you breathing heavily. "You can move now, Aaron. Just start off slow."

"Of course, anything baby." He pulls out half the way before thrusting back inside of you. His length felt heavenly inside of you, that delicious drag of him almost enough to get you over the edge.

With every thrust he became bolder, pulling out more before thrusting back in, picking up his speed. The sound of skin slapping against skin echoed in the room, just like your almost pornographic moans he elicted out of you with every thrust.

Aarons head was still burried in the side of your neck, he feared the moment he would look into you wide shimmering eyes he wouldn't be able to hold back any more.

So he held you tight while increasing his speed, determined to get you to finish before him. You were almost seeing stars, his cock splitting you open and you were sure that if you could see between the two of you, you'd see the buldge his cock created.

You could tell he was getting close by the way he started to twitch inside of you and how his thrusts were getting sloppy. He reached between you, his fingers drawing tight circles over your clit.

"Fuck, Aaron I'm close," you could feel his thrusts getting harder before he stills inside of you and with a groan releasing inside of you.

The sensation of his cum filling you and his thick fingers on your clit finally pushed you over the edge. With a shout of his name you came undone, gripping his length, almost bringing Aaron close again.

Once you've both calmed down he slowly pulled out of you, the sudden loss of his weight inside of you almost overwhelming. The sensation was quickly replaced with the one of his cum slowly spilling out of you, your gasp drawing Aarons attention to your cunt as well.

He let out a low groan at the sight. Though gone soft, his cock twitched softly.

Your boyfriend opened his arms and you gladly accepted the invitation, tucking yourself into his arms.

After placing a kiss on your forehead, he tightened his arms around you and it didn't take long for you to finally fall asleep.

the requests for this event are CLOSED!!

a/n: i hope you liked this, if so please leave some notes, likes, reblogs and comments! feedback is very appreciated!

please also consider supporting my ao3: @ softestqueeen

requests open! (now also for the x files)

taglist: @silvermagnolias@milywatermelon@bigbananaa @mmmmokdok

[princessleiana]

astrology moon sign observations 💋ྀིྀི

segment two

princess leiana astrology xoxo ⋆. 𐙚 ̊

11th moon house natives

A lot of people don't talk about how 11th-house natives actually have not the best relationship regarding their mother. I noticed that a lot of times with this placement people can have mothers who prioritize friendships, gossip about a child's business, aren't completely aware of how to emotionally support a child, or even have a child unexpectedly resulting in negative outcomes as it connects to a child's upbringing. Their relationship can also be good one second and the next it's crumbling. This also contributes to why an 11th house native can be isolated when it comes to dealing with emotional turmoil and actually begin to not like being around people who are very unpredictable as it resembles their mother. If you have this placement it is very important to understand your circumstances in your childhood and know you are not alone. And it is completely normal to go through ups and downs but it is very important to not pick up on unpredictable or unpleasant traits from your mother/mother figure. I also noticed with this placement a lot of people intellectualize their emotions and try and give solutions to themselves often not letting themselves feel the emotion in the given moment. Childhood may have brought you to an understanding of emotional connections early on in life. Many outcomes regarding relationships with the native mother are either absent, close relationships after childhood, or resentment. There is often an untraditional relationship between the native and the mother's relationship. Your friends may look to you for support and think you have great knowledge regarding emotional connections. You may consider your friends closer to you than family members and even feel more comfortable expressing yourself to your friends. These natives may also have a friendship relationship with their mother or have a mother who often treats them like a friend.

Leo sun + Aquarius moons

This is such an interesting combination people don't talk about enough. I think with every sun sign we get a different version based on your chart especially with your moon sign. The Leo sun and aquarius moon combination is a leo that embodies the energy to want to be seen & wants to be heard but values the connection within others. These people are incredibly smart and love to debate and share ideas amongst people. There is a calling to be seen when embarking on your independence but you don't sway away from human connection. These people are really aren't afraid to be themselves. I find with this placement these people do good in pop culture. These people love drama lowkey but in a way where they love breaking it down especially when something looks dumb. They aren't afraid to share their opinions regarding the population and topics the collective gravitates to. But these people do struggle with finding balance between creative expression and putting their self-expression outward vs being detached and rebellious. I find people with placement have a magnetism to them that compels people to always want to get their opinion regarding them or caring what this native might perceive them as. There is a certain magnetism to these natives people catch on quite quickly and every person with placement is a person who has a splash of uniqueness in their character It is pretty amusing and bold. But these people struggle with acceptance at times. Having fixed energy in the sun & the moon makes this native quite stubborn at times, especially in debates. But these natives are so loyal to friendships and literally are the best support system. They love being around their friends and watching them be together and feeling like they can make people unite. These natives loved to feel belonged and wanted.

Cancer moons with a 10th degree

These natives may have experienced a lot of emotional events in their lives that will forever stick in their paths and have shaped them into who they present themselves to be. There is a strong relation to how structure was represented in your home life as a child and that is often a theme. I think with this placement some one may have tried to guide this native to be conscious of how they represent their emotions in public or something even regarding that. These natives can be conscious of expressing themselves in public nature. These people are very good for comfort emotionally and can give a sense of authority in comfort. They may have played a mothering/fathering role or this can be in relation to having to grow quickly regarding home life and emotions. These people are actually more patient and observant with their emotions as cancer moons feels things quite often but these natives may have taught themselves the skill to be patient or observant with their emotions and the emotions of others. These natives are more susceptible to catching on to depression so I would be wary or they struggle with feeling sad. This placement can indicate this person being able to bring stability to home life especially when parenting. Tradition may be a theme in this native's life. This native may have had to play some traditional role within their home or even expectations. These natives have a lot of resilience.

written originally by me, don’t not steal writing.

let me know your opinions, did this resonate? :)

[cod-indulgences]

I had abdominal surgery a wee while ago and I was thinking of the 141 crowding over the nurses and just babying me,don't gotta lift a finger, oh your water needs filling up lemme do that, oh you need to pee lemme help you to the bathroom so the male nurse doesn't see what's THEIRS and ehen you're back home on base/at the flat they're at your beck and call. Gaz buys a bell you can shake foe help as a joke but as soon as the first bell rings you have 4 massive men filing in at attention.

You know price only trusts either him or gaz with bandage changing since they're more gentle handed as to not rip hair, but soap and simon are peering over shoulders saying it either needs to breathe or needs antiseptic etc etc

Im still on bed rest whilst on heavy opioids for pain so yeah! I'd love me a little feel good comfort if you're able to?

TF141 x !reader, comfort, non graphic medical injury and healing

Hope you're healing up ok anon!

If you didn't hurt so goddamn much you'd feel bad for the nurses. Simon is in full The Ghost mode, glaring from a corner with the skull plate gleaming in the harsh lights, every inch holding violence. It's a miracle he's not in the full tac gear. Two of your nurses are veterans of their craft and don't flinch, and they get his very grudging approval. The one who flutters her hands and asks you in a stage whisper if you're safe (which....great idea, asking someone that when the perceived abuser is right fucking there...) gets booted out the door and you don't see her again.

Funnily enough, he doesn't care about male nurses as much as Kyle and Johnny do, both of them bristling like guard dogs when it's time to check your catheter, move your legs to avoid swelling, test the incisions over your abdomen. You want to swat them for it, but again, you hurt too damn much. Screw this place and their ideas of "morphine doses" and "let's not cause organ failure".

John is the best of them all, at least while you're in the hospital- he makes sure you have support under your back, talks to the doctors and nurses and takes notes, learns when you need physical comfort and when you are so touched out he needs to get the boys out of your hair for a while.

It feels like forever to leave the hospital, even though you know you got out relatively quickly, no complications- and oh, being home is such a relief. Your own familiar walls and floors, a bed you sink comfortably into, and of course four sweet men doing their best to smother you in love.

The bell is just a joke, but the first time you wake up needing to pee and your phone slid out of reach it ends up being perfect- you clang it and Kyle pops his head in, grinning. "Yes, Princess?" He asks, and helps you stand up and shuffle to the toilet.

John does bandage changing, Simon peering over his shoulder and backseat-driving, and you let Johnny carry you to the couch, kissing him as he settles you into a nest of pillows. You get a kiss from everyone else of course, gentle presses of their lips that settle you better than anything.

Simon hesitates, and then shuffles you around, climbing onto the couch behind you to cradle you in his lap. You hiss a little as your stitches pull, and he murmurs a quiet apology. It's alright, his body heat soothes sore muscles, and you let yourself be cradled and cuddled into a nap.

The bell keeps being useful, you can ring it and within moments any or all of them are coming to you, helping you with everything from wound care to fixing a blanket over your lap. You start making a little game of it, asking for Kyle to scratch your nose, or Johnny to rub your feet, but each time they do it so immediately and sincerely that it just swings around to heartwarming.

You're not sure what the hell you did to deserve this, these big-hearted men giving you kisses and care with every gesture, but you'll take every minute of it.

[gothwineaunts]

I don’t mean to assume or make anyone alarmed but I’ve heard you and flynn are skipping the focus on Annabel and Lenore bc of a group of Montresor fans (as Lenore and Annabel aren’t popular with them).

Is that true??

I’m not asking because of what’s happening in fastpass, I heard about this information around when season 2 came out.

Wow, that's honestly absurd. Sorry hon, I dunno where you heard that but it's made-up nonsense. A rumor, and not even a particularly good one. I think most anyone would be able to see through it, but I'll go through it with you anyway because I've seen some angst on the tag about this. 1. Lenore and Annabel are the main characters of the story, and that has not changed and will not change. If we intended to toss them aside in season 2, why on earth would we have set so much up in season 1? Also all of the promo art is still of them, and we spent a lot of time on it. So I think it's a safe bet to assume they're still the main characters. 2. Nevermore is, and has always been, a sapphic gothic romance. Montresor is a man. Where is the sense in changing the intent of a story, and likely losing readers in the process, just to appeal to a niche group? 3. As for this niche group of Montresor fans, where? Who are they? And what power do they supposedly have over us to force us to completely change the story to their shadowy whims? Idk if you noticed this but people kind of hate Montresor. He's easily the least liked character in the series. And making him the main character would be maybe the most unpopular decision we could possibly make, so how would that be selling out or making fanservice, if everyone... would hate it? Wouldn't that make it the opposite of fanservice? What is the logic there? 4. As far as I am concerned, Annabel and Lenore are popular with most everybody in the fandom (including people who happen to also like Montresor) on account of them being, once again, the main characters of the story. 5. Annabel got the first flashback, and then Ada, then Prospero, then Eulalie, and Will. I feel like there are enough data points there for most people to be able to see the trajectory of the arc. If you can't, I'm not going to explain it. 6. Related to the above point, do you suppose we've passed over Lenore by accident? Or we just forgot about her? Or is it more likely that we're doing a thing? 7. Y'know, it's always Montresor people make up these moralistic rumors about. I'm sick to death of people being weird about Montresor. Some of you out there really need to learn what a villain is, it's frankly wild how much confusion there seems to be around this concept. 8. This rumor smacks of "you don't actually care about the sapphics" but I regret to inform you that Flynn and I are both sapphics. And worse, we're sapphic together. Kinda shoots that idea out of the water. 9. Is this because everyone is mad they haven't kissed yet? Because this is still the same slowburn you read last season. I don't know why anyone thought there'd be a kiss like ten panels into the new season. 10. If I seem edgy, it's because it's pretty insulting to imply that we just do whatever readers tell us to do when it comes to creating the story. We really put our hearts into this series, and our plans for the plot will not change, no matter what y'all say or do. We do not crowdsource our art. And if we did, it would make an absolute mess of things. Thanks for your question, I hope I cleared things up. <3

[captain-huggy-bear]

Clayton, Kess, or Luke with reader who is loopy from anesthesia??

Thought this could count as a short prompt, but if you don’t agree, please ignore.

Love your writing!! 💛

Thank you, lovely! Picked my husband, Clay! I hope you enjoy this :) Big requests/full fic/big idea requests are closed at the moment but drabble and prompt requests are still open. Writing Masterlist

Clayton think he's prepared for it, he knows that anaesthesia can make people a little woozy, a little loopy, a little strange. He knows that you're probably not going to be quite yourself when he comes to pick you back up from your wisdom tooth removal to take you home and he thinks he's ready for that. Ready to make sure you eat the right foods and get safely home. Ready to deal with whatever silly comments you decide to make. But, boy, oh boy, does he really underestimate just how hard anaesthetic is going to hit you as someone whose never been under, someone who rarely drinks or loses control. Someone who often overthinks their every word.

When he comes to get you, you're led out by a nurse, a little uneven in your gait, stumbling as you go like a new born deer. Your cheeks look massive a combination of the swelling that's already beginning and the gauze shoved into your cheeks. You're a little ashy in the face, not your usual colouring and he's standing before you even reach him, bridging the gap between the two of you until the nurse lets him take your arm in his.

Clay's careful to avoid your jaw and cheek when his hand rests on the base of your neck, thumb rubbing against the hollow there like always as he tries to bring your attention back into the world around you. To remove a little bit of that dazed look you're sporting.

"Hey, sweet girl, how you doing?" You blink up at him like you're barely processing his existence, gauze stuffed in your mouth to stem any bleeding from your tooth extraction, cheeks like a hamster.

"You cam't call me tha'" Your voice is muffled and slurred, words coming out barely legible as you try to speak around the gauze and the numbness in your jaw, You frown at him as you say it , like you're about to scold him for calling you 'sweet girl'. Something he's called you almost every day since you started dating.

"Why not, baby? I always call you that?" You slap away his hand, the one at your throat, pushing him away from you in a way that you've never done before and he lets you. Of course he lets you, he'd never touch you if you didn't want it and while it makes his heart sink, he also knows you're a little drowsy, a little woozy, a little confused right now. He knows you're not your usual self.

"I hab a boyfrien' and he woul'nt like it." You cross your arms as you scold him, the way you sway on the spot and the slurring definitely taking some of the bite out of it.

Clay can't help but let out a huff of amusement, a light laugh as he starts to smile at you, teeth peeking out from behind his lips, dimples starting to show. Your frown falters at his smile, getting that starry eyed look you tend to get whenever he smiles your way. Not immune to his charms even when you're convinced you have a different boyfriend somewhere.

"Baby, I am your boyfriend." You gasp at his words, mouth dropping open, eyes wide and glimmering with wonder like he's just told you that unicorns exist. Part of him wishes he had his phone out to record, to show you later.

"Reawlly?"

"Yeah, baby, it's me, Clayton."

You gasp, hands reaching out to touch him. You paw at his face clumsily, fingers tracing his features and pushing at strands of his hair. "You're so pwetty!" You let him step back into your personal space, let his hands reach for your waist as your fingers find his chains. Old habits seeming to die hard even when you don't recognise him, your body seems to, muscle memory taking hold.

"Thank you, sweet girl, you're pretty too." Your eyes grow wider at his words, cheeks flushing, mouth dropping open like you can barely believe him.

"You thin' 'm pwetty?"

"Of course I do, baby, I love you," His grin gets wider, eyes softening, twinkling at you with humour because fuck if it isn't adorable that you're so taken aback by it all.

"You lobe me?"

"Yeah, of course I do, you're my girl," Your face heats up, flushing with colour moments before you hide your face into his chest. Too embarrassed to look at him, sweetly shy because this handsome man is saying he's your boyfriend and you're not sure how to process it.

Clay's hands slide into your hair, stroking through the strands, massaging the back of your neck and scalp, waiting for you to calm down from the rush of giddy energy. You used to be this giddy at the start, before you were in a relationship, but he hasn't seen it in a while. He forgot how much he missed it, the shyness that openly told him how much you admired him.

"You're okay, baby...it's a bit too much, huh?" You nod into his chest, face still planted there as Clay strokes soothing lengths down your hair and back, his other hand wrapping around your waist to keep you close. "How about we go home and I get you some ice-cream, sound good?"

"Ywes, plwease..."