#like. i know exactly why it's like that it's because my grandfather built this house and he was. creative

[ragsy]

I love living in a house that, every time I have to call out a plumber or an electrician to look at something, it always ends with the maintenance guy putting his hands on his hips and going "huh. That's weird, why is it like that"

[seriouslysam8]

Sam, can you give us a sneak peek (Brumous or Alew)? Pretty please, we're starving here

Alew

Chapter Six: Walburga

Arriving at Grimmauld Place, Sirius pounded his fist against the wood. The door swung open a few moments later and Sirius came face-to-face with his mother. A small smirk graced her face as though she got exactly what she wanted… like bloody always. Sirius pushed his way into the foyer, his body twitching as all the anxiety left his body and was replaced with a barely controlled rage that he hadn’t felt since he was sixteen and bolted from this very house.

Sirius wheeled around to look at his mother. “What do you think you are doing?” he seethed.

Walburga arched an eyebrow at him. “I find it highly unacceptable that I have to accost your fiancé if I wish to speak with you.”

“Did you ever stop to think that I didn’t want to speak with you?” Sirius hissed, his wide eyes staring unblinkingly at her.

“You are not a child anymore, Sirius,” Walburga said, making her way past Sirius towards the parlor. “It would befit you to act your age.”

Sirius’ chest heaved as his body jerked to follow her. “Act my age? Are you fucking serious?” he seethed. “I fought in a bloody war! I adopted my orphaned godson! I buried my two best friends!”

Walburga took a seat in the large plush armchair, grabbing her teacup from the end table. “Yet, you cannot return a letter?”

Sirius sighed, his jaw clenching. “Just tell me what you want.”

“I want you to act like a Black,” Walburga said as though that had been blatantly clear from the very beginning.

“I’m having a daughter,” Sirius replied in a dry tone. “So whatever heir bullshit you thought you could orchestrate can stop right now.”

Walburga slammed her teacup down onto the table, liquid sloshing over the side. “For someone so intelligent, you can somehow also be surprisingly obtuse,” she snapped as she rose to her full height. “I have carried this family on my back for more years than I can count because your father and grandfather were too busy comparing cock sizes with all the other pureblood neanderthals. It has been the women who have made or crumbled families. So do not stand there and presume that you know everything. Your arrogance knows no bounds. Just like a typical wizard.”

Sirius stood there, his chest heaving. He hadn’t considered for a second that Walburga would be more interested in a female Black. That had been completely moronic of him. Thoughts of Walburga grooming Bellatrix into the perfect little carbon copy of herself flashed to the forefront of his mind.

“If you think I’m going to allow you to rip every shred of humanity from my daughter in the same way you did to Bella, then you are more delusional than I thought,” Sirius whispered in a dangerously low voice.

Walburga took a step closer to him, her eyes flashing. “You have no idea the opportunities and prestige that lay at your feet, that lay at your daughter’s feet. You are going to throw it all away for what? To attempt to teach me a lesson? To prove you’re nothing like the family that built you? You have had opportunity and an abundance of wealth handed to you your entire privileged life. Yet, you are an ungrateful and infuriating bête noire. I will not allow you to destroy this family because you want to continue down this reckless and rebellious path.”

Sirius’ low jaw jutted. “I don’t care what happens to this family. I don’t want any part of it.”

“If you want no part of this family, then why don’t you sign over Alphard’s cottage back to this family? Why don’t you return your sizable inheritance? If you truly do not want anything to do with this family, then stop living off of us. Truly go off on your own and denounce us.”

[totkdaily]

Day 49: Hateno School, Secrets, and History

In the morning, I report back to Sophie. She says Cece loves the plain, slow life here. She thinks Cece and Reede want the same things. I should speak to him. 

On the way to the inn I speak with Leop. He and his son-in-law Worten like things simple, but his daughter Prima loves Cece. This thing really is tearing families apart.

Worten and Prima run the inn. Prima's nagging him to wear a Cece hat, so he's hiding on the veranda. 

I find Hateno's Goddess statue and grab stamina to make two even circles. I should probably collect some hearts next time. 

At the Mayor's House I chat to Clavia, his wife. Reede's got a secret shed and she wants to know why. He goes in at midday, apparently. 

I wonder if the nearby wells would get me under the shed, but then I see Reede's daughter heading to the school and I decide I'd like to see it.

It's a beautifully cheerful building, one of Hudson's I think.

Symin is advertising for teachers on the board outside! Is he here? 

Symin! 

As good as it is to see old friends, I don't enjoy having to tell yet another person that I came back without Zelda. 

He says the Princess built this school.

There's a notebook upstairs with evaluations - Symin's addressed them to Zelda. 

Aster, Medda's daughter. Active, loves her father, likes tomatoes, optimistic. 

Karin, the mayor's daughter. Kind but shy, not confident but perceptive. Loves maths and helping her father, may one day be a scholar. 

Azu, Ivee's brother, Amira's son. AKA A-Zoom, hero. Used to be best friends with Sefaro but Sefaro is now busy at the dye shop. 

Sefaro, Sayge's son. Firebrand, but bright. Reads adult books and about the Calamity. 

They sound like a great group of kids.

Symin writes that he had some kind of premonition before the Upheaval - he felt it before the Calamity also. He hopes the Princess will be safe with me at her side. 

Well. That didn't work. I failed. 

I sit in on Symin's Calamity lesson. He reminds me that there was another Princess and another Swordsman 10,000 years ago, with a Sword that Seals the Darkness. 

It sets me to thinking. How long ago were the Zonai, exactly? Was that Zelda, the Princess from 10,000 years ago? In which case, who exactly was the hero? 

The kids don't even believe the story. I nip back to Kakariko for a picture of the screen they have that depicts those events. 

I should know my history better. Symin says the 10,000 years ago Calamity involved the Sheikah and the Divine Beasts. Zelda's gone even further back than that... but even then, there was a Princess, a Sword, and an Ancient Hero. 

It's so strange to be standing here as Symin recounts the events of our Calamity. The loss of the Champions, Zelda's power, my healing sleep… 

Azu wants to be like the ancient hero - he's even wearing green. 

The next lesson is home economics. What does Goron spice, Hylian rice and monster extract make? The kids don't believe you can eat monster extract. Kilton's the only guy I know who sells it, and he said he was going to Tarrey Town… Maybe I should head over that way once I'm finished here and fetch some, so the kids can give it a try. 

Now, Reede's secret shed. The tunnels under the wells are incredibly convoluted - but if there's a bubbulfrog, I can't find it. I do, however, manage to ascend into Reede's shed and read his journal. 

He's trying to breed a new pumpkin. Him and Nack are working on a Cece-inspired pumpkin to appeal to the youth.

I go and speak to Reede, and it seems that the new pumpkin is only half of his plan. The other half is to bring back an old taste that his grandfather collaborated on… is he talking about cheese? Because I already helped Koyin make cheese, days ago. I give him the sample Koyin gave me. He gives me 100 rupees for it, to be fair. 

I catch Clavia on her way to bed and tell her about the secret pumpkin - she gives me some tomatoes in return. 

Speaking of Koyin… I don't think she was wearing a Cece hat. I climb the hill and give her and her dad mushrooms. Dantz reminds me of his need for acorns, so I head into the forest for some squirrel hunting. It takes me the night to find one.

[anthropictales]

What's in a Nom de Guerre?

"So before we do this, tell me, why do you want to change your Title?" Lord Dark: Obliterator asked his youngest lieutenant.

"Some of the kids at school thought it was lame, they called it cringe, and sad." said Destructor Tyrannosaurus Supreme, fidgeting in their over-engineered armored suit.

"Ah. I see," Obliterator said.

"We could change your name, kiddo, but, first..." he beckoned, leading the youngest of the Council of Dark towards the halls in the legacy Fortress of Dark built by the Original Lord Dark, back when he wielded the Darkblade, and the Council of Dark ruled the Bi-state passage and the northwestern stretch of I-22 with impunity.

The Hall of Ambition was lined with newspaper articles, some printed, some projected on screens, tv news segments playing on loop, footage from dozens of eras of history, photos lined the walls, objects, some intact, others mangled beyond recognition, sat in glass cases along both walls...

here was the history of the Council of Dark, a potential treasure trove for prosecutors.

He started at the back, a life-sized photo of the Darkblade alongside trophies of Lord Dark at his earliest, news articles decrying the actions of the super-terrorist who styled himself 'Lord Dark'.

"Kid, there are many kinds of evil in this world. you know that, yeah?" the older villain asked.

Tyrannosaurus nodded.

"Good kid. what makes us different from the banker who denies loans to black folks, or the pharmaceutical company that prices the poor out of life-saving medicine, or the fascist dictator with his army of tanks and bombers, or the real estate company that evicts people, and leaves houses empty for a tax dodge?"

"I dunno."

"Good. I will tell you. The difference is that most evil adheres to and manipulates the law for its own gain, hiding behind a pretense of rationality.

the meanest drug dealer and gangster imagines themselves some kind of businessman or community member, and the random murderer and predator either follows an ideology or an obsession.

the worst criminals do not attack strangers, but those under their supposed care and control, and abuse the law to keep that control.

We are not common criminals, monsters or other such pathetic creatures. we are not lawmen or government agents, not businessmen with an odd hobby. it is creatures like that that desperately seek public approval, the approval of those around them, and fear most of all being embarrassed.

Cringe is their word. not ours.

Cringe is something they fear, because they are not supervillains.

My protege, we are more than them, because we do not rely upon others, upon secrecy, upon reputational dodges and bullshit for our rep, we earn our reputation on the strength of our accomplishments, the power and consequences of our deeds.

Your grandfather, the Original Lord Dark, couched mere sedition and" Lord dark curled his lip in disgust, "Bigotry, in the costume of vaudeville and theatrics, relying on the very ridiculousness of being "Lord Dark" to turn suspicion away from the family." he strode down the hall.

"The first Dark Claw did us a favor, taking the Darkblade and thus, him, out of the picture so the council could form as it now is.

But we keep the name, because once people learned to fear the name, it lost the siliness that would normally accrue to such an overwrought name. your father is Duke Tenebrous the Deranged, your grandmother is the Voice of Shadow, I am Lord Dark Obliterator, your aunt is the Shadow At Midnight.

Too many, these names would be cringe, too. silly. are we cringe or silly?" he asked.

"No, you're scary." Tyrannosaurus said.

Obliterator snapped his fingers. "Exactly. our ridiculous names stopped being funny because we do things that give us a reputation. and so it is, that we continue the tradition, the ridiculous names and costumes, because we care not what ordinary folks think of us, until we earn that reputation.

It is not your place to bow to the dictates of the common culture, Tyrannosaurus. you are not just a criminal, not a petty thief or pathetic white-collar looter, but a supervillain! "

he turned to face his protege. "Your place, is to defy the common man, laugh at their attempts to impose limits upon you. it is your place to punish the world for the temerity of telling you you shouldn't call yourself whatever you damn well please.

and," he knelt down, putting a hand on Tyrannosaurus' shoulder.

"When the time comes to pass the mantle of Lord Dark on, I would be stoked for my successor to be someone as badass as Lord Dark Tyrannosaurus. we can change your name if you want, but I want you to ask yourself, if you truly want to change your name, or if you are changing it because some silly little kids at school laughed at it, not knowing the true might of the one who wears it."

[demcntwins]

Jazz had been pulling out some snacks, pretended not to notice when Jon vanished for a few seconds. She was mostly just grabbing a couple half eaten bags of chips, she did have some veggies and dip in the fridge though and was about to ask him if he would or thought Damian would want that. Before she could though he mentioned Danny having abilities.

She studied him for a moment before deciding that if he was telling her his own hero identity? He wasn't a threat to her brother. “I suspected, after Danny told me he was pretty sure Damian was Robin I started putting together who some other heros were. I doubt Danny's realized.” His birth father may be 'the world's greatest detective', and Danny was smarter than he let on. But he was pretty oblivious a lot of the time.

“If you want to know more about Danny's abilities it's sort of a long story, maybe we should join the two of them for it. It's not really my story to tell." Jazz might not be half ghost, but she was liminal enough thanks to exposure to ectoplasm in Amity that she could feel the spike of power as Danny's power leaked through in his conversation with Damian. I have veggies and dip to in the fridge, do you think Damian would prefer that? Would you prefer that?”

"Whether you did or not you made the conscious choice to do so. I do not know why you chose to move here with Jazz but you made the decision to come here rather than Gotham." Damian's voice was measured and level, arms still crossed as he glared at him to assure he wasn't going to attack the other again.

"I'm here because I'm being hunted!" Danny told him, eyes flashing green as he spoke. "Going someplace like Gotham with the pools of ectoplasm in the air from all the death would be like putting a target on my back, and yours."

A flash of worry and confusion showed in Damian's before he spoke. "If you worried about grandfather, he can be dealt with."

"Grandfather hasn't been the problem for nearly a year, Dami. Probably longer." Danny reached up and dragged his hands down his face, a groan of exasperation before he said. "When I was 14 there was an accident, Lazarus Water isn't exactly the pure form of the shit Grandfather uses. There's this place, an in between dimension that also houses all the afterlife pocket worlds The Infinite Realms. My adoptive parents built a portal to it, I was messing around with it with my friends and it ended up turning on well I was inside."

Looking around the kitchen, he found a kettle and put it on the stove before finding a serious lack of tea. He was gone for about five seconds before coming back with a loose leaf tea mix that he knew Damien enjoyed. Alfred sent it to him regularly for when Damien was at his place.

Smiling softly, the young half kryptonian went about working on making tea.

"So, Jazz...I don't mean to scare you. I've noticed some things...so I'm guessing Danny...Aiden...has some abilities. I do as well. And seeing as I'm close with Damien I figured you should know."

He smiled softly at Jazz.

"I'm Superboy. But shh. It's a secret."

[overlyimmersed]

Pals...I just gotta talk cuz I'm...just having something...

So June is almost over...

I do have a drawing I'm working on for Pride and I'd like to finish it by month's end.

Unfortunately...

Rather then working on it, I've spent the last 4. Hours. Trying to eat half a sandwich.

Why did it take me 4 hours to eat half a sandwich? Well because I had a spider incident.

I...don't consider myself arachnophobic. I am 29. I see spiders daily. Literally every day. There's a large black wolf spider that lives on the railing of the wooden ramp my father built for my grandfather that sometimes needs a wheelchair. I love that little guy. He's a cool spider. He's black as tar with emerald green eyes and some white marking. Very cool little pal. I think it's neat to watch spiders catch prey in their webs. I have captured and released countless spiders from my bedroom over the course of my life. Killed even more. Some...very big...

The spider responsible for this "incident" was not big. It was a common grass spider. Not big. Not venomous.

So. What. Happened?

Look...I haven't been sleeping well for...around 8 months. Because I moved so I had a mix of seasonal and relocation depression and the house had fucky acoustics and I can't sleep in the same room as my cats but they had to be in my room in this house cuz housemates had cats of their own. Then I moved back home. I'm currently staying in a camper cuz my bedroom in being renovated. So I have multiple kinds of depression and am sleeping in the same room as my cats...

Why does this matter? Well I've been hallucinating spiders for the past 1-2 weeks due to sleep deprivation.

OR SO I THOUGHT

It was not hallucinations. It was this little fucker. So that's cool, I'm not as physically messed up as I thought. Spider was real all along. But... I actually don't like spiders...inside a room with me. When they're outside where they belong, they're cool. Come into my space and I start to come a little unglued. I don't like the way they move, they're fast, and I don't want them to touch me.

So this spider makes itself a known by scurrying between my chest and the edge of the table my computer is sitting on. I shriek and nearly fall from my chair to get away from it. I try to kill it somewhere on the table. My cat tries to catch it. There were several attempts made on it's life that all failed. Normal spider encounter stuff. And then, predictably, it disappears. Fine. That happens. It's been in here for days and days already. Not big deal, try to get back to my sandwich and just put the little creeper out of my mind.

Nah.

Me AND MY CAT both spent the next 5-10 minutes jumping at every movement thinking it might be that blasted spider. It never was, but I...was not doing well. Paranoia was starting to close it's grip around my mind. But I was trying to keep a lid on it and just...go about my night. Then...

I felt it...

The spider was on my body. It had SOMEHOW gotten onto my right arm. The last place I'd seen it was on the window glass TO MY LEFT. So obviously I scream, jump up and try to brush it off me, make sure it isn't on my clothes, the whole bit. And I succeed. But because of the previous paranoid behaviors I'm actually not 100% sure it was the spider. It could have just been my own hair and me being hypersensitive out of fear.

NAH.

I search the floor to see if I could find it, so I can murder it cuz I knew I'd get no peace till I saw the bastard's corps. Didn't find it on the floor. I try to talk myself down, assume it was my hair after all and get back to sandwich.

then I see movement. I had been the spider and I had brushed it off into my cats' water dish where it was now trying to swim out. This is my chance. I know exactly where it is and it can't get away. I murder the spider. I nearly fail due to my own stupidity, but I do get it done.

Yay! Now I can finish my food in peace!

Except nah.

I spend the next four hours having an anxiety attack. Hyperventilating, then crying, then just...disassociating... All over a spider that I turned to pulp HOURS ago. Simply because, this one. touched me.

I've never had this happen before. I'm not arachnophoic. So why did it take me 4 hours to eat half a sandwich... When I really just wanted to finish my lunch and work on that damned Pride drawing?

[randomshyperson]

Sorry for your loss - Final Chapter

Summary: When your wife Natasha passes away in a car accident, a part of you dies with her. It takes a few months of mourning for your psychiatrist thinks the best alternative is for you to join a grief group. And there you meet Wanda Maximoff, and learn to live again.

Warnings: (+16) mentions of death, panic attacks and anxiety, grief, self sabotage, mentions of abusive family background, mutual attraction pining, explicit consent, therapeutic conversations about death, self-deprecation, healthy methods of coping with grief, possible triggers about anxiety, domestic Wanda, hurtful behaviors. 

Chapter Warnings: Mention of Smut, Brief Smut.

Tag list: @mionemymind / @abimess / @stephanieromanoff / @yourtaletotell / @tomy5girls / @justagaypanicking / @thegayw1tch / @idek-5 // @myperfectlovepoem // @imapotatao // @aimezvousbrahms / @ensorcellme/ @helloalycia // @myperfectlovepoem

Author’s note: I don't know what to say exactly, just good reading, and sorry for any spelling/translation errors. I hope you enjoy the ending, and who knows, maybe a second season?

Read on AO3 || Serie Masterlist here

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Chapter Five - I will love again

You were up early on the weekend.

Since you were going to travel to New Jersey for Wanda's father's wedding anniversary, you didn't want to keep her waiting.

When you arrived at Wanda's house, she was already on her feet, running back and forth through the house, trying to find Tommy's lost toy, who kept crying that he wouldn't travel without it.

"Make yourself at home, I just need to find that bear." She said to you as she opened the door. You placed your only luggage on the floor as you looked around. Billy was watching television, and Tommy was sitting on the kitchen counter, crying.

You walked over to him.

"Hey, Tommy, why are you crying?" You asked stopping beside him, keeping your voice calm so as not to make him more nervous.

"I want my teddy bear!" He cried out between tears.

"Mommy will find it for you." You reply. "What is the name of your teddy bear?"

"Star Lord." Sniffles the boy. Your distraction is working, because he stops crying to talk.

"Wow, that's an incredible name!" You say. "How did you get the Star Lord?"

Tommy sniffles again, wiping his tears with his forearm.

"I got it for my birthday." He counters. "Billy got a skateboard, but Star Lord is cooler."

"Is that so?" You retort with interest in your voice, realizing that Tommy was barefoot and his socks were on the countertop, you show him that you are interested in hearing him talk as you help him finish getting dressed for the trip.

"Yes, it came in a huge, red box." Tommy counted with a smile as he gestured at the size of the object. "And he sleeps with me every night, so I need him to go to Grandpa's house."

"Oh, yes, of course you do." You agree with a smile as you tie the boy's shoelaces. "Do you remember the last place you played with Star Lord?"

Tommy sniffles thoughtfully.

"I don't know." He replies tearfully, you rush to ask about his favorite memory with the bear to avoid him to cry again, and it works.

When you finish tying the child's shoes, you pick him up on your lap as he tells you about the day he took Star Lord swimming, and then you sit him down in the living room next to his brother, and he is distracted enough by the cartoon on the TV to forget about the teddy bear.

Wanda joins you in the living room a minute later, looking nervous and with her hands empty.

"Hey, I think I have an idea." You tell her as you mentally review the things Tommy said. "Finish getting them to the car, I'll go find the bear."

You found it.

Ten minutes after you left the room, inside the pool.

Wanda couldn't hold back her laughter when you arrived in front of the car with your wet clothes up to pool height.

"Your idea was to get into the pool instead of using the cleaner to reach the bear?" She teased as soon as you handed her the toy. You laughed awkwardly, watching her give the bear to Tommy and seeing the boy celebrate excitedly. "You're not getting in my car wet like that."

You laugh, and then you have an idea. Approaching Wanda with open arms, you see her raise her finger in warning, but you are already hugging her with wet clothes, making her laugh.

The joke only ends because Pietro is parking the car in front of the house next, looking at you both curiously.

"Should I let dad know we're going to be late?" He teases putting his sunglasses up. You let go of Wanda as both of your giggles slowly stop, the two of you looking like children who have been caught up to mischief. "Come on girls, we have a road ahead of us."

"Shut up Pietro." Wanda grumbled humorously, starting to push you into the house by the shoulders. "Watch the boys while we get changed."

"Yes, ma'am." He retorted wryly as he took off his seat belt and got out of the car. You let Wanda push you inside.

Upstairs, you had smiles on your faces as she searched for clothes that would fit you.

"Are you sure it isn't better if I grab something I brought in my suitcase?" You ask distractedly as Wanda rummages through the closets.

"I don't want you to be one change of clothes short, I don't know what we'll end up doing over there." Wanda retorted. "And don't worry about it."

Wanda eventually handed you a set of very soft sweatshirts and underwear. You smiled in appreciation, looking away from the clothes in your hand to the woman in front of you.

As you turned toward the bathroom, Wanda spoke.

"You can stay."

Swallowing dryly, and ignoring the unregulated beating of your heart you turned to her again, one eyebrow raised not sure you had understood correctly.

Wanda sighed heavily, as if she was gathering the courage to say it again. But her gaze said it all. She was inviting you to change in front of her.

You felt your face heat up, but you gulped dryly, forcing yourself to reason correctly.

"I... I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why not?" Wanda retorted in defiance, and you let out a breathless laugh. She seemed to misunderstand your reaction, because her expression immediately fell. "Oh, you don't want to. Damn it, I..."

"What?" you interrupted quickly. "No, Wanda. I want to." You confess half breathlessly. "I really do."

"Oh." 

You shift your weight between your feet, feeling your stomach turn with the way Wanda looks at you. 

"But not like this." You say, swallowing dryly to confess correctly. You approach Wanda slowly as you speak. "Not in a hurry." Wanda breathes heavily, leaning back against the cabinet. You stop walking just inches from her body. "I want to be with you, with enough time to kiss every inch of your skin.” You confess again her lips. “Touch every spot that will make you lose control and scream my name."

"Fuck." Wanda gasped against your mouth, almost near enough to touch while closing her eyes. 

Ignoring the tightening sensation at the tip of your stomach, you fought your baser instincts and pulled away, sighing.

"Let's hurry before your brother comes to get us."

You smiled at Wanda, ignoring the urge to kiss her. She just nodded, trying to normalize her breathing. You took advantage of her lack of reaction to turn around and walk towards the bathroom. You had better get out of there soon, because you feel that you couldn't resist that woman again.

//-//

Tommy and Billy were singing in the back seat as you drove to New Jersey. You laughed at the scene, thinking they were adorable.

Your gaze was watchful on the road, following Pietro's car to his father's house.

When Wanda began to murmur the song, you looked at her for a moment. Absolutely stunning, with her red hair flying in the wind, the smile in the corner on her lips. The sunlight making her eyes sparkle.

Turning your attention forward because Wanda caught you looking, you bit back a smile, feeling your heart race a little. But neither of you commented, and you didn't care that Wanda was looking at you now.

//-//

When you arrived, you whistled impressed at Erik's residence. It was practically a mansion, but really it was just a very well built summer house. The neighborhood was very nice too. Wanda smiled playfully at you when she noticed your reaction.

The boys ran out of the car, excited to hug their grandfather who was already waiting for them at the door. They also hugged Charles, who was a short, balding man, very friendly.

"Grandpa, can we go ride the horses?" Tommy asked excitedly, and the man laughed lightly. 

"Go wash your hands and get something to eat first okay, boy?" Erik said to the boy, ruffling his hair.

The child agreed, entering the house along with his brother and his cousin, who had gotten out of the cars shortly after.

You were unpacking the bags from the car after parking and felt your breath catch when Wanda picked up one of the bags and caressed your hand with her fingers as you handed it to her. She smiled innocently, passing you to walk toward the door, and you cleared your throat before closing the trunk and following her.

"You must be Y/N." Erik greeted you as soon as you came to the door. "It's very nice to finally meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too, Erik." You replied with a smile. "And you too, Charles."

The man smiled, giving you room to pass him and enter the house. Wanda was standing in the living room next to Pietro and Monica, who had their suitcases on the floor.

"Papa, which rooms are empty?" She asked the man who had entered behind you.

"You can occupy any one upstairs." Erik warned closing the door as he and Charles entered.

You accompanied the group upstairs. Wanda placed the boys' backpacks in one of the bunk rooms, since the children always slept together. 

"You can have the room down the hall." She said, showing you the direction. "Next to mine."

She whispered the last part like a secret. You wanted to ignore how your stomach churned at the suggestion. Pietro and Monica passed you both, the man gave you a playful look, but made no comment. They would be in the room across from yours and next to the children's.

You guessed that the other door at the other end of the hall belonged to Erik and Charles

After putting your suitcase on the bed, you left the room. Pietro opened the door at the same moment.

"Come on, Y/N, I'm going to give you a full tour of the Maximoff residence." He announced excitedly and you giggled, following him around the house.

//-//

The Maximoff residence was much larger than you thought it was. There were even stables and a large wooded area that was part of the place, but Pietro didn't take you there, he just pointed you in the direction. You eventually discovered that the place used to be a simple farm, inherited from Pietro and Wanda's paternal grandparents, and when Erik married Charles, they renovated the place with money from the Xavier family, who were British and had a fortune built up in the vineyard area.

Pietro led you back to the kitchen when he finished showing you the property, patting you on the shoulder as he sat down on the kitchen counter, grabbing the jar of candy on the counter.

"The guests will be here soon, Pietro, get down from there." Warned Erik noticing his son's position. He was in the kitchen too, finishing sorting out some of the appetizers. During the tour, you noticed the decorations set up in the gardens, some tables and chairs and party decorations.

"Yes, papa." Grumbled Pietro as he obeyed. He reached over to accept the tray of food his father handed him.

"Take that outside please." Erik asked and you moved to get out of the way of Pietro, who gave you a wry smile as he passed, making you laugh slightly.

"Can I help too?" You asked noticing that there were still things to be carried.

"Thank you, dear, you are very kind." Erik said as he handed you one of the trays. You nodded and then turned around.

The garden was really nicely decorated, you noticed now that you were up close, placing your tray on one of the tables. There was also a small stage, which you imagined was meant for Erik and Charles to repeat their wedding vows. You smiled, remembering how your marriage to Natasha had gone. It was just nostalgic to think of her now, and it didn't make you unhappy anymore.

"I think you're all set now." Erik said behind you, arriving with a tray and placing it on the table next to yours. Pietro who had left earlier, was stealing one of the candies and received a disapproving look from his father. "Really, boy?"

Pietro laughed, raising his hands in surrender.

"I'm hungry, papa." He playfully retorted and you laughed at the interaction.

"Go help the ladies with the kids." Erik commands with a grimace, and Pietro laughs as he walks away. When he leaves, you feel slightly anxious about being alone with Wanda's father, but his posture is friendly. "I haven't had a chance to talk to you properly, Y/N. Would you like to take a walk with me before the party?"

You ignore the nervous feeling in your stomach when you agree. And Erik takes one last look at the decorations before leading the way.

//-//

A few minutes of walking later, where Erik asked you several questions about your life, your job, your age, who you lived with, that sort of thing, you reached a plantation area. You imagined it to be the vineyards of the property.

You could see the manor house in the distance, and the backyards, and a lake many meters away. The landscape was breathtaking.

"It's beautiful here." You comment beside him.

"Yes." Erik agrees with a smile, also looking at the scenery as you do. "I enjoyed your conversation, you are as lovely as Wanda usually tells us."

The comment makes your cheeks warm, the image of Wanda talking about you makes your heart soar. Erik seems to appreciate the way you react to it, smiling gently as he adds, "It's nice to know she's found someone nice to love."

You swallow dryly, glancing quickly at the man next to you, but he has his gaze on the landscape. You feel a warmth in your chest, mixed with embarrassment and happiness.

"Thank you, Erik." You say clumsily. 

"For what?"

"For accepting me here I guess." You retort with a smile. "For having me into your home. And well, for saying those things about me and Wanda." You say and he makes an understanding noise through his mouth. You are silent for a moment, until he speaks again.

"You know, when Magda, their mother, passed away, I thought I would never love anyone again.." Erik tells nostalgically. He keeps looking at the field in front of you, but you stare at him, attentive to his words. "But then I met Charles. And well, it did. It's different from what it was before. And I wouldn't change it for anything."

You nodded in understanding, letting the words echo in your head. You also think about how Agatha said you could move on. There was no problem in loving again, as intensely as before.

"I figured I'd be uncomfortable talking about someone marrying my daughter, but here we are." Erik comments humorously a moment later, making you chuckle awkwardly. "I guess it must be the way you look at her. You look like a lovesick puppy. "

You scratch your neck awkwardly, looking at the scenery, making Erik laugh at your blurriness.

"Don't get upset, I'm just teasing you." He comments with a smile, patting you on the back. You laugh clumsily.

"Do you guys have a garden around here?" You ask trying to change the subject, just as you notice the glass structures in the distance, capped by the vineyard. You figured if you turned around you would find your way to them.

"Oh, yes." Erik confirms. "Charles loves gardening. We have two greenhouses over that way. Would you like to see them?"

"Yes." You confirm with a smile. "But it can be after the party."

"Oh yes, I should get back and welcome the guests." Erik agrees as he checks his watch. You start walking back to the area of the house next.

//-//

You meet a lot of people at the party. It's a little overwhelming, because you really didn't expect Erik to invite so many people, and although you're glad that they had so many friends, your anxiety has increased a little. You were smiling politely at two ladies who said they were Charles' college friends while trying to pay attention to the story they were telling when Pietro rescued you.

"I need to steal my sister-in-law for a second ladies." He said and you widened your eyes. He only realized the mistake of his words when he noticed the looks on the women's faces in front of him. " Shit, I don’t mean like she got married to Wanda... I..."

You snuck out from behind Pietro when the ladies started attacking him with questions about the wedding, and when the ceremony had taken place and why the family wasn't called. You took the opportunity to escape when Pietro was convincing the ladies that you were not Wanda's wife, and that there was no secret wedding.

Walking over to one of the far tables, you frown in disbelief as you watch Luna run under the food table, clearly looking for a place to hide from her cousin, who is looking around a few feet away.

You crouch down, pulling the towel up to speak to the child.

"Luna, honey, maybe that's not the best place to play." You tell her with a smile. She looks around.

"Sorry, Aunt Y/N." She asks. "I'm hiding from Billy."

"Oh, is that so?" You ask extending your hand to her. She accepts, and you help her stand, taking care that she doesn't hit her head on the table. "Do you remember the path we took when we first got here? Try to hide behind that tall statue, I'm sure Billy won't find you."

"Wow, that's right, Auntie. Thank you." She mumbles, leaving with her head down next, watching for any sign of her cousin. You smiled, knowing that everyone at the party would get a glimpse of the children playing if she stood where you spoke.

You noticed that the two women who were talking to Pietro looked at you, and not wanting to be dragged back into that conversation, you made your way back to the house.

Bumping into Wanda on the way, you giggled.

"There you are." You remark.

"Where were you?" Wanda retorts with a mixture of curiosity and humor, noticing your "escape mode" posture.

"Well, apparently all of your father's friends like to meet everyone, so I've spent the last thirty minutes being introduced to everyone at the party."

Wanda gave a pout of pity.

"Sorry, dear." She says and you smile awkwardly, feeling your cheeks flush. "I'm looking for the boys, they need to change for the suits." 

"I saw Billy in the gardens." You tell her as you gesture briefly in the direction. "I'll go find Tommy for you."

Wanda smiles, biting her lips. You nod but when you make mention of moving away, she holds your forearm and moves forward, depositing a kiss on your cheek. 

"Thank you, sweetheart." She whispered, smiling mischievously at you before she turned away and left the kitchen. You bit your lip, feeling your heart racing. You didn't understand why Wanda was teasing you, but you weren't complaining.

//-//

Non Readers Pov

Wanda laughed affectionately when Billy launched himself onto her lap as soon as she found him in the backyard.

"Luna, dear, your mother is calling you too." Warned the red-haired woman to her niece who nodded turning toward the direction her aunt pointed. 

"Mommy can I play after I change my clothes?" Asked the boy as the woman carried him back to the house.

"Of course honey, but you have to be careful, okay? You can't get your suit dirty."

Just before she reached the entrance, someone called her name, causing Wanda to turn her head curiously.

"Sweetie, I need to ask you something." It was Ruth Eisenhardt, a nasty distant cousin of Wanda's known for gossiping, and lots of it, about all her relatives. "I just heard from Aunt Susan that you are dating that pretty girl you brought over." 

Wanda felt her face heat up, but kept her expression impassive. Before she could add anything else, the woman was speaking again.

"Of course we are all happy for you, but when I went to share the good news with Uncle Jeff, he said that Pietro had already denied this affair. Now I'm left not knowing if you're really going out with that beefcake."

Wanda let out an awkward giggle, frowning slightly at the way her cousin spoke.

"We're not exactly together, cousin." The redhead replied. "But that's not really your business."

Ruth grimaced in surprise, but then her expression changed to one of malice.

"You know, I'm just confirming it. Because after all, we don't have pretty things like that lying around in New Jersey."

Wanda clenched her jaw. Ruth was exactly the kind of girl who had a mania for taking what didn't belong to her.

"Cousin, don't flirt with her." Wanda said. "I'll only warn you this once."

Ruth giggled, surprised at the reaction. But Wanda didn't continue the subject, turning and continuing toward the entrance of the house.

"Mom what's flirt?" Billy asked next, drawing Wanda's attention away from her own not-so-pleasant thoughts about someone taking what was hers.

"It's a way adults talk, honey." Wanda explained, biting her lips thoughtfully briefly. "When they want to be more than friends."

"Like best friends?"

Wanda laughs briefly, denying it.

"No, Billy. Like lovers."

Billy makes a noise of agreement. "Why can't Aunt Ruth flirt with Aunt Y/N?"

Wanda sighs lightly, forcing a friendly expression so as not to confuse her son.

"She can."

"But you told her..."

"I know." Wanda interrupts with red cheeks. She takes a deep breath, smiling at her son. "Can I ask you something sweetie?" Billy nods in agreement. "If mommy started dating someone, would you be upset?"

Billy frowns, denying it.

"Mommy, you want to date Aunt Y/N don't you?"

Wanda's eyes widen in surprise.

"Where did that one come from?" she asked.

"You didn't like it when Aunt Ruth flirted with Daddy either, I remember Aunt Monica's birthday." He tells, and Wanda sighs slightly, remembering when she caught Ruth complimenting her husband as she ran her hands through her hair, and Wanda might have gotten a little carried away by accidentally flipping a wine glass in her cousin's lap. On the way home, when the twins asked, she said that she was upset with the way Ruth spoke to their father, and now Billy was able to understand everything. "And now you don't want Aunt Ruth to talk to Aunt Y/N like that." He concluded as if it was obvious. Wanda smiled as she went upstairs, careful not to trip on the steps with Billy on her lap. "Mommy, if you date Aunt Y/N will she move in with us?"

"I don't know dear." Wanda replied with a shy smile. 

"If she lives with us, will you let her sleep in my room?"

Wanda laughed, looking at Billy curiously.

"And why is that?"

"Because she knows how to play dragon. And also tell fairy tales." He says counting on his fingers. "And she also helps Tommy with his headache, so she can sleep on our rug and when he wakes up at night, she helps him."

Wanda smiles fondly, shaking her head slightly.

"Those are very good reasons indeed." She says. "But I think Y/N would like to sleep in a bed, no? The floor is uncomfortable."

Billy looks thoughtful and Wanda laughs briefly as she sets him down on the floor, already inside his room. She helps him out of his clothes to put on his party suit that is already on the bed.

"I can sleep in your bed mommy, and then Aunt Y/N sleeps in mine next to Tommy so he won't be alone."

Wanda laughs again, denying with her head. She bends down to button her son's shirt.

"Tell you what. Y/N sleeps in my bed, and if Tommy feels bad, she goes up to his room, how's that sound?"

//-//

Reader pov

"I think it sounds amazing." You spoke as you entered the room, a mischievous smile on your lips. Wanda startled slightly, surprised that you arrived at that moment, but she smiled shyly as she looked at you before turning her attention back to her son. 

"Yay, mommy!" Billy spoke excitedly. Wanda sat him down on the bed again, helping him put on his shoes. You guided Tommy gently by the shoulders to the bed, and as soon as he had a look at the suit he began to undress.

"I didn't know you were going to live with us, Aunt Y/N." Tommy comments as he removes his sneakers.

"I didn't know either." You retort, biting back a smile at the sight of Wanda's reddening cheeks. "I guess your mother forgot to invite me."

Wanda mumbles at you to shut up, making you smile.

"Mommy, you have to let Aunt Y/N know that she is going to live with us now." Billy said making you cross your arms, and turn to Wanda, joining in on the joke.

"Yes, Wanda! You need to let me know about these things." You say with false seriousness, and Wanda rolls her eyes in amusement, finishing putting on Billy's shoes and getting up to face you.

"Y/n, honey, you're going to move in with me when we get back home, okay?" Wanda asks in the same tone. You bite back a smile, ignoring how your heartbeat has quickened. You can't help but look at Wanda adoringly however, and her expression goes from playful to shy in microseconds.

"Okay, Wands. I'll love living with you." You say to her next, sounding slightly affected. The twins let out an exclamation of excitement, and break the bubble you are in. You clear your throat slightly as you turn your attention back to them, looking away from Wanda.

"Wow, you guys look great." You comment as you see the boys properly dressed next. The suits are very nice indeed.

"You can go back to the party, but be careful not to get your suits dirty. No playing in the dirt!" Wanda warns the boys, who are already running excitedly outside. 

"Okay, I'll go get ready too." You say next, thinking to check your cell phone as well, since you haven't turned it on since you left New York. "See you at the party?"

Wanda nods in agreement and you turn to leave.

At the door she stops you, pulling you by the forearm lightly and raising her hand to your neck, then bringing your lips together.

You both sigh and you feel your whole body tense up and heat up all at once. Wanda pulls away in the next moment, breathing as out of rhythm as you do.

You want to ask her why she did this now, but you think the question can wait until later, because she brings your lips together again, in a kiss far less innocent than before. Wanda closes the door with one hand, and with the other she pushes you against the wood. 

You gasp, letting your tongue run across her lip, and she gives you passage.

Her taste intoxicates your senses quickly, your hands moving up to her waist as hers move to your hair, deepening the kiss. You both gasp for air against each other's mouths, unable to separate. 

Panting, you feel your head spin as Wanda moves her tongue against yours, slow and sensual, and you can't help but squeeze her waist tightly, enjoying the feeling of her sighing against your lips.

You switch positions next moment, pressing Wanda against the wood of the door, your knee coming up between her legs. 

"Oh." Wanda moans breathlessly breaking the kiss. You move your kisses down her jaw to her neck, sucking on the skin and releasing just before marking. Your fingers play with the hem of her blouse, and Wanda brings your head up, kissing you again.

You press your body against her, wanting her to be touching you everywhere. The sensation makes you breathless, and hot in all the right places, causing you to moan.

You think you could kiss Wanda forever if she'd let you. The feeling of having her in your mouth is the best you have ever felt.

There are noises of footsteps coming from the stairs, and you both sigh when you hear them. It's Monica coming up with Luna, who is chatting animatedly. It's just what you need to snap back to reality, and slow down the kiss. 

You keep your foreheads together, and your hands around Wanda until the sound becomes distant, signaling that Monica has entered their bedroom with Luna.

You let out a giggle, and Wanda follows you. You look just like two teenage girls making out in secret. When you stop laughing, you kiss her again. Calmer this time. Before you let go, she bites your lip, tugging lightly, and making you gasp before letting go.

"Come on, go change." She commands, pushing you lightly. You smile because she keeps her grip against your blouse as she tells you to leave.

"It is you who are keeping me here, Maximoff." You tease with a smile. Wanda smiles too, and steals a kiss from you before letting go. You stumble backwards out of the room, grinning like an idiot, but you don't care, because Wanda looks at you just the same.

//-//

Wanda looked stunning in her party dress. You wanted to kiss her again, but you knew that if you did you would smear her lipstick, and she would have a lot of inconvenient questions ahead of her. So you just smiled, and breathlessly confessed how beautiful she looked, enjoying her flushed cheeks.

By the time you joined the party, the guests were arranging themselves at the correct places, and you joined a conversation circle with Wanda at your side, greeting a few more people. 

As the sun set, Erik and Charles signaled that the ceremony was about to begin.

//-//

It was all very beautiful. 

Maybe you cried between one confession and another, but everyone was emotional, so no one really cared.

Your cell phone had lots of pictures on it when you came back to the house, after saying goodbye to the guests who left when the party was over. You were holding Tommy by the hand, while Billy went with his mother, and the boys looked very tired.

"Let's go to bed, okay?" Wanda warned the kids as they followed her upstairs.

Erik wanted to open a bottle of wine, so after the kids were in bed, all the adults were outside on the balcony. Wanda sat very close to you, and you resisted the urge to put your arm around her.

"I guess I'll never get used to parties." Erik then comments, smiling nostalgically, making the group smile.

"I hope you're looking forward to the twenty-year anniversary one, papa." Pietro humorously retorts, and Erik laughs, looking at his husband tenderly.

"I look forward to it."

You smiled at the passionate way the couple looked at each other. You wondered what it must be like to stay married for so long. 

"I know we are all tired, but I had something to tell you." Erik then says, exchanging a look with Charles before continuing. "It's about the farm."

"What about the farm?" Pietro asked curiously.

"It 's yours."

Pietro frowns in confusion, looking at Wanda, who has the same look on her face.

"Papa, what?" Wanda asks, and Erik lets out a short laugh.

"You know I've always wanted to remodel this place, ever since you were kids." He recounts. "And Charles and I finally did it. But now we're old. And you two have your whole lives ahead of you, and well, you are our family. So Charles and I agreed that the house should belong to you both."

Wanda and Pietro exchange incredulous laughter.

"Papa, what? Are you sure?" Wanda asks looking from her brother to her father and stepfather. The older men just smile and the next moment they are hugging their children. You and Monica exchange looks of amusement. 

"So, does this mean we're moving?" Monica comments once everyone is seated, and elicits a giggle from the group.

"Let's save all this serious talk for tomorrow, shall we?" Erik asks with a smile. "Today, let's just enjoy the stars."

"Someone is feeling romantic." Charles jokes making the group laugh. 

"Papa, tell us some of your stories." Pietro asked with a smile, and Erik sighed, taking on a thoughtful expression.

"Um, let's see." He begins. "Have I ever told you about what happened in Budapest...?"

//-//

It was quite late when you and Wanda were finally alone, after Charles and Erik came in, you stayed talking to Pietro and Monica for a few more minutes, until they walked in as well.

You smiled at Wanda as she leaned back in her armchair to face you cross-legged, and you mimicked her position.

"Hey." She called out to you with a smile. 

"Hey."

"Did you enjoy the party?"

"Yes." You assured her tenderly. "It was pretty good actually."

Wanda nodded slightly, her gaze falling momentarily to your lips.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You can ask me anything you want, Wanda." You retort, making her smile.

The redhead looks intently at you.

"Did you mean it?" She asks and you blink in confusion. "About moving in with me."

You feel your cheeks heat up, but you smile.

"You're not even going to ask me out first, eh?"

Wanda laughed, looking away with flushed cheeks. You swallowed dryly, lifting your hand to turn her face toward you again, stroking her cheek lightly. God, Wanda was beautiful. Her bright green eyes looking back at you, the way her hair fell around her face, every part of her. 

"Don't you think we're happening too fast?" Wanda asks insecurely, you don't put your hand down, enjoying the feeling of her skin. 

"It depends." You answer letting your gaze wander to her, your free hand searching for hers in your lap, twining your fingers together.

"On what?"

"If you care about me..." You whisper as you bring your faces closer together, stopping when your lips are almost touching, and you and Wanda both close your eyes in anticipation. " As much as I care about you."

You kiss Wanda before she responds. Sweetly and softly. The sensation makes you smile against her lips, and you ignore the urge to deepen the kiss to pull away.

"Is that your way of saying you're in love with me?" Wanda teases half breathlessly a minute later, her tone playful and confident, but her rosy cheeks give away how affected she is. You think she's irresistible.

You laugh lightly, brushing a strand of hair from her face before looking into her eyes.

"I'm in love with you." You confess simply, watching her blink in surprise and amazement. "So, you still think it's too fast?"

Wanda smiles, denying it, and then approaches you.

"I'm in love with you too" She confesses as a secret against your lips. You feel your stomach rumble with nervousness and excitement, but you don't say anything else, because Wanda kisses you again. She asks for passage with her tongue a second later, making you sigh.

You hold your mouths together in a passionate kiss for long minutes, panting against each other' lips as Wanda moves to sit on your lap with her hands on your neck while your hands move up to her waist. You feel hot and bothered, squeezing her skin as if you want to merge with it. It is only when your kisses begin to move down to her collarbone that Wanda gasps saying that you two should go upstairs.

She moves off your lap, breaking the kiss, and you bite your lips, chasing her mouth again. Standing up, Wanda slides her tongue against yours one last time, making your head spin, before she pulls away, smiling at you as she pulls you by the hand into the house.

She signals with her finger for you to be quiet as you enter, and you swallow dryly as you observe the way her eyes are dark.

Getting to your room seems to take forever, especially since you can barely breathe, but finally you arrive.

Wanda locks the door after you enter. And then the atmosphere changes, because you both know what is about to happen.

She smiles shyly at you and you hold out your hand to her, leading her to sit on the bed beside you.

You exchange a glance before you sigh softly, slowly moving closer to her face. When you kiss her, much more tenderly and gently than any other time, Wanda melts.

She raises her hands to your neck, deepening the kiss as she falls onto the bed and takes you with her. You kiss her firmly, swirling your tongue around hers slowly, making her shiver. 

There is no rush in what you are about to do, and you certainly want to enjoy every second of it.

You rest your weight against Wanda, enjoying the feeling of having her beneath you, and the sound that escapes her throat. Your mouth separates from hers only for you to move your kisses down her collarbone, causing Wanda to close her eyes and sigh.

Your hands reach behind her back to pull down the zipper of her dress. When your fingers make contact with her exposed skin, Wanda bites her lips, entwining her legs together in search of more friction.

Your kisses move down as you pull the dress off her body, Wanda shifting on the bed to help you undress her. You move away from her neck to remove the piece completely, your gaze falling to her exposed skin the next moment. The redhead blushes at your stare, but all you can do is admire. The sight of her bare breasts makes your core throb, and you feel the urge to touch and kiss every inch.

You kiss her again in the next second, but part your mouths again quickly to move your lips down her body.

At the first touch on her breasts, Wanda gasps loudly. You smile, controlling the urge to tell her not to be so loud, but you are distracted by the growing heat in your core when you suck on her nipple and she whimpers, bringing her hand to your hair to keep you there.

Dividing your attention between the nipples, you kiss, bite, and suck the sensitive skin, keeping enough of it in your mouth for the skin to be marked red, which elicits a hearty moan from Wanda.

As your kisses begin to descend again, Wanda's body tenses. You kiss at the height of her navel before looking up, and already find her looking up at you with darkened eyes, biting her lip.

"Everything okay?" You ask in a sigh, trying to reason properly out of the bubble of lust. 

Wanda's hesitation causes you to raise your face back toward her again, keeping your hands by her side so as not to fall against her body.

"What's wrong?" You ask gently, trying to find any sign of discomfort. 

"Nothing." She says with a shy smile. "It's just... it's the first time I... since..."

"Yeah, I know." You interrupt half breathlessly, knowing exactly what she is referring to. "Mine too." You confess, but at this point, you knew she should have guessed it too. You have been grieving partners for quite some time, after all. "Do you want to stop?"

"No." Wanda quickly denies, biting back a smile. "I feel good."

You smile, nodding in agreement.

"Me too." 

You kiss Wanda gently again, but before the kiss gets more heated, you pull away to whisper against her lips. "Let me know if you feel uncomfortable at any time."

Wanda nods, bringing your lips together next.

//-//

When you awake, it is probably the best sleep you have had in months. Wanda is curled up on you, her clothes spread across the room lit by the sunbeams from the window.

You mumble that you have to get up because the children will be up soon, but Wanda says that her father will take care of them, and kisses you until you completely forget where you are.

When you finally get up, and go downstairs for coffee, neither adult comments at all on the way Wanda's hand remains in yours throughout the meal.

//-//

While Wanda is talking to Pietro and Erik about how they are going to organize the inheritance of the farm, and the children are playing in the backyard in front of the veranda, you decide to call your mother.

You end up learning that she got a buyer for your apartment, but you tell her that you would deal with these matters when you get back. After checking email and that sort of thing, you turn off your cell phone again.

Taking one last look at the children, you walked back into the house, catching a small piece of the conversation of the others in the living room about what would be done about Wanda's flower shop, but you didn't intrude. 

"We know a lot of people around here, Wanda." Charles was counting. "I'm sure we'll be able to find a new location for the flower shop."

Wanda looked slightly apprehensive, probably considering all the consequences of the relocation, but she relaxed her posture completely when you entwined your hand with hers.

When the conversation was over, it was decided that the families would move to the farm. Selling the properties in New York would take some time, but they would still move to the city during the vacations. It was going to be a rush, but Erik and Charles were willing to help too.

Since you guys were leaving that afternoon, you went back to your room to pack. And Wanda joined you a moment later, kissing you on the cheek before sitting down on your bed.

" All good?" You asked as you folded your socks.

"Yeah." She confirmed with a smile. "I'm just trying to believe that all this is really happening."

"It's not every day we get a farm, is it?" You joke making her laugh. Wanda bites her lips next, looking at you fondly, and you look away to your bag, feeling your face heat up.

"I forgot to ask you something yesterday." She begins somewhat shyly. You frown slightly, muttering for her to ask. "Are we dating?"

You laugh in surprise, throwing your folded party clothes into your suitcase, before approaching Wanda, raising your hand to her chin.

"What do you think, love?" You ask against her lips, dragging your mouth down her jaw to the height of her ear. "After what you did with your tongue yesterday, you're not going anywhere."

Wanda gasps, clenching her hands in the bed. You smile because you know the memories have hit her all over again. But you turn away next, smiling innocently at the woman in front of you before turning your attention back to the suitcase.

"I don't get a ring?" She teased next, making you laugh briefly. You looked back at the door before advancing against her, kissing her firmly, completely overturning her confident posture. When Wanda sighed against your mouth, you pulled away, and she grumbled, her hand reaching up to grab your belt and pull you back to her, but noises of footsteps made her give up.

Soon the boys came running into the room, talking excitedly about living on the farm and riding every day, and you wanted to laugh at the way Wanda had to disguise how affected she felt by your small make out session to answer her sons' questions.

//-//

After saying goodbye to your hosts with hugs, you sat in the back seat with the boys, because Tommy insisted that he wanted to show you a video game. Wanda drove you to your apartment, and after getting your suitcase from the trunk, you waved goodbye to the boys, and approached the driver's window.

"I'll call you, okay?" You tell her with a smile, Wanda nods, and you kiss her. Tommy and Billy make disgusted noises in the back of the car, and you and Wanda laugh as you part.

Waving to everyone in farewell one last time, you wait for Wanda to leave with the car before you go into the house.

"Kissing girls on the doorstep, heh? Looks like high school all over again." Your mother teases from the kitchen just as you enter. You laugh as you close the door.

"Spying through the kitchen window, Mom? And I thought I was a grown-up." You retort in the same tone as you walk to the kitchen to greet her with a kiss on the forehead, tossing your suitcase on the counter afterwards.

"Are you really dating then?" Your mother asks and you murmur in agreement. She smiles. "I'm so happy, honey. I can't wait to prepare for the wedding."

You roll your eyes humorously, picking up an apple from the countertop.

"We need to talk about your apartment, by the way." She starts again, looking through her briefcase for something. "I've found buyers, and well, I'm already looking at some houses for you, too." She says as you take a seat next to her at the table. "Of course I love having you here, but we both know you can't wait to have a place of your own again."

You sigh lightly.

"Yeah, Mom." You confirm. "About that..."

//-//

"You're late." Agatha remarked as soon as you stumbled into her office. You gave her a lopsided smile, closing the door as you entered.

"Sorry, I had a date and lost track of time."

Agatha raises her eyebrows at you.

"A date, hm? Let's talk about it then."

//-//

You had just deposited Melina's share of the apartment in the bank when your cell phone vibrated.

A message from Bucky, asking if you were coming to therapy with him today, as he was already at the station. You reply with an emoji, and a text saying coming.

//-//

"I am immensely happy for your progress, even though I am upset that you will not be continuing with us." Stephen says to you and Wanda, in your last group session.

"Well, New Jersey has its support groups. But this one is always going to be special." You tell him as you lightly tap his arm. Stephen smiles as he hands you the progress brooches. Wanda has her hand intertwined in yours, and the man in front of you looks at that before commenting.

"You know, I always find it curious the way pairs develop in the group." He comments. "We never ask that the activities be romantic, but still, many of them end up falling in love."

You and Wanda exchange a mixed look of embarrassment and happiness.

"I guess we have you to thank for that." Wanda says next, but Stephen smiles, denying it.

"Not at all. I'm happy for both of you. After all, I always thought you would get along together." He hints last, making you and Wanda laugh softly.

//-//

"I just need to lock up and grab a few last things in the office, and then we can go." Wanda told you when you arrived at the flower shop. The establishment was now empty, as the moving crew had already passed by.

You waited for her in the reception area.

With the key to the flower shop in hand and the last files that were there, Wanda hesitated. You looked at her, standing in the center of the place, eyes watering, and smiled as you approached.

"Everything okay?" You asked as you touched her arms, stroking her to calm her down.

"Yeah." She sighs, looking around one last time before looking back at you. "It just feels like I'm ending something. Like a chapter in my life."

You swallow dryly briefly, nodding.

"Are you scared?"

Wanda smiles.

"Terrified." She confesses. "But I have you, so I know I'll be all right."

You smile, lifting your hands to your neck to kiss her. It's brief and sweet, and it's exactly what you both need to be sure you're doing the right thing.

 "You're a flirt, aren't you Maximoff?" You tease with a smile, and Wanda giggles lightly against your lips.

"And you are breathtaking, love."

You felt your face heat up, kissing Wanda again.

"Are you sure about what we're doing, Wanda?" You let the words escape your anxious brain next. Wanda raised her free hand to your face, caressing your cheek.

" Absolute." She assures. "You are my future."

You swallow dryly, affected by the intensity of the confession. A shy smile escapes your lips in the next moment.

"And you are mine."

[babymetaldoll]

The "Rumple Buttercup" situation (Matthew Gray Gubler/ Reader)

Requested?: Yes!

Hi, I don't know if this is where you take request but I was thinking about a 2nd part to "The devils food cake" chapter about when they think of names they argue about the middle name being rumple (Matthew wants rumple to be the middle name (y/n) doesn't)

Category: Flufflies fluff. Hardcore fluff.  

Summary: Matthew tries to convince his wife to name their first newborn "Rumple Buttercup."

Warnings: Zero. I don't think I even cursed on this one. But you have to know how to handle your fluff.

Word count: 2K

Masterlist

You can read the original one shot here 

A/N: Hello! How is everybody doing this week? Sending love to all my pretty people 💜 I got so excited with this request I made this gif for it ✨

                                         ✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

The house was oddly silent when (Y/N) walked in. She smelled the fresh baked cookies and... lavender? That was new. The place wasn't a mess when she left the house that morning, but it didn't look like that at all. Someone had been taking care of everything in her absence.

- "Matthew?"- (Y/N) walked in and took a look around. Everything was clean and in perfect order. It didn't loot at all like the house she had left that very same morning.

- "In the kitchen, Bunny!"- he announced with a cheerful voice and (Y/N) followed the delicious smell and the sweet voice of her husband.

- "Welcome back! How was your day with your mom?"

- "Hey! It was good. I had fun"- Matthew smiled at his wife as soon as he watched her walk into the kitchen and opened his arms to greet her with a warm hug.

- "I missed you, Bunny"- he whispered and kissed her lips sweetly, cupping her face with both hands, holding her cheeks, and caressing them with his lips.

- "I missed you too, honey."- (Y/N) murmured and sighed, enjoying the sensation of Matthew's hands on her.

- "And how's my little baby bean?"- he whispered, and his hands traveled from her face to her belly.

- "Baby Gub is kicking a lot today. I think he is having a rave in there."

The way Matthew's heart skipped a beat each time he heard the words "Baby Gub" killed him. He couldn't get over the fact he was going to be a father in four months. He couldn't believe it yet. It was his dream come true.

So, Matthew hummed in response and kissed his wife one more time before looking at her with a big adorable, and goofy smile.

- "I've got you a little surprise,"- he announced and held her hand

- "Really? I noticed you did some cleaning. Is that the surprise?"- (Y/N) asked as Gubler insisted she sat on a couch and helped her taking out her purple Converse.

- "That's part of the surprise,"- Matthew answered with a mysterious smile- "Now stay here and relax for a minute."

- "But no. Wait, stay here too, I missed you," (Y/N) argued, but Gubler just pecked her lips and walked back to the kitchen.

- "It will only be a second, Bunny! Meanwhile, tell me, what did you do with your mom today."

- "She took our baby bean shopping. Can you help me get a million bags from the car later?"

- "Sure!!"- Gubler yelled from the kitchen- "What did you get?"

- "Mom went nuts and got us so many baby clothes. I don't think our baby will have time to wear it all before it's too small for him."- Matthew chuckled at the idea of their baby wearing tiny socks that didn't fit on his little feet.

- "Then, she invited me for lunch and overfed me, but I can't complain, 'cos I was starving, and she took me to that little Italian place near to their house, and it's just so good! I think I ate my weight on garlic bread."

Matthew frowned and looked at the tray he was preparing. It had homemade cookies, a chocolate milkshake, one cupcake, and a heart-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

- "So... you are not hungry?"- he asked, hesitant to bring his wife the snack he had prepared for her.

- "Starving, actually. Your son is gonna make me gain a million pounds."- Matthew smiled and grabbed the tray, walking with confidence back to the family room.

- "That's what I wanted to hear, 'cos I made this for you."

(Y/N) widened her eyes in awed, smiled at her husband when he stood by her side and placed the tray on her legs.

- "I cooked all your favorites while you were gone"

- "Matthew Gray, you are the sweetest husband on Earth"- (Y/N) raised her hands and reached his face, forcing him to lean over and kiss her.

- "What do you want?"- she whispered and smiled

- "What do you mean?"

- "I'm your wife. I've known you for the last... nine years. I know you are going to ask me for something"- Gubler gasped, pretending to be shocked and insulted, but (Y/N) shook her head and took a large sip of her milkshake.

- "Really, (Y/N). I can't believe you think I'm nice to you only because I wanna ask you for something."

- "So you won't?"- (Y/N) raised an eyebrow and chewed a cookie- "These are delicious, honey. Thank you so much."

- "no, you already broke my heart"- Matthew sighed and sat at the other side of the couch.

- "Oh, come on!"

- "I was just trying to be nice with my wife."

- "You are adorable. If I weren't pregnant already, I would actually ask you to knock me up"- Gubler tried not to chuckle but failed.

- "Come on, Gub, give me a smile"- (Y/N) giggled and looked at Matthew- "You know you want to smile."

- "Stop it."

- "Come on, honey"- (Y/N) reached out for his hand and held it- "Just tell me what it was that you wanted to ask me"- Gubler bit his inner cheek and sighed.

- "I hate that you know me so well."

- "It's part of the job of being your wife"- (Y/N) smiled pleased and grabbed another cookie- "So?"- she chewed the cookie and gave one to Matthew.

- "Ok... here's the deal"- Matthew ran his hands through his hair and made a pause, trying to rearrange his thoughts. (Y/N) looked at him, waiting and eating all the cookies on the dish.

- "I'm waiting."

- "Ok, so... we are going to have a kid"- Matthew stated- "And that kid has to have a name"- suddenly (Y/N) knew exactly where that conversation was going.

- "Yes, he has."

- "And we haven't talked about the baby's name"

- "No"- (Y/N) shook her head and crossed her arms on her chest immediately.

- "But I haven't even told you what I wanted to ask."

- "The baby's name won't be Rumble Buttercup."

Matthew opened his mouth to argue, and (Y/N) looked right into his eyes with a deadpan stare.

- "But why not?"

- "Are you serious, Matthew? You already have a "kid" named Rumple."

- "Yes, but it's different, 'cos he is my "first child book," and our baby is our firstborn child."

- "No"- (Y/N) shook her head again and grabbed the sandwich. Yes, she had eaten most of the day, but she really felt hungry. Maybe it was anxiety or cravings, but whatever it was, she just felt hungry the whole time.

- "Come on (Y/N), be fair here."

- "Ok, I'll be fair. Explain your case."

Matthew stood up and cleared his throat, ready to convince his wife. He fixed his hair, though it was a useless attempt to look a little more serious. If anything, he just made her want to laugh more, 'cos he was being adorable.

- "Ever since I was a little kid, I always dreamed about the day I could call my first son "Rumple Buttercup." Rumple is an old family name in the Gubler family, and I am sure naming our baby as his ancestors will assure him a life of happiness and love."

Gubler smiled at his wife, and (Y/N) nodded, chewing the last bite of the sandwich.

- "Who was called Rumple in the Gubler's family?"- she asked, and Matthew almost jumped, looking at her excitedly.

- "Excellent question, Bunny. You'll see, my great-great-grandfather, Rumple Buttercup Gubler, first arrived in America in early 1800, all alone with no family. And he built the first casino of Las Vegas."

- "In the early 1800"- (Y/N) raised an eyebrow and tried not to laugh.

- "He was a visionary. Don't you want our baby to be a visionary too?"

- "I do, I definitely do. But... can we talk about my great-great-grandfather? His name was Yertle, and he also had a vision. And a mustache!"- (Y/N) said and made her best not to laugh, as Matthew raised an eyebrow and bit his lips, trying not to laugh as well.

- "Yertle?"- he asked, crossing his arms on his chest- "Your great-great grandfather's name was Yertle?

- "Yes"- she nodded and smiled- "Yertle the Turtle. It's also an old family name, and most of the man in my family had carried that name after him".

- "I've never heard of one an "uncle Yertle" when we hang out with your family."

- "I've never heard of an "uncle Rumple Buttercup" when we hang out with yours."

- "He has been mentioned many times. All the Rumples of my family has been amazing men."

- "Just like our good old Yertle."

- "But I called dibs on the baby's name!"- Matthew failed and laughed at his own words and sat by his wife, huffing. (Y/N) giggled and rested her head on his shoulder.

- "What if we find a great name together?"- she whispered. Matthew held her hand and played with her fingers between his for a second.

- "Or we can call him Rumple."

- "Rumple Yertle Gubler"- she whispered and shook her head- "I'm not sure."

- "Rumple Buttercup Yertle Gray Gubler"- he corrected and chuckled- "Fine, let's find another name."

- "Thank you, honey"- (Y/N) smiled and sighed- "Wanna split the cupcake?"

- "Yes, please."

Matthew looked at his wife, carefully splitting the cupcake he had made for her, and took half. He could have had a whole tray of cupcakes, but that was the only one that didn't burn. Matthew wasn't really the best baker in the world, but he had tried his best. He wanted to do something nice for his wife. She hadn't been feeling good in the last few weeks. The baby kept her up most of the nights, moving and kicking. She couldn't really rest, and everybody kept telling her it wasn't going to be any better once the baby was born.

- "So... wanna think of names now?"- (Y/N) asked him with a smile- "Wanna think of another man with an amazing vision and incredible mustache to name our baby?"

- "Actually"- Matthew whispered and smiled- "I had a plan B in case you weren't on board with Rumple."

- "Really?"- (Y/N) frowned, wondering what was Matthew going to come up with now- "Suprise me."

- "Vincent"- there was a long silence after Gubler said that name. (Y/N) gave it a little thinking, running all the nickname options in her head.

- "Vincent Gray Gubler"- Matthew added the rest of the name- "What do you think?"

- "LIttle Vincent Gray Gubler... Vince, Vinnie..."

- "Like Vincent Price. He is an amazing man with a vision and an incredible mustache."

(Y/N) kept nodding as she finished eating her cupcake. Her husband turned to her and waited for an answer.

- "I love the name"- she whispered and grinned at Matthew- "What do you think, Vincent Gray?"- she asked, looking at her tummy.

- "Knock once for yes and twice for no"- Matthew giggled and caressed (Y/N) belly. And as if he could hear them, the little baby kicked her once. The Gublers looked at each other with wide-opened eyes, surprised and shocked by the quick answer of their unborn son.

- "It's settled then, Vincent!"- Matthew replied to the belly and kissed it- "You just picked your name!"

(Y/N) looked at her husband and moved closer, holding his face with both hands, and pulling him closer to her.

- "I love you, Gub"- she whispered and kissed him

- "I love you too, Mrs. Gub."

- "Thank you for putting a baby on my belly,"- she murmured, and he chuckled, caressing her hair and looking into her eyes, which were getting a little tearful at the moment.

- "Sorry, hormones"- she excused herself and chuckled- "I'm just so excited we picked his name."

- "I'm excited too, Bunny,"- Matthew whispered and kissed her one more time- "Now, what do you say I get you some herbal tea?"

- "I'd ask you to marry me, but you already did,"- she answered with a huge smile. Matthew kissed her one more time and stood up. Vincent Gray Gubler. Sounded like a dream.  

--------

Taglist: 

@all-tings-diego​

[viking-raider]

Southern Generation - Part IV

Summary: Sy wakes up in Lily’s arms and shows his gratitude for her comforting him. The mysterious caller is revealed, causing Sy to get extremely protective.

Pairing: Captain Syverson/OFC

Word Count: 7,178

Rating: M - Language, Protective!Sy, Domestic Kink, Stalking, Harassment, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Angst, Confession, Smut - Nipple stimulation, intercourse, orgasm, cream pie. 

Inspiration: Always wanted to write a Sy fic and this is a re-work on an old fic I wrote several years ago.

Author’s Note: Thank you for all the love and support, @wondersofdreaming​! Your ideas, suggestions and encouragement mean the world to me, and my stories.

Sy woke the next morning wrapped around a warm body and a steady heart beat in his ear, he tipped his head back and was met with Lily's sleeping face, his head pillowed on her breasts. He smiled, hugging his arms snugger around her waist and sighed, comfortable and peaceful, nuzzling his face into her chest.

Lily moaned softly, making Sy smile against the fabric of the night shirt she was wearing, her hand moved against the broad expanse of his back, fingertips sleepily caressing his spine, unconsciously soothing him, before moving between his shoulder blades, tickling the nape of his neck and rubbing the back of his head with her palm.

He vaguely remembered her calling his name and holding him after his nightmare, whispering into his ear that he was safe and at home, with her. Lily made the choice to bring him to her bed, comforting him even more, until he fell asleep, and for the first time in years, Sy actually dreamt about something other than war and endless spaces of bloody sand.

Reaching up, Sy brushed his fingers through her bangs, smiling. “My Angel.” He whispered, not wanting to wake her.

Carefully unwrapping himself from around her, Sy slipped out of bed and gingerly covered Lily up, before tip toeing downstairs to the kitchen. Scratching the back of his head for a moment, Sy moved about the kitchen, setting up the coffee maker, pulled out the skillet and started making breakfast. He figured she had been making him breakfast every morning for the last several months, it was time for him to return the favor.

So, Sy went all out, once he had everything made, he brought it upstairs to her.

Lily took a deep breath and moaned, stretching and rolling onto her back, but found Sy was no longer in bed with her. She sat up, panicked that something had happened to him, and was about to get out of bed to look for him, when he appeared in the bedroom door, relieved he was all right.

“Morning.” He smiled, finding her sitting up.

“Did you make breakfast?” She frowned as he approached her side of the bed.

“I did.” He nodded, setting her steaming cup of tea on her bedside table. “I thought, since you always make me breakfast, that I'd make you breakfast this go around.” Sy explained, setting the tray of food over her lap.

“What's better than breakfast in bed?”

“Nothing currently comes to mind.” Lily smiled, a soft blush on her cheeks, actually pleasantly surprised at this change of events, touched at Sy’s sweet gesture.

“I didn't think so.” Sy chuckled, pulling up the chair that was at a small desk in her room and sat down, balancing his own plate of food in his lap.

“So, what's on your agenda today, Captain?” She asked, taking a sip of her tea and was surprised to find it was exactly to her liking.

“I think, it's time I started working on the roof.” He replied, bringing his fork to his mouth. “I want to at least give it some temporary patches, before the weather turns.” He told her, after swallowing. “It'll also give me a chance to find out what all the problems with it are, and if I'll need to re-roof it.”

“I hope not.” Lily frowned, washing down some of her food with a gulp of tea.

“Well, from what I've seen on the ground, it looks to be the original roof that was put on when the house was built.” He chuckled at her, setting his empty plate on her nightstand. “That was nearly a century ago.”

“Unless, you know about it being replaced since then?” He asked her, tilting his head.

“The realtor didn't mention it to me.” Lily replied, searching her mind for any scrap of memory of the day she bought the place.

“That's all right.” Sy assured her, gently touching her hand. “I'll get it done, don't you worry.”

Lily smiled at him, turning her hand to thread her fingers with his. “I'm not worried, since you're the one on the case.” She replied, softly.

Sy grinned at her, bringing her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers, before letting go and collecting their plates. “You know, what would you say, if I managed to install a dishwasher for you?” He asked, pausing in the doorway of her bedroom.

“I have a dishwasher.” Lily giggled, holding up her hands and wiggling her fingers at him.

“You know what I mean, sugar butt.” He laughed, smirking even broader at her.

Lily shrugged, still giggling at him, her cheeks coloring at his nickname. “I don't know, Bear. I've never had one before.”

“Well then, Angel, I'll riddle that one out for you.” He promised in a soft voice.

“I believe you.” She whispered back, giddy, and not for a dishwasher.

“I'm going to check the mail.” Lily said, drying her hands on a dish towel, after washing the dishes from lunch.

“All right.” Sy nodded, still sitting at the table.

Sy had stood to refill his coffee cup, when the phone rang. Biting his lip and glancing out of the kitchen, he saw Lily was too far down the driveway to call her back to answer it, so he picked it up instead; clearing his throat.

“Moore residence.” He spoke into the receiver.

“She's a sweet thing, isn't she?” A sinister voice asked from the other end.

“Excuse you?” Sy barked, a flash of hot anger bursting through his body.

“Oh yes.” The voice chuckled, incredibly delighted. “She is sweet as a Lily, so pure and good.”

“Who is this?” Sy demanded with a deep growl, his teeth gritted and bared as he gripped the handle of the phone even tighter in his hand.

“She's mine, you know.” They growled back at Sy, breathing heavily, their own anger mounting. “She's always been mine and she will always be mine.”

“Not anymore.” Sy hissed back and slammed the phone down in its cradle.

“Sy?” Lily frowned, coming into the kitchen as he hung up the phone. “Who was that?”

“I don't know, you tell me?” He replied, turning towards her, brows drawn together.

“I'm not the one that answered it, Austin.” She countered, shaking her head, confused by his anger.

“It was some guy, said you were his, always had been and would be.” Sy told her, pushing his jaw forward.

Lily's eyes glassed over, letting out a shuddering breath and started trembling. Sy blinked at her, his anger at the caller's words melting away to alarmed concern. He took a step forward, reaching out for her, but Lily stumbled away from him, tears finally spilling free.

“Lily.” He whispered softly, his chest tight. “Easy.” He cooed at her, licking his lips.

“I'm not his, not anymore.” She whimpered, shaking her head. “Why can't he just leave me be.”

Sy blinked at her, frowning harder. “What?”

“Nothing.” Lily mewled, biting her lip.

“No, come on.” He coaxed her, resting his hand on her arm and gently pulled her against him. “Tell me.” He whispered, gently rubbing her back.

“I thought I got away from him.” She sniffled against his shirt. “Thirteen hundred miles away from him. I was so careful—so careful.” She mumbled, hands clinging onto the sides of his shirt. “I don't-I don't know how he found me—unless...”

“Unless?” Sy frowned, still slowly rubbing her back and trying to process what she was telling him. “Sit down.” He said, moving them towards the breakfast table and pulled out a chair for her, before bringing the other one around from the other side to sit beside her.

“Start at the beginning.”

Lily cleared her throat and stared down at her hands, folded in her lap. “I was born and raised in Middleburg, Virginia. You know, that I'm an only child and that my mom died, when I was born. I was raised by my grandparents, because my dad was in and out of my life, before just finally disappearing from it, when I was nineteen.” She explained to him, licking her lips.

“He blamed me for my mom's death.” She added, quietly.

Sy reached out and rested his hand on her thigh, squeezing it gently, and gave her a sweet smile.

“When I was seventeen, I met a boy at church, Jak.” Lily continued to explain to him. “It was the only time I really got to interact with others, my grandparents were strict, homeschooling me and only really letting me out of the house, unless they were with me, which was usually only for church on Sunday.” She fidgeted, shyly. “He was the only boy to show any interest in me, which didn't and did surprise me. The little house on the prairie dresses my grandma made me wear, and the glasses I had back then, you could see the moon through them.” She chuckled, cheeks colored.

Sy smiled back at her, even picturing her as a little girl like that, he still found her beautiful.

“But, Jak didn't care, or at least he didn't say or show he did. I would sneak out at night to meet him in the apple orchard my grandfather grew. It had been in our family since the Revolutionary War, the land was given to my, how many times, great-grandfather as payment for his service in the war.”

“I bet it's beautiful.” Sy commented, warmed at the thought.

“They are, so many of the trees are the original ones that were planted.” She smiled back, picturing the orchard in her mind. “The first one that was ever planted, after he cleared away the land, is still there and yielding, there's a plaque staked by its roots, and people come from all around to see it and the orchard, the Warren Apple.”

Sy rested back in his chair. “Your family owns the Warren Orchard Company? You're one of those Warrens?”

“I am.” She nodded, smiling proudly at that fact, but it vanished.

“Anyway, Jak and I would sneak every moment we could to see each other. He even got a job, during the summer, in the orchard, so we could see each other even more.” She took a deep breath, letting it out softly. “But, a year after we met and started being sweet on each other, my grandparents lodged a missionary for his two year mission in our ward. Jak thought he and I were getting close, that my grandparents had actually brought him to live with us, so he and I could court and marry.”

“He grew jealous and possessive. I was stupid, naive and young, I didn't know what was happening, that he was being abusive, until it was almost far too late.”

“What happened, that caused you to realize it?” Sy asked, tilting his head at her.

“I met Jak in the orchard one night, when I was twenty, the day after the missionary went back home to Michigan, because his two years were up. When I got there, Jak was pacing, already angry. Livid. When he saw me, he started yelling about how he had seen me kissing the missionary, how we practically ate each other's faces on the back porch, while everyone else was in the house, during his farewell party.” She said, glancing out the window behind the breakfast table.

“Of course, I hadn't been. Matt, the Missionary, and I had been on the back porch together, I had gone out there to get away from the press of all the people and he went out there to check on me. We had hugged, only the once, since doing so isn't really acceptable, two not courting, unchaperoned kids. But, we did nothing more, before going back inside. The truth didn't matter to Jak though, he had his version of what he saw and it was unchangeable.” Lily bit her lip and gripped Sy's wrist as his hand still laid on her thigh. “He lost his temper and hit me, but in my love sick stupidity, I didn't break it off there or tell my grandparents about it.”

“Instead, I enrolled in a university for Photography and Web Design, moved out of my grandparents' place and into one with him, like an idiot.”

“You weren't an idiot, Lily.” Sy told her, shaking his head and slipping his hand into hers. “It's more common than you think.”

“I know it is.” She sighed, clinging onto his hand.

“He only got worse and it got harder for me to get my school work done, with him accusing me that I was sleeping with my project partners, even teachers.” She huffed, shaking her head at his allegations, that now sounded so ridiculous. “The straw that broke the camel's back was,” She paused, biting and licking her lips, fighting down a bubble of emotions and memories. “One of my project mates called to ask me about the faux website we were designing for a fake company we had to make up, cause she wanted to know what time was good for us to meet up, and Jak answered the phone, claimed he heard a guy in the background, throwing the phone across the living room and went ballistic, saying I was having her call me to set up a time for me and the guy he heard, to try and fool him.”

“He spent the next hour going to town on me.” She said, glancing up at him, the hint and meaning in her eyes.

“Afterwards, he went to work and I packed a bag. I had some money from the family orchard business, so I took a good portion of it, bought a greyhound bus ticket to a cousin I was close to in New Jersey, Maggie, and stayed with her, knowing he wouldn't find me there, my grandparents wouldn't think I'd go there, and she wouldn't ever rat on me. While I was there, I petitioned for a name change, from Liliana Warren to Lily Ana Moore, and finished my degree, then found this place and moved out here.”

“So, how do you think he found you?” Sy asked, worried about her safety and angry that this asshole had the audacity to hurt her and wanted to try and hurt her again, but he kept a lid on his temper, not wanting to frighten her anymore than she already was.

“I've been keeping tabs on my grandparents, mostly through my cousin.” Lily answered, biting her lip. “She called me a year ago, to tell me that my grandmother had a stroke, a pretty bad stroke at that. She's apparently wheelchair bound now. Maggie went down there to visit them, and my grandfather was talking about how he needed someone to work on the company website, when Maggie let it slip that I have a web design business.”

“Oh.” Sy let out, eyes wide.

“Yeah.” She nodded back. “So, of course, they got upset, understanding that Maggie knew what had happened to me and where I was and all that. She called afterwards, apologizing up and down to me for it. She didn't tell them where I was or anything like that, just that I was safe and fine, and if I wanted to contact them, I would.”

“Did you?”

“I did.” Lily sighed, voice tight. “I figured after four years, I owed them a call.”

“So, do you think they told Jak?”

“I don't know.” She shrugged. “But, a week after I called them, I started getting hang up calls, then calls where no one would say anything for a few minutes, before hanging up. Then, two months ago, I got a call that was different from the others, he said something to me, and a month ago, he said something being soon.”

The wires connected in Sy's brain. “That's what caused you to take all those pills.”

Lily gulped and bit her lip, eyes burning, as she nodded her head. “Ye-ah.” She choked, fear and anxiety starting to mount inside of her again.

“Hey, hey.”

Sy cooed, wrapping his arms around her and pulled her into his lap, hugging her against his chest. “It's all right, Lily. It's going to be all right, I promised to protect you and I will. You are safe with me, you will always be safe with me, whatever the cost.” He whispered in her ear, holding her close and planning ways and means to protect her.

“Sy?” Lily called from the open door of her bedroom, just as Sy stepped out of the hall bathroom, in nothing, but a pair of black boxers.

“Lily?” He replied, rubbing the towel over his head, and looked up at her, lifting a brow, inquisitively.

Lily rested her hand on the handle of her door and stepped sideways, giving a little motion of her head into her room, a soft and offering expression on her face. Sy blinked at her, surprised, then down at Aika, who sat in the doorway of his room, feeling like he was picking what lady to sleep with for the night.

He tilted his head at Aika and gave her a sympathetic expression.

“Sorry, Girl.” He whispered to the Shepherd, turning towards Lily.

Lily chuckled at him, smiling and shaking her head as he passed by her and into her room. “You can come too, Aika.” She called to her, then turned into her room.

“You're cool with this?” Sy asked, eyes motioning to her bed.

“It was my idea, wasn't it?” She smiled at him, then stepped inside her closet for a moment and came back in a t-shirt-like nightie with Mickey Mouse on it, before pulling down the blankets and crawling into bed.

“It was.” He nodded, then laid down with her, covering up.

Lily scooted closer to him and Sy draped his arm over her waist, tucking her against him and she let him lay his head on her chest, stroking his arm. She was comfortable with the warm weight of his body against hers, the clean scent of his skin and hair from his shower. She felt Sy's body slowly melt into hers as he fell asleep, it had been her plan. Lily knew there was a high likelihood of Sy having another episode or nightmare, but figured, if he was there, with her, already safe and comfortable in her arms, he wouldn't have it.

That was her deepest hope, at least.

But, the next thing Lily knew, she was being jerked roughly off the bed and pinned underneath Sy's mountainous weight, his heavy and hot breath puffing against the side of her face as he blanketed her with his body, clearly startled and on high alert. The room lit up with a quick flash of lightning and the furious sound of rain beating on all parts of the house filled the bedroom around them.

“Austin.” She gasped, grasping the back of his arms, nails digging into his sweaty skin, thinking he had been set off by the noise of the sudden storm. “Aust-”

“Ssshhh.” He hushed her, lips brushing her temple, the hairs of his beard tickling her skin. “Stay here.” He whispered into her ear, then moved off of her and out of the room, Aika sitting in the open doorway and growling into the darkness of the hallway after him.

Lily sat up on her elbows, knowing that what was happening couldn't have been from one of Sy's nightmares or the storm, because Aika wouldn't be acting like this, she was angry, like she was daring something Lily couldn't see to try and cross her. But, nothing came, not even Sy, and Lily was starting to get worried. So, getting up, she edged around Aika and tip toed downstairs, jerking at another boom of thunder and crack of lightning, until she found Sy standing in the entryway.

“Austin?” She called out to him, over the sound of the rain, which sounded much louder downstairs.

“I told you to stay upstairs.” He barked, not looking back at her.

“What's wrong?” She asked, knowing there had to be something, by the tone of his voice.

“Nothing, just go back to bed.”

Narrowing her eyes, Lily stepped closer to him and her eyes grew wide, seeing what had caused Sy to wake up and react like he had. The large bay window in the den that faced out onto the porch and the front of the property was smashed, the glitter of the broken glass shined in the lightning strikes and left the outline of the brick amongst them, the cause of the broken window. Lily's eyes snapped out the living room window, expecting to see someone, not just someone, but Jak, to be standing out in the yard, staring back at them. But, there was no one, but her and Sy's cars. Her heart started to race and pound, making her feel dizzy and lightheaded, trembling so hard she almost lost her balance, but caught herself on the back of the couch.

Sy turned and grabbed her, picking her up in his arms and carried her back up to bed. “Stay here.” He ordered her, pointing a stiff finger at her, then went back downstairs.

Going out back, Sy grabbed a large piece of plywood he had bought in preparation for repairing the roof and instead used it to board up the broken window, until the storm passed and morning came, so he could find a piece of glass to replace it, leaving him and the den floor mostly wet. He moped the den floor and laid out nearly every towel Lily had in the house in hopes the old floorboards wouldn't warp under the water damage.

He stepped out onto the porch for a moment, glaring into wet dark. “This is my house now.” He growled, knowing Jak was still out there somewhere nearby. “My girl.” He hissed, before turning back inside, going up to the guest room to change into a dry pair of boxers and joined Lily back in her bed.

“It was him.” She mumbled, hugging her pillow to her chest. “It had to be him.”

Sy sighed softly, locking his arms around her waist and hugged her to his chest, curving his body around hers. He didn't know what to say to her, they both knew it had to be Jak, who else would have thrown a brick through someone's window in the middle of a storm like this one, especially after all the other incidents over the last several months; all the lines drew back to Jak on his unhealthy, possessive rampage to reclaim Lily as his own. Sy was afraid that if he verbalized his agreement with her, it would only inflate her already inflamed fear of the obvious.

So, he just clutched her tighter to him, pressing his lips to her shoulder and squeezing his eyes shut against the bright flashes of lightning.

“Lily, I'm going to go to town, I have something I need to pick up.” He told her, searching the living room for his car keys.

“I thought you already ordered the new windowpane?” Lily called back, appearing out of the kitchen, where she was washing the dishes.

“I did.” He nodded, he had found a shop that he could order a replacement windowpane for the den window that morning, but it wouldn't be ready until the next day. “This is for something else.” He told her, finding his keys under a magazine on the coffee table.

“What are you going for, then, Bear?” She asked, tilting her head at him.

Sy paused and regarded her. “Don't worry about it, Angel. I'll be back in an hour.” He told her, then, went out.

“Okay.” Lily frowned, glancing out the living room window, the thunder and lightning had passed during the early morning, but it was still raining cats and dogs.

Sighing, Lily turned back into the kitchen, taking a bucket and mop out of the utility closet, filled the bucket with warm water and soap, before getting down to mopping the floors, with nothing else to do in the current weather.

Sy rushed out to his truck, but was still almost half soaked by the time he settled himself in the driver's seat. Turning on the car and cranking on the heat, Sy pulled off the property and headed towards Celina. He pulled into the small parking center the small town had, scanning the rain blurred signs, looking for the one he was heading for, before opening the door and rushing towards it, pulling open the door, with an electric ding, announcing his presence.

“How can I help you?” the shop owner asked, coming out of a small room in the back and stopped behind a long glass case.

“Yeah, I'm looking for something specific.” Sy replied, stopping on the other side of the glass case, a look of understanding in both men's eyes.

“What specifics would that be?”

“Taurus, PT111 G2, 9mm.” Sy rattled off with familiar ease.

“Do you have a license and ID?” The store owner asked, eyes scanning the case between them.

“Then, some.” Sy laughed, pulling out his wallet to show the man his qualifications.

“You're a retired Captain.” The man noted, seeing Sy's military ID.

“That I am.” Sy chuckled, grinning with some pride.

The store owner got Sy squared away with the weapon he wanted, a secure case and a couple rounds of ammo, while also chattering about the military, being a retired Staff Sergeant himself. Getting back into his truck, he put the case under the passenger seat, pausing to stare at it for a moment,emotions and thoughts brewing inside of him, then shook them off. Satisfied, Sy went back home to Lily, finding her dusting the living room, when he came in, carrying the case and sat it down on the coffee table.

Lily paused, dust rag poised above the mantelpiece, staring at the case. “Is that what I think it is?” She asked, finally looking up at him.

“If you think it's a gun, then yes.” Sy replied, sitting down on the couch and tugging on the soaked laces of his boots.

“Why,” She gulped, arm dropping to her side. “did you buy a gun and bring it here?”

“Because, I wanted to and as a precaution.” He answered her, yanking his boots off.

“A precaution?”

“There is a fucking asshole out there.” Sy barked, jerking his arm up and finger pointing out the window. “Trying to hurt you.” His finger moved to her, in emphasis. “I am a big man. I'm a strong man. I've killed and subdued more than one man with my bare hands, but a personal cost.” He explained to her, standing and jerking up his shirt, showing her a couple of scars on his sides and chest, some were round and puckered, gunshot wounds, others were stripes, like stab wounds.

“If that prick decides to come into this house, to try and put his hands on you. That,” He pointed down to the gun case. “is going to be the first thing he wants to meet, because if he has to get close enough to me, that I need to put my hands on him, then they will be that last thing he will ever feel.” He told her, chest heaving as he got worked up over the situation.

Lily gulped at him, biting her lip, a flash of fear in her eyes at his passionate words, seeing a vein of rage that Jak had also been capable of.

“I just want to protect you.” He said softly, taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself down; seeing he had scared her.

“I know you do, Austin.” She whimpered back, gulping, eyes shiny. “I know you do.”

Sy moaned, something cold pressing into his neck. “Hm, Lily.” He chuckled, scrunching his head and shoulders together, grinning as the cold and wet touched his bare chest, making him grunt and wiggle away. “Why are you so col-” He started to laugh, opening his eyes, only to meet the soulful and tawny colored eyes of Aika.

“Aika, what are ya doin' here?” He frowned, and sat up, finding it was just him and the German Shepherd in the bed, Lily nowhere in sight. “Lily?” He called out, turning his head towards the master bathroom, but it was empty.

Panic filled Sy as he yanked the blankets back and pounded down the stairs into the living room, then the den. Sy squeezed his eyes shut, taking deep breaths and clenching his hands in and out of fists, trying to keep himself cool and calm, before going into the kitchen, hearing the screen of the back door knocking against the door frame, and found the main back door was ajar.

“What is she doing?” He whispered to himself, biting his lip and looking back, considering the option of going back upstairs and getting the gun, but something in his gut told him he wouldn't need it.

Opening the door, Sy stepped out onto the back porch, a shiver wracking his body as a strong gust of rainy wind rushed by him. He narrowed his eyes, scanning the drenched backyard, the tall, unruly and uncut grass bent from the pelting of the rain and gusts of wind, he caught a quick movement to his left and turned in that direction, stepping off the porch and followed after it, towards the barn, just catching the billowing fabric of Lily's white nightie, vanishing inside.

“Lily, what are you doing in here?” He called out, pushing open the barn door a bit more. “Lily?” He called again, frowning as he crossed the barn and found her huddled in one of the old horse stalls. “What are you doing in here, Angel?” He cooed at her, shaking his head, droplets of rain running down both of their faces, and watched her melt into the corner.

Lily panted, her back pressed against the warped and worn wall behind her, arms pressed to her chest, her nightie so soaked, it was almost see through. Sy bit his lip and gulped, slowly crouching down. He knew what was going on, he had seen and suffered things like this a million times over the last ten plus years. She was having a PTSD episode, running away from the terror that was inside her head, trying to hide and find somewhere safe from it. Everything over the last several months with Jak stalking and harassing her was really starting to affect her, finally breaking her it seemed.

“I'm not going to hurt you, love.” He said softly, keeping his voice soft and low. “Come here.” He gulped, opening his arms to her and biting his lip with apprehension. “It's all right. You know, you can trust me, Sugar.” He whispered, nodding his head as she slowly unfolded herself and crawled over to him.

“Hey, Angel.” Sy cooed, sighing softly, and closed his arms around her, pressing his lips to the top of wet her head. “Ssshh.” He hushed her, rubbing her back and cupping the back of her head, feeling her tears add to the raindrops on his chest.

“I c-can-can't ta-take it an-anymore.” She sobbed, trembling in his arms, overcome with emotions and cold.

“We'll get through this, Angel.” He whispered to her, cupping her chilled cheeks in his hands and tilted her head back to look up at him. “We will get through this. You and I will get through this together. Everything will work out.”

Lily shook her head, her pale lips trembling. “N-no, it wo-won't. He-he always g-gets what h-he wants. All-always.” She mewled, whining. “I don't kn-know why I-I thought I c-could ge-get away.”

Sy's expression was hard for a moment, before he brought their faces together and kissed her, deeply. Lily stiffened against him, taken off guard by his kiss, but she didn't pull away or push him away. Gulping, she shyly returned his kiss, resting her hands on him, feeling the skin of his sides jump and react to her icy touch.

“I've wanted to kiss you.” Sy said, pulling back. “For such a long time.” He admitted, looking into her eyes. “Since that day on the porch, when you woke me up.”

“Since, you gave me your hoodie at the fair.” She whispered back, licking her lips, the warmth of Sy's still lingering on them.

Sy leaned forward, kissing her gently and brushing his fingers through her dripping hair, Lily pushing forward to deepen it for a moment, letting out a breathy whimper. Sy smirked, then looked down at the floor between them, it was still strewn with decades old hay and dirt. He held up a finger and stood, bumping around in the dark barn before a scratching sound sounded among the patter of rain on the metal barn roof. A moment later, a teeny glow filled the space and Sy approached where Lily was still kneeling, holding an old, beat up, oil lantern he knew was in the barn from his many searches of the space, hanging it up on a bent and rusty nail on the stall wall, then disappeared for another moment.

“Stand up.” He said, motioning her out of the stall, holding something in his arms.

Lily frowned at him, but stepping out of the stall and out of his way, catching a glimpse of what it was, it was one of the drop clothes he bought for when he painted the house, keeping the paint off the new porch. Sy unfolded the drop cloth over the dirty hay and stall floor, making sure it was comfortable, then turned back to her.

“How gentlemanly.” Lily complimented him.

“I am a Southern boy.” Sy chuckled, letting his Southern drawl deepen, and wrapping his arm around her waist, pulling her against him. “Who's in love with Southern Lady.”

Lily blushed as Sy kissed her again, hugging her against him and up off her feet, turning around and slowly dropped to his knees, gently laying her back on the situated drop cloth. Lily wrapped her arms around Sy's neck, moaning softly against his lips, feeling the fabric of her nightie rub against her cold hardened nipples as Sy moved to kiss down to her neck, sinking his teeth into her delicate skin and let out a loud moan, pushing up against him.

“Austin!” She cried out, pressing her cheek to his ear as he continued to bite and suck on her neck, his beard tickling and rubbing against the skin underneath her jaw, leaving it red and sensitive.

Sy chuckled, loving the sound of her calling out his name with the metal patter of rain, his hand gliding over the soaked material of her nightie, bunching and hiking it up out of his way, pressing his palm against her side, rubbing his big hands all over her exposed body, grunting and growling into her neck, like a wild grizzly bear, finally getting his claws on his prized catch. His big mitts were on her plump breasts almost instantly, squeezing and kneading them, rubbing the rough pads of his thumbs over the sensitive nubs of her nipples, making her moan and whimper, fidgeting beneath him and rubbing her legs together, adding to the growing slickness between them.

“You sound so sweet.” Sy moaned back, pulling away from her neck, a set of dark teeth marks left behind, dipping his head for a moment to swirl his tongue around one of her nipples.

“Sy.” She whined, gulping down a moan. “Sy, please.”

“Oh.” He smiled, impishly. “You like that?” He asked, flicking her erect nipple with the tip of his tongue and watched her partially melt. “Your sweet, sensitive, little buds.” He cooed, then closed his lips around one of them, suckling gently, rubbing and rolling his tongue against it.

“Ah, shit!” Lily gasped, gripping his shoulders, eyes rolling and fluttering back into her head, heels digging into the fabric of the drop cloth. “God damn it, Austin.” She snapped, pressing her palms to the back of his head, holding his mouth to her breasts, her moans and whimpers filled the barn, pushing against him, egging and begging him to keep going, her breathing growing rugged and labored, moans becoming more urgent and reckless.

“Ah, fuck fuck fuck.” She cried out. “Suck them harder.” She coaxed and demanded. “Oh shit! Please, Austin!!” She gasped suddenly, body going rigid with a soft tremor.

Sy pulled away from her and dripped a hand between her trembling thighs, finding an extremely wet patch there. “So, you come, when you get your pretty breasts sucked.” He grinned, fully turned on and impressed, licking her juices off his fingers and palm.

“I've also never heard you say such naughty words.” He added, teasingly.

Lily chuckled, slowly recovering and smiling shyly up at him.

“Oh, it's too late to get shy now, Angel.” Sy laughed, leaning down and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Your secret is out.” He continued to tease her, playfully bouncing her boobs in his palms.

“And, I'm not letting you off.”

“I'm going to regret this, I can just feel it now.” Lily huffed, shaking her head, but her smile gave away her true feelings.

“Yes, you are.”

Sy chuckled, his hand dipping back between her legs, rubbing her still dripping folds with his calloused fingers, melting her into a puddle of weak and vulnerable whimpers. “You're so sensitive and sound so sweet.” He cooed at her, licking his lips and watching her face. “So, so sweet.” He panted, mouth slightly ajar, slipping his free hand into his damp boxers, curling his fingers around his thick and rock hard shaft, giving it a few shallow strokes.

Lily's eyes drifted down the length of her sweaty body, watching Sy work his cock inside his underwear and felt herself shiver in want and anticipation of it. She licked her lips and looked up at him, their eyes in a silent communication of what they both wanted. Sy shifted, yanking off his boxers to kneel between Lily's legs, wrapping them around his waist, her hips and bottom resting atop his thighs, with the small of her back lifted off the drop cloth beneath her.

“You're sure?” Sy panted, gulping thickly and already breaking out into a sweat, staring at her with wide eyes and blown out pupils.

“Yes.” Lily sighed, nodding her head vigorously at him. “God, yes.” She moaned, squeezing her legs around his waist.

Sy smirked, pressed a hand to her hip, pushing it up her side to palm one of her breasts, squeezing and rubbing it, while taking the base of his cock in his other hand, pumping it a few times, rubbing the fat and cut tip against her still wet pussy, slowly slipping between her folds, brushing her entrance and pushing inside. Lily let out a moaning sigh through her nose, feeling his wide girth stretch her open far more than she had ever been before. Her toes curled and squeezed his hips between her calves and thighs, back arching and hips shifting against the nearly uncomfortable burn of his length being buried ever deeper inside her core. Sy tilted his head at her, bracing a hand on the drop cloth, beside her head, and leaned over her, causing Lily to let out a raspy gasp as his cock changed angles inside of her, and kissed her, slow and passionately, still pushing his hips into her.

“You are so beautiful.” He rasped against her lips, nibbling on her pouty bottom lip.

“Austin.” She whimpered back, breathy, hooking her arms under his arms and pressing her palms flat against tense and sweaty back, nails digging into his cool skin. “Austin.” She chanted, softly, rubbing her nose against his.

“Lily.” Sy moaned back, finally flush inside of her, and rocked into her, taking his time and enjoying her heavenly warmth wrapped around his cock, like a toasty sleeve. “I love you, Lily.” He whispered into her ear, kissing her jaw and cheek.

Lily blushed and let out an airy chuckle, hiding her face in his neck and broad shoulder, hugging her arms and legs tighter around his body, clinging onto him for dear life and squeezed her eyes shut, taking in the sound of Sy's heavy breathing and loud moans and groans, grunting, and sighing out her name, the still steady pitter-patter of the fat raindrops on the old, rusted tin roof and sun-kissed wood walls, all mixed with her own sounds of pleasure.

“Sy?” Lily whispered, after their shared climax, still feeling the euphoric and relaxing pleasure it gave both of them, as she laid on the drop cloth, half tucked underneath Sy's body for warmth in the drafty barn.

“Hm?” He hummed back, nosing her hair and took a deep breath.

Lily smiled, feeling the vibration in his chest, nuzzling back into him. “I love you too, Austin.” She whispered, turned her head to look back at him.

Sy lifted his head and looked down at her, a smile slowly pulling across his lips, an excited and giddy feeling in the pit of his stomach, reaching out to gently brush her hair out of her face, picking out a few bits of straw that happened to get stuck in it from earlier; before oh-so-tenderly kissing her.

“You have no idea how happy that makes me, Angel.” He murmured against her cheek.

“I'm guessing as happy as it makes me, Bear.” She chuckled back, kissing the tip of his nose.

Lily softly stirred just before dawn, cradled in Sy's arms as he carried her out of the barn, the rain finally letting up, and into the house. He carried her upstairs to her room and gently laid her down on her bed, letting him help her out of her still damp nightie and tossed it through the open door of her master bathroom, before crawling into bed with her.

Both of them were out cold before the blankets settled around them, unaware of the audience they had a good deal of the night.

[boldlyvoid]

Amoreena | chapter seven

Chapter Seven

main summary: Heaven is a real place and it's located exactly 14.6 miles away from the FBI, Quantico Headquarters. Off behind a small park, under a fantastical willow tree surrounded by wildflowers, in every colour young minds can imagine. Don't forget, heaven also comes with angels. Chapter Warnings: major fluff word count: 3.9k From the beginning <3

Spencer wakes up to the sound of Amoreena calling for her mother and the feeling of Y/N’s arms wrapped around his middle, finding her way to being the big spoon during the night.

“Dad? Where’s my mom?” Amoreena calls again from outside Spencer's door.

“She’s in here, but don’t come in yet, give her a minute to wake up,” he calls back, hoping she listens and doesn’t come barging in.

Y/N lets out a deep sigh as she sits up, still naked under the covers from the activities from the night before but not concerned in the slightest. She gets out of bed and grabs some fresh shirts from the closet before finding both their underwear on the floor, tossing them at Spencer and telling him to put everything on.

Once they’re finally dressed she opens the bedroom door and scoops up the little one, bringing her back into the bed with them so they can all cuddle.

“What the heck?” Is all Amoreena can ask, “why are you in here?”

“We had a sleepover,” Y/N explains softly, holding Amoreena closer to her and Spencer snuggles in too. “I’m thinking about moving my stuff into here too, so that me and your dad can share and we won’t wake you up by talking at night.”

“Is that why GG’s dress is hanging up there? Are you getting married?” She was full of questions, as always.

It makes them both laugh, “what if we already got married?” Y/N teases her, poking her side lightly.

She starts to pout, real tears forming in her eyes as she pulls away from them to sit at the foot of the bed, “why would you do it without me?” they both rush to console her, wrapping her up in a group hug.

“Not for real, we were just pretending to be married honey, I promise,” Y/N tries to explain softly, “did you want me to have a wedding?”

She nods softly, “like in Enchanted, but I’m your daughter and you marry Spencer and you can have a big puffy dress and I can get one too, can I be the flower girl?”

“Of course we’ll get married for you, just the three of us can plan something okay?” Y/N compromised, making a reference Spencer didn’t understand.

“We have to do it in New York like in the movie,” Amoreena was very serious, looking at them with a stern gaze.

There was a whole world of movies and music that built Amoreena’s personality that he was going to have to learn, he was going to be spending a lot of late nights on Disney+.

“We’ll find a way,” Y/N agreed before kissing Amoreena’s forehead.

“Okay,” she smiled nice and wide, wiping her tears away and cuddling in-between Spencer and Y/N.

She turned more towards Spencer, placing her head on his chest while Y/N spooned into her. The three of them cuddled up in one knot, and Amoreena was a snuggle bug. She cuddled right in and made a tiny home in his arms and he was going to hold her for as long as she wanted to be held.

Y/N couldn’t stop smiling at him, he’d glance to her every few minutes to see her gaze hadn’t moved; she was so content seeing the little family they made, all together and happy as they snuggled up closer and closer till Amoreena felt like she couldn’t breathe anymore and pushed them both away.

“I need to go feed the chickens,” she whispered, still on Spencer’s chest as Y/N got out of the bed, “would you like to help, dad?”

He kissed her little forehead before she sat up, “I’d love to, can I put some jeans on and meet you downstairs?”

“Sure!” She cheered, jumping off the bed and running out the door. Her feet smacking the hardwood floor, making the floor creak and pop as she marched down the cold wooden steps.

“How are you feeling this morning?” He asks Y/N with a small smile, remembering what happened the night before.

She nodded softly, smiling while she suppressed a laugh, “I feel like a teenager again, like my mom's going to know I lost my virginity the second I see her.”

Spencer laughed too, “you haven’t?”

“I said again,” she laughed again, sitting back down on the bed and laying her head in his lap, “I wouldn’t say I’ve been celibate all this time, but yeah no one’s done that with me in a while, it’s normally just me and these bad boys.”

She put both hands in the air, doing jazz hands as she raised her eyebrows, “I love you,” the words had their own agenda as he said them unconsciously.

“I love you!” She wrapped her hands around his shoulders and pulled him down into a big kiss, making the classic smooch noise as they pulled apart and smiled.

“Can I take you on a date this week? Maybe Thursday night, because you don’t work on Fridays?” he felt nervous as if she wasn’t pretending to be his wife currently like she’d reject him for some ungodly reason.

“Yeah, I’d love that, my mom won't mind doing Amoreena’s bedtime routine, she’d probably love to have a sleepover at their house,” Y/N’s eyes were gleaming at the prospect of spending more time alone with him.

He placed his left hand on her stomach softly, staring at the ring on his finger before letting his eyes trail her body. She was in just a pair of underwear and a shirt that used to be her grandma's, beautiful as ever as the sunrise cast an orange glow over her.

His wife.

“Thank you,” she cut into the moment of silence, “for last night.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

She got up and sat in his lap then, straddling his hips and holding his face in her hands so she could get a good look at his chocolate eyes, she ran her thumb over his cheeks, kissing the freckle on top of his eyebrow and the tip of his nose gently, “she has your nose.”

Knowing she saw it too made his heart physically burn, it caught fire in his chest and he felt like he couldn’t breathe “yeah?”

“My mom said she looked like a Who when she was born,” she pushed his nose up with her finger like he was a pig, “it’s so perfect and cute.”

“Thank you,” he can’t help but feel emotional.

“Hey,” she teases him again, “It was my turn to say that, so bear with me for a second before I get too emotional at 7 in the morning.”

“Okay,” he whispered, ready to listen intently to how she felt about him.

“You told me something very difficult for you, that was a secret I’m sure no one else knows about, I can tell by the way you panicked last night that this is a serious anxiety you have about never being a father,” her voice was soft as she brushed his hair behind his ears, running her fingers through the curls ever so gently. “You’re a father, hopefully of two”

It made him laugh as a tear trickled down his cheek, pressing his lips together as he listened, not wanting to disrupt all the thoughts she was going to unload on him because it was a ticket into her mind. He was finally learning her feelings and what she thought about him, not just in a fairytale glow, but in the ugly as well.

“If you ever want to talk about her we can,” she changed the subject.

“Maeve was probably a wonderful woman if you loved her enough to wish you had kids with her, she’s technically the reason I have Amoreena, you wouldn’t have donated again without what happened to her,” she made a great point, bringing a positive light to the worst day of his life.

“You’re a wonderful man and I love you very much, being open with me was really appreciated, getting to do what we did last night was very special to me, so thank you,” she smiled softly before kissing him on the lips again.

“Thank you for being the person I can talk to about this stuff, it’s been really scary,” he admitted softly about to cry when they heard the front door slam close.

“And she’s off,” Y/N smiled again, pressing their noses together. “You need to go with her, she’s very impatient.”

“I know,” he smiled. “But I need to tell you that it runs a lot deeper than what you saw last night. I’m a mess in here and it’s not going away overnight because I’ve found my family.”

“I know,” she nodded ever so softly so their noses brushed again. “I am always here to talk, or we can get you a therapist or sign you up for groups, anything you need to feel better, I’m here to assist in making this beautiful brain feel more loved.”

“Thank you,” he whispered again. “So, if I planned a big date night and requested that you wear your best princess dress and meet me at the door for 6, you’d be down?” He teases her.

She couldn’t help but laugh, “sure, cutie, any colour dress do you want me in?”

“I think red would fit the theme I’m thinking of,” saying a little of his plans and not too much, unsure exactly what he wants to do with her first.

She pinched his cheeks as he smiled, “I don’t get any hints?”

“Nope, and I have chickens to feed,” he said, moving her off his lap and getting ready for the day finally.

—

They both sent Amoreena off to school with a hug and a kiss at the bus stop, exchanging I love you’s and saying they’d see her once she got home. Then Spencer kissed Y/N goodbye as she got ready for work, heading to the main house to talk to her mother about Thursday.

He knocked on the front door, being told to come in, he was family now after all.

“Good morning Spencer, would you like some breakfast?” Linda offered with a big smile, exactly like Y/N’s.

“I’d love some,” he gladly followed her into the kitchen, taking a mug of coffee and a homemade cinnamon roll from her. Amoreena already had one this morning before the bus, leaving a single missing spot in the middle of the pan.

“Would you be able to watch over Amoreena on Thursday night so I can take Y/N out on a real date?” He asks with all the confidence in the world, knowing her mother would say yes regardless.

“Oh absolutely!” She beamed, “what were you planning?”

“Can you keep a secret?” He asked before picking up his coffee with his left hand.

“That’s her grandfather's ring,” Linda pointed it out with a smile growing on her face, it was motherly pride if he’s ever seen it, “she finally did it.”

She must have told her mom the plan, her long-time dream of marrying a good person in that field. Someone to have a family with, someone to give Amoreena siblings and all the extra love in the world, and she picked him.

He nodded softly, “last night we got pretend married, and Amoreena got very upset when she learned we did that without her.”

Linda nodded with a soft smile, “they’re attached at the hip, sometimes I think Amoreena is just a clone of her and then I met you.”

He laughed through his nose, eyes wide as he smirked, “well, actually I might be her father.”

Linda sprouted the same expression Y/N had last night when she found out, “huh?”

He sighed, “I donated sperm the month before she got pregnant with Amoreena, my friends said there should be more geniuses in the world and it’s not like I was getting married any time soon.”

Linda just smiled and shook her head with that same sigh of love that must run in the family, she walked over to him and gave him a small hug as he sat at the kitchen table.

“So, Spencer, tell me about yourself?” Linda asked as she sat down beside him with her own coffee and cinnamon roll, getting to know her son-in-law for the first time ever.

He was in there, laughing and bonding with her for over an hour, seeing Y/N drive down the driveway towards work from the kitchen window with a smile. Discussing his ideas for the date, telling her about his family and the dream he always had about running away to a place like this.

“Fate is funny like that, she knows what you need and when you need it,” Bob cut into the conversation, listening from the back door for a few minutes. “you're here for a reason, Spencer.”

He felt like he was on the set of an old movie about family love that always had a happy ending, he didn’t believe that any of it was real. For a second he wondered if he’s been in a coma for the last week, that this was all just a fever dream after crashing his bike on the way to the park, it was all too perfect.

He thanked them for breakfast with a hug, becoming a hugger to fit into her family and he didn’t even mind it. It was nice to be loved truly, not just because they were obligated to, but because they wanted him in their family.

—

His next stop of the day was Penelope’s apartment, he knocked on the door softly and waited patiently for her to answer, smiling wide at the surprise of Spencer behind her door.

“I need your help,” he says before she can even welcome him.

She was still in her robe, a sleep mask over one eye and her hair standing in every direction known to man “what did you do?”

“Nothing, I need a womanly touch for the date I’m planning,” he admitted, turning pink at the embarrassment of coming to her for this.

“What’s the plan?”

“Can I tell you on the way there?”

She raised her eyebrows, “come in and give me a few minutes, you can explain why you’re wearing a ring while I change…”

“For not being a profiler, you sure are good at this,” he avoided her question as he walked into her apartment, sitting right by her bedroom door so he could talk to her through the door.

“It’s a really long story, but essentially her fiancé died when she was 23 so she’s terrified of real weddings and wanted to just tell me she loves me and call me her husband without waiting or making a big fuss about it all,” he explained it as simply as possible. Not sure if he should tell her about the chat he had with Derek. “And we found out I might be Amoreena’s real father anyway.”

She peaked her head out the door, nothing on now and not wanting him to see. It wasn’t like she got naked when she was drunk and shown him everything before, he just laughed as she smiled at him. “If you need help tracking down any other kids, I can do it?”

He felt a little betrayed but he understood, Derek and Penelope had a bond where secrets never slipped out but they did tell each other everyone else's, “he told you?”

“No, I knew you donated because they did a background check into you at the bureau, and I was the one who had to send them the files,” Penelope admitted. “I wanted you to be the one to tell me, but I don’t think you ever would have.”

He shook his head softly, “I just wanted a family one day however I could get one, and when Rossi met Joy I knew it could bring me the same kind of happiness he has with her and Kai."

“You’re going to be a wonderful dad Spencer,” she tried to not get all teary-eyed as she stood behind the door with nothing on, “anyway continue?”

She slipped back into the room and the two of them continued to yell their gossip back and forth through the door before she finally walked out in her most Penelope outfit to date, “and we’re taking my car. It’s top-down weather, finally.”

It’s not that she was a bad driver, it’s just she barely followed any rules. She drove too fast and passed people when she shouldn’t and it stressed Spencer out, but he was too in love to really be bothered by it today. Taking an hour-long journey to Richmond, pulling into the Edgar Allen Poe Museum.

He was a member here, paying them every month to take care of the grounds and the cats, even tracking down some rare pieces from Poe’s collection to donate to them. He was their favourite customer and patron, and they were very excited for him to finally introduce his new love to one of his favourite places ever.

He rented out the Enchanted Garden for Thursday night, being trusted there alone after hours and granted a key to lock up before he left. Penelope and he picked out lights and blankets, what kind of dinner they’d have and drinks.

“So I’ll make sure your picnic basket is all ready and here waiting for you to arrive,” Penelope planned, reading through the list of things she was going to do to help on Thursday afternoon. “What kind of wine does she like?”

“Oh,” Spencer took a second to think, she might want some wine but she’s also hoping to get pregnant, it could help but it could be a hindrance, he didn’t know how to reply.

“Does she not drink?”

“Can you keep a secret?” The second time he asked that question this morning.

“No fucking way,” she whispered, smacking his arm. “Already?”

“No, I’m not sure, we only tried yesterday,” he feels the anxiety in his chest as he explains it, “It doesn’t work that fast which is why I don’t know if we should.”

“Believe me, wine is a good baby-making tool,” she smiled. “I’ll add some anyway and if she does, she does, if she doesn’t oh well, you know where I live.”

It was so easy with Penelope, she understood everything he did without questioning him. Rooting for him and his future family behind closed doors, always trying to get him with someone in the years she knew him, wanting him to get all that “sweet, sweet loving” Derek raved about.

“Do you think she’ll like this? Be honest.” His anxiety slipped back up his throat and past his vocal cords.

Penelope wrapped him up in a big hug, remembering the statistic that people with Autism and anxiety sometimes relaxing better when held with a certain pressure applied. It worked every time.

“She loves you, you wouldn’t be trying for a baby or wearing that ring if she didn’t,” reassuring as always.

“Do you know anything about Taylor Swift?”

It makes her laugh as she pulls back, “why?”

“She’s Y/N and Amoreena’s favourite person on the earth, I know nothing about celebrities, you know that, and I was thinking about getting them tickets or something this summer if she’s doing anything?” He was desperate to do anything to make his girls smile. “I need a Taylor Swift crash course, is there a new Taylor Swift fan for dummies book?”

“Spencer Reid, do I have news for you,” Penelope wrapped her arm around him once again as she rocked him back and forth with glee, “Rossi’s stepdaughter is her is a socialite in New York and one of miss Swifts friends… let's see what we can do.”

And with that, they left the museum with Penelope's arm still wrapped around him as they went back to her car, listening to Taylor Swift while she spat facts out to Spencer, helping him learn everything he could for his wife and kid.

—

He was the only one home when Amoreena got off the bus, running into his arms and giving him a big hug, “Dad!” She cheered the second he held her, kissing the top of her head as he carried her back to the house. “Where is mom?”

“She’s out buying a new dress for a date we’re going on,” he couldn’t help but over exaggerate his voice when he talked to her, it made it more magical for her little world. “How was school?”

“Awesome!” She swooned, “we started our fathers day presents early cause we won't have class after next week.”

He playfully gasps, stopping abruptly in his tracks to look at her in shock, “You can’t tell me anything about it, they’re supposed to be surprise gifts!”

“I know,” she laughed wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning against his shoulder while they walked, “I just wanted you to know one is coming, you always tell me about your gifts early, like at the museum.”

“Well, thank you for telling me,” he kissed her soft forehead softly before smiling.

She was so smart, her mother had raised her to be the most caring and considerate child. She picked up on everything, she wanted to please everyone, she was the sweetest ever.

“Do you have any homework tonight?”

“Nope! Can we watch a movie?”

He just held her cheek to his in a hug while they walked, “of course my sweet Amoreena, what would you like to watch?”

“It’s a surprise,” she whispered, struggling out of his arms and to the ground before running towards the house without him.

He walks in to see her standing in front of the tv with the remote, flipping through the channels and opening Netflix. Going to her mom's profile, down to the watchlist and clicking on the Taylor Swift Reputation Tour before taking off up the stairs to go get something.

“We made this a few months ago,” it was a piece of paper that she handed to him. “It’s the rules for when mom finally got a date, you’re her boyfriend right?”

He opened the folded lined paper, “I am,” he smiled.

Boy/girlfriend rules:

Must be royalty of some kind (or smart like a wizard)

Has to know all the words to Taylor swift’s songs

Likes to read books all the time

Have to like all the candy Amoreena doesn’t so that someone can eat the leftovers from her Halloween candy bag.

Has to be able to name all the Disney princesses

Must like cats. No if’s and's or butts.

It made him laugh, every rule was clearly Amoreena’s idea and Spencer must have ticked off all the boxes if she’s calling him dad already.

“You have to learn all the words to Taylor Swift, then you’ll be her boyfriend for real,” Amoreena informed him. “We have to follow the rules.”

“Well then, put the captions on so I can sing along,” Spencer compromised.

She hugged him with a big smile “you’re the best dad in the world.”

“You’re the best daughter,” he whispered as he held her back. “You make every day better by just being here.”

“So do you,” she replied before kissing his cheek softly and settling onto the couch beside him. “Thank you for wanting to be my dad.”

“I wouldn’t want to be anyone else’s.”

tag list: @shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria @spookyspence @reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @samuel-de-champagne-problems @jswessie187

[qqueenofhades]

Re: the post you reblogged about Bush. I'm 21 and tbh feel like I can only vote for Bernie, can you explain if/why I shouldn't? Thanks and sorry if this is dumb or anything.

Oh boy. Okay, I’ll do my best here. Note that a) this will get long, and b) I’m old, Tired, and I‘m pretty sure my brain tried to kill me last night. Since by nature I am sure I will say something Controversial ™, if anyone reads this and feels a deep urge to inform me that I am Wrong, just… mark it down as me being Wrong and move on with your life. But also, really, you should read this and hopefully think about it. Because while I’m glad you asked this question, it feels like there’s a lot in your cohort who won’t, and that worries me. A lot.

First, not to sound utterly old-woman-in-a-rocking-chair ancient, people who came of age/are only old enough to have Obama be the first president that they really remember have no idea how good they had it. The world was falling the fuck apart in 2008 (not coincidentally, after 8 years of Bush). We came within a flicker of the permanent collapse of the global economy. The War on Terror was in full roar, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were at their height, we had Dick Cheney as the cartoon supervillain before we had any of Trump’s cohort, and this was before Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden had exposed the extent of NSA/CIA intelligence-gathering/American excesses or there was any kind of public debate around the fact that we were all surveilled all the time. And the fact that a brown guy named Barack Hussein Obama was elected in this climate seems, and still seems tbh, kind of amazing. And Obama was certainly not a Perfect President ™. He had to scale back a lot of planned initiatives, he is notorious for expanding the drone strike/extrajudicial assassination program, he still subscribed to the overall principles of neoliberalism and American exceptionalism, etc etc. There is valid criticism to be made as to how the hopey-changey optimistic rhetoric stacked up against the hard realities of political office. And yet…. at this point, given what we’re seeing from the White House on a daily basis, the depth of the parallel universe/double standards is absurd.

Because here’s the thing. Obama, his entire family, and his entire administration had to be personally/ethically flawless the whole time (and they managed that – not one scandal or arrest in eight years, against the legions of Trumpistas now being convicted) because of the absolute frothing depths of Republican hatred, racial conspiracy theories, and obstruction against him. (Remember Merrick Garland and how Mitch McConnell got away with that, and now we have Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court? Because I remember that). If Obama had pulled one-tenth of the shit, one-twentieth of the shit that the Trump administration does every day, he would be gone. It also meant that people who only remember Obama think he was typical for an American president, and he wasn’t. Since about… Jimmy Carter, and definitely since Ronald Reagan, the American people have gone for the Trump model a lot more than the Obama model. Whatever your opinion on his politics or character, Obama was a constitutional law professor, a community activist, a neighborhood organizer and brilliant Ivy League intellectual who used to randomly lie awake at night thinking about income inequality. Americans don’t value intellectualism in their politicians; they just don’t. They don’t like thinking that “the elites” are smarter than them. They like the folksy populist who seems fun to have a beer with, and Reagan/Bush Senior/Clinton/Bush Junior sold this persona as hard as they possibly could. As noted in said post, Bush Junior (or Shrub as the late, great Molly Ivins memorably dubbed him) was Trump Lite but from a long-established political family who could operate like an outwardly civilized human.

The point is: when you think Obama was relatively normal (which, again, he wasn’t, for any number of reasons) and not the outlier in a much larger pattern of catastrophic damage that has been accelerated since, again, the 1980s (oh Ronnie Raygun, how you lastingly fucked us!), you miss the overall context in which this, and which Trump, happened. Like most left-wingers, I don’t agree with Obama’s recent and baffling decision to insert himself into the 2020 race and warn the Democratic candidates against being too progressive or whatever he was on about. I think he was giving into the same fear that appears to be motivating the remaining chunk of Joe Biden’s support: that middle/working-class white America won’t go for anything too wild or that might sniff of Socialism, and that Uncle Joe, recalled fondly as said folksy populist and the internet’s favorite meme grandfather from his time as VP, could pick up the votes that went to Trump last time. And that by nature, no one else can.

The underlying belief is that these white voters just can’t support anything too “un-American,” and that by pushing too hard left, Democratic candidates risk handing Trump a second term. Again: I don’t agree and I think he was mistaken in saying it. But I also can’t say that Obama of all people doesn’t know exactly the strength of the political machine operating against the Democratic Party and the progressive agenda as a whole, because he ran headfirst into it for eight years. The fact that he managed to pass any of his legislative agenda, usually before the Tea Party became a thing in 2010, is because Democrats controlled the House and Senate for the first two years of his first term. He was not perfect, but it was clear that he really did care (just look up the pictures of him with kids). He installed smart, efficient, and scandal-free people to do jobs they were qualified for. He gave us Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to join RBG on the Supreme Court. All of this seems… like a dream.

That said: here we are in a place where Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren are the front-runners for the Democratic nomination (and apparently Pete Buttigieg is getting some airplay as a dark horse candidate, which… whatever). The appeal of Biden is discussed above, and he sure as hell is not my favored candidate (frankly, I wish he’d just quit). But Sanders and Warren are 85% - 95% similar in their policy platforms. The fact that Michael “50 Billion Dollar Fortune” Bloomberg started rattling his chains about running for president is because either a Sanders or Warren presidency terrifies the outrageously exploitative billionaire capitalist oligarchy that runs this country and has been allowed to proceed essentially however the fuck they like since… you guessed it, the 1980s, the era of voodoo economics, deregulation, and the free market above all. Warren just happens to be ten years younger than Sanders and female, and Sanders’ age is not insignificant. He’s 80 years old and just had a heart attack, and there’s still a year to go to the election. It’s also more than a little eye-rolling to describe him as the only progressive candidate in the race, when he’s an old white man (however much we like and approve of his policy positions). And here’s the thing, which I think is a big part of the reason why this polarized ideological purity internet leftist culture mistrusts Warren:

She may have changed her mind on things in the past.

Scary, right? I sound like I’m being facetious, but I’m not. An argument I had to read with my own two eyes on this godforsaken hellsite was that since Warren became a Democrat around the time Clinton signed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, she sekritly hated gay people and might still be a corporate sellout, so on and etcetera. (And don’t even get me STARTED on the fact that DADT, coming a few years after the height of the AIDS crisis which was considered God’s Judgment of the Icky Gays, was the best Clinton could realistically hope to achieve, but this smacks of White Gay Syndrome anyway and that is a whole other kettle of fish.) Bernie has always demonstrably been a democratic socialist, and: good for him. I’m serious. But because there’s the chance that Warren might not have thought exactly as she does now at any point in her life, the hysterical and paranoid left-wing elements don’t trust that she might not still secretly do so. (Zomgz!) It’s the same element that’s feeding cancel culture and “wokeness.” Nobody can be allowed to have shifted or grown in their opinions or, like a functional, thoughtful, non-insane adult, changed their beliefs when presented with compelling evidence to the contrary. To the ideological hordes, any hint of uncertainty or past failure to completely toe the line is tantamount to heresy. Any evidence of any other belief except The Correct One means that this person is functionally as bad as Trump. And frankly, it’s only the Sanders supporters who, just as in 2016, are threatening to withhold their vote in the general election if their preferred candidate doesn’t win the primary, and indeed seem weirdly proud about it.

OK, boomer Bernie or Buster.

Here’s the thing, the thing, the thing: there is never going to be an American president free of the deeply toxic elements of American ideology. There just won’t be. This country has been built how it has for 250 years, and it’s not gonna change. You are never going to have, at least not in the current system, some dream candidate who gets up there and parrots the left-wing talking points and attacks American imperialism, exceptionalism, ravaging global capitalism, military and oil addiction, etc. They want to be elected as leader of a country that has deeply internalized and taken these things to heart for its entire existence, and most of them believe it to some degree themselves. So this groupthink white liberal mentality where the only acceptable candidate is this Perfect Non-Problematic robot who has only ever had one belief their entire lives and has never ever wavered in their devotion to doctrine has really gotten bad. The Democratic Party would be considered… maybe center/mild left in most other developed countries. It’s not even really left-wing by general standards, and Sanders and Warren are the only two candidates for the nomination who are even willing to go there and explicitly put out policy proposals that challenge the systematic structure of power, oppression, and exploitation of the late-stage capitalist 21st century. Warren has the billionaires fussed, and instead of backing down, she’s doubling down. That’s part of why they’re so scared of her. (And also misogyny, because the world is depressing like that.) She is going head-on after picking a fight with some of the worst people on the planet, who are actively killing the rest of us, and I don’t know about you, but I like that.

Of course: none of this will mean squat if she (or the eventual Democratic winner, who I will vote for regardless of who it is, but as you can probably tell, she’s my ride or die) don’t a) win the White House and then do as they promised on the campaign trail, and b) don’t have a Democratic House and Senate willing to have a backbone and pass the laws. Even Nancy Pelosi, much as she’s otherwise a badass, held off on opening a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump for months out of fear it would benefit him, until the Ukraine thing fell into everyone’s laps. The Democrats are really horrible at sticking together and voting the party line the way Republicans do consistently, because Democrats are big-tent people who like to think of themselves as accepting and tolerant of other views and unwilling to force their members’ hands. The Republicans have no such qualms (and indeed, judging by their enabling of Trump, have no qualms at all). 

The modern American Republican party has become a vehicle for no-holds-barred power for rich white men at the expense of absolutely everything and everyone else, and if your rationale is that you can’t vote for the person opposing Donald Goddamn Trump is that you’re just not vibing with them on the language of that one policy proposal… well, I’m glad that you, White Middle Class Liberal, feel relatively safe that the consequences of that decision won’t affect you personally. Even if we’re due to be out of the Paris Climate Accords one day after the 2020 election, and the issue of climate change now has the most visibility it’s ever had after years of big-business, Republican-led efforts to deny and discredit the science, hey, Secret Corporate Shill, am I right? Can’t trust ‘er. Let’s go have a craft beer.

As has been said before: vote as far left as you want in the primary. Vote your ideology, vote whatever candidate you want, because the only way to make actual, real-world change is to do that. The huge, embedded, all-consuming and horrible system in which we operate is not just going to suddenly be run by fairy dust and happy thoughts overnight. Select candidates that reflect your values exactly, be as picky and ideologically militant as you want. That’s the time to do that! Then when it comes to the general election:

America is a two-party system. It sucks, but that’s the case. Third-party votes, or refraining from voting because “it doesn’t matter” are functionally useless at best and actively harmful at worst.

Either the Democratic candidate or Donald Trump will win the 2020 election.

There is absolutely no length that the Republican/GOP machine, and its malevolent allies elsewhere, will not go to in order to secure a Trump victory. None.

Any talk whatsoever about “progressive values” or any kind of liberal activism, coupled with a course of action that increases the possibility of a Trump victory, is hypocritical at best and actively malicious at worst.

This is why I found the Democratic response to Obama’s “don’t go too wild” comments interesting. Bernie doubled down on the fact that his plans have widespread public support, and he’s right. (Frankly, the fact that Sanders and Warren are polling at the top, and the fact that they’re politicians and would not be crafting these campaign messages if they didn’t know that they were being positively received, says plenty on its own). Warren cleverly highlighted and praised Obama’s accomplishments in office (i.e. the Affordable Care Act) and didn’t say squat about whether she agreed or disagreed with him, then went right back to campaigning about why billionaires suck. And some guy named Julian Castro basically blew Obama off and claimed that “any Democrat” could beat Trump in 2020, just by nature of existing and being non-insane.

This is very dangerous! Do not be Julian Castro!

As I said in my tags on the Bush post: everyone assumed that sensible people would vote for Kerry in 2004. Guess what happened? Yeah, he got Swift Boated. The race between Obama and McCain in 2008, even after those said nightmare years of Bush, was very close until the global crash broke it open in Obama’s favor, and Sarah Palin was an actual disqualifier for a politician being brazenly incompetent and unprepared. (Then again, she was a woman from a remote backwater state, not a billionaire businessman.) In 2012, we thought Corporate MormonBot Mitt Fuggin’ Romney was somehow the worst and most dangerous candidate the Republicans could offer. In 2016, up until Election Day itself, everyone assumed that HRC was a badly flawed candidate but would win anyway. And… we saw how that worked out. Complacency is literally deadly.

I was born when Reagan was still president. I’m just old enough to remember the efforts to impeach Clinton over forcing an intern to give him a BJ in the Oval Office (This led by the same Republicans making Donald Trump into a darling of the evangelical Christian right wing.) I’m definitely old enough to remember 9/11 and how America lost its mind after that, and I remember the Bush years. And, obviously, the contrast with Obama, the swing back toward Trump, and everything that has happened since. We can’t afford to do this again. We’re hanging by a thread as it is, and not just America, but the entire planet.

So yes. By all means, vote for Sanders in the primary. Then when November 3, 2020 rolls around, if you care about literally any of this at all, hold your nose if necessary and vote straight-ticket Democrat, from the president, to the House and Senate, to the state and local offices. I cannot put it more strongly than that.

[leigh-rambles]

excerpt from a fic i'll probably never write

context: it's first person. protagonist (never gave her a name lol) and billy r sitting on a couch drinking in the middle of the night and reader is giving her backstory. they're currently platonic but if there's some undertones i totally intended for that. also protag knows abt kandahar. abt 1.1k words.

warning/s: mention of abortion, mention of the taliban & the ira, mention of child being killed

a/n: i actually do not know how i came up with this. i woke up at 3 am and decided Yep i'm gonna write about This.

-

"You said something when we met."

"I said a lot of things, you have to be more specific." I absentmindedly fidgeted with the rim of my beer bottle.

"'I don't mess around with servicemen.' At the time I was more surprised that you knew that. But now I'm wondering why you said that. I have a feeling there's more to it."

His dark eyes searched my face for answers. I closed mine and leaned against him. The New York skyline twinkled like the night sky out of his windows. The city that never sleeps. Out of all the cities I've lived in, New York was always my favourite. "I haven't told you about my childhood yet, have I?"

"I don't exactly have a hometown," I started hesitantly. "My mum picked up and left three days after I was born. No note. No nothing. Just left my dad with a newborn to take care of. She always said she was just twenty and the housewife thing -- the mother thing -- was never for her. You see, her parents built a 'munitions empire during World War II and gave her a trust fund worth almost $60 million when she turned 18. Horrible idea, in my opinion." 

By the time she gave birth to me, she already missed out on nine months of galas and parties and benefits, so she couldn't wait a second more, I guess.

I last checked on her when I was 16. Turns out she married some stuffy Englishman with a title and a stick up his arse. 

"My grandparents didn't let her get an abortion because they were God-fearing Catholics," I spat the word out like it was venom. I can feel his eyes on me, but I just stared at the ceiling.

"They're such goddamn hypocrites, the lot of them. My grandfather's the biggest military contractor for the US government. They can excuse funding wars and sending men to die in the Middle East so they can go to Aman every month but a pill is where they draw the line."

I caught myself before I said good men. He won't agree with me. But I still glanced at him. The pale moon's reflected on his face.

You're not the only one living off of blood money, I tried to say with my stare. Hell I'm literally living off of your blood. It can't get worse than that.

"My dad was a diplomat so he'd no choice but to take me everywhere he was assigned to. I don't remember much from when I was a baby, but he'd always tell me I was an angel. Never had tantrums. Never got airsick or jetlag or anything. A lot of my earliest memories are fuzzy and mixed up, but I was always in a plane in them."

"My first words were 'dada' while we were waiting for a bus in London. I had my first steps on the Sydney Opera House." My lips quirked up as the memories slowly came back. I was a child of the world. I've seen the best and worst of humanity before I turned ten. 

"But it wasn't all business class suites and tourist spots. Imagine any city in the world in the 90's that you'd never bring a child to, and I've most probably lived there for at least nine months. My dad would take me on walks in a pram in East Berlin. I played with Barbies while the Irish Republican Army planted car bombs a block away."

"I lived in Kabul when I was six y'know." I finally turned to him. "I don't remember much, though. Just that it was hot."

"Well it's still the same, so you're not missing much." I rolled my eyes in amusement. "I don't remember much but one story still sticks with me after so many years."

I swallowed. I can feel the soft dirt between my toes and the smell of roses and pennies in the air. Sticky heat and sweaty palms.

"I was in this neighbourhood in Kabul. It was the last time I went somewhere in the Middle East that wasn't school or an embassy. My dad was having cigars with this professor he met at the university. His son was my age, too, and we climbed up a rose wall to sneak out and play with the other local kids."

"There were about five of us and I was one of the youngest there. The eldest was an eight year old named Mariam. We played tag and climbed up trees and threw fruits and rocks at each other." I tapped on a faint scar on my eyebrow. "It's where I got this."

"There were Taliban patrolling around the area we were in, and one of the boys accidentally hit one of them in the chest. That was the moment I experienced real fear for the first time in my life. I was six so I didn't understand the politics of it, but I knew they were the bad guys. I grabbed Mariam's arm and pulled us into a bush. The leaves and twigs stuck into me but I was so scared I didn't make a sound."

"Mariam and I watched as one of the men came up to the boy. The boy was already crying and the man's face was so red. He screamed at him. D'you know any Pashto words? It's a hard language. I didn't understand much but from the way Mariam reacted it must've been horrible, what he said to the boy." 

Roses and dirt.

"The man pulled a gun out and shot him point blank in the chest."

Roses and dirt and pennies.

Mariam and I clutched each others hand so tight you might've thought we were holding on to a lifeline. Tears streamed down our face as we wept quietly, quietly, so that no one will hear us. We only left the bush after we were absolutely sure the Taliban had left. 

"I lost a shoe in the scuffle before the Taliban arrived and it was right there. Soaking in the boy's blood." I frowned and picked a loose thread from his pillow. "I thought I couldn't have left it there. My dad got it for me in Italy. I think my six year old brain was trying its best to have some sense of normalcy in the midst of all the chaos."

"So I stepped on the puddle of his blood and grabbed my shoe. There were bloody chunks on it. All I can smell was pennies and it slowly dawned on me that he was actually dead. I started crying again. By that point, the other two boys had already come back with the dads. You can just imagine how my dad saw the situation when he found his six year old daughter in a puddle of red, sobbing uncontrollably."

"We never went back to Afghanistan after that. We went to Tehran and Abu Dhabi and Kuwait but never back to Afghanistan. If he had to go, he left me in a boarding school somewhere."

"I said I didn't mess around with servicemen because once I inevitably get attached, I'd have to let go of them to fight men who are perfectly willing to murder a child at four in the afternoon. I'd have to let them go to fight men who are ready to kill themselves just to kill people who don't agree with their ideologies." 

I stared at him. "And I don't want to lose anyone like that again."

He stared back at me.

Looking away, he pulled me closer to him. "It's a good thing you're stuck with me now, then."

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

{{ History asks! 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 23, 24, and 29? I've seen a lot of historical fashion and photography on your blog, but I don't know if that's a Passion^tm or a passing appreciation.

4. Favourite historical era?

Tough call, but in recent years I've been very interested in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, particularly the social/cultural history aspects that most ~WWII historians~ give short shrift.

7. Historical dressing, uniform, or costume?

I do like 30s/40s/50s dress, as well as Victorian dress and certain stages in the development of traditional Japanese dress (although unfortunately Heian court wear does very little for me to look at even though the concepts behind it are really interesting). I wouldn't say it's my main focus as an historian--that's religious history--but I'm passionate enough about it to more or less keep up conversations with my friends @absynthe--minded and @marzipanandminutiae, both of whom do specialize in fashion history.

8. What is the last thing you have read, listened to, or spoken of with historical reference?

I'm reading a book as we speak (The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik) where the narrator recently discussed the contemporary-history fun fact that Dubai is built on indentured labor.

10. What pieces of art (i.e. paintings, sculpures, lithographies, etc.) related to history do you like the most?

Ooh, extremely broad question. There's a painting in the Vatican museums called "The Triumph of History over Time" whose title I love, but the picture itself isn't anything particularly special. There's also a bust of Emperor Vespasian at the archeological museum in Naples that I'm especially fond of because he looks exactly like an aging, chubby, glad-handing "retail politician" today. Some things never change!

11. Have you ever participated in reenactment? What it was like?

Not yet!

12. Would you take part in reenactment? In what era and as whom?

Watch this space.

14. Why are you are interested in history?

I have a nostalgic temperament and grew up in a very history-rich area by American standards. It's also an interest that my late grandfather had and I was very close to him; part of my semi-focus on WWII is that he was a Pacific Theater veteran.

16. Do you own some historical item (e.g. coin, clothing, weapons, books, etc.) If yes, which one is your favourite?

I own quite a few antiques, yes. My favorite is an honest-to-goodness piece of eight (Spanish milled dollar) that I found at an antique shop in Ship Bottom, New Jersey for twenty or thirty dollars, a steal even then, when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. I misplaced it somewhere in my parents' house years ago, though, so my favorite antique of whose whereabouts I'm currently certain is a 1940s rayon crepe dress that I bought from a vintage clothing dealer I know.

23. What’s your favourite historical song or song containing historical references?

I'm not sure how to interpret this question; sorry!

24. Who do you consider to be one of the most underrated historical figures?

Emperor Antoku is underrated among Japanese rulers because he's one of the very few who never did anything reprehensible, seeing as he was killed by his grandmother to avoid capture at the Battle of Dan-no-ura when he was six years old.

29. Are there any great historical mysteries that you are interested in?

Wallace Fard Muhammad, the founder of the Nation of Islam. We know nothing about him for certain before or after his work setting up the religion in Great Depression-era Detroit, and what's known inconclusively, or suspected, has a ton of inconsistencies. He was born in Oregon, or Afghanistan, or New Zealand, or somewhere else; he lived in North Carolina, or California, or both, before showing up in Detroit; he was a restaurant manager, or a carny, or both, by occupation...you get the idea.

I’ve seen plenty of “Tumblr Ask Challenges”, but none involving history. What a shame…

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 15 Pt 1: The Gang Gets Lost in India

Ah, back to Yugioh classic. Sort of. We’re going into the second filler arc before Bakura, which I have been told is kind of nonsense. And youknow what, from the first scene--this is the first scene by the way--yeah I can see the nonsense.

We got Yami cosplaying as the Chrysler building, we got Yugi saying WTFWTF, we got...this thing?

This thing tells us “Join my game, Yugi!” and then the demon just kinda bounces.

K, bye, I guess.

(read more under the cut)

Waking up from this nightmare, Yugi reveals that he has outgrown his good pajamas. Or maybe he just overused them like I did to my favorite pajamas during quarantine (which, not gonna lie, I hand sewed my favorite pajama pants back together 2 or 3 times like they were the Velveteen Rabbit. Quarantine pajamas and me were like best buds for a year there.)

RIP Yugi’s good pajamas.

It’s fine. I’m fine.

I can get used to Yugi in his normal ass old man pajamas without any cute stars on them. I can accept this. He’s getting older. So much older that for a second I thought he was learning Hebrew, by the looks of his books on his counter. I thought...wow, is Yugi actually attempting to learn a language spoken around the time of ancient Egyptians???

But uh...I went a searching and unfortunately that’s not Hebrew, and if that is a language, I don’t know what it is. Pretty sure it’s just random marks because this show has to be translated in so many languages. Man. For a second there that looked like really sneaky world building, but nah, Yugi is still kind of a dumbass who has yet to attend a solid year of school.

Also, I got to take in this mustard yellow as if I’ve seen it for the first time.

It has strong building blocks energy. It’s...so much yellow and it’s extremely the vibe of that one set of animal crossing decorations that I have because it’s a very common recipe, but, can’t figure out for the life of me how to fit into any room.

What am I supposed to do with these, Nintendo? Other than recreate Yugi’s Muto’s haunted game store/house?

Like I live in the Bay area and we have wild painted houses so you can see them through the fog (back when we...still had fog, RIP California) --but this is a little much. This is such strong Protagonist energy but as a house.

Also, I’ve don’t think I’ve brought this up before, but like...Yugi is loaded, right? Like he’s way too good and humble to ever say he’s loaded, and they sort of make it seem like he’s not (when compared to Seto Kaiba) but damn, this location of his real estate sure is something. That and Grandpa’s tiny shop seems to run on a constant deficit and his family just doesn’t care.

We flash back a bit to Gramps sneaking out, and Yugi is like “oh great, my only Father figure I ever talk about is getting a backpack together and just...leaving without any notice, huh? Without telling me you were going to go? Didn’t think that would maybe be a little off putting?“ and Gramps is like “Yes?”

Like Gramps nearly died going to an amusement park a few episodes back so I can see why Yugi is a little bit concerned.

Down the street at a little town lottery, Joey is getting further into gambling (I don’t know what those little street lotteries are called, it’s in a lot of anime--but kinda looks like mom lotteries for moms.)

I’m not sure why India is on Joey Wheeler’s bucket list, seems a little random, but he went to Pegasus’ country, after all and that’s barely even a country.

Joey going nuts on a lottery machine instead of going to school was pretty peak filler, so I’m not really minding this stuff so far.

And then, just to spook me, check this out:

I can’t believe they even let them back into a classroom. In my nerd school, if you missed one too many days, you were sent to the bad schools to be someone else’s problem. But in Yugi’s case...that either IS his school or...Yugi is failing International School, which is just a thing he’s allowed to do, because, as I said before, this kid has got to be loaded. Even Seto Kaiba was like “I’m not spending money on this school anymore. That outfit is like 50 bucks a jacket.”

Youknow, I have seen all the other characters knock on Tea’s choice of cute ass monsters for the last 5 seasons, and she has never once changed them out. She is holding onto this scary seraphim thing with the many wings like every child with their first Pidgey. She does not care.

Also how is this thing cute?

like the front of this orb has a face with hearts on it but like...it is kind of remarkable what Yugioh decides is cute. Magma golem: not cute. this thing? This thing that looks like it’s a chibi version of the last chapters of the bible and will sound the trumpets of the second coming? So cuuuuute.

Tristan used to be the Janitor/hall monitor/square archetype. Like hell he can walk around with that 00′s R+B soundtrack.

Joey appears in order to get us the hell out of school, and the art team retires this school background for the rest of what I assume is this entire series.

Goodbye school. Maybe you’ll come back with Bakura. Which would be weird, since rumor is that arc takes place in ancient Egypt.

On their walk home, Tea lets out in an inner monologue that no one could hear that after 5 straight seasons of his BS, she’s sick and tired of Pharaoh being the center of attention all the time and she needs a freakin break.

TBH, as she was thinking in her head like “Pharoah is just so freakin much” Yugi switched over to Pharaoh and was like “WHATS UP TEA, THINKING ABOUT ME??” and I thought for a split second maybe he read her mind with his Pharaoh powers.

And like...maybe he did? Seems like a thing he can just do but chooses not to tell anyone about. I mean would you tell anyone? I wouldn’t.

So, unlike Miho in Season Zero, who at least had the decency to try to take her Mother to Australia, Joey Wheeler has wisely decided that the 3 other ticket holders will not be the 3 other members of his immediate family. That would have been the most awkward trip between Serenity, his mother he hasn’t really spoken to in 7 years, and his absent father who was written out of the series for being a raging alcoholic. They would have not even made it to the plane.

Instead he’s gonna take the ghost in Yugi’s head and call that an adult (two tickets in one, really). It’s honestly not that bad of a plan, since his only other father figure, Grandpa, is MIA, and his only other, other father figure, Roland, charges like 300 dollars an hour and wants stock options and health insurance.

And honestly they should have taken Roland because he’s one of their best plane guys.

So they take the smallest little Amelia Earheart plane in the world, going from Japan to (checks map) India...which 2 times the distance this plane can go and it crashes...which is exactly what would happen if you took a teeny tiny plane over the Himalayan mountains without refueling that thing.

We call this a magical incident later in the episode, but this is just basic math.

So, fun fact, (and probably why I discuss planes so often on this blog) two of my Grandfathers were pilots (well, three, since my grandmother remarried another pilot), which sounds like a crazy coincidence until you recall that their generation was in WW2 and we just shoved children in planes for 20 years and called that normal.

Anyway, to save on travel costs, my engineer Grandfather built his own plane out of junkyard parts, which, as you can imagine, is a living nightmare, and it was held together by like duct tape and gasoline (which at one time used to be cheap). Tempted God every day that Howls Moving Castle touched the sky.

And while I only know it from photos since I wasn’t exactly born yet, it looked exactly like this plane. So looking at this, all I can think is...yeah...that’s what you get for flying to India in a tin can car. To this day I cannot trust any plane of this size.

So, they climb out of their wreckage virtually unscathed and into familiar Californian territory.

At least Joey thought about bringing a tent.

It’s interesting how our cast has become so accustomed to this that they’re not even all that shell shocked. It’s just another day in the life.

So next time we shall find out what India has in store for us. Or if we’re even in India...because again...feels a lot like this BG team doesn’t do any research into their landscapes and every place feels a whole lot of the same. But...at least they didn’t put any Arizonan mesas in India.

[angst-fairygodmother]

Exchanges: Town Hall (The Song of Sway Lake Story)

Jess confronts Charlotte after the town hall debate, hoping and failing to find common ground. 

Word Count: 1045

Rating: PG-13 - several instances of mild language, insults, slight spoilers for Song of Sway Lake if you squint

“Why are you doing this?” Jess asked, following Charlotte out of the town hall meeting that was one step short of a riot.

The Sway matriarch scoffed. “I don’t have to stand here and be berated any longer. I’m leaving.”

“Wait, please. I’m not trying to berate you. I’m asking an honest question, because maybe if I understand you better it’ll feel a little less like you’re just maliciously trying to destroy my life and the lives of people like me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I grew up on the lake too. But my family wasn’t lucky enough, or wealthy enough, to be a founder. So we built a place brick by brick, until we had a home here. But locals think we’re a novelty, and we need the curious and the bored, and that means tourists, to survive.”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow, unmoved by Jess’s impassioned speech.

“So I get wanting to preserve it, trust me I do. I love this place, and I’ve never seen somewhere so beautiful. But we need to move forward. And you’re standing in the way of that, and I’m asking why.”

“If you truly understood, you wouldn’t need to ask that.”

“There has to be a way for everyone to win, a...compromise. Something.”

“My father was a businessman, just as much as your grandfather or every other greedy self-interested immigrant and vagrant that came in, tried to claim a piece of what wasn’t theirs, and built something off the backs of those who were here first. And even when he lost everything in the crash, he pulled himself up by the bootstraps, started over, and made something of himself.”

Jess frowned at what definitely sounded like the start of an out of touch, vaguely bigoted ‘back in my day’ lecture. She gritted her teeth, holding back the snide response on the tip of her tongue.

“Jessica, don’t,” Nikolai said warningly from the other side of the car, looking for a second like he might circle around to put himself between the two women. She wondered if it was out of concern for her, his best friend's girlfriend, or some lingering protective instinct over Charlotte.

“And don’t think I don’t know exactly who you are, Ms. O’Neill. I am not to blame for your struggles. If you can’t figure out how to make a living selling the drivel you stock, maybe you should consider a new line of work. Give up. Abandon it to your sister and run away to the city if you're not cut out for it. Instead of blaming everyone else for your problems.”

“Bitch,” the word slipped bitterly from Jess’s mouth before she could think. Set on a course now, she laughed in disbelief. “Ollie told me you’re selling the Point. Which means you don’t actually care. You’re just so alone and miserable and horrible that you have to drag the rest of us down to feel like you still matter in the world.”

Charlotte shook her head, a condescending smile on her face as she turned back to the car.

“Hey! I’m not done talking,” Jess snapped. “I don’t want to hate you. I tried to see things from your perspective. But if you don’t want to meet in the middle, fine. Just remember, you're a relic of a bygone era. Just like that stupid house.”

She shook her head, almost pitying now. “I hope you can’t sell. I hope you’re stuck there for the rest of your life, and you get to watch as everything you claim to love gives way to progress. Marinas, and jet skies and pre-fab box vacation homes. Maybe a summer camp or a motel with basketball courts and chlorinated pools bumping right up against your precious, perfectly manicured lawn. It’ll be a fitting penance for trying to destroy things for the people that actually give a shit enough to stay.”

“And here I thought you said you loved the lake like I do.”

“You still don't get it. The things to love aren't the pristine water or the particular fish, or the types of boats out and about. And certainly not the huge fancy homes and private properties.” She made a sweeping gesture. “Take a look around, Mrs. Sway.  There is so much life here that your lake never had. Do you even know what joy sounds like anymore?”

Charlotte and Nikolai both frowned, staring at Jess.

“You sit up there, alone, and you judge everyone else as unworthy no matter what they do. You want everything to be so clean and untouched. But that also makes it unloved. Things aren't beautiful or special because they've not faced challenges. The ones that weather the storms or the jet skis, or the people trying to tear them down, and come out the other side not only surviving but having thrived are so much more. Sway Lake is strong, stronger than you give it credit for. It doesn't need to be sheltered or shaped or preserved. Just let it breathe and grow and find it's own way.” 

“You're very clever, pretending this is about the lake,” Charlie drawled, her lips pressed together somewhere between a smirk and the grimace that comes with an unexpected lemon.

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you think I can't tell you mean my grandson? I’ve heard that little rumor, I know where he spends his time in town.” Charlotte took a step closer, an angry glint in her eyes to go along with the smug smile on her face. “Are you really upset about my conservation efforts, or because you know if I get my way, the lake will never be yours for you and your little townie friends to treat like a playground? You will never be a Sway dear. Ollie will get bored, and remember where he belongs, and you’ll be left with nothing. Again.”

“I…” Jess gaped at her. Even as she fought back hot, angry tears, she was almost impressed by how well the other woman had cut straight through her to her insecurities, and picked up on what Jess didn’t even know she was saying. 

Charlotte Sway turned away, climbing into the station wagon that Nikolai was driving and left without another word, and Jess just stared, watching her go.

[jawritter]

30 Minutes In Heaven

Summary: Your life, like many hunters before you, was cut short. You had no idea at the time the Fates that were at play in the universe were really those of dick angles and egotistical assholes with massive god complexes. And you also had no idea that they were really the reason you lost your life, and you had no idea why… Until around 30 minutes after you made it to Heaven.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Reader (Y/N), Jack Kline

Warnings: SPN SERIES FINALE SPOILERS!!!! IF YOU LIVE UNDER A ROCK AND HAVE NOT SEEN IT YET DO NOT READ THIS FIC!!! Brief use of Christian biblical text at the beginning as a reference. Language I’m sure, because hello, it’s me. Slight angst, mentions of character death all over the place, past, present, and upcoming. Some fluff. I don’t want to give too much away.

Word Count: 2722

A Huge fucking thank you to @miss-nerd95​ for Betaing this fic!! You’re a lifesaver!!

A/N: Okay, this was a fic I started before the Series ending, then when it ended I dropped it like a hot object because I just couldn’t finish it, and struggled with the fact that I could easily tie in the canon Dean Winchester ending. Then one of my Patreons requested an ending that placed the reader, Dean’s soul mate, given to him once he made it to Heaven to give Dean the happy ending he deserved, well that’s when I decided to go back and finish it, give Dean and the reader a reunion over there. I was originally going to just post this to Patreon, but I feel like we ALL needed this, so I’m going to be posting it to tumblr and wattpad as well! I hope you all enjoy this one, as it was a bitch to write I’m not gonna lie.

**MASTERLIST**   **BECOME A PATREON**

2 Peter 3:8 Says But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 

You had never known  the gravity of that one verse of scripture from your time on earth. It was the only thing that resounded to be true in all that you had experienced once you had made it to Heaven. There was no way of truly knowing exactly how long in earth time you had been here, but something deep down in your heart knew that it had been a very, very long time. You would venture to say it had been close to ten years, but again you couldn’t be sure. 

For you, it had only felt like 30 minutes. 

In that 30 minutes a whole lot of things had taken place. You hadn’t even gotten settled into your little cubicle here before the place began to shake. Then talks of falling angels and power flickering were happening. There were whispers of new gods and old gods, there were whispers of the devil and his death. There were whispers of all manner of things as you stood with your head to the wall of your childhood bedroom. 

One name you kept hearing was Dean. 

Dean Winchester. 

You had been a hunter in your former life, and you had heard of the Winchesters before. Part of you wanted desperately to know what was happening on earth, what could Dean Winchester have done to literally cause Heaven to quake? 

You had tried to find a means of escape, but you seemed trapped in this room, no matter how much you tried to find a way out. 

Then before you even had time to panic, another rumble shook Heaven, and people were saying something about a 'darkness' that had befallen of old. A darkness that had overtaken Dean. That were the longest five minutes of your life. The angels talked of the righteous man that had once shed blood in hell now bathed in it on earth to save the world. 

Over and over again you would catch snippets of stories, passing and confusing glimpses, while you remained trapped behind the all too familiar walls of your prison cell. 

You screamed and pounded, but it all went ignored until a sudden bright light consumed you, almost blinding you completely. 

The next thing you knew, you were standing in a little cabin type of house. One you had always dreamed of having-one you had always hoped for but were never foolish enough to believe you could have due to your lifestyle, right down to the stone fireplace in the corner of the little living room that oozed warmth, and the bookshelf that lined around that, upon closer inspection, had many of your favorite books. 

There were birds chirping outside the windows, and the sun was shining. There were beautiful mountains off in the distance, and for the first time a profound calmness fell on you. You didn’t have time to ponder your sudden release from your prison before a voice behind you made you turn on the spot, old hunter instincts kicking in like they had never left. 

“Hello,” it said, and you turned to find a young boy in a white jacket standing with his hand raised in an almost alien-like greeting and a warm smile on his face. 

“Um-hi,” you responded, slowly taking a step back, more than weary of everything, for it could be an angel or even a demon in this place. 

“Oh, don’t be afraid of me. I’m Jack, Jack Kline,” he said, settling himself against the arm of the old leather couch in the living area of the cabin. 

You had heard whispers of his name before too, but knew very little of him aside from the fact that he seemed to be in the same circles with the Winchesters. His name had been whispered a lot amongst the angels passing down what you could only assume was a hallway by the small room you were trapped in. 

“What do you want?” you questioned him defensively, looking around for anything you could use in case you had to defend yourself against, uh-whatever he was. 

Jack nonchalantly clasped his hands together in front of his lap. Looking around the little cabin fondly, almost like a proud decorator would look at his finished product before his eyes traveled back to your own. 

“This place is cozy, it’s perfect, it’s everything you and he deserves,” he said, grinning at you in an almost childlike manner. It was confusing, and you wanted to run, but for some reason you held your ground. 

“I asked what do you want?” you asked again, and this time Jack nodded before meeting your gaze knowingly. 

“You have no idea who you are, do you?” he asked, the same kind smile on his face. 

You said nothing, just waited there ,watching him for any sudden movements. Jack stood and made his way around the cabin, and looked outside the window next to you, admiring the scenery around with innocent wonder you had forgotten could even exist. 

“You were cheated out of life, Y/N Y/L/N. You were cheated out of a lot of good things you were meant for. You were killed before your time because my grandfather was angry with Dean and couldn’t control him, so he took you away from him before he could ever even have you. In doing so, he took away Dean’s only chance to have any happiness or peace while on Earth.”

Jack turned to face you while you froze up, him seemingly unfazed while you tried to make sense of this riddle he was giving you. Sensing your confusion, Jack gave you a moment before finally speaking again. 

“Do you remember how you died, Y/N?” he asked, and you tried to. It was all really hard to remember. You knew you had been on a hunt that was supposed to be a simple Salt and Burn, but since the Winchesters had opened up the gates of hell a few years back, it wasn’t always what it appeared, just like it wasn’t that time. It was a trap set up by demons, and while you couldn’t remember the pain you went through, or the details of your death, you know that they had been your end game. 

“Chuck sent those Demons to kill you so that Dean would never meet you in this life, and he intended to keep you locked away here forever so you two couldn't get together even in heaven. You were Dean’s soulmate, see. A rare and beautiful thing in the cruel world my grandfather built. You would have grounded Dean, given him a family of his own, a reason to fight against the darkness that he never should have been forced to take on in the first place. If you would have been his, the way you were intended to be, then Dean would never have become a Demon, he would have never had to let go of Lisa or even go to her in the first place, and he wouldn’t be on his way into a warehouse right now to die alone with his brother as witness on a crude piece of rebar.”

Your eyes widened as you struggled to keep up with what this teenager was telling you. You were Dean Winchester’s soulmate, and this Chuck had you killed so that you would never meet him. There was supposed to be no tears in Heaven, or at least that’s what you were always told, but you could feel them slipping down your cheeks as images of what could have been flashed before your mind, no doubt controlled by  whatever power Jack had. 

Images of a little boy in Dean’s arms, images of sensual touches, passionate filled moments, images of yourself and Dean old and sitting on a porch in a rocking chair with your grandchildren played in the yard with a dog that Dean called Miracle. It was all stolen from you. It would never be yours, you were robbed of this man and the life you could have shared together, it was earth shattering. 

“What happened to his Chuck?” you asked, sudden fear gripping you that he would find you free of your prison, and destroy you utterly. 

“Dean defeated him, he’s cursed to live life alone and die as a lowly human. I promise you, it’s more than what he deserves.”

Jack made his way to the front door of the cabin, opening it and stepping out on the porch, leading you to sit down on one of the old wooden rocking chairs, as he took a seat next to you. “He should be here any moment now,” Jack said, smiling at you before looking down the long dirt road almost longingly. 

“What happens when he gets here?” you asked him, following his line of sight, your heart already longing for a man you never knew you missed. 

“He gets to have the heaven he deserves, with you.” 

The ground underneath you seemed to rumble lowly, and Jack’s smile widened as he stood from his perch in the chair next to you before looking at you excitedly. 

“He’s here, Dean’s home,” he said, giving you a smile before stepping out into the open driveway, looking back over his shoulder before yelling at you, “Wait here!” and disappearing on the spot. Leaving you alone with birds singing happily, and your heart pounding in your chest. Images of what should have been still fresh in your mind, and for some reason no doubt at all that he’d be happy to see you here, a reassurance residing in your soul you never understood until now, but knew it was meant to be there all the same.

“Come home to me, Dean,” you whispered to the passing wind, settling down to wait on the man that had saved the world, and now was finally ready to lay down his weary, war beaten heart in the hands of the one person he always longed for, but was forced to do without, you.

Dean’s POV: 

“Right here!” Sam said from the passenger seat of the Impala as Dean turned the wheel into a driveway of what looked like the perfect little farmhouse in the middle of a beautiful clearing not far from where his parents little place was nestled. 

As soon as Dean put Baby in park Sam threw the passenger door open, the front door of the house opening to reveal Jess in a long white dress. Dean had a hard time suppressing the smile as he watched his little brother run into the arms of the woman he had always loved. He was finally home. Sammy was finally happy, and that made him more happy and at peace than he ever thought would be possible. Dean waived to his little brother before he and Jess disappeared inside his new home, leaving Dean alone yet again in the Impala. 

This place, it was almost perfect, but even still Dean felt like a vagabond. Putting Baby in drive he made his way down the road a little ways back to where he’d started, Bobby no longer sitting on the porch, but he was sure he could hear him and Ellen laughing just off in the distance as he killed the engine. 

Everyone had their place, but Dean. Dean didn’t have a home or a long lost love waiting for him, and he felt something he thought he wasn’t supposed to ever feel again in Heaven. He felt lonely. 

“Hey Dean,” Jack’s voice cut into the fog of his self pity, and Dean spun in the driver's seat to find Jack smiling at him in the back, a smile breaking over Dean’s weather beaten features, revealing the eye crinkles deep in his sun kissed skin that Jack had missed seeing, and didn’t get to see nearly enough while they were both on Earth.

“Jack! You’ve done a great job man! This place is everything anyone could dream of, you and Cas really outdid yourselves.” 

Dean’s gaze locked with the boy in life he’d hated almost to the point of death, and all he could find now was utter and complete peace staring back at him, and he wondered if he would get to the place where he could feel the same peace everyone else seemed to feel.

“Dean, glad you finally made it,” Jack said, leaning forward in the seat and looking around to the road and pointing for Dean to drive up the gravel path hidden in the trees. Dean did so without question, putting his beloved Baby in drive, and pushing onward until a little cabin tucked away in the hallow appeared just in sight. You were sitting on the porch, watching, as if you were waiting for him, and as he turned to Jack in confusion Jack just smiled as he once did when he tried to give Dean his first Christmas present, only more deep and with more pride. 

“I don’t remember her,” Dean murmured, turning back to look at you as you were  standing up slowly and making your way to lean against the rough cut railing of the porch, eyes tracing over Dean’s cars almost fondly. 

“That’s because you never got to meet her while you were alive. She was stolen from you Dean, long before you ever got the chance to find true happiness.” 

Dean’s face contorted with confusion, but Jack simply placed his fingers to Dean’s forehead lightly, showing him all the things that could have been, and should have been, but never were, just like he did to you. When Jack was done, one giant tear rolled down Dean's face as he uttered the only thing he could have thought would possibly have been able to take something so precious away from him, so willingly. “Chuck.” 

Jack nodded  and looked back at you where you were waiting for Dean to finally get out of the car. 

“This, Dean, this is the Heaven you deserve. This is home. This is peace. You did good Dean, and now it’s time for you to have everything without any terms or conditions.”

Dean’s eyes traced over your features and his heart swelled in his chest. He could feel it, the magnetic pull, the piece of him that was always missing beckoning to him to come home and lay his weary soul to rest. “Y/N,” he murmured before looking back at Jack. “How do I know her name?” he asked. Jack just smiled, looking into Dean’s eyes knowingly.

“Go home Dean, she’s been waiting for you for a long time.” With that Jack disappeared, leaving Dean alone in the car. 

Slowly, Dean pushed the door open, and his eyes met yours as a smile spread across your face. He was perfect. He was everything you had missed and didn’t know you needed. He completed you.

You were the deepest piece of his soul that he had always missed, you were the reason his heart was beating now, and had always been the reason he got up and fought every day to get to the rest that he had found now. You were home, his home. 

Dean placed a large hand to the side of your face as his arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you close to him, and brushed your hair away from your face. His green eyes bore into your own with more emotion and love than you had ever felt in your life. There was no darkness there. There was no hurt, or self loathing, there was no weight of the world, there was no more fight and heartache. There was nothing but love and resounding peace that would last for the ages. 

“I’m sorry I took so long, sweetheart,” Dean said, his lips brushing yours as you melted into his hold, humming at the warmth of his breath against your skin. 

“S’Okay Dean,” you tell him, wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders as the two of you just held each other there in your little piece of Heaven. You finally had all you’d ever need. Dean had you, and your warrior was finally home.

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